Emma could be onto something, but Wyatt’s not ready to chance it. Not until the sun comes up hours later and they’re worse off than before, with the dead spread out as far as he can see.
He doesn’t have a clue where they all came from. The freeway, the convention center, a random assortment with no rhyme or reason. The why isn’t as important as how to escape. They don’t have the supplies to stay another night, even if they wanted to. Getting back to Addison is a priority.
Eventually, he relents and cracks the back door to whistle over a slow one and slips his knife into the back of its head when it crosses the threshold.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this? Not gonna be fun,” he grunts, carving into the chest of the monster to reveal slime-coated guts.
“I can do it,” she says defiantly, averting her eyes from the gruesome scene.
She’s got a fire in her just like her mother does, he thinks with a fond nod. Covers herself in blood without much more than a grimace and doesn’t complain once.
Wyatt says a prayer to a god he doesn’t believe in anymore and slowly opens the front door.
He’s never been so afraid, not even when he saw his first rotter. Not when he fought that group for his plane and barely escaped alive. Not when his corner of Alaska had been overrun. None of those situations had been a case of willingly walking into danger and daring it to call his bluff.
Emma’s hand clenches his tight enough to cut the circulation, while the dead sniff them like a pack of wild dogs before finally, finally deciding they aren’t a meal.
It’s a slow walk through the horde, bumping rotten shoulders and getting shuffled like cards in a deck.
It’s not until they load their items into the car and get moving again that he breaks out into the biggest grin. “Hell yeah!”
Emma winces at him from the passenger side.
He slaps the car door through the open window and lets out a holler of victory as they speed down the road. “Come on, give me a woohoo!”
She shakes her head, appalled at his outburst of excitement.
“You know you want to.”
“Woo,” she says quietly, only to appease him.
“That was pitiful. You can do better. All the rotters need to hear it from the next county over.”
If anyone needs to loosen up a little bit, it’s this girl, who’s in a state of perpetual seriousness. If she refuses again, he’ll backoff, but then she shocks him with the loudest woohoo he’s ever heard.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” He smiles.
Emma laughs, then remembers she’s still coated in guts, and her face transforms into disgust. “Get it off me, get it off, get it off.”
He ain’t gonna judge her for that. The kid lasted longer than most adults would before admitting it’s the nastiest shit she’s ever felt or smelled in her life.
They escaped the dead, gathered supplies, and are heading home in one piece. They’re long overdue for the kind of luck they were gifted today.
* * *
Wyatt can’t get inside fast enough when they get home. Only, instead of being greeted by Addison, all he sees is blood.
It coats the sofa cushions and trails along the floor. He follows with newly hesitant steps, and his heart in his throat. “Addison?”
His voice is barely a whisper as he unsheathes his knife, grabbing Emma by the arm to prevent her from running toward the bedrooms in search of her mother. If the worst happened and she’s gone, he won’t allow her to see that.
If there are rotters in the house, he has to protect her.
It might be shock that keeps him sane as he climbs the stairs, the last one creaking so loud that the bedroom door flies open right as he reaches it, putting his target right in line with the blade of his knife.
“Wyatt?” Addison is wearing a coat like she’s going somewhere. She has her knife out and a bag on her shoulder. She is not, however, as relieved to see them as he is to seeher, judging by the way her eyes widen. “Oh my god. What happened? Who got bit?”
Emma runs past him and into her arms, and okay, now he understands why Addison’s looking at them like they’re both about to drop dead. Which just so happens to be exactly how he’s looking back at her after seeing that trail of blood.
