Fourteen
Cruz
I nside the house, I flicked the lock on the back door and lowered the roller shade. I took in the empty room. The others must have scrounged for candles and matches, because soft light glowed from various locations in the kitchen and lounge room, creating a warm feeling to offset the wild weather going on outside the walls.
Liv and I headed for the sound of voices and found Jonah and Gabe in the lounge room, sitting on two burgundy armchairs that they’d dragged around to face each other, their positions putting eyes on each entry point into the room. They glanced up as we came in, their features lit by the flickering flame on the coffee table between them.
“See anything interesting out there?” Jonah asked.
I cupped the back of Liv’s neck and squeezed affectionately. “Couple of things.”
With an amused huff, she spun around to face me, her eyes glimmering with mischief.
“Should have yelled out,” Gabe said. “We could have helped you take care of them.”
Liv burst out laughing and tried to disguise it as a cough, which only succeeded in making her sound like she was choking on nothing. I pulled her to me and patted her back, fighting a smile. “All good. I had my hands full, but I managed.” She pressed her face into my chest and snorted. My new favourite sound. “Where are Dawn and Remy?”
Jonah finished a glass of water and left it on the side table. He gave my embrace with Liv a curious glance, then his eyes flicked up to mine and realisation dawned. He smiled a bit, but kept his comments to himself. “We all talked while you were gone. Gabe and I took first watch, and Mum and Remy are catching a few hours’ sleep.”
Gabe rose from his chair and approached the bigger of the two windows, peering out through the uncovered glass into the darkening evening. “Dawn’s in the room down the end of the hall,” he said, "and Remy took the one opposite her. If you want to rest up for a few hours, we’re good here.”
Their initiative and take-charge tones filled me with confidence, but I was nowhere near ready for sleep. “I’ll hang out here for a while. Do you want to head off to bed?” I asked Liv.
“Not yet. It's too early for me."
We wandered over to the seating area and laid our weapons on the coffee table. While Gabe returned to his chair, Liv and I sank onto the couch, sitting so close our thighs pressed together. I stretched my arm along the headrest behind her and prepared to wait out what I hoped would be a short-lived storm. Lightning illuminated the room, closer now than it was while we were outside, and the initial rumble of thunder had become an almost constant presence. Those pattering raindrops that had brought us inside gained strength, turning into another downpour like the one we'd battled through on the road.
“Sucks that we can’t check whether reports anymore,” Jonah said. “We never have a clue what's coming.”
"As long as the outside stays outside, I think we'll be fine." Liv tilted her head toward the ceiling as if looking for leaks.
I hadn’t thought of that. If the property had been sitting vacant for a while, there was no one around to manage repairs or monitor trees with weak branches. From memory, those eucalyptus trees were pretty close to the building, and they were known for dropping branches on tents and caravans at campsites.
The wind rattled the windows and lightning struck not too far in the distance, turning the lounge into full daylight before thunder took its place with a house-shaking boom. Strain gathered in Liv’s body, transferring to mine at the point where our legs touched. Gabe and Jonah didn’t appear too at ease with the situation, either. A moment later, Dawn materialised in the doorway wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and socks. She scanned the room, taking in each face with a worried expression, then scrubbed her hands over her cheeks. “I couldn’t sleep with all that noise.”
I shifted to the other end of the couch and encouraged Liv to move with me, making room for Dawn. She smiled her thanks and perched in the space, trapping her hands between her knees—the best way to stop herself from attacking her thumb. “I hope it doesn’t last long," she said, staring out the window at nothing. "I've never understood people who love sitting on front porches and watching thunderstorms.”
“Me either,” Liv admitted. “How can you relax when it feels like the house is going to come crashing down?”
Dawn gave her a deadpan look. “That helped kill my nerves. Thanks.”
Her bland tone had everyone laughing, but the next crack of thunder killed the mood in an instant. The room went silent, and the wind howled so loud I wondered how the house could still be standing.I tossed around the idea of suggesting we get out of here and find somewhere in town to hole up instead, but leaving at this stage could be even riskier than staying put.
