ZOMB-POCALYPSE BOOK 2

Chapter Eight

We are sweating by the time we get the truck loaded up, and Silas secures everything with a ratchet strap. The clock on the wall is putting me on edge as I watch it creep up to 11:30 am. This is not the early start I'd envisioned, though I know these supplies are going to be invaluable.

"Ready to go?" I ask for the third time in the last half-hour, causing Silas to shoot me an annoyed look, which I blatantly pretend I don't see.

"Ready," Ryan affirms, holding the front passenger door open for me, and I'm touched. He's letting me sit in the front, leaving the spilled gut, rotten gore covered backseat for himself.

"Thanks," I say, touching his arm to show him that I know he's sacrificing for me. Silas rolls his eyes at our human emotions and jumps into the driver's seat, sliding on a pair of dark sunglasses he's found somewhere in the mall.

"Let's rock and roll," he says, channeling every corny cliché I've ever heard, though somehow still managing to pull it off with his dark sunglasses and tight leather jacket.

"This year, please," I snark at him to cover up my embarrassment over how hot I've been finding him lately. I should have never looked at him without his shirt on!

Silas gives the truck an excessive amount of gas before tapping his breaks, making my seat belt tighten uncomfortably around my chest. I look over at him suspiciously, and he's grinning at my discomfort. Note to self: Stop pissing Silas off when he's driving, or next time I might find myself kissing the windshield.

Silas rolls all of our windows down a crack to help with the overpowering smell of rotten asshole that has permeated the truck, thanks to the zombie showdown in the backseat, and then we are zipping our way back onto the roadway and the scenery is whipping by us fast enough that I finally let myself relax a bit.

We are back on the road, and we will find Abby at that cabin; I refuse to believe anything different.

We drive in silence until Silas reaches over and slides a cd into the six-disc changer, and fast-paced country music starts blaring through the speakers. I was never really a fan of country, but it's nice to listen to something other than our own heavy breathing. I roll my window down a little more since we are on the wide open road, and it's relatively safe. I close my eyes, focusing on the feel of the warm sunshine on my face even though the wind is a bit chilled.

Something hard pokes my elbow where it's resting on the center console, and I open my eyes to see that Silas has reached into the backseat and pulled up a medium-sized Rubbermaid tote that is filled to the brim with boxes of AR-15 ammo and spare magazines.

"If you're just gonna nap, you can do something useful and reload these magazines so we have some spares," Silas says, his arrogant drawl igniting my temper.

I know we need these magazines in case something happens, but Silas demanding it makes me mad. I open my mouth to tell him to piss off or maybe shove the bullets up his ass, but the warm press of Ryan's hand on my arm stops me.

I look back at him, and see he's giving me a look. "I'll help you," he volunteers, grabbing a box of ammo and an empty magazine. I still want to yell at Silas, but I can't really do it now without looking like a jerk.

I ignore Silas's smirk and yank a black metal magazine out of the box and start pressing bullets into it.

Ryan and I fill an obscene amount of clips until we run out of magazines to load, and my soft, uncalloused fingers are starting to feel sore.

"You should do the nine mil casings next," Silas says, turning down the music for the first time in an hour. I stare at him, my mouth open a little. "This isn't nap time, Jane, this is a brief moment of peace we have before the next attack," he says seriously, and I realize that he isn't actually being a jerk...okay, he is still being a jerk, but at least he has a very real reason.