Strictly Business

Chapter 5

I stare blankly out the window as Zoey sings to a CD at the top of her lungs. It was a song that was popular before any of our times but she still knew it by heart. Kai is sitting beside us with a wide smile on his face as he bobs his head up and down to the beat. I roll my eyes as I lean against the door. They are so happy. They seem so innocent. Why can’t I sit back and be...happy? 

“Come on, Cassidy,” Kai elbows me, “sing with us!”

“No, thank you,” I elbow him back as the terrible singing continues. I roll my eyes but, secretly, I enjoy seeing them without a worry. Even though I can’t give into the feeling, it feels nice to watch them do it. Offhand enjoyment?

I sit up as we near a small town. I can already see movement on the road. Zoey sees it too and starts to slow the truck down as we drive nearer and nearer to it. We are nearing the edge of Texas. We’ll be out of the state soon and out of any protective hands our outpost can offer us. We still haven’t heard anything back from the outpost about the zombie cars but I doubt they’d tell us anything even if we made the point to ask. 

“They zombies?” Zoey asks. Kai doesn’t answer as he looks through a pair of binoculars. He lets out a heavy sigh before turning to hand them over to me. I slowly lift them to my face and let out a sigh myself. 

These aren’t zombies nor the normal assholes we normally deal with. 

These are a group of idiots that take over a small town and demand a fee to pass through. We are massively outgunned and outmanned. If they take any of our supplies, we can very well kiss our travels goodbye. 

“Turn us around,” Kai orders. Zoey sighs and does as she is told. The truck dips a bit as it does down the incline but Zoey saves it. I turn to look back and hit Kai in the shoulder before pointing toward the back window. He groans as he too notices the large truck following after us. 

“So, they want to play?” Zoey smiles as she starts to speed up.

“Cas,” Kai looks over at me as he opens up the sunroof, “hold me, will you?”

I nod as I wrap my arms around his legs. He pulls his gun out and twists around to face the speeding truck. I keep my arms wrapped around his legs as I watch from the side mirror. They aren’t close enough to shoot yet but they are catching up. Zoey isn’t using the back mirrors. She’s just watching the road ahead as she speeds forward. 

“Zoey,” I look over at her. She glances back at me for a moment before looking at the road, “remember when we first started training to drive?”

“Hell yes,” she grins. I smile as I tighten my grip on Kai’s legs as she starts to drive faster, “better hold on, Kai!”

“What?” he calls out. I smile as Zoey swerves to the side and starts down a dirt road I hadn’t noticed before. I can hear Kai yelling as we speed down the bumpy road. I glance back and see the truck stopping only a few yards down the dirt road.

“They stopped!” I call out and I can feel Zoey start to slow. Kai shakily slides back into the truck as she stops the truck. I pat his shoulder as I watch the truck turn around and go back to where they had once been. Kai collapses against my shoulder and I let out a laugh. 

“Warn me next time,” he grumbles against my shoulder, “I felt like I was going to fly out.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Zoey laughs, “is this road on the map?” 

“Um,” I reach for the glove compartment and pull out the paper map. The phone had lost service a few miles back. Kai sits up and holds one side as we search for where we are. We find the main road that we had just turned off of but no sign of what we had turned down, “we might be down a driveway. It would be better to go back.”

“And risk seeing those guys again?” 

“There’s going to be a reason they hadn’t followed us down,” Kai comments, “they had to have known they had the advantage.”

“Or they think we’ll head back out,” I shrug, “and ambush us as soon as we do.”

“We can keep going until we see a break in the trees,” he says, “this truck can go off road so we can try and figure out how to bypass the town without going through it.”

“Let’s try that,” Zoey says and starts forward. Kai shakes his head and lets out a soft groan. I look over at him and his brows are pulled tightly together and his lips are a thin line. I sit up and lean toward him until he looks over at me. I automatically place my hand on his knee and search his worried eyes before speaking. 

“You good?” I ask him, lowering my voice. I know Kai, even though it has been a while, and I know he hates appearing weak in any sort of way.

“I’m fine,” he mutters.

“No,” I tell him as I sit back, “you aren’t.”

“Can you drop it?”

“I wasn’t going to push it,” I shrug and start watching the side of the road. It is passing by fast, although I doubt she’d have any trouble swerving where she needed to. I watch the trees, mostly in an attempt to keep my eyes away from Kai. The longer we’re together, the more I forget why we stopped hanging out which is something I’d like to hang onto. I’m not about to become besties again with him only for him to forget I exist when we make it back to the outpost. If we make it back to the outpost, I remind myself. This mission is suicidal. I knew that coming into it. Maybe it would be better to let go...seeing as we probably won’t make it back to see the consequences of that. 

