Turned: A Spine-Chilling Young Adult Apocalyptic Fiction (The Undead Series, Book 1) (12 page)

That evening, we crossed the Missouri State line and were one state closer to freedom. Jasper had forced me to get out so he could drive and I could relax. Crossing this state line evoked a type of mixed emotion that I had never experienced before. I was eager, euphoric, and hopeful yet saddened and reluctant at the same time. The influx of emotions seemed to induce extra stress, because my nose started to bleed again.

We were still a few days away from meeting with Jasper’s friend in Okanogan, Washington and stepping across the Canadian border. It was hard on Em because I knew she doubted that she’d be allowed to continue on. Naturally, she looked quite glum. The thought of Em not coming with us made me extremely unsettled.

As the miles wore on, Em seemed to be getting more distraught. I couldn’t help but wonder if she would be left behind to survive on her own. I knew this wouldn’t end well, especially with Frank dead. She didn't have anyone. I guessed she wouldn’t even try to survive. She’d probably commit suicide – either shoot herself or feed herself to a zombie as soon as we crossed the border.  I imagined looking back across the border and seeing her willingly engulfed by zombies, her blood spurting from all angles, and her screams engulfing my ears.

Jasper was extremely talkative past the state line, as animated as a child on his first visit to an amusement park. I watched Em stare revoltingly at him from the backseat, as if she loathed him for potentially separating her and me. I needed to get my mind off of Em and try to focus on my future and the baby’s.

As I looked down at my belly and wondered whether this child would be a boy or a girl and what I would name him or her, the car took an unexpected turn on to an exit.

“What are we doing?” Em asked.

“The car is almost out of gas,” Jasper replied. “I bet we can find a gas station down here in this town and if we can, we’ll drive another two hours or so before it gets dark.” I looked around outside of the window. The town felt sketchy to me. Hell, they all did.

“This place looks…not right,” I said reluctantly as I situated myself on the seat for a better view of my surroundings.

“It’s the same as any other town,” Jasper replied. “I’m just going to drive through and see what we can find.” He drove through two streets before he found a small gas station. He parked the car and stepped out to try the first pump. No dice. He walked over to the second pump. It was drained. Third pump…dry. Fourth pump…nothing. He leaned his head back into the car.

“I’m going to drive around the next few streets,” he said. “If I don’t find another gas station, we’re going to have to bust into some garages and look for gas.” Em groaned.

“What are the damn odds?” she asked. “This close to potential safety and freedom, and we run out of gas.”

“We’ll find some more,” Jasper assured her. “There has to be more gas left in this town.” Apparently Em didn’t feel too confident about Jasper’s conviction because I could see distress form on her face. I reached across the back seat and clasped my hand around Em’s fist. She looked more distraught than I’d ever seen her look. She turned her head to look at me and her big, round eyes silently begged me for something that I couldn’t figure out. I held her hand tighter and looked up to the front of the car. Out of my peripheral vision, I thought I saw Jasper glare at her but when I locked eyes with him, they were concerned and warm. My mind must have been playing tricks on me. Chills crawled up my spine but I had no idea why.

Jasper put the car into drive and started the car forward to trace the rest of the streets. As Em expected, there were no other gas stations to be found.

“Look,” said Jasper. “I saw a really nice looking house with a large garage far up on the hill before we came into town. I bet there is gas in that garage.” We had no other choice but to go for it. Jasper drove around the block and headed towards the direction of the house he’d seen.

As we approached the outskirts of town, Jasper made a sharp right turn on to a windy paved road. As we drove closer, I noticed the beautiful two-story ranch home with red paneling and navy blue shutters with a four stall garage off to the right. In front of the house, there was a flower garden that was now inundated with sprawling weeds. The most noticeable aspect of the whole house, however, was a beautiful iron gate that stood about 10 feet tall and surrounded the entire house.

“Well, someone was prepared for the outbreak,” Jasper muttered.

