Until the End (8 page)

“They took our weapons, that’s a bad thing.”

“We don’t seem to need them right now so it’s not the end of the world. I don’t like being locked this room, though.”

“Just this once,” I say with a chuckle, eyeing the walls surrounding us. “I’m going to agree with you. You think we can fight off the infected with chairs and dry erase markers?”

He rubs his hands over his face tiredly and his voice comes out muffled and hoarse.

“Worst lion taming ever.”

I frown as I watch him continue to hide his eyes in his hands. He’s exhausted and I knew it. I knew he didn’t sleep last night. I feel awful and I know that if we get out of here I need to find a way to get him to sleep. The boat house, even though it was surrounded by water, still worried him. I sit back in my seat and try to come up with a place where he will feel safe enough to rest while he keeps his face resting in his hands. I wonder if he hasn’t fallen asleep like that when he suddenly leans back in his chair and groans.

“How long have we been in here?” he asks, looking around for a clock but finding none.

“I don’t know. I left my cell behind at the—“

Jordan leans in suddenly and presses his mouth against my ear.

“Don’t mention the boathouse.” he whispers. “As far as they know, we have nothing but our weapons.”

I nod my head slowly and he withdraws, leaning back in his chair again.

“I’d say ten minutes or so.” I tell him in answer to his question.

“How much you wanna bet they keep us waiting for another fifteen? Maybe twenty, just to be sure?”

I frown, confused, but then it dawns on me. “The time it takes for The Fever and the decomp.”

He nods. “They want to make sure we weren’t bitten.”

“So that’s why you’re not freaking out? You aren’t worried they’ll kill us.”

“Oh no, they might still kill us. I just don’t think they’re going to do it right away. They could have left us to die outside or shot us when we came in the door. No,” he says slowly, looking at the closed door. “I think they have something else in mind for us entirely.”

In the end they keep us waiting for another half an hour. Better safe than sorry, I suppose. When the door finally opens, we’re met with the same man who led us here and a much younger man most likely in his mid-twenties with short dark hair and fierce brown eyes. He’s short, barely as tall as me, but stocky. I wouldn’t mess with him. Especially considering the matte black handgun he’s carrying. Jordan and I both sit up straighter in our seats when we see it and my heart skips a few beats.

They close the door and the older man sits down across from us while the younger one takes a wide stance a few paces behind him. It occurs to me that his position is foolish. If he has to take a shot at either of us, he runs the risk of putting a round in the back of his partners head. It makes me nervous that he’s made this mistake. I worry he doesn’t truly know how to handle that gun and I firmly believe an unskilled marksman can be more dangerous than a skilled one.

“Why are you here?” the old man asks, getting straight to the point. His voice is gruff and impatient, as though we’ve annoyed him already and we haven’t said a word.

“For the same reason you are.” Jordan says calmly, ignoring the man’s tone.

He’s done this to me before as well, stayed calm in the face of my emotions, and I’m struck again at how very self-possessed he is. I’m grateful for his calm tone because with the gun in the room, the fire in the young man’s eyes and the timbre of the old man’s voice, I’m twitching with nervousness.

“Why do you think we’re here?” the old man asks, his eyes focused hard on Jordan. The question feels like a test.

“To survive.”

There’s no reaction on the man’s face, he doesn’t even blink, and I find I’m holding my breath waiting for his reply.

He looks away from Jordan, studies me briefly then asks him heavily, “What’s she to you?”

“Everything.” he replies instantly, and I struggle to hide my surprise.

I seriously doubt that’s true but there’s a conversation going on beneath this one, a measuring of the men in the room, each by the other, and though I don’t understand it entirely, I know it’s imperative that I keep quiet.

“Is she your wife?”

“As good as.”

The man nods in what I think is approval and sits back slightly.

“Did you come here to hide? Did you plan to stay, bunker down?”

“No,” Jordan replies with a shake of his head. “We came for supplies. We’re going to run, leave the city.”

“You have nothing?”

“Nothing but the weapons you confiscated.”

“Now how is that? How is it that you have weapons, but no other provisions?”

I can feel Jordan tense beside me and I know he doesn’t want to be caught lying to this man. They have our lives in their hands and our weapons in their possession. If they decide to toss us out the door, the waiting swarm will consume us in seconds.

