The Survivors (Book 1): Summer (20 page)

That knowledge came as something of a relief, since he had slightly intimidated me when I first met him.
 It was nice to know that most of the time, if he was glaring at me it was not because he was mad at me, it was because he couldn’t see me properly.  We’d come to a grudging understanding over the last week, and while I wouldn’t call our relationship anything warmer than cordial, we had found a mutual respect for one another.

Now, Madeline was truly an enigma.
 I’d come to the realisation after spending some time with her that, although she was just a child, she was intelligent to the point of being brilliant.  As much as we all instinctively wanted to protect her from the world, she always seemed to know what was going on around her.  She flip-flopped between periods of childish play and moments of intense, adult clarity that never ceased to surprise me.

Sometimes I wondered if she could actually read minds.

Although she got bored swiftly with adult conversations, I often found her watching me doing things that should not interest a seven-year-old at all.  Earlier that morning, she had spent nearly an hour watching me work on an engine, asking me questions about everything.  Some of those questions were too technical for me to answer.

Right now, she looked like any other child as she shovelled her food down so fast that her grandfather needed to
scold her and warn her that she’d choke.  Ryan was off in his own world that completely revolved around Skylar, and Skylar was talking to me.

"
So, how’s it going?" She prompted while she spooned her culinary creation into a bowl for Michael.  He took it gratefully, and settled himself into the chair beside me as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

I tried to ignore him and focused on my sister.
 

"
It’s good.  I found a couple of salvageable engines, though only one vehicle large enough for what we need.  I’ve got the battery on charge overnight, so with any luck it’ll be good to go tomorrow morning."

"
When did you learn to fix a car anyway?"  Skye peered at me askance as she served up her own lunch, and then sat down opposite me.  I just shrugged sheepishly.

"
Well, in Year Twelve I decided to do a practical class, and automotive engineering was the only one I could get into without a ton of prerequisite classes."  I didn’t want to explain that Dad got me interested in cars in the first place, so I chose an answer that didn’t dredge up old pain.   "Who would have thought it would end up being the only useful thing I learned in school?"  

"
Handy.  I wish I’d gotten the chance to go to high school."  Her eyes drifted out of focus, and one hand absently rubbed her swollen middle  I knew what she was thinking without her having to say a word – that she wished her child would have that chance, as well.

"
You weren’t missing much."  I tried to distract her with humour.  It worked, sort of.

"
Oh, really now?"  She laughed.   "What about Robert?  And Bryce?  And Harry?  Oooo…"  One by one, she named all my high school boyfriends, then playfully made kissy fish lips at me.  Michael shot a look at me with raised eyebrows, and I felt the heat rush back into my cheeks.  Suddenly, I wished I could just crawl under the table and die.

"
How the hell do you even remember their names?"  I demanded, fighting the urge to run away and hide.  Or maybe kick my sister to the moon.  Yes, that seemed like an appropriate response.  "I barely remember them at all."

"
Well."  This time, it was her turn to look embarrassed.

My anger faded, replaced by curiosity.
 "Well?"

She blew out a sharp breath, and then finally admitted.
 "I named my Ken dolls after them, alright?"

"
You did what?"  I was flabbergasted.  Why on earth would she name her dolls after my high school boyfriends?

"
Well, I named my Barbie after you."  She hung her head like she was admitting something humiliating.  "It seemed like a good idea at the time, okay?"  

I stared at her while I processed that information.
 She named her doll after
me
?  She loved that doll.  It went everywhere with her, to day care when she was tiny and later on to primary school as well.  I remembered Mum having to pry it out of her hands when it was bedtime.  If Mum failed to tuck the doll into its bed at night, she would kick up such a fuss.  One time she got so loud that the neighbours complained, thinking someone was being murdered in our house.

"
Aww."  My brow furrowed and I fought an unreasonable urge to cry.  "That’s so sweet, Skye.  I never knew."

"
Well, don’t go telling everyone now," she shot back dryly, tilting her chin up in a petulant manner that reminded me of our mother when she was teasing Dad.  "They’ll start thinking I have a heart or something."  

I immediately forgave her for embarrassing me in front of Michael.
 How could I possibly be mad over something like that?

Overcome by a flash of almost unbearable affection towards the young woman that
had once been my baby sister, I reached over and squeezed her hand.  She didn’t say anything, but she gave my hand a squeeze back.

She understood.

Shortly after lunch, Michael and I took Skylar to examine the prisoner transport I had managed to salvage.

"This is good," Skye murmured thoughtfully to herself as she circled the van, examining it from all angles. "Very good, but I think we need another one."

I looked at Michael, who nodded thoughtfully.
 "She’s right.  From what you’ve said, the supplies down south are limited.  We should take as much with us as we can."

"
Particularly medical supplies." I nodded my agreement.  "There’s almost nothing down there.  That’s why I had to come north to begin with."

"
There are a lot of things we need to take." Skye sighed, bracing a hand against the small of her back to stretch her spine.  "We need more vans."

"
How many of us know how to drive?"  I glanced back and forth between them, uncertain.

