Love and Decay, Season Two Omnibus: Episodes 1-12 Read online

  And then there was Page. At the end of the Parker line, their baby sister was the shining jewel to their superior-evolutionary genes. She was a gorgeous little girl with her long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Her beauty stood out radically from the decaying state of the world around us. At the same time I was bursting with pride for her constantly smiling little face, I also couldn’t be more afraid for what this ugly world had waiting for her.

  Of course, she also had her five older brothers, Haley, me and some days even Tyler, looking out for her. So, the ugly could come, but she wasn’t going anywhere without us.

  “Hell, yes,” Haley answered. “If I don’t get out of this cement coffin on a regular basis, I swear on ice cream that I feel like I’m going to suffocate.”

  “Ice cream?” I laughed.

  “It’s my new thing.”

  “Well, I take that very seriously.”

  “As you should,” she agreed somberly. We walked out into the long hallway toward Gage’s office that sat at the end, and she slowed down to distance us from the boys. “You know, I’m not complaining about the steady supply of food and ammo, but sometimes I miss being out on the road, you know?

  I nodded. “I do know.” I looked around the super dark space that was only lit up with enough candles so we could make out the next step in front of us. The air felt damp and cool, and I was constantly chilled. Families, couples or single people moved behind curtains placed over the opening to their individual storage units/apartments as thin privacy screens against the traffic on the other side. “It was nice always to be moving. And it seemed like we were outside more before. If I don’t get more sun soon, I’m likely to change this entire compound into a race of vampires.”

  “Well, that would keep the Zombies on their toes.” Haley tilted her head and examined her boyfriend’s… butt. Yeah, she was definitely checking out his butt. “There are some good things about finding a permanent place to set up, though.”

  I giggled before I could stop myself. “And what are those good things, Haley?”

  “Boys,” she tried to whisper, but Hendrix and Nelson spun around thinking she was talking to them.

  “Yeah?” Nelson asked with a crinkle in his brows.

  I laughed again, and Hendrix gave me a quirked brow, too. So, I deflected. “Is Gage in there?”

  “I’m right here,” the man in question answered. He stepped in between Hendrix and Nelson, and we made a circle on the outside of his headquarters.

  Gage ran this place by himself, and was definitely the de facto leader in charge, but that being said, he’d come to rely on the Parkers and us quite a bit. The entire Parker family were born and bred for the Zombie Apocalypse, and their survival skills far outstretched any other human being on Earth.

  Well, maybe not every human being, but most of us. They were excellent marksmen, hunters, and gatherers. They thought on their toes; they had, thus far, found a way out of every scary situation we’d been in and in their spare time they were in the practice of seducing innocent women into falling in love with them. Yes, the boys had an unfair advantage with all their crazy skills, but they made excellent teammates in our war against everything-else-trying-to-kill-us.

  Which was a lot of things. There were a lot of different things trying to kill us.

  Gage was nearly as good as them, though. Or maybe he was just as good, but I gave the Parkers more credit because I happened to love them- all of them. Gage and I were still trying to figure out simple friendship.

  He wasn’t the most open individual.

  Except when it came to Tyler…

  But he’d taken our side when Matthias Allen had demanded that Nelson, Vaughan, Hendrix and I go back to The Colony when Matthias declared us “escaped prisoners.” Since then Gage had stood up for us constantly when some of his other compound members expressed concerns that we might be a danger to their lives. Although this was a fair assumption, it was amazing that Gage let us stay.

  But that, like most things, was a double-edged sword.

  Gage was offering us protection for as long as we needed it, but we were the reason Matthias had targeted the compound to begin with. And so we stayed here to protect Gage and his people from Matthias and his retaliation.

  After the day we separated ways last May, I lived in almost-debilitating fear for the next two months. I waited impatiently for Matthias to strike back or attack the compound in some way.

