Page 10 of The Forever (When the World Fell #3)

Cruz

I pulled up at the first stop on our scavenging run and swung into the entrance. We were only a couple of streets back from Ro’s place, but the sheer size of the properties meant we could no longer see hers from here.

Gabe was in the back, Tae beside me in the passenger seat, and the others had stayed behind at Ro’s.

“Did you grow up in Darby Downs?” I asked Tae, navigating a winding gravel drive lined with wild looking shrubs.

He shook his head. “I came here from Perth to do a gap year after I finished my degree.”

“Aren’t gap years supposed to be before uni?” Gabe asked.

Tae smiled a bit. “They are, but I needed a break before I kicked off the career that never happened, so I got a job on a sheep farm. It was only supposed to be for twelve months.”

“Then the pandemic hit, and the lockdowns kept you here.” I slowed as we approached a weathered farmhouse that reminded me of the one where we’d buried Dawn.

He nodded, no doubt revisiting memories. “I kept in touch with my family until communication went down. By the time we lost phones and the Internet, my sister was the only one left.”

In the beginning, the army had patrolled the highways to keep the population contained, but when Ultimus mutated and corpses were reanimating, control went out the window. People scattered in all directions, flooding major roads in a panic—as if there was anywhere left in the country the virus hadn’t touched.

At that stage, it would have been too dangerous for Tae to make the forty-plus hour drive home. As much as the distance must have tortured him, he’d made the right decision by staying here.

“How do you know Ellie?” Gabe asked, as I pulled up outside the house.

“Ro was friends with the owner of the farm where I worked. We got to know each other a bit, pre-pandemic.”

“They’re all gone now?” I asked, cutting the engine. “The people you worked for?”

He pushed his door open as the gravel dust caught up with us. “Isn’t everyone?”

As we walked up the concrete path to the front entrance, I frowned. The more I spoke to him, the less he seemed like the type of person to gravitate toward a group like Dane’s. “Is that why you were with those clowns?”

“Part of the reason.”

The door was locked; the windows uncovered. I rapped the horseshoe knocker to draw attention, then cupped my hand around my eyes and leaned in to see through the side glass. There was no movement in there, no sounds to suggest corpses were bumping around.

“Why wouldn’t you just go to Ro’s place and stay with them?” Gabe asked, his mind travelling down the same track as mine.

Tae stood back as I cracked the glass with my knife. “I was still at the farm when I met the other guys. My boss had just died the day before, and I hadn’t figured out my next move yet. Dane turned up at the farm scavenging with his crew and decided for me.”

I opened the door and stepped inside a cold, musty home that felt like it had been sitting empty for years. “How long did it take you to figure out they were shitty people?”

Gabe closed the door, and we shifted into clearing mode, moving through a living room made up of two worn, mismatched couches, into a kitchen with a well-trod vinyl floor. The house was set up for practicality and comfort, with nothing about it designed to be aesthetically appealing.

“About two seconds,” Tae answered. “They were looking for women and talking stupid shit about breeding humans like they could save humanity or something. I figured if I stuck with them, I could keep track of them and make sure they stayed away from Ellie and her family.”

Now the details were falling into place. I gave him an appraising look as we followed Gabe. “They didn’t hurt the girls?”

“No.” Tae opened a tall cupboard and checked inside. “If you haven’t already heard,” he said, shutting the door, “Ro’s got a mouth on her. Whenever someone made suggestive comments about Ellie and Willow, she fired back with threats involving body parts and how she’d remove them. She had this light in her eyes and fucking smiled . She was so nice when I met her.”

I huffed out a laugh. “She’s smart. She kept the girls safe while you worked on getting them out of there. You were working as a team naturally without even discussing your game plan.”

Tae’s dark eyes held mine before he glanced at Gabe, assessing us in much the same way Liv did whenever she was getting to know someone. “If you say so, but you can stand between me and her if she ever looks like she’s ready to do an amputation. Deal?”

Gabe smiled. “Pretty sure if you treat her nieces right, you’re good.”

