Chapter 27

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I took a deep breath. "Nicky... I thought you were only going to paint Luke's door?"

Nicky was unrepentant. "I never said that. Besides, when I took that can of paint back, this one literally fell off the shelf and into my hands. I couldn't pass it up. Then a smaller can hit me on the head, so I had to take that one too. Then I grabbed a few more."

"And you had to pick my door?"

"Of course! It suited you perfectly! Inspiration struck!"

Inspiration struck indeed. How she managed to pull this off in so little time left me completely baffled.

"Well, she does have a point. It suits you perfectly," Luke commented, looking amused.

"If you don't want it," Jess said, staring at my door with wide eyes, "I'll trade you. We just need to take the pins out of the hinges, right?"

Ignoring my sister, I crossed my arms and regarded the new paint job on my door. Nicky had managed a rather detailed sun and moon scene. Half of my door was light blue with yellow sunbeams beaming out from a red and orange sun, while the other half was a star-spangled dark blue with a pearly crescent moon. The tiny specks of yellow were actually tiny stars and not just round dots of paint. The moon token that had been hanging from my doorknob was now secured in the middle of the painted moon like a centerpiece.

To be honest, it looked really good. My apparent irritation had just been my instincts talking since she had touched something that belonged to me. I had a bad habit of covering up my happier emotions with a gruff exterior. I suppose I have to work on that...

With a heavy sigh, I walked toward Nicky, looking directly at her as I approached.

She ducked her head and hunched her shoulders slightly. "Ummm... Can I ask for forgiveness? Or perhaps repaint your door with a color you choose as an apology? I can fetch Jess's door and swap it out for you."

I hid a smirk. She thought the direct eye contact combined with her unauthorized actions meant she had crossed a line.

I was within reach of her now. "No."

Before she had a chance to respond or react, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders in a one-armed hug. "Thank you. I really like it."

Her jaw dropped. "You made me worry like that for no reason?"

I chuckled at her dumbfounded expression. Luke and Jess looked surprised at the hug, but they grinned when they realized I wasn't angry.

Nicky attempted a growl. "Grrr... I should have known you weren't actually upset. You didn't growl or snarl, and those are usually dead giveaways unless you're about ready to kill someone, but even then, you usually give some sort of warning."

I was amused she had picked up so much considering she'd only seen me that mad a handful of times. She began laughing as she hooked one arm around me in a hug.

"If you had attempted to paint my door bright pink, you would have been running for the hills," I informed her.

"Hey, I actually found a similar shade of pink to what Daniel dyed my clothes. I'm saving it for Nina's door. No one will ever take her seriously after that."

I rolled my eyes and responded dryly, "You are aware she works with zombie blood and chemicals all day, right? For all you know, she'll turn you into a zombie for that stunt."

Nicky just laughed harder as she stepped back, clasping her hands in front of her in a vain effort to contain her mirth. "No, she wouldn't!" Nicky gasped. "If I turned into a Terror, it would be her worst nightmare come true! Even if I ended up a Nightstalker, the two of us could tag team Daniel. Wouldn't that knock him off of his high horse?"

I don't even want to contemplate that scenario. She's hard enough to manage as a human. As much as I'd like to see Daniel taken down a peg or two, having Nicky turn into a zombie is so not worth it.

During her insanity blitzes, I was able to fend her off with my greater abilities, and I was capable of packing her around by force if I had to. The thought of her being just as strong as me or even stronger was not something I wanted to contemplate.

I shook my head. "Let's not and pretend we never considered it."

"Awww... Where is the fun in that?"

"It is called keeping my sanity. Let's head outside and do something else while we let this paint dry."

"Okay." She skipped ahead. "Come on, Jess! Time's a-wastin'!"

"Time for what?" Jess asked as she followed the redhead.

"I have no idea, but it sounded cool."

Luke walked beside me with an amused expression.

"Keep your comments to yourself." I growled faintly at him.

My words were too quiet for Nicky or Jess to hear, but loud enough for Luke. His hearing was a bit better than a human's was, although not by much, so I really had to watch the volume if I didn't want others to overhear.

Luke just grinned without looking at me. "I wouldn't dream of saying a thing."

When we first met, he'd seen some of the scars from my original bullet wounds, so it probably never occurred to him that I'd ever enter another Stronghold, nor that my irritable demeanor would allow anyone close. Yet, here I was, living in a Stronghold with a human for a friend. It defied all logic and reason.

With our aversion to contact, it was uncommon for a zombie to allow a human to touch them, let alone initiate the contact. Something like a hug spoke of strong friendship and trust. Others had noted my friendship with Nicky, but they were accustomed to the civilized Daniel, who was far more human-tolerant than any other zombie I'd met. None of them knew just how rare it actually was. But Luke knew.

