Class of 2013 - 18

Chapter Eighteen

Getting away from the horde was easy enough once the bus was moving, but now we had to get our sniper back. Her stunt had probably saved us, but now she was stranded atop the roof. Suddenly the bus shuddered to a near halt, and then anyone standing (or not sitting properly) was thrown from where they were to land either on the floor or on the opposite side of the bus. Damn thing turned like a battleship, but Sweet soon had it pointed the opposite direction, headed back toward where we’d been. Using the bus’s big wheels to his advantage, Sweet jumped the curb and pushed open the driver’s window of the bus as it skidded to a halt.

“Lea!” he shouted, “Come on!”

“What do you want me to do? Jump? Are you nuts?!” She shouted back.

“Yes! Now do it!”

She barely waited; just long enough to get on her feet so that she could jump from the roof, and then land with a dull thud on top of the bus – as well as a clatter and a slam; her rifle and the ammo can. A faint bit of movement, and then two weak smacks on the bus’s roof told that she was good to go. Sweet didn’t hesitate. The moment he heard those smacks, the bus was moving again – dropping off the curb and sidewalk, and back onto the actual pavement. With momentum behind it, the bus shoved its way through the horde and out the other side, headed down the street and away from Perris High; going toward the bridge. Weapon checks were done, and as they were some faint noises could be heard atop the bus. Right then the emergency hatch on top was popped open and Lea looked down inside.

“Well…” She panted, looking tired. “…that was fun.”

From the corner of my eye I saw the redhead smile at her, and Lea grinned back.

I just looked away, scowling.

==X==X==X==

The drive back to the school took no longer than any other had, though it felt longer – it seemed to be that way whenever you rode one of the busses anywhere; it never really took longer, but it felt like ages would pass before you arrived at your destination. Once we got back, the bus was parked inside the bus barn once more and everyone offloaded. In under an hour, Sweet had given Novik a set of keys for two rooms on the campus, the building over from where our survivor’s… dorms… were, and then told him where his group could go to find some clothes. We’d all managed to scavenge some already, though I’m pretty sure we all wanted to wait until we could wash these clothes before any of us put them on. It really wouldn’t do to be wearing clothes that had come off of zombies without at least washing the damn things first, now would it? I most certainly think not!

As the last few rays of sunlight came up and over the mountains in the west, and the dusk hours came upon us, I found myself resting on top of the office building’s roof. Everyone else was off doing their own things. Our survivors were washing up for dinner after working on the steam engine all day, Novik’s survivors were getting themselves settled into the rooms, however he was working that, Alice and Timothy were with Sweet’s family helping fix dinner for everyone, and the Core Four were each off doing whatever they wanted. For the most part I hadn’t really kept track of who was doing what in our core group, but I had little doubt it was some form of relaxation. I couldn’t help but scowl as I watched the sunset. It was a beautiful thing, but I kept seeing that shared look between Lea and Christine – having heard Novik say the ginger’s name at one point after returning.

“You look a lot better with a smile, you know.” The voice startled me, but I knew it immediately and relaxed again. It was just Lea, and though I tried not to give myself away, the fact that I wasn’t looking at her showed my jealousy enough. I heard her sigh, and soon enough she had sat herself down right next to me, resting her head on my shoulder playfully. “Oh come on, Roy… you know I’m not really interested in her, don’t you cousin? I’m just fooling around, y’know?”

I turned my head away and just growled a little… so she bit me on the damn ear. Hard. When I winced and flailed and tried to pull away, she thumped me, and then when I began rubbing my head she grabbed me and pulled me close, hugging me tight. I couldn’t stay mad at her then – the pain I could have dealt with, but my cousin hugging me had always made me feel better. She was the closest thing to a sister that I’d ever had in my life. She just had to use the tough love thing when I got stubborn like that.

“Yeah, I know…” I finally admitted, “…but that doesn’t make me feel better, Lea. If anything, that just makes me feel worse.”

“Why?” She asked curiously, looking at me as I leaned on her a little.

“Because…” I glanced in her direction, “…I guess it’s because I know that even though you’re not serious or committed or any of that, I know that she’s not gonna look at me like she looks at you. She’ll never want me, Lea.”

“Oh, bullshit.” Lea rolled her eyes, “That’s not true, Roy.”

“Of course it is, Lea. Look at me for Christ sakes!”

“So you’re fat. So what?” She shrugged, “Lose weight.”

“Well it’s not just that.”

“Then what?” She quirked a brow. “That’s about the only thing stopping you from being eye candy for girls, really. You’re already tall. Just lose some weight and be hygienic.”

I paused then, and shook my head, looking away from her. “That’s not it, Lea.”

“Then what is it, Roy?”

