Page 7

SEVEN

CIPHER

“What do you think they’re talking about out there?” I asked Gizmo and Wylie, regarding the animated conversation Kitten and Ansel appeared to be having while weeding the garden.

“You know we didn’t build this system just so you can spy on your boyfriend, right?” Wylie said, not bothering to mask the judgement in his tone.

“Definitely not,” Gizmo added, glancing up briefly from where he was soldering a circuit board. The safety goggles he wore made his striking green eyes look even bigger, like a praying mantis.

“I’m not spying, I’m surveilling,” I told them. Still clocking the screen, I plucked up a stray cable with a frayed wire end and used it to get inside my cast and scratch. God, that felt good. This thing was itchy as hell. Meanwhile Ansel and my boyfriend looked awfully cozy as Kitten laughed at something he said. What could possibly be that funny? Did I ever make Kitten laugh like that? Smile, sure, but laugh?

“Do you guys think I’m fun?” I asked the world’s most disinterested duo.

“Fun isn’t the first adjective that comes to mind,” Wylie said.

“Okay, then what is?”

“Pragmatic,” Gizmo said.

“Intimidating,” Wylie added.

I didn’t mind either of those words, but maybe in this new phase of our lives, one where we’d settled down and no longer had to fight tooth and nail for survival, Kitten no longer needed someone who was pragmatic and intimidating.

“You’re still highly relevant,” Gizmo said as if reading my mind. “No matter how many advancements we make, there will always be the need for someone with your skillset.”

He most likely meant my paranoia and disaster-scenario planning abilities, which honestly seemed a dime a dozen these days.

“Do you think he’d rather have someone fun?” I asked, no longer trying to disguise how I really felt. Macon would have teased me ruthlessly and Artemis would have rolled her eyes and told me to get over myself, but Wylie and Gizmo’s workshop was a safe space. Neither of them had any problems giving their honest, unfiltered (sometimes brutal) opinions.

“I think if he wants that, then he’ll go after it, and there’s not much you can do about it,” Gizmo said.

“That’s depressing. Maybe I need to take up gardening. Couples with common interests are more likely to last, aren’t they? I mean look at you two.”

“From what I heard last night, it seems you and Kitten have a lot in common.” Wylie gave me a pointed look from above the rim of his glasses. “Still thinking about moving down the hall?”

Shit, Kitten had gotten loud last night. “My bad, guys. I try to keep him quiet, but I’ve only got one good hand. And you know he can’t hear all that well.”

“As long as he’s enjoying it too,” Wylie said.

I smiled at the memory of Kitten on top of me, sweaty and gorgeous, curls bouncing every which way, pecs and abs tense as hell while he rode my dick like I was his personal bucking bull. I honestly hadn’t tried to restrain him. He was too hot to contain; he fucking set me on fire.

He hadn’t brought up me bottoming again, but I was keeping it in my back pocket. As soon as my arm healed up. I could only handle one vulnerability at a time. Would fun-loving Ansel be down to bottom? Probably.

“Have you considered changing your entire personality and demeanor to fit with what you think he wants in a partner?” Gizmo asked.

I stared back at him dumbfounded. What the hell?

“He’s joking,” Wylie said with a smirk, “but what you’re doing is unproductive at best, and if you’re not careful, your insecurities will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Brutal.

“Shit, Wylie, when’d you get so fucking wise?” I asked.

“I do a lot of thinking here in our workshop.”

“Big brain,” Gizmo said. “Enormous.”

They both snickered at that, which made me wonder if they were smashing, but I didn’t want to pry, since Gizmo was touchy about that sort of thing.

“What do you all think of the B-holes,” I asked, switching subjects.

“Aside from this one who’s trying to steal your boyfriend?” Wylie asked.

“So, you see it too?”

“Ansel flirts with everyone, even Gizmo,” he said.

“Don’t worry, darling, I am immune to his flirtations,” Gizmo said like some kind of demure Southern belle. The kid was a riot.

“He doesn’t flirt with me,” I muttered.

“No one flirts with you, Cipher. I honestly don’t know how Kitten got so far under your thick armadillo skin,” Wylie said.

“Easily enough.” I recalled what a pest he’d been in the beginning. How I’d pretended not to enjoy his artless seductions. No one had ever pursued me like that, had made their intent so clearly known, completely unashamed. He’d been innocent, sure, but also ballsy as hell. Wylie was right though, Kitten got what he wanted. I could only hope that he’d continue to want me.

“Despite trying to make a move on my man, Ansel is helpful,” I said. “People like him. Rafi and Selena have been a huge help to Teresa and Kitten. Santiago…” Santiago was always respectful, yet there was a lingering tension between us–because he didn’t like taking orders from me, or because I was Kitten’s boyfriend, I wasn’t sure.

“Santiago has ideas,” Wylie said.