“How did you even see this from the road?” Em asked, completely ignoring his comment.

“I’ve got good eyes I guess,” Jasper said, as he cleared his throat. As they reached the top of the driveway, Jasper put the car into park. He grabbed a ball cap that was on the dash and fit it to his head. He looked back at us and nodded, then jumped out of the car with his gun to once again check on the safety of this house. He disappeared around the back.

“Hey, I gotta tell you something,” Em said hurriedly, but as Jasper reappeared not even ten seconds later, she silenced her words. Jasper opened the door and poked his head in.

“It looks a little sketchy in there. Em, can you give me back up?” Em got out of the back of the car rather reluctantly and followed Jasper inside with her gun cocked. I waited patiently in the car with my head still tilted back in an attempt to stop the flow of blood from my nose yet again. Jasper appeared at the front door of the house after nearly five minutes and jogged to the car with a big smile on his face.

“It’s clear, babe.” He opened my door and extended his hand to help me out. I stepped out with my head tilted back. He guided me by the arm into the house. I could hear Em in the large garage searching through things and I assumed she was looking for gasoline. I saw a plush suede couch, walked over, and laid down on it. Jasper came over to me, sat down on the floor next to me, and put his hand on my stomach. The intimate feeling of his hand sent a warm, fuzzy sensation through my body. It was the first time he touched my belly in that manner.

“You know,” he started. “Despite what you may be feeling, I love you so much babe and I’m going to love this innocent baby too.” All I could do was grin behind the tissue under my nose. My eyes started to get wet. That was exactly what I wanted to hear since I realized I might be pregnant. It seemed to give me the strength I needed to push forward.

“How are you feeling? How’s he…or she…feeling?”

“All is good in the hood over here baby,” I answered. I was sick of talking about my health, so I changed the subject. “What do you hope the gender is?”

“As long as it’s healthy, and you’re healthy, then that’s all that matters to me,” he said and leaned forward to kiss my forehead. He stroked my hair for a moment and then stood up and looked at me rather gravely for a few seconds before continuing.

“Retta, even if we find gasoline here, I think we should stay here overnight. I don’t think you need to be traveling any more today.” I started to speak up to protest but he interrupted me.

“No buts, baby,” he gently replied. “As your future husband and the only father this baby will ever know, I demand it.” I knew there was no sense in arguing with him, and as a matter of fact, I also knew he was right

“Well, if you’re forcing me to stay here,” I teased. “Then I’m going to take a catnap.”

“That’s probably a great idea,” he said with a wink. “I’m going to go check on Em. You get some rest, and I’ll have some food ready for you when you wake up.” 

I looked at him skeptically. “Are you sure you two are going to be alright together by yourselves?” He snickered and as he walked away to the garage, said teasingly, “I can only hope so.”

I listened as the door to the garage opened and shut and then I closed my eyes and dozed off rather quickly into a deep sleep.

***

It wasn’t until someone lifted up my shirt that I woke up in complete darkness. I opened my eyes to see Jasper’s silhouette beside me and it looked like he only had boxers on.

“What time is it?” I asked him as I rubbed my eyes. He didn’t respond but just stared at me while he slowly rubbed my stomach and then my chest under my shirt.

“Jasper!” I reached up to grab his shoulders. I guess he wanted some action, but I didn’t understand why he was being so quiet. It was weird.

“Shhh,” he murmured, rubbing his fingers down my stomach and under the fringe of my underwear. I gasped with surprise.

“Playing hard to get, Lis?” he whispered. It was then that I smelled whiskey on his breath. I stared at him wide-eyed. This was a little odd for him, but maybe he just wanted a little role play action. After all, sex doesn’t typically deviate from the norm in this type of world where we mainly worried about survival. But why the name “Lis”? And why did his breath smell of alcohol?

We had sex without any words, and when it was over, he rolled off and went into another room. I waited for him to come back and lay with me, but he never did. Yet again, I succumbed to a deep, illness-induced sleep.