“The look she gave you. That was the look of someone that had just found a hero. It wouldn’t matter at this point if I was more attractive. Doesn’t matter how smart I am. Doesn’t even matter if you’re not serious about a relationship with her. She wants to be with you, and nobody else.”

She was silent for a moment. “How can you tell?”

“When we got back, how far away from you did she go? Three feet, maybe?”

She glanced away. “So what?”

I turned to face her then, glaring at her a bit. “So that should be a clue to you. Hell, you’re a girl, why do I have to explain this to you of all people? Are you just trying to ignore the obvious because of that bias you have against cheerleaders? Is that it, Lea?”

She glared at me then, though abruptly looked away from me. “So what if I am?”

“So… that isn’t fair to anyone.” I said, looking away from her. After that, we were both silent for a moment, leaning away from one another.

“…What should I do, Roy?” Her voice was soft when she finally spoke.

“It’s simple; ignore your bias.” I glanced at her then, only to see her looking at me with a shocked expression. “What?”

“What about you?” Her hand moved slowly up to her chest, to touch a little gold chain around her neck. Her fingers trailed along it to where it slid beneath her top, and then her hand moved to rest just above her breasts, where the little silver locket she wore hung. “And what about… well… you know… him?”

I sighed softly, looking at her. “I can’t give you any advice there.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“Both.” Anyone else would have been taken aback by the bluntness I used, but Lea was used to it after living with me for as long as she had. “It’s not my place to interfere, and thus I won’t, no matter if I can or not, my dear cousin.”

“So I have to make this decision by myself, huh?”

“That you do.”

“…Can I pick both?” She asked with a little grin, and I chuckled slightly. “I mean, guys fantasize about that kinda thing. So wouldn’t it be okay?”

I shook my head with a laugh. “It might be, but then again, we both know he’s the jealous sort. It might not be wise.”

Lea sighed. “I can dream.” She leaned on me again, and this time I put my arm around her, hugging her. “Who would you pick?”

I blinked at her a couple of times. “I’m straight.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, assume they’re both girls. Pick.”

“The fucking redhead, no doubt.”

“Wow… not even a pause.”

“What? Can you blame me?”

“No, I suppose I can’t.” She paused, grabbing the locket through her shirt. “I really do like him though… and I hardly know her, Roy.”

“I know that. Of course… maybe if you’re with someone and he likes you, that jealous streak of his will kick in. Should be obvious if it does. If not, at least you have someone.”

Lea smiled, hugging me tight. “Thank you, Roy.”

“No problem.” I smiled softly, hugging her back – though I knew that watching her with the girl I liked would probably hurt. Despite that, I said nothing. At the very least I could be happy that she was happy, and eventually I would get over my feelings.

==X==X==X==

Later on that night, Lea had left the roof and gone back down into the office. Me being my antisocial self had stayed on the roof and was destined to miss the next little event, but I would hear of it later. James, having thought of a joke, wanted to tell Lea and headed for her private room in the office. The door wasn’t shut all the way, having been left cracked open (something she commonly did, even at home and even with company), and James pushed it open. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw that Lea didn’t have her shirt on, and Lea turned on her heel when she heard the door creak open; facing James’ direction. In a flash she had grabbed her shirt and was covering herself with it.

“James!” She snapped, “What are you doing? Don’t you know how to knock, man?!”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t see anything, I swear!” James said, a hand covering his eyes, though he soon felt the fabric of her shirt hit him and hang over his head limply. Without thinking about it, he grabbed the shirt and lowered his hand, then looked at her, to see her glaring at him fiercely. She was about to shout, likely for him to get out, when his eyes narrowed and he looked at her right shoulder. It was covered in black and blue, with yellow and red mixed in. “Holy shit! Lea, what happened?”

Lea’s eyes went wide and she turned away, though her eyes caught sight of James still looking at her in her mirror. “Nothing happened, James.”

“My ass.” James snapped, stepping inside further. “It looks like someone went to town on your shoulder, Lea. Now what really happened? Tell the truth.”

“Nothing happened. That’s the truth.” She said sternly, glaring at him in the mirror.

“Then why the fuck is your shoulder so trashed? Where’d that nasty fucking bruise come from?” He glared back at her reflection.

She sighed, hanging her head a bit, her eyes downcast as she spoke softly. “I’ve been shooting that rifle since Tuesday, James. Every day. There’s no recoil reduction, or any kind of padding, that’s all.” She glanced at him in the mirror. “Nothing happened.”

James frowned then. “Why didn’t you say something to us? We could’ve made something to make it easier on you.”

“There wasn’t time for it.” She said quietly, stepping away from the mirror. “Besides, there were more important things for everyone to worry about than if I was getting bruised.”

James scowled then. “There’s always time to take care of the people we care about.”

