Dating After the End of the World - 38

A million questions run through my mind as I paw at the bars, touching his hands, reaching through to his face. There’s a light returning to his eyes, a flicker that nearly extinguished. He probably thought he would never see me again, and he may have even prepared for the end. But death didn’t arrive—well, not for him—and instead my presence is pulling him back into a world he wants to be in, and one he wants to fight for.

“I’m so happy to see you,” Blake says.

“Are you hurt?” I’m trying to look him over, but I can only take in pieces of him through the door, like his bloody hands. “Where’s the blood coming from?” I ask.

He smirks, looking down at them himself, as if seeing it for the first time. “Nah. This isn’t mine. One of them got too close to my cell door and decided to start talking nasty about what they were gonna do to Julie, Elaine, and Meredith, so I grabbed the back of his head and smashed his face into the bars . . . a couple times, actually.”

When he says their names, a certain dread sets into his face, harsh lines of concern digging into his forehead. “Where is everyone? Are they okay?”

“Greg and Molly are up in the sniper tower keeping watch. Julie’s a little banged up. Tessa and Elaine are fine. Meredith . . .” I pause, realizing that I don’t actually know the truth about Meredith, other than that she’s alive for now. “Is gonna be okay.”

Blake inhales deeply through his nose, digesting everyone’s status, and then the scream I heard before we entered the house comes rushing back into my brain. It comes in slowly at first, in fragments, like it’s breaking through the barrier I created to focus on the moment at hand, but it wants out. It needs to be heard.

“The Carter family,” I say. Blake looks to me, waiting for me continue, but he can read it on my face. The somber tone that we once held between us in this very spot, as we awaited his fate, has returned. The fate of an entire family already sealed. He reaches for my hand, squeezing it.

“I haven’t found my dad or JJ or Uncle Jimmy yet. Do you know where they are?”

I almost flinch, waiting for him to answer.

“I overheard the two that were keeping watch. They said something about making them dig it themselves.”

“The burn pit . . . past the fence.” I turn to run back up the stairs, the image of my family members already lying in shallow graves, dirt being tossed on their bloodied and lifeless bodies, is plastered across my mind, like the burn-in of a once static image on a TV.

“Casey!” Blake’s voice stops me dead in my tracks. “Uhhh,” he says, rattling the cell door.

“Right!”

A quick trip to the armory has Blake and me fully stocked up with weaponry, the two of us ready to take on the world, or what’s left of it. The burners must have thought the weaponry they had on them was enough for the job, since they left my dad’s arsenal untouched, possibly saving it for another day. Big mistake, though. They should have made that day this one.

Through the woods out near the burn pit, we can hear yelling, harsh bursts of directives aimed at a few men who are hunched down, their arms swinging in a rhythmic scooping motion, elbows rising with the handles of the shovels, before striking into the earth.

A small plume of smoke grows from a newly set fire. They’re using the corpses we already burned, biters and evil men just like them, as kindling. Their charred bodies are already sapped of fuel, so the fire is small and pallid, barely rising a foot off the pile.

No less than a dozen burners stand around the helpless diggers in a semicircle, throwing clumps of dirt and scorched body parts at them while they work.

“There’s too many of them. We don’t stand a chance,” I whisper to Blake.

I try to shake the thought of defeat from my mind, but the situation feels so hopeless, so oppressively unwinnable. I hear a shout and look back just in time to see the butt of a rifle connect with the spine of one of the diggers. Their body collapses to the ground as a puff of dirt rises into the air, lifting the laughter of the men toward us. Between the dirt-caked boots standing tightly together, I see the wiry, speckled-gray bristles of a beard, rising up off the ground as its owner gets back to their feet.

“Dad,” I say to myself, my rage only being held in check by my own sense of helplessness.

A hand grabs my shoulder as a cheek presses against the side of my head, his chin resting gently on my shoulder.

“We can do this,” Blake says. “I’ve faced worse odds in the Seal s. These clowns probably have no training, and they’re too comfortable, thinking they have this place under control. A quick burst from that SMG you have there, and you could injure nearly all of them before they even realize what’s happening.”

