Page 11 of The Forever (When the World Fell #3)

Liv

“ W hat happened to the horses you kept here?” I asked Ro as we about faced to head back past her house again.

We’d been patrolling the front half of her property for the past forty-five minutes.

She’d told me about her husband’s heart attack and subsequent death eight years ago, and we’d both shared summaries of our lives. I had more questions, though. With new people, my curiosity never ended.

“We had to open the gates and let them go,” she said. “I didn’t have any feed left. The owners couldn’t come get them and keeping them was like a flashing sign letting people know we were still living here.”

“Has anyone given you trouble since it’s been just the three of you?”

“Not yet. Not here at least.” She kicked a pebble back into a garden bed as we strolled. “But after the past couple of days, I’m not so sure about this place anymore. We need somewhere with better security to keep the shitheads away—somewhere like the property you told us about.”

The thought of her and the girls joining us momentarily took my mind off Cruz and the others. I raised my brows as we turned and backtracked again. “Does that mean you’re close to making up your mind about leaving here?”

Ro nodded and looked off into the distance. “We won’t get very far with just the three of us,” she said. “When you broke us out of the mechanic shed, I wasn’t only relieved to be free. It was a relief to see good people again—to know they exist.”

“We’re on the same page as you,” I said. “Without a community, I think it’ll be tough for anybody to progress long term.”

We stopped walking and looked out across the fenced off paddocks. The cold, cloudless night created a rolling mist that hovered above the grass, the chill seeping through my jeans and shirt. Rubbing some warmth into my arms, I focused on the driveway and the road beyond, hoping to see headlights in the distance. Hear a noise. Anything to let me know they were still alive. The longer they stayed away, the more my concern grew.

With my stomach twisted in knots, I took in the starry sky and the full moon.

Seconds later, I froze and forgot to breathe. A spark of red glowed like the lights on planes when they used to travel at night, the dot standing out against the darkened backdrop. “See that?” I pointed and frowned, sharing a look with Ro. “Does that look like a flare to you?”

She nibbled on her lower lip and watched it for a moment. “Were you carrying flares?”

“I put one in the bottom of both our packs, but I don’t even know if Cruz remembers it’s in there.”

“Looks like it,” Ro decided. “I mean… what else could it be?”

No other explanation made sense—and what were the odds of a stranger having a flare and setting it off at exactly the same time that members of our group were missing? It had to be our people.

Nervous energy flowed through me, and I stared at the glowing dot as if it held all the answers to my questions. About a minute later, it fizzled to nothing, and the disappearing flame ignited a fire in me. There were too many hours between now and morning, and I couldn’t wait around until then to find out if they’d come back on their own.

Still staring at the spot, I asked Ro, “If you had to guess, where do you think it came from?”

“A couple of kilometres from here at a really wild guess, on the edge of the town centre. There’s a library there, an art gallery. A few shops before it turns residential.”

We didn’t know if they were trying to evade humans or if they’d been rounded up by the dead, but it was impossible for three of them to guard a large premises and catch any sleep overnight. They’d want a smaller house or business with lockable doors, where they could stick together and take turns keeping watch. If I aimed for that direction, I had a feeling I could figure out where they were just based on the trouble lurking nearby.

“You’re going after them, aren’t you?” Ro said, her tone dry.

“I am.”

“Can I trust those boys of yours here with my girls?”

“You can.”

She turned to me and smiled. “All righty then, let’s go on a little joyride.”

“Cruz is going to kill me for not stopping you.” Jonah stood beside the driver’s door with Remy, both of them appearing torn.

Remy wanted to come with me to find his brother; Jonah didn't like the thought of me taking off into the unknown after my admittedly reckless behaviour earlier in the day.

After exhausting every argument, they’d finally accepted there was no stopping us.

“We won’t be long.” I clutched the steering wheel and looked up at them through the open window. “And like I said, if it’s too big of a task, we’ll come back and get you.”

Ro leaned her elbow on the console and dipped her head to speak to him. “Remember to keep your hands to yourself while we're gone, otherwise I’ll remove your fingers one by one when I get back. Okay, cuties?”

