Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(16)

“Morning.” The sound of Alex’s deep, booming voice startled me. Twisting in my seat, I found him standing just outside the driver’s side door with his back to me. I blinked again, realizing that the sound I’d initially thought was trickling water was actually the sound of him urinating.

As my face heated with embarrassment, I quickly turned away and caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. The truck was an older model, the windshield short and squat, and the turned-down mirror gave me an up close and personal view of my face that I didn’t much care to see. Dried smears of blood ran up and down both my cheeks, dark bruises ringed my eyes, my nose had a thin cut running across the bridge of it. My bottom lip was swollen, split in two places, and my neck…

I swallowed hard, glancing away from the mirror, vividly recalling what Lawrence’s hand had felt like wrapped around my throat, his fingertips biting into my skin while I fought for my breath, while he took what he hadn’t been given.

And then the blood. The memory of the blood covering me, covering the entire room, washed over me in one suffocating wave, so very real that I could taste the sharp metallic flavor all over again.

“Evelyn,” I managed to croak out. Alex bent down, resting his forearms on top of the open window.

“You okay?” he asked.

Not trusting my voice, I simply nodded. He watched me for one long uncomfortable moment before pointing. Following his finger, I turned in my seat and took in our surroundings.

We appeared to be parked on the side of a deserted two-lane road, surrounded by mostly open land. I quickly spotted Evelyn, some several dozen yards away, as she emerged from behind a large oak tree. She was moving slowly, much slower than usual, looking disheveled and a bit dazed. I stared at her, squinting to see her better as she continued down the small incline of pasture. Her body language, her movements, her facial expression, it was all wrong and I hardly recognized her. This appeared to be Evelyn at her lowest, internalizing her pain, letting it press her down until something as simple as walking became strenuous.

I’d only ever seen this Evelyn once before. The day she’d lost Shawn.

“Eve!” Alex shouted, bellowing from behind me, causing my entire body to flinch. “Three o’clock!”

My eyes darted right and found nothing, then left, Evelyn’s three o’clock, and my breath caught in my throat. I’d seen the infected before, God knows I had, too many to count. But even so, they struck the sort of fear inside of me that no fist, no weapon, no living person ever could.

In the beginning, when Thomas and I were holed up in Evelyn and Shawn’s home, the four of us had waited for weeks for someone to come and save us—the army, the national guard, the Red Cross, anyone to take us somewhere safe. During that time, the infected had been everywhere. Milling down the streets, in every nook and cranny, pounding on the house, trying to beat their way inside. Those who had once been our neighbors, friends, and family had all succumbed to the infection and become monsters.

I’d even had to endure the horror of watching my own husband turn, watch as the fever overtook him, as the bloody pustules formed all over his skin. I watched him cry tears mixed with blood, and gasp my name with his last few breaths. Then I’d watched as he awoke, his eyes clouded over, as a garbled cacophony of hoarse groans and animalistic gurgles erupted from his throat. And just as he’d lunged for me, his jaw snapping, his teeth bared, I’d watched as Shawn had speared my beloved husband through the skull with a butcher knife. The very same butcher knife he’d used to carve the turkey every Thanksgiving.

I’d seen the infected in Fredericksville too, the stragglers who had somehow managed to find themselves at our walls. But it was always from afar. Even during the one and only wall breach during the first year, the invasion had been short lived, resulting in very few fatalities.

But now here we were, in the great wide open, just the three of us, the birds, and the three infected shambling their way toward Evelyn. My only source of relief to draw from stemmed from the noticeable difference between these infected and the ones from the beginning. These were slower than I’d remembered them to be, less steady on their feet, and unable to move quickly.

Alex was already jogging around to the front of the truck, a rifle in his hands. He paused in front of the hood, drawing himself to his full height. Lifting the weapon to eye level, he squinted, peering through the scope. His index finger twitched on the trigger, and a bullet cracked in the air, the small explosion echoing around us.

I watched, clasping my hand over my mouth, as one of the infected fell. Its two companions paid it little mind as its body crumpled to the ground, their focus only on Evelyn. Who, to my complete and utter horror, wasn’t running away from them, but toward them.

Something like a war cry flew from her lips as she rushed them head-on, her gun in her hand. My head buzzed with a pounding chorus of fear and anxiety as she flew across the lush grass, her arms and legs deftly pumping as she headed straight toward death itself.

What was she doing? Why would she be so reckless when here was Alex, complete with a rifle and an excellent shot, to boot?

“Help her!” I screamed, throwing myself at the windshield, pounding on the glass with clenched fists. “Alex! Do something!”

His rifle still raised, his body poised and ready to fire, Alex shook his head. “Can’t!” he shouted. “She’s blocking me! I might hit her!”