Chapter 10Hell

Chapter 10

Hell

As the sun slowly rose, tension hung thick in the air. I hoisted my pack onto my shoulder, a familiar weight that reminded me of countless other mornings just like this one. An urgent sense of dread gnawed at my stomach as I checked the ammunition in my pistol.

"Damn, girl," Missy chuckled, her voice laced with mischief as she tossed me an extra box of ammo. "You and Ret really shook the walls last night."

A flush of heat crept up my neck, but I couldn't hold back a smirk. "I figured I'd give y'all some entertainment since porn is hard to come by these days."

Missy snorted and shook her head.

Nina, ever the pragmatist, handed me a canteen. Her eyes were serious, the kind that saw through bullshit. "We need to talk about Jessa," she said, echoing the thoughts that'd kept me awake for hours.

Missy leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "She's bad news. She's gonna get some of us killed. That little stunt with the statue yesterday was pathetic."

I sighed, checking the blade in my thigh holster. "I can't just off her, much as I'd like to sometimes. But once we hit Nevada again, it's straight to the old man. He'll know what to do."

I'd been pretty vague on the details with dad. I never told him exactly what Jessa had done to Alex in the beginning. If I knew my dad, he'd send that bitch packing without the baby she brought with her.

"Can't trust someone who shoots their own," Nina added, her voice flat. "She'll turn on any of us."

I nodded. The road had taught us hard lessons. From Florida to here, we'd seen faces come and go—some turned traitors, others victims of the new world order. Trust was a currency few could afford.

"Alright, let's move out, bitches," I said, hefting my things. My hair was in its usual ponytail, and I was as clean as I could possibly get with wet wipes.

We all filed out of the room, Alex and Wyatt leading the way, with Scottie and Ret backing us up, keeping in a tight formation. The stairwell was silent, and relief flooded through me as we descended without incident, no groans of the dead or gurgling, clacking or scraping.

"Are you sure it's safe?" Caleb's voice trembled slightly as he clutched his makeshift spear made of a curtain rod and a kitchen knife. He refused to let it go in favor of a hunting knife Alex had offered him.

Ethan, braver than most kids his age, put a hand on Caleb's shoulder. "We're safer with them than on our own."

The air was thick with decay as we neared the cars, the morning sun doing nothing to chase away the stench of death. The filters in our masks could only do so much.

"Contact left!" Missy's voice cut through the silence like a knife.

I spun, my hands already moving. Zoms—three of them—had stumbled out from behind a pillar, their grotesque forms shambling toward us with ravenous hunger in their milky eyes.

"Circle up," I ordered, stepping back to back with Niko.

The two teenage boys were huddled behind us, their weapons ready but their faces pale. This was no place for kids, but this world didn't give a shit about should-be's.

"Stay close," I told them, eyeing the zombies closing in.

We moved as one. Steel flashed, slicing through the rotten flesh with ease. A head rolled, its expression frozen in a silent snarl as it hit the ground.

Niko and I synced our movements flawlessly. One particularly large zombie lurched towards us, its arms reaching out like twisted branches. Without missing a beat, I ducked low and swept my blade across its legs. At the same time, Niko went high, his machete arcing down in a perfect complement to my strike.

"Timber!" he shouted, almost cheerfully.

The zombie fell apart, severed in two, its halves hitting the ground with wet thuds. Laughter bubbled up from my throat, the absurdity of joy in such a grim moment too much to contain. Niko joined in, his own chuckles mixing with mine as we turned back to the fray.

It was sick, how we could find humor in the carnage. Once upon a time, the thought of taking a life—any life—would have been abhorrent. But these weren't people anymore; they were monsters wearing human skin. You adapt or you die, and I wasn't ready to lie down just yet.

"Watch it!" Missy's warning came just in time as another putrid body lunged at me from the side. I pivoted, driving my blade through its skull with practiced ease. It crumpled to the ground, and I yanked my weapon free, bits of brain matter clinging to the metal.

"Thanks," I grunted, sparing her a quick nod before scanning the area for more threats.

"Clear," Nina called out, wiping her knife on her pants.

"Let's get the hell out of here," I said, breathing hard but steady. "Keep your guard up until we're wheels up."

We moved swiftly to the vehicles, the boys flanked by our protective circle. "Boys, you go with my brothers. Do whatever they tell you, no questions asked, got it?"

Ethan nodded, already turning to where Scottie stood, scanning the area where we parked the cars.

I slid into the driver's seat of the lead car. The engine roared to life. As we drove away, leaving the dead behind, I couldn't shake the feeling that things were about to get a lot fucking worse.

The steering wheel felt like a lifeline in my hands, the hum of the engine under my control. Dante rode shotgun, muscles tense beneath his shirt, eyes scanning the horizon as we barreled through the wreckage. Behind us, Wyatt and Rett murmured strategies, while Alex—blessed with the ability to sleep through chaos—snored softly beside Anubis, who was curled up in a tight ball.

"Damn pile-ups," I muttered, swerving around a gnarled mess of metal that used to be someone's road trip dream. The roads were an obstacle course.

"Watch that one," Dante pointed to a semi-truck, jackknifed across our path, its cargo spilled like the guts of some giant beast.

I edged the car around it, tires crunching over shattered glass and debris. The silence was oppressive, suffocating. But then, Scottie's voice came through the radio, filling the void.

"Take me home… country roads..."

