The Truth is Contagious (The Contagium Series Book 4) (31 page)

I couldn’t disappoint my grandpa. The coyote
turned, his beady eyes meeting mine. Then I let the arrow go.

“Shot through the heart!” my grandpa cried
and clapped me on the back.

With a deep sigh I lowered my bow.

“She’s always been my star hunter,” my
grandpa said and moved to the steps that lead off the back porch.
He had a slight limp in his step. “Fast learner. Caught on to
everything I taught her.”

I moved my eyes to the ground. It was odd,
this awkward feeling. Hayden stepped close and put his hand on my
back, somehow sensing my indignation over killing the coyote.

“She’s something else,” Hayden agreed.

I walked around the porch to find Jason and
Wade while Hayden and my grandpa went to drag the coyote back to
the barn before it attracted zombies. I had no idea what my grandpa
planned to do with it; he declined Hayden’s offer to burn or bury
it.

Later, the five of us went inside for a late
lunch. My grandpa scrambled eggs while I smeared peanut butter over
crackers again.

“Why weren’t you home last night?” I asked
him.

“Got caught up at the school. We don’t travel
after sunset,” he answered. He looked out through the window.
“Guess they’ll have to wait.”

“Who?”

“The people at the school. Came back to rest
then bring them eggs. No time for both.”

Jason took plates from the cabinet and set
them on the dining room table. Hayden opened a can of peaches and
dished them out.

“I can go,” I offered. “So you can rest.”

“Not alone,” my grandpa said. I was tempted
to bring up the fact he had come and gone alone.

“I’ll go with her, Mr. Penwell,” Hayden said
right away.

“Call me Armand,” my grandpa said. He came
over to the table with the frying pan, serving the eggs then he sat
down and turned to Hayden. “This one stays with me. I need to know
more about the man who wants to marry my granddaughter.”

“Yes, sir,” Hayden answered. “It’ll be nice
to know Riss’s family.”

“You’ll be part of it,” my grandpa said with
a smile.

I leaned forward, looking across the table at
Hayden. “Sorry for that.” I smiled and picked up my fork.

“You hear from your mother at all before
this?” my grandpa asked. Like me, he wasn’t happy about her going
overseas with Ted. My grandpa didn’t like him either, though
neither of us could come up with good reasons why.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “She and Ted
left for New Guinea at the beginning of October. She told me she’d
try to call on my birthday.”

My grandpa only raised his eyebrows. He had
lost both of his children but would be dammed before he let his
emotions show. I’d inherited his ability to suppress. I didn’t want
to think about my mother either.

* * *

After lunch, Wade and I got into the Jeep. I
drove, since I knew where to go. I filled two empty Styrofoam
cartons with eggs and set them inside a cloth grocery bag in the
back.

“It’s weird hearing about your past,” Wade
said as we drove down the road. “I forget people used to have lives
before this mess.”

“Me too,” I told him. “It is weird to think
about for some reason.”

He looked out the window then quickly turned
back to me. “Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

“Something personal.”

I took my eyes off the road for a second to
look at him. “Sure. I’m pretty much an open book.”

“No you’re not,” Wade laughed. “You’re closed
off sometimes, probably more times than not.”

“No, I’m not.”

He raised his eyebrows. “How long did it take
you to admit you had feelings for Hayden?”

“That doesn’t count,” I said and tightened my
grip on the steering wheel. “I was giving him the chance to admit
it first.”

Wade rolled his eyes. “And you never admit
when something is upsetting you. And I still don’t know why your
grandpa has so many weapons or why you’re so good at survival
skills.”

“Ok, fine. Maybe I’m not an open book. At
all.” We laughed. “So what did you want to ask?”

“Well…” he started, turning his head down,
suddenly very interested in his pistol. “I was wondering about…uh,
how you and Hayden, uh…you know.”

“Have sex?”

“Yeah.”

I turned, giving Wade an incredulous stare.
“You want to know
how
we have sex? Like what positions?”

Wade’s eyes widened and he leaned back. “No,
no, God no. I mean like do you use protection because Gabby’s too
scared of getting pregnant to do anything without it,” he blurted,
cheeks glowing.

