Love in an Undead Age, A.M. Geever [best contemporary novels txt] 📗
- Author: A.M. Geever
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“What were you thinking?”
Mario looked around as if he was unsure she was speaking to him.
“We can’t afford to lose you and you risk yourself coming back for me? Do you know how stupid that was?”
Mario just stared at her. So did everyone else. A hand clamped down on her shoulder and whipped her around.
“Not here.” Doug’s expression was calm, but his eyes blazed. He leaned in close. “We have no idea who these people are. Shut up.”
Miranda closed her eyes and bit her lip, trying hard to get her conflicted feelings of relief and anxiety under control. She sat down abruptly, banging her injured leg as a wave of shame washed over her. How could she have said something so revealing? There was no excuse, none.
You were afraid for him, a small voice whispered.
Shut up, she silently hissed back, but it was too late. Now Finn and Dalton knew there was something special about Mario. There was nothing she could do or say to undo it.
Doug untied a bandana from around his neck and handed it to Miranda. He scratched Delilah on the head, then straightened and turned to Finn.
“It’s been a long day,” he said, his voice indulgently apologetic, as if he were explaining the tantrum of an overtired child.
“It is just adrenaline,” Finn assured him with an easy smile. He shifted his attention to his cousin. “I will check with the others before we leave for the village.”
Miranda wiped at her muddy face. She looked up in time to see Finn step onto a rope bridge. One rope formed the bottom, with two more ropes on either side at hand height. Loosely fitted webbing was attached between the bottom and top ropes, forming a V. Finn moved swiftly across the forty-foot span, his footsteps on the bottom rope practiced and sure. He was greeted with high fives by several men holding tall recurve bows when he stepped onto the platform built around another redwood.
Connor crouched beside Miranda. “You okay?” he asked. His brown eyes were warm and concerned.
Miranda nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
“You missed a spot.”
He took the handkerchief and wiped her forehead, then sat down beside her and slipped her hand in his. Connor’s kindness only made Miranda feel like a confused and conflicted mess. Delilah began to whimper again. Miranda reached back to pet the dog’s snout with her free hand and for the first time, really looked at their surroundings.
They were at least forty feet above the ground. The rain was barely noticeable now that the redwood’s massive branches sheltered them. A sturdy wooden platform encircled the redwood, sticking out about twelve feet from the shaft of the tree. A well-made picket railing was built along the platform’s edge, in contrast to the rail-less platform the archers in the other tree perched upon. Three rope bridges, all of the same design as the one Finn had just taken, went off in different directions.
“My God,” Miranda whispered. She looked beyond to other trees with similar platforms and even more bridges. “How many of these do you think they’ve built up here?”
“I’m trying really hard not to think about how high we are,” Connor said. He looked downright queasy.
Miranda squeezed his hand in sympathy. “Just try not to think about it.”
“Yeah, right.”
Finn returned with several of the archers. They stepped onto the platform with an easy grace.
“The village is not far,” said Finn. “But we need to go; it will be dark soon. And I am guessing none of you are used to rope bridges.”
The ragged company got to their feet. One by one they tentatively followed Dalton onto the bridge. Doug spoke with Finn as the rest filed by. Connor stepped onto the bridge ahead of Miranda, clutching the ropes so tight his knuckles turned white. Doug caught Miranda’s hand before she limped onto the bridge.
“You okay, Miri?”
Miranda nodded, still appalled by her outburst. “I just need to get Delilah off my back and sleep for a week. It’s been a bitch of a day.”
“You will need to stop that,” Finn said.
“Stop what?” Doug asked.
“The cursing. Your women should take care. The Prophet teaches that profanity is unseemly in a woman.”
An unpleasant tingle raced along Miranda’s spine, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.
“The Prophet?” Doug asked. “Is that your leader?”
“The Prophet is the God All-Father on Earth,” Finn answered. The archer closest to Finn nodded in agreement. “But do not be uneasy, for He loves all of God’s true children. He had a vision that you would come. That is why we were out here to save you. The God All-Father is anxious to meet you and divine the Heavenly Father’s purpose in sending you to Him.”
Miranda broke out in a chill sweat. Finn smiled at them, his golden eyes as guileless as a child’s.
“Well,” Doug said, “at least we aren’t barging in unannounced.”
Finn and his companion roared with laughter. “After you,” Finn finally managed, motioning for Miranda to precede them on the bridge.
Miranda clasped the rough ropes in her hands and stepped onto the foot rope with her good leg. She looked down to the forest floor, to the zombies that wandered below. The distance between the bridge and the ground seemed as nothing compared to the abyss they had just flung themselves into.
The bridges became more substantial as they traveled nearer to the village. Spaced wooden footboards were the first improvement, then the webbing between the hand ropes and the bridge decks became more substantial. The last bridge was the most elaborate yet. Oval-shaped metal supports arched overhead, fastened with industrial-sized metal bolts to a deck of thick wooden planks three feet across. Lanterns were attached, illuminating the walkway, and heavy-duty webbing stretched six feet up the sides. A small child would not be able to fall through it, even where it attached at the bottom.
At the end was a gate.
Miranda’s apprehension waned in the face of pain and exhaustion. From knee down, her leg was spectacularly swollen and so painful she could barely limp, even with Connor’s help. To divert herself from the unnerving rope bridges she had tried to figure out how much sleep she had gotten in the past three days, only to find that the simple arithmetic involved stumped her. Delilah had finally surrendered fifteen minutes ago. She snored into Miranda’s ear. Several times they had crossed small platforms from one bridge to another and the others had offered to carry her, but Miranda was afraid the pit bull would end up plunging to her death in the transfer. Delilah would just have to wait until they were somewhere more secure.
She leaned into Connor whose arm wrapped around her waist. Two imposing, unfriendly-looking men stood outside the gate. The lantern light glinted off machetes slung on their hips. Finn greeted them and conferred for a moment, then turned to the group.
“Evening service has already started. Miranda and Mario will be taken to the infirmary so that the healer can assess them.” Finn turned his attention to Miranda, who was closer to him than Mario. “Members of the Prophet’s Guard will escort you. The rest of you will come with me to service. Welcome to New Jerusalem.”
After a series of bolts and crossbeams retracted, they stepped over the threshold. More tall, imposing men waited, presumably the escort to the infirmary. As far as she could see, dwellings of all sizes were built in the treetops. Lanterns flickered among them in no discernible pattern. She had caught glimpses as they approached the village, but Miranda found herself unprepared for the sight before her. Giant platforms that dwarfed the one they had first encountered after their rescue were built into the branches of a grove of giant sequoias. Everything was ringed with the same high webbing as on the last bridge. Intricate log support structures girded the platforms and buildings, all of which were connected by the enclosed style of bridge.
“It’s like Swiss Family Robinson on steroids,” Connor whispered.
With a leader who calls himself a prophet, Miranda thought.
A middle-aged woman with a practical look about her approached them.
“This is Bethany, our healer. She will take Miranda and Mario to the infirmary,” Finn said. “The rest of you will come with me.”
“Can we get the dog off my back first?” When Finn, Dalton, and both of Prophet’s Guardsmen looked at her warily, she asked, “Is there a problem?”
“Most of the people here have only seen wild dogs,” Bethany said. “We’ll do it at the infirmary.”
“Are you all right, Miranda?” Doug asked, a silent question in his eyes: Can you hold your shit together?
Miranda could tell that Doug was unhappy about splitting up, but there was nothing any of them could do about it. “Go ahead. Don’t worry about us,” she answered.
She had fucked up earlier. She wasn’t going to again.
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