Chapter 14
The moment things are going well, it all gets flipped on its head in a matter of minutes.
Wyatt had no time to process that he was about to kiss Addison before they got thrown a curveball.
Emma hasn’t said a word since they left.
He didn’t want to bring her along. She’d rather be with her mother, and he gets that. Hell, he’d rather be with Addison, too, instead of running off on a risky mission. The ultrasound can offer answers, though, and leaving Emma behind isn’t an option.
Addison was right, she’s safer with him for now, and they’re making good time to Jeff’s house.
He keeps waiting for her to say something. Expects an outburst or a crying fit, but the girl is quiet, preferring to retreat into herself.
“Please don’t hate me,” she says suddenly.
“Why would I? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I thought you were hurting her, and I almost ran over and pushed you. Violence isn’t the best way to handle conflict. Momma always told me that.”
He smirks at how she rattles off the words in a way that makes him hear Addison’s voice instead. “Is that what she said?”
“Yes.”
“Well, in usual circumstances that would be the case, but we ain’t in usual circumstances lately, are we?
” He offers her a few stilted pats on the shoulder, opening the glove box to hand her a stack of paper towels the former owner must have looted.
“Thinking about something and doing it aren’t the same.
You and I are good. Don’t worry about that. ”
She blows her nose loud enough to alert every rotter in a ten-mile radius, but seems a fraction calmer than before.
“Do you have a nice right hook you’ve been keeping secret all this time?” He smirks.
“Of course not.”
“We need to have a few sparring lessons soon. Then you will.”
She perks up like he offered her ice cream on a hot day. “Really?”
“Mhmm. I’ll teach you how to street fight like my brother taught me. Show your mom too when she’s able.”
“What’s the difference between street fighting and regular fighting?”
“You play fucking dirty, that’s what. Go for the eyes and the crotch and throw dirt in their face. Use whatever you got around you to take ‘em down.”
“I’m setting up a swear jar when we get home.”
He huffs at the hint of sass in her voice. “What am I putting in this jar? We’ve got no money.”
“I haven’t decided yet, but I’ll let you know.”
“You do that.”
“Mom’s gonna be okay, right?” Emma asks a few minutes later. “She didn’t look good when we left.”
“She’ll be just fine. She has to be.”
“I’m really glad my mom didn’t shoot you like she was going to when you first showed up.”
He blinks at her blunt delivery. It’s a reminder that they are nearing the end of that thirty-day timeline. “Yeah, me too.”
* * *
Abandoned cars block the street, so they park at the head of a cul-de-sac, having to venture the rest of the way on foot.
A series of cookie-cutter homes lay before them, only distinguished by mailbox numbers. The right house sits at the very end, waiting with an unlocked door.
He doesn’t think Jeff would have screwed them over, but he still clears the space carefully.
They creep through each empty room of what used to be a happy home.
Family photos full of domestic bliss line the walls, interspersed with splatters of blood where he can only assume Jeff’s wife turned.
A trail of red leads to the back door, but they don’t follow that.
Instead, they continue to the last room at the end of the hall to find the nursery.
The ultrasound machine sits nestled among a plethora of baby items. They’re quick to stuff whatever they can fit in their bags. Soft blankets and diapers, bottles and books. Even a fish mobile that Wyatt knows isn’t practical.
They could use that bassinet, but fitting the machine into their tiny car will be a hassle in itself.
Emma smiles at a stuffed cat. “She’ll like this.”
“You two are both sure it’s a girl, huh?”
“Very sure.”
“You know how to tell?”
Emma raises a brow with a shake of her head. “There’s a way?”
The machine is the obvious answer, but odds are none of them will know what they’re looking at on the screen.
So, he reaches for an old wives’ tale his mother told him long ago.
“You take a necklace or a stone on a string, anything with weight to it, and hover it over the belly. If it circles right, it’s a girl, left, it’s a boy. ”
Emma narrows her eyes, skeptical. “This works? You’re sure?”
“Swear it, I saw my mom use it with my aunt. Predicted it would be a boy, and she was right. It’s foolproof.”
“I’ve never heard of that. We have to try it! I hope I’ll have a sister, but I guess I could handle a brother if I have to.”
He pauses, shaking his head at the machine. “Okay, we gotta take it apart and hope we can put it back together again.”
