Cora (Love in the Apocalypse #2)

8. Remington

Chapter eight

Remington

“ T here has to be an easier way,” I muttered as I searched the mountainside for an established route to the fire watch tower. I had climbed onto the roof to check out what Trent had seen the day before, and unfortunately, I didn’t see a path. We’d have to head straight up through the forest and hope there would be an easier route from there once we got to the top thirty feet above.

“Well?” Isaac asked when I climbed back down.

I shook my head. “I can’t see anything from here. We’ll have to hike to the top of the ridge and reevaluate. If the route is up the mountainside the entire way, we may need to put some work in to forge a less strenuous path, or it won’t be a very effective escape route.”

“Or maybe it would be the perfect one. Zombies won’t be as inclined to follow,” Derrick snickered. “Get it? Inclined.”

I rolled my eyes. “That joke was so lame a dad wouldn’t even touch it with a ten-foot pole. But also, zombies don’t get tired; humans do, and who says the only thing we’d have to escape from is zombies? Humans are just as dangerous.”

“I’ve got the food packed!” Trent announced, cinching a bag closed and swinging it onto his back. I admired how his muscles rippled beneath his shirt out of the corner of my eye. When these men had picked me up from the side of the road, I hadn’t anticipated finding Trent or what he would come to mean to me. Though, to be fair, I hadn’t expected it to take an apocalypse for me to stop hiding who I was. I was a bisexual man, and not that anyone cared anymore, but I was fucking proud of it.

Three Years Ago

A moan exploded past my lips as Kevin pumped his cock into my ass one final time. My face was pressed into the cool tile of the shower wall as warm water cascaded over us.

“Fuck, you always feel so fucking good, Remington,” he said, kissing the back of my neck. He kept himself buried inside me as his hand snaked around me and wrapped around my weeping cock. With firm, purposeful strokes, Kevin brought me closer to my release. When I started to pant, he flexed his hips, pushing his softening cock a little further inside me to press against my prostate. “Come for me, Remington,” Kevin ordered his voice like a gravelly purr against my nerves.

Like a trained pup, I came, shooting ropes of cum onto the shower wall. When Kevin pulled out of me, I felt his cum dripping out as well. It was a good thing we were in the shower already. Kevin reached around me to squeeze some body wash into his hand. I turned and leaned against the shower wall to watch as he stroked his cock with the soap to clean himself off.

“Have you decided when we’re going to tell them yet?” I asked.

Kevin froze for a fraction of a second before rinsing himself off and stepping out of the shower. “I thought we talked about this, Remington. Just because we’re having some fun in the privacy of our dorm doesn’t mean we have to tell our girlfriends about it.”

I was glad he wasn’t in the shower with me anymore to see the disappointment on my face at his response. I was tired of pretending I had feelings for Jessica to keep up appearances. Don’t get me wrong, I liked her and enjoyed spending time with her. And it wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy having sex with her. She was a firecracker in bed but didn’t have my heart. Not the way that Kevin did. I had known in high school that I was bisexual but hadn’t acted on it until college. Coming from a midwestern small town, being gay was not something you talked about. If my father ever found out about my sexuality, he would disown me.

When Kevin was assigned as my roommate, I didn’t expect anything to happen between us. We both had girlfriends who had become fast friends and often doubled together everywhere we went. Maybe that was the start of it. We spent nearly every moment of our lives together. We saw each other in all states of dress and intimate actions. Looking back, I should have known something was brewing between us. Lingering touches, casual flirtations while alone, accidentally walking in on each other in our private bathroom. It all progressed so subtly that I didn’t even question it when one night, our eyes met across the room while we were fucking our girlfriends and never left each other until we had come inside them, inadvertently treating them like little more than cum dumps.

That wasn’t the last time that happened, but it didn’t go any further until the girls were busy one night, so we decided to stay in, get drunk, and play video games. We did get drunk. And we did play a single match on the Xbox. That was how long we could keep our hands off each other. Our first time together was our first time with another man, and it lives rent-free in my mind. That was three months ago, and we fooled around or fucked every chance we got. Shower times frequently involved sex, so we tended to take a lot of showers.

