Lost Coast Page 19

  “Carter and I know how to catch regular zombies.” Jenna gives me a tentative smile. “We helped you do that before.”

  I nod. A few pillowcases and some string did the trick that time. Those zombies had been a walk in the park compared to the alpha.

  “How do you plan to observe them when you have them locked up?” Gary asks.

  “We’ll cut a hole in the ceiling on the third floor. All observations will happen from above.”

  Johnny’s hand shoots up. “I want to lead the research team.” He cracks his knuckles. I haven’t seen him look this jazzed since he started work on his How to Thrive in the Apocalypse book. “I’ll decipher their language.”

  “What makes you an expert?” Ash asks. “Do you even speak more than one language?”

  Johnny gives her an incredulous look. “I’m a writer. Language is my thing.” He glances at me. “Words are my super power.”

  “The job is yours, Johnny.”

  “I volunteer to be his assistant.” Gary’s hand shoots up in to the air. “I want to help. When I’m not cooking, I can be observing.”

  “Dude.” Johnny slaps him high-five. “We’re the language department of the apocalypse.”

  “Undead Language Department,” Reed declares. “We need to make you guys a door plaque. Are you going to keep office hours?”

  “What’s your qualification?” Ash asks Gary.

  “My fucked-up leg.” Gary says this with what I have come to regard as a perpetual well of cheeriness. “It’s perfect for sitting in the same place for hours on end.”

  “Excuse me.” Susan raises her hand. “Sweetheart, not to be a downer, but how do you propose to get down the stairs, across the parking lot, and up to the third floor of Juniper?”

  Everyone contemplates his wheelchair in silence. Gary’s brows knit together.

  “We don’t have to overthink this,” Johnny says. “I’ll just grab some two-by-fours and make a portable ramp. We have that pile we grabbed from the woodshop. It’ll be good exercise for me to push Gary up and down the stairs since I’ve been out with tendonitis.”

  “What he said.” Gary points at Johnny.

  “Just until you can get yourself on a pair of crutches,” Johnny adds. “And so long as you know there are no in-and-out privileges. Once you’re in Juniper, you’re there ‘til it’s time for you to make dinner.”

  “Deal.” Gary grins. “When do we get started?”

  “I need a video recorder,” Johnny says. “And a portable voice recorder of some kind.”

  “Time to scavenge.” Reed rubs his hands together with a grin. “I love going through other people’s shit. I broke my favorite bong last week. Maybe I’ll find a decent replacement.”

  34

  Company

  KATE

  “Mom.” Carter pounds twice on my bedroom door before barging in. “Mom, get up.”

  The urgency in his voice has me bolting upright. “What is it?”

  “There are people outside.”

  Alarm spikes through me. “What kind of people?” I jam my feet into my shoes. The last time people found us, they stole our food and threatened to kill us.

  “Families.”

  The word stops me cold. “Families?”

  Carter’s lips are tight. “Yeah.”

  I snag my jacket off the floor and pull it on over my T-shirt. Jenna is waiting for us in the hall.

  “Caleb was on watch and spotted them,” she says. “They got here just before sunrise. Caleb has his rifle trained on them.”

  We hustle into the stairwell, up to the third floor, and then climb the ladder to the roof.

  We’ve been busy the past few days, having completed our ring of cars around the compound as an extra line of defense. The only thing we have left to do is place the rebar poles to impale zombies, and there’s a pile in the parking lot waiting for us.

  Caleb, Ben, and Ash are all crouched on the edge of Creekside, rifles to their shoulders. The sky is a murky blue, the rising sun staining the horizon a blotchy yellow.

  I hurry to the edge of the roof, following the line of the rifles to a spot on the ground.

  Between securing our compound and capturing the alpha zom, I’ve been feeling like we’re on top of the madness the world has thrown at us. That feeling goes out the window as I peer between Laurel and Fern dorms.

  Standing just beyond the cars and fencing is a man, hands raised above his head.