  The Allens had to be pissed that Tyler and I had managed to escape, and not only that, but I’d possibly mortally wounded Kane. In all our scouting missions to check on Miller, we’d never once noticed Kane gallivanting around their town. Plus, before Matthias left Gage that fateful day, he had already declared war against us.

  So where there used to be a fragile truce between the two leaders, now there laid a desolate wasteland of hatred and mistrust. Matthias had struck out against Gage’s people and Kane had even shot Hendrix. So it wasn’t like me stabbing Kane multiple times and trying to shoot him was so far out of the realm of justified actions.

  But I had a feeling they were holding a grudge.

  A big, ginormous, size-of-the-sun grudge.

  In the meantime, we carried on with life per our daily routine and prepared in every way possible. Vaughan had organized his brothers into teaching groups that taught these relatively inexperienced civilians how to be trained, heartless killers with enough instinct and ruthlessness to survive any situation. Haley and I had organized a school for the small number of children that had survived this far. And Tyler taught a first-aid class and acted as nurse in her spare time.

  Before you’re too impressed with Tyler, it was a way for her to occupy her time. Many a night had been spent with the three of us girls making up the most logical way to treat injuries and illnesses. She had a book on basic first-aid that helped some, and she practiced easy stuff on us, but she was no more a registered nurse than I was the former president of the former United States of America.

  “I’m sending three civilians with you,” Gage explained in his lilting southern accent. “Only one of them has been out before, so you’re going to have to watch out for them…”

  Hendrix cut him off immediately with a patient tone, “Gage, I’m not taking three. I can’t babysit if we’re getting out of the vehicle. It’s an unnecessary risk.”

  “Hendrix, I have to train these people somehow. If they don’t get any field experience, they’re never going to learn.”

  “I get that,” Hendrix told him. “But, come on, Man. That’s almost a civilian each for us to watch. If we run into a horde and something happens to one of them or one of us… I can’t live with the knowledge that someone died because we were careless. I know that this is going slower than you want it to, but we survive by being vigilant and meticulously cautious. Besides, teaching them to take risks like this is only a bad habit they should never learn.”

  “You have a point,” Gage groaned. He rubbed both hands over his face and gazed off down the hallway, lost in some kind of thoughtful-Zen place that didn’t include us. Gage could have been a distant cousin of the Parkers. With his light blonde hair and tall frame, he could easily blend in with the brothers. His muscles were tightly packed onto his thick frame like a physique made from football and farming. The long and lean Parker muscles were stretched from swimming. Gage’s jaw was wider as well, but his smile no less devastating. He didn’t actually resemble any of them other than hair color, but there were certain characteristics that put him in the same light.

  Even Haley had the blonde thing going on, but hers was more of the strawberry variety.

  Looking around our little group, I stuck out like a sore thumb. My hair was so darkly brown that it was almost black. Even my eyes were dark and contrasting to the lighter colors of the Parkers and Haley. I felt like the grim reaper in the middle of all this light.

  Which in no way reinforced my self-esteem.

  Eventually, Gage came back to us. “Fine,” he said. “I’l
l keep the guy who’s already gone.”

  Nelson shook his head and put his hands on his low hips, his classic I-mean-business stance. “No, we want that guy and one newbie. The guy with experience will be of some help, and he can get more hours logged, so he’s ready to do this solo soon.”

  Gage’s jaw ticked once with frustration, but he nodded his head. “Yeah, fine. Alright.”

  Hendrix reached out and clapped a manly hand on Gage’s shoulder. “This is the right thing to do. It’s a pain in the ass to train these people, but we are going to keep them alive while we do it. No unnecessary risks. No unnecessary deaths.”

  “Truth, brother,” Gage agreed, seeming to relax finally. “Alright, so you have your team. You’re going to a little strip of stores in the middle of nowhere. It’s about an hour drive from here. I had Clara and Tim scout the place yesterday, and they couldn’t see any issues. But you know more than anyone that the threat doesn’t have to be standing in the middle of the street for there to be one. They did say that there seemed to be no human life. There’s a gas station with a body shop attached. There’s also a small grocer and a few other random shops that might have specialty items if you have time and ammo to sift through them. I’ve highlighted your map in orange and written out a list of the things we need the most.” We nodded along , and when Gage decided we’d understood everything, he continued. “There’s plenty of gas in the Suburban for you to get there and get back, but no detours. And if they have gas, that’s a priority.”