Lea, however, wasn’t about to get caught up in continuing the conversation though. She didn’t want to talk about this. “Gimme my shirt, will ya?”

James blinked. “What?”

“My shirt genius. I want it. Now.” She snapped her fingers and held out her hand.

“Oh… alright…” He moved to hand it to her, but then pulled it back at the last second. “Hey wait a minute… you’re not getting out of this that easy. We’re in the middle of a conversation, damn it. An important one.”

“It’s still my shirt, and I’m still getting ready to go to sleep. Something you oughta do too, James. Now gimme the damn shirt.” She glared at him tiredly.

“Why should I?”

“Because it’s my shirt and I don’t want to wear my bra as I sleep. It’s uncomfortable. That’s why. Any more questions?”

“Yeah.” James paused. “What’re you gonna do if I don’t give it back?” He smirked.

“Oh… I don’t know…” She grinned, stalking toward him, hips swaying just a little, “…I’ll probably take my bra off… just go topless, like I do when I’m at home…”

The interesting thing about what Lea said wasn’t the fact that she was obviously just flirting and being seductive in order to get close to James, and thus her shirt, but the fact that she was understating what she did. In actuality, she most often slept in the nude at home, and in the mornings she would walk around that way. Ever since my parents had left it up to her to wake me up, they’d been sleeping in, and she’d decided to just forgo putting on clothing until after breakfast and a shower. It was the last thing that she did. Not even a robe – and while that might sound simply amazing to some, I can assure you, it actually got pretty annoying. After all, the only girl I’d ever personally seen naked up close… and she was related to me. Not exactly an accomplishment. I swear… she was one step away from a nudist; at least at home.

Of course, the moment that she was close enough, Lea snatched her shirt from James. It was rare that she pulled her seduction out on him, but whenever she did it worked like a charm. Though, along with the rarity of the event was the fact that she didn’t often mention things that would give him as great a mental image as she had this time. Normally it would just be something that was good enough to distract his mind, but this time she hadn’t felt like trying too hard to be seductive. Something quick and simple, something she hadn’t mentioned, and something that was above all… true; that was the best way to go.

Slipping her shirt on over her head quickly, she pulled the back of it up and unclasped her bra, pulling it down from under her shirt and tossing it into the corner. Letting her shirt fall, she stretched a bit and let out a lazy yawn – suddenly looking more tired than she had a moment ago.

“Alright then, James…” She began as she nudged him toward the door, “…time for bed. Seeya in the morning.”

“Hey, wait just a second…” Before he could say any more, he felt the kiss that was pressed against his cheek, and stopped thinking about trying to stop her from maneuvering him out of her room.

“Goodnight, James.” She smiled, ruffling his hair a little as she moved him just outside the door. “Sleep well.” And with that, Lea abruptly shut the door. It wasn’t until the click of the lock that James blinked and realized she’d gotten her way.

“Oh, son of a bitch…”

Inside the room, Lea smiled.

==X==X==X==

The next morning was the slowest morning since everything had started. The Core Four were all asleep in their individual rooms in the office until after noon had come and gone. The only two people that were actually awake from the office rooms were Sweet and Alice, and they’d set to work on making breakfast for their other halves. Sweet did it out of love for his darling wife, and Alice out of duty to her brother. Even though they were the same age, she often felt like she was in fact an elder sister instead of his twin. Of course, that came along with having the intellect that she possessed, and having a brother that was about average for his age. She never felt superior to him, not really, and sometimes she wished that he was the prodigy.

Alice knew she was lucky to have the talent for learning and comprehension that she did, but because of that, she’d never really gotten to just be a kid like her brother had. In her eyes, it was Timothy that was the lucky one. Nobody expected more from him because he was the one that was normal. They always expected more from her because they knew that she could do it. She was pushed continually all her life to do better, to excel, and to strive for the greatness that her parents knew she could attain. The only thing was… she’d never really wanted any of that. She’d never wanted to be a child genius, to graduate years ahead of her brother, or to finish college before she could even legally drink. Nobody had asked her. All she ever wanted, dreamed of, hoped for… was to be allowed to be normal.

Now that dream was dashed thanks to the living dead. She’d never have that opportunity now; especially since she was probably going to end up the scientific expert here. That in mind, she had decided to at least make good use of her time, and while she prepared a breakfast of pancakes for her brother, she had a biology textbook open in front of her.

Sweet had taken notice of this, but decided against saying anything about it – though he was certainly curious at seeing an eleven year old girl reading a high school textbook. He knew that she was a genius, but he couldn’t fathom a child not wanting to have some fun… genius or not. It was almost sad to see her reading that book, at least to him. Little did he know it, but he was imagining her in the very scenario that she had lived in. Pushed and prodded and demanded of to do her absolute best, and never having an opportunity to be a kid. Thinking of that struck something in his mind, and he couldn’t help but speak as he busied himself making breakfast for his darling wife, Sophie.

