Atlanta Bound Read online

  Phil wasn’t bad, and she’d saved his bacon. Still, she talked all the damn time, and she was a goddamn optimist. Dunc needed peace and quiet like others needed air, and the fact that he hadn’t had a tot of whiskey since the crash was wearing on his nerves something awful.

  It was faint consolation that the thing in the road that icy night had already been, well, dead. He was just goddamn lucky he’d decided to get the hell out of there instead of trying to check on the human-shaped thing he’d run over in a haze of Blue Öyster Cult and Johnnie Walker Red.

  The fact that he’d nerved himself up to go back the next day to find the champing, slavering, growling, broken thing in the bracken didn’t change him being a murderer, and a common drunk as well.

  That thought jolted him into quiet, catlike motion.

  He turned off all the switches except the night-light over the RV’s unused stove, and brushed his teeth in the tiny sink. There was a trickle of unfrozen water, but deep winter was on its way, and these idiots were going north-ish.

  Still, there was nothing else to do, and he might as well go with them in the absence of any other options. And there was lean dark-skinned Juju with his quiet voice and electric smile, too.

  Thinking about that would just make him more damn skittish, so Duncan climbed into the bunk over the driver’s cabin, burrowing himself in a little hole, and let out a long soft breath. He would have liked a little music; it kept you from thinking.

  But the music might also draw some more of those dead, eye-collapsed assholes, so Duncan was stuck with the tapes in his head playing the Cult and scraping his nerves raw all at once. The Reaper was here, and fearing him, despite the song’s advice, seemed like a pretty goddamn good idea. Fear kept you sharp, even if it made you long for a tot or two to take the edge off.

  Nobody had asked any questions he couldn’t answer, and nobody had to know he was a small-change felon with a dishonorable discharge. A washout, a drunk, a coward—only he didn’t have to be, now. The entire town of Pomokie, Ohio was wiped off the map, just like he’d wished so often, both out loud and in the quiet secret rooms of his heart.

  If this was a movie, the disaster would turn him into a hero. He’d been waiting for something like this all his life, without ever thinking he’d get it.

  Now that it had, he wasn’t gonna let anything stop him.

  Lee knocked the snow off his left boot, put it inside, then knocked the other clean. It was bright in here, though not quite warm. Traveller yip-yodeled with glee, prancing down the RV to tell Ginny all about the last few minutes in the snow; Lee swung the door shut, latched it, turned the lock.

  Now they could conserve some heat.

  No sign of anything movin’ out there. Nothin’ but a whiteout and a faint mutter from Juju’s RV—hopefully the sound would fall dead in the snow, and Lee didn’t have the heart to knock on Thurgood’s door and tell him to turn that shit down. The weather was too foul for anything to be moving, even the critters. This far from Cleveland the pickings were probably thin, too, and predators went where the food was.

  “Look at you.” Ginny beamed, bending over to scrub behind Traveller’s ears. “There’s a boy who needs his dinner, hm? Two of them, in fact. You don’t get any rice and tofu, though. You just get kibble. There’s a boy.”

  She’d found blocks of shelf-stable tofu and looked so happy at the prospect Lee didn’t dare complain. Soy sauce, frozen vegetables—it smelled good, in here. Like cooking, and the breathing of a pretty woman. Lee stood, stooped a little, uncomfortably tall for the interior unless he stayed in the well of the step.

  Golden electric light played over Ginny’s single loosened braid, honey-highlighted curls working free and framing her thin face. Her jacket was open, and she swept Traveller’s bowl off the counter with easy natural grace as she straightened and pointed. Traveller scrabbled for the back of the RV and the bathroom door with a will, sat like a good hound and got the bowl for his reward, set carefully on a folded-up towel.

  Lee closed his eyes. Just let me stay here. Just for a minute.

  “Still snowing?” she asked, returning to the stove and flicking off a burner.

  And Lee, just for a moment, let himself imagine. A good job somewhere, maybe in another garage. He liked engines, right? And Ginny, working in a library. Or even that daydream, him getting a fine enough job that she could stay home and read all day in a trim little house the bank wouldn’t own for too much longer, maybe a piece of land with a tiny vacation cabin on it too. A drive on Sundays, maybe lunch in-town, and throwing a ball for Traveller in a fenced backyard.

