Alive (The Crave) (6 page)

“I’m gonna go take care of these.” Eve barely nodded her head and he turned from her, giving her privacy with the remnants of her home. This was exactly why he didn’t want to go by his house. He didn’t want to suffer through the suffocating feeling of emotion that would trigger from being there.
Yet you want to go to Jacksondale.
A place that held many memories for him as well. He couldn’t explain it though, something was pulling him there. He
had
to see it. He hadn’t been there since the infection had changed everything.

He came up on the group of the undead. His cowboy boots crunched on the gravel road. Four of them were old—in terms of how long they had been a gurgh—they were all men with crusty gray flesh and sunken eyes. One of them didn’t even have eyes.
Someone was murdered.
Over time, he’d come to pay more attention to gurghs that he killed. He could tell the ones who had been left for dead and then bitten. Those ones always had tell-tale signs of some sort of tragic mishap, like this one, missing both eyes with everything else intact on his face.

Well intact as it could be considering…

He ran his hand over his sweat-slicked brow, pulled the crossbow from his back, and nocked an arrow, sending it flying into the eyeless-one’s forehead. The gurgh collapsed on his back, not even twitching. That was the thing about the undead—destroy their brain and they were done for. He finished the other three off in quick precession. Nocking the wooden arrows and sending them flying directly to their target. He’d become so good at it that he could do it in his sleep, though he hadn’t had the nerve to try it out.

The last gurgh was a child, he realized, rather than a short man like he assumed before. He couldn’t have been older than eight years old considering his small stature and tattered and bloody Sponge Bob shirt. He seemed to be a relatively young gurgh. The black blood that seeped from his mouth dripped onto the ground as he shuffled forward, a tell-tale sign of the recently turned. A huge bubbling bite mark decorated his neck. One of the undead had bitten him, but there were no other wounds. Something had stopped the gurgh from feasting on the rest of him. He would have been missing limbs if they hadn’t. Very rarely did one get away with just a bite without outside intervention.

Gage looked at the boy’s arms and was able to tell who saved him. The stains weren’t dark enough to be the black blood that came from a gurgh. Human blood covered his arms. Whoever saved him from being devoured hadn’t had the heart to kill him and they had paid for it with their life. He released the arrow that embedded itself deep in the boy’s brain.

He jerked the protruding weapon from the craniums of the dead, seeing if they were reusable. He approached the boy last. Through the gray pallor and severe features Gage noticed freckles on the boy’s face just before he put his boot on the head and jerked the arrow free. The end was bent. It wasn’t reusable. He dropped it on the gravel road.

“Ready?”

He spun around to see Eve standing about five feet from him, shuffling her pack around on her back. She ran her hand through her bangs, pushing them out of her face.

“Done already?”

“Not much to see, really.”

“Any sign of her?”

“Olive?”

Who else would I be talking about?
“Yes.”

“No sign of her.” Eve looked like she wanted to say more, but didn’t. Instead she turned and started walking down the gravel road.

“Wow.” The word escaped from Eve’s lips unbidden.

“She’s a beauty isn’t she?”

Eve nodded her head, swallowing hard and stared at the Jacksondale plantation in awe. The three-story pier and beam home never ceased to take her breath away with six white marble columns the stretched from ground to the top of the third story. Each level had a magnificent wrap around porch with French doors. The off-white siding was weathered, but overall the house seemed to be in good condition, sitting a quarter of a mile down a winding driveway, it sat on a three hundred acre property. Lush green grass had grown up around it. She sucked in a deep breath reveling in the smell of the thriving meadow, with trees flanking on all sides. The stifling scent of the jenks was absent for the moment and she drank in the fresh air.

A huge pond sat caddy corner to the left side of the house, spreading over what she figured to be more than an acre. She’d seen it from the road when she’d driven by with her parents, but she’d never seen its beauty up close like this before. Even in its overgrown state and weathered condition, the mansion looked like a dream come true.

“Come on. Let’s go in and sweep the place before dark.”

Eve nodded again, never taking her eyes from the porches that seemed endless. She didn’t need to look at the sun to know that they still had about three hours before sun-down.