  “How many?” I take the binoculars Jenna passes to me.

  “I counted seven,” Caleb replies. “Five adults and two kids. Though there could be others out of eye sight.”

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  “Other than to tell them to halt or risk being shot, no,” Caleb replies.

  “They need to turn their asses around and leave,” Ben growls.

  I focus the binoculars on a man with a scraggly beard and a scuffed brown leather jacket who stands at the forefront of the group. Even in the half-light, I see the gaunt hollows of his cheeks and neck. I recognize the desperate look in his ragged eyes

  I shift the binoculars to the cluster of people behind the lead guy. They look as gaunt and desperate as the man. I see the forms of the kids, but they’re hidden between the adults and I can’t make out their faces.

  “Did they say what they want?” I lower the binoculars, passing them to Carter. The rest of the group has arrived on the rooftop, all of us surveying the newcomers.

  “He asked for help,” Caleb replies grimly, never taking his eyes off the people at the far end of his rifle.

  Help. They look like they need help.

  “I’ll talk to them.” I turn, heading for the ladder.

  “Mom, no.” Carter grabs my arm. “It might not be safe. You remember what happened with Johnson and his crew.”

  How can I forget? Even so, I can’t write off the newcomers without meeting them first.

  “Human beings are few and far between. We can use friends more than we can use enemies,” I reply, repeating something Alvarez once said to me. “I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Ben steps up to my side, eyes narrowed and lips compressed.

  “But—” Carter begins.

  “We have three options,” I reply. “We can shoot them. We can tell them to go away. Or I can talk to them.” The sun has crept up over the last few minutes, making it easier for me to see the ragged group of people on the other side of our car barrier. “I’m going to talk to them.”

  No one tries to stop me as I make my way to the ladder. Ben is on my heels.

  I want to believe there are good survivors out there, like us. People who don’t see the apocalypse as an excuse to indulge the darker side of human nature. Ash, Caleb, and Ben are all examples of that. Susan and Gary, too. We’re a stronger group since they joined us.

  Before we exit Creekside, Ben puts a hand on my arm. “We need a way to signal each other if something goes wrong.”

  I frown. “Like a code word?”

  “Exactly.”

  I think for a moment. “How about Five Leaf?” That was the name of the brewery we holed up in the night we rescued Susan and Gary. I think of that night more often than I should.

  Ben nods, mouth set in a firm line. “Five Leaf. I’ll stay two steps to the right of your five at all times. You do the talking. You see anything off—and I mean anything, Kate—say the word.”

  Taking a deep breath, I head toward the perimeter fencing. The morning is crisp, the asphalt damp from last night’s rain. The air smells fresh, cleansed of the dust and debris that’s hung in the air ever since we blew up College Creek and the library.

  Ben keeps his rifle raised, barely making a sound as he dogs my footsteps. I stop when I’m ten feet away from the newly erected fence, grateful to have it between me and the strangers.

  The man in the battered leather jacket stares at me, hands still raised. I don’t have to turn around to know Caleb and Ash stil
l have rifles trained on him from the rooftop.

  “My name is Kate.” I raise my voice to carry over the line of cars that separates us. I’ve become so accustomed to the quiet—of being quiet—that raising my voice automatically makes me glance around for zombies.

  “I’m Leo.” The bushy man’s eyes dart from Ben to my people on the roof. “This—I—we saw the explosions. We—we came from—” He swallows. Even from twenty feet away, I sense the grief roiling off him.

  My breath catches in my throat. I suddenly know exactly where this ratty band is from. Cold sweat beads my spine.

  “You came from Eureka.”

  He flinches, as though I’ve ferreted out a truth he was trying to hide. “Yes.”

  A low growl of fury rumbles up from Ben.

  “You led that horde straight to us.” Fury washes through me, making it difficult to breathe. I see my knife blade as it slams through Jesus’s temple. I see Lila fall.

  I have a very strong urge to wrap my hands around Leo and strangle him.

