Glock in my jeans. I’ll never go anywhere unarmed no matter what.”
“It’s different here, babe. You don’t need to be on a constant guard. Just keep the gun on you and let’s hope they have some more ammo.”
She sighed, her worries rushing back all over again. “Everything
“You’ll settle in. You’ll be settled in before you know it. And I’ll only be gone a few hours. We’ll meet back up here at midday, okay?”
He took her in his arms and ran fingers up and down her back. Jackson closed her eyes and allowed the sensations to settle over her. Both comforting and exciting her all at once. But underneath that, prodding her from deep inside, the feeling of safety battled with the nagging unfinished thoughts.
And even as Luke’s hands made their way down her body and tugged at the waistband of her pants, Jackson couldn’t help but wonder what the hell she was going to do next.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The survivors had an excellent fleet of vehicles, and Luke whistled as he walked up and down between the rows. “Where the hell did you get the Hummers from?”
Pete laughed. “There was a guy in a town over. He fixed them up for some big security firm. His son ended up here and told us about them.”
“And the guy?”
“Dead probably,” Pete said. “Like all the others. His kid’s doing well though. He helps out in here.”
“So does everyone have a role here, then?” Luke asked, thinking of Jackson. He knew he’d fucked up royally this morning by not considering what she was going to do with herself. He’d just been so excited at the prospect of fiddling with cars again—something so normal, and she was so fiercely independent he didn’t consider her in those terms. Jackson did what the hell she wanted when she wanted. She’d find her place, he didn’t doubt it, but the more information he gathered from Pete, the more options he’d have to suggest to her. “People are given stuff to do?”
Pete handed him a tool bag and together they bent down to start separating everything out.
“Yeah,” he said. “Nancy pretty much runs the place. She started all this in the first place. Building the towers, looting supplies. I think she used to be a cop and she led most everyone here. Anyway, she comes up with the strategic plans, which are then put to a sort of rough vote. Hands-in-the-air style. Mack kind of backs her up. We have people who do the cooking, some clean, some look after the kiddies, others make stuff. We’ve got techie people who spend their time trying to get shit running again. Sebastian is our doctor, total geek, and then there’s Layla, she’s the midwife—though, as you can imagine, there’s none of that happening. Who the hell wants to bring kids into this world?”
“And you?”
Pete shrugged. “There’s a bunch of us who are, well, for all intents and purposes, the army I guess—ironic huh? Considering my former profession? We man the boundaries of the camp, go out foraging, killing off any zombies who come too close. It’s the tough bastards in our group. The ones who’ve nothing left to lose and can’t quite accept this place.”
“What do you mean?” Luke asked. “Isn’t everyone happy to be here? Somewhere safe?” He was a fair way to accepting it already, overjoyed to finally find himself in the mix with so many people again. He was almost annoyed with himself for leaving it so long to strike out. If Jackson hadn’t been there to push him…
As he’d made his way to the garage, he’d spun all sorts of fantasies. They’d grow, gather more people, maybe even have a fortified city someday. More than that though, he was delighted that Jackson was safe. After that moment in the garage, when he’d thought the end had come for both of them, something had clicked inside of Luke. His protective tendencies had been pushed to the back by her natural take-no-shit attitude. Now they came roaring to the fore again. It had felt so amazing last night to settle into bed with her. To brush her spiky hair and plant a kiss on her cheek without having to worry that a zombie was going to come barreling in at any moment. Now, he knew there was no need for her to constantly look over her shoulder, to spend all her time so stressed out. Waking up to see her this morning relaxing on the couch had filled him with a happiness he hadn’t felt in a long time. Obviously, things weren’t completely normal. The zombies were still out there, and she was still twitchy. But here in this camp, he and Jackson could have a little bit of ordinary, and the thought filled him with pleasure.
Pete passed him a crescent wrench. “Some people, and I’m one of them, by the time they get here they’re not—ah shit I don’t even know how to explain it.”
“Pretend we’re back in my garage and you’re trying to explain the ticking noise in your Mustang.”
“I miss that car.”
“I miss my garage.”
“Well, look, I lost Lily, you saw that,” Pete began. The shadow that crossed his face spoke plenty on his thoughts about that. Pete and Lily had been inseparable. The love between them had been obvious for all to see. The lack of that now in Pete’s life was apparent. Despite his cheery facade, he was a broken man. It pained Luke to see it. “I made my way down here purely on instinct and because I had nothing else to do,” Pete continued. “I was planning to cross over the border and head into Mexico when I saw the signs.”
“The signs?”
“Nancy had a team go out a year or so ago and paint some of the walls around the crossings. Basically instructions on how to get to a drop-off point, not to the camp you understand, we have to be careful, but somewhere we can check for survivors.”
“Smart move,” Luke said.
Pete shrugged. “Only one of the guys came back so it wasn’t that smart, but we’ve only added about fifty extra people because of them…so yeah…maybe it was.”
“And you found these signs?” Luke prompted.
“Well yeah,” Pete said. “I thought if I could find others, I could start putting myself back together again. I was on the edge, seriously considering shit you do not want to know about.”
Luke thought about Jackson on the observation deck. “I can understand that.”
“Trouble is…” He paused and stood. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“We’ve all lost everything.”
“It’s easier for people like you,” Pete said, though there was no resentment in his voice, just a sort of deadness. “People who come here with a skill. Look at you. Already you’re here and you’ll be lucky if you ever leave this garage again. We need you. You wouldn’t believe how pleased Nancy and Mack were when they found out you were a mechanic. I’ve fiddled with the cars and Jace has helped, but pretty soon we’ll need someone with more knowledge—hell, we already do. It’s like that for Sebastian and Layla and some of the others. They have a purpose. So they can forget at times about the zombies and concentrate on doing something for the community. That sort of shit keeps you going, you know?”
Luke popped open the hood of one of the Hummers, nudging Pete aside. “I guess. I mean, I can understand where you’re coming from. But surely in a community this size everyone is needed?”
“Yes,” Pete agreed. “But mostly they’re needed for defense. So everyone who isn’t needed for other things does that. We’re the goddamn army. Which means we never get to forget, even for a minute, about the zombies. We’re fighting them daily. They’re hungry now. More willing to risk the heat, and we can’t let them build up and mount an attack. So that’s what we do and here’s the thing…” He paused again and Luke waited, knowing that Pete would get there when he was ready.
The sounds of activity washed over them both. People going to and fro about their business. Kiddies on their way to lessons, maybe, little Sammy probably one of them. Meals being prepared, gadgets fixed. It was like an echo of lost times and Luke reveled in it.
“We like it,” Pete finally said.