“Alice…” He began, trailing a bit, “…are you sure that you want to dissect it?”

The girl glanced up at him from her book, blinked a couple times, and then nodded.

“Why do you want to do it yourself though? Someone else could do the cutting for you, at least. There’s no need for you to do that.” Alice half rolled her eyes and shook her head to herself, silently, having gone back to working on her brother’s breakfast, and reading the biology book. “I just thought that you should know. Informed decision and all.” That said, he went back to working on his wife’s breakfast. It was right about now that he wished that she could talk instead of having to use that pad.

The rest of their time together would be spent in silence, save the sounds of meal preparation. However, not long after the sounds stopped from Alice’s side of the kitchen, a small paper airplane landed near Sweet. It was apparent that there was writing on it, and upon folding it open, he promptly read the note that was scrawled upon its parchment wings and body.

I’m an academic first and child second, Colonel. Thanks anyway.

==X==X==X==

By two o’clock in the afternoon, most everyone was awake, save for Lea. She lay in her room asleep, having a good long rest. Meanwhile, James had told the rest of us about her shoulder and he and Sweet were now going about making some padding for her rifle. Sweet had also decided that Lea wouldn’t be going on any missions for at least a couple of days, until her shoulder was healed. Until then, she would be getting range duty. Sweet was intent on talking to Novik about recruiting from the pool of survivors that we had rescued. The more people that we had, the more missions could be gone on and the better off we would be. The ones that weren’t recruited wouldn’t be getting off easy either – they would be doing the day to day labor around the school – or what we were now calling ‘base’.

I’d noticed a change in Sweet over the last couple of days. It was a subtle shift, but it reflected something that I was noticing about the entire group. We weren’t… normal; not anymore. When I first called the school base, nobody had taken it seriously, but now Chien and I both called it that now and then. Chien still rolled his eyes a bit when I made any mention of naming it, but we were thinking of it as more of a military base than as a school. Sweet didn’t even bat an eye when someone would call him ‘Colonel’. It was like we were turning into soldiers, or at least resistance forces. With a total of thirty-one survivors, we were doing pretty well, and if we could get even seven of the new arrivals to be recruits we’d have a decent force for operations beyond our base.

Some of said operations were already ongoing; namely the collection of foodstuffs from Stater Brothers. A small contingent of our secondary troops was using the Suburban to move supplies back and forth as quickly as they could. With the store cleared out, and most of the zombies in the immediate area wiped out, they only had to deal with whatever buildup there was between raids. Thankfully that number was staying small. I would have liked to have the tinder collected up, but the timing just wasn’t there for that. Of course, we didn’t have the trailer either, we’d left that at my place when we loaded the SUV up the first time. With how quickly they would fill up the freezers at the base though… it was becoming obvious to me that we’d need to go get more freezers soon. I knew that my house had one, so that could add at least some space.

The real question was where we would get one. The first two places that came to mind were Costco and Sam’s Club, though both of those were a good distance away and in infested territory. Despite this fact, it was known that it had to be done. The only way around that was going to one area that was potentially closer and trying to grab a much… larger… freezer. It was a simple idea: just grab one of the semi trucks that had a cold storage trailer on the back end, bring it back, tie it into the power grid, and then crank the temperature down to just below freezing. We’d probably have to clean it out, because it was doubtful that anything in it would still be unspoiled after nearly a week of sitting idle, but that was fine. At the very least we would have the unit, and that was what mattered overall.

Considering that we had also found the keys for other vehicles in the parking lot, including the pickup trucks and SUV’s parked there, we had other vehicles that could be used to transport supplies as well, so that would free up the Suburban for use getting more freezers. Grabbing the solar panels from the Perris Library might be a good idea too – the library certainly didn’t need them anymore, and they had a lot of them. If we could add that to our grid, along with other steam and diesel generators, we’d have more than enough power to run all the storage units. Hell, we might even have enough power to last through winter and into spring when we would get good amounts of sunshine again. If we could do that, and maybe erect some wind turbines, we’d be fine.

All these things considered, it left us with multiple possible missions to tackle. James and I would obviously be the ones going on the zombie capture mission as nobody else was really willing to. Lea and Chien could likely handle going after the semi truck, if of course Chien could identify which rig had a cooler hooked up – assuming there even was one that they could get to. Lea was supposed to be acting as our new range master, but she wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to go on a mission; especially one that was of vital importance to the group’s long term well being. She would just have to take a lighter weapon. Sweet would be the one to handle recruiting here at home base, and until Lea and Chien were done, probably the one to be doing the marksmanship training.

Now it was time to make things happen.