Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Jack
“Tell me the priorities again,” Jack said.
His voice was low but it cut through the low hum of the truck’s engine.
I was driving, Jack was next to me, but he didn’t address me.
He ran me through the plan six times already, so this was for the others.
“We’re going to—”
“Not you, Miles. I was talking to Travis.”
“Oh, okay,” Miles said.
I glanced at the rearview mirror and saw Miles, who was grinning from ear to ear.
He was sure Jack was going to make him stay behind, but to both of our surprises, his was the first name Jack called out when we finally decided this trip was necessary.
“I got it, boss,” Travis, one of the men from the subdivision said.
“Tell me again,” Jack said. I caught the way his fist clenched, and before I could stop myself, I reached over and squeezed his hand.
Travis huffed. “Fine. We’re grabbing anything that could be useful but looking for medicine, especially antibiotics, pain meds, cold meds, bandages, and such.”
He sat in the back seat next to Miles, his knee bouncing with a nervous, frantic energy that made the upholstery squeak.
“Yeah, and don’t—”
“But I been thinking,” Travis cut Jack off, his voice too loud in the confined space, “We should all just grab what we can and get the fuck—” he glanced at me in the rearview mirror and smiled with embarrassment, “get the hell out of there.”
Jack grabbed the handle above the door and squeezed. “See, Travis, that was your first mistake. Don’t think. Do what the fuck I tell you to do.”
Travis laughed. “I got it. Just trying to help out however I can. I appreciate what Levi did for all of us, especially those girls, and with him being sick and all—”
“Travis?” Jack’s voice lowered the temperature at least thirty degrees.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
The truck’s interior fell into silence, and I welcomed it. We’d been in the car for twenty minutes and Travis had already tap danced on my last nerve.
But I wouldn’t take the blame. I tried to convince Jack to keep this tight, but he said we needed the hands and he wanted to see what Travis and the others were made of. This was the test run.
I hoped it proved fruitful.
Uncle Levi had spiked a fever two days in a row. Lourdes brewed him tea that seemed to help, and Bridget had her own recipe to try. But he needed real medicine, and I needed something besides worrying to do.
I circled the building twice like Jack ordered. It was a standalone drug store with four spots out front and an overflow lot out back. The entire area was empty, desolate, with weeds starting to grow out of the concrete.
The windows weren’t broken, and I took that as a good sign. But even still, the building was a husk of itself, as dead as this dead world.
We got out, and Miles clutched his shotgun and then checked the blade at his side.
“You know the plan,” Jack said, killing the engine. “In and out. No looting for shit we don’t need. If you see a threat, you call it out. Do not engage unless you have to.”
He pinned Travis with his gaze. “Do you understand?”
“Loud and clear,” Travis said, racking the slide on his pistol with a little too much flourish.
Jack moved first, on full alert. He checked the dumpsters and then banged on the brown metal door. Then he stood, waiting, each second that ticked by intensifying the moment.
He nodded and together, we circled the building. Jack pried the automatic doors open with a crowbar and then whistled.
I peered into the darkness, seeing nothing.
Heard nothing.
Jack flicked on a flashlight and we stepped inside. Dust floated in the air, iridescent in the light that cut through the room.
The air was musty and stale, with a sickeningly sweet mix of mold and rotten fruit almost choking in its intensity.
Travis coughed, but swallowed it down when Jack looked at him.
The store was disconcertingly neat.
Sure, there was debris, a few displays that had been knocked over, but otherwise, all things being equal, it was pristine.
“Miles, Asia, two carts each, fill them up. Travis, back door. Do not move until I say we’re clear.”
“On it,” Travis said, marching to the rear of the store with his chest puffed out.
“Let’s go,” Miles whispered.
We did, clearing the shelves like we were on a game show, except more than $5000 was on the line.
Jack hit the pharmacy, and emerged with his own carts, equally full. “I’m loading the truck. Stay here,” he said.
As he left, I spotted the box of condoms he stuffed in his back pocket, but a thud from the back wiped the smile off my face.
“Travis?” I whispered urgently.
No response.
“Miles, stay here,” I said.
“But Jack said—”
“I know but if there’s something back there…”
I trailed off and crept toward the back of the store and walked through the door marked Loading.
The door Travis was supposed to be guarding.
He wasn’t there.
Instead, that door was propped open with a cinderblock, and sunlight streamed in.
Where the fuck was he?
“Travis?” I hissed.
I turned the corner into the employee break room and found him.
He stood on a chair, digging around on the top shelf of a pantry cabinet. He had a box of chocolate bars in one hand and was reaching for a carton of cigarettes with the other.
“Travis, what the hell are you doing?”
He jumped, nearly dropping the chocolate.