“We were defending our home.” I speak up, reaching for Jordan’s hand and holding it tight. “We hadn’t planned on leaving it. We thought we were safe. Then last night we were attacked.” I let my voice break a bit, bite my lips together tightly and take a shaky breath through my nose. “We tried to defend ourselves but we were overrun. We ran. We ran all night.”

Jordan squeezes my hand gratefully.

The old man nods and when he looks at me I can see his eyes are still hard but his face has softened some. Feminism be damned. Crying Woman is a trump card I am not ashamed to play. Like Jordan said, we work with what we’ve got and if this is part of my currency, so be it. I’ll spend that dollar.

The man looks back at Jordan, clearly happier to be speaking to him and not the whimpering woman.

“What supplies were you planning on?”

“A bow for me, one like hers. Extra arrows for the both of us and a book.”

“And sunscreen.” I say quickly.

The man scowls at me for a moment. “Sunscreen?”

“We’ll be walking outdoors. A lot. We’ll need sunscreen. And Chapstick.” I reply hesitantly.

I almost add that I want Wet Ones wipes as well, but the man is giving me a look as though I was asking for down pillows and room service so I shut the hell up.

“What kind of book?” he asks Jordan, ignoring me now.

“Archery. One that explains how to make arrows. Neither of us knows how.”

The man nods, thinking. He stands suddenly and the young man opens the door for him, never turning his back to us.

“Wait here.” the old man says, and leaves the room.

The young guy steps out behind him, closes the door and I hear the lock click again.

“He’s fun.” I mutter, releasing Jordan’s hand and rubbing my sweating palms on my jeans.

Jordan chuckles but doesn’t say anything. I want to ask him about the “everything” comment, what that exchange was about, but I don’t know how to bring it up, so I leave it alone. They leave us sitting there for at least another half an hour and Jordan starts rubbing his face and eyes again. I’m starting to get antsy so I stand and pace the room. When the door opens again and the old man reappears, he stops and glares at me silently. I hold his stare and slowly sit back down in my seat. Once I’m seated, he takes his own again.

“There’s no book to help you with making arrows.” he tells Jordan briskly. “But we have some phones still working and able to connect to the internet. We can let you look it up and write down the instructions. We also have the bow to spare and the arrows.”

I want to slap myself in the head for not thinking of simply looking up on my phone how to make arrows, but I keep still. I also can’t help but notice we’re glossing over the sunscreen and Chapstick.

Jordan nods his head and grins slightly. “Thank you, we appreciate it.”

“Now hold on.” the old man says, raising his hand. “We can’t just give things away. The way things are headed, we’re gonna need all the supplies we can get our hands on. We might be able to spare a bow and a few arrows, but that doesn’t mean we won’t want something in return.”

“But we don’t have anything to give you.” I say, opening my palms on the table.

The old man looks at me closely and smiles. “Oh, I think you do.”

Jordan is fast. Really, really fast. He jumps from his chair, knocking it back against the wall and has me up and behind him before I even know what’s happening.

“We’re not making that kind of trade, asshole.” he says darkly.

The young man at the door has the gun raised and trained on us. I try to step out from behind Jordan and show my hands or sit back down, anything to get the gun off us, but he holds me firmly.

The old man lets out an exasperated sigh and shakes his head at Jordan.

“That’s not what I meant. Sit down!”

Jordan hesitates for a full minute then slowly releases me and we take our seats again. The gun is lowered and I take a deep, shuddering breath.

“We have women and children here. Hell, someone’s grandmother is here.” the old man scolds. “We’re not animals.”

“You were looking right at her. What did you mean, if not that?”

The old man points at me but speaks to Jordan. “
She
was carrying the bow when you arrived. You said you want another bow for you, ‘one like hers’. I assume she’s the one who can shoot it?”

Jordan nods slowly, his body relaxing. “She’s shot six infected today. In the eye on each one, dropped them permanently.”

“See, now that’s a skill we could use here. Eventually, bullets will run out. Arrows can be retrieved, or as you said, we can learn to make them, but no one here has ever shot an arrow before.”

“We’re not staying. We have to keep moving. We only stopped for supplies.”

The old man looks unhappy with Jordan, as though he thought better of him and now he’s being disappointed.

“You’re going to drag her all over hell and back with
them
on the loose? You’d be safer staying here.”

“I have to get to my uncle.” I say suddenly. “He’s alone on his property. He needs us. That’s where we’re going.”

“Where’s your uncle?”

“Corvallis.” I say, happy it’s not a lie. It’s the first honest thing I’ve said to this man.