“That part, I’ve got under control.” Tae gave the room one more look and blew out a loud breath, his reaction matching mine.

There was nothing here for us.

We scoured the houses, grounds, and sheds of three more properties, with nothing to show for it other than a few axes and a decent long-handled screwdriver like the one Remy carried. After hearing Tae’s story about how he’d met the other guys, it looked like the farms had already been picked clean, leaving nothing of value behind.

All the animals were long gone, the gates left open. Everywhere we went had been abandoned long ago.

“What about the businesses in the city centre?” Gabe asked as we wandered back to the car. “Any worth checking out?”

Tae opened the passenger door and rested his forearm on the roof. “There’s a shooting supplies store on the main street that still had some stock in it last time I went in there. No guns, and there’s a zombie locked in the back office.”

Whatever remnants were left on the main floor wouldn’t be worth the effort it took to cross town—but the mention of a corpse in a locked office got my attention. I checked my watch. We’d already been gone for two hours, and I didn’t want to leave Liv wondering and worrying about me for too much longer. “How far?”

“Less than ten minutes if we don’t run into any trouble.”

Gabe surveyed the sky. “It’ll be dark in a half an hour.”

Even with a detour, we could be back at Ro’s before sunset—maybe with something worthwhile to show for it, too. “Why don’t we do a drive by?” I suggested. “If it’s an easy stop, we go in. If not, we let it go. I’ve got a good feeling about this place.”

Gabe’s brows lifted, his eyes lighting with amusement. “Oh, well, that’s different. If you’ve got a feeling, we better go see what’s up.”

His humour reminded me of the way Diego used to give me shit, his little-brother energy simultaneously making me smile and miss my old life. “You can drive, smartass.”

We jumped in the car again and followed Tae’s directions to the city centre.

The impending darkness took my alertness up another notch, and I took in every shadow, both stationary and moving. After passing broken-down cars, a wrecked motorbike, and countless corpses, we made it to the shooting supplies store without running into trouble.

The building had blacked-out windows and steel bollards out the front to prevent ram raids. Someone had still found a way to bust through the reinforced double doors; the metal bars were bent and broken on one side and completely missing on the other. Shattered glass covered the ground, and one of the door frames had returned to its original position, swinging slightly in the breeze.

Gabe and I threw our backpacks on and followed Tae to the entrance.

I stepped over a decapitated corpse on the footpath and paused, turning to survey the street before I went inside. The horde was still circling somewhere in town, close enough to hear but not see. We’d have to make sure we were out of here before it became a problem.

When I faced the building again, Tae had already stepped through the empty doorframe, his boots crunching over glass as he ventured into the store.

Gabe and I joined him, and I immediately noticed the empty racking along the back wall where the rifles had once been displayed. Without checking, I knew the ammo supplies would be gone, too. Gun stores were among the first to be raided when the shit hit the fan.

I dodged a couple of circular racks of clothing and followed Gabe to the rear of the store, where Tae was waiting for us.

“Hear that?” He nodded at the locked office.

Dull thuds came from the other side, but the blind had been lowered over the window that faced the shop. When I tapped the end of my hatchet against the door, the sounds amplified and became more agitated. I listened for a minute, only picking up on one set of footsteps.

“Keep watch on the main doors in case the noise stirs up trouble,” I said, waiting for Tae to step back.

As soon as he’d given me the space to swing, I hacked at the handle and doorjamb, going at it until the wood splintered and the corpse on the other side turned more aggressive.

“Get ready,” I said, then pulled back and kicked the damaged door inward.

The impact knocked the corpse on the floor, and the smell that spewed out was eye-wateringly potent.

Tae gagged in disgust and stepped away from the entrance.

I held my breath and bent over the corpse; a man with a ragged, rotting bite mark on his neck and the main part of his face missing. Grabbing his stained shirt with the Wilson’s Shooting Supplies logo, I finished the job he’d attempted who knew how long ago, ending him with a blow to the head.

Conscious of our limited time, I kept hold of my hatchet and dragged the body out one-handed.

“Shit, that’s bad.” Gabe hid his face in the crook of his elbow.