“On second thought…” Jonah gave me a pointed look. “Take her as far away from here as you can.”

Ro laughed and slapped the dash. “Let’s get moving, honey.”

We exchanged goodbyes, and I left with a promise to Remy that we’d have his brother with us when we returned. It reassured me knowing he’d be here with Jonah to monitor the place while we were gone.

As I ambled down the driveway with the parking lights on, I slid Ro a look. “You just love terrorising men, don’t you?”

“It’s a thankless job, but someone’s gotta do it.”

I snorted. We were potentially driving straight to our deaths, but she had a way of making the mission feel like an adventure. We’d packed a shovel, an axe, a crowbar, and had two knives and a sword between us. Despite being physically equipped to handle most scenarios, I prayed it wouldn’t be one involving more humans who wanted to cause us harm.

When we reached the gates to her property, Ro pointed to the left. “I’d say we head that way and go back past the spot where Ellie was attacked.”

She was familiar with every road and had a better idea of where the men might be, so I turned in that direction and drove slowly to compensate for the lack of visibility. We had just enough light to see the immediate area ahead of the car and not much beyond that. None of the dead were around, but the frightening thought occurred to me it might be because the horde had gathered all the strays.

As we approached the intersection where Dane had struck Ellie, my body flooded with the same emotions that rushed in straight after the event. With a passing glance at the area, my face grew hot, and I tried to shut it all down.

“I’m guessing you’re feeling some type of way about killing that weasel now you’ve had time to think,” Ro said too casually.

“I’m definitely feeling some type of way.” I kept driving and steeled myself against the carousel of images playing in my mind.

“And how are you going to handle that moving forward?”

“Suppress the thoughts and pretend it never happened?”

Ro laughed. “Because that always works out so well, huh?”

I smiled and scanned the area on either side of the car. “I can’t exactly go to therapy and talk it through with a professional, so I’ll just have to work with what I’ve got.”

A beat of silence passed. “You’ve never hurt a good person before.”

“No—and as hard as it might be to believe, I’ve never actually hurt an asshole who didn’t come for me first. Not until today, at least.”

“That’s not hard to believe.”

“Thanks.” I sent her another smile. As I pulled up at a t-intersection, I told myself it was time to put the conversation and the feelings it brought up behind me. We were at risk, outside at night without backup, and Ro and I couldn’t afford a single distraction. “Which way now?”

“Take a right and head down to the library end of the main street.”

I hadn’t been out in this kind of darkness since the disastrous morning when Cruz and I left my apartment. On edge and ready for anything, I followed her instruction and crept along, going a little faster than walking pace—until I encountered a major obstacle that had me hitting the brakes. “Shit.”

“Oh, hell.”

The infected. Swarming and swirling around the entrance to a store that took up about a quarter of the block. I let the car idle as we sat and absorbed the scene. So many dead had congregated in one area that the sound filled the car’s interior, a collection of low level moans blending into one monotonous sound.

They were gathered at the shop window several bodies deep and covered more than half the street. As they moved, I caught glimpses of the vehicle parked at the curb and let out a loud breath. “That’s our car.”

Cruz had been here at some point—inside the store.

“No wonder they set off a flare.” Ro gripped the handle above the door and turned in her seat to look behind us.

With the absence of streetlights, I couldn’t see movement in the rearview, but I doubted we’d find anything back there. It looked like we had the town’s entire population of infected right in front of us.

“So, the part we need to figure out now,” I said, “is whether they’re still inside or they escaped and found a place to wait out the horde.”

A few of the stragglers on the periphery turned toward the sound of the car and hobbled in our direction, their movements drawing the attention of several others. It wouldn’t take long for the numbers to grow and the risk to increase. If we didn’t make a move soon, we’d be in just as much trouble as the men.

“That’s Wilson’s—a gun store,” Ro said. “I haven’t been inside in years, but it used to have steel bars across the doors. If the entrance isn’t damaged, there’s no way the zombies are getting through.”

I nodded slowly, contemplating our options. They wouldn’t have used the flare if they were safely tucked away inside. “Which means the doors must be wrecked. Do you know if there’s rear access for deliveries?”

“There’s a laneway. Never been down it, but I know it’s there.”

