Love and Decay, Boy Meets Girl, Page 2

monotonous color of gray and careful routine.

  I had turned into nothing but constant worry and steely determination. If I had any shadow of a sense of humor before, I’d left it in my old life. If I had cared about anything but my family, I couldn’t remember what those things were or why they had ever been important to begin with. My family was my entire universe now. Everything I needed, wanted and refused to give up. And that would never change. Even if we exterminated the Feeders, I would never learn to care for anything else but my family again.

  I just knew that about myself.

  “I’ll think about it,” Vaughan finally agreed in a mumble. “We at least need to do something about Page’s reading.”

  He ended his sentence abruptly when voices drifted up from the ground floor of the building we were occupying. Everyone stilled as we listened to the sounds of people looting what was left of the store.

  “What the hell is that?” Harrison paused mid-shot to glance around wildly. “Is that a Feeder?”

  “They’re being loud as shit!” King agreed.

  “Hey!” Nelson called them out. “We instituted the cuss jar for a reason, morons. Watch your mouths.”

  They both had the decency to look ashamed. We lived in a world without civilized society or even a remnant of any kind of decency, but that didn’t mean we had to become barbarians too.

  I looked at Vaughan and he nodded his consent. I shared an equally nonverbal look with Nelson and he walked Page over to Vaughan who pulled her onto his lap and made her laugh about something just to take her mind off her other brothers leaving. The sound was light, carefree and so purely innocent my chest hurt. She didn’t belong in this world, with all these ugly things. She was the only thing good left in a world quickly decaying into a filthy cesspool of death.

  I mentally checked my weapons- one against my back, one at my ankle, a knife in my cargo pocket, another, larger one at my hip, my favorite handgun now firmly in my palm. I was comfortable with what I was packing; although clearly, I wasn’t expecting a fight, since I was hardly packing anything.

  Nelson met me at the door to a back stairwell that was booby-trapped at the bottom. With one last glance back, we left our family behind to check out the potential threat to our peace and vital stash of supplies and guns.

  Nelson shut the door soundlessly behind us while I moved down the dark, cement stairwell quickly but quietly. My gun was raised the entire time and my adrenaline and instincts pumping at full capacity. The voices still drifted toward us, obviously human and female. Great.

  The last thing I needed was for women to wander through here. There were Feeders all over this town- but it was no different than anywhere else.

  The problem with girls though, was that they tended to die. They weren’t fast enough, quick enough or brutal enough to do what it took to stay alive.

  Ok, that was sexist.

  But I didn’t have the luxury of being politically correct. I’d watched too many lives end over the last two years to believe in equal rights. The truth was, that I was stronger, quicker to act and uncaring of the consequences of my actions. That’s why I survived, that’s how I kept my family safe, and that difference was the exact reason women were becoming a thing of fiction and fable.

  History had shown that because I was a man, I was swift to shoot, faster to kill and determined to protect. Women on the other hand hesitated, letting their feelings get in the way and cloud their judgment. That wasn’t me being a dick. That was me speaking from experience. Time and time again I’d seen this happen; I’d watched the weaker sex hesitate and chicken out too many times to count- their guilty consciences whispering malicious lies of morals and higher standards of living.

  And they were lies. Because morals and convictions died the second the first victim became infected with this filthy disease; and higher standards of living were left for the dead.

  Probably there were exceptions to the rule, but I hadn’t witnessed any yet. And I wasn’t holding my breath that I would any time soon.

  The female voices continued to drift through the door. I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying; they were at least attempting to keep it down. The problem was that silence was the only constant about this new way of life. There were no filler sounds to muffle a disturbance in our peace. We could hear the voices just because there were voices to hear. It wasn’t entirely their fault they were bringing so much attention to themselves, but I also knew we weren’t the only ones that would pick up on them.

  It was only a matter of time before the Feeders found them too.