  “Are we low?” Nelson asked in a quiet voice so those around us couldn’t overhear.

  “No,” Gage answered quickly. “But, it’s one of those things that you can’t have enough of, you know?”

  “Sure,” Haley agreed. “We know. It’s like eyeliner and tampons.”

  Gage gave her a double take but eventually broke out into a grin, “Exactly?”

  “Gross,” Hendrix shook his head at Haley but he smiled at her like she was the cutest thing on the planet.

  She was, in fact, the cutest thing on the planet.

  “Okay, supplies, gasoline, don’t die,” Hendrix ticked off our list on his fingers. “Anything else?”

  Gage met our eyes, letting the poignancy sink back into the conversation. “Just… just don’t clean out everything, yeah?”

  We all nodded somberly and agreed.

  Gage had this philosophy about raiding. He wanted to keep the compound stocked and supplied as much as humanly possible, but he always made sure that we left some of everything behind unless it was an absolute necessity. His point was that there were other people left. We had no way of communicating with the outside world, or advertising our open space. So, unless they literally stumbled upon us, like we did that first time, there was no way for them to know they were close to shelter. But if they were close by and needed food, a safe place to sleep for the night or any of the numerous supplies it took to survive the dangers of this world, then Gage believed we had a civic duty to leave something for them.

  I had to agree with him. And it was one of the reasons I admired him so much.

  Left on my own, I wouldn’t have thought of that. Before the Parkers, Haley and I were like locusts when we descended on a new place for the night. We took what we wanted and we took as much of it as we wanted. I never once considered the people that could wander through after me.

  Considering the state of some of the places we’d scavenged through, I didn’t think most people thought this way.

  It was refreshing and made me put a little more hope in what humanity could be again someday.

  “Y’all get going then,” Gage jerked his chin toward the stairwell again, effectively dismissing us. “And don’t come back empty-handed. Unless, well, unless you have to, of course.”

  “A direct order from our fearless leader,” Nelson taunted. “Go do your job, unless you don’t want to. Then don’t. I don’t care. Do whatever you want.”

  Gage shoved him in the back to get us moving, “That is not at all what I meant, you sarcastic little shit. Now go on; I’ve got other things to do today than deal with the likes of you.”

  Nelson turned around to give him a huge grin, but we all kept moving toward the stairwell. The sooner we got this over, the better. An hour drive was nothing small, especially with all the variables that could happen between here and there.

  The Parkers had a strict policy about sticking together, but it was getting harder and harder to make the younger ones leave the compound. They were more than willing, especially the boys, but the safer we felt behind the tall stone wall that surrounded the four-story complex, the better we felt about going off in groups.

  I had a feeling the boys would love to leave Haley and me behind, too. But that was happening only when hell froze over. I was not the kind of woman that paced in front of the fireplace for hours, wringing her hands and worrying about her man.

  Oh, no. I was the kind of girl that strapped on a semi-automatic, and a sawed-off and blew the head off anything that tried to come near my man.

  I didn’t play homemaker. I played backup. That was the only love language I could speak.

  And Haley… my sister of the soul… my other half… my best friend until death do us part… was the exact same way. We made varsity cheerleading together. We had planned to be college roommates together. We kicked shitty-Feeder ass together. That was the way it worked.

  The boys knew better now than to try to separate us.

  Especially after what happened with Kane. Haley was so over me trying to get kidnapped and killed by myself.

  We cheer together; we die together. Okay, so that wasn’t exactly our high school motto, but in my skewed, nostalgic, utopia-of-a-before-Zombies memory, that was a pact we’d made sometime during freshman year cheer camp.