“Well then, we’ll give you back your gear, send you out the back door and you can be on your way.”

“Without the other bow and extra arrows?” Jordan asks knowingly.

Or the sunscreen.

“You’ve got nothing to trade for it, so no. You won’t be getting them.”

“Wait.” I say, sitting forward. “What if I teach you? We won’t stay indefinitely, but what if we stay for a day or two and I’ll teach you how to shoot?”

I know Jordan won’t like this, but it’s our only shot. He needs that bow, and after this experience, I don’t know when I’ll ever get him into the mood to loot again. The two lonely pills in my pocket are like a ticking clock in my ear, counting down my moments of clarity. There’s that pharmacy nearby, so close I can feel it in my skin like sunshine.

“What about him?” the man asks, pointing at Jordan.

“He stays with me, no question.” I reply.

“Yes, but we’ll be feeding him and you. You’ll be earning your keep but what about him?”

“I’ll help you fortify the building.” Jordan offers. “You said you have women and children here. Another set of strong hands to help with heavy lifting has to have some value. And that front door, it can’t hold forever. Other looters or the undead, doesn’t matter which, eventually one will break through and you’ll lose everything.”

The man considers Jordan’s proposition, even glances over his shoulder at the young man behind him.

“I’ve been saying the same thing since we got here.” the young guy says with a smirk.

“Yeah, I know.” the old man grumbles. “Alright, she teaches us how to shoot a bow and you help Taylor with the grunt work of fixing that front door, and you can have your arrows and bow.”

“Jordan needs to be able to take the lessons as well.” I tell him firmly. “He’s never shot one and I’d like to teach him before we hit the streets again.”

“Fair enough.” the old man says with a nod and offers his hand to us. Jordan shakes it first and then I do the same.

“I’m Cal, by the way. And this, as I said, is Taylor.”

“Jordan and Alissa.” Jordan says in response.

“Alright, Jordan and Alissa,” he says, slapping his hands on the table and rising. “Let’s get started.”

***

I chose a bow for Jordan and spend a good deal of time with him fine tuning it to work for him. I have four others in my “class”, including Taylor. The others are two men a little older than him and a quiet, pretty young woman about my age. I wonder how many people are here in this building, but I avoid asking questions because I can tell they are still wary of us.

I set up targets beside the front door, where the zombies are still trying to get in and their moans can be heard through the glass. I want all of us to get used to tuning them out, to focusing through the anxiety of having them near. It’s good for me too because I am acutely aware of their presence and I catch myself glancing at the door every other minute just to see that it’s not cracking and spider webbing under the pressure of their onslaught. Jordan isn’t great at shooting, not at first, but I hope he’ll get better with practice. He’s actually the worst of the five with Taylor hands down being the best. I’m convinced he has the gun, which is still with him in a holster on his hip, because he’s shot one extensively before. Despite my initial misgivings about his abilities with it, he’s since shown a lot of comfort with the weapon. He’s accustomed to using the sight to line up his target and I don’t even have to tell him to release his breath and shoot on the exhale. He and Jordan are pretty close in age, Taylor is maybe a couple years older, and they end up talking easily with each other. As they wait their turn at the target, they discuss modifications to the door that they will make later and I overhear a lot of in depth discussion on zombie fighting tactics.

“It’s not supposed to be like this.” Jordan says at one point. “The running thing, what the hell is that?”

“I know!” Taylor cries, outraged. “At least it’s only for twenty minutes or so, then they atrophy but, shit, that’s twenty minute of fighting off a friggin’ animal.”

“Have you seen it up close?”

“Yeah.” Taylor answers, his voice becoming solemn. He lowers it so I can barely hear him. “We lost one, Evey’s brother. She’s the girl shooting right now. She was crying over him as he died of The Fever, then he tried to grab her. I had to shoot him before he bit her.”

Jordan swears under his breath and the conversation drifts back to the door and making sure it’s solid. After a couple of hours the lesson ends and everyone sets off to do their chores,
though I don’t know what those are exactly. Everyone pulls their weight here, though, and with my lessons done I don’t know what to do with myself. I stick with Jordan and Taylor, hoping to help them out, and find my purpose soon enough.

“Taylor, you want to volunteer?” Cal calls to him from a dark corner of the store. The front area is getting lighter, we actually had plenty of light to hold our archery lesson now that the sun is fully up. The back section, though, is still encased in shadows and I can’t see where Cal is.