His rendition was off-key, but it made my chest immediately loosen. Grins broke out across our faces, a momentary lapse in the ever-present tension.

"Never pegged you for the serenading type, Scottie," I said, a rare chuckle escaping.

"Only for you, sissy," he shot back, and even through the static, I could hear his smirk.

Dante reached over, his rough hand enveloping mine, fingers intertwining. Our eyes met; his gaze soft and warm. I squeezed back, a small smile playing on my lips. Love was a luxury in this world, but damn if it didn't make the hell we lived through a bit more bearable.

Scottie kept singing, song after country song, until after a while, some of us were singing or humming along. The tension in the car eased with each mile we covered, and the familiar lyrics brought a sense of normalcy. As we drove through the deserted roads, my mind wandered back to a time before all this madness, when the only thing I had to worry about was what I wanted to have for breakfast.

We drove on, California's backroads unfurling before us, a tapestry of rolling hills and creeping fog. The hills were brown after a year without sunlight, and the farms were dead, the diaries dried up, and the vineyards crumbling to dust. As we neared the Bay Area, anticipation coiled in my gut like a spring.

"Can't believe I'm finally here," Ret mused from the back seat, voice tinged with wonder and a hint of regret. "Thought I'd see Long Beach or hit up Coachella, not... this."

"I miss LA summers," I said, the words bittersweet as memories flooded back. "My brothers and I would race down the boardwalk when we'd go on vacation, and then watch the surfers for hours, thinking we had all the time in the world."

"Would've done more, seen more if I knew," Wyatt added, a distant look on his face as I watched him in the mirror for a moment.

"Would've got drunk more," Ret quipped, a feeble attempt at lightening the mood.

"Would've fucked more," I added with a smirk. Dante's head whipped around, facing me with a look of audacity. I chuckled. "I would have found you, of course, Dante."

"Yeah, yeah," he said, rolling his eyes. "You want my dick now, baby girl, you should have seen me when I cleaned up in a suit."

He was probably right. Although there was something about a man in tactical gear, rugged and dirty with stubble on his face and blood coating his hands that got me going.

"Keep looking at me like that and we're going to have to pull over," he said, his smooth voice low and full of promises he fully intended to keep.

The Bay Area's welcome was not what the brochures promised—more a graveyard than a destination. The road ahead, a jigsaw puzzle of destruction and pure fucking chaos.

"Damn, look at that," Wyatt muttered, pointing to a jagged gash in the freeway where bombs had carved their anger into the earth. "They didn't hold back. Too bad it did fuck all."

I swerved to avoid a chunk of asphalt big enough to bury a man—or several. My grip on the wheel tightened. No room for mistakes; too many lives at stake. The wheels of the car brought us part way up the side of the hill, narrowly missing several twisted pieces of metal.

"I love a woman who can drive like a heathen," Ret said from behind me.

"I have many talents," I shot back with a nervous laugh, but my eyes were scanning, always scanning. A muscle twitched in my jaw—the only sign of tension I'd allow myself to show.

As we drew nearer to the ocean, the dense fog seemed to grow thinner, like it was parting just for us. Or maybe it was tired too, beaten back by relentless coastal winds. There was an eerie beauty to it, the mist curling around ruined vehicles like spectral fingers reaching out from beyond.

"It's thinner here," I pointed out, nodding toward the dissipating fog as we rolled closer to the coast. The world outside our windows felt ghostly, the landscape a soft blur of grays and whites.

"The wind's finally doing its job," Alex's voice cut through from the backseat, now awake and alert. His ice-blue gaze caught mine in the rearview mirror, the corners of his mouth upturned in a semblance of a smile. "Maybe, given time..."

"Do you really think we'll ever find a place where the air doesn't taste like death?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. It was a question for him, for all of us.

"Someday," he replied, his voice steady as if he held conviction in the word. As if 'someday' was a promise he could keep personally.

A small smile quirked my lips. Someday. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday. That was enough to keep the wheels turning.

The San Mateo Bridge loomed ahead, a grotesque skeleton half-submerged in the dark waters, the center span severed and jutting from the water like broken bones. "Damn it," I cursed under my breath, bringing the convoy to a grinding halt.

"Son of a bitch," Wyatt muttered from beside me, scanning the wreckage. The bridge, once a vital artery linking cities, was useless.

"Looks like we're not going this way," Nina's voice came over the radio, frustration lacing every word.

"Could've been a strategic hit during the first wave of attacks," Alex suggested, leaning forward, his scars catching the dim light. "Meant to cut off escape routes, but also to cut off the zombies from making it out of the city."

"That means Frisco is crawling with them," I added, scanning the desolation around us.

Ret's gaze was fixed on the demolished structure, her dark eyes reflecting the cold reality that we wouldn't always have luck on our side. "We need a new plan," she said.

"Bay Bridge?" Wyatt proposed, already flipping through the map with his calloused hands. "It's a detour, but it's our best shot."

"More ground to cover," Dante pointed out, weighing the risks. "Means more chances for... encounters."

"It's all we've got," I said, finality weighing every word. "We cut across Pier 39 to the docks. The ship should have FEMA sign on it, so it shouldn't be hard to miss."

"Bay Bridge it is," Alex confirmed, the decision settling heavy in the air like the dust that coated everything in this dead landscape.

We turned the vehicles around, leaving behind the mangled carcass of the bridge. Our convoy wound its way back onto the decaying roads, each mile taking us further into what might be a death trap.