We knew what we were dealing with in the farmhouse. Outside, in the dark, it was too much of an unknown.
“This is a sturdy building,” Dawn said, her comment sounding more like a question than a statement."It looks a bit rundown, but it was built decades ago when they cared more about quality. It shouldn’t have any problems handling a storm."
This was the mother of all storms, though. I couldn't remember another one like it in my lifetime. I pushed off the couch and approached the side window that looked out onto the area between the house and the sheds. Liv and I had been behind that shed not long back and now there was nowhere safe outside. Lightning hit again and lit up the yard, highlighting all our cars... and three corpses rolling across the ground at high speed.
Shit .
Just before the light disappeared, another corpse tumbled past, stopping only when it smacked into the wall.The bang that echoed through the room was so loud it sounded like a car had crashed into the house. I turned to face everyone as Liv stood and Dawn screeched in shock, launching herself from the couch as her eyes searched for the source.
For an already anxious person, the news wouldn’t help her mental state, but the wind had turned corpses into projectiles. Any minute now, they could shatter windows or hit our cars. My heart thumped harder, and urgency streaked through me. “Someone, go wake up Remy. Make sure everyone has their shoes on. Keep your weapons close.”
“What’s wrong?” Liv approached me, her brows pulled together.
“The wind’s blowing corpses around like leaves. We need to block the windows in case more of them are thrown against the house.”
She didn’t ask further questions. No one did. Each person moved fast and focused on our next emergency. Gabe took off down the hall to wake his brother. Dawn grabbed my hatchet and Liv’s sword, passing them to us before she rushed from the room, presumably to get her boots.
Jonah and I moved the high-backed couch against the window I’d just been looking through, and Liv dragged an armchair over to block the other one. None of the furniture was tall enough to cover the full height of the glass, but if we took care of the bottom half, it lessened our chances of having corpses land inside.
Dawn returned with the twins, and the six of us stood in the centre of the cleared room, breathing hard and looking at one another.Corpses could blow in from paddocks all around town, their bodies flailing through open spaces with no obstacles to slow their momentum—a major concern if we were out there in the elements, but if we stayed inside, we should be safe.
The kitchen had a small window above the sink and a single-entry door leading to the backyard. If we holed up in there together, we'd be in less danger. “Let's move into the kitchen.”
Liv followed me in there, her gaze bouncing around the room. “Why don’t we move the fridge against the door, so we only have a window to worry about?”
"Good thinking," Remy said. He went straight to the fridge and dragged it forward, while Liv wedged in behind it to unplug the power cord. Once they’d pulled the fridge from its cavity, I wheeled it to the back door with Remy, then turned to check on everyone as I smacked the dust from my hands.
Each face held a tense-but-ready expression. We’d already shown how well we could work together against the horde in the rain. The only corpses we’d have to deal with this time around were any that crashed through windows. We could do this—and tomorrow when the storm passed, we'd have hours to catch up on any sleep we lost.
When the sound of smashing glass and splintering wood came from the lounge room, my stomach dropped. It was so loud my first thought was that someone had driven a tractor straight through the house. Dawn jumped and stumbled backward into Gabe, who grabbed her upper arms to steady her. Liv flashed me a look of concern while Remy and Jonah led the charge, running straight into the other room.
I had no clue what to expect when I rushed in there with the others, and the sight punched the breath out of me. A massive branch had taken out the entire side window and a good portion of the roof and wall, crushing the couch we'd moved there. Rain came in sideways, drenching everything in its path and bringing the smell of dirt and eucalyptus inside.
The wind killed the candlelight and left us in semi-darkness. My mind jumped from one solution to the next to figure out our next move. The branch had to weigh at least a couple of hundred kilos, and although we may have had the manpower to move it, we'd only leave a gaping hole for stray corpses to blow through.
Gabe approached the branch to scope out the situation while Jonah went around the other side. They looked like they were about to try moving it when the howling wind sent another corpse hurtling into the branch. It landed with a wet smack beside Gabe’s arm, and he jumped back just in time before it could grab his t-shirt.