The truck falls silent except for the engine and the bumps we drive over. Zoey is muttering under her breath but I can’t figure out what she’s saying. Knowing her, she’ll scold me once Kai is out of earshot for how insensitive I’m being. I roll my eyes to myself and question, again, why Kai had to come in the first place. He can’t seriously care about my wellbeing. We aren’t friends and, part of me, doubts we had been friends before. I had been a placemat, something to keep him busy before meeting the people he actually wanted to hang with.

“There’s a building ahead,” Kai points out, “perhap what they were avoiding?”

“It looks abandoned,” I comment as I sit up and narrow my eyes at the large farmhouse. A part of my heart aches as I realize how much it resembles my aunt’s old home. Zoey slows the truck to a stop and silent falls over us. I keep my eyes on the cracked and dirty windows in an attempt to spy any movement within the building. I’m so focused that I don’t see the person until they are knocking on my window. I wince away from the sound and immediately reach for my pistol. 

“Hello there,” the old man says with a warm smile. He looks like he came straight out of a book about farmers. He’s wearing overalls and heavy boots. He even has one of those straw hats on his head.

“Hello?” I wave as I roll the window down slightly.

“Did me friends send you this way?”

“More like scare us this way,” Zoey says, smiling pleasantly as she leans toward him, “and who might you be?”

“The name is Charlie and this here is my home.”

“Do you know a way out of here without going back down the road?” Kai asks.

“No, these trees block the way,” the old man shrugs, “want to come inside? My wife is making her famous sweet tea.”

“No, we really must be-” I start but Zoey interrupts me.

“We’d actually love to,” she says as she climbs out of the truck, taking the keys with her. I glare at her back but Kai looks just as wary as I feel. We share a look before we both slide pistols into our belt loops. I jump out of the truck and Kai climbs out behind me. I stand there for a moment as I search the small area before following them toward the house. Kai stops me before I climb up the steps. I pause for a moment, searching for Zoey in the dark doorway, before turning toward him.

“This is weird.”

“No s**t,” I whisper back, “even before the zombies, people didn’t just invite you in. After? No one just invites people in like this.”

“Southern hospitality?” 

“He didn’t even ask our names,” I tell him, “I don’t think he wants to.”

“So, what do you think?”

“Remember those rumors?” I ask him, “about those sad old men that would kidnap survivors and feed them to their zombie wives or kids?”

“You can’t be serious,” he says.

“He didn’t ask our names because if he saw us as people,” I tell him, “he wouldn’t be able to kill us. Done! That’s my theory. What’s yours?”

“What? A theory?”

“Yeah,” I shrug as I walk up the steps, “it’s something I’ve started doing whenever I meet weird survivors. As harmless as they are, the possibility that they can be wicked never leaves my mind. Preparing for the worst is also a key factor in my survival.”

“So, you just...came up with that?” 

“Nah,” I step into the building and turn toward the old man. He’s pouring tea for Zoey, who sat at a large dining room table, “there really were rumors of people doing that. Would it really surprise you?”

“I guess not,” Kai says as he steps inside.

“Surprises?” Zoey asks, spinning around in her chair.

“Oh, nothing,” I shrug, “you wouldn’t get it.”

“Because I’m dumb?”

“No,” I shake my head, “because you had to be there.”

“But, yes,” Kai nods with a grin, “because you lack intelligence.” 

“Do you wanna die?” she asks, raising a lone knife that had been on the table. Charlie raises his eyebrows and snatches the knife away from her. He mumbles something under his breath and slams the knife down on the counter. Silence falls over the small room until he turns over with a wide smile on his face.

“I have got to show you what I built! I’ve never had people over so no one gots to see but now you’re here.”

“I don’t think we should,” I say, “the tea is swell enough.”

“We can see it,” Zoey waves her hand as she stands up. I wince as she hooks her arm through his and lets him drag her down a narrow hallway. Kai groans and hooks his arm through mine, pulling me toward our possible deaths. I can’t help the giggle that bubbles up in my throat as we step outside. It’s like we’re in an alternate universe where this is normal and grand. What is Zoey thinking?

“That’s huge,” I mutter. There’s a barn that sits at the end of a hill. It’s large, and if not for the hill, we would have seen it towering over the house. Zoey and Charlie are almost all the way down the decline. There is a vague smell of rot to the air...Like dead bodies are sitting out in the sun to rot. My back goes rigid as I wait to see them open the door. They disappear into the barn, leaving my and Kai out in the rot-stenched air. 

“Smell that?” Kai whispers.

