This is the End 2(628)
After a couple run-ins with the locals- who tended to set up shop, aka settlements, along the highway- we opted for the more scenic route south. But it hadn’t exactly been peaceful and Zombie-free. Reagan had a relatively detailed map of the lower US and Mexico, so we were navigating our way utilizing paper methods. Travel had been slow and bloody- and with all the carnage, it was easy to keep our eyes focused on a Feeder-free goal. Even if the utopia we searched for didn’t really exist. Our sanity lay in the hope and promise of a better life to come.
I still kept my old smart phone with me as a souvenir of where we came from- like as a society, not literally what town I was from. It was my homage to the age of technology before technology died a fast, agonizing death. Plus, it had all of my pictures from the last two years of my thriving, youthful existence before the infection. Not to mention, my coveted iPod app. So if there was ever consistent electricity again…
Sometimes my fingers itched to pull it out and Google our location or look up the closest Chick-Fil-A, or turn on my music and fade away in the blissful sound. I kept waiting for the sensation to fade, for my habit of using the entire atmosphere of information to stop kicking in every single time I wanted to know something. But the inclination stayed, no matter how much time had passed since I’d actually surfed the web. My fingers remained restless and my brain remained unfed.
One of Nelson’s hands slid from my hip to splay out across my stomach, hidden beneath my shirt. His hand radiated heat against my bare skin and my heart beat kicked into overdrive with a panicked rhythm. I jerked from the sensation, not at all sure what to do with the overwhelming feel of him.
I hadn’t been touched intimately in two years, four days. Not since the underwhelming night of senior prom, when my date, Taven Meyers, booked us a hotel room, made out with me for four minutes, thirty-eight seconds, got himself all the way to second base and then threw up in my hair. It was a night to be remembered…
I didn’t even understand why he’d gotten so plastered. I was the one giving up my v-card! I should have been the one reaching for liquid courage.
The only thing that trumped vodka-puke in prom hair was in fact Zombie remains- but barely.
Nelson’s nose made a gentle trail across my neck, coming to rest against the top of my shoulder. He was seconds away from placing a kiss there- I was positive. And even though there was fabric between my skin and his lips I had the intuitive foresight that I would feel that kiss to the deepest part of my spine.
I whipped my head around, too afraid of that feeling than anything I’d faced yet, and glared at him. “You’re awfully brave, Nelson Parker. Did you forget my gun is loaded?”
He smirked at me, that know-it-all, cocky grin of his. I had never even seen him look remotely smug around anyone else. I couldn’t tell if I brought out the worst in him or the best. It was much too early to tell.
And I would know- I would know everything- before I ever gave him a real shot. It wasn’t like I had a backup plan if we turned out to be toxic for each other. And I so did not want to be one of those couples that threatened to feed each other to Zombies every waking moment because they couldn’t get along, but there were no other viable options for them to procreate with.
“I think his is too,” Harrison goaded.
Back to being an overly ripe tomato.
“Omg, you are such a pervert! You so belong in high school.” I punched him in the arm, but my weak fist just bounced right off his superhumanly strong bicep. “Ow! How are you so strong for a child?”
He grinned at me, pulling up his shirt sleeve and flexing a muscle no boy his age should have developed yet- hello side-effects of a hard life.
“Oooh,” I cooed, slipping a hand around it to squeeze. Anything to distract me from the hand I hadn’t seemed able to remove from under my shirt yet. I squeezed Harrison’s bulging muscle again, “Oooh baby!”
Nelson pulled his hand out from under my shirt and removed my fingers from Harrison’s bicep by threading his fingers through mine and bringing both our hands back to my lap. “Alright, he gets it. You think he’s strong.”
He sounded so jealous and territorial I almost laughed out loud. But I couldn’t, because even now tingles of exhilaration spread out from the center of my chest to the tips of my fingers and toes. My vision seemed to fade in and out and my breathing picked up with the excitement.
I didn’t know if I wanted Nelson yet. But I certainly didn’t not want him.
“Jealous, big brother?” Harrison chuckled. “Don’t be resentful because all the ladies want me.”
“Yep, all the ladies,” Reagan laughed.