“I get it,” he reassured her. “Of course I do. He’s your boyfriend—of course you need to be sure.”
Jackson paused in her gun prep and gaped. “What?”
“Tye. Your boyfriend, yeah?”
She smiled then and let out a long, slow laugh. “Ermm, no, he’s not. Tye’s a buddy, almost like a brother, nothing more.”
“What?”
“We’re friends,” she said. “There’s nothing like that between us. There never has been. We just didn’t click that way.”
Suddenly Luke didn’t feel quite so tired anymore.
Chapter Eleven
The Barbie brothel was not only a ruin, it was deserted. Not a person in sight, dead or alive. Well there were parts, quite a few in fact. Severed arms, a leg, and what looked suspiciously like a shrunken penis. Jackson tiptoed around them and the charred remains of a bunch of clothes, Glock in her hand, Mandy wrapped in a tee and strapped to her waist with one of Luke’s belts.
She looked all over, past the serving counter and the rooms that had once been changing areas and were now smoldering heaps of wood. When she saw nothing she started to look through the body parts. They were mostly burned, the bits that weren’t mottled and vile, weeping pus and gore. None of them were strong and healthy or the amazing cafe-au-lait color of Tye.
He was not here and she sighed unsteadily, because part of her was starting to question if Tye really had made it out of this one. The only way to be sure was to head to the interstate, the very clear route they both had to get down south, and if he wasn’t there…
Jackson scowled to dispel the tight feeling in her chest as she gathered some unburned jeans and a sweater, the possibility of getting to the interstate and not finding Tye weighing heavily on her shoulders. And though she had enough depressing thoughts, her mind abruptly filled with the image of Jayne, another companion from the early months. They’d met while hunting for food in a deserted Wal-Mart and had hit it off immediately. Why wouldn’t they? Neither had seen another person for weeks at that point. But the waking dead had found them late at night while Jayne was on watch. The poor girl’s bloodcurdling scream had been the only thing that had awoken Jackson from a too-brief sleep and had allowed her to not only shoot her dying friend, but to make a run for it. The image of Jayne’s missing arms, zombies lapping up the gushing blood, not to mention the back of her brain exploding outward, was placed immediately behind its own never-to-be-removed barrier. She’d given a mental good-bye then. She did not want to have to give one to Tye too.
“You okay?” Luke whispered.
Jackson picked up a pair of uncharred pink fluffy socks, appliqued with skulls and crossbones—how apt— and nodded. “Yeah.”
“She’s not here,” Luke said, and Jackson grabbed a woolen hat to add to her pile. She stuffed all the clothes in her pack, bar the hat, which she put on, and swung it back on. It was getting heavy now and that was a problem. Weighing oneself down with goods was a stupid idea. You couldn’t fight properly if you had extra pounds on your back, and yet she needed her precious food resources, not to mention the other things.
“Huh?”
“No sign of her.”
For one moment she thought Luke was referring to Jayne and she looked at him, puzzled. “Who isn’t?”
“The zombie Lily.”
“Oh. Well, no, there aren’t any of them here. I picked up on that with us being alive and all.”
“I meant the pieces.” Luke gestured to the limbs lining the floor. “I can’t see her head or anything.”
“Maybe she got fried, or she got away?”
“But then why wasn’t she with the others when they attacked?”
Jackson shrugged. “I dunno, but now’s not the time to be wondering about zombie whereabouts.” She pulled Mandy free of the tee, hooking it on her waistband opposite the Glock, so that a weapon would be ready for each hand. “Tye’s not here either so there’s no point in us hanging around.”
She turned toward the entrance but halted the moment a flash of red caught her eye. It was patch of leather, and it was very familiar to her. Jackson gasped as she hurried over to it, bending down amidst the rubble to pull it free. The patch was attached to a pack, a black one. It had been poorly applied because the person who owned the pack hadn’t had much to work with at the time, but even later, when other bags were available, he’d stuck with this one.
His lucky pack.
Her heart thudded as she laid the Glock on the floor, unzipped it, and checked the contents. A lighter. A flask. A pack of purification tablets. “No…”
“What is it?”
Jackson swallowed past the lump in her throat, barely able to get the words out. “This is Tye’s pack.”
Luke walked over and bent next to her. “Maybe he dropped it?”
She shook her head. “He would never have left this behind. No way. These things are our life. Our survival totally depends on them.”
“Jackson…”
“No matter what he would have come back for this. He’s completely vulnerable without it.”
“Then…”
She swallowed again, the grit in the air making her throat hurt. If Tye hadn’t come back for his pack, it could only mean one thing, and her chest ached as she imagined it. “He can’t be dead,” she whispered. “Not Tye.”
“We can try the interstate,” Luke said. “Come up with a plan.”
Jackson nodded, mainly because she did not know what else to do, because she did not want to believe what was rapidly becoming reality. She lifted Tye’s pack and hooked it around her arm. But Luke stepped forward and took it from her, shrugging it on without so much of a word.
The streets were as deserted as the shop, apart from the massive amounts of rubbish and abandoned cars, and, of course, the ever-present blood splatters. Jackson looked down at her feet and was unsurprised to see bits of gore all over her boots, flecks of ash stuck to them.
Luke was right next to her as they made their way down the sidewalk, his eyes watchful, his stance protective. She could see he was tired, and then some, but he’d put himself out yet again just to accompany her. And it occurred to her then—because it hadn’t really, not before—how lucky she was to have met him, and she resolved to concentrate on that rather than worry over Tye’s disappearance.
She often did that—concentrated on the good rather than remembering the bad. As a strategy it worked. As a way to stay even nominally sane, not so much. The bad stuff just licked at the edges…but still…she eyed Luke again. Not only did he have food, clean water, and shower gel, but he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. In the real world, aka pre-dead people rising, she’d have accepted a date from him in a New York minute, assuming they’d ever met, or he’d even looked in her direction. Jackson was not oblivious to the difference in terms of their attractiveness. Luke was one of those guys she’d always sighed over but never actually got to date. Of course, the pool was significantly smaller now and besides
A quick fantasy flash shot through her mind. She imagined them finding Tye, the three of them striking out together, and the idea almost made her smile. It wasn’t a lot to ask for was it? To have the man that was like a brother, and the other that was already something else entirely, with her in this ruined world.
“Careful,” Luke whispered, pointing to a crack in the road. “You’ll disappear down there if you’re not careful.”
“I got it,” she said, the fantasy disappearing as quickly as it had come.
He smiled at her as they walked past an old street stall, and abruptly she remembered the light she’d seen