  It would suit him right down to the ground, but it wouldn’t be good enough for her. She was used to more, and deserved it, too.

  “Hey. Lee.” Soft, concerned, and very close. “You all right?”

  His eyes flew open. She was right in front of him, and Lee’s hands itched while he stripped his sodden gloves off. The interior was new—perfect, polished, expensive, well-made. So was she, her wide dark gaze focused on him. The most beautiful woman in the world, looking at him. That attention was pure sunlight, and he was a helpless plant stretching for it.

  “Ginny.” He was hoarse. His throat was seizing up at strange times. Like whenever she got close, or whenever he thought about what might have happened if the world hadn’t gone to hell in a handbasket all around them. He probably would never have worked up the courage to talk to her, for God’s sake.

  “I’m right here.” Wonder of wonders, Ginny’s hands came up, and her fingertips scraped his stubble. She cupped his cheeks and examined him, a somber doctor ready to cure all ills. “You look a little upset. You okay?”

  Oh, upset wasn’t the word. He couldn’t tell what was, though.

  If not for all this, he wouldn’t have had a chance with her. It was a fine time to start feelin’ guilty over as much.

  “Hey,” she persisted, leaning in a little, peering at his face. “If you want me to talk, you’re going to have to as well, you know. You’re going to have to—”

  She didn’t get another word out. Because Lee Quartine, at the very end of his patience, dropped his wet gloves, took her face in his hands, and kissed her.

  Dinner, that evening, was very late.

  Some Meanness

  Ginny lay on her side, her arm tucked under her head and her entire body full of heavy pleasantness. She should have been dead asleep, really. She was warm, really warm, for once, and it was hard not to feel safe with Lee breathing into her tumbled hair.

  Maybe that was the problem. It was a blessed change, as the folks in Cotton Crossing would say, and she wanted to savor it before the next terror came along. Or maybe it was that the longer they went on, the less likely Mom and Dad and Flo were all right, and the closer she got to having even that faint hope snatched away.

  She made a slight restless movement. Traveller was unhappy at sleeping on the floor, but there just wasn’t room for him up here. There was barely room for six-foot-plus of Lee and her own five-foot-mumble-mumble. Close quarters added something, though, right?

  A faint edge of glow spread from the nightlight over the small stove, the metal burner covers gleaming. His hand was spread against her belly, calluses a little raspy on her cotton tank top matching the slight prickling of his chest hair against her bare shoulders. I can sleep down on the couch, if you’d like. Shyly, ducking his head like he considered it a done deal.

  The problem wasn’t falling into bed with him. That part was probably pretty inevitable.

  No, the problem was at the end of a few more days of travel, depending on how bad the weather got. Once they were over the state line she was in home territory. Then, if Mom and Dad and Flo were all right, she would…what? Stay with them? Would she find an empty house and a note—Gone to Atlanta?

  Maybe some of the neighbors would band together and caravan south. Maybe they’d left when things began to get bad. If so, she could try to guess their route, try to catch up with them. Flo might even have to g
ive birth in an RV, or an ambulance, or whatever vehicle they could find.

  No, it wasn’t very likely they would want to travel with her due any day. Overdue, now. And setting off through a wasteland with an elderly couple and a new baby? Even Flo’s bossiness probably couldn’t handle that particular configuration. Even Mom’s probably wasn’t up to the task.

  She could boss me around all day, as long as she’s alive. There were, of course, other possibilities. Darker ones.

  A sigh surprised her, and she shifted uneasily. Lee didn’t wake, but his arm tensed, an instinctive hug. Let me sleep near the edge, then, he’d said. Safer. He only backed down on that when she pointed out she’d probably need the bathroom in the middle of the night.

  Oh, she liked him, she really did. How could you not? And how could she still be awake despite some very athletic, head-bumping giggling and soft swearing? He was wiry, but strong.

  It was like riding a bicycle—you didn’t forget. It helped a lot when the other person was paying attention, too. Best of all was when you could laugh, and a man didn’t take it as a comment on him. Or his technique.

