The Truth is Contagious (The Contagium Series Book 4) (30 page)

“You ok?” Hayden asked softly. “This is a lot
to take in.”

I inhaled, forcing a smile. “Yeah. Fine.”

He wiped away a renegade tear from my eye.
“If you say so.” He wasn’t convinced.

“How the hell did your grandpa survive all
this?” Wade asked. “No offense, Riss. You’re great so he has to be,
but to go it alone…” he trailed off, shaking his head.

“I have no idea.” I rubbed my sweaty palms on
my jeans. “I have so many questions too, trust me.” I looked behind
me. Dishes clanked together as my grandpa rooted around in the
kitchen. A few awkward seconds ticked away.

“You know,” Jason started, looking around the
living room. “I missed this place. I didn’t realize it until I came
back.”

My chest loosened. I leaned back on the
loveseat. Hayden looped his arm under mine and took my hand. Our
eyes met and suddenly everything was all right.

“I’ve been saving these for a special
occasion,” my grandpa said as he came into the room. “And I think
this is as special as it gets.” He set five beers on the coffee
table. With no hesitation I leaned forward, extending my arm,
fingers wrapping around the cool can. I handed it to Hayden and
grabbed another for myself, leaning back and popping the top.

Jason’s eyes widened, staring at the beer.
Oh, right. He was underage…or at least he used to be. There were no
rules anymore. He licked his lips, flicked his eyes to Hayden, who
nodded an ‘ok,’ then grabbed it. For a moment, pure teenage
excitement took over his face. His eyes flashed deviously, knowing
he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. He pulled
the tab and put the beer to his lips, smiling as the first splash
of alcohol washed down his throat.

Then the moment was over. We were sitting in
the living room with my crazy grandpa while the living dead ruled
the earth. There was no escaping reality.

“You treating my granddaughter nice?” my
grandpa asked Hayden.

“Yes, sir,” he answered right away. His
muscles stiffened and his head twitched ever so slightly in my
direction.

“He is, Grandpa. Hayden is…wonderful,” I said
and felt the tiniest bit of blood rush to my cheeks.

“Good,” my grandpa said and took a long
drink. He set the beer can down on the floor and leaned back in the
armchair. “Remember that summer when Mr. Parker bought all those
goats from the auction?”

“Yeah,” I answered, not seeing where this was
going. That happened seven years ago. Those goats were long gone
now.

“And remember how they kept breeding? He had
goats coming out of his ass.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I remember. We
took like a dozen. What does this—”

My grandpa continued. “I helped castrate
them.” His eyes moved to Hayden. Seriously? Some things will never
change. “It’s real simple, you see.” He held his hand in the air.
“You grab the testicles, like this, pull ‘em down, slice open the
sac and cut those suckers off.” He chuckled. “Don’t even have to
stitch ‘em back up. Sometimes they shiver from the blood loss but
they make it. Sore for days as you can imagine.”

The color drained from Hayden’s face and the
room fell silent. I could hear the ticking of my grandpa’s watch.
Some things never change…

“So,” I began, playing with the tab on my
beer. “What happened once you got out of the, uh, holding
cell?”

“Assembled a group and got back here,” my
grandpa stated, making it sound easy. I nodded, knowing it took
them a while to gather supplies, vehicles, and weapons.

“What happened to that group?”

“Lost most of them,” he said with little
emotion. “Got a group of five holed up in the school.”

“Not here?” Wade asked.

“This is my house. There’s no need for them
to be here,” my grandpa said and I felt embarrassed for him. My
grandpa wasn’t a bad person. He didn’t do things to be an ass on
purpose; he just looked at the world through blood splattered
glasses. Everyone was a threat. He only trusted people who were
family or who he’d known for years.

I knew my grandpa. He would help the others
out of duty, of course, but he needed them as much as they needed
him. My grandpa was capable, the most resourceful person I knew…but
he was old.

“I come and go,” he added, seeing the
consternation on Wade and Jason’s faces. “It’s safer there. Brick
walls, thicker windows, metal gates to block off sections of the
halls. They’re getting by. We went our separate ways.” He finished
his beer. “They do work around here for me in exchange for
eggs.”