I had been bringing up coming out to our girlfriends for a few weeks now. Summer break was coming, and I didn’t want to spend it living a lie. I already didn’t plan on returning home this summer, knowing that if I did, the secret I harbored would end up exploding from within me to the detriment of my family relations. Initially, it seemed like Kevin wanted to stop hiding who we were to each other just as much as I did. Still, after our initial conversation, whenever I brought it up, he changed the subject or beat around the bush about why it wasn’t a good idea.

I didn’t respond to him and heard him leave the bathroom. I lightly banged my head against the tiles with a groan. Maybe I was expecting too much from Kevin, and what we had didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me. By the time I finished my shower, I was determined to resolve this once and for all. He had to make a choice, and then , based on his choice, I would decide how my summer would go and whether I’d be applying for a new roommate.

Wrapping a towel around my waist, I left the bathroom to confront him. “Kevin, I need you to choose before the girls get here.”

“Choose what?” Jessica asked, jumping in front of me and wrapping her arms around my waist. She tipped on her toes to give me a kiss hello, which I automatically returned.

“Where we’re taking you for dinner,” Kevin supplied smoothly from his bed , where his girlfriend Audri was already straddling and kissing him. I wonder if she’d be kissing him or want to suck his dick if she knew it had been up my ass less than ten minutes ago.

“Did you make up your mind?” I asked, meeting his eyes.

“I did,” he replied, “You just won’t accept my answer.”

I tried not to let it show how much of a blow to my heart his words were. I looked at Jessica and forced a smile onto my face. “Well, there you have it. It’s settled.”

She returned my smile and looked between Kevin and me. “Either of you care to let us know what you decided?” she asked.

“Who cares,” Audri said, climbing off of Kevin. “I want Grease Trucks tonight.”

Kevin got off the bed and pulled her into his arms again. “How did you know that’s what I picked?” he asked her in that same gravelly purr he used on me in the shower to make me come. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make my cock twitch beneath my towel.

“We’re just a match made in heaven,” Audri chirped. “Jessie and I will go find some e-bikes for us. You two hurry up and finish getting ready.” She grabbed Jessica’s hand, and they skipped out of the room.

I waited until the door closed behind them to face Kevin. “Is that really your decision?” I demanded.

Kevin sighed. “It is, Remington. I don’t know how many ways I can say the same damn thing until you get it through your head.”

I approached him, stepping into his space and forcing him to step away or remain pressed against my half-naked body. He didn’t step back, and his eyes darted to my lips briefly. I leaned closer until our lips were a breath away from each other. “Forgive me if I seem to be getting mixed signals. Ten minutes ago, when you were coming inside me, you seemed to feel differently.”

“Just because I enjoy fucking you doesn’t mean I’m interested in a relationship with you,” he replied, finally stepping back. He looked past me, and his eyes widened.

“What the fuck!” Audri screeched from behind me.

I spun around in horror to see her and Jessica standing in the doorway in shock. Well, that was one way to tell them.

“It’s not what it looks like!” Kevin said quickly.

“I heard you tell him that you enjoy fucking him, Kevin. Are you fucking gay?” Audri demanded.

“No!” he yelled. “It was a mistake, and I’ve been trying to get it through Remington’s head. I didn’t want to anymore, but he kept pushing.”

My mouth fell open in shock as I spun to face Kevin again. “Are you fucking kidding me? I was in the fucking shower first when you jumped in and helped yourself to my fucking ass like you were a dying man, and the secret to survival was in my colon!”

“Oh, that’s just fucking great,” Audri scoffed. “Listen, we don’t have time for this. Daddy is sending a car for us. Some weird shit is going down. Some sort of virus or something, and he said we’re evacuating to our summer island house. We’ll talk about this later.”

The situation must have been severe for Audri’s dad to send a car for us. He generally forgot he had a child unless he needed to show her off at some big corporate event. “Let me get dressed,” I said, moving to my dresser.

“Oh, no,” Audri said, “you aren’t welcome.”

“Audri!” Jessica hissed. “I’m not happy with him either, but we can’t just leave him!”

“My island, my rules. He shouldn’t have fucked my boyfriend,” Audri replied.

I turned back to her in disbelief. “Are you that much of a vindictive bitch?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m much worse. Something you should have anticipated,” Audri replied. “Let’s go, Kevin.”