  God. Here she was thinking about carnality when her parents and Flo might be in a dark, freezing house, or afraid, or trying to reach Atlanta through blizzards and hordes of grind-chewing zombies. Mom hated guns, Dad had one in a safe for home defense, but it could have rusted solid by now for all Ginny knew.

  She moved again, unable to stop herself, and Lee’s breathing changed. “Hm?” Not quite a word, an inquisitive sound clinging to the edge of waking.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

  He shifted, his arm under the pillow, and cleared his throat, softly. “You’re worryin.”

  I can’t help it. It’s congenital. “Just about my parents.”

  “Nothin we can do until we get there.” He hunched his shoulders, stretching—his toes bumped the end of the bed and he winced.

  While that was the absolute truth, it wasn’t exactly comforting. “I just hope they’re still alive.”

  There was a long silence, and she thought perhaps he’d fallen asleep again. Instead, he moved, turning and tugging on her shoulder. A few moments of rearranging ended up with her head on his chest, his own propped on a pillow thumped into submission, and his chin in her hair again. One arm around her, his other hand smoothing curls away from her forehead, and he moved his shoulders again, settling just like Traveller. “Aight.” Combing her hair with his fingers, patting at the strands. “Tell me bout it, darlin.”

  Tell you what? His heartbeat ka-bumped along under her cheek, comforting thunder. “Not much to tell. I’m just…what if they’ve headed for Atlanta? What if they haven’t? What if they’re not immune? If immunity is genetic, maybe my sister’s all right, but she’s overdue if she hasn’t hatched yet, and my parents…they’re not young. I just…what happens when we get there?”

  There were other questions crowding her, but she ran out of breath and Lee spoke, spacing the words out nice and slow. “If they’re alive, we figger it out. If they ain’t, we do what we can to rest them decent. Either way, Ginny, I’ll make sure you’re all right.”

  Oh, God. Hearing it that way was almost worse. “They should be fine. I mean, they’re in a gated community. That means safe, right?”

  “Mh.” A nod she felt, stubble scraping at her hair. He kept smoothing her temple with his fingertips, occasionally stroking her cheek as well. “Your daddy believe in guns, Ginny?”

  “Mom doesn’t like them. Dad…well, he’s a lawyer. He believes in negotiation.” And golf, and whiskey. Straight As, achievement. Not to mention basketball. Mom believed in manners, and safety, and marrying well.

  “Lawyer, huh?” He sounded amused. At least he wasn’t the sort who thought lawyers were an alien life form.

  “Corporate law.” A lot of staying late at the office and two-martini lunches, good cigars and setting aside plenty for your kids’ college, not to mention retirement, and cash in a safe just in case.

  “I wondered what your folks did.” Lee’s fingertips traced her cheek. “And your sister?”

  “Flo? Oh, she got a degree in design before she married Hal. Making a good marriage is a Mills family tradition. Only I found Hal on a washing machine with some chippie dental hygienist from Flo’s book club. It was embarrassing.”

  “A washin machine?” Now Lee sounded baffled, but his fingers didn’t halt their steady motion.

  “Yeah. Here’s Flo, six months pregnant, and he’s banging Mercy—that was her name—on a washing machine.”

  “Must’ve been a sight.” He probably found it as funny as she did, because she could hear the wry smile in the words.

  And honestly, it hadn’t been very funny at the time. “Yeah, well, I had to tell Flo. And she was furious.”

  “At him or at this Mercy?”

  Well, either would have been a relief. “At me.”

  “Whatnow?”

  “It’s complex. Sibling stuff.” It was probably because Ginny was safe to be mad at, she wasn’t going anywhere. Still…it hurt.

  It hurt a lot.

  A slow nod. “Never had me a sibling.”

  “What about your family?” Here she’d been tossing her worries all over him. It was easy to do, he was so quiet. He really listened, instead of just nodding and planning his sentence inside his head. “Your grandparents raised you, right?”

  “Ayuh. Big Q and my Nonna.” He hesitated, but only slightly, his voice a chest-rumble. “My daddy was in county since I was three.”