“Keep an eye on the shop while I search the room.” I slid my hatchet back in my belt and stepped into the kitchenette-slash-office.

Family photos were stuck on the fridge, and dirty dishes filled the sink. Blood and brain matter had splattered the far wall, and an office chair was pushed back from the desk, likely from the gun’s recoil. The single round he’d fired had taken out a chunk of the ceiling, and a pool of congealed blood was spread out on the floor where he’d initially landed.

Beside it lay a rifle, a Remington 700.

Poor bastard had misfired and died from a bite, turning before the gunshot wound could take him. My heart pumped harder, and I pushed aside thoughts of his last moments as I stooped to collect the weapon. The attached strap was soaked in dried blood.

When I checked the chamber, I found another six rounds and let out a low whistle.

This could change everything.

Save lives.

“What’s up?” Gabe asked without coming into the room.

“Found a rifle.” I could barely believe our luck.

Tae popped his head around the door. “Any bullets?”

“Six more rounds.” I laid the gun on the desk and yanked open every drawer and cupboard, flinging out the contents in the hope I’d find the rest of the ammo he’d used to load the rifle. There was nothing other than a box cutter, which I pocketed just in case. It didn’t matter. We were still better off than we’d been when we walked in here.

“Do any of us know how to use a gun without killing ourselves?” Tae asked. A murmured conversation took place before I could answer, then he poked his head around the door again. “You were a cop?”

“Yeah.”

“That explains a few things.”

“Such as?”

“Nothing.” He grinned and popped his head straight back out again.

With a calming breath, I noted the distant groaning of corpses had grown louder since we’d been here. “You two want to make yourselves useful and see if the street’s clear? I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Will do,” Gabe said.

Their footsteps moved away from the door, and I shrugged off my backpack, setting it on the desk with the rifle. While the other two kept busy, I went out onto the main floor and checked the shelves on the off chance I’d find a strap that wasn’t covered in a dead man’s blood. “All good out there?” I called, returning to the back room empty-handed.

The telltale shuffling of an incoming pack registered, mingling with grunts and movements that sounded more human than dead. I worked fast, securing the gun to my bag just as a male shout filled the air. When I slipped my pack on again and left the office, the hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

They hadn’t come back inside yet, and the collective hum of corpses drifted into the store. Louder. Closer.

Straightening my shoulders, I pulled out my hatchet and gripped the handle, releasing a hard breath through my nose.

My attention shifted to the entrance just as Tae came bursting through. His eyes were wild, his breaths laboured. Gabe followed mere seconds behind him. Both their shirts were covered in blood and fluids. As far as I could tell, none of it belonged to them.

“They’re coming.” Tae could barely get the words out.

“Too dark to see how many,” Gabe said. “Going off the noise, it’s a shitload.”

Tae lifted his shoulder and wiped the blood from his cheek. “We took out the leaders, but they saw us come in here.”

My jaw clenched, and I shot a look at the entrance. “Can we make it to the car?”

Gabe shook his head. “Too close. One wrong move, and we’re gone.”

I trusted him to give accurate advice on the timing, but I approached the door to scope out the situation for myself.

Leaning off to the side, I caught countless moving shadows accompanying the growing noise. Some were already surrounding the car as others closed in on the building, stepping onto the footpath and heading for the spot where I stood. A corpse clocked my presence and its mouth opened with a long, mournful wail that rose above all the others.

Leaving via the front was a suicide mission, and there was nothing substantial we could use to block the doors and keep ourselves safe inside.

When the mass descended, they’d come in if we liked it or not.

My heart pounded hard and fast, and I blocked out the mounting pressure to sort through our options.

No one suggested using the gun. Six bullets against a horde were pointless.

We needed to run.

I shifted my gaze to the access hole in the ceiling, then to the rear wall of the shop. There’d be a locked door back there that led to a storeroom or warehouse, and unless we wanted to climb into the roof cavity to wait who knew how long for the horde to clear out, it was our only escape. “Let’s move.”