“Leave the tree,” I said, raising my voice above the storm. “It’ll stop more from coming through.” Another boom of thunder shook the walls, the crack so loud that Liv looked genuinely concerned for the first time since it had started.
Dawn watched on in disbelief, by now probably questioning why she’d ever left home.
I lunged with my hatchet to end the moaning corpse, but my aim was off, and my frustration had me hitting too hard. With one swing, I unintentionally took off its head, and it fell to the floor, rolling to a stop at Dawn’s feet. She clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at me while Gabe dived in and put his knife through its temple.
“Sorry,” I said, knowing it wouldn’t make any difference. All she could do was ride it out.
My gaze moved around the room. Jonah’s go-with-the-flow personality meant he adapted to new environments without too much trouble, and his body language gave the impression he was coping well with our shitty circumstances. The twins had been out on the road long enough to take this kind of thing in their stride, so I didn’t need to worry about either of them or Liv.
My attention returned to Dawn. She wrapped her arms around herself and pulled in a deep breath, as if trying to stay calm. My eyes narrowed. After a long day with new people in strange places, she’d officially reached her limits. Liv seemed to catch onto the change in her demeanour too, because she looked at me and gave the slightest jerk of her head in Dawn’s direction.
I approached her as the wind whirled around the room like a mini tornado, unsure if there was anything I could say or do to put her mind at ease. “Why don’t you go back to bed and try to get some sleep?”
Dawn gave the decapitated head another glance and jerked her gaze away. “I can’t.”
The thunder hadn’t eased off in the slightest and lightning strikes were still coming in thick and fast, some bigger and more spectacular than others. It felt like the end of days all over again, and given the ferocity, it could go on for hours. “It’s under control out here. We can manage with one less person. Just leave your shoes on in case we need to get out of here fast.”
She looked at her son and rolled her lower lip between her teeth. "I can't."
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” I promised.
“It’s not that. He’s fine— more than fine. I’m so proud of him. It’s just… I don’t want to be the weakest link." Her gaze returned to mine. "I've let the group down twice now and if I leave while all this is going on, how does that make me look?”
Guilt washed over me because I'd seen her in the same light until Liv changed my mind. Dawn stared at me with her mouth pressed into a tight line as if she expected me to confirm her suspicion, but she wouldn't get any shit from me. "We don't have any weak links here. You're the reason we have food," I reminded her as raindrops spat against my arm, "and you're the reason we'll be able to grow more of it when we find our new home."
The wind blew her hair into her eyes. She pushed it away and huffed out a breath, unconvinced.
It was true, but we also needed women to balance out the testosterone and bring all the skills to the table that men couldn't. Liv and I had seen how well all-male groups operated, Jackson's gang being the prime example. Even if they lasted for a while, egos usually ended up getting in the way and they eventually self-destructed. "We need you in general,” I said, “but we don't need you right now. You can even take the bedroom closest to the lounge, so you'll be near the action if anything else happens."
I hoped nothing else happened. We’d been through enough today.
Dawn rubbed her hands down her face and scanned the room, examining the damage from the last ten minutes. She must have decided it couldn't get much worse after the initial impact, because she forced a smile. “All right. I’ll take a mini break to get my head together and I’ll be back.”
“No hurry. There’s no chance we’re going anywhere tonight.”
Dawn smiled and squeezed my elbow. She turned away from me and had a few quiet words with Jonah, then hugged her son and left. I waited to see which room she'd take, but she bypassed the closest bedroom and headed straight for the one she’d occupied earlier.
As soon as she was out of sight, I sought Liv. She must have been watching me while I spoke to Dawn, because her eyes were already on me. Our gazes connected, and as the wind whipped through the room and another round of thunder clapped overhead, my heart thumped.
Something about her expression made me think she must have heard every word I said to Dawn. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her head tilted just a little to one side. That soft, sweet mouth of hers turned upward in the slightest of smiles, and her expressive eyes that gave away her every thought...
They were flooded with so much feeling that it hit me like a knockout punch.