Her lips taste like peach wine coolers. Her heart beats wildly in her chest, her fingers spark magic, her moans are sweet music.
When they are done, they lay intertwined, skin slick with the afterglow of their lovemaking.
Yes, lovemaking. Not because they are in love, but because they are both alive and it was the best ending to a day where people lived instead of died.
Before she goes to sleep, Dee sets an alarm and then Alex curls into her and murmurs, “Night, Dee.”
It’s strange to hear those words out of another woman’s mouth, a mouth that isn’t Lana’s, but Dee lets herself smile anyway. She is alive and celebrations are important even when the loss threatens to overwhelm. She falls asleep with that smile on her face and Alex in her arms.
37
Now
When she gets up, Alex gets up with her. No sign that she’s planning to stumble out an apology and stay behind. Dee is relieved but still tense as she gets dressed, eats, brushes her teeth—all the mundane things she might have done before the zombie apocalypse. She tries to keep her mind off the terrible worry that Pete and Gloria will ditch her, and remembers telling Isaac how to stop his brain from picking at memories as if they were sores.
That memory, of him crying in her arms, that one will stay with her forever and though it doesn’t intrude obsessively, she finds herself thinking about it at odd, random moments. Thinking about his despair, the way his eyes were haunted by the death of his brother.
They’d been happy in that house on the side of the road.
If they’d stayed …
Pete and Gloria cross the room to her, backpacks slung over shoulders, smiles on their faces. A sense of relief so strong hits her that she feels almost dizzy.
“You’re coming,” she says and they both click their tongues at her.
“Of course we are,” Gloria says.
“Won’t let a little thing like getting trapped in a dump truck by dead things stop us from going with you.” Pete pats his chest. “Gotta get this to Will’s family too.”
Gratitude fills her. “Thank you.”
Gloria squeezes her shoulder, and then they are gathering up their gear. Mel comes to say goodbye, and most everyone else—those are awake, anyway.
“Be careful out there, you guys.” Mel hands them a case. “Flare gun. Four rounds. Shoot it if you get into trouble. We’ll be watching from the rooftops.”
“If we’re in trouble, you shouldn’t be charging out to save us,” Dee says.
“Bullshit. You’re one of us now and we protect our own.” Mel pushes the gun into Dee’s hands and walks off to curtail further argument.
Her surety that she shouldn’t leave grows stronger. She almost calls it off, or proposes they wait a day or a week, or even a month, but then Pete is unlatching the door and they are outside in the sunshine and she cannot stop them. It’s done. They are leaving.
She throws her gear into the back of the SUV and climbs into the driver’s seat. The rest of them tuck their supplies into the back and then doors are slammed and expressions expectant. “Ready?” she asks, though she’s the one who isn’t ready. She’s the one who wants to turn back and hide inside the building, never to step foot in the dangerous unknown again.
“Ready!”
She starts the SUV and they wind their way out of the maze of cars, Alex directing them with the map in her lap, though Dee doesn’t need it. She knows where they’re going and she knows how to get there.
She just doesn’t know if she wants to make it.
“Brains are stupid,” Alex says. At Dee’s startled look, she adds, “You’re freaking yourself out. Put it in a box and tape it shut. Focus on what’s going on now or we’ll all end up dead. Get me?”
“Got you,” Dee says. She focuses her attention on the road and not on the what ifs and maybes and after a few minutes, she’s in the here and now.
Their first roadblocks comes when they turn off the main road that ran in front of the Complex. There aren’t a lot of them, but the minute they hear the truck engine, they begin calling to one another, singing their off-tune songs. For a while the survivors make good time despite them, because they’re able to weave through the abandoned cars without much trouble. A few blocks down the road, though, and there are more of them amassed in the intersection, and the intersection is clogged with vehicles.
“That’s okay,” Alex says. They backtrack and Alex guides Dee up a few blocks, once through a parking lot to avoid another clump of zombies, and then over a grassy median to bypass a crash. The dead things reach for them as they ease up over the curb and down the other side, the small detours reminding Dee of her harrowing trip through the mountains. Some of the dead things are burnt, some are missing jaws, or parts of their skulls.
Gloria tries hard to keep their spirits up, chattering brightly about things that happened back in the Complex, jokes, stories about her family, anything that would get their minds off the destruction outside. It occurs to Dee that they haven’t had the same experiences she’s had, haven’t had to struggle across great expanses of empty country, battling to stay alive at every stop. They’ve lived in relative safety at the Complex all this time. They are probably more nervous than she is and somehow that settles her better than all the jokes and stories in Gloria’s repertoire.
It’s her responsibility to keep