“Come on. I just—” he stammered, climbing down. “It’s candy and some smokes. Don’t suppose I need to worry about cancer anymore and I’m surely not watching my figure. It’s fine.”
“Jack told you to hold the door.”
“I am holding it! I propped it open so I could hear if—”
A low groan cut him off.
It didn’t come from the break room. It came from the hallway behind me. The hallway that led to the store.
To Miles.
I sprinted down the hallway, and saw them when I skidded around the corner.
Three of them.
An older woman with blonde hair and no face.
A man wearing a polo, his right arm hanging at an unnatural angle, still trying to grab Miles anyway.
I couldn’t catalogue anything about the third before its head exploded, a mist of black-red goo spraying the air.
It fell in a clump and Jack moved, easily dispatching the other two.
Miles didn’t even have a chance to pull his knife.
And I was glad for it.
Glad for Jack.
“You good, kid?”
Miles nodded. “Yeah. I—I forgot to draw, and…I’m sorry.”
“Don’t sweat it. You’re alive. That’s what counts.” Jack slapped him on the shoulder and Miles winced but then smiled.
And then Jack looked at me. “Where is he?”
That ease of moments ago was gone. Now, his teeth were clenched, the vein in his forehead throbbing.
“I left him in the back,” I said.
Together, we looked, finding the back room empty.
But the parking lot wasn’t.
Travis was in the driver’s seat of the truck, clearly searching the console for keys.
When he saw us, his eyes widened, but then he smiled.
“Oh, thank God,” Travis babbled. “There were too many of them! I tried to… I went to get it so you guys could get out.”
Jack walked toward. Travis backed up, his hands raised.
“Jack, listen, I—”
Jack grabbed Travis by the throat.
He didn’t punch him. He just slammed him backward against the side of the truck. The metal buckled under the impact.
“Sorry, man. I panicked!” Travis choked out, his face turning purple.
He leaned in close, his face inches from Travis’s. “You left a woman and a kid to die, you piece of shit!”
“I didn’t… I didn’t mean…”
Jack slammed him against the truck again. Travis’s head cracked against the window.
“Listen to me,” Jack said.
He released the pressure on Travis’s throat just enough for him to wheeze, then cocked his head toward Miles.
“That kid likes you. It’s the only reason you’re still breathing.”
Jack released him. Travis slid down the side of the truck, gasping for air, clutching his neck.
Jack stood over him, the sun casting a long shadow that swallowed Travis whole. His chest heaved and his fists were clenched,
Jack looked at me then, waiting.
Weighing.
“Get in the fucking truck,” Jack said.
Jack
I let him live.
If he didn’t stop crying, I’d change my mind.
We’d found food. Medicine. Shit people needed, and I couldn’t even be happy because of that fucking coward.
When we got back to the farm, he was out of the truck before it stopped rolling, the candy and cigarettes he was willing to let Miles die for clutched to his chest.
I forced myself to look away from him, and helped inventory what we found.
Hours later, I went to Asia’s room, losing myself in the only peace I could find.
She met me at the door and kissed me hard before she pulled my shirt up and off.
I shoved her jeans as she worked my belt open and slipped her hand into my pants.
I smacked it away and slammed her against the wall.
Entered her in one rough thrust.
She gasped.
So did I at the snug grip of her walls.
At how perfect, how right, she felt.
How much like home.
I kissed her neck, closing my eyes against the sensation, the need to rut into her like a wild animal. I wondered how she managed to bring out the beast in me, at the same time she was the only one who could tame it.
She whimpered, shifting in my arms and pulling back a fraction of an inch.
I pulled her closer, whispering hotly in her ear, “You can take it.”
“Sure can,” she said as she tightened her legs around my waist and rolled her hips into my thrusts.
I buried my face in her neck, breathing her in, treasured this moment that she was here. Safe.
Alive.
That was what mattered.
That was all that mattered.
And I lost myself to that, to her, thrusting wildly, no finesse, no technique, only the unquenchable need for her.
She met me stroke for stroke, breath for breath, and when she shattered in my arms, my name on her lips, it was my undoing.
I pulled out at the very last second, impressed by my own control, sad to see my cum wasted on her thighs instead of filling her like it should.
“This bed is too damn small,” I said when I could finally speak again.
“We make it work,” she responded.
I chuckled, kissing her shoulder.
I wished I could stay here.
But I couldn’t.
“You should stay,” Asia said.
“Don’t know that Levi would approve,” I said quietly.
She smiled, but her eyes were wet with tears.
“I don’t know that it matters,” she whispered.
I grabbed her chin, forcing her to look into my eyes. “It does.”
Then I kissed her, wishing I believed it.