I nod, keeping my eyes on the burners.

“Here’s the plan. You lay down a volley aimed at the five or six guys on the left over there.” He points over my shoulder, and my eyes follow the line of his arm. “That way you don’t risk hitting any of your family. Worst-case scenario, you injure one or two of them, and they all run in a panic, scrambling to find the source of the gunfire, giving Dale, Jimmy, and JJ time to either flee or grab a weapon and fight. Meanwhile, I strike from the wings, velociraptor-style.”

“Clever girl.” I smile, picturing Blake emerging from the thick brush of woods, the fire in his green eyes turning them into a searing yellow as he unleashes hell.

“Exactly.”

“What’s the best-case scenario?”

“Huh?”

“You said worst case, but you didn’t tell me the best case.”

“Oh, best case, you kill all of them on the spot and it becomes two versus ten instead of what it is now. Any more questions?”

“What are you gonna do? Don’t I need to know your part of the plan?”

Blake squats down to the forest floor, using some of the still moist blood on his hands to make a paste out of the soil, turning it into a thick red-brown sludge. He closes his eyes and smears it all over his face. His eyes pop back open, the whites standing out like keys on a piano against his camouflaged skin.

“Don’t worry about me, Doomsday.” Blake smiles and disappears into the woods without another word.

That’s exactly what I’m going to give these burners . . . their very own doomsday.

The wind shifts, blowing smoke from the fire in my direction. The stench is like a backyard barbecue where the grill master opted to char up some expired, rotten meat. Boiling pus and decay mix with hair and fabric remaining on the bodies, creating a fragrance that a full diaper would be envious of. I lift my shirt collar up over my nose, semi-blocking the smell to avoid gagging and giving away my cover.

I have no idea whether Blake is ready or in position. When am I supposed to shoot? Will he give me a signal? Or will I just know? Will the bond that ties us together manifest itself in a physical response, something to say, We can do this, Casey ?

“All right, enough! They look plenty deep,” one burner yells. His face is disfigured, as though it’s been melted away by acid or scalding water. He forces my family to rise and stand at the foot of each of their freshly dug graves.

“Turn around and face away from the holes,” he yells.

“You gonna shoot us now?” my father asks, a proud defiance in his voice.

“HA! Shoot you? Where would the fun be in that?” The man snaps his fingers and holds his hand out to his side. Another burner places a stick with a lit piece of cloth, flaming at the end, into his open hand. “We’re gonna burn you alive. Let your screams sink into our brains so we can replay them again and again in our minds. It’ll help us sleep at night, like a lullaby for a baby.” He arches back, letting out a roar of laughter. The rest of his compatriots join in. The lead burner goes quiet and raises his leg, kicking my father in the chest. The force sends him flying back into the open grave. I gasp, covering my mouth with my hand, adrenaline surging through my body.

He points the tip of the flaming stick into the hole, while another burner comes to his side, carrying a canister of liquid.

Fuck this.

I flick the safety off and point the gun at the fifth burner in from the left and let my finger sink back into the trigger. The gun whirs to life in a flash, four bullets ripping into the burner in under a second before I start panning to the left. Twenty-six more bullets divide themselves among the remaining four men, blood spraying in every direction as the scene devolves into chaos.

The five men I shot at are either writhing on the ground or lying completely still, no longer a part of the equation. The other seven have turned to the woods, firing wildly in hopes of hitting me. I anticipated this response and took cover behind one of the many oak trees in the forest. No bullet will be able to penetrate the three feet of solid wood, at least from their current positions.

“Cowards! Get in there! Kill whatever motherfucker did this!” I hear a burner yell out, and I can guess who—that ugly, nasty one.

I spot another substantial piece of cover and dart through the woods, changing my location. As I’m running, I look out at the scene and see JJ and Jimmy struggling with the men who were standing in front of them, wrestling for control of their firearms.

Where the hell is Blake?

A heavy rustling of branches and snapping of twigs begins to encircle me as the burners enter the woods. My position of safety is quickly becoming compromised.