I woke up the next morning to the sun shining through the window of the living room, and the birds chirping as if the world had suddenly returned to normal. I looked around but didn’t see or hear Jasper or Em. They must still be sleeping, I thought. I pulled myself up to stretch and guessed by the position of the sun that it was about six or seven. My hair was completely disheveled, and my shirt was bunched up around my neck. My pants were on the floor, and my underwear sat at the foot of the couch. I sat upright and tried to recall the night before. Memories flooded my brain. All I could think was – how odd last night was.

I pulled myself off of the couch, grabbed my pants and underwear, and looked out the bay window into the living room. The car was still parked in the driveway. It looked like a decent day out – at least the sun was shining. I guessed it was pretty warm out. I walked through the hall and into one of the half bathrooms and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the way to the toilet. I hadn’t looked at myself in a day or so, and I sure looked like shit. Wearing makeup was out of the question for me during the apocalypse, and although people called me a natural beauty, the events I went through recently left dark circles under my eyes and my already pale skin looked nearly clear. I also had some dried blood below my nose from my nosebleed last night. I turned on the cold water and cupped my hands under the faucet in an attempt to rinse my face off. I was flabbergasted that there was actually water at this house too. I’d been lucky. Maybe a little cold water would revitalize my skin a bit, so I splashed my face vigorously with it. I combed through my hair with my fingers and tied it back into a high sock bun with a hair tie I had wrapped around my wrist. I pulled on my underwear and pants, and noticed that my pants did feel a little tighter today.

After using the bathroom, I walked down the hallway into the kitchen. Now that I was awake, my stomach growled to let me know it was extremely hungry. I opened the pantry and found very bare shelves, with a few odds and ends. I spotted a sealed bag of smoked almonds – my favorite. I pulled the bag off the shelf, ripped the seal off, stuck my hand into the bag, and threw a handful back into my mouth. Hopefully Jasper wouldn't walk in on me at this moment, because I ate as if I hadn’t eaten anything in months.

Next I checked out the cabinets and found a sealed box of Fruit Rocks cereal. I loved Fruit Rocks! The box expired two months ago, but I guessed it was probably still good and ripped it open. What I would have done for some milk at that moment. Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in my head. I remembered I had a few water bottles in my backpack. Expired Fruit Rocks with water couldn’t be that bad, right? I found a bowl in the next cabinet and a spoon in the drawer and went to town on the cereal.  I had just stuffed another massive bite into my mouth when I heard a door knob turn and the sound of footsteps walking through the living room. Jasper appeared in the kitchen in front of me with my mouth full like a chipmunk with too many nuts. I couldn’t talk with my mouth stuffed so full, so I just gave an embarrassed smile and a cute wave. Jasper wore sweat pants and a gray tank top, which I hadn’t seen on him before. Maybe he’d gotten them from this house. He also smelled really good, maybe he stole some cologne from somewhere. He didn’t seem embarrassed at all, and acted like he didn't remember what had taken place last night. He stood there in the doorway while I finished chewing my food.

I didn’t want to bring up last night because I figured it would embarrass us both if I did. Everyone had their quirky little fantasies, and I guessed role playing was his. Jasper looked at me with a bothered look on his face.

“I can’t find Em,” he said.

“What do you mean you can’t find Em?” I figured it was some sort of joke.

“She went to sleep in the master bedroom last night,” he explained. “I peeked in this morning to see if she was up yet, and no one was in there. I looked through the whole house, and I can’t find her.”

“Well where could she be?” I asked him. Jasper shrugged.

“I looked everywhere. Upstairs and down here…she’s nowhere around here.”

“She wouldn’t just disappear,” I said worriedly, and jumped up from my chair to look out at the backyard. “The car is still here…so she has to be here. She wouldn’t go anywhere on foot.” I gave Jasper a hard look.

“But her bags are gone,” Jasper pointed out. “Look,” he said as he walked over and pulled me up into his arms. “Maybe it’s for the best she’s gone. You know I didn't trust her. Maybe she realized I’m not stupid, and I caught her in the middle of something bad, so she skipped out.”