We ran across the shop floor, and I looked over my shoulder as the first of the corpses stumbled inside. Three others followed, and the numbers continued to grow. My gut twisted as I pushed Gabe to speed up the pace.

When we reached the rear door, Tae tried the handle. “Fuck,” he said, his voice strained.

There was no time to search the office or the owner’s pockets for keys. “Stand back and keep the corpses under control.”

I turned away and hacked at the handle as they took down the first members of the horde. Energy pumped through me, keeping my strikes on point.

My eyes stayed locked on the doorjamb, and I tried not to think about Liv—what would happen to her if I didn’t make it out of here, how she’d cope.

After the third swing, Tae let out a scream reminiscent of the one we heard at the shed, and the panicked sound sent alarm through me.

We’d have to deal with his injury when we were safe— if we survived.

I hit the door harder, giving it everything I had, but they’d reinforced this door just like the entrance to the store. If I couldn’t get the fucking thing open, I’d be better off turning the rifle on the three of us before the biting kicked in.

My shoulders ached as the chaos behind me intensified. Thuds, yelling, and that God awful wailing and moaning. More corpses would have pushed their way into the shop by now, circling and gathering like sharks waiting for a piece of the action.

It gave me a strange sense of peace knowing I’d told Liv I loved her before I left, even if it was in a language she didn’t understand.

I hacked at the door one last time and stood back to kick the shit out of it. When that didn’t work, my body coiled tight with adrenaline, and I rammed my shoulder into the door. A split second later, it gave way and flew inward. Finally . My stomach flipped, and with a glance at the empty storage room, I reached for Gabe.

“Go!” I shouted, pushing him through first, then Tae.

Facing the horde again, I raised my hatchet and cracked the bit into the nearest skull, ripping it free to take on the next one. I shook off a set of fingers that latched onto my forearm, and took down three more in quick succession before I turned and ran, hot on the heels of the others.

My boots thumped over concrete, my pace keeping time with my heartbeats. I followed the trail of blood spots to the far side of the warehouse.

Gabe was already at the roller door, turning the manual lock mechanism. “Get ready.”

We may not have known what was waiting for us out there, but it had to be better than what we faced in here. I threw a look at the ruckus behind me and saw too many corpses trying to push through the doorway at once. The leader tripped and fell, creating a temporary hurdle for the others to tumble over. More of them filled the opening, their arms reaching in our direction while the bodies piled up in front of them.

The delay bought us a few precious seconds, but it wouldn’t hold them for long.

Gabe dragged the roller door up while Tae stood ready with his knife.

Darkness greeted us in the alley. No corpses.

“I know of a house close by,” Tae said. “We can watch the street and wait for the herd to move on.”

His arm needed immediate attention, and this would at least give us some breathing space. “You’ve been inside?”

Gabe pulled the roller door down to contain the corpses, giving it one last push.

“Had to hide there once,” he said. “There’s no food or water, but the house is solid. None of the doors have been kicked in.”

Gabe smacked him lightly on the shoulder as the first of the corpses crashed into the metal on the other side. “Lead the way.”

We took off at a jog through the rapidly cooling night, keeping our heads up and our eyes open. Darkness had set in fast, turning the grey shadows to black, but the moon glowed from a cloudless sky to guide our way.

We followed the side street that took us back to the road where we’d parked, then stopped at the corner. I performed a quick head check to take in the activity outside the store. At a guess, a couple of dozen corpses were still swarming at the entrance, lost without a leader or a human target to follow. Most of them would be inside the shop and storeroom by now, loitering until they had a reason to turn around and come back out.

Tae tilted his head to the left to let us know which way we were going, and the three of us fell into an easy run again.

“I can’t believe we made it out alive,” he said, holding his forearm as he ran awkwardly. “It wasn’t looking good for a minute there.”

“It’s still not looking good.” I frowned at his rapid, shallow breathing and wondered if he was on the verge of a panic attack. “We need to get a bandage on that arm. Keep the pressure on.”

“Under control. Just up here.” He gestured to the other side of the road, where a couple of residential homes were wedged between commercial buildings.

