Waking Up Dead

“I’m not sure yet. I’m really not.”

She looked upward, toward the mansion Luke said was above, and felt her stomach sink. “If the zombies can turn locks, then surely they’ll find a way into the bunker?”

“They don’t know where the trapdoors are, and there’s no way they can get in through the walls.”

“But…” Jackson tried to get her thoughts in order. She’d always known the dead awoke changed. Biologically and mentally. But hadn’t part of her always questioned things others, in the beginning, had seemed to ignore? Like why did they come back to the last place they’d been? Why did family members hunt down others? And why did they sometimes eat in a way that seemed to prolong the pain and terror? This idea of intelligence bothered her, but it wasn’t as hard to accept as she might have thought.

“From what I saw with my own eyes earlier and from what you’ve just told me, they seem to have discovered some basic skills. What’s to stop them watching us and following us through that door.” She gestured to the entrance they’d used.

Luke frowned. “They don’t have the patience to follow someone.”

“They didn’t use to plan shit out either, but now they do.”

She shuddered and ran a hand through her short, damp hair. God, she missed her long black hair, but long hair in this world was the equivalent of shouting, “grab it, pull my scalp off.” Another shudder and she rested her hand back on her lap, her mind a whirr of thoughts.

“Those doors are metal too,” Luke said. “And the zombies don’t know where they are.”

“Not yet, but you know, as well as I do, that doors are always the weak point. If enough of them pound on it for long enough… How long since you checked the other one, the one that leads to the basement?”

“Not for a while,” Luke admitted.

“Then maybe—”

He frowned and then nodded slowly. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll go check the other door.”

…

Jackson’s green-eyed gaze followed Luke as he made his way back through the living space to the basement door. He made an effort to look cheery and awake as he left the room, despite the fact his chest throbbed, his head pounded, and he wanted nothing more than to collapse on his bed.

Trouble was he didn’t want Jackson thinking he wasn’t up to the job of making sure they were both safe. Especially considering the fact that she’d practically saved him in the pool room. He knew, of course, why it was important for her to see him as a rescuer. Had known the moment his gaze had fixed on her purple panties, and if not then, certainly when he’d met her very green eyes.

He ran his fingers along the entrance. It was still perfectly intact, the thick metal as sturdy as ever—just as he’d known it would be. He considered unlocking it and checking the ladder up to the trapdoor but was fairly certain that he’d find nothing amiss. The zombies had yet to find it, despite the fact that they’d haunted the rooms above for the last month. His own stupidity, of course. He deeply regretted giving in to the urge to see what was in the building above.

Idiot.

When he returned to the living space, Jackson was bent down lacing up her boots. He paused for just a moment to feast his eyes on her, and despite his extreme tiredness felt his groin stir. Part of him was extremely pleased to note his libido was working as well as ever. The other part remembered Tye and rallied against it. Why the hell couldn’t he have ended up with a single woman? One who’d be glad to cuddle up on the cold nights? Life was so fucking unfair.

She stood and smiled and Luke’s heart stuttered. “I’m gonna go check out that store.”

“Right now?”

“Yeah. I can’t leave it any longer.”

Luke sighed inwardly and opened the drawer of his cabinet. “We may have killed off a few packs, but there are others, Jackson. There’s at least a few hundred of them, maybe even a couple of thousand, around here. They’ll come looking for us soon enough.”

Jackson nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“We could end up running into them.” He paused for a moment. “And we’re both pretty beat.”

“I hear what you’re saying, Luke,” she said. “I don’t expect you to come with me.”

He snorted. “You’re probably worse off than me. When did you last sleep?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. A while ago, but I never needed much sleep even when the world was normal. Five or six hours at most. I’m not on my chinstrap yet.”

Luke started, because Jackson’s military slang made him think immediately of Pete, one of his friends from the old world. He’d been an army man, though Luke never knew exactly what he’d done, and swore that four hours of shut-eye a night was enough for any man to get by on. Pete wasn’t around very often. His job kept him away, but Luke had met Pete’s wife—now the zombie Lily—on several occasions. They’d holed up together along with several other survivors in the local police station a few weeks after everything had started going wrong. But, of course, the zombies had found them.

Pete had been awake for more than thirty hours and had insisted he was fine to head outside with Luke and two others to take down the pack before they could find their way inside. But despite his words, it’s not chinstrap time yet, the tiredness had taken its toll and Pete had gotten sloppy. The dead had gotten in through the door Pete had been guarding, and Luke had watched through the front bolted door, unable to do a goddamn thing, as one had taken a sizeable chunk out of Lily’s neck. She’d died immediately, only to awake minutes later—faster than any zombie he’d ever seen.

Luke’s stomach clenched as he remembered the calculating gleam in her eyes when he’d seen her earlier. He didn’t realize she’d been around all this time, busy eating his fellow survivors. Which was stupid. He should have. The zombies tended to stay where they had lived, probably because it didn’t occur to them to go anywhere else. He wondered again where Pete was now, the last he’d seen of him he had been holding Lily down as she had tried to rip a piece of his face off…

“You don’t have to come,” Jackson repeated, and Luke shook off thoughts of Pete’s whereabouts and that he’d probably killed the Lily zombie with his last grenade.

“Of course I do. You’ll never make it back here alive.”

“You think?”

He remembered her bad-assness and laughed, then realized she hadn’t said she wouldn’t be coming back… “Okay, you might, but I have no intention of leaving you to face them alone. You say you’re good, but that fight in the pool room must have taken a lot out of you.”

She shook her head. “It didn’t take everything, and I have to be sure Tye’s not waiting for me.”

He could understand that. Jealousy aside, of course he could, and though Luke wanted nothing more than to sleep for thirty hours straight, there was no question whether he’d go with her. He’d only just found her, hadn’t he? And if Tye was alive, well hell, he’d invite them both to stay. Their Texas plan was ridiculous and he had more than enough for everyone for a good while yet. The guy was probably decent. He’d hung with Jackson after all, and she seemed as straight as an arrow. And if he’s dead? Luke was unwilling to even think about that yet.

“At least if I look, I’ll be sure,” she added. “Then it’ll just be a question of heading back to the interstate. He’ll wait there for me.”

Luke took three grenades—his last three grenades—and a Glock out of the drawer, before passing them across to Jackson. He’d deal with the whole interstate thing later. “You know how to use these?”

“The Glock 19? Yeah. I learned years ago, long before the zombie invasion. I had my own until about three months ago. Lost it somewhere in Ohio. Gotta love the lack of a safety.” She shifted and eyed the grenades. “You keep those.”

“Check your gun.”

She did, her movement swift and efficient, before giving him a nod.

“Luke, I’m sorry to drag you out again, especially as you went to save him the first time. I just want you to know I appreciate it.”

He pocketed the grenades himself and reloaded his own guns. Unlike Jackson, he hadn’t known how to check a gun over until the waking dead had arrived. He’d never even held one before then. Pete had actually shown him when they had holed up in the police station.