CHAPTER SEVEN
It was after dark and Paulina had already gone off to bed, taking an unhappy Zeke with her. The kid didn’t like being told when to go to bed. He especially didn’t like sharing a room with an “old lady.” Zeke had been having the time of his life, eating more and dancing. Though, I’m not sure if it can really be called that. Zeke had a seizure-like dance method. With many threats, Viktor and Paulina got him upstairs and in bed.
My dad lasted longer, sitting with Viktor and drinking wine. Eventually, he too went in for the night. This may have had something to do with the more uptempo music we were now listening to. After his departure, Kyle and I started going around to the side of the house to take tequila shots. I suspected Alexi and Justin were up to something similar when they kept disappearing and showing up stupider than they were before. Viktor sat and slowly drank wine while Riley chatted up Melanie about her gifts and her aspirations for life. It was amazing how delusional she still was, thinking somehow everything would change back to the way it used to be. Not in our lifetime it wouldn’t.
After my fourth shot and Kyle’s fifth or sixth, he changed the CD to hip hop and we started dancing. My guy was still feeling some pain from the wound to his leg, but the alcohol had dulled it. At first it was just me and Kyle, with Melanie and Riley nearby doing their own thing. They looked funny dancing together because Riley had so little experience with dancing pre-apocalypse and she basically sucked post-apocalypse. After years of dance classes and being on my freshman dance team, I had moves. The tequila only made me feel freer.
I loved this. His strong arms encircled me and his brown eyes gazed down at me with a warmth that was solely mine. There were a lot of sad stories out there of love lost. My dad still suffered from it, only driven by the need to protect his children. Riley could call me a freak all she wanted, I didn’t care. Whether I was a freak or gifted, I would always thank whatever gave me this ability to protect the ones I loved. Because of it, our story, Kyle’s and mine would have a happy ending. I didn’t fear trying to have a normal life, a home and a family someday.
The song changed to one of my old favorites. I had to wonder how many of the rich and famous survived. With helicopters, private planes and yachts, wouldn’t many of them have a chance? Perhaps the artist currently playing on our little boombox was on an island somewhere in the Caribbean. “Keep it clean, honey, or Viktor is going to complain again,” I told him over the music, grinning.
Kyle’s tipsy self was almost to the point of beyond caring. “Like he isn’t going to be grinding against Melanie once he stops brooding over his wine.” True, Viktor was the brooding type. Alcohol just made him more introspective. Even though Levi was his dad in every way that mattered, I sometimes wondered if Viktor got the trait from his biological father. He definitely got his dark looks and height from him. Alexi would always be the little brother in every way, unless he managed to shoot past my dad’s six foot frame. Kyle was a little under six feet and I thought he was perfect size for my five foot six height.
“Let’s go take another shot,” I suggested, taking his hand and dragging him off our improvised dance floor. When he stumbled a little behind me, I slowed down. The alcohol may numb the pain in his leg, but it didn’t make him any more coordinated.
Retrieving our bottle of tequila and shot glasses from where it was stashed in a paper bag, Kyle poured us each a shot. Going down, it still burned but at least it no longer tasted so toxic. My dad and Paulina would be pissed to know we were drinking. We’d both had a glass of wine before in their presence, but no hard liquor. For Alexi and Justin even wine was prohibited and I bet they’d be struggling to hide hangovers tomorrow morning from whatever it was they were drinking.
Kyle quickly downed his shot, waiting for me to do the same. “That’s it for me. I’m done.”
“Me too, babe,” Kyle agreed. “We have a busy day tomorrow.”
The next few minutes were spent making out against the side of the house. I couldn’t wait until our wedding night. I was thinking we’d clean up a cabin nearby and have ourselves a little honeymoon. With no one to invade our privacy or annoy us, it would just me and my new husband. Everyone would have to do without us for a few days.
Walking around the side of the house, I thought I felt something, but couldn’t be sure. My senses were out of whack due to the tequila consumption, so I brushed it off. “Let’s sit down for awhile.”
