4. Chapter 4 #2
Does my black eye bother him?
After brushing a hand through his wavy hair, he taps his fingers against his jeans and says, “I’m Nate.”
To be honest, he doesn’t quite fit in with the bowling group assembled but maybe he sought refuge here after everything went to shit. Strangely he reminds me of the kid who used to deliver pizzas to our house before Ben put a stop to that too.
“Nora here brought you the grub,” Larry says, breaking me from my thoughts.
“Thank you, Nora,” I say quietly, tapping my fingers against my thighs.
“What happened to Mike?” she asks.
“Mike?”
“Yeah, he was at the door.”
Her unblinking stare bores into mine and I wonder if this woman has ever allowed a man or anyone else to control her.
She’s tough as nails and her knowing gaze feels like ten thousand bees prickling at my skin.
You don’t know me, I want to say but maybe she does. I’m no different than any other woman who let her husband beat on her, except I guess, this time I got away.
“Oh.” Dropping my head, I rub my neck and say, “He’s gone. Someone on the roof of the store shot him.”
At my statement, they all glance around with wide eyes before Larry says, “I’ll be goddamned. Who’s over at the mart?”
“Could be Porter,” Hank says and Larry guffaws, “That old fool? He’s probably halfway to dead by now.”
When the others chuckle I offer a weak smile. Is Cason dead? Did he walk into a mob, never to return? I hope not.
I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s an end of the world phenomenon but I trust Cason where the others leave me cold. It could be because I suspect whatever he found in that house confirmed a betrayal I understand.
The semantics don’t matter. When the person you love becomes the one you hate, the pain is the same and with every second that passes, and he doesn’t return, my spirits sink.
He can’t die like this, saving me. That’s laughable. I’ll probably be dead before the day is over anyway.
“So, what do we do? If Mike is gone, we have a way clear,” Larry says, waving his muscular arm.
Nate huffs out a sigh and stands to lean over the table. “We go out there, we die.”
“We can’t stay here forever,” Hank says quietly and Larry nods.
While they consider the options, I head back to the door and pick up the atlas I dropped. Whatever their decision, in the end, I can’t stay here. With nowhere else to go, I guess I will head north.
To what, I can’t even imagine. Are those things everywhere? If so, what’s the damn point?
I’m exhausted just thinking about it, but I can’t give in. Not when Cason risked his life for mine. Ugh.
Fighting off the sting of guilt, I slide into the booth nearest the door with a silent sigh. My hope is that he’s still out there but if I don’t keep moving, I fear I’m gonna crash and hard now that the adrenaline from before slowly leaks from my system.
I need a minute to regroup though and hopefully give Cason time to come back.
When Nora slides into the booth beside me, rubbing her face, I eye her quietly. Her short dark hair interspersed with an occasional silver streak frames rich blue eyes and a broad nose with a wide mouth, gently lined with wrinkles.
I sense an inner strength from her that I admire. However, it’s been so long since I was allowed to speak without Ben watching my every word that my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
She has no such qualms though and I lower my gaze as she says, “You–”
A loud thwack brings me around and I flinch when someone says from the other side of the door, “Open up.”
“Cason,” I breathe, sliding to the edge of the seat but before I can stand, Hank is back and he shakes his head before leaning against the door.
“You bit?” he asks.
“No. Now open the fucking door.”
Cason
Fuck me but I should’ve ignored my alarm when it went off this morning. I’ve never called in sick before though and I was arrogant enough to think today was not going to be that day.
Look where that got me. It’s already been fucking hell, and it just keeps on going. In my defense, it’s not like I could have fathomed in a million years that I would be fighting an enemy that’s already fucking dead.
My partner, John proved that fact rather brutally when we were subduing one of those fuckers and he, it, whatever tore out John’s jugular like a fucking cheetah on the hunt for food.
If that wasn’t bad enough, while I forced this thing into the back of the cruiser, my partner bled out, only to re-emerge as something that in my wildest dreams I couldn’t have defined.
That wasn’t even the shittiest part of the day, but it was the moment I realized there’s nothing I could do to save the people of my town. I had to get out before it was too late.
Famous last words I guess because if I had packed up our shit this morning, my wife would have been the woman with me now.
Please don’t go. Why the fuck didn’t I stay?
It was such a simple request but after our fight the night before I needed space to let the remnants of my anger go.
With my selfish decision, I left her vulnerable and now the image of her curled up in that bed will live rent free in my head for a fucking eternity.
I’m no hero but I convinced myself I was doing the right thing by reporting for duty when half the other officers never showed. How was I supposed to know it was the end of the world?
Rosanne and I, we’ve played this act so many times, I assumed I would walk right back into the chaos but this time, my wife changed the ending. Where does that leave me?
Sadly, unsurprised by the turn of events and leading a pack of ravenous undead assholes away from the frightened woman I found earlier when I took her vehicle with her in it.
Perhaps it should worry me knowing that the numbness pushing at my chest does not portend of anything good but this recklessness pulling at my soul might save Shelby and right now that’s all I can concentrate on.
It didn’t take a genius to see that she’d been beaten, and I suppose I should have taken more care to set her at ease, but survival is the name of the game, and I don’t have time to coddle the woman.
After I freaked out on her when I found her in the house, I’m also surprised that she waited for me but if I analyze it too closely, I suspect it has more to do with her past than me.
I’ve seen it too many times to count and unfortunately, it’s almost routine on the job but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make my skin crawl to see her eye me like I’m a fucking threat, which makes my shame about barking at her that much deeper.
This also begs the question, in this strange new world of undead fuckers roaming the earth, who the real monsters are but I don’t have the time for philosophical debates and she’s alone, so I won’t have to kick someone’s ass.
What a fucking cluster.
Either way, it doesn’t matter now because if I don’t lead this horde successfully away, I’ll never see the woman again anyway.