“What do you mean?”

“He wants to expand the compound to encompass the whole block, recruit more people to live here, start a commune,” Wylie said.

“Sounds so easy, doesn’t it?” I said.

“Yeah,” Wylie said with a bitter chuckle. “He came around here trying to get us on board with the plan. You may have a mutiny on your hands.”

“If he wants to be in charge, we can put it to a vote. I’m not some tyrant, you know.”

“We had to practically force you to be King Asshole in the first place,” Wylie said, and I rolled my eyes at the fact that the nickname had taken off.

“Somebody had to do it, I guess,” I replied. I’d never wanted the power, and it wasn’t like the job paid anything. I simply wanted to live my life in peace with my family safe and cared for. “In my opinion Artemis would be a better leader than any of us. She’s a fucking boss with that chore chart.”

The chore chart was a work of art: a massive whiteboard that listed out all the various jobs around the compound and assigned everyone in shifts for the entire week, including time-off. Prior to the chore chart we’d always just winged it, but having the chart meant having a plan, and no one could make the excuse that they didn’t know where they were supposed to be. Civilizations lived or died by their efficiency, Artemis had told me, and I agreed.

“I don’t think she’d let us call her Queen Asshole,” Gizmo said.

I chuckled. “Yeah, probably not.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my boyfriend on screen, laughing again. Maybe I was a tyrant, when it came to him at least. “I need something to do before I start tearing shit up,” I said.

Wylie grabbed a huge, jumbled mess of wire and dropped it in my lap. “Here, untangle this, and keep your eyes off the monitors.”

“Mean task for a guy with only one arm, but okay.” I worked on that for a while, making what seemed like zero progress. Ansel must have had somewhere else to be because the next time I looked, Kitten was alone in the garden, talking to the plants, which wasn’t that unusual since he talked all the time.

“Cipher here?”

I swiveled around in my chair to find Santiago standing in the garage doorway with a couple canvas bags slung over one shoulder. He’d gained a bit of weight in the two weeks he’d been here, and he’d trimmed his beard, which gave him a cultured, academic look, like a hip humanities professor or a youth pastor whom everyone said was hot behind his back. The haunted look in his eyes remained though. That would probably take much longer to go away.

“What’s up?” I said.

“Strawberry season. One of the neighbors has a patch of ‘em down the road.” He jerked his thumb over one shoulder. “Joshua reminded me about it yesterday. Thought I’d go see what I could find. I need backup though.”

“Yeah.” I stood and dropped the mess of wire in my chair. “Let me just grab my weapons and I’ll meet you at the gate in ten.”

I collected my gear from upstairs then took a detour to the garden to check on Kitten and let him know where I was going. He stood up and raised his dirty hands at me, growling like a cute little beastie.

“I don’t care if you’re dirty.” I pulled him in for a hug. He smelled like fresh grass and sunshine and all my favorite things. “How’s your morning been?”

“Good. Ansel helped me weed, and I’m going to plant carrots, peas, and potatoes. We’ll have everything we need for a yummy veggie stew when they start coming in.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Why do you have all your weapons?” he asked, just noticing that I was geared up.

“Your brother and I are going to check out the strawberry patch down the road.”

“My mom used to take us there to pick them every spring. Mmm, we could make strawberry shortcake and strawberry jam…” Kitten trailed off, fantasizing about food again. I smiled at his predictability. My true rival wasn’t Ansel, it was food. All I had to do was keep my man well-fed and he’d never leave me. I remembered those goats we saw grazing in the military compound as an idea began to form in my mind.

“Ready?” Santiago appeared by my side even though I’d told him I’d meet him at the gate.

“Yeah,” I said, untangling myself from Kitten’s arms.

“Be careful out there. You’re still not one hundred percent,” Kitten said to me.

“I love it when you remind me of that,” I told him and pecked his sweaty forehead.

He shot me a look, then pulled me in for a long, lingering kiss on the mouth. I’d certainly never get tired of that.

“Gross,” Santiago said at my side.

“Don’t be homophobic, Santi,” Kitten scolded.

“I’m not…that’s not…it’s ‘cause you’re my brother.”

Kitten laughed. “Don’t eat all the strawberries before you get back.”

“I’ll save the ripest ones for you, cutie,” I said, mostly to annoy Santiago.

“Ugh, enough already, let’s go,” Santiago said.

“I’m not homophobic,” Santiago said to me again twenty minutes later. We’d found the strawberry patch in an overgrown lawn at the edge of the Shady Brook subdivision. He was crouched down on the ground picking the ruby-red berries while I stood watch, scanning both the sides of the nearest house and the woods behind us. We’d done a perimeter search when we got here, including checking out the dilapidated shed on the back forty. We’d found a racoon carcass inside the shed, too rotted away to tell whether it had been natural causes or the result of a Rabid attack. Thankfully, the Rabids around here still appeared to only be active at nighttime.