Kyle sat down first and lowered me onto his uninjured thigh. “It’s nice out tonight.”
“It is.” I pillowed my head on his shoulder. “Nights like this, you can almost forget what’s out there in the world.”
“Zeke is hilarious,” Kyle commented, running a hand up and down my back.
Laughing at his antics tonight, I played with my engagement ring. It was so pretty. “I wasn’t so sure at first it’d work out, but I’m glad we found him.”
I felt it stronger now and was certain what it was. Jumping up out of my chair, I called out, “A horde!”
Viktor was beside me in seconds, gripping my arm. “How far and how many?” Justin rushed to turn off the music. Alexi was already fumbling for his baseball bat.
“Damn,” I mumbled closing my eyes. “I’m having trouble telling. I just know I feel them.”
Someone flicked their fingers against my forehead and I popped my eyes open to glare at the culprit. “Anya, maybe it’s not such a good idea to get drunk if it’s going to impair you.”
“I’m not your performing monkey, Viktor! Sometimes I need time to relax like the rest of you!” Okay, that was the guilt talking, and maybe the booze.
“I’m going to wake up dad,” he said, disappearing into the house.
I felt a hand at the nape of my neck. “Relax, Anya. Concentrate and you’ll figure it out.”
Doing what Kyle said, I tried to ignore the panic of Justin and Alexi. My dad came running out of the house a minute later, Viktor right behind. Melanie had sent Riley inside and was now gathering weapons. Focusing helped, I was able to better detect them. “About a dozen or so, not far and getting closer. I’d guess about a quarter mile.” I stopped to be sure. “In that direction.” Pointing up the mountain, I felt relief the booze hadn’t totally put my power on the fritz.
“Good job, babe,” Kyle encouraged, “You can drop ‘em and we’ll take care of them before they wake.”
“I’m still drunk,” I whispered mischievously and he coughed to cover his laugh.
Melanie handed me my tomahawk and a gun. I checked the clip. Everyone was ready to go, including Alexi and Justin. Viktor was having a quiet pow-wow with my dad as they studied the teenage boys. Clearly pissed, my dad told the boys, “You two get inside and we’ll have a talk about your behavior tomorrow. Wake up Paulina and let her know what’s going on. I’ll be expecting you to sit with Riley, nice and quiet, until we return.” Red-faced, Justin and Alexi filed past him into the house. My dad turned back to Viktor. “You should’ve been watching them.”
Viktor shrugged noncommittally. “It’s nothing I didn’t do at their age, before this shit happened.”
I strived to not look as drunk as the boys. Kyle had an excuse to look clumsy, luckily. The five of us loaded into the Suburban and drove in the direction I’d pointed, well as close to that way we could go by following the back roads. The ride was bumpy; no more road crews to patch up potholes anymore. Worse than the road conditions were the pitch black areas our headlights didn’t illuminate.
As a family we’d decided a long time ago not to let the constant threat of attack stop us from living as normal as possible lives. Within reason, of course. We weren’t going to move in downtown Denver, expecting to live peacefully, but we also weren’t going to wallow in misery and paranoia. Living in such a secluded area, we didn’t often have major problems. Usually the stray zombie or two, sometimes a horde travelled through. When given the choice between ascending steep terrain and walking over flat ground, the dead generally chose the easier route. This is where living in the mountains helped. Given provocation, however, even a legless zombie crawled uphill. Our shindig could be considered reckless to settlements that didn’t have a necromancer amongst them. We’d had our fun, unfortunately attracted a passing horde and now we had to pay the price. Then again, maybe they hadn’t heard our ruckus at all and it was a coincidence that they were headed our way.
The drive was short. “Pull over right here,” I informed my dad, “they’re in the trees over there, coming closer.” They’d definitely heard our vehicles or seen our lights, likely both, altering their course to target us instead of the direction they’d heard our music coming from.
“Okay, Anya, drop ‘em,” Kyle said, hand on my knee.