My jaw dropped. “The chickens are still
alive?”

My grandpa laughed. “Hell no. Had to get new
ones.” He stood, joints cracking. “Come on, I’ll show ya. I need to
let them out for a while anyway.”

The four of us followed my grandpa out into
the barn. He undid the latch on the metal door and slid it open,
doing another safety check before he let us inside. The smell of
chicken poop choked me. I almost preferred the smell of zombie over
it.

“Wow. You thought of everything,” Hayden said
to my grandpa. And he had. A giant chicken coop was suspended from
the ceiling of the barn, about ten feet up. My grandpa crossed the
barn, risking getting pooped on when he went under the wire bottom,
and grabbed a rope to lower the cage. He opened a door to let the
chickens out.

“Rissy,” my grandpa said. “Can you get the
eggs? This old back isn’t what it used to be and bending over is
painful.”

“Yeah, got ‘em,” I said and moved around the
cage.

“I thought only Raeya called you ‘Rissy’,”
Hayden said with a smile.

I looked up at him with an eyebrow raised.
“Where do you think she got it?”

“Raeya?” my grandpa asked. “Your friend?”

“Yeah,” I said and picked up two eggs. “I
went to Purdue and got her.” My grandpa proudly beamed at me like I
just told him I got an A on a test. “She’s at our camp.”

“It’s more than a camp,” Jason started. I
flashed him a shut-the-hell-up look. Luckily my grandpa was too
interested in knowing how I rescued Ray to catch Jason’s
statement.

I told him the story while I gathered the
rest of the eggs. Jason, who remembered where the tools were kept,
took it upon himself to start cleaning the coup. Hayden jumped
right in to help. Wade stood in the doorway, keeping watch.

Not too long after, we went back into the
house. The four of us stood on the porch while my grandpa did
another safety check. Being obsessively paranoid might be annoying,
but it kept us all alive.

* * *

Six hours had passed since I had been
reunited with my grandpa. We had spent most of those catching up:
telling tales of zombie-kills, narrow escapes, and what we’d done
to get by. My grandpa was curious about Hayden, and did his fair
share to put the fear of God into my husband-to-be.

When they started swapping war stories, I got
up saying I had to use the bathroom. I went upstairs. Too
distracted with my grandpa, I had forgotten that I hadn’t gotten
properly dressed that morning. I grabbed what I needed from my bag
and went into the bathroom, turning on the shower.

I studied my reflection while the water
warmed up. My hair was a matted mess, a product of rough lovemaking
followed by a restless night of tossing and turning. I pressed my
fingers to my cheeks and pulled down, wondering if the dark circles
under my eyes would ever go away. The red marks from being
strangled were fading already, thankfully. I took my shirt off,
stepping back from the mirror.

I took the rest of my clothes off and got
into the shower, closing my eyes and tipping my head up. I took a
deep breath and slowly exhaled, relaxing my muscles as I let the
air out. I had a feeling that something bad was going to happen.
Finding my grandpa—well him finding us, really—was too good to be
true. Something was about to give.

“Just enjoy it while you can,” I muttered to
myself and ran my hands through my hair. I took advantage of the
long lasting hot water, not getting out until my skin was red from
the heat. I flipped my head upside down, rubbing my hair with the
towel before wrapping it up.

I opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed a
bottle of facial toner. Raeya had acquired a few beauty products
during our trips into town. She’d be happy when I brought them back
to the compound.

I rubbed lotion over my body and got dressed
in jeans and a black tank top with a loose fitting ivory shirt
overtop. I tucked it in on my right side, just enough to stay out
of the way from my gun.

I hung the towel up on a hook on the back of
the door then bent down, opening the cabinet under the sink, eyeing
a hair dryer. I bit my lip. It was totally unnecessary to dry my
hair but…I reached in and grabbed it, not able to remember the last
time I dried it. Here, maybe once. With five people downstairs to
guard and protect the house, I wasn’t worried about not being able
to hear death moans over the whirl of the hairdryer. I flipped my
head over again and turned the blower on.

* * *

Later, I found Hayden and my grandpa in the
family room. Both were laughing. I stopped, blinking and shaking my
head. What was going on? And then I heard my voice, high pitched
and childish, coming from the TV. Oh God, they had put in the old
home movies.

