“It’ll be okay,” Jenni said, her voice firm. “Juan will live. ”
With a small smile, Katie said, “Of course he will. He’s tough. ”
Jenni pushed her hair back out of her face and lifted her chin. “I’ll be back. One way or the other. ”
“I know. I can’t help but worry. You’re my best friend. ”
Jenni flung her arms around Katie again and snuggled her. She kissed Katie’s forehead firmly. “And you’re mine. ”
Travis walked up, looking a bit awkward, trying not to interrupt.
Jenni slung her arm around his neck and kissed his cheek, too. “I’ll be back. ”
“You better be. Juan needs you,” Travis said.
“Yes, he does. He’s lost without me,” Jenni declared with false joviality.
Her son staggered up to her and flung his arms around her, holding her tightly. “Mom,” he whispered in her ear. “Mom, don’t go. ” She squeezed him so tight it hurt both of them.
“I have to go,” Jenni whispered. “I have to do something to save him. I couldn’t save your. . . brothers. I have to try to save him. ”
Jason backed away, ducking his head, trying to hide his tears beneath his bangs. From the agonized look on his face, she knew he understood. “Be careful, Mom. ”
“I will be,” she promised. She grabbed him close again and kissed him firmly on the forehead. “I love you. ”
Jack pawed at her knee. She leaned down and kissed his furry head. “I love you, too. ”
With a fake grin and trying not to look scared shitless, she walked toward Roger and Bill as they waited for her by the truck. Pivoting on her heel, she turned and waved to her small family: her best friend, her stepson, and a dog named Jack.
She tried not to think of Juan lying in that bed looking so vulnerable.
Climbing into Ralph and Nerit’s red truck, she nodded at Bill. “Let’s do this. ”
“Just like old times,” he answered her, gunning the engine.
Jenni sighed. It felt nothing like old times and it scared her to death.
But she would come back.
She had to.
2. Beer and Strawberries
Bill drove in silence. Jenni sat in the back of the truck’s cab, staring out the window at nothing. He doubted she was seeing anything other than Juan’s face in her mind’s eye. Felix was passed out asleep beside her, slightly snoring, while Roger was deep into a Star Trek novel.
The drive was over an hour, so maybe it was good to be silent. They were heading into a highly dangerous situation. They all knew that hospitals were death traps and had been from day one. Bill was eternally grateful his wife had passed on by the time the dead rose. If she hadn’t, he knew she would have been one of the first to rise. That would have destroyed his will to live. It was hard watching her die of cancer, but seeing her as a member of the revived living dead….
No, he couldn’t think about that now.
Despite the fact this hospital was very small, it didn’t take away from the fact it was probably a deathtrap. They had two, four-member crews going in. The odds weren’t with them, that was for damn sure.
Bill gripped the steering wheel harder and concentrated on the road.
In the first hours of the infestation, he hadn’t even been sure he wanted to survive it. The first zombie he had seen had freaked him out so thoroughly, he could barely move. Luckily, he had been in his patrol car.
It had banged on the window for a good ten minutes before he got the nerve to do something about it.
A six-year old zombie just wasn’t right.