“Wait,” I told him, feeling out the area. “There’s something else.” From the glow of the dashlights, I saw four pairs of eyes on me. “Shit,” I cursed.
“What is it?” Melanie questioned from the other side of me.
“I think,” I started, waving a hand, “there’s another group coming from that way.” Dead energy hit me from the south. “A larger group, for sure, and over a mile away.” The larger the group, the farther away I could sense them.
“Can you hit them with your zombie juice?” Viktor asked, peering through the windshield at the first infected to stumble out of the trees in front of our headlights. My dad slowly reversed the car about fifty yards to buy us more time.
“It’d be better if they were closer,” I told him. “They may not be within range, plus, if I took them out from here, we’d have to search for them.” One zombie headed our way turned into a handful as they trickled onto the road. Within a minute, the complete group was desperate to reach us. My dad backed up around a curve.
“This is what we’ll do,” my dad said, getting our full attention, “You direct me, Anya, and we’ll lead them to the other group and take care of all of them at once.”
“That could take awhile,” Kyle observed.
“But it’d be more efficient,” Melanie countered. Viktor nodded in agreement.
Already maneuvering the large SUV into a u-turn, trying to avoid hitting any trees in the narrow space, my dad drove the vehicle at a crawl down the mountain, zombie conga line behind us. Zigzagging over switchback roads didn’t help our progress. Bored, Viktor put in a hard rock CD.
My buzz was starting to wear off a bit and I yawned, laying my head against Kyle. “Let’s open the windows, it’s a nice night,” I told Melanie and Kyle. They complied and I enjoyed the cool breeze it created. Turning my head to look out the back, the red of the taillights gave me a view of our nearest pursuer. The desperate grimace on his face almost made me feel sorry for him. Almost. Meeting this guy in an alley even before he turned undead would’ve scared me. He was dressed in dirty leathers, a black jacket and pants, but for whatever reason was barefoot.
Turning up the music, Viktor ensured the larger horde down the mountain would hear us coming and hopefully save us some time by stumbling our way. As we lessened the distance between us, I blocked out the zombie train to our rear and focused on the oncoming group. Definitely double in size to the one at our back. My guess was, they’d strayed from the highway or perhaps the stronger ones at the front were leading the weaker through the Rockies. My affinity with the dead didn’t extend to telepathy and I was sure that was a good thing. No one wanted to be in the head of a zombie.
The journey took almost an hour according to the clock on the dash. I’d guided us within yards of the bigger horde and they were eager to meet up. Before a zombie mixer could commence around us, I let my necromancy stretch out and encompass the area. Dread and nothingness were my companions on this ethereal journey. Besides these two groups, I didn’t feel any other activity. I blasted them with dead energy. They fell like dominoes, mostly forward, some backwards and the odd one sideways.
Viktor turned the music off. “All done?”
“Yep, now the real work begins,” I replied reluctantly.
No one was in the mood to take care of business, but what other option did we have? These infected would be reanimating eventually and we couldn’t risk waking up tomorrow morning with them surrounding our barricade. Here, at least, the rotted bodies were far away from our home. Near our house, the stench of decay wouldn’t go well with the bacon and eggs Paulina would be making in the morning. Besides, we chose not to bury bodies by the house. We’d finish them off here and dispose of them tomorrow during daylight hours.
“Let’s do this,” my dad declared and we dragged ourselves out of the car. Kyle groaned when he put weight on his injured leg. With the tequila wearing off he was feeling the effects of dancing with his wound not yet healed.
“Do you need to sit this out?” I asked.
Stubbornly, he hissed, “I can manage.”
My dad pulled several lanterns from the back to light the macabre scene. I took my tomahawk to the nearest corpse and, with a heave, brought the spike down into its skull. Viktor had a sword we’d found in a mansion above Aspen and was sticking it to them in a similar fashion. As Kyle bashed a head in with sledgehammer, I took out biker zombie. The cross he wore around his neck made me involuntarily shudder. My mother had been religious and brought us up Orthodox. However, since it began six years ago, we’d all questioned those beliefs. If God really did exist, man was no longer in favor. Not that I could blame Him, we’d sort of taken for granted the gifts He’d given us.