“Oh.” I turned back to the road. “Sometimes
we do, sometimes he just pulls out. Most times I don’t even think
about it until it’s over. I get caught up in the heat of the moment
don’t realize it until it’s too late. It feels better that way
anyway.”

“Over sharing, Riss.”

“Hey, you asked.” I smiled. “I didn’t realize
you guys were
that
close.”

Wade’s cheeks reddened a bit more.
“Yeah.”

“Good for you,” I said. “Having someone makes
this shitstorm livable.”

“It does,” Wade agreed. “I’ve never had a
serious relationship before,” he confessed. “I’ve dated, but got
shipped overseas and didn’t bother.”

“Hayden’s my first serious relationship
too.”

“Seriously?”

I nodded. “I’ve had a lot of boyfriends,
don’t get me wrong, but nothing lasted. I never felt…well anything
really. As lame as it sounds you just know when you meet the person
you’re supposed to be with.”

“You’re cute, Riss.”

“Shut up.”

“Adorable,” he teased, laughing. His smile
faded and his eye widened.

“What?” I asked, feeling alarm prickle across
my body. My eyes darted around the Jeep. Was there a zombie I
wasn’t seeing?

“Hayden,” he stated. “He’s infected, right?
All the time but with no effect.”

“Yeah, so—oh. I think I know where you’re
going.” I wrinkled my nose. “I, uh, asked Dr. Cara about it. She
said she needed a specimen sample from Hayden.”

Wade laughed. “That’s epic. I can totally see
her asking for it and standing outside the door like a creep while
she waited.”

“And knocking and telling him to hurry up,” I
added, cracking up. “Don’t tell him I told you. I think he’d get
embarrassed.”

“You have to be immune then too,” Wade said
seriously. “The virus is transmitted in saliva and blood. I have to
assume it’s in
all
fluids.”

“Dr. Cara tested me and didn’t see any traces
of the virus.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. Honestly, I try not
to think into it too much. It freaks me out.” I swerved to miss a
pothole. The roads were horrible with no one to take care of them
after the winter.

“I get that.” Wade looked out the window.
“You grew up here?”

“Pretty much. I moved back and forth between
my grandparent’s and my mom’s.” I sped down a road with a thirty
mile per hour speed limit. It had been a notorious speed trap and
one of the town’s few police officers used to hide behind the gas
station. “But I definitely consider this home.”

Wade nodded, watching the overgrown farmland
go by.

* * *

Grades K-12 were all in the same building;
the town wasn’t big enough to warrant separate buildings for
elementary, middle, and high school.

Sections of chain link fencing were pushed in
front of windows and doors, secured to the building with pieces of
metal and wood. A zombie lay on the ground under each window. What
the hell?

I cut the engine to the Jeep and got out,
swinging my quiver over my head and shoulder.

“That’s fucking genius,” Wade said and
pointed to the zombies, “using zombies to mask the smell of the
living.”

Oh, that’s what they were there for. It had
my grandpa’s name written all over it. “It is genius.”

“Having your grandpa back at the compound is
going to be a good thing. A very good thing.” Wade grabbed his
rifle.

It would be…if we could get him to come with
us. An underground bomb shelter, kept hidden by the government then
set up by a former commissioned officer with a crazy scientist
making vaccines in the basement lab was a conspiracy theorist’s
worst nightmare. I couldn’t think about that now.

“We need to get in through the back,” I said
as I picked up my bow and the bag of eggs. Wade stayed close to my
side as we crossed the parking lot. “I haven’t set foot in here
since graduation,” I muttered.

“Consider this an early ten year reunion.”
Wade playfully elbowed me.

“Hah, yeah. I wouldn’t have gone
regardless.”

“Really? I loved high school.”

I eyed him. “Really. I was a bad kid. I spent
more time in the principal’s office than I did in class.”

“You have to be exaggerating.”

“Maybe.”

We stopped outside the back doors. More chain
link was attached to the brick exterior on either side. The two
pieces were held together with a bicycle chain. I spun the
combination lock in the order that my grandpa had told me and
pulled the chain free. Wade slid the panel away. We slipped inside,
moving the chain link back into place.

“This place is very secure,” Wade noted. “I
never would have thought of some of this.”