With the dead crowded together, I couldn’t get a clear view of the front doors, and the outlying infected were steadily gathering, coming closer and closer to us.

“Could they get up on a roof that high to wave the flare around?” Ro asked.

I scanned the top of the store and the adjoining buildings. It looked too tall even for Gabe to parkour up there. “I doubt it.”

The glow from the parking lights showcased the gruesome features of a woman as she scratched the bonnet of the car. A man with a bare torso that had been torn to shreds came up on Ro’s side and opened his mouth in a crooked moan. We’d run out of time to consider any other options. All we could do was lead the horde away and hope it was enough to help Cruz and the guys.

More of them turned from the rear of the pack to follow the infected coming our way, stumbling toward us in numbers that would have been terrifying on foot. In a car, we were okay—for now. I shoved the gear shifter in reverse and backed up slowly. One of the dead tripped over the wheel of a fallen motorbike and smacked the asphalt face first. Another three tumbled along with it, creating a pile of writhing cadavres on the road.

We needed more of them following, but they were too focused on the storefront, and their incessant wailing drowned out the engine noise that should have attracted them. I continued reversing and beeped the horn a few times.

The car was old enough to have a CD player, and Ro pressed the eject button. Finding it empty, her focus turned to rifling through the glove box. “Up for some Metallica?” she asked, pulling out a plastic sleeve.

“Why not?” The butterflies in my stomach were out of control, and my fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

Ro lowered the side window and set up the music. Soon after, the opening notes of Enter Sandman filled the car, and she turned the volume up to an almost unbearable level. While I focused on not crashing, she leaned out the window and shouted abuse at the dead, her threats as creative as they were shocking and amusing.

With the abandoned cars and other objects in the way, there wasn’t room for me to do a three-point turn, so I continued backing up as carefully as I could, alternating between checking the side and rear mirrors while Ro monitored the horde.

We didn’t know where the guys were, if they were still in the store or they’d found a temporary base nearby, but at least we were doing something .

Ro leaned her upper body out the window to examine the road behind us. “Looks like you can swing around just up here,” she called out over the music. She pulled her head back inside and sank into her seat. “Stop for a second and let me out to make sure.”

“You’re not getting out here.” I could only drive at a speed that left around twenty metres between us and the dead; enough room to keep us safe, but not enough space to allow for mistakes. If she stumbled or fell, if she took her eyes off them for seconds, the result could be catastrophic.

“Trust me. I’ll keep walking alongside the car and look for crap on the road.” She twisted in her seat and leaned through to the back to grab the shovel we’d left there. “We’re in more danger if we stay in reverse like this, driving blind with no lights. If we don’t turn around now, we might get to a point where we can’t.”

The music was effective at catching the attention of anything living or dead in the vicinity, but my eardrums couldn’t take much more. The group of infected had grown so large they were a mass of moving bodies. If the guys had hidden somewhere nearby, I hoped they were aware of the opportunity we’d given them and were ready to take advantage.

Cursing the need to put Ro’s life in danger, I stopped the car, and my heart fluttered as she jumped out and left the door hanging open.

One mistake. That’s all it took to change the course of our night.

Without her in the passenger seat as my second pair of eyes, my gaze darted in every direction.

Ro stayed out of my way as I backed up, jogging off to the side, where I could track her movements in the mirror. Every time I needed to use the brakes, the red lights lit up her features, and the resolve in her expression strengthened mine.

“You got about ten more metres,” she yelled over the music, “then you’re going to swing around to the right and do a three-pointer.”

I’d had about enough of the song blasting from the speakers and turned it down as I checked on the horde again. Still more had joined the group, coming from inside the store after catching onto the ruckus out here. We should have cleared enough of them now that Cruz and the guys could fight through the rest to reach their car.

Ro clanked the shovel against the rear panel. “Now!”

I trusted her to keep clear as I turned hard and veered off to the right. Clenching my jaw, I completed the maneouvre and straightened, facing away from the infected.

My pulse thudded in my ears as I stopped and waited.

Ro ran around to the passenger door and tossed the shovel in the footwell. She jumped in the car and let out an excited woo as we shared a smile.

