The Virus Within: Third Wave (Book 2)

Chapter 13

The rustling of a sleeping bag alerted me to our first riser, and I opened my eyes with a faint sigh. Luke also took a slightly deeper breath as he turned his head, so the sound had likely woken him as well.

Shaking my head, I went to stir the porridge, which was ready. I sliced up the meat and dropped it into the frying pan, ensuring the fattiest sides were at the bottom to provide enough grease to keep the pieces from sticking too much. The meat was halfway done by the time Nina emerged from the tent.

"Good morning," she murmured as she came over to the fire to warm up.

"Good morning," Luke replied. "I hope you slept well."

"I did, thank you."

"The porridge is ready," I told Nina, "but the bacon is going to take a bit longer."

"I didn't think we had any bacon left," she said, examining the strips of meat merrily crackling away in the pan.

"As of four hours ago, we acquired more."

"Ah, I see."

I doubted that statement, but I didn't feel like breaking her illusion about which animal I had hunted. Neither Daniel nor Luke corrected her, even though their noses were certainly keen enough to know it hadn't come from a pig.

As Nina brought out the bowls and cutlery, Nicky exited the tent. This time, she wasn't even scowling. It looked like several days without coffee had finally calmed her enough to be halfway civil in the morning. It's about time...

Luke tried to subtly move his chair back as Nicky and Nina helped themselves to the porridge and added brown sugar and honey on top. Their close proximity and the lack of wind to remove most of their scent probably had his bloodlust acting up.

I flipped the meat and ensured everything was thoroughly cooked before putting the frying pan beside the porridge. With my cooking duty done, I moved the cooler between Luke and Nicky's chair once more.

Once the women sat down, Daniel grabbed a bowl and offered some to Luke. "Do you want some?"

"Thank you. I'd be delighted."

"Porridge and bacon?"

"Porridge is fine, thank you."

"Brown sugar and honey?"

"Both, please."

Daniel added a spoonful of each on top and brought the bowl over. Luke was a bit leery about being so close to the higher-ranking zombie but did remarkably well as he took the bowl with a quiet "thank you".

Daniel filled another bowl for himself, although his porridge was adorned with slices of meat instead of anything sweet.

I pulled a small jar out of my backpack. "Nicky, here."

I leaned over to pass the jar to her, not trusting her reflexes this early in the morning.

She held it up and looked at the oily contents before raising an eyebrow at me. "I somehow doubt this contains caffeine."

I snorted lightly. "Unless I was trying to make an entire army run away in fear, I would never give you anything with caffeine. Once you're done eating, rub that over your skin. It'll minimize your scent."

"Cool. Does this mean I have a chance of winning a game of hide and seek against you?"

"No, but if you apply it properly, Daniel and Luke shouldn't be able to easily pick up your scent unless you're fairly close to them."

Now that I thought about it, I was kicking myself for not asking that crazy guy how he had cloaked his scent so well. I'd never seen something so effective before. It was one thing for a Nightstalker to be able to find something to cover up a scent we could smell, but the man had no way of knowing his scent had been covered so thoroughly.