“I’m just not used to my little brother having a boyfriend,” Santiago continued. “I mean, when I left home, he was still a kid. And now he’s, like, a grown up. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”

“Maybe the two of you should spend more time together,” I suggested.

“That’s the thing, we’re always working or there are other people around, and even when we’re alone, he doesn’t want to talk about anything personal.”

“Personal, like what?” I asked.

“Like why you’re lying about the Humvee you have stashed away in the Andersons’ garage.”

“What Humvee?” I said, not missing a beat.

He shook his head but continued hunting for berries. “I came across it one day when we were scavenging for video cameras. And I know it wasn’t there before. I asked Macon about it. He’s a bad liar.”

Macon and I were going to have a chat about not spilling the beans to the B-holes.

“Also, the woman, Crenshaw, she was asking about a vehicle, one that belonged to the poor dipshit you scammed all these weapons off of,” Santiago said.

Just the offhand reference to that sick fucker made my muscles tense and the blood rush to my ears. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that Santiago had nothing to do with it.

“Sounds like there’s still a lot of holes in your story,” I said.

“Yeah, so what is the story, Cipher?”

I wasn’t going to tell him. I didn’t trust him yet, and until I did, I wasn’t giving him shit to work with. Who the hell knew if he’d sell us out to the military or someone else to get what he wanted? He seemed like the type.

“Not going to say anything about it? That’s your thing, huh? Silent and brooding?” Santiago asked.

What was it with everyone just assuming I was this huge grumpy asshole?

“I can be fun,” I told him. “I’ve got a sense of humor too.”

Santiago glanced up at me with a dubious look. “Listen, all I’m saying is I want to have a relationship with my brother.”

“Am I the one standing in the way of that?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“I don’t know, are you?”

“I don’t think so, but here’s some advice. Maybe you should start by making an actual effort. Tell him why you abandoned his ass last summer. Then follow it up with why you never bothered to find him when you finished your trial in Atlanta. Maybe ask him a few questions about himself. Pretend like you give a shit.”

Santiago stood and squared up with me. Shit, were we about to fight? Honestly, unfair. I only had one good arm. Kitten would kill me if I broke my other one punching his brother in the face.

“I do give a shit,” he snarled. “You think you know my brother better than me?”

“I don’t know, but at least I’m not trying to put my own bullshit on him. Own your shit, Santiago.”

“Well, since he seems to have some kind of co-dependent, hero-worship thing going on with you, let me give you some advice. You need to toughen him up.”

“What?”

“He’s too soft. Always has been, and you’re definitely not helping.”

This motherfucking asshole…

“The fuck are you talking about? Your brother’s a badass. He’s saved my life, like, a dozen times already. He knows how to grow stuff and mend things and he gives a shit about other people, which is rare these days. And not that it matters, but he can also bench press like a beast and probably kick your ass if he tried.”

“He’s soft here.” Santi pointed to his temple.

“Yeah, I should probably bully him and ignore him, right? Maybe abandon him too? Is that the move, Santiago? Is that how I toughen him up?”

“Fuck you.” He lunged at me, shoving me hard in the chest.

“Well, fuck you too,” I said and gave it right back to him. He scowled and it looked like we were about to throw down when I heard a twig crack.

“Shut up,” I said, still gripping his shoulders. My senses kicked into high alert as the hairs on the back of my neck raised, a sure sign of trouble. I scanned the treeline again. Movement behind the towering pines, too large and human-like to be a woodland creature.

“We need to get out of here,” I said, plucking his bag off the ground and shoving it at him. Santiago turned to follow my gaze just as a dozen or more Rabids emerged from the woods. They weren’t shuffling and half-dead either; they were hauling ass, heading straight toward us.

“Fuck, let’s go.” I grabbed Santiago’s shirt collar and yanked him hard. We both started running toward the nearest house, the only shelter available. The back door was locked, so I knocked out the glass pane with the butt of my Glock, then reached inside to unlock the deadbolt from inside, cutting my hand in the process. Throwing the door wide, we hustled inside and locked it behind us.

“Check the windows to make sure they’re shut and locked. Lock the front door,” I told him. “I’ll start picking them off from here.”

I crouched down and aimed my Glock through the broken pane, using the wooden frame to steady my aim. Adrenaline made my hands shake, my finger on the trigger slippery with sweat. I took a deep breath and started firing–as many kill shots as I could manage. Several Rabids dropped to the ground but continued to drag themselves toward us with alarming speed. There were too fucking many of them. I ejected the empty mag and replaced it with a fresh one.

“Are we secure?” I asked Santiago.

“Yeah, all good.”

I reached down for my radio to call the other Assholes for backup, but it wasn’t there. I must have dropped it in the yard.

“Fuck, I dropped my radio. Where’s yours?” I asked.