"
You, me and the doctor," Michael answered without hesitation, ignoring the irritated sound Skylar made.  "Skye and Ryan say that they know how, but I’d prefer not to trust them behind the wheel of a heavy vehicle."

"
We may not have a choice.  I can’t really drive with this."  I gestured at my foot.  "And we need as many supplies as we can carry."

Michael grunted and Skylar beamed.
 I raised a brow, but neither of them explained what was going on between them, so I just had to guess it was some kind of inside joke.

"
Okay, so we need to find one more.  A van or a light truck, something along those lines then."  I looked around the garage at the other vehicles and shook my head.  "We'll need to look outside.  Everything we have here is either too small to be any use, or too far gone to fix."

Michael stared at me, his exasperation fading into a deep frown.
 Concern etched itself across his handsome face.  "Are you sure you can handle a trip outside?  You’re still wounded."

I felt a surge of warmth at his concern.
 It was nice to know that someone cared.

"
You can't keep me locked up in here forever."  Feeling a little bold all of a sudden, I gave him a fearless grin and limped off towards my room.  "Besides, you'll be with me if anything goes wrong.  Go get your kit on, officer.  Time's a’wasting."

Behind me, Skylar snickered.

***

I found it kind of funny how in one short week, I’d adapted to a life where I no longer had to carry everything I own on my back like a tortoise.
 It wasn’t all that long ago I was so paranoid I took my taser with me even for something as simple as a dash to the ladies’ room.  I’d grown comfortable in this bunker though, and I no longer felt the need to have my hand on a weapon at all times.  Those things I once considered vital necessities now sat in my room, in a neat row upon the table by the door.

I stood looking at them for a minute, thinking over the changes that had happened in my life in such a short period of time.
 I was a creature of habit, but it was interesting how quickly those habits had changed.  One by one, I checked that my necessities were all in working order and packed them into the pockets of my fatigues, until all that was left was the gun.

I stared at the weapon, wishing that I didn't have to take it with me, but I knew in my heart that I did.
 If that horrible weapon was the only thing standing between me and death, then Mum and Grandma would forgive me for using it.  It wasn’t the gun's fault, it was only a tool.  It was the disease that had taken them away from me, and now I had Skylar to protect, not to mention my unborn niece or nephew.

"
It's not going to bite you, you know."

Michael's voice almost made me jump out of my skin.
 I spun around to face him, startled half out of my wits by his sudden appearance.  He was leaning casually against the doorframe, watching me with his eyebrows raised, but he didn’t move from the spot until I calmed down.

I shoved the gun in my pocket and buried the wave of embarrassment I felt at my overreaction.
 He knows that I’m... quirky, what’s one more piece of evidence?  Just as I was about to say something snippy, he distracted me with something completely unexpected.

"
I made you a present."

"
Eh?"  I blinked owlishly.

"
To help you while your foot heals."  He reached out the door and grabbed something that was out of my line of sight, and then thrust the haphazardly-constructed wooden object at me.  It took me a moment to realise that it was supposed to be a crutch.  So
that
was what I’d caught him working on the other morning.

That was sweet.

"Oh, thank you."  I couldn’t say anything to him, but I was a little afraid to put my weight on it.  It wasn't well made.  My Year Seven woodwork teacher would have called it shoddy at best.  Still, I tested it and it held up well enough, so I gave him a grateful smile.  He looked so pleased that I liked his gift I couldn’t quite remember why I had been preparing to get defensive a second ago.

"
You'll heal faster if you keep your weight off your foot." He shrugged and beckoned for me to follow him.

We returned to the garage to gather up the basic tools we’d need for the trip, with me trailing behind while I practiced my crutch-walking all the way.
 Although the petrol was running low, we agreed that taking the Hilux made more sense than going on foot.  We needed to find some more fuel for our trip south anyway, so by taking the truck we could do both at once.

Michael helped me into the passenger seat and climbed into the driver’s seat beside me.
 The engine spluttered when he turned it over, but it started on the second try; the noise worried me, but I pushed my concern aside for now.  Carefully, he turned the truck around and drove it up the ramp that lead to the automated parking garage doors.  They clanked open after he leaned out the window and swiped a card against the lock, and then off we went.

The sunlight seemed so bright after being indoors that I had to shield my eyes.
 For a moment, I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, but by the time my vision adjusted there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary.  Michael didn't seem to have noticed anything, so I dismissed it as a figment of my imagination.

We drove for a while, slowly dodging around debris of a hundred different kinds.
 I watched where we went with my GPS in hand, but Michael knew where he was going and didn’t need any guidance from me.  After ten years in this city, he knew the ruins like the back of his hand.  Still, I felt the need to keep busy, to keep my hands and mind distracted.

Being alone with Michael had me twisted all up in knots.
 Without something to distract me, that kiss was all I could think about.  There was just something hypnotic about his boyish charm.  I found it hard not to think about how close he was right now.  About the taste of his lips on mine, the scent of his skin, the feel of his hands that were so strong and yet so gentle.

I shook my head to try and clear it, and then rubbed a hand over my eye, pretending to be distracted by an errant bug.
 To my relief, he didn't seem to notice that anything was amiss.