He found my current situation and friendship entertaining, and possibly hoped for something like it himself one day. I doubted Nina or Nicky were aware of it, but the only times a human had come into direct contact with Luke were during today's experiment, when Nina took the sample of blood, and when she gave him the controlex.

Nicky looked up and down the road. "Okay, what type of torturous chore do you feel like tackling?"

"I normally split wood at this time, and I know Luke is no stranger to using an axe."

"I think I'll go back to watering my plants and do some work in the distilling room," Jess said.

"Splitting wood sounds like a plan," Nicky said. She began skipping in that direction. "Hi-ho! Hi-ho! Off to chop some wood, we go!"

I wasn't sure what worried me more, her sudden attempt at singing or that she was on her way to find an axe in this mood. It hadn't occurred to me that Nicky would opt to split wood since I'd never seen her do it before. There had to be a reason the people who organized the chores removed it from her list of possible duties.

Jess went to play with her plants while the rest of us went to the wood chopping area. I grabbed an axe and started working. Nicky had clearly used an axe before, although I didn't let my guard down, just in case a wayward swing sent something my way. It didn't escape my attention that Luke was also keeping an eye on her as we turned logs into reasonable-sized pieces capable of fitting into a wood stove.

Not long after, I paused and frowned at an approaching woman. Charlie's mother came closer hesitantly, wringing a handkerchief in her hands. I doubted her unease was because I had an axe, although it probably wasn't helping.

Luke and Nicky also stopped to watch.

"Umm. W-we're leaving tomorrow morning," she began softly, her face flushing red, "but I couldn't go without attempting to apologize. I'm very, very sorry for what I said. I was so happy to hug my son that I didn't think before speaking. I'm very sorry."

Why couldn't she have left quietly instead of bringing this back up? The answer was obvious though; she had a guilty conscience and wanted to clear the air between us. This sort of "talk" had never been easy for me, even if I liked the person.

"Apology accepted," I said, a bit more curtly than I intended, hoping to get this over with quickly.

My tone and words must not have jived, because she shrunk in on herself. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean it."

I sighed heavily. "I know."

Nicky leaned on her axe and told the woman, "Don't mind her. I just finished painting her door without permission and gave her a hug, so I kind of pushed her to her limits. The fact that she's not snarling is a compliment."

I glowered at the redhead, although the remorseful mother nodded slowly, looking more reassured now. With me glowering at Nicky, and not at her, she might have realized I wasn't mad at her or maybe she assumed it was just a zombie thing.

"I'm truly sorry," she murmured. "If there were any way to undo it, I would. I wish you the best." She bowed her head before turning and leaving.

"Pushed me to my limits?" I muttered at Nicky. "You make it sound like I hated my door."

She shrugged. "I was just trying to help. It's not my fault you have the social skills of a turnip."

That earned her another glower and a growl, but she just grinned at me before she continued chopping wood. Shaking my head, I swung my axe, letting the heavy blow split the thick chunk of wood like a knife slashing through an eggshell.

Luke prudently remained silent.

~

       I glanced over my shoulder as Daniel's scent grew stronger. He was coming down the street, accompanied by Nina. Jess was already jogging over from wherever she had been, so she must have also spotted them.

Nicky took a break and sat down on a stump. Zombie stamina meant Luke and I were still fresh, so we kept splitting wood as we waited for them to reach us.

Nicky stretched and asked, "I presume it was a good meeting?"

"Yes, we had a good discussion and got our plans in place."

"Planning is always a good thing," Nicky agreed. "In any Stronghold I ever stayed at, they always called meetings the moment I mentioned possibly transferring out. But the travel agents in those places either lied or they needed to get out more often because their version of paradise certainly didn't match mine. The places I ended up transferring to were definitely not a tropical beach or a majestic metropolis."

"This was about the third wave," Nina clarified. "There's only about two weeks until the first cases start sneezing. Almost every collaborating research center and science lab within radio range was online. All of them are making the controlex and sanity serum, and about half are able to produce the cure."

"The ones with the cure are sharing it with other labs and showing them how to create more," Daniel added.

Nina nodded and continued, "This means all of our partner labs either have it or will have it before too much longer. The ones who are really far away won't have it in time for the third wave, but they'll have the other two drugs to get them through it, and the sane zombies can always decide if they want the cure later."

"That is really going to raise the sane zombie population," I said. "Regardless of how careful they might have been during the last wave, I can't see any Stronghold escaping this wave unscathed. Some were bound to be infected."