  “We didn’t mean to,” Leo whispers. “We were desperate. We’ve been living in in a condo complex in Eureka ever since the outbreak. We’ve been surviving, but we weren’t prepared for—for the zombies getting smart.” His voice is strained. “There were forty-seven people in our community before they hit us. We had no choice but to try and outrun them.”

  Forty-seven.

  Only seven people stand outside our home.

  The thought makes me sick. A pang goes through my heart.

  It’s an effort to keep my face impassive. “We’ve seen it, too. The zombies are evolving.”

  “They’ve become goddamn hunting packs.” Leo’s voice twists with agony.

  “You were in cars. You painted a big target on your backs with all that noise. Hell, we heard you from miles away.”

  “They were everywhere,” Leo replies. “Our complex was overrun. The vehicles were our only options.”

  “You got some of our people killed,” Ben snarls. “When you roared past campus, you brought them right down on us.”

  Leo’s face ripples with anguish. “We didn’t do it on purpose. We didn’t know what else to do.”

  “That doesn’t change the outcome.” Ben’s lips are pressed into a tight line.

  What would I have done, had I been in Leo’s position? Zombies behind us, an impassible car maze in front ... I close my eyes and shake my head. Leo took the only road open to him. I would have done the same thing had I been in his position.

  I stare at the other man, meeting his gaze. He licks his lips, looking back at me with hope.

  “We saw the explosions and hoped to find other survivors on campus,” Leo continues. “It took us over a week to figure how to get here after we ran out of gas ... zombies are everywhere.” This last part trails off in a whisper. I have no doubt he lost people after they ran out of gas.

  “What is it you want?” I need to hear him spell it out.

  Leo stares at me. Seconds tick by.

  “We want to live,” he says finally. “We came here looking for other people. We’ve lost everything ...”

  He looks so lost and so tired it makes my heart ache. I know that look. There have been times when I’ve felt just how he looks. No one can fake that.

  I can’t turn my back on it. Even if these people did inadvertently bring about the deaths of Jesus and Lila. Or maybe it’s because of their loss that I find myself wanting to help. As if doing the right thing can bring us all redemption.

  I glance at Ben, my mind made up. He gives me a tight look.

  “No one comes in without first getting checked for bites,” he says in a voice pitched loud enough for only me to hear. “And they surrender all their weapons.”

  I nod, turning back to Leo. “We’ll be having breakfast soon. You can come in and share a meal with us if you agree to a few conditions.”

  I don’t know what I expected his response to be. A smile of relief, maybe. A heartfelt thanks.

  What I don’t expect is for Leo’s shoulders to slump, as if a giant weight has just slid off them. He puts a hand over his eyes, a quiver running through his body.

  Ben stiffens, bringing the rifle up.

  “Don’t.” I put out a hand, pressing on his shoulder. “Don’t. It’s okay.”

  A single sob breaks out of Leo’s throat. It’s a sound of mingled sorrow and relief. He wipes his eyes and turns, beckoning to his tiny group of fellow survivors.

  “Name your terms,” he says in a quavering voice.

  “Everyone surrenders their weapons and agrees to a full inspection for bites. No one comes in here with a bite.”

  “Or anything that looks like a bite,” Ben mutters.

  “Or anything that looks like a bite,” I amend.

  Leo is nodding before I even finish. “Yes, okay. Whatever you say.”

  I don’t even think he’s listening to me. I could probably ask for his right foot and he’d hand it over.

  “Come on,” Leo calls to his people. “It’s all right. They’re going to help us.”

  His people creep forward. They’re filthy and hollow-eyed. They look like they’ve barely eaten. Their clothing is torn and caked with grime.

  When they look at me, my throat tightens. I may have failed Jesus, and I may have failed Lila. Hell, in some ways, I even failed Frederico.

  Maybe, just maybe, I can begin to make up for it by helping these people. There’s room in Creekside for new family members.