When did my hormones get so out of control?
 A week ago, I would have –  and had –  sooner slugged him than kissed him.  It had been so long since I’d felt any kind of attraction to another human being, that it made me so uncomfortable that I couldn’t think of anything to say.  Thankfully, he didn’t seem bothered by the silence.

Still, I was relieved when we arrived at our destination.
 He eased the car off the road into the forecourt of a long-abandoned petrol station, and I was glad for the distraction.

The place was desolate, the forecourt cracked and overgrown with weeds as nature battled to reclaim what was hers.
 The pumps stood like lonesome soldiers of some forgotten war, their faces shattered by the riots a decade ago.  I was out of the car by the time Michael switched off the engine, hobbling my way over the uneven ground towards the glass shell that protected the petrol station’s attached convenience store.

The s
pider-web of cracks in the glass made it difficult to see inside – more remnants of the riots, I assumed.  Somehow, no one had managed to get through the door or any of the surrounding windows.  That was unusual, since service stations used to stock all kinds of food, alcohol, cash and car maintenance items in addition to fuel.  In my experience, they were usually the first places to get ransacked.

And then I saw something that made me realise why the rioters had left this place untouched.

Through the fractal lens of shattered glass, I saw a hunched figure standing behind the counter, still clad in the decaying remains of a forecourt attendant’s uniform.  He didn't move.  He didn't pace.  He didn't fidget.  He just stood there, a perfect statue of eternal plebeian servitude.

Michael came up behind me, and immediately saw what I was looking at.
 "What do we do?"  His voice was a whisper, but he needn't have bothered; the creature was completely unaware of our presence.  I shot him a look, amused that for once I knew how to proceed and he didn't.

"
We do this." I smiled confidently, and raised my makeshift crutch.  With a sharp thrust, I used the foot of the crutch to smash out the night service window near the cashier's left arm, sending shattered glass flying everywhere.  The cashier didn't move, even when shards of glass tinkled across the service counter and the floor around his feet.  He was way beyond caring.  Content that he was unlikely to attack me, I reached through the hole and released the security lock.  It disengaged with a rusty click.

With my free hand on my taser, I tucked my crutch back under my arm and led the way into the building.
 Although the goods were untouched, there was little that would be any use to us now.  Most of the food here had been fresh, sandwiches and baked goods.  The stench of decay hung heavily in the air.  The only things of use were a few cans stacked on one shelf, but it was the stuff in the auto-care section that caught my eye.

"
Take as much of that as you can carry."  I pointed Michael towards a display of precious motor oil near the counter.  He hurried to obey, while I hobbled around to take care of the unfortunate cashier.  Much as I had done for dear old Benny, I dispatched the poor fellow with a quick jolt to the back of the neck.  He collapsed with a disturbingly wet thud, as if he was already liquefied on the inside and the only thing that kept him in human shape at all was his skin.

"
Off you go to the big service station in the sky, mate."  I’m no good at eulogies, but I offered him a quick prayer anyway.  "Sleep well."

Michael stared at the corpse for a moment, then looked at me and nodded silently.

Between his strength and my experience, we stripped the building of useful resources and disengaged the lock on the petrol pumps.  Luckily for us, there was more than enough gas left in the underground tanks to fill up the Hilux and all the barrels we brought along with us to store fuel in.

After we capped off the last of them, I looked at Michael.
 "That should keep us going for a while."

"
Yes.  Most of the people around here were more interested in mobbing the pharmacies and hospitals than the petrol stations."  He frowned deeply, and the expression on his face said that he remembered the riots first hand.

His tone made me consider how lucky I’d been, in a manner of speaking.
 By the time I returned to civilization, the riots were long over – everyone was already infected.  For some reason, that thought disturbed me more than usual today.

"
Let's go check out that plumbing supply store while we're here."  I made the suggestion as much to distract myself as from any real desire to go.  I had a funny feeling in my gut, like something bad was about to happen and I didn't know what.  As we climbed back into the truck, I found myself watching the bushes intently, like I expected something to come screaming out of them at any second.

Nothing did.

Yet
, my brain added perversely.  I muttered a low curse under my breath.

"
You have a potty mouth."  Michael shot an amused sideways glance at me.

"
And you have ridiculously acute hearing."  I flicked him a glower.

Urge to brood... rising…

Thankfully, he took the hint and left me to my sour mood, instead focusing all his attention on finding the thing that most closely resembled a roadway.  In some places, it was hard to tell.  Nature was determined to reclaim this city, so the roads were overgrown and wild.  A drive that would have taken five minutes before took twenty now, but at least it was an uneventful twenty minutes.  Finally, we pulled up outside a shop that looked remarkably intact, aside from needing a bit of a clean and a fresh coat of paint.

"
I guess no one wanted to loot a plumbing supply store," I commented dryly.  "If only they knew that plumbing supplies would be more valuable than gold one day."

"
Hey, look back there." Michael pointed, distracting me.  I followed his finger to a garage next door.  There, an old seven-seater minivan waited patiently for the service that would never come.