“I didn’t bring it with me,” he said, sounding panicked.

We were on our own then. How long could we hold them off with limited ammo? The Rabids were crowded around the back door now, throwing themselves against the wooden frame to get inside. Some were close enough to try prying open the door with their rotting fingers, leaving behind streaks of grime and blood. The door wouldn’t hold up against their relentless assault. I had to conserve my ammo, so I stabbed as many as I could with my machete. Meanwhile, several more circled the house like the pack of hungry predators they were.

“Can they break windows?” Santiago asked, directing my gaze to where one of them was banging its bloody fists against the pane.

“At that rate, yeah.”

Another Rabid used its skull to smash against the window. There was a crash in the living room, followed by the howl of Rabids as they began crawling through the busted window, tearing apart their flesh in the process. It was an endless stream, their snarls echoing off the walls as they sniffed the air and zeroed in on us.

“We’re going to have to fight our way out,” I told Santiago with my gun in one hand and my machete in the other. “I’ll fuck up as many as I can while you lead us to the front door. Then we run like hell for home and hope someone sees us coming and opens the gate.”

“Yes, boss,” he replied, all business now.

Above my own thumping heart were their groans of hunger and their wet, phlegmy wheezing. Their movements were erratic, feral, as they leapt on top of the furniture, sizing us up. I pointed my Glock and aimed, ticking them off like it was a carnival shooting game while counting down the rounds. I didn’t have another replacement mag because I hadn’t expected a fight. We were only picking strawberries in a field for fuck’s sake, but that’s what happened when you let your guard down for even a moment. Fucking Rabids jumped your ass.

And as I berated myself, I painted the walls of the house with blood. Gross patterns of brain matter and gray, decaying tissue were splattered everywhere as we edged along the far wall of the living room, neither of us turning our backs on them. Santiago swung his crowbar, crushing skulls like he was hitting home runs, but there were just too many.

The back door finally gave way and more Rabids poured in through the kitchen. With only a couple rounds left, I holstered my gun and hurled whatever objects I could find. A vase, a lamp, some weird-looking sculpture. One nailed a Rabid right in the forehead, temporarily disorienting it while I swung my machete and slit its throat. I gut-stabbed another on my way to the door. Still, they came for us with their skeletal fingers reaching toward us, grasping at my arms, my legs, my face…

The walls felt like they were closing in, the edges of my vision turning black. Breathe, goddamnit. Five steps to the front door, a half-mile to the front gate. Would we make it?

“Come the fuck on,” Santiago shouted. I felt a yank on the back of my jacket as he practically dragged me through the front door. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a grenade. Tearing out the pin with my teeth, I hurled it into the pit of Rabids, hoping that would at least slow them down, since I was a shit runner. The explosion rocked the foundation of the house, the ground trembling beneath us. The force of the explosion stunned us both as we collapsed on the ground. I shielded my face from the flying debris and wet bits of Rabid. My hearing was fucked. All I could see was smoke and fire. The stench of charred flesh made my eyes water.

Kitten–had I told him I loved him?

“Let’s go,” Santiago shouted, yanking me to my feet. I pulled it together and started running after him, both of us hauling ass down Shady Oaks Road toward the gate. Wylie was there already, fiddling with the locks. Footsteps pounded the pavement behind me, but I didn’t dare look back. That was how they got you, right? You turned around and boom, you were fucking dead. Gunshots rang out–Macon picking off Rabids from the watchtower. My heart was in my throat and I still couldn’t get enough air.

Something knocked into me from behind and tackled me to the ground. My chest hit the pavement, knocking the wind out of me, and two arms with superhuman strength held me there. I reached for my hunting knife and came up empty. Fuck me, I’d forgotten to replace it. My machete was trapped at my back, my Glock painfully digging into my hip and out of reach. The only weapon I had left was a baton, which I yanked from my belt and extended with a flick of my wrist.

A searing hot pain set fire to my neck, and I screamed like an animal at how fucking bad it hurt. That fucker had bit me. It bit me! Fueled by adrenaline and rage, I beat the thing off of my back with my baton before it could chomp down again.

“Cipher, get up,” Santiago shouted. He was at the gate now, leaning heavily against it while motioning for me to join him. Artemis had her bow raised, trying to get off a shot, but I was standing in the way. The Rabid who’d attacked me was back on its feet, ready to spring at me again. I stumbled backward and away, pulling out my Glock to finish him off while at the same time Macon lit up the Rabid’s body with bullets. The bastard twitched and moaned, body full of holes, then finally fell and lay dying in the street. I reached up to assess the damage done to my neck and pulled away bloody fingers.

Fuck me. This was bad. This was really fucking bad.

If I were a better man, I’d have put my Glock to my temple and ended it right then, but selfishly, I wanted to see Kitten one last time.

I holstered my gun and ran.