"That's part of what we were discussing," Nina replied, holding up a map with a bunch of writing on it. "Strongholds with labs are the only ones able to help in this situation, so we divided the map into areas where we'll be circulating the drugs."

"Does that mean Ironwind is going to be taking the cure to the Strongholds around us?" Jess asked, trying to peer at the map from where she stood. "Aren't there a lot of them?"

"Yes, we're going to be responsible for quite a large area. The only lab north of us is in Alaska, so we might not make it to all the northern Strongholds in time, but we'll try. There aren't many to the west since anything even remotely close to Vancouver was overrun in the original outbreak. Paul and Richard already covered most of the places along the highway heading southeast, so it isn't as bad as it could be."

"Are you going to have enough of these drugs to share with all the Strongholds?" Luke asked, intent on the conversation.

"That's kind of why we immediately came over here," Nina said, smiling apologetically. "Luke, Jess, would you two be willing to help me in the lab for the next week? Between the three of us working on the batches, we stand a good chance at being able to make enough of the cure to give each Stronghold a dozen vials."

"I'm in," Luke immediately replied.

"Me too," Jess said.

"Thank you," Nina said gratefully.

"You'll have to show me what to do," Luke said. "My skills are probably pretty rusty by now."

"I'll show you both as many times as you want, but it's not overly complicated. We just have to watch the clock and temperatures closely for certain steps. I have to organize some stuff first, but can we meet at the lab in, say, an hour?"

"Certainly," Luke agreed, and Jess nodded.

"It's going to be a bit of a rush to set it all up, but within a few days, we can probably start sending some of the cure and other drugs with the traders. We'll have to include detailed instructions on how to inject it, as well as highlight the differences between sneezes from colds, allergies, and the very distinctive and rapid sneezing pace of the zombie virus."

"What if someone with allergies takes the cure?" Jess asked.

"It won't harm them, and it won't stop their sneezing. They're just down one vial, and we won't have enough to send more for a while, so they'll have to use the sanity serum. If anyone turns and wants the cure, they'll probably have to wait until the wave is over since we can only make it so fast."

"That makes sense," Jess replied, "although if Strongholds run out, won't they come here hoping to find more?"

"That's very likely, and I expect to see a few show up." Nina looked at me. "Do you mind accompanying me to the lab? I'd love a few more saliva samples. For some reason, adding a trace of each rank's saliva makes the batch process faster. I also want to check your arm. I'm surprised you're still wearing a bandage after four days."

With a smirk, I unwrapped the bandage, revealing that the scab had already fallen off. Daniel made a face and glanced at his own arms, which still sported a few scabs from his deepest injuries. My scab had only fallen off this morning, but I still felt like gloating. I managed to keep a straight face though, secretly enjoying Daniel's ruefulness.

I had kept the bandage on just to mess with his head. He had no idea when the scab had fallen off, and it would gall him that my deep cut was healed even though several of his remained, especially since they hadn't been as deep as this one. The amount of doctoring I'd done had paid off.

Nina shook her head but looked amused. "I should have known. You tried to make it heal as fast as you could just to get under Daniel's skin, didn't you?"

"I bet it's working." I bared my teeth in a grin.

Daniel snorted lightly. "Not as much as you are likely hoping."

"Drat."

Daniel wore an amused smile. "I may have to bribe Nicky into spilling the secret."

I raised an eyebrow and tilted my head as I pretended to consider the odds. "She might agree if you let her color your jacket, then wore it and the rainbow socks and shoes for three days."

"I like that idea!" Nicky exclaimed as she bounced to her feet. "But make it a week, and he can't cover it up like you did."

"Not a chance." Daniel clearly wasn't that desperate to learn the secret. Nor did I particularly blame him.

"Well, it would be one way to wear out her felts," I replied, as if it were a reasonable plan.

Nicky shook her head with a grin. "Those things will never die."

"Do you plan on telling Daniel how it's done, even if he doesn't figure it out in a month or so?" Nina inquired.

I made a face. "If he doesn't figure it out in a month, then he needs to go back to zombie school."

Daniel commented, "I missed the enrollment deadline for that, and I haven't found a tutor willing to enlighten me. Perhaps you can take pity on me?"

"Since when did you become an eloquent poet?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and pointedly not answering his question.

Nicky snickered. "I think that's her way of saying 'go cry me a river'."

She promptly started wailing some song lyrics that I couldn't make out, and with her singing ability, I didn't want to. They might have even been the lyrics to that very song, but I couldn't tell.

If her mind ever short-circuited, we were in for a wild ride.

*       *       *

wingedalpha was kind enough to create a fanart of Trinity's door!


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