Among Monsters (Page 16)

Everyone looked at me.

“I’ll run around with Halle. You distract it. When he turns around, kick his knees out from under him, and then hit him in the head with the butt of your rifle.”

Dad’s eyebrows shot up.

I shrugged. “Or we can run.”

“What kind of stuff was your mom letting you watch?” he asked.

“That was from a video game. Are we going to run or not?” I asked.

Dad and Tavia looked at each other.

“I’m sorry, Andrew. I just can’t.”

Dad breathed out as he handed Tobin to Tavia. Dad rubbed the back of his neck and then pulled the strap of his rifle over his head. “Yesterday, I never would have believed that I’d be bashing someone’s head in.”

“I didn’t think I’d be bait either. We all have jobs to do.”

He glared at me. “Don’t watch—either of you. I don’t want you to see me doing this.”

“Just make sure you kick out his knees,” I said. “It’ll be a lot easier.”

I knelt down, and Halle climbed onto my back. I jerked up, adjusting her position.

“In theory,” Dad said. “Go on. Give yourself plenty of room.”

We walked another twenty seconds. Then, Tavia stopped, Dad readied himself, and I ran to the right in a wide half circle. The man moaned, reaching for us.

“Hey!” I said. “This way!”

He turned to follow, his bloody Oklahoma Sooners shirt ripped at the collar. Raw meat and bone were visible, but the blood wasn’t fresh. Something had chewed on him but not for long.

I heard Dad grunt, and I turned, but I didn’t come to a full stop. The infected fell just like I’d said it would, but when Dad hit its head with the stock of his rifle, it kept reaching for him.

“Hit it again!” I yelled.

Dad swung again, and a loud crack echoed in every direction. It was finally still. Dad nudged it with his boot and then stomped over to Halle and me.

“I thought I told you not to watch!” he growled.

I looked back and up at Halle whose hand was over her glasses. “She didn’t.”

“You! I told you, too!”

“I can’t keep my eyes closed, Dad! I have to see what’s coming!”

He thought about that for a moment, still breathing hard. Different emotions scrolled across his face, and then he bobbed his head once before wiping the remnants of the infected’s brain matter off his gun and onto the grass.

“Good job,” Tavia said when she caught up to us.

Dad took Tobin again, and we continued on, almost as if nothing had happened.

I kept Halle on my back, knowing we still had a long way to go. She silently thanked me by touching her cheek to the crown of my head and giving me the slightest squeeze. I grinned. For us, getting along was a rarity. When I wasn’t antagonizing her, she would be bossing me around. We had become so accustomed to fighting that we’d often yell at each other for no reason at all.

But now, the world had shifted, and so had the things I cared about. The most important thing to me was Halle, and even after two miles with her small yet surprisingly heavy frame, the goal of getting her to Mom kept my feet moving forward.

We talked while we walked. We ate while we walked. We drank and laughed. All the while, we moved toward the next town, only pausing for bathroom breaks.

“I’m hungry,” Halle said just as we reached the crest of a hill.

The sun was hot, and none of us were used to hiking such a distance.

“It’s snack time, isn’t it?” she asked.

“We’ve got to conserve food, Halle. We don’t know how long we’ll be out here.”

“What does that mean?” Halle asked.

I held out my hand to her. “It means, we can’t have snacks. Three meals a day—that’s it until we find more food.”

Halle frowned. “But we’ll be with Mom tonight. She can make us something for dinner.”

“We won’t see Mom tonight unless we find a car. It’s a long way on foot.”

“How long?” she asked.

Dad glanced back at me. When I didn’t have an answer, his expression perked up. “Maybe a couple of days, Pop Can. No worries. We’ll get there.”

“A couple of days?” she asked, her tone rising with each word.

I cringed. Dad did, too.

“Sorry, kiddo.” That was all he could offer.

I squeezed her hand. “The more we walk, the closer we get.”

“No snacks?” she whined, her bottom lip pulling up.

At the top of the next hill, for only the third time in as many hours, we stopped.

Tobin pointed. “What’s that?”

“Jesus in Heaven,” Tavia said, dabbing the sweat from her neck and chest.

“Infected,” Dad said. “Maybe ten?”

Tavia held her fingers to her forehead to block out the sun. “They’re too far away. Maybe they’re people?”

Dad pulled his binoculars from his bag and held them up to his eyes. He quickly pulled them back down. “Damn it.”

“What do we do?” Tavia asked.

“We can’t get through them,” Dad said. “All there is between us and them is pasture.”

I looked around. “See any farmhouses or barns?”

Dad used his binoculars and turned in every direction. “Just a pump house. Doesn’t look big enough for all of us to fit.”

“Okay,” Tavia said. “What do we do?”

Dad held out his hands and then let them hit his thighs. “Find a place to hide? Hope they turn in a different direction?”

“You’ve got a scope,” I said. “Use it.”

Dad looked down at his gun. “You just want me to open fire on a bunch of pe—”

“Infected, Dad. You said it yourself. They’re infected. And there are too many of them to handle.”

Dad’s T-shirt was damp with sweat. Still, he used it to wipe his face. His five o’clock shadow was crowding his dry lips.

“Dad?” I said.

“I’m thinking.”

“You’ve also got the gun you took off the bridge.”

“I know.” He narrowed his eyes at a row of round hay bales. “Tavia, get the kids on top of those. I’ll climb onto one a little closer and then fall back to you if I have to.”

“That’s your plan?” I asked.

Dad grit his teeth. “Jenna, damn it, would you just do what I say?”

“I know how to shoot a rifle,” I said.

“No.”

“But—”

“I said, no! Now, get your ass on that hay!” He pointed with one hand and thrust the binoculars at me with the other.

I frowned as I snatched the binoculars from his hand, and then I led Halle to the field, stepping through freshly cut grass to the round bales.

Gripping his hunting rifle, and with the semiautomatic hanging from his shoulder strap, Dad walked west, toward the group of infected. I helped Halle climb up first, and she helped pull Tobin while Tavia and I pushed. Then, I cupped my hands and helped give Tavia a leg up. It wasn’t perfect, and it took her a couple of tries, but she finally climbed to the top and then reached down for me.

“I’ve got it,” I said.

“You sure, honey?” She watched me climb to the top.

“Yep,” I said, breathless but smiling, as I sat next to her.