  At the Suburban, the one we’d stolen from the Allen camp, we met up with Kent, Maya and Dan. Hendrix immediately sent Dan back inside after a short explanation that we would only need two others with us. Dan looked at Maya like she would produce some hidden skill that made her more qualified to tag along than him, but eventually shook his head and walked away.

  I saw why Hendrix picked Maya over Dan in the first three seconds of talking with them; even though Dan had been out on a raid before, he just wasn’t qualified. Maya held her weapons confidently. On our way to the Suburban, she’d been checking the chamber and seemed practiced with how to handle her gun. Dan, on the other hand, was fidgety and nervous. His gun dangled awkwardly from his right hand, and he kept glancing down at it like it would spontaneously blow up.

  It was more important to know how to use a gun than it was to be a man. Something, Dan didn’t get yet.

  But he would. That’s why Vaughan taught classes.

  He even used Page when someone didn’t get it. She could handle a gun with enough proficiency to save her own life or someone near her. If she had to, Page would not hesitate to blow a hole straight through the face of an attacking Feeder. The darling girl.

  And that’s what saved lives- weapons and thinking fast- not gender, strength or even necessarily intelligence. It was great if you were strong for everyday things. And it was even better if you were smart enough not to get yourself stuck in a dangerous situation. But, you couldn’t physically fight off a Feeder in most cases. It took one bite, one knick of their teeth deep enough to break the skin, and that was it… your brain stopped having cognitive thought, and you were consumed with a hunger for human flesh.

  In this game of Rock- Paper -Scissors, handgun won every single time. And if that failed or happened to be unavailable, your best bet was a giant knife of some variety, preferably a samurai sword.

  After Dan had left, we piled into the “gifted” Suburban and set off with the help of Gage’s map. We traveled in silence for most of the way, each lost in our thoughts.

  Besides, the gaping hole that used to be the rear window- before I’d shot it out in an attempt to actually shoot Kane- let in all kinds of wind and noise, so it was
hard to hold a conversation.

  The SUV gave me the creeps, but I understood the incentive to use it. The only other vehicles in running order at the compound were a two-door pickup and a four-door sedan. The Suburban gave us the room to pack a full team, plus fill it with enough supplies to make the risk worth it.

  Still, the seats were all stained with blood, and the back window was a sharp reminder of how much I’d struggled. Hendrix was driving so I couldn’t ask him for comfort, but he seemed to sense I needed it anyway. He held my hand as much as he could while I helped him navigate through the post-Apocalyptic highways of Oklahoma.

  Most of Gage’s destinations were along this same highway, to keep it easy for those driving to them. So it was a pretty easy straight shot before we were pulling under the dilapidated metal roof of a once isolated-but-modern-enough gas station.

  Gage had been right about the strip of stores. The gas station with the attached auto body shop sat adjacent to a small strip mall with a tiny grocery store, hair salon and an H&R Block.

  Nice. It had been a while since I had my taxes done.

  Once the car was shut off with the keys left in the ignition, Hendrix turned around and addressed the car. “We’re going to start with the gas station. Haley and Nelson will look for gasoline, and the rest of us will tackle the list inside.” His eyes drifted to me and held mine for a moment before sliding back to Maya and Kent. “We’ll split up in pairs. You two and us two. We’ll keep an eye on you, so don’t worry too much. Shoot when you have to, but not more than you need to. And make sure you confirm the Feeder before you put a bullet in the head. We don’t need anyone shot because your trigger fingers got nervous.”

  Hendrix rolled his shoulder in an unconscious gesture of discomfort. While he was mostly healed from Kane’s bullet, he had quite a bit of pain that still lingered. He never complained about it, but I noticed how he babied it at the compound and the lack of rotation that he couldn’t disguise. I hoped it would go away eventually, but I couldn’t exactly hate that wound. Kane? Now Kane I could hate for putting it there… but the bullet had ripped straight through his flesh, and he’d survived. That was all that mattered to me- that he was alive and with me.