Page 11 of Once Upon an Apocalypse

“Stay here,” Jonah whispers, ripping the firework from its packaging.

“What are you doing?” I whisper-shout back.

“Saving our asses. Now stay here. We don’t have time to argue.”

My body freezes in place as if obediently listening to Jonah’s words and my chest is back to clenching so hard I can barely breathe. The zombie from the other end of the canned goods aisle is not even half-way down, but the space between us gets closer and closer with each little shuffle it takes toward me.

Then a loud crackling sound blasts from the other end of the store. Fireworks. Jonah sprints back the same way he had gone as color flashes from the produce section. As he approaches me, the slow zombie I had been staring down slowly shifts around to investigate the new sound.

“We’ll have to make do with what we have in the cart. Let’s get out of here,” Jonah whispers.

“I’m so sorry,” I say softly, placing my hands on the handle of the cart and pushing it back toward the way we had come in. This time, at a run.

“It’s okay, Shortcake,” Jonah whispers as he runs at my side. “We have more than enough. Who needs soap when we’ve already gotten used to each other’s stench?”

A smile fights its way through the fear riddling my body. Before I can shake off a single drop of fear, a zombie steps out in front of us, grabbing at us but missing by a foot. Like I had thought since that very first night, these things can’t see. But they can hear. Jonah slides my bat from the top crate and swings with all his strength, hitting his mark. The zombie goes down and we don’t wait to see if it gets back up as we quicken our pace to sprinting.

Jonah pushes himself faster, making his way in front of me and the cart to open the door to the home delivery vestibule. Once inside, we take a quick survey of the room that had been unoccupied before. All clear. I breathe in deeply, listening to the faint sounds of fireworks from the other side of the store.

“How many did you set off?” I ask Jonah.

“A whole box.” Jonah pushes a cabinet in front of the interior door, then turns to me, grabbing me by the waist and kisses me like his next breath depends on it.

“Sorry to interrupt,” an unknown voice says from behind Jonah, where the door leading outside is. Jonah goes still, his lips still brushing against mine. The both of us stop breathing.

“Really, I am sorry. But I must insist that you detach, unarm yourselves, and step over to me and my men without causing any trouble.”

A shiver runs down my body, but not the blissful passion I had felt less than a minute ago. Dread. That is what I feel now.

“What do we do?” I whisper to Jonah.

“I can hear you,” the man says. “So let me answer. Do what I asked, and you will not be harmed.”

Jonah reaches around me, grabbing the hilt of a knife I had placed there as we armed up. He turns around slowly, keeping his hand on the hilt behind my back. Three men stand inside the vestibule. They must have slipped in while Jonah and I were kissing.

“Now don’t do anything stupid,” says the man on the left.

Does he know we are armed? What do they want?If they wanted to just steal from us, they would have killed Jonah and me already.

I feel the blade of my knife slip from its sheath as Jonah moves his hand away from me. But I can’t hear a damn thing as he launches toward our assailants. It looks like the man in the middle is laughing at Jonah, but the thumping of my heart drowns out everything else. The man on the left takes one swing, knocking Jonah out cold.

“No!” I scream, trying to run to him. Then the world around me goes black.

Chapter 7

Myconsciousnessawakensbeforemy eyes are ready to open. All I can make out is a monotone beep playing on a loop. It sounds like a heart monitor. Two distinct voices—a man and woman—are close, but far enough away, I can’t make out what they are saying. My body aches everywhere, as if I had been tackled by an NFL linebacker.

Then I remember what happened. My eyes open to a dimly lit room. The beeping noise is, in fact, coming from a heart monitor, which I’m strapped into. There are no windows. The walls are made from cinder blocks. Damp air hits my nose as I take a deep breath in. It smells like a basement. Maybe a bunker? Maybe we made it to a safe zone somehow.

No. I don’t feel safe. Jonah. He was injured. Bleeding from his head. He wasn’t moving. I try to sit up, which is when I realize I’m bound to a gurney. An IV is hooked into my left arm, pumping some kind of red liquid into me. It’s not dark enough to be blood. Even if it was, I don’t think I suffered an injury to warrant a transfusion.

As I attempt to pull off the restraints, a man wearing a white doctor’s coat walks in. A smile attempts to soften the demonic look from his brown eyes. Eyes that nearly match the tone of his skin, making the white of his teeth brighten his smile. If I were only looking at his mouth, I would say that this man is charming, kind, and handsome. But I cannot stop looking into his eyes.

Eyes that drill into me as I lie helpless on the gurney, unable to move, to protect myself. I squirm, attempting to escape even though I know I am not going anywhere. Still, I have to try. And I won’t stop trying.

“You will only exhaust yourself,” the doctor says in a rich voice that has an odd calming effect. My body relaxes against my restraints as he says, “Very good. Now you may be wondering where you are and how you got here.”

I nod my head, looking around.

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