Paisley came down, hair damp, eyes wide. “Is everything okay?”
I nodded, petting Isaac’s hair as if he were my baby, rocking him gently as he mourned.
When we went to bed that night, after we’d all showered in the lovely hot water and eaten our fill, Isaac slept with us, curled up tight against Paisley. Despite her earlier anger, the look on her face was one of hope.
I hoped to whatever gods might be up there that things had finally stopped sliding downhill into tragedy and we’d get a break.
We were due, weren’t we?
36
Now
It takes surprisingly little time to drop the dead things surrounding the truck. Pete and Gloria climb out of the bed with the biggest smiles on their faces. “We thought we were goners, you guys,” Pete says, his grin goofy, his arm wrapped tight around his wife as if he’s afraid to let her go. “We thought everything was quiet—”
“It was quiet,” Gloria interjects.
Pete nods. “It was. Dead quiet. Sorry about the pun. We felt like we were being followed, but when we’d watch our six, nothing. So we kept coming and got to the car. Weren’t here more than two, three minutes when they started coming out of the shadows. I think—”
“We think they were waiting for us.” Gloria’s eyes are wide. “We think a few of them followed us and then somehow communicated to the others where we were headed. I don’t know guys, it was creepy.”
It is creepy and concerning too. If the dead things are getting smarter, it’ll make Dee’s journey that much harder in the morning. They will have to keep even closer watch, have to be more careful than ever before, and there’s still no guarantee they’ll survive the trip.
“Do you think they’re watching the Complex too?” Gloria asks, breaking the silence of their thoughts.
Yes. They are all thinking it, even if no one is brave enough to say it out loud.
“How can they be getting smarter? Shouldn’t their brains be rotting by now like their bodies?” Gary asks as if one of them could possibly have the answer. How could anyone explain walking corpses? Walking, talking, and sometimes singing corpses? And now they are planning ambushes. It’s the very definition of insanity and Dee is pretty sure if she thinks too hard about it, she’ll go insane.
“It’s good we know this,” Mel says. “Had we not come out here to save you guys, we wouldn’t have known what they’re capable of. Now we do. Now we can start watching for concerning behaviors and we can be more careful in the field.” She nods as if she’s settled the argument we aren’t even having, then says, “Speaking of careful. Why don’t we get in our vehicles and go home? If they’re out here plotting, I want some sturdy walls between us and them.”
They are all on the lookout as they drive home, squinting into the shadows as if they could see into the minds of the creatures that have so altered their lives.
How are the boys faring if the dead things are now plotting and planning? How are they surviving? Do they still have enough water? Food? And her parents, what about them? She hasn’t dared think much about them, has focused on her boys because they seem so young, younger even when they were half a country away. Have her parents survived too?
She hopes they all are alive. She hopes they loaded up the RV and got out of the city, though that would mean not seeing them when she gets to the house.
She hopes they left her a note. She hopes they were thinking positively enough to believe she would come for them.
“Oh Lana,” she whispers. Then a hand slips into hers and she turns to see Alex smiling at her.
“You okay?”
She nods, then realizes she’s lying. She’s not okay. None of them are. She’s very bad actually, but everything is bad and so by comparison what she feels is insignificant. “No, I don’t think I am.”
Her smile fades, but she doesn’t let go of Dee’s hand. And Dee is glad.
Back at the Complex, they have an impromptu celebration. A celebration of survival. As she drinks her glass of wine, she remembers another celebration in a house somewhere in Nebraska with a broken boy, a broken girl, a broken man and a broken self. She’s not anywhere near whole now, but at least she’s alive. Right? That’s something.
Pete and Gloria dance as though there’s no tomorrow and of course, there might not be. The dead things might rally in the night, they might swarm the Complex and kill them all. It’s good to have celebrations even in the midst of terror and tragedy because who knows if there will be a chance tomorrow?
She also wonders if they’ll still come with her tomorrow. The day’s events have shown that it’s still dangerous out there. She won’t blame them if they decide they don’t want to come. She won’t blame any of them for wanting to stay within the safety of the Complex’s walls. She wants to stay. But she wants her boys more, and so she resolves to go no matter what it looks like tomorrow, no matter if they come or not.
She looks over at Alex who is on her fourth wine cooler. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright as she debates the merits of whiskey versus tequila with Gary. They end up agreeing to disagree, which is weird to Dee since she can’t understand why anyone would get that excited over liquor.
When Dee finally heads to bed, Alex comes with her, tipsy and giddy, her lips puffy with alcohol. Dee wants to kiss her but can’t make the first move. It feels too disrespectful to Lana.
When Alex kisses her, though, she lets herself sink into the other woman and lose herself.
They almost lost two people today, but