She shifted her heavy pack on her back. An exhilarating feeling came over her at the thought of all of the valuable things that were probably still inside. At least she hoped they hadn’t all been looted.

“Did you know that this place was built in the 1840’s?”

“No.” Eve brushed her fingertips against the closest marble column as she climbed the flaky wooden steps up onto the porch.

“James Jackson built it for his family when he came into Sunder, of course at the time, it wasn’t called Sunder. Miles Sunder hadn’t even been born yet. James was a cotton farmer.” Gage pulled a knife out of his boot as gripped one of the copper handles on the matching twin doors. Eve followed suit and pulled her Craftsman from her back.

He eased the door open and moved inside. She followed him. Her nose was instantly met with the stifling smell of over-used bleach.
Oh, they’re here all right.
She shifted her head back and forth, evaluating the entryway of the house while looking for jenks at the same time. The old style of architecture would have taken her breath away if she wasn’t already choking on rotting bleach air.

A large crystalline chandelier hung from the ceiling, glittering in the afternoon sun over black and white checkered tile that gave the room a new age look. A dusty pink couch sat in one corner and large corroded fish tank sat next to it. Other than that, the small room was empty, which was rather disappointing.

“This is lame.”

Gage gave her a look that clearly said
shut the hell up.

She shrugged her shoulders as anger speared her like a lance. No one told her what to do. Not anymore. Those days were gone. She spoke louder. “What? I’m not scared of a couple of jenks.”

That was when they came. It sounded like an explosion from behind Eve. She turned around to see three coming out of a splintered wooden door she hadn’t noticed. Each one shuffled toward her with desperate hunger plastered on their gray, sagging faces.

“Urgggggh.” A gravelly moan came from behind her.

“Shit!” Gage yelled.

Eve thrust her Craftsman into the head of the closest jenk, a woman wearing a surprisingly intact pink nightgown. She glanced over her shoulder to see five more coming through the arch they’d been about to pass through.
Well, crap.

She jerked her arm backward, removing her bladed screwdriver from the head of the undead woman. She lunged forward and thrust it into the eye of a male jenk only a few feet behind the nightgown lady.

“Fuck!”

Eve spun around to see age trapped between two of the jenks, their rotting corpses less than a yard away from where his back had met the white wall of the room. A wave of panic washed over her. She reached in her bra and jerked out her switchblade clicking it into place and throwing it. She watched it topple end over end through the stale air in the open room. Part of her prayed that it would meet its mark. That’s right,
prayed.
Something she
never
did under any circumstances. This was different, though she couldn’t have told anyone why.

She never saw if the sharp blade landed true. An abrasive hand closed over her right arm, which held her Craftsman. The harsh, cracked skin bit into her flesh like needles. She tried to jerk away but the jenk had a tight grip on her. She looked over her shoulder at the infected being to be greeted with the vision of black, rotting teeth snapping at her. Eve shifted her weight, and grabbed her weapon from her captured arm. She crouched down and twirled the bladed screwdriver over her head, slicing into the scalp of the jenk who was trying to make her his dinner.

“Urrrrrrrrg.” He moaned as he snapped at her. She hadn’t swung low enough. The hunk of scalp she removed flew across the room and landed in a matted lump on the floor. The thing snapped at her again, causing her to lose balance, the weight of her pack making her unable to stay in one place. She tumbled back onto her butt and dropped her Craftsman. It clanged against the tile.

Eve kicked her foot out making contact with the jenk’s stomach, but it didn’t help loosen his hold on her arm. He leaned forward, the smell of rotten maggots soaking in bleach overwhelmed her nostrils. The thud of a knife embedding itself in the undead’s brain brought his hunger struggle to an abrupt end. The corpse keeled over on top of her, but the dead weight was only on her a second before Gage hauled it off and jerked the knife out.

“Fuck, thanks for—” The words died in Eve’s throat when a hot hand yanked her to her feet.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Gage yelled. His body towered over hers. She fought the vertigo from being pulled to her feet so quickly.