  I should warn them away, keep the threat from my front door. But I didn’t want to make contact with them. Depending on the people, they would probably want something from us- either by force, or by begging. Both were equally terrible and would end in the same way. They would get nothing, no matter what I had to do to ensure that.

  Vaughan stayed upstairs with the kids and I took care of these kinds of problems for a reason. He had a heart and I didn’t. His soul still had the possibility of some blissful afterlife, while mine had jumped on a fast train to hell a long time ago. I wouldn’t let strangers endanger my family. Not helpless women, not aggressive men, not undead Feeders. Nothing would come between my family and safety.

  “I’m going to take a peek,” I warned Nelson.

  He nodded but remained silent and alert. I stealthily unlocked the heavy metal door with a set of keys we’d found in the administrative office when we first arrived and cracked open the door.

  I paused, completely taken aback by what I saw. I’d meant for this to be just a cursory glance, clinical and unattached- just like everything else in my life. I had meant to scope out the situation and then pull back before they saw me.

  Instead, I caught myself watching two girls- not women- younger than me and as helpless as Page, sift through the remains of goods on this floor. My heartbeat sped up and my entire body ignited with something I hadn’t felt since my last semester at Northwestern- interest.

  I felt like a voyeur as I observed a short blonde thing, rifle through sweatpants, examining each with a keen eye before deciding if she would keep it or not. She was pretty- even dirty and unkempt. She had a delicate face and lithe body that curved nicely despite how skinny and small she was.

  But it was her friend that kept my attention so fiercely- held it like it belonged to her. She was probably a half foot taller than her friend, with black hair that blended into the darkness around her. Her eyebrows were furrowed in concentration on her striking face, and her full lips pulled into a small smile as she sifted through underwear.

  I swallowed back a shot of lust that went straight from my head to a place that hadn’t stirred like this in years. I almost choked, I was so stunned by my reaction to her. And for long, endless moments I stood there completely confused by her effect on me. It didn’t make sense.

  But then again, she didn’t make sense. Her and her friend, by themselves, near nightfall and in a place that was not familiar to them. They were casually shopping, with hardly a weapon in sight. What were they doing here?

  Although I couldn’t hear any other voices, probably they had men with them somewhere that I couldn’t see.

  I tried to push that thought deeper into my consciousness but my entire body refused to accept that she could belong to someone else. There was something so compelling about her; something so irresistible that she drew my eye and played with something hot and needy and unfamiliar inside me. And it wasn’t just my attention that she claimed, my entire being felt lured to her like a Greek Siren, perched at the bottom of a rocky cliff. The turbulent waves crashed around her, deathly and dangerous, while she waited seductively in the middle of the tempest with a crooked finger and a promise of a thousand wicked things on her lips.

  And this was my first impression of her.

  Holy shit! Apparently, two years of celibacy was messing with my sanity.

  I needed to get it together
and fast.

  I shook out my head and watched as she called out to the other girl that they needed to go. The other girl responded immediately- as fluidly and quickly as any of my brothers would. I felt even more confused by them.

  I shut the door just as quietly as I had opened it and locked it back up. They were gone and I could move on with my life. Not really a close call, but maybe it could have been. They’d been armed. And although they didn’t look dangerous, a warning had unfurled something desperate and anxious inside me.

  But now I couldn’t tell if it was concern because they could have found us or disappointment because they didn’t.

  “Anything to worry about?” Nelson asked. He sounded so normal, so…. unconcerned.

  That rattled me for a second. It took another moment for me to realize it was because I was concerned. For them.

  For her.

  I cleared my throat and said, “No, nothing to worry about.”

  But that wasn’t true. Because the girls came back, fast and frantic. Racks of clothing started to tip over, curses flew from their pretty mouths and I could hear their feet pounding on the grimy tile. Gun shots followed and the twisting of the doorknob still under my hand.

  My chest clenched with what this could mean- Feeders.

  And then I lost my mind completely because for a split second the last thing on my mind was my family.

  And my first thought, my