Serg shook his hand and smiled wanly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause problems for you all.”
“That?” Daniels waved off Bishop and Boden. “That’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“So… it’s okay if I stay?” Serg asked hesitantly.
“Uh…” Daniels glanced back at Nolita, who shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
“Thank you.” Serg smiled again and took off his bag, setting it carefully down on the bank.
“So, where are you from?” Daniels asked, attempting strained small talk.
“I was from Michigan originally, but that was a very long time ago.” Serg’s expression went a dark.
It was a familiar look. The one people got when they thought about the past, when they remembered what life had been like before zombies roamed the Earth. Everybody who’d lived this long had lost so much to survive. We outlasted our homes, our pets, our friends, even our society.
Nolita went over with Daniels to continue the banal introductions, so I turned my attention back to where Boden and Bishop were still fighting.
“Max, go sit with Teddy,” I said. Teddy was sitting by the fire with Stella on his lap, and I knew that if Serg suddenly went ballistic, Teddy would protect the kids.
“Why?” Max asked.
“Just go do it,” I commanded, and I went over to Boden and Bishop.
“You can’t compare that.” Boden was shaking his head when I reached them. “What you did at the quarantine is not the same as running an army.”
“Well, this isn’t an army, is it?” Bishop shot back.
“Enough,” I said, loud enough to get the attention of both of them. “It doesn’t matter who’s in charge. And besides that, neither one of you have the right to make decisions carte blanche for all of us.”
Boden fell silent for a few seconds before quietly saying, “Someone is the leader, though.”
I shot him a glare, and he lowered his eyes and stopped talking.
“I don’t know if he should stay the night with us,” I said, lowering my voice so it was barely audible over the rain. “I don’t like the idea of just picking up strangers. You never know who you can trust anymore.”
“This isn’t our bridge, Remy.” Bishop looked at me incredulously. “We can’t just kick him out. Not when it’s raining. We should help our fellow man in times like this.”
“I know that, and ordinarily I’d agree with you.” My gaze went back over to where Stella and Max were sitting with Teddy. “But it’s not just us. We have kids here that can’t defend themselves very well.”
“Your brother seems pretty resourceful to me,” Bishop pointed out. “He took care of himself against a town overrun with zombies.”
“Zombies aren’t the same as people,” Boden said, echoing my thoughts exactly. “They’re getting smarter, but they’re not rational. They can’t trick you or steal from you when you’re sleeping.”
“Well, I’m not sending him away,” Bishop said, her eyes shifting angrily between Boden and me. “If you think that’s what you need to do, you can go to tell him that he can go out there and freeze to death and get eaten by monsters.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I tried to tell her, but she’d already started stomping back to the fire to sit down next to Teddy. I looked up at Boden, who sighed loudly. “We’re not wrong.”
“I know,” he agreed. “But I don’t really want to kick him out, either. I’ll keep watch all night, and he can stay. But just one night.”
I nodded, because that was the best compromise we could make. Boden walked away and roughly pulled his shirt down from the line where it’d been drying. He pulled it on, then went over to talk to Serg.
Serg kept to himself, but I’m not sure if that eased my fears or made them stronger. I stayed close to Max and Stella and made sure to keep one eye on Serg.
That got harder to do once it got dark, because Boden put out the fire. The light would attract zombies. I stayed awake for a long time, lying on the gravel next to Max, but eventually my body gave out and fell asleep.
It didn’t feel like I’d been out that long when I felt someone roughly shaking me awake, and in a panicked voice, Max was saying, “Remy! Wake up.”
15.
“What?” I sat up with a start, preparing to fight something, anything.
The rain had stopped, and the clouds must’ve parted, allowing light from the full moon to find its way under the bridge. It was still dark, but the light illuminated the silhouettes of people sleeping around me. I could see the outline of Boden, standing by the mouth of the underpass, but there didn’t appear to be any cause for alarm.
“What’s going on?” I asked, looking down at Max. He’d been sitting next to me, but he lay back down in the dirt.
“You were moaning in your sleep,” Max yawned, already settling back in to sleep. “It was freaking me out.”
“Yeah, she does that,” Daniels said. “You get used it after a while.”
He was lying beside Nolita, one arm draped over her. It was an affectionate, protective gesture, as if Daniels could protect her from anything.
The idea that I moaned in my sleep bothered me. I knew I had nightmares, though I tried my best not to remember them. I also knew that sometimes I cried in my sleep, because I’d wake up with tears drying on my cheeks.
But it scared me what I might say, that I might give something away that I’d much rather keep to myself.
“I moan in my sleep?” I asked Daniels, since Max had already fallen back to sleep, snoring softly. “Do I say anything?”
“Sometimes. Usually it’s just names, but other times …” He trailed off.
“Other times what?” I pressed.
He let out a deep breath. “Sometimes you say, ‘No, stop. Please. Stop.’” He paused and licked his lips. “That didn’t start until after you’d been in the quarantine for a while.”
I understood his hesitation about telling me. I may have volunteered for their experiments at the quarantine, but once they’d started cutting me open while I was still conscious, I’d begged them to stop. I’d pleaded with them while sobbing.
Daniels usually left before that. He’d never actually been present for a surgery, although he was the one who did my aftercare – cleaning my wounds, making sure I ate and drank, giving me IVs when I refused.