Kevin looked at her and then at me. “Sorry,” he mumbled as he turned and joined Audri at the door. She took his hand and shot me a smug smile before dragging him out of the room.

“So am I,” I said, looking at Jessica.

Tears sprung to her eyes as she darted to my side and kissed my cheek. “Please be safe. Get out of the city. It seems to spread faster in populated areas. Don’t wait; just get out now.”

“Jessie!” Audri yelled.

“Coming!” Jessica replied. With a final sorrowful look, Jessica ran out of the room.

I looked around the room in disbelief. My entire life was turned upside down in minutes, and I still didn’t understand why. I turned on the news as I quickly dressed to try and figure out what was happening. Fucking zombies?! The news channels were careful not to use the word zombie, but watching the footage they showed, that’s what it looked and sounded like. I quickly packed a bag of clothes and the essentials, including the toolkit I kept under my bed. I called home but didn’t get an answer. I’d head toward home; small-town Iowa was about as unpopulated as possible.

Before I left my dorm room, my eyes fell on the picture of the four of us. It was taken two months ago when we were on spring break. The girls were in our laps, but I remembered how giddy I felt when Kevin had put his arm around my shoulder. I could still feel how his fingers had lingered and lightly caressed my skin when he finally pulled away a little slower than he should have after the picture was taken.

I reached for the picture, intending to bring it with me, but as my fingers closed around the cold metal frame, I got angry and flipped it down instead. It was all a lie, and when I left this room, I left those memories with it. I was moving on and would hopefully be better for it.

“Looks like we’re ready to go then,” I said, shaking the past from my thoughts and giving Trent a small smile as I passed him. I lead the way toward the tower, starting with this steep incline up the mountain through the forest. It was steep enough that I found myself using the smaller trees I could almost wrap my hands around as leverage to pull myself up. To take my mind off the strenuous activity, I let my mind drift back to Kevin and the day the world fell apart.

I left my dorm and headed straight to the bus station, hoping to hop on the next bus heading west. As I waited, the TV bolted to the wall caught my attention. I stood and moved closer to it, unwilling to believe what I was seeing. I had gone to Audri’s island house over winter break, and I knew the airport her private plane flew out of. It was the same airport on the news because zombies had overrun it. Kevin! They got out in time. They had to.

“Attention passengers: If you’re taking the bus to Indianapolis, please proceed to lane three for boarding.”

Fuck. That was me. I looked toward lane three, where people were beginning to line up, and then back at the airport footage. “Son of a bitch,” I swore out loud as I left through the front door. I had to be the dumbest fuck on the planet right now to be chasing after the man who essentially left me for dead. I had to see for myself, or at least try to, that Kevin and the girls had made it out. I grabbed an e-bike and headed for the airport. The closer I got, the more chaotic the world around me became. This was such a dumb idea, but I was already close and committed to seeing my task through.

I biked around the back, following the fence line away from the densely populated area of the airport toward the private tarmacs. Once I was away from everyone, I stopped the bike and pulled the wire cutters from my toolkit. I cut a hole in the fence and slipped through it, leaving my bike and bag on the other side. Silently, I crept toward the airplane hanger that Audri’s plane usually sat in. The sounds that carried on the night wind were a terrifying mix of screams and growls that made me want to turn and run for my life. I pushed forward anyway, hoping to see an empty hangar when I peeked through the door.

My stomach plummeted when I saw the plane was still inside. A car with its engine still running sat beside it. Maybe they were all on board, preparing to leave. I could try to sneak aboard and force them to take me to safety. I slipped inside, determined to do just that when something caught my eye toward the side of the hanger. I recognized Kevin’s mop of dark curly hair, but I couldn’t figure out why it was attached to... whatever that was. I crept closer, and it took me a few more seconds to realize that I was looking at what was left of his body. It looked like a bomb had exploded inside of him.

“Kev?” I croaked as I dropped to the floor beside him.

His eyes were open and already held the dullness that came with lifelessness. I leaned my forehead against his, my tears falling onto his brow. He was the first man I had ever loved, and it felt like part of me had died with him.

