“I was always more like my dad…like my brothers…you have no idea how much I miss them all.” Her voice cracked on the last word and Jackson clamped her lips shut.
“I know how hard it was for you to tell me that,” Luke said. “But as time goes on it will be easier. I promise, Jack, much easier.”
“It never gets easier.”
“That was because you weren’t with me before.”
“Is that right?”
He kissed her palm again and Jackson shivered. “We fit. We work. We would have even if the world didn’t end.”
“I want to get to safety,” she whispered. “I want us to be able to lie on a bed somewhere and sleep at the same time and know that we don’t have to keep watch. I want us to walk out and about, holding hands, not guns. I mean, obviously I will keep watch because that would just be stupid, and I’d have Mandy still, but…”
He nodded slowly, interrupting her babbling.
“I get what you mean. Though you’ve never struck me as a hand-holding kinda girl.”
“A time or two.”
“Then that’s the first thing we’ll do when we get there.”
“And if we don’t?” she asked, all seriousness now. “If the south is as overrun as up north? If there’s no camp in Laredo? There’s no safety but in our minds? What then, Luke? What will we do?”
It was the first time she’d asked him that question, the first time she’s suggested that it might not all be as she wanted. But Luke did not mention that. He simply nodded slowly, ruffled her hair, and smiled.
“Then we’ll have each other,” he said moving forward for another kiss, maybe more, “and Jack, there’s no doubt you’d look fucking fantastic with a tan.”
Chapter Twenty-three
The little girl sat on the edge of the sidewalk, the place where the lawn of the house behind her was starting to overtake. She was dressed in a dirty white dress, with dirty white bows at the end of her braids, and held a patchwork doll under her arm.
Her head was lowered, her face shadowed, and she was perfectly still.
Luke slowed the car to a halt but kept it running. The sound of the motor ticking over the only noise beyond their rapid breathing. Finally, it was Jackson who broke the silence, her words soft and halting.
“Why is she so still?”
“I’m not sure,” Luke said, trying and failing to understand the sight in front of him. He swept the area carefully, taking in everything he could see. But the quiet, residential streets, baking in the afternoon sun, gave nothing away. A chill crawled down his spine all the same. It would be impossible to say how much was wrong with this situation beyond a lot.
Jackson shifted in her seat. “I thought for a moment there…”
“What?”
The little girl sat, unmoving, a mere fifty feet in front of them. Only the very slight breeze ruffled the lace of her dress.
She shifted again. “She almost looks normal.”
“You know she can’t be human,” he said softly. “Not after this long.”
An arm moved, the one holding the doll. The barest of a twitch but they saw it all the same. Luke waited, expecting more, but the arm remained in place.
“I’ve never seen a zombie so still,” Jackson whispered. “Especially not a child one. She can hear us, smell us. Her instinct alone should have her attacking.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know, but…”
“What?” Luke prompted.
“That dress looks weird,” Jackson said.
“Weird how?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. But after near on two years it should be much dirtier, ragged, but it’s not. I mean, how many naked zombies have we seen? And those braids, they look like they’ve just been done.”
“The dress has mud all over it.”
“But the patches without mud look clean. Like it’s fresh on but she got it messy. And she’s holding a doll, Luke. How many zombies have you ever seen holding dolls?”
“Meaning?”
“Either she’s only recently turned, or she’s still human.”
Luke sucked in a shocked breath. His mind instantly rejected what Jackson hinted at. “What you’re suggesting is impossible! Completely fucked-up.”
“A horde was impossible two weeks ago.”
He scanned the street again, his gaze going from building to building. He felt antsy and oddly panicked. He hadn’t wanted to come down this way in the first place, but it was, once again, the quickest route. They were just a few hours or so from Laredo, a few more miles. Surely nothing could stop them now?
“Jackson,” he began, “there is no way in hell that girl is still human, and if she was, whoever is looking after her sure as hell wouldn’t let her play outside like a free meal.”
“It’s hotter here. The zombies might not come out.”
And it was hot. Luke agreed with that. The further south they traveled, the higher the temperature, especially this close to the border. They’d dispensed with their sweaters a while back and the sight of Jackson in only a vest was enough to put a smile on his face as they drove the long road south. It was enough to make him smile at night as well. As he held her. As they pleasured one another. Finding time, even in the horror, to love. But the waking dead, well, they were hungry and the heat would not be enough of a deterrent.
“They’d come,” he argued. “They’ll take the heat if it means food. Sure they’ll be slower and easier to kill, but still, slower hardly matters when there’s twenty odd of them.”
Jackson turned in her seat, squinting out at the small, still child. “So she must be one of them, then.” She didn’t sound convinced. “There’s no other explanation.”
“So we should go.”
“No. First we should check. If only to understand how she looks so pristine. Why those braids haven’t unraveled.”
Luke sighed at the resolve in her voice but said, “She’ll just try to kill us.”
“I know.”
“And then we’ll have to sever her head.”
Jackson sucked in a shocked breath, loud enough for him to hear, and jerked to look at him. “You’re seriously not suggesting we behead her? She’s just a child.”
“We have no choice, not if she tries to take a chunk out of us. You know that.”
“Yes…but…it’s just a kid.”
“I…” Luke paused, unsure how to continue. He’d had to take down more than one small zombie in his time, and though it had torn him up after, he’d had no choice. Logically he knew they were zombies, that they thought only of eating him, but he could also see where Jackson’s protest came from. The girl in front of them still
“She’s a zombie,” he said finally. “She’s no longer a child.”
“I know that,” Jackson said. “I don’t want to behead her though—call me a wimp if you will—but it feels wrong. I’ll sink Mandy through as many zombies as I can, but not children.”
Luke shook his head at the differences he once again saw in Jackson’s personality. Like her hands, soft and