My dad split skulls with a cane knife and Melanie made a face as her pickaxe slid through brain. Yanking it out, she muttered, “I’ll never get used to this.”
It may be hard to get used to, but after years of practice our skills were honed. We were zombie-killing machines. I couldn’t tell in the dim lighting, but I thought I’d managed not to dirty my dress. My dad killed the last one and we practically let out a collective sigh of relief. We must have finished off about three dozen total.
“So, we’ll come back tomorrow, bring Alexi and Justin, and gather them up,” Viktor proposed. “Load them in the back of the trailer and take them to a house in Silverthorne and burn it down.” The house he referred to was located away from other houses and trees, so the blaze would be easily contained. We had several such places lined up for disposal. I guessed Viktor wasn’t meaning to have Kyle come along. He’d expended enough energy in the activities of tonight.
It was unavoidable with the sheer number of dead strewed across the ground around the Suburban and my dad ran over bodies as we drove out of there. So saying, the ride was bumpier than before. Moving at a higher speed now, we arrived home in minutes. Along the way, I saw the glowing eyes of a deer peering out from the bushes and imagined a large buck impaling an attacking biter with his massive antlers. Stranger things had happened. What if the deer got stuck that way?
“You awake?” Kyle murmured, leaning his head against mine.
Raising my own from his shoulder, I gave him an exhausted smile. “Yeah, but I hopefully won’t be in ten minutes.”
We parked vehicles in random spots around our barricade, keeping our options open in case of attack. In addition, hidden down the mountain we had more getaway vehicles loaded with emergency supplies and weapons. As tired as any of us, my dad parked the Suburban right in front of a barricade entrance. Exiting, I let Kyle help me out and made sure to avoid the barbed wire on the outside of the barricade.
Paulina was waiting on the front deck when we got there, shotgun in hand. When I’d teased her once about battling zombies with a rolling pin she’d withheld corn tortillas from me for a whole day. There were few delights left to me and fresh, warm tortillas were one of them. Nacho greeted us, wagging his tail. If I’d had a nap like him today, I might be just as energized. Paulina had a fluffy robe wrapped over her nightgown but was wearing tennis shoes instead of her favorite slippers. She was obviously ready to gather her chicks and run.
Pinched face, her worry showed. “Is it safe now?”
“Safe as it can be,” my dad answered vaguely.
She let out an exasperated huff. “Young people, wake the dead playing their music too loud.”
Or something like that, I agreed to myself. Not that we’d change tonight. One or both of those packs could’ve shown up at our doorstep anyway. I doubted the larger pack had been close enough to hear our music, they were likely passing by. The smaller pack probably heard us on their walkabout and followed the noise. We weren’t going to live like scared rabbits. Not even rabbits had avoided casualties in this zombie war, I’d seen that too. Not a pretty sight.
“Up to bed all of you,” she ordered in her motherly, if impatient, fashion.
“Yes, ma’am,” Viktor joked as he followed Melanie inside.
Kyle and I left my dad and Paulina out there, presumably to discuss the night’s events. Passing the living room, Alexi and Justin were zoned out on the couch. Melanie and Viktor had already gone upstairs. Kyle escorted me to the closed door of my room. Unconcerned and still high off all the attention today, I assumed Riley was warm in her bed. Ritually, I waited for my goodnight kiss.
“Crazy day,” he said, leaning against the wall.
“Not the first and definitely won’t be the last,” I noted.
“The one good thing about winter is snow slowing life, and the dead, down,” he observed.
“But it’s damn cold,” I got out before he reached to pull me into his chest. Resting there for a long time, I pulled back when I heard my dad stomping into the house. “See you tomorrow.”
“Kiss me first,” he demanded. Our lips met and I savored the familiarity of his soft mouth. Reluctantly on both our parts, it inevitably ended.
That night, I slept like the dead.