“Being a paranoid prepper comes in handy
during the apocalypse.”

“Really,” he said. “Your house is impressive.
I feel almost as safe in it as I do the compound.”

“A few bars and boards doesn’t compare to
something that can withstand a bomb,” I muttered. I didn’t like
admitting it. I wanted the farmhouse to be the safest place on
earth. It would justify us staying.

“Safe from zombies, not bombs,” Wade
corrected with a smile. “Smartass.”

I flashed an innocent smile. We stood right
inside the doors, trapped between the glass behind us and a drop
down barred barrier in the hall. We entered near the gym, in the
high school section. There was a wall of classrooms on the exterior
side of the building. Across the hall was an art room, music room,
and the one and only lecture hall.

Wade slowly lifted the metal bars just enough
for us to slip through. He set it down silently, keeping a hold of
the metal so it wouldn’t echo throughout the building.

“We need to go down that hall and turn left,”
I told him. “The courtyard is in the middle of the school.” The
group was staying in rooms around the courtyard. They had planted a
garden in the small outdoor yard. I held an arrow up in the bow.
Even though this place had been secured by my grandpa, the vastness
of it made me uneasy. There were too many places to hide.

We passed by classrooms. The doors were
closed and newspapers had been put over the windows. We moved
slowly, crouched and ready. When we rounded the corner, we could
hear voices. Wade lowered his rifle and nodded.

I relaxed my arms. “Hello?” I called. “Armand
Penwell sent us. We’re friends of his.”

Whoever was talking immediately stopped. I
waited, heart rate increasing just a bit. “What’s the password?”
someone called.

“Jackie-Jenny-Orissa,” I said the password.
My grandpa had two passwords: a safe one and an
incase-I’m-tortured-to-tell password so this group would know what
to expect. The latter password was ‘I need a vacation.’ My grandpa
came up with the weirdest things…

“Armand sent us with the eggs. He’s fine,” I
added quickly. “Just tired.”

The end of a rifle came around the door.
“That’s far enough.” The voice was deep and gruff. My muscles
twitched as I resisted the impulse to raise my weapon as well.

“Are you armed?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “There are two of us. Both
armed.”

“Put your weapons down.”

“No,” I blurted. “Look, we came here with
food for you. We know the password and the combination to unlock
the chain. Armand
obviously
sent us, so cut the drama,
ok?”

Several people spoke in hushed voices.
Deciding it was safe, the man with the gun rounded the corner. He
was younger than I expected, maybe early thirties at the
oldest.

Dark jeans hugged his muscular thighs
perfectly. A gray t-shirt covered his flat stomach and broad
shoulders, and light brunette hair fell over his face, which was
covered in dark stubble. He was good looking…and familiar.

He lowered his gun and took us in, his eyes
running up and down my body, checking me out. Wade stepped in front
of me.

“Can’t be too safe now, can we?” the man
asked and moved down the hall. Distressed cowboy boots softly
clicked on the floor. “Didn’t think Armand would send a woman.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, fingers tightening
around my arrow.

The man raised his eyebrows and shrugged as
if he hadn’t said anything offensive. He hooked his thumb on his
belt loop, pushing his shirt up to reveal a large oval belt buckle.
His lips pulled up in a half smile. He was charming. Dammit.
“Though you do have that whole Lara Croft thing going on.”

“You’re going to regret that,” Wade mumbled
under his breath.

“And it’s working for you, darling,” he went
on. “You almost look threatening.”

I glared at the man in the cowboy boots.
“What’s your name?” Wade asked and stepped forward, holding his
rifle to the side.

“Bentley,” he stated. “You?”

“Wade.”

“Bent?” someone with a thick southern accent
called from inside a classroom. “What’s going on out there?”

“Armand sent some people with food,” he said
over his shoulder. “They passed the test.”

“People?” she questioned. A middle aged woman
with short blonde hair stepped out of the room holding a buck
knife. “How?” She shook her head. “Where did you come from? Armand
never mentioned other people.”

“We crossed paths by chance,” Wade
answered.

Three more people came out of the room,
crowding the hallway. They held weapons and looked just as
suspicious as the woman. My grandpa had taught them well.