There’s no chance he can carry the entire unit to the car. The wheels aren’t made to roll across dirt or grass, and the whole thing stands as tall as Emma.
He finds a butter knife in the kitchen to disassemble the screws.
Shoves the smaller parts into their bags and straps the base to his back with a few belts.
They’re halfway across the front lawn with their items in tow when a herd stops him cold.
At least eight rotters have already seen them. Runners can’t be far behind.
All they can do is turn back.
The noise from a window shutter banging against the house on the second floor isn’t doing them any favors. It lures the dead in their direction. Wyatt watches through the curtains as eight rotters turn into more than he can count.
“They’ll leave eventually,” he whispers to Emma. “They’ll get distracted by something, we just have to wait them out.”
Waiting them out is a foolish choice, though. Three hours later, and the herd has only grown. They spill across the lawn and cover three adjacent yards, forming a sea of the dead between them and their car.
Wyatt paces the living room, regretting that they ever left Addison.
“They’re like dogs,” Emma peeks through the curtains. “I watched them when I was in the woods. I hid in the trees and saw them down below, how they’d sniff each other, especially the fast ones.”
He follows her line of sight to a runner with its nose plastered to one of its dead counterparts, giving it a sniff before moving on to the next.
“The slow ones don’t do that as much,” she continues. “But I figure it works the same, and they just don’t do anything as much.”
“You think they can tell what’s edible and what’s not by how it smells?”
Emma nods. “If we smell like them, maybe they’ll leave us alone.”
Smell like them, she says, as if it’s a perfectly logical and simple solution. Maybe it could be, if he were alone.
He can’t consider this when it’s his job to keep her safe. Walking through a herd covered in blood without actual proof that it’ll protect them seems like a surefire way to end up dead.
There were reports here and there before the power cut off about theories like this.
Most of it was bullshit, but he vaguely remembers a few comments on the dead being guided by scent. The newscaster who reported it got ripped out of his chair by the cameraman on live TV. That sort of thing sticks in one’s head.
Emma could be onto something, but Wyatt’s not ready to chance it. Not until the sun comes up hours later and they’re worse off than before, with the dead spread out as far as he can see.
He doesn’t have a clue where they all came from. The freeway, the convention center, a random assortment with no rhyme or reason. The why isn’t as important as how to escape. They don’t have the supplies to stay another night, even if they wanted to. Getting back to Addison is a priority.
Eventually, he relents and cracks the back door to whistle over a slow one and slips his knife into the back of its head when it crosses the threshold.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this? Not gonna be fun,” he grunts, carving into the chest of the monster to reveal slime-coated guts.
“I can do it,” she says defiantly, averting her eyes from the gruesome scene.
She’s got a fire in her just like her mother does, he thinks with a fond nod. Covers herself in blood without much more than a grimace and doesn’t complain once.
Wyatt says a prayer to a god he doesn’t believe in anymore and slowly opens the front door.
He’s never been so afraid, not even when he saw his first rotter. Not when he fought that group for his plane and barely escaped alive. Not when his corner of Alaska had been overrun. None of those situations had been a case of willingly walking into danger and daring it to call his bluff.
Emma’s hand clenches his tight enough to cut the circulation, while the dead sniff them like a pack of wild dogs before finally, finally deciding they aren’t a meal.
It’s a slow walk through the horde, bumping rotten shoulders and getting shuffled like cards in a deck.
It’s not until they load their items into the car and get moving again that he breaks out into the biggest grin. “Hell yeah!”
Emma winces at him from the passenger side.
He slaps the car door through the open window and lets out a holler of victory as they speed down the road. “Come on, give me a woohoo!”
She shakes her head, appalled at his outburst of excitement.
“You know you want to.”
“Woo,” she says quietly, only to appease him.
“That was pitiful. You can do better. All the rotters need to hear it from the next county over.”
If anyone needs to loosen up a little bit, it’s this girl, who’s in a state of perpetual seriousness. If she refuses again, he’ll back off, but then she shocks him with the loudest woohoo he’s ever heard.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” He smiles.
Emma laughs, then remembers she’s still coated in guts, and her face transforms into disgust. “Get it off me, get it off, get it off.”
He ain’t gonna judge her for that. The kid lasted longer than most adults would before admitting it’s the nastiest shit she’s ever felt or smelled in her life.