I sat up quickly when I heard something metal skittering across the floor on the other side of the hanger. I didn’t move an inch as I watched a pair of legs shuffle along the other side of the plane. As they reached the plane’s tail end and came into view, I recognized Audri. I didn’t know where Jessica, the driver, or the pilot were, but I knew I was outnumbered and needed to get the fuck out of there. As I braced myself to stand, I felt something brush against my wrist.

Slowly, I looked down in horror as Kevin began to stir. His head twitched back and forth before turning toward me. His hand slid across mine , and I closed my eyes briefly, wishing this wasn’t the last contact I had with him and knowing I would never forget the feeling of his cold, dead hand sliding across my skin. When his hand began to tighten, I yanked it away before he could take hold of me. I sprung to my feet and ran for the door, catching Audri’s attention. I didn’t dare look behind me as I flew through the door and slammed it shut.

I felt the thud as she ran into the door. I watched through the small window as she threw herself against the door to get to me. She always had been a ruthless bitch. I ran back to my belongings and returned to the bus station, managing to catch the next bus out.

Reaching the top, I doubled over, bracing my hands on my knees as I panted. I thought I was in shape, but holy shit did that test my endurance. When I stopped seeing black spots, I looked around and was surprised to find myself on a dirt road. As the others reached the top, I began to follow the road. This was more like it. It came to a sharp switchback and started to head up in the other direction. I got a little way up and looked back down the mountain. I could see the road below where Isaac and Trent still stood, recovering from the climb, and beyond them, the house peeking through the trees.

“Clever,” Derrick commented when he reached me and looked below. “I wonder if this is an official National Park Services fire watch tower or if the person who built the house also built the tower. It would explain why the road is so close to the property but not visible.”

“I don’t know,” I replied, “but we’ll find out soon enough.” I whistled to get Isaac and Trent’s attention and gestured for them to hurry up when they looked toward the sound. I didn’t want to risk shouting because we didn’t know who or what was within hearing distance, and it’s always best not to attract attention to yourself if you can help it. We continued up the winding road to the tower when they finally joined us. There was a chain link fence surrounding the tower with signage indicating it was NPS property, and trespassers would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

“I don’t think we have to worry about that anymore,” Isaac chuckled, tapping one of the signs as we walked by.

We let ourselves in through the gate and began the strenuous climb up the metal steps to the top. I imagined that the rangers stationed here over the years didn’t have to leave the tower very often. I know I wouldn’t if I were them. It would have to be pretty fucking important to get me down these steps, knowing I’d have to climb back up them. When we got to the top, I peered through the dirty windows and saw the silhouette of a person or whatever was left of this person.

“I’ll get his attention; someone open the door,” I instructed.

“On it,” Isaac responded. Derrick and Trent stayed out of the way while I stood against the railing directly in front of the door. The zombie inside slammed against the door, trying to get to me. “Ready?”

I nodded, and Isaac pulled the door open, staying behind it as the zombie shot out. I played my favorite game of chicken with him, perhaps a smidge longer than I should have, jumping out of the way at the last possible second. The zombie sailed past me and over the railing, practically exploding on impact. “Gross,” I said, looking at the ground below.

“Sometimes you play too much,” Trent growled as he passed me to go inside.

I knew he was right, but after the world went to shit, I had a hard time taking myself or anything else seriously. Life was just too fucking short to bother. When your time was up, there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do to stop the inevitable. I looked down at the poor S.O.B. who died up here all alone and then raised my eyes to take in the view. I made a low whistle as my eyes traveled over the mountain range. Up here, you could see for miles. I walked around to the side of the tower where I knew the house was. I saw it in the clearing below, tucked away out of sight.

“You know,” I said, walking inside, “maybe this guy is the same guy that built the house.”

“I told you,” Derrick replied.

“Why do you say that?” Isaac asked.

“Because the only place the house can be seen from is the tower,” I replied. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

“It would explain why the house was abandoned,” Trent agreed.

I looked around the room. A large desk had a radio, papers, and maps. A pullout couch sat in one corner, and a small kitchenette sat in the other. The bathroom was in the third corner beside the desk, and the door was in the final corner. “This will do nicely as an escape house. We should decide what supplies we want to store here and perhaps install some ropes on that first climb up to the road to make our escape easier if necessary.”