My face was already set in a glare when I
walked into the room. My eyes flew to the TV screen. My expression
softened when I saw myself and Raeya as children, running around
the yard with giant nets trying to catch butterflies. Raeya caught
a moth instead and it flew out of the net and into her hair. Being
the good friend I was, I tried to swat it away and ended up
squishing it with my bare hand. We both started screaming.

My grandpa looked up, wiping his eye. Hayden
paused the video, ready to spout off a cheeky comment, but he
stopped as soon as he saw me and stood.

“Riss,” he said, dropping the remote onto the
couch. “You look beautiful.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said with a half
smile. “More put together than you normally see me, heck yes.”

He touched my hair. “I’ve never seen it
straight.”

“It feels weird, to be honest. After not
doing my hair for months, all the attention I used to pay it seems
extremely frivolous now.”

Hayden laughed, little lines forming around
his hazel eyes. My heart sped up, just a little. “Yeah, I guess it
does.”

My grandpa slowly stood to make sure Jason
and Wade were doing a good enough job keeping watch on the covered
porch. As soon as he was out of the room, Hayden put his hands on
my waist, stepping in so our torsos touched. I wrapped my arms
around his shoulders and looked into his eyes.

He bent his head down and slowly kissed me.
His lips lingered close before he parted them, pressing his mouth
to mine. I breathed him in, pushing my tongue into his mouth. The
warm wetness of the kiss sent a pulse of desire between my
legs.

Hayden lifted his lips just enough to talk.
“I feel like I’m sixteen years old again, afraid of getting caught
by my girlfriend’s dad.”

I smiled and let my hands trail down his
back. “Oh please.” I hooked my fingers inside the waist of his
jeans, wanting at least one more kiss before we broke apart. Hayden
looked over my shoulder.

“He threatened my balls, Riss.”

I laughed. “No one but me is going to touch
your balls.” I moved my hand down, cupping them.

Hayden smiled and kissed me again. “I want
him to like me.”

“He will.” I sighed and begrudgingly let go
of Hayden. “I always knew he would. You guys have more in common
than you’d think.”

“Like we both have flashbacks?” he asked with
a grin.

“That’s not really what I meant but
sure.”

Hayden turned off the TV and looked over his
shoulder at me.

“What?” I asked, seeing the glint in his
eyes.

“Your grandpa wanted to make sure you were
still saving yourself for marriage.” He pressed his lips together
trying not to laugh. “You?”

I pursed my lips. “It’s not that hard to
believe.”

“As much as I’d like to be your one and only,
I like the things you know how to do better,” Hayden teased.

“What did you tell him?” I asked, suddenly
nervous.

“That we were waiting.” Hayden laughed again,
shaking his head. “I don’t think he believed me.”

A commotion from the porch made my heart
race. I ran to the door, scooping up my weapons as I passed through
the kitchen.

“Damn coyotes,” my grandpa grumbled, raising
his gun. “Getting my chickens.” He turned his head, eyeing my bow.
“Ah, good. You can get him.”

I didn’t mean for the look of disgust to
flash across my face. It was only there for a second, but my
grandpa took notice. I was good at hunting…that didn’t mean I liked
it. I had no problem hunting when we needed food. It served a
purpose.

My grandpa would argue that killing the
coyote before it killed the chickens was as good a purpose as any.
I pushed my shoulders back and raised the bow, unhooking an arrow
from it. The coyote trotted through the field, ears back and mouth
open. His fur was damp from the rain. He moved into a crouch,
catching the scent of the chickens.

Dark eyes struck out from gray fur. His tail
was held out behind him. He moved, slipping in and out of view.
Every step eluded grace. His pace quickened. The chickens walked
around, pecking at the ground unaware of the danger that
lurked.

The coyote wasn’t doing anything wrong. He
was an animal of prey seeking his next meal. That was all. An
innocent animal.

I could feel the heat coming off my grandpa
as he leaned closer, waiting for me to let go of the arrow. I
pushed aside my feelings and steadied myself. All it would take was
one noise, one jump off the porch to scare the coyote away.