Shit. Shit. Shit. I’m gonna be surrounded. Where the fuck is Blake?

A large branch snaps just on the other side of the tree I’m hiding behind, and I poke my head around the corner, my gun at the ready. I lean without taking a step, afraid of the underbrush giving away my position.

My hair is yanked back hard, almost pulling me off my feet as I’m spun around. His rank mixture of grime, BO, and rotten breath hits me in the face like a fistful of raw sewage.

“Peekaboo,” he says, smiling with a knife pressed to my throat. “Boys! I found herrugggghhhhkk—”

Hacking and slurping sounds escape his mouth as blood pools and spills out, trickling down his chin. Blake has one hand over the man’s forehead; the other has plunged a knife deep into his throat, angled up into the brain. He slowly withdraws the blade and puts a finger to his lips, tapping it a few times as he lowers the body to the ground. Before I can speak, he’s gone, back into the cover of the forest.

Two burners come around the trail, guns at the ready, answering the call of their newly deceased friend. When they see me, sinister, salivating smiles cross their faces, and then they look to the ground. Their grins curve downward with the movement of their heads, the corpse coming into view for them. His throat looks like a programmed fountain at a mall or airport, weaker and weaker torrents of blood pumping out at even intervals.

“What the hell?” one of them says just as a flash of black appears from behind a tree. Blake slides across the dry foliage, and his knife glistens between the first burner’s legs, the fabric of his pants soaking in an upside-down V like he’s just wet himself. The burner falls to his knees as Blake pops back to his feet, grabbing the second man by his hair and plunging the knife into the side of his neck. He pushes it in farther, dragging it up and down to rip through flesh and tendon, the burner’s head now looking like a PEZ dispenser. The first burner is still on his knees, frozen, eyes wide and mouth agape, but no sound is being emitted.

I point to the man as if to say, What about him?

Blake shakes his head. “I severed his femoral artery. He’ll be dead in less than thirty seconds.” He disappears again, a wisp in the air like the last breaths of the men he just encountered. Jesus, he’s like a super-sadistic Batman.

In the distance, I hear the symphony of Blake’s destruction, a crescendo working in tandem, the strings section wailing out, screaming their final notes. Then a new sound joins the fray.

“Enough with the games!” A loud voice shakes through the woods. “Come out now, or we burn all three of them alive!”

Blake returns to my side without a sound. He and I can see the burn pit through the trees. My dad, Jimmy, and JJ are all kneeling with their hands placed against the back of their heads, a burner standing behind each of them. The leader paces back and forth in front of them, the gas canister swinging at his side.

“What do we do?” I ask, frantic and scared.

“Surrender.”

“Surrender!? Are you joking?”

“Trust me,” Blake says, putting his hands up and walking out of the woods.

I shake my head in disbelief. He gave up so easily after all that show of skill and bravado. For what? A few more dead burners? I follow him, hands up, trusting he has a plan and will get us out of this.

“Ahhh, there you are. Mr. G.I. Joe himself, ripping my men apart. Now, walk over . . .” The ugly burner gasps when his eyes land on me. “What do we have here? Aren’t you a pretty little thing left behind in this ugly world? Toss all your weapons on the ground, and please don’t pretend like you each only have one gun. I can see your clothes bulging everywhere, and if I have to come search you, then . . . well, I’ll just kill you on the spot.”

I look to Blake, and he nods, confirming that I should follow the orders. He lobs me a small wink, and it instantly makes me feel calm and better about the situation. We pitch our guns out into the grass, creating a small cache of firepower until the leader seems satisfied that we’ve given up all our weapons.

“You see, I was going to just kill you and then burn these three, but how about a little trade instead? If you”—he points at Blake—“burn the three of them . . .” He waves his hand to JJ, my dad, and Uncle Jimmy. “I’ll let you kill yourself, fast and easy . . . and I’ll let the girl live. She can”—he licks his lips before flicking his tongue in and out of his mouth like a lizard—“join us.”

Blake looks to me and then the faces of my family.