“We don’t have much in the way of dry goods to store safely,” Isaac said. “We need to hunt and restock on meat. Then we can make jerky and leave it up here.”

“Speaking of,” Derrick said, “Trent, toss me my bear jerky, will ya?”

Trent dug through the bag and then looked at Derrick. “It isn’t in here.”

“What do you mean it isn’t there?” Derrick demanded. “You said you got all the jerky from the table, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it should be in there. I left it on the table last night.” Derrick snatched the bag from Trent and started rifling through it like a madman. He had a weird obsession with that bear jerky.

He dumped the bag’s contents out on the coffee table to search better. When he didn’t find what he was looking for, his head slowly rose to glare at the three of us one by one.

“Which one of you dickheads ate the rest of my fucking jerky?”

“Wasn’t me,” I said, raising my hands in surrender.

“Not it,” Trent said quickly.

Derrick’s eyes slowly moved toward Isaac.

“Stop looking at me like that, you nut job. I didn’t eat your precious jerky, either. Maybe you didn’t leave it on the table,” Isaac suggested.

“I know where I left it,” Derrick growled.

“Maybe your ghost girl ate them while we were sleeping,” I suggested with a chuckle.

Derrick’s eyes widened.

“It was a fucking joke,” I laughed.

“But it could be possible. I know I saw her, and she wasn’t a fucking ghost. Now we have food disappearing, not for the first time, mind you,” Derrick said.

“So your theory is that there is a girl living in the small two-bedroom cabin with us, but none of us have bumped into her,” Isaac said.

Derrick thought about it for a second and then nodded. “Yes.”

“Seriously?” Trent laughed. “You probably just stashed them in a cupboard and forgot.”

“We’ll see about that when we get home. Are we done here?” he asked, shoving the jerky he had dumped back into Trent’s backpack.

On the way back, Derrick led the hike, stomping down the road like a man on a mission. When we returned to the cabin, he immediately went into the kitchen and searched all the cupboards. The rest of us sat in the living room munching on the jerky we had planned to eat at the tower before getting rushed out for Derrick’s nonsense.

“Where the fuck did this come from?” he shouted.

Isaac sighed. “I’m really just not in the mood for his theatrics today,” he said softly before raising and projecting his voice toward the kitchen. “Where did what come from?”

“The spam, cereal, and peaches!” Derrick exclaimed.

We all looked at each other briefly before scrambling to get up and run into the kitchen. “What spam?” I asked, sliding into the room a fraction of a second before Trent and Isaac.

He held up two cans of spam for me to see.

“Where did you find that?” Trent asked.

“On the top shelf of that cupboard,” Derrick said, pointing.

“Impossible,” Trent replied. “I searched that cupboard myself, and there wasn’t anything up there!”

“Well, isn’t this quite the mystery,” I said. “We’ve got food going missing, but also food appearing out of nowhere. Maybe it’s a magic house.”

Derrick and Isaac rolled their eyes, but Trent cracked a smile. That was all I cared about. I went to speak again, but Derrick held his finger to his lips and started looking around.

He crept out of the kitchen and into the living room, tip-toeing around the coffee table like he was hunting for something, or in this case, someone.

“That’s what is off about this place!” Derrick finally announced. “I knew something felt weird, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until now. Have you guys felt the same way?”

We all nodded. Truthfully, something had felt a little off since we arrived here, but whatever the cause, it was subtle enough that you couldn’t pin it down.

“It’s too fucking clean!”

I looked around and, this time, really looked at everything. Derrick was right. There was virtually no dust on anything. If the house was truly abandoned, wouldn’t it show signs of it? Like… being dusty?

“He’s right,” Isaac said.

“Ok, it’s a little too clean, but are we saying that this girl,” Trent said, picking up the picture of the girl and who I presumed was her father, “is here in this house with us? We all realize how insane that sounds, right?”

“Listen, I don’t know how, but I do know that something weird is going on around here, and I’m going to figure out what that is one way or another,” Derrick replied grimly.

“Well, I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson today,” I chuckled.

“What’s that?” Isaac asked.

“Don’t mess with D’s bear jerky, or he’s gonna getcha,” I said in a mocking drawl.

I ducked out of the way just as the can of spam came sailing toward my head.

“Asshole,” Derrick muttered.