  35

  Newcomers

  BEN

  He watches the newcomers devour their food like starved dogs. They smell like death. They don’t look much better.

  Ben is trying to sort out which he dislikes more: having an alpha zombie and two regular zoms locked up in Juniper for observation, or having strangers in Creekside. He’s still undecided.

  He personally made the men strip down and let him check them for bites. They had their fair share of bruises and scrapes and cuts, but he’d found no bites.

  “We don’t hang onto the bitten,” Leo told Ben when he inspected the man. “We’re not stupid.”

  Ben didn’t ask him to elaborate on those statements. He tried not to look too long at the sunken ribcage and clear signs of hunger that clung to the members of the group. Besides a few small backpacks with bottles of water and some candy bars, they appeared to have nothing other than the clothes on their backs.

  Even so, Ben keeps his guard up. It could all be a ruse. He prefers to err on the side of paranoia.

  They had few weapons, mostly knives. A few had short spears of rebar. No firearms of any kind. They surrendered everything without argument.

  The seven newcomers now sat in a tight cluster on the floor, eating spaghetti that Gary made for breakfast.

  Ben wants to blame them for Lila and Jesus’s deaths. It would be easy. But he’s been in enough battles to know shit happens. It’s not their fault.

  There are two kids in the group. They scarf their food down like ravenous animals, not even bothering to use their silverware. Ben hasn’t see kids like this since he served in Africa. The sight grinds away at his intrinsic hostility to strangers.

  Kate tries to keep an impassive expression, but she’s no good at it. Or maybe it’s just because Ben watches her so often he’s become good at reading her. The plight of these people picks at her heartstrings.

  She’s going to let them stay. He sees it in her eyes. These half starved, half dead strangers will fill the part of her that’s been empty since Lila and Jesus died. They could not have picked a better place to come calling.

  “We have some spare rooms you can use,” Kate tells them when they finish eating. “You can freshen up and get some rest. We have running water. It’s cloudy today so it probably won’t be warm, but you can at least wash up. We’ll get everyone new clothes.”

  “Will you let us stay?” asks a woman with gray-blond hair. Her name is Stacy.

  “We can talk about that tomorrow,” Kate
replies. “If you stay, you have to pull your weight.”

  “We can work.” Leo sets down his empty bowl. “We can help. We can help with whatever you need. I worked on a farm before all hell broke loose.”

  “What kind of farm?” Carter asks.

  “Marijuana farm.” Leo shifts, unease suddenly in his eyes. “It was a legal one for medicinal cannabis. I managed the grow beds. I saw your indoor garden downstairs. I can help with that. Expand it.”

  They could use an indoor gardening expert. Especially after the loss of the library. They could use anyone who knows anything about growing things.

  “We’ll talk later,” Kate says. “First, we’ll take you to a spare dorm suite. You can freshen up and rest.”

  Ben takes up a rearguard position with Caleb as the newcomers file into the hall after Kate. The two of them exchange glances. For once, Ben feels no animosity toward the other man. From the look on his face, Caleb is as wary of the newcomers as Ben is. Good. That means he’ll be vigilant. They need vigilance with so many strangers in their home.

  Kate doesn’t take them to any of the empty suits on the second floor. Instead, she leads them up to the third floor. Ben approves of this. All the food and weapons are stored on the second floor. He knows Kate wants to give these people the benefit of the doubt, but at least she’s being sensible.

  The small group of survivors enters the empty suite with a look of awe and appreciation. The plain kitchen and living room with its band posters must feel like a safe haven after the hell they’ve endured.

  “Did you clear out this place yourselves?” Leo asks.

  “Yes,” Kate says. “This is our home. It’s called Creekside.”

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” he replies, clearly not missing the way Kate leaned on the words our home.

  Jenna and Carter bring in two black garbage bags stuffed with clothes we’ve gathered from the dorm rooms.

  “Hope there’s something in here for everyone,” Carter says. “If there’s a size missing we can take a look in some of the other rooms.”