“Let’s get out of here.” Just as I touched my foot to the accelerator, a blur of movement came at us from the front.

I jammed my foot on the brake and braced for impact.

A kangaroo bypassed the car at the last possible second, heading directly for the crowd of infected behind us. Another bounded straight into the windshield with one impressive leap.

“Holy shit.” Ro grabbed my head and dragged me below the dashboard, holding me down. I pushed my foot harder on the brake and waited for the pain to follow. All I felt were pieces of glass raining in my hair and cold air blowing through the frame where the windscreen used to be.

My heart tripped, my body trembled with adrenaline.

We were okay. We were good—but if we didn’t get moving now, the infected would swarm us.

I lifted my head, my eyes widening as I took in the damage. The kangaroo hadn’t died on impact, and a desperate screeching and clambering followed. It somehow scrambled off the bonnet and landed with a thud beside the car, leaving the smell of urine and fur behind.

I wanted to help it, or at least jump out to see if it could be helped, but the delay would be a death sentence for Ro and me.

“We need to go, Liv.” She used the shovel to knock out the remaining glass from the windscreen, and I checked the rearview. Some of the dead were distracted by the kangaroos, but the rest were still locked onto our car, their frightening features lit up by the glow of the brake lights.

Ro dropped the shovel in the footwell and slapped my thigh to snap me back to reality. “Floor it, honey.”

Several of the infected were already at the car, closing in on the rear and moving up on both sides. Rather than floor it, I rolled down the street at a steady pace, keeping watch on our surroundings as we extended the space between us and the bulk of the horde. Both of us were breathing fast and my heart thrummed away in my chest, still hanging in there after all the excitement. The danger made me feel completely, utterly alive.

I looked across at Ro and grinned. She smacked her own thigh this time around and threw her head back with a laugh. “This is the best fun I’ve had in a long time.”

She had a strange idea of what made up fun. I laughed and veered across to the other side of the road to avoid a bike, flicking a glance at the side mirror as I drove. My new position gave me a better view of where the other car was parked, and although I caught some movement around it, it was too dark to know if it was a human figure or the infected.

When the car’s brake lights suddenly lit up, my body jerked to attention. “Someone made it back to the car.”

Ro swivelled to get a look, but she didn’t have a direct view from her side. “All of them?”

“I can’t tell.” Every muscle in me tightened and my breath stuck in my throat. I checked again, careful to spend more time watching the road ahead than the scene behind me. No more agile bodies were moving around back there. Just a single human, as far as I could tell. “Pretty sure it was just one person.”

My stomach dropped, but Ro didn’t seem to see it as bad news.

“Good. That’s good.” She faced the front again. “They only need one of them to grab the car. Go back to my place. We’ll catch up with them there and find out what’s going on.”

I nodded. It made more sense to go to a place we all knew rather than circling around and trying to meet up somewhere on the street. I continued straight for a while, paying close attention to the road surface, flicking occasional looks at the mirror to make sure there were plenty of moving shadows back there. Some of the horde would have branched off and backtracked when they heard the other car, but the bulk of them still followed us.

“I’ll lead them toward the western exit before we head back,” I said, my stomach knotted with concern. “I don’t want them anywhere nearby when we drive east in the morning.”

My mind whirred with questions that currently had no answers, at least not while we were out in the dark with no way of communicating with the others.

What if two members from our group were gone now?

God, I couldn't even imagine the impact it would have on us after already losing one.

What if Cruz was one of them?

His loss would leave a gaping hole in my chest that could never be filled.

I needed to know he’d survived.

Ro clicked her seatbelt on again, oblivious to my turmoil… or choosing to ignore it so I wouldn’t go completely off the rails. “If you take a right up here and the next right again, even if they don’t leave town, they’ll keep walking that way until something else grabs their attention.”

And so I led our creepy convoy away from the main road and down a side street, turning again where Ro suggested. It delayed my reunion with Cruz—if he was still alive—but it made our departure tomorrow safer, and I needed to focus on the big picture until I’d confirmed whether that picture had been shattered.

By the time I could finally increase my speed and zip away from the horde, I’d become desperate to see him again.