Waking Up Dead

against her palm.

“I don’t know.”

He shook his head and grimaced, but did not pull away from her touch. Jackson got the feeling he never would.

“Then he’s looking for a cure? A way to bring them back completely, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you, Jack. What’s your part in all of this? You keep an eye on them. Protect the doctor, is that it?”

“It is.” She thought of the moment earlier when Sebastian had explained her role and how easy he’d made it all sound. Well almost all of it…

“And is that all?”

She shifted, removed her hand, and turned to look back at Two-h-ee. It was spraying pus bubbles now, little breaths that shot the pus up, though of course, gravity brought it back down and it landed on its face. Little puddles around the snarl glinted in the light and Jackson had to take a shallow breath through her nose. The smell really was atrocious. No wonder people got sick of it.

“Jack?” Luke prompted.

She knew he wasn’t going to like her next words and Jackson had to kind of gird herself to say them. “Well…I have to catch them too.”

Silence for a couple of moments and then Luke exploded. “I hope you’re fucking joking.”

“You know I don’t joke. But it’s not as bad as it sounds. Around here, the packs are destroyed pretty quickly, so you can find an odd zombie now and then. And the heat slows them down.”

He growled and stepped forward, nose scrunching. “Jesus Christ, Jack. We spent weeks trying to find our way here. To find safety. At last we have that. But the moment it lands in your lap, you throw it away again. Explain that to me please. Why would you do that? Why search for something for so long if you were only going to reject it when you had it?”

“I was searching for answers,” Jackson said “You know that. Seb can give me those answers.”

“Yes, but you don’t need to go zombie hunting to get them.”

“It’s not just that,” she said, trying to make him understand. “The moment Seb started talking I just knew this was where I was supposed to be. All the questions I’ve had. Their weird behavior? Seb can answer all of that. Yeah, he’s a bit odd, and I didn’t really get most of what he said, but if there’s any chance at all that he’s right, Luke, I have to help in whatever way I can.” She paused the rushing words as Two-h-ee gave a howl. “You understand right, Luke? How much it means to me to be able to contribute, to have a purpose. To try and help. After all,” she added, “you’re doing the exact same thing with the cars.”

“I’m fixing fucking engines, not putting on a two-man stand against the end of the world.”

“Hardly that.”

“It could all come to nothing,” he said. “But that is not the issue. Why you is what I want to know. Why not someone else? We just got here.”

“Well, because…” She frowned, trying to think about how to explain it to him. That she’d fantasized and hoped for so fucking long. That this, it was almost like a dream come true.

“Because what, Jack,” Luke said when she did not reply. “You don’t even know do you? You don’t even get it.”

“Get what?”

“The reason you’re doing this.”

“I just told you why.”

“No,” Luke roared. “Fucking hell you didn’t. Don’t get me wrong. If this is real—which I have to say I have my doubts—but if it is, I agree it’s an amazing thing and we should all help where we can. But that’s not your motivation. Not really.”

Jackson wasn’t really sure what he meant. She shook her head, both to get a grip on her thoughts and because Two-h-ee was groaning his horrible death groan.

“Then what is?” she asked. “You tell me, Luke, because I sure as hell don’t know what you’re getting at.”

Two-h-ee groaned again and Luke snapped at him, “Shut the fuck up.” Before turning to Jackson. “You’re doing this because you can’t not do it.”

“Huh?”

“This, them, the whole thing. It’s who you are now. Jackson the bad-ass, Jackson the fucking zombie slayer. I don’t think you’re actually capable of living a normal life anymore.”

She gaped. “There is no normal life anymore. Those days are gone. Gone, Luke.”

“But there is, damn it,” he insisted, and the anger in his voice was palpable. “It’s why we came south. Why you wanted it. To find that sliver of normality. That was the whole fucking reason.”

And then Jackson paused because hadn’t that thought been buzzing around constantly since she returned from the shack? Hadn’t she begun to question everything, her motivations, her plans. Everything? She thought of all the times on the road. The times she’d had to hide or run or curl up somewhere waiting for daylight. All along the aim pushing her on.

“Is it?” she whispered, finally, and firmly, admitting the truth to herself. “I don’t know, Luke. I think in the end I came south because I didn’t know what else to do. Because on that observation deck it was the only option beyond jumping, and then with Tye…it just seemed like it made sense.”

“Just like Pete,” he whispered back, and even though she didn’t really know what he meant she knew it was not a good comparison. Knew that by the tone of his voice.

“Luke…” She reached out to do something, a hug, or a touch, whatever, but he pulled back, not giving her the chance.

“I don’t want you doing this, Jack,” he said, and there was a hard note in his voice she’d never heard before. “I’ll spend all my time worrying and panicking, but more than that, because my feelings aren’t important really, more than that, you’ll be putting yourself in danger again. Daily. I want you somewhere safe. I don’t want you to have to fight over and over, day after day…I want you to have some normality.”

Jackson frowned, her mind whizzing. “I thought we got past this at the stick and spit. You and me as equals, that’s how we’ve worked this.”

“The journey, yes,” he agreed. “But we’re here now and I was so happy to think that you might be able to be you again.”

“Me?” she said, confusion thrumming through her. “This is me. This has always been me.”

Luke threw his hands in the air and growled. “You without the zombies is what I mean. Just Jackson.”

Why didn’t he get it? When it was so freaking obvious to her? How could he not realize. “There is no ‘just Jackson’ anymore,” she said. “The zombies are part of everything and we can’t escape that. We can’t ever escape it.”

“Here we can,” he insisted. “For a little bit we can.”

“You might be able to, Luke. But for me? There is no escape. Why don’t you get that? There won’t ever be an escape. It’s who I am now.”

Luke shook his head, slowly now, without any of the anger—almost like it had drained from him. “I don’t believe that,” he said.

“Well, you have to,” she replied. “Because it isn’t going to change. Not now, not ever. It’ll be this way until the end.” And Two-h-ee groaned, almost punctuating her point in a way she would never have been able to.

Chapter Thirty-three

A knocking on the door in the early hours, two days later, awoke Luke. He sat up quickly but Jackson was out of bed in one swift move, Mandy in hand, poised and ready.

“Zombies don’t knock,” he said, his voice still muffled with sleep.

“People don’t either in the early hours unless something is wrong,” she replied. “Though for all you know,