Page 12 of The Pale Rider
Aeron’s mood totally darkened. He hopped off the bed and stalked out the room.
“The only thing I’m good at is death. Question time is over.”
I sighed. At least I got a little out of him.
Chapter 7
A
lmost as soon as this grumpy fuck stormed out the bedroom, he just came stomping back in. I went to follow him and ran straight into his hard chest and ended up on my ass. Did I mention he was huge? He didn’t even apologize or help me to my feet. He just glared down at me.
“Get dressed. We need to go on a supply run, and since you’ve never been on one before, it will take longer than usual. We have to be back before it gets dark and we have to avoid Scooter’s gang. They’d love to get their hands on a pretty girl. I don’t think I need to graphically explain to you what that means. Go put some clothes on, Speedy.”
Asshole. I shoved him out of the way as I made my way back to my bedroom. If I didn’t need him for now, I would have kicked him straight in the balls. I dug through the clothes in the rucksack. I would say this for myself before I lost my memories. I had good taste in clothes. I pulled a pair of well-worn leather trousers out that felt like butter and fit me like a second skin. I pulled a shirt on and grabbed Smurfette from the side of the bed. I didn’t remember much, but I felt a lot safer with that baby blue bat resting on the pillow next to me while I slept.
I slung the bat over my shoulder and went back into the living room. Aeron scanned me from head to toe with this look on his face that he quickly hid. He threw an empty rucksack at me that would have hit me in the face if I hadn’t caught it. Dick.
“Canned goods and non-perishables only. If you see bottled water, don’t put it in your bag until you’ve shown it to me, and I can verify it’s safe. If we hit up a store with a pharmacy attached, it’ll probably already be raided, but we still need to go through it. Most likely, they’ve taken anything that gets you high, but we might luck out and find antibiotics. If you find over-the-counter pain meds, grab them. Those are solid gold. Get in, get out, stay quiet, and try not to be seen. There will probably be Rage Heads loitering about. Kill them as quietly as you can. The noise you hear them make in the hospital is how they call each other. They hunt in herds.”
“Got it.”
Aeron just sniffed.
“I highly doubt it. Just stay close to me until we’ve cleared the store and don’t wander.”
This asshole right here. I waited while he saddled that creepy horse, and I knew I didn’t imagine it the other day when its eyes flashed red. I swear that thing’s eyes flashed red again, and itwinkedat me. He came at me like he would throw me on top like last time.
“Can you put me up there like I’m a human and not a sack of potatoes this time?”
Aeron just grunted at me again. Of course, the one man I’m stuck with during the apocalypse speaks in grunts and happens to be a dick. But at least I didn’t have to desperately grab for something as I went flying over that beast. He was much more gentle as he put me on the back of the horse this time.
Aeron climbed on behind me, and I so shouldn’t be thinking about what his muscular chest felt like pressed against my back when he was such a douche. Did I date total assholes before I lost my memories?
He did that thing again where he kicked the horse like we were in some fucking horse race, but at least I was used to it this time. I didn’t fall off last time, and that horse seemed to obey him. It wasn’t like we had other methods of transportation, and I didn’t want to get surrounded and outnumbered by a gang of cannibal rapists. I still thought there was something unnatural about that horse, but it answered to Aeron and Aeron didn’t want to kill me, so I guess the horse wouldn’t either.
The cabin Aeron found must have been super remote not to have been looted or recovered by someone else before he got there. It was far away from town, but with the horse running impossibly fast, it didn’t take long to get there. Weren’t horses supposed to get tired? Like, I didn’t think I’d ever been around one before, but shouldn’t you give them a break if you would run them this hard?
This horse kept a hard gallop right until I started seeing buildings, then Aeron slowed him to a trot. I couldn’t even hear the horse breathing hard like all that running did anything to him.This wasn’t a normal horse.
Aeron let go of my waist, and his sword just kind of appeared again. Where the fuck did he keep that thing, anyway? Did I want to ask?
“What orifice did you pull that from?” I hissed.
“Shut up and stay alert. Scooter’s gang is normally a town over on Fridays, but we don’t want to risk them changing their schedule. You will call a swarm of Rage Heads if you don’t shut the fuck up.”
I snapped my mouth shut and eyed my surroundings. This town looked totally dead. It looked like it had been an old-fashioned town before the world ended, and now it looked like a ghost town. Most of the windows were smashed, and there was dirt everywhere. It looked like Washington State was some sort of desert out here in this city.
As we made our way through this city, I had one big question on my mind. If Aeron and his friends had all the answers and killing one man was the answer to stopping all of this, why the fuck did they let it get so bad? This was just fucking bleak. We were the only living souls in this town except possibly a gang who could be out here looking for someone to rape and eat.
Waseveryonedead except this Scooter and his gang? I couldn’t ask right now because I knew we had to stay quiet. Aeron brought the horse up to a little mom and pop store and dismounted. He helped me down and smacked the horse on the ass. The horse took off. Wasn’t that our ride home? Why wasn’t he tying it to a post like they did in movies?
“Simpson’s Grocery is the only shop I haven’t hit up yet. I haven’t found a local pharmacy, so there’s a good chance it’s in that store.”
“Where’d our ride home go?”
“To safety. He’d be a sitting duck if I tied him down. He’s not the kind of beast you chain up. He’ll come when I call him. Now, get your bat ready. The Rage Heads haven’t spotted us yet, but there’s a ninety-nine percent chance there will be some inside the store. The looters who broke the windows made sure the Rage Heads would be in most places anyone tried to get supplies from later.”
Okay, I didn’t know much about horses, but that couldn’t be a normal horse. I just shrugged. I already knew Aeron would not tell me a fucking thing. The best thing to do was to go with the flow until I couldn’t anymore. Aeron would eventually trust me with his secrets, or I would get to the point that I needed to strike out on my own because I figured out he was crazier than a shit house rat.