“That’s absolutely ludicrous,” I answered him, as I pulled away from his grasp. “I told you...I don’t believe Em wouldn’t hurt me. And I’m not leaving until she comes back.” I didn’t understand how Em could have just disappeared. I knew Jasper didn’t like Em or trust her, but I felt it was incredibly odd that he didn’t really seem to care about what happened to her.              

“Well, since you won’t leave without her, I guess we’re staying here for a while longer.”

“Yeah, we are,” I replied firmly, irritated with his indifference. I thought about what had happened last night and suddenly had the urge to bring it to his attention. “By the way, what was up with you last night?”  Jasper stared at me with a blank look on his face.

“What are you talking about?”

“Jasper, don’t play games, I have enough on my mind without any mind games. I just didn’t expect you to do that last night, and I wanted to talk to you about it.” Jasper walked over to the pantry and opened it up to scope out the inside.

“Retta, I really have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe you had a dream?”

“No, it wasn’t a dream.”

“Okay then. Well since I don’t know what you’re referring to, then it must have been. You’ve been through a lot lately, honey. It must have been a nightmare.” I looked angrily at him for not admitting what he did. It sure wasn’t a damn dream and now that he was denying it, the whole situation was even stranger. Jasper grabbed a half-eaten pack of what had to be stale saltine crackers from the pantry and popped one into his mouth.

“Listen, just to make you feel better. I’m going to go out and look for Em around the town. You stay here and read a book or something,” he said and motioned to the office on the other side of the house. “Just stay here and stay safe. I’ll find her, and we can get out of here.”

“You found gas?” I asked eagerly.

“Sure did,” he said with a grin as he walked to the front of the house and out the door. I heard the car door open and shut, the ignition start, and the car drive away down the hill. Not knowing what else to do, I figured I'd look around the house for any clues about where Em could have gone.

The house was deathly silent and made me a little nervous. After all, I didn’t know anything about this house since we just arrived the day before. I decided to grab my gun out of my backpack in the living room. I unzipped the backpack and opened it up, but found there was no gun. I reasoned that Jasper must have put it somewhere so instead, I heatedly grabbed a knife out of the kitchen. I wasn’t in the mood for not being able to find my shit, especially my gun.

With each step I took, the floor creaked. This made me even jumpier. I searched the living room, kitchen, office, all three bathrooms, and the three bedrooms upstairs. The house was very plainly decorated which seemed odd considering the charm of the ranch itself. There were no photos of the family, barely any décor, and hardly any sign of the life that had once lived in the house. I also found the master bedroom off-putting, as there were only men’s clothes. There were no signs of a wife or children, just a lonely man. In the office, only degree plaques, awards, and recognitions adorned a large wall. From the wall I could tell that the man who lived here had worked in the medical field and his name was Eric Allen, but that’s about all I could find out about him other than he had devoted his life to his work.

The other odd aspect to the house was a red locked door that I assumed led down to the basement but I couldn’t open it. It was locked with three padded locks that required a special key that was nowhere to be found. After trying to open it, I pressed my right ear up against the wall and listened, but I heard nothing. Probably dead bodies down there or something, I thought. I shivered at that idea and tiptoed away from the door as if the spirits of the dead bodies downstairs would hear me and come up to haunt me.

I went upstairs to get as far away from the basement as possible and locked myself in the master bedroom to wait for Jasper to return. I sat on the bed and stared out the window for nearly ten minutes. Out of nowhere, I could see two people run into town at full speed. They were definitely human, I could tell by how fast they ran. They must have come across a zombie swarm. Poor people.

I stared out the window for another five minutes and contemplated my situation. We were so close to a new life, yet suddenly everything seemed to stand in our way – we barely found any gas and Em just disappeared into thin air. Was my hope for a new life too good to be true? Of course, I didn’t have to wait for Em, but I felt I had to. Maybe it was because Em had no one else. Maybe it was because Em told me that her purpose on this earth might be getting me to safety.