  It was so nice to finally be warm again. “In county?” Was that some sort of exotic way of saying overseas?

  “Prison, ma’am.”

  Traveller shifted down on the floor, making soft doggie-dream noises.

  “Oh.” What was a polite way to ask what did he do? Did she want to know? Silence cradled them both. Outside, the noiseless snow smothered every surface. It was probably still coming down out there. “Did you ever get to visit him?”

  “Nonna took me. Wasn’t much to talk about. Big Q would never go.”

  “Oh.” It couldn’t have been comfortable. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, imagining solemn young Lee visiting a large grey dreary prison. “What about your mom?”

  “Dead when I was three.” It was his turn to make a slight, restless movement. “It ain’t comfortable.”

  Time for a subject change, then. “I can move—”

  “No, I mean about my mama. Poppa—that’s Big Q—always said ain’t no kind of man what’ll hurt a woman, and my daddy never talked about it. Guess I looked a little too much like her for his taste, too.”

  That sounded pretty bad. “I’m sorry.”

  “Ain’t no need to be, darlin.”

  “What happened?” She was going to add you don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to, but apparently he wanted to.

  “Well, my mama was wild.” Quiet and flat, a recitation of just the facts, ma’am. He played with her hair, lifting a single curl, letting it spring free, catching it again with fingertip gentleness. “Guess Lee Senior thought marryin would settle her down. Didn’t. Then there was one night, she left me with Nonna and Big Q and went out to a roadhouse for a good time. Don’t know if he caught her in some man’s truck or just on the dance floor, but my daddy saw red. They locked him up at County for it, and a good thing too. Nonna said he’d always had some meanness in him, kept it bottled up until pow.”

  Pow. Ginny shuddered.

  “I always wondered if I had that meanness in me.” Soft, reflective, Lee sounded thoughtful. “I don’t want to tell you this, Ginny.”

  “Why not?” It wasn’t exactly the sort of story you blurted out on first meeting someone, true.

  “Ain’t exactly nice.” The calm, even stroking didn’t pause. “Big Q used to sit up of nights, thinkin. Nonna said he was broodin on if he’d done something to turn my daddy mean. Quartines got a streak in ’em, everyone says. Figured I’d jo
in the Army and use it that way.”

  “Did it work?” What a thing to ask someone you’d just slept with. Ginny almost winced. “I mean, you don’t seem mean.” Not unless there were shuffling corpses to deal with, but that was a good kind of mean, right? Like being aggressive or stubborn to protect your fellow employees, or presenting a united family front to a soon-to-be-ex-husband of your younger sister.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Warmth shading his voice. “But I figure some meanness gonna get us through this.”

  He was probably right. Ginny turned her chin, pressed a kiss against his shoulder. A patch of smoothness, though the rest of him was furred with gold-tipped hair. He inhaled, a sharp sipping soft sound, and it made her smile. “Was your grandfather mean?”

  “Maybe, when he was young. But then Nonna got hold of him. She didn’t stand for no foolishness.” Lee nuzzled her hair, his breath a warm spot. “She’d’a liked you, Yankee girl.”

  Said that way, it was probably a high compliment. “Mh. You call me that again and I’ll bite you.”

  “Do that.” Quiet amusement filled the words. “See what it gets you.”

  Oh, he was dangerous to her pulse, this guy. But Ginny sobered. “Lee?”

  “Hm?”

  “If my parents…if they’re…”

  Lee didn’t make her say it. “We’ll take care of it, Ginny. Whatever it is.”

  He sounded so certain, and Ginny’s eyelids were heavy. Maybe it was his certainty, maybe it was the warmth, but in the end, she fell asleep against his shoulder while he stroked her hair and every once in a while, softly, quietly, touched her cheek again.

  Routes

  “They closed up Albany.” Ginny leaned over Lee’s shoulder. “That’s what my mom said, anyway.”

  “Yeah, you couldn’t even get a bus out that way.” Phyllis, her nails now bright scarlet and her hair a fall of glossy raven curls, peered out the window over the tiny kitchen sink. “We’re gonna have to find a snowplow just to move.”