Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(120)

As my convulsions begin to fade, Leisel hugged me one last time before letting me fall heavily down onto the mattress. Pressing her lips to the top of my head, she whispered her final good-bye. It was then that I knew it was time, and strangely enough, I was ready for it. I was heartbroken and devastated to leave her, but I was ready.

I wanted to go home, was desperate even to leave, to go back to before all this happened. I wanted to return to a simpler time full of laughter and love, to when I could still remember the feel of my husband’s breath on my cheek. I wanted to stare into his beautiful eyes again, the way they once had looked upon me, so full of life, and not the cloudy, desperate eyes that had haunted my soul for years now. I wanted to slip into my silky yellow dress, feel his warm hands around my waist, hear the sultry riff of the guitar echoing in my ears as we swayed together.

Smiling to myself, I whispered good-bye to my friend, the best friend a woman could ever have, and then I closed my eyes, falling backward into oblivion.

“Forgive me,” I heard Leisel say. “Please forgive me.”

And then there was nothing more.





Chapter Forty-Five


Leisel

I’d never been alone before. Not like this. Not so utterly, completely alone, without another soul in the world to speak with, to laugh with, to share even the simplest and most mundane of things with. As the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months, the silence was deafening at times; the echoing of my own footsteps, of my own breathing, sounded hollow and desolate.

Every day I awoke at dawn, washed, pulled my hair into a high ponytail, dressed in one of two pairs of formfitting cargo pants and a tight black T-shirt—outfits I’d begun reserving specifically for pillaging. Then I would make my bed from the night before and set out into the heart of the town to collect whatever resources I could find to bring back to the bed and breakfast. I was fortifying it as best I could, just like Evelyn had wanted us to.

There were more secure buildings, something I’d found during one of my many trips into town, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the bed and breakfast. That wasn’t saying the inn didn’t have its advantages. It was off the beaten track down a gravel road, set far back atop a steep ravine, and partially hidden behind a smattering of trees. But more than anything, I wanted to stay because it held the memory of Evelyn within its walls, and I wasn’t ready to let her go.

First, I boarded up all the first-floor windows and doors, leaving only the service entrance in the back usable. For my own peace of mind, I rigged it with a rather impressive impromptu crossbar, using a block of wood I had mounted to the wall that extended across both sides of the door frame.

I’d left the first floor as it was, broken and in shambles, a mess of furniture and scattered belongings. From the outside looking in, it would seem to anyone or anything passing by just another broken-down structure, and nothing of worth. But on the inside, once you breached the second floor where I’d made my home, it was a veritable fortress.

Next, I’d left only one of the three bedrooms as is, using the rest of the furniture to create a blockade in the stairwell and hallway. Every day it was quite a feat climbing over the mess I’d intentionally made, but it was necessary protection against any sort of intruder. If the noise anyone or anything made while attempting to ascend the stairs didn’t wake me, then nothing would.

Even so, I took my safeguards one step farther, creating a fence of sorts, comprised of dozens of ski poles I’d pilfered from the ski lodge. Tying pairs of them together in an X pattern, I set them up all over the inn, the perfect killing tool for a clueless infected, and a somewhat useful deterrent for an unwelcome visitor of the living variety as well.

With the aid of a hand truck from the same supermarket Evelyn had been bitten in, I was able to transport the heavier things back to the bed and breakfast that I wouldn’t have had the strength to otherwise. It took long weeks to properly fortify the inn exactly the way I wanted it, in a way that made me feel safe, but it kept me busy. More importantly, it kept my mind off my grief.

Although hard work kept the pain away during the day, nothing could stop my mind from wandering in the dead of night. That was when I missed Evelyn the most, when it was only me and the moonlight, the sweet scent of flowers wafting through the open window on a cool breeze. I ached for her then—the sound of her voice, the glint in her eyes, the way her hand felt when her fingers were intertwined with mine.

But most of all I missed her presence. Just knowing she was there, sleeping beside me, walking next to me; no matter what, she’d always been there.

And now she was gone.

I’d thought about ending it, just letting go. It would be easy to put a bullet in my head, quick and painless. I could be with her again, with Thomas too. With everyone I’d lost. And a couple of times, during a few very dark nights filled with long bouts of crying and feeling more alone than I ever had before, I almost did just that.

It was the guilt that stopped me each and every time. The many lives that had been lost just so we could reach a safe place like this one. Thomas and Shawn, Alex and Jami, and Evelyn. They had all died trying to survive, trying to ensure we would all survive. How selfish would I have to be to take my own life when they’d given theirs for me to be here, in this very place?

This was all we’d ever wanted. Somewhere untouched, somewhere safe and quiet. Somewhere we could live out our lives in peace. I couldn’t waste it, couldn’t let it all be for nothing, so I focused instead on the fact that we had all actually made it. Because through me, they had all survived, even if it was only their memory.