“Yep,” I reply as we start down the hill with our arms still hooked together. Nothing good will come from this, “I didn’t know that Zoey was so naive. How does my theory sound now?”

“Far too real,,” He mutters as we step up to the door. We unhook each other's arms and I keep my hand on the pistol in my belt loop as he slowly pulls it open. The smell of rot hits me like a wall. Kai gags as he steps back and I hold my composure as I step inside. 

“Zoey?” I cough out. I hear Kai curse behind me as he follows me into the large, dark area. There is a single light bulb directly ahead but there is a large box blocking most of the light. I stick my hand out and trace my fingers over it as I start to walk around it. I pull my hand away as slime coats my fingers. I hold in my breakfast, but just barely. What is that?

“Do you hear that?” Kai whispers in my ear, far closer to me than I would have liked. I pause and listen. My heart drops as I hurry around the large box. Zoey is standing in front of an old, zombified woman. The woman is chained by her neck to the wall and my friend seems entranced by the sight. I step up to her and grab her arm just as the zombie lunges forward. The chain yanks the woman back. I fight my instinct to rush toward her and help her, mentally scolding myself. She’s a zombie, I think to myself, she isn’t human anymore. 

“The old man,” she mutters, “where is the old man?”

“I haven’t seen him,” I tell her, “did he leave you here?”

“Guys,” Kai grabs my shoulder, “he shut the door. We’re locked in here.”

“Did he say anything?” I ask her.

“No,” she shrugs, “I thought people like this were just stories.”

“I told you,” I elbow Kai softly. He grunts and steps aside as the whole area lights up. The “box” is actually a cage, the hard sides fall forward and reveal five more zombified family members, or so I assume, of the old man. I only start to worry when I hear the chain of the old lady fall to the ground. Kai takes care of her quickly but the gate is opening and other metallic sounds shake the barn, making it plenty obvious that there are more zombies than we can currently make out. 

“This is bad,” I mutter as I pull out my gun.

“I’m sorry,” Zoey says but she doesn’t sound sorry. She has a smile on her face as she raises her own gun and starts toward the zombies that had just barely figured out there’s an open door for them. She did this s**t on purpose. I want to strangle her so bad but, unfortunately, there’s a wave of zombies slowly making their way toward me. 

I hold in my groan as I stand back to back with Kai. Zoey disappeared somewhere and I’m not about to chase after her. I grind my teeth as we take on the horde of zombies that just seems to be getting bigger and bigger. I can hear Zoey’s gunshots and giggles. I hold onto my anger as I waste my ammo on a situation we shouldn’t even be in. 

“This is too much for us,” Kai tells me, “we need to find a way out.”

“Yep,” I reply as I take his gun from his hand, “find a way out. I’ll cover you.”

“Don’t die,” he mutters as he climbs on top of the cage. I fire at a sole zombie that moves to climb up after him. Most aren’t interested in him, most want the easier target. I don’t pay any mind to him as I keep the zombies off the cage and interested in me. I take one down after the other but it’s too much. Soon, I’ll be out of bullets or I won’t turn around in time. There’s too much here for me to look for. 

Zoey’s little want for excitement is going to be the death of me. 

I should have known. 

My heart jumps in my chest as one of the pistols clicks. I toss it at the closest zombie before firing a bullet from my own pistol through his skull. I raise my pistol to fire at the remaining mindless bodies before a pair of arms wrap my under my arms. I scream and struggle as I am yanked upward, only stopping when I realize it’s just Kai. He falls back, pulling me back against his chest. His arms wrap around my stomach before he points toward a large window. There’s a loft area just above us. We should be able to climb up. 

“Thank you,” I mutter as I stumble up and find my balance on the cage. Without their meal down there, the zombies are already trying to climb their way up the cage. Before I can say anything, Kai grabs my waist and lifts me up. I grab the ledge and start pulling myself up. I turn around and hold my hand out for him. He grabs my hand and uses the other one to help me jostle him up. 

“Where’s Zoey?” I ask him as I look around the barn, “I can’t find her.”

“I don’t know,” he says, breathless, “she just ran off…”

“God damnit,” I mutter as I pull him to his feet. I turn toward the window and clench my fists as I head toward it.

“What about Zoey?” 

“I have no more bullets,” I tell him, “and you are out of a gun. We can’t fight them, not like this.”

“There are more weapons in the truck,” he realizes. 

“If the man hadn’t raided it already.”

“Well,” he mutters as we walk to the window, “Zoey found another way out.”

I hurry over and sigh in relief as I watch her run toward the building. Zombies are chasing after her but she’s egging them on. She’s leading them to the old man. As much as I am against killing humans, I can’t bring myself to be mad about this one.