Waking Up Dead

“Everyone I knew is dead,” he reassured. “So I’m thinking it’s not just you.”

“Perhaps.”

Go south with Jackson? Go looking for a camp that probably doesn’t exist? The idea whirred around his brain and he was stunned to find he didn’t reject it immediately. It was odd. He’d known her for a few hours, but that didn’t seem to count for shit right now. She was another person, a human! And those were few and far between. More than that though, Jackson seemed like a genuine kinda girl, the sort he’d have made an effort to get to know even before the end of the world.

They skirted around the park. Luke loved this spot. He could see all around him at this time of year, and there was no chance of anything sneaking up on him here. It was why he’d run down it in the first place when being chased, and what had led him to his bunker.

Ah, the bunker. Could he really give it up? It had kept him safe for months, offered him every single thing he needed to survive. It was his haven and he knew without a doubt he’d have been dead long ago without it. On the surface, the idea of leaving that behind to trek a treacherous road south, with only the faint possibility of finding a zombie-free land full of healthy survivors, seemed like nonsense. But there was Jackson and already he hated the thought of her riding out of his life.

What about in ten years or twenty or, hell, forty, assuming we live that long?

She had a fucking point. He couldn’t deny that and he’d often wondered himself what’d happen, assuming he even lived.

“Will you think about it, Luke,” she asked as they approached the mansion.

He already was but as her small hand, Glock gripped tightly, brushed his arm and he looked down into her perfect green eyes he sort of forgot that. A weird sensation shifted through his chest and he swallowed drily.

“Yeah. I will.”

One last look around, Jackson’s words of earlier ringing in his ears, and they squeezed through the hedge. It only took a minute or two to jog the inclined perimeter and make their way to the shed.

“I’m looking forward to just sitting still for a couple of minutes.” Jackson sighed. “It feels like it’s been days.”

“Yeah, for me too.” He put his gun in his left hand as he removed the girder that kept the shed door propped tightly shut. “Can you manage some more food?”

“Do dead people wake back up?”

He laughed and opened the door, happiness, totally ridiculous happiness, spiking through him.

“We can—Fuck!” Luke pushed the door shut as fast as he possibly could, his heart hammering in his chest, adrenaline zipping through him at light speed. The happiness of only a second ago gone, replaced with pure, crystal-clear panic.

“What—”

“Run,” he roared, and of course Jackson did without so much as a word.

The pounding started mere seconds later, and then the awful sound of wood breaking. Luke raced across the lawn, sweat dripping down his spine.

“The hedge!” he shouted. “Get back to the fucking hedge.”

She raced with him, both of them pumping their arms to get traction. Please God, let us make it, he prayed. Because a myriad of death groans were filling the air now, he heard them like a deafening roar, and if they didn’t get to that gap, they were trapped, as good as dead.

“Move,” she shouted and Luke saw the gap in the brush before they barreled through the space that mere moments ago had felt like a safe haven. His muscles clenched and though he didn’t want to turn, Luke knew he had to. The last thing he saw as they sprinted across the street was the sight of an enraged face with far too much intelligence sparking in its eyes.

The dead Lily.

Chapter Thirteen

“That’ll be fine,” Luke said, slumping down, eyes closed, against the wall.

“It’s more than fine, we’re well hidden, well protected,” Jackson told him, easing her grip on Mandy’s abused hilt. “You did well bringing us here. We’re safe for tonight, Luke. Just, let’s just worry later, okay?”

They were in the office of one of his friend’s garages. A dead, or possibly zombified friend obviously. The room was big enough to allow them space to fight, but small enough that it was cut off from the main building. It also had two exits, both of which were now blocked with filing cabinets. For a quick, run, flee, find shelter excursion, Jackson was feeling pretty pleased.

Luke so obviously wasn’t.

Slowly she bent down, joining him on the floor, and reached out to run a hand across his head only to pull back at the last minute. He looked exhausted and…haunted. She didn’t even know how to start comforting him.

He shook his head and said the words they were both thinking. “I can’t believe she found the trapdoor.”

“I know.”

“If we hadn’t gone to look for Tye, she might have found a way into the bunker. They all might have. We’d have been trapped.”

“I know.”

“Jesus Christ, Jack. It’s completely compromised…” He shook his head and trailed off.

“Do you need to talk about this, Luke?” Jackson asked. “To talk it through? It might make you feel better. I know in the beginning there were a fair few times I wanted to talk to someone when something awful had happened. When I was so scared and so worried and every noise, every slight movement made me jump out of my skin.”

“But not now?”

“Not now, what?”

“You said in the beginning.”

“Oh, well yeah, but there was never anyone there to talk to so I got out of the habit.” She paused. “Well, no that’s not true. I had Tye, and Jayne at times, but for the main I’ve been on my own. It gets a bit pointless talking when there’s no one there to answer, you know?”

“I guess,” Luke said. “But we have each other to talk to now.”

Jackson nodded, sort of touched by that comment, even as her head was mentally shaking. Fact was, habits usually got replaced with another habit. Like a smoker who switched to sunflower seeds or an alcoholic who started to run marathons. Her habit of talking her feelings through had long since been replaced with the habit of bottling all the bad stuff into one horrid little place in her mind. It was just her way of dealing. It happened, she locked it away, and tried not to think of it again. Of course, Jackson wasn’t stupid. She knew that eventually it’d all come tumbling out. That she’d have to think about things, talk about them. She planned to put it off until she had no choice, but clearly Luke’s try-and-keep-sane strategy was different. It would be good for him to talk about things.

The irony wasn’t lost on her. Good for him but not for her. Her brain jabbed and admonished but she ignored it. Whatever.

“Now they know where the entrance is, they’ll get through the trapdoor eventually,” Luke said after a moment. “Even if we sneak through the house and get back into the bunker through the basement, it’s not safe anymore.”

“This is my fault,” Jackson said, guilt prodding her. “If you hadn’t come out to help us, you’d be fine.”

He laughed but there was no humor in it and he didn’t open his eyes. “She’d have smelled me there regardless, whether it was today, tomorrow, or next week. It has to be the Old Spice, like with the Lynx. The scent doesn’t cover our tracks anymore. This is far from your fault.”

“You’re sure?”