“Gage—”

“You think this is some sort of game, Eve? You think this is fuck around time?” He moved closer to her. His face only inches away. Black blood had splattered on the side of his face. She took a step back. “You are more than fucking welcome to gamble with your life. More than welcome to put your ass on the line. But not mine.” He took another stepped forward and she mirrored him, moving backward.

She glanced to where her Craftsman laid abandoned on the tile floor. He followed her gaze.

“Oh, you want your weapon? You precious little pry bar? Gonna gut me Eve? Gonna kill me?”

She continued to mirror his steps and was alarmed when her back met the wall. “I told you I don’t do teamwork. Plus, I saved your ass,” she said instead of answering his question.

“Oh ho, that’s right. Too bad it was you that put my life in fucking danger to begin with.” He paused. His vicious gaze raking over her face. “Now answer my question. You want your precious little pry bar so you can gut me?” He ran his hand down her shoulder. An involuntary shiver flittered across her body. “Were you going to shove it through my brain, like one of the gurghs? Send me to hell with the rest of them?” His previously angered yell had turned into a menacing whisper. “What were you going to do Eve?” His hand traveled down her arm and back up in slow smooth strokes. Eve’s eyes fluttered closed. “Or were you going to put it through my heart so I could see your face in the seconds before my brain shut down from lack of blood and oxygen?”

She wanted to shake her head and deny everything, but she didn’t. Wasn’t able to. His hot breath against the side of her face started a thrum in her body that she couldn’t explain. It was when she felt his breath against her lips that she opened her eyes. He was breathing hard. The air coming from his mouth in great gasps that made his thick muscular, chest heave.

She opened her mouth, fully intending to say something—what, she wasn’t exactly sure. She never got the chance to find out because his mouth fastened over hers. He pressed her hard against the wall. She opened her lips and he thrust his tongue inside, ravaging her. She kissed him back, letting everything else fall away until it was only him she could see, breathe, feel. His earthy scent consumed her. His hand fisted in her hair, sparking a tingling of pain that zinged pleasure through her body.

He was trying to punish her…and she liked it. His thick erection pressed hard against her hip Eve could feel it pulsing through their threadbare clothing. She gripped his waist with her hands, her fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt.

Gage bit down on her bottom lip and she let out a strangled moan. He thrust his hips against her, causing delicious friction between their bodies. He sucked on the lip he’d bitten down on eliciting a burning response that had liquid flooding to her core.

“Feels so good,” she moaned. He ran kisses along her jaw and up to her ear.

“You’ve threatened me Eve—more than once—and now you’ve put my life in danger.” His whispered words jerked her from the surreal world where only he existed. “I may not know who are.” He quoted her earlier words. “But you don’t know who I am either and I’m not above duct-taping your mouth and hands together until I can get us both to Eden safely. Got it?” A funny feeling hit her. Heat invaded her cheeks.
He only kissed me to show me that he could. To show me that he could still wield his power over me.

Eve shoved against his chest. He stepped back, but it really ate at her that he did so because he chose to, and not because she had pushed him.

“Do we have
another
agreement, Eve?” He was right. She shouldn’t have been running her mouth. She’d let him get under skin and piss her off with only a look. And more than that, he had just done it again, with his kiss. Gage had found her weakness, when she’d thought she had none. She brushed her fingertips against her still tingling lips. His eyes followed the movement. The cold steel of them softened.

“I just want to keep you safe, and I can’t do that if you’re—” She waved his words away with her hand.

“Whatever. Yes, fine.” She stepped around him, forcing herself to look away from his god-like perfection. “I won’t talk loud. I get it. Let’s just case this place and get it over with.” Eve hoped he didn’t hear the way her voice trembled.

Chapter Seven

“It was this set of stairs my brother tripped and fell down when he was nine and I was eight. My mother thought I pushed him, but I didn’t.”

Eve stared at the grand staircase that led from the second floor to the third of the Jacksondale plantation. The tan wooden steps had a trail of dry dark brown liquid on them. A trail that ended at the bottom of the first flight, though whoever ended up on the bottom step hadn’t stayed there—at least not intact. The fleshless bones lay in a dried heap, the gender unknown.