Love and Decay, Volume Eight (Episodes 9-12, Season Three) Read online

  He leaned forward and pressed one last piece of advice on me. “I have said this to your men, but listen carefully. Mexico City will be…” he seemed to search for the English word before settling on, “mayhem. There is no order there. Everyone fights everyone. And the Dead, they run free. Look for a man named Tomás. He is my cousin. He will help you if you tell him that you know me.” He met my gaze; concern flickered in his dark eyes. “He will get you through the city. Then we will be even.”

  He was saving our lives because we had saved his. “Thank you, Diego.”

  His grin returned and he stood up. He nodded once more and walked away.

  With the weirdest sense of loss, I watched him go. Hendrix walked over and held out his hands. I still needed help getting up and down and moving around. He had stuck by me every moment.

  I let him scoop me up and support my weight. “What did Diego have to say?” he asked quietly.

  “He warned me about Mexico City and said to look for his cousin Tomás.”

  Hendrix’s body stiffened next to mine. “Sounds like it’s not exactly smooth sailing from here on out.”

  I looked up at him and couldn’t help but smile. “Did you think it would be?”

  His lips twitched, “Not with you around.”

  “Hey!”

  He kissed my neck and helped me outside. “I’ll take it though. If I get to have you, then bring it on. It’s worth it.”

  I loved this man.

  The house had been a flurry of movement as my friends packed and got ready to leave. Now the outside had that same air of chaos. Nelson, Tyler and Vaughan packed the van that Andy had given us. They were going to take one of Diego’s smaller trucks since there were only three of them and we now had eleven people if you counted the baby. If we were careful, we hoped it would get us through Mexico.

  Only time would tell. And Mexico City.

  “You really don’t want to come with us?” Andy asked as we stood in a circle next to the van.

  “We have a different battle to fight,” Vaughan explained. “If people are really out there looking for a cure, we want to be part of it.”

  And that was the truth. We had talked about it a lot over the last week. Our exodus to Mexico had been about several things. Checking out Page’s immunity had been part of a laundry list of other reasons. Like fleeing the Colony. And having nowhere else to go.

  But now that we had options, we found that we all wanted the same thing. If we could make this world a better place, we would. We would do everything in our power to end the Zombie problem.

  And Page believed in our mission. She had been the deciding vote. When she started to talk about how she would like to know what the world was like without Zombies and how she wanted us to live some place where Lennon could be safe, we were sold.

  That little girl had the most beautiful heart and I was just lucky to know her.

  Joy nodded her agreement. “Find the cure,” she encouraged. “Find a vaccine. And then come help us. The Lord knows we’ll need you.”

  “If there is ever a way to send word on how you’re faring, we’d love to hear from you,” Haley added. “Send us a smoke signal or carrier pigeon or something. Let us know you’re winning.”

  Andy and Joy smiled at us affectionately. “We’ll figure out something. Colombia is a long way away.”

  “That’s what we’re counting on,” Hendrix added.

  We said our goodbyes after that. We hugged each other for a long time. Haley had an especially tearful moment with them. They had done some much for her.

  I watched Page and Luke hug each other awkwardly. Luke seemed to have a lot to say to Page and the worried look on her face made me nervous, but I didn’t interfere. He handed her something that she clutched in her hand before he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and walked away.

  I braced myself for the Parkers to attack the poor kid, but they let him live. Their mercy probably had something to do with the fact that the kids would never see each other again.

  Miller didn’t seem as full of grace, but Vaughan kept his hand firmly planted on the kid’s shoulder.

  Ten minutes later, we were piled tightly in the van. Vaughan and Hendrix had taken their spots in the front seat and I was gently squished between Tyler and Page.

  The bungalow was in our rearview mirror and Colombia was before us.

  “What did Luke give you?” I whispered to Page.

  She glanced at me uncertainly before opening her palm to reveal a necklace. A gold locket dangled from a dainty silver chain. Her cheeks blushed bright red as she held it uncertainly.

  “It’s lovely,” I assured her. “Is there anything in it?”

  She opened it slowly. I had expected to find a picture of Luke inside, maybe from when he was younger, but there was nothing in it. I leaned forward, noticing some scratches on the metal.

  That’s when I found the words.

  On one side, Luke had carefully etched the words, “Grow up.” On the other side, he’d scratched, “Find me.”

  I didn’t know what to think about that, but it didn’t look like Page was sold on the idea.

  “Do you want me to put it on you?” I asked because I couldn’t think of anything else.

  She shook her head. “Not yet.”

  I felt intense relief and I didn’t understand why. Page was nine. She was way too young to fully understand what Luke wanted from her. And besides, Page was a Parker. She would never leave her family.

  I smiled, realizing that family now included me. This was my family. These were my people.

  We had been through hell and back and the fight wasn’t over yet. But we had made it this far. We had survived.

  And we would keep surviving.

  Colombia didn’t feel so far away anymore. We could reach our goal. We could find a safe place to live. We could make a difference in this world.

  We could stay together.

  Episode Ten

  Chapter One

  1104 Days after initial infection

  Mexico City, aka the epicenter of hell.