Gabe had been watching him, and he slid a look my way, letting me know he’d picked up on Tae’s behaviour, too.

We crossed the street without being detected and slipped behind the house. With the pressure mounting, I removed my pack and dug around inside for my torch.

Gabe did the same, and we shined our lights ahead of us, following Tae into the house.

He’d told us it was empty, but we spent a few silent minutes making sure. As our footsteps took us from one room to the next, the atmosphere grew heavier, the mood a stark contrast to the casual vibe we’d had going on earlier when we were searching the farms. When we returned to the living room, Tae sank onto the couch and rested his elbows on his knees. A beat later, he released a world-weary sigh and looked up at Gabe first, then at me.

“Pretty sure you know what’s going on,” he said, his tone defeated. “I’ve seen the way you’re looking at me.”

Blood dripped from the open wound on his forearm. I couldn’t get a clear look at it from my position, but he didn’t seem too concerned about stopping the flow anymore.

“Did it happen when I was trying to get the door open?” I sat on the edge of the coffee table and rested my torch on its end. The beam hit the ceiling and dispersed the glow around the room.

He nodded. “And don’t piss me off by trying to take the blame. I wasn’t tracking the movement from my right and got taken by surprise. I didn’t even see it bite me, but one second is all it takes.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Gabe asked.

“Wouldn’t have made any difference,” he said, his breathing too fast. “I’m still dead, right?”

I’d never get used to someone talking about their impending death while they were still fully functional and healthy on the surface.

“Want me to take a look at it?” I asked.

He gave a half shrug, trying to act nonchalant even though his mind had to be racing. “What’s the point?”

“To stop you from bleeding out so you can make it back to Ellie?” The mention of her name had his face falling, but I wanted him to spend his last hours surrounded by people who gave a shit about him. It was just the how that eluded me.

“We’ve gotta come up with a plan,” Gabe said. “We can’t just sit here waiting for them to move on.” He went into the kitchen and opened several drawers and cupboards. “You know they won’t leave unless we give them a reason—and we can’t walk back to Ro’s in the dark with one of our people injured. That’s got to be our last resort.” Returning with a banged up first-aid kit, he sat on the couch and searched through the meagre contents, coming up with a gauze pad and a bandage.

Tae’s brow furrowed. “I’m done for anyway,” he said. “It won’t make any difference if they bite me again. I’ll go back and grab the car while you two stay here.”

“No.” I didn’t need to confer with Gabe to know he shared my opinion. Neither of us would stay hidden in a safe house while Tae put himself at risk.

He frowned, misunderstanding my hesitation. “I’ll come back for you.”

“I know you will.”

“What’s the problem, then?”

“Don’t be an idiot. We don’t operate that way.” Gabe laid the gauze pad over the wound without cleaning or inspecting it, then wrapped Tae’s forearm with the bandage. “While everyone’s still breathing, everyone matters. One of us needs to stay with you, and we’re not sending the other out to deal with a horde that size on their own.”

Another idea occurred to me, and I grabbed my backpack and set it on the floor between my feet. It meant drawing Liv out of a secure home and into a dangerous situation, but she’d never forgive me if she knew I could have asked for help and chose not to involve her.

After rifling through the items she’d packed before we left her apartment, my fingers curled around the object I’d been looking for. I pulled the flare from my bag and showed it to the others. “I’ll climb up on the roof and set it off. It’s a clear night. We’re probably close enough for someone to see it from the house.”

“If they’re looking out the window,” Tae pointed out as he fell against the backrest. “Ellie said they keep the blinds permanently closed in the lounge room.”

“We’re late getting back,” I said. “Liv’ll be keeping watch, even if no one else is looking.”

“It’s our best option.” Gabe rose from the couch and held out his hand. “I’ll do it. Tell me how to use this thing, and we’ll get the ball rolling.”

“Instructions are on the side.” I handed it to him and stood, ready to get out of this place. “Do you need a leg up on the roof?”

He turned the cannister over to find the info he needed, then lifted his gaze. “Don’t insult me.”