The Town of Last Haven: A Zombie Novel

Part 42

After having Luke come up to her bedroom from climbing the tree out the window, Julia put her eavesdropping skills to good use and overheard her sister and Jake in the living room. She'd tip-toed in her socks from upstairs to downstairs, then saw Natalie and Jake kissing. She wasn't jealous of them, by any means. She was happy for her sister--and fearful, too--fearful that Natalie would lose the only boy she'd ever loved.

Just as Jake was about to turn and look at Julia, she bolted silently up the stairs. She went to her bedroom and looked at Jake out the window as he left. Luke was turning the corner of the street, heading to the same place Jake would head towards too. Luke could die, too, Julia knew that. Her hand went to her stomach again, and she felt sick.

When Jake left, he went towards the line of trucks where the gunmen and scouts were gathering. He saw Luke in a black parka with a satchel of sniper rifles and ammo, and he went over to him. Luke paled when he saw Jake, but the two got on the same truck anyway--the old red pickup where Jake and Natalie first met.

"You hoping to return to your girl?" Luke asked a less-than-friendly Jake.

"Hoping to return to Natalie, yes." Jake nodded once, thinking about Natalie's sweet smile, her motherly nature, that serene love she emulated and gave to those around her. He would fight the dead and the living every day for her.

"Can't say I'm not jealous," Luke murmured. "You have Natalie, and I had Julia."

"I know," Jake eyed Luke suspiciously. He was sweating beneath his parka--as if he'd been running. Jake saw something no one else saw, and it wasn't some psychotic vision. In that moment, he realized the footprints in the snow matched the snowy bottoms of Luke's shoes. And he knew that Luke had gone for Julia. "Didn't get her back, did you?"

Luke played dumb. "What do you mean?" His voice went a tad higher.

"You know, jackass," Jake murmured. "Play innocent all you like, but you're not coming home to her." Jake felt protective of Julia too; she was like a sister to him. The Brown family was Jake's family; they were all he had now.

"Prepared to protect what's ours, men?" asked a loudly-speaking gunmen ahead of the line of cars. "We may die, we may win, but we'll take out those zombie bastards if it kills us!" He raised his gun in the air but didn't fire it; he was saving ammunition for the fight. Cheers and whoops sounded from the men, and the cars began to drive towards the horde coming for them.

They wouldn't go down without a fight.