  I had never seen anything like it. And that was saying something, considering my recent exposure to all things evil.

  We’d come upon the city in the middle of last night, thinking we could creep in unnoticed.

  Wrong.

  So wrong.

  Apparently the middle of the night was when the city came alive.

  With gunfire, rabid Zombies and civil war.

  We should have been more prepared, especially with our history. Truthfully, we had actually tried to come into this city with guns blazing and our heads on straight. We had game-planned and strategized. We had picked up as many weapons as we could along the way. It just wasn’t enough.

  There was no way to prepare for this amount of carnage. Seriously. No way.

  Bodies lined the streets in piles, reeking of death and disease. Their ripped open flesh told the story of a free buffet for Feeders. Their insides had been baked in the sun and heat of the day. White bones had been licked clean and rotten flesh and organs littered the ground around them.

  I couldn’t understand why the remaining living hadn’t burned the bodies. The dead would spread disease so quickly and also attract Feeders. But it appeared that all the living had time to do was push the bodies to the side of the road before they jumped back into the constant war that buzzed through the massive metropolis.

  And massive it was.

  Adela had said that something like nine million people lived here before the infection. Nine million people in one city.

  Nine million people upended by an Apocalypse that destroyed their lives and their loved ones.

  The idea was unfathomable to me. I couldn’t even begin to guess how many people had survived over the last three years, but it had to be a drastically smaller number given the amount of dead people we passed on the streets.

  Adela had become our guide over the last three weeks. She led us through the northern region of Mexico a
nd through the mountains that led us to Mexico City. Several nights along the way she had known of a safe place to stay. She had saved our lives with her connections and huge extended family.

  Most of the people that gave us shelter had either been some kind of cousin of hers or friends of her father or Diego. They treated her with the respect of a queen when she told them what had happened to the northern territories and that Diego was now in control of everything. They never doubted her information; they gave her their trust and their respect as soon as she said Diego’s name.

  It was remarkable and miraculous considering how our first few weeks in Mexico had gone.

  We’d managed to keep the van running and fueled, despite not always having access to unlimited supplies. We were down to our last stores of gas and had previously hoped Mexico City would be a place where we could rest and restock.

  Our gun and ammo supply were also dwindling.

  Not all Mexican Zombies were kept in cages.

  The last three weeks had been trying. We had encountered several close calls and at least two times I had been sure we would be dead by morning.

  But we had survived. We had sustained injuries, but we were alive.

  And we hadn’t heard anything from the Colony. Not a single peep.

  Every once in a while Adela would inquire to see if any of her friends or family had heard what had happened to Matthias Allen or the infamous American colony that had invaded their country and torn it to shreds. The people south of Diego’s territory hated Matthias and his soulless army. They hated that he thought he could walk over their countrymen and do as he pleased.

  They respected Adela by reputation. They respected the rest of us by deed. We were heroes in their minds for murdering Matthias.

  We were heroes in my mind, too.

  Too bad Mexico City hadn’t heard our accolades yet. Maybe they would have been more accepting.

  Maybe they would have held a parade in our honor.

  Just kidding. They would have tried to kill us no matter what. These people didn’t care about the rest of the country. The civil war that consumed them was the only thing that mattered.

  I realized that within seconds of reaching the edges of the city.

  “How could anyone control this entire thing?” Haley whispered next to me. Baby Lennon curled up on her chest and slept peacefully, unaware of the distant sound of constant gunfire and groaning Zombies. “It’s huge!”

  The van crested a hill, giving us a panoramic view of the massive city able to house nine million people. I sucked in a breath and tried to breathe through my panic.

  The size of this city was incredible. Even in the dead of night with only the milky light of the moon and the fires that blazed in bright dots, I could see that this city was never ending.

  If it were truly at war with itself, how could we make it through unscathed?

  “Why couldn’t we go another way?” I asked with bulging eyes.

  “This is the only road,” Adela reminded us. “They destroyed every other way. They funnel people to them.”

  A shiver of alarm went through me. “Why?”

  Adela sucked in a deep breath and explained, “In the beginning, it was for their protection. They wanted to save their city, so they set up perimeters forcing travelers to go through them. They wanted to check for the infection and they wanted all of the information anyone might be carrying. Then, they went to war with the Territories, so it became a way to protect them from attack. Eventually the Territories began fighting with each other and so did the city. Now it is the only way, because no one can repair the roads or the damage of the bombs.”

  Even though most of the city was shadowed with darkness, the sheer bigness of it intimidated me more than anything else. Industrial buildings mixed with native design to create a once beautiful cityscape.

  As we drove deeper into the concrete jungle, I could imagine the city as the crowning jewel of Mexico it had once been. Now most of the windows were shattered and the sides of houses and businesses destroyed with gunfire and explosions. The roads had been ripped apart. They made traveling difficult, but I supposed that was part of their purpose.

  The smell of wood burning barely penetrated through the stench of death and Zombies. There was a hazy fog over everything and a dusting of ash that danced in the cool night breeze.

  This place was the Apocalypse.