Another five minutes passed before I nearly made myself insane from thinking too much, so I decided to go back downstairs and find a book to get my mind off my current life. I tiptoed down the stairs and into the library, shut the door, and walked over to face the bookshelf. I ran my index finger along the spines of the books, searching for something that would catch my eye. I found one I wanted to read since it came out a few years ago, Gone Girl. I sat down in the computer chair, facing the door, and immersed myself in the story in an attempt to vanquish the odd feeling the house evoked in me.

I quickly became engrossed in the story, so much so that when one of the doorknobs in the house frantically turned and squeaked, I jumped nearly a foot in the air. Then I became frozen with fear and could only wait silently. I started to ask myself if I really heard the doorknob turn, but another squeak interrupted my thoughts. This time, the sound snapped me out of my frozen position and I grabbed the knife on the desk beside me, and held it steady out in front of my chest. Maybe it was Jasper. No, it couldn’t be Jasper because it sounded like it was coming from the back of the house. Maybe it was Em, yes it had to be Em outside. I jumped up from the chair and dashed to the office door, turned the lock, and swung open the door. I ran through the kitchen, into another hallway and to the back door, and poked my head over the window to look outside. I saw no one.

I held my knife tightly in my right hand, ready to stab whoever it was if it wasn’t Em or Jasper. I unlocked the door and pulled it open. I looked outside of the glass storm door and still saw nothing. Carefully, I turned the knob on the storm door and opened the door a crack. I looked left and right and still saw nothing. I closed and locked the storm door, and paused to stare outside at the nothingness that was out there. I felt a presence behind me, tightened my grip on the knife, and turned around slowly to face toward the hallway that led to the kitchen. I walked to the end of the hallway, and looked into the kitchen. Just as I did, I saw and heard the knob to the basement door wiggle. I jumped out of fright and scurried to unlock the storm door. It was either out there with the zombies or in the house with the intruder, or ghost, or whatever was behind the door.

Just as I was about to slip through the storm door into the yard, I realized something. The basement door was locked and whatever was in there couldn’t get out. What was I supposed to do? Hide in the car? Hide in a room in the house? Or somehow try to get the door open and see what was behind the door? What if it was a zombie? No, a zombie couldn’t turn the knob. They didn’t have enough intelligence to try and open a door. Could it be a person? Maybe a person was accidently locked down there and heard me upstairs. But if it was any normal person, why weren’t they screaming for help? I wouldn’t be so scared to try to open the door if I had a gun in my hands, but I couldn’t find any guns. Where the hell did Jasper put them and why did he move my gun anyway?

Really, I had two choices. Run out of the house with my knife and get attacked by wandering zombies, or try to figure out who or what was in the basement, and why they were in there. The more intelligent decision, especially for a pregnant woman, would be to lock myself in a room – but that wasn’t an option for me. I was born with an innate curiosity. I needed to figure out what was going on and take matters into my own hands. I need to find a key.

I frantically searched through the house, and pulled out all of the drawers, flipped all of the furniture, opened all of the doors and lifted things up. Finally, I found something, but it wasn’t a gun. Instead, it was a shoebox filled with keys that was tucked away behind a tote of medicine in the medicine cabinet. Someone was definitely trying to keep whatever it was down there locked up.

I shook with a mix of fear and anxiety and scurried back to the kitchen. I stood five feet away from the basement door and glared at it. My fists shook, which made the keys rattle and scared me even more. With a knife in one hand and the ring of keys in the other, I nervously tried each key, one by one. My hands shook so bad that it took ten times longer than normal to stick a key in a lock. I didn’t hear anything on the other side of the door, but as I tried the keys, the doorknob kept wiggling as if someone heard and was showing me a sign that they knew I was there. But why couldn’t they talk? Why weren’t they screaming? This was all so ridiculous and scary.