“That’s the best offer you’re gonna get, soldier, and the clock is ticking.” The leader glances down at his wrist, pretending to count down the seconds on a watch that isn’t there. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .”

“Okay! I’ll do it. I’ll do it,” Blake says, shuffling toward them, his head and shoulders sunken down as he avoids making eye contact with me.

“Blake, no! You can’t trust them!” I start to run at him, but the leader draws a pistol from his side, cocking it and pointing it directly at me.

“Ah, ah, ah . . . let’s not be too eager. Trust me, you’ll have plenty of time to play later.” He looks me up and down, taking me in again before his lust turns to surprise. “Wait a minute. I know you. You’re that little bitch from Chicago. You did this to me!” He slaps his palm into his own face, fingers wide as he slowly drags it across the topography of his features. “You ruined my fucking face!”

“To be fair, it wasn’t good to begin with,” I quip, not allowing him to rattle me.

The other three burners stifle laughs as their leader glares at them before leveling his attention back on me. “Oh, I’m gonna enjoy the future that’s in store for you. I can picture it now. Night after night, piece by piece, the horrors that will come your way. You’ll be wishing I’d just kill you, take you out of your misery, but I won’t. You’ll come to look at this ruined face as the most beautiful thing in the world, and you’ll beg it for salvation.” He turns to Blake, pointing the gun at him. “But a deal’s a deal, so the girl shall live. Forever, if I can help it.”

“I’m sorry, Casey. But I can’t watch you die.” Blake continues walking toward JJ, the gas canister lifted up to his chest. JJ hangs his head, his shoulders tightening.

“That’s a good boy. Now, you sit tight here, my angel, and enjoy the show.” The leader walks back behind my father, firing the pistol into the air right next to his ear. Dad instinctively cups his ear, the drum likely shattered.

The leader presses the muzzle of the pistol into his hand, searing a red ring into the skin. My father shouts at the pain.

“Stop it!” I yell, my voice crackling with rage.

“Stop? Oh, we’re just getting started.” He fires off a round near Blake’s feet, the earth kicking up around him. “Quit stalling, pretty boy, and do it or the deal’s off.”

Blake lifts the canister over JJ’s head and starts to tilt it. “Sorry, man. Just picture my face on the men behind you.”

“Huh?” JJ responds, confused by his statement.

My hand moves down to my tried-and-true beauties at my side, all along, as Blake’s words sink in. He whips the gas canister forward, hitting the burner standing behind JJ square in the nose. It sends him toppling back into the open grave.

Blake leaps to his left, his knife outstretched as the burner behind my uncle Jimmy turns his gun on him and fires off a shot, ripping through the top layer of flesh on Blake’s left arm, just before the blade of the knife disappears into the man’s temple. I stand and throw one star at the man positioned behind my father. The silver disk spins like a buzz saw, ripping into the bridge of his nose as two of the prongs poke out both of his eyes at once. The other star I hurl at the leader with more venom and force than I’ve put behind any throw I’ve made in my life. But the extra force doesn’t have the desired effect, as it leaves my hand a split second later, causing it to veer slightly down and to the left, lodging into his collarbone. He screams out, a fit of rage and pain causing him to drop his gun. My father, realizing the opportunity, grabs for the weapon, but the leader recovers too quickly and crushes Dad’s hand beneath his boot.

“I’ll kill you all,” he yells out, kneeing my father in the face.

I sprint toward the deformed object of my hatred, hoping to tackle him back into the grave before he has time to get control of the gun, but the distance is too great, and within a second, I’m staring down the barrel of a pistol.

“Such a waste,” the leader says, eyeing my living body one last time. “Oh well.” He thumbs back the hammer and squeezes the trigger.

The world around me freezes. The burst of flame from the gun becomes the sun, everything else in the vicinity around it sucked in by its gravity. The bullet spirals out of the weapon, a satellite launched into orbit by rocket fuel. The leader’s eyes are red, reflecting the fire from the burn pit, channeling through his body, into the object in his hand. But the pull of gravity is even stronger from another celestial body. The full beard, buzzed hair, and broad shoulders, diving to intercept the missile in flight.

And then time starts back up.