  Before the infection, if I were asked to picture what I thought an Apocalypse would look like… this would have been exactly how I imagined it.

  Vaughan slammed on the brakes when a woman ran screaming around a corner up ahead. Blood streaked her dirty face and her tangled hair hung limply around her frail shoulders. When she saw the van, she screamed louder, threw up her hands and ducked into the nearest building.

  I expected something to follow her, but nothing else emerged from the dark alley she came from.

  Vaughan pressed on the gas again and passed the woman’s hideout without incident.

  “Weird,” Hendrix breathed. He sat to my right, with his arm wrapped around my shoulders. His gun lay on his lap, ready and waiting for the first opportunity to use it.

  “How are we going to find Tomás?” Tyler asked from the front passenger’s seat. “We don’t even have a last name.”

  “When we ask for Tomás,” Adela explained, “they will know who we are seeking. Our biggest problem will be finding the right people to ask.”

  “How do we know who to ask?” King demanded.

  Adela didn’t answer. I doubted she knew any more than we did.

  Next to me, Lennon grunted deeply. I smiled, despite our circumstances. He made the cutest baby sounds, like a little pig. I didn’t have much experience with newborns, but I thought his voice was unnaturally low. When I said something to Haley and Nelson about it, they had gotten defensive and argued, “He was a man!”

  But he wasn’t a man. He was just the most adorable baby in the world. He was a month old now and somehow, despite our lack of food and constantly dangerous living situation, he had managed to grow. His chubby thighs had accumulated pudgy wrinkles and his little face had filled out. Haley looked too thin, even by our standards, but she was able to feed him and that was all that mattered.

  At least for right now.

  We needed a better standard of living. But first we had to survive Mexico City.

  Vaughan urged the van over a pile of concrete debris that split the road from sidewalk to crumbled sidewalk. He tried to be as gentle as he could while ignoring the protests from the engine and the scraping sound on the underside of the vehicle. I closed my eyes and held my breath until we reached the other side. We would not survive without this van, but at the same time there was no way to go but forward.

  “Adela, do you know your way through the city?” Vaughan asked. I heard the worry he tried to cover up and convinced myself not to panic.

  Her reply was simply, “We need to find Tomás.”

  “This is the stupidest thing we have ever done!” Harrison growled from the backseat. “We should have looked for another way.”

  “There is no other way,” Adela bit out, her accent thick with frustration. “This is the only way. You are the ones that want to get out of Mexico. If that is what you want, then this is what we must do.”

  “And what would your plan be? What would you have us do? Go back to America? Make us fit in with the Colony? I’m sure they’d love to have us back, especially after we killed their supreme leader.” Harrison was never easy on Adela. He couldn’t seem to accept her, for reasons he refused to share with anyone. His brothers had cautioned him about it multiple times, but he would respond with silence and sulkiness until they gave up and left him alone. Meanwhile, Adela constantly had to put up with his mistrust and antagonizing teasing. He had never been anything but pleasant and goofy to Haley, Tyler and me, but for whatever reason, he could not make himself get along with Adela. I empathized with them both.

  “That is not what I am suggestin
g,” she hissed at him.

  She sat one row in front of him, but refused to turn around and meet his angry gaze. I didn’t blame her. Harrison was rarely scary, until he found something or someone he didn’t like. Then he became one of the most intimidating men I had ever met. And that was saying something, considering the rest of his brothers.

  “But you are suggesting something,” Harrison prodded. “Aren’t you? There’s something you want to say, so say it. Spit it out.”

  I sensed Adela’s frustration build around her. She took her time replying to him, as if she couldn’t decide which words to use. It could have been a language barrier thing, but I had the feeling she was trying to read Harrison and diffuse his uncalled for anger.

  Finally, she said, “I do not understand why we must leave Mexico. There are places we could live that would be safe. Diego would have given us any of the houses of the men we killed. My father’s place or Arturo’s. They would have been enough for us.”

  The energy in the entire van deflated. It was like someone had popped a hole in our balloon and let out a good chunk of the air.

  “What?” Adela whispered. “What am I missing? The cure? You really believe that strongly we will be able to find a cure?”

  I suppressed the urge to look at Page. The energy we had just lost started to build again. Layer by layer a thick, buzzing tension filled the van and put all of us on edge.

  “Yes,” Nelson finally said. “We believe we’ll be able to find a cure. Or at least help others that are more qualified than us to find a cure.”

  “How?” she whispered. “How can you be so sure?”

  Nelson let out a resigned breath. Harrison jumped in to warn, “Nelson, don’t.”

  “She’s one of us now,” Nelson challenged. “She deserves to know.”

  “Wait until we’re out of Mexico,” Harrison argued furiously.

  I turned around to shoot Harrison a shut-up look, only to see Adela beat me to it. “You don’t trust me? After everything I have done for you?”

  He shot her a cruel smirk. “Not even a little bit.”

  The rest of the Parker brothers exploded with rebuke for their younger brother, while Tyler, Haley and I tried to apologize to Adela. Lennon started crying from all of the noise and Page looked like she was on the verge of tears.