Chapter 9
The vast military base rose up from the hills, seemingly small from their distance.
The training facilities, barracks, and administrative buildings spread for miles.
Nick and Kate walked along the outskirts, far enough away to remain unnoticed.
They found a small opening of woods to sit and spent the next few hours resting and watching the fort.
Phoenix had taken a route opposite the couple, stating he would find an abandoned building to climb where he could observe the military installation from afar.
“What are we watching for?” Kate asked, ripping open a bag of trail mix to snack on. The wind blew a fierce gust through the trees, blowing Kate’s hair across her neck and sending a chill down her spine.
“Signs of life. People. Civilization carrying on. I don’t know,” Nick answered. He wrapped an arm around Kate’s waist while keeping his eyes trained on the base. When she offered him the trail mix, he grabbed a handful and tossed the sweet and salty mixture into his mouth.
Nick tried to ignore the pounds that had sloughed away since he left his home and ventured into a world terribly different than what he knew.
Kate’s clothes also seemed looser these days.
The human body could survive on canned foods and quick bites.
They would keep the body nourished enough to carry on.
Yet, Nick was not the type to simply settle for carrying on.
Thoughts of thick-cut steak, steamed vegetables, and warm bread made him salivate. His stomach performed a cartwheel as though dancing at the idea of such a meal. Soon, he promised himself.
The pair was too far to see into the fort; they focused on the front gates. From their location, the place seemed desolate. Besides the occasional undead creature wandering the street nearby, there was not a soul to be seen.
“How do you think this ends?” Kate asked. The question hit Nick in a strange way. He used to think about the end all of the time. In fact, he often craved it. Survival in a world that had caved in on itself was easy when you had no ambition, no care whether you lived or died.
Then, he met Kate. Life became a worrisome, delicate thing. Nick became responsible for another life. Not just anyone, but a person who had visited the depths of hell only to come back stronger than he could ever dream of being. A person he had come to care about more than anything.
“How what ends?”
Kate gestured vaguely to the world around them. “Everything is so screwed up. We’re literally sitting in the woods spying on a military base to see how safe they are. We can’t trust anyone. We’re afraid to bring shitty people back from the disease. We’ve almost died so many times. You did die!”
Nick pulled her closer hoping to quiet the raging anxiety within her mind.
“I didn’t die. I just… wasn’t myself.”
Nick hid the fact that sometimes he still felt hot rage coursing through him, and that he had to curb animalistic reactions to situations.
“No, don’t minimize it. That’s something you say when you don't get enough sleep or you’re hangry. Not when a disease has ravaged your body and mind and makes you want to eat brains.”
Nick laughed and pressed his lips to Kate’s temple. “How do you want it to end?”
Kate’s eyes scanned the landscape and stopped at Nick’s face. “My entire life has been…” Kate sighed. “I guess dignity is probably too much to ask for at this point. I just want to die with some certainty.”
Even certainty seemed to be a pipe dream.
Everything around them had collapsed. The world was a shell of its former self; it was nothing more than a collage of blood and death and abandoned morals.
A next meal was not promised… and every human they crossed paths with could be their last encounter. Certainty was a delusion.
“I can’t say how it ends, but you can be certain that I will be right there next to you.
Whatever happens, we’ll be together.” Nick tilted Kate’s chin so that his lips brushed against hers.
She responded with a kiss, deep and needy; feeling certain of that, too.
Without the typical constraints of life, they had the freedom to do and be whomever they wanted.
Except, Kate did not know what she wanted in this beautiful, agonizing life, aside from Nick.
Kate’s hands roamed his chest and slid up the back of his neck, sending chills through his body. When her fingers raked through his hair, it sent the skin of his scalp into overdrive. He shuddered, making her laugh against his mouth.
Nick gripped the small of her back. Kate was working up the courage to sling one of her legs over his lap when a throat cleared behind them.
“Shit,” Phoenix said, looking away and rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’m always interrupting something, but I got a closer look into the base.”
Kate sat back, releasing Nick from her clutches. Nick raised an annoyed eyebrow at Phoenix, awaiting more information.
“There’s an entire operation set up in there. People cooking and handing out supplies. It looks like the refuge you expected.”