Far Series (Book 1): Far From Home

by Mary, Kate L.

  In the road, the guy pulled himself up and dusted himself off, his eyes on us.

  “What now?” Devon muttered.

  He threw the car in park and swept up the gun, which I’d set in the console after my abandoned suicide attempt. A second later, he had his door thrown open and was standing half out, the gun up and pointed at the guy.

  “Hands up.” Devon’s voice boomed through the silent city.

  The guy’s hands shot up, and his eyes widened. “I’m not dangerous.”

  It was difficult to get a good look at him thanks to the black smeared all over my window, so I rolled it down, and he came into view. He was young, only a teenager, and the red undertones of his brown skin told me he was probably of Native American descent. His shoulder-length black hair was unkempt like it hadn’t been washed in days, and the dirt smeared across his face only emphasized the impression. His plump body contrasted with the agility he’d shown when diving out of the way, and his round face and big, brown eyes appeared innocent and youthful. Trustworthy.

  His eyes darted from Devon to me, then to the back where Kiaya was peering out her own window. “I swear. I’m nobody. I’m just trying to find other people.”

  “Who are you?” Devon asked. I couldn’t see him, but since the kid hadn’t relaxed, I figured he still had the gun raised.

  “Hank Begay. That’s all.”

  “Why did you jump out in front of us?” I asked.

  “Let me handle this, Rowan,” Devon snapped.

  He couldn’t see me, but I still rolled my eyes.

  Hank turned his gaze on me. “Same reason I set off the car alarm. Because you’re the first people I’ve seen in days.”

  “You set off the car alarm?” I looked him up and down. “So, you saved us?”

  “Yeah.” Hank’s head bobbed. “I was hiding in a store and heard the car drive past. By the time I got out, the zombies were surrounding it. I knew you’d never make it out of there if I didn’t do something, so I went a few streets over and started banging into cars until I found one with an alarm. I had to draw them away.”

  He still had his hands raised, meaning Devon hadn’t lowered his gun, so I shoved the door open and climbed out. I turned so I could see Devon on the other side of the car and found the gun aimed right at me.

  He lifted it, finally, pointing it toward the sky. “Dammit, Rowan. Don’t step in front of a gun. Ever.”

  “Put it down and stop scaring the poor kid. He saved us.”

  “You don’t know that,” Devon snapped. “He says he saved us, but we know nothing about him.”

  “Why would I lie?” Hank said.

  Devon’s gaze snapped his way, and I turned so I was once again facing him.

  Hank shrugged. “If I wanted you dead, I would have just let the zombies get you.”

  “He has a point,” Kiaya called from inside.

  A faint moan rang through the air, and I spun around, searching for its source. Nothing was in sight, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long. We needed to get out of the city.

  I focused on Devon. “We have to go.”

  He swore even as he nodded, looking past me at Hank. “What’s your plan?”

  “To get out of here,” the kid said. “That’s it.”

  “We’re going to Ohio,” Devon replied.

  “As long as there are other living, breathing people, I don’t care where I go.”

  One last sigh, and Devon nodded. “Fine. Get in so we can leave.”

  A smile spread across Hank’s face, and his hands dropped to his sides. A second later, he was jogging toward the car.

  I climbed back in just as a zombie stumbled from a side street, and Devon was two seconds behind me. The second the back door slammed shut, he had the car in drive and was accelerating once again, leaving the undead creature in our dust.

  “Thanks for saving us,” I said, turning to face Hank.

  He gave me a smile that was relieved and grateful at the same time, and the way it lit up his face made him seem even younger. “Thanks for letting me come with you.”

  “Have you been alone for long?” Kiaya asked him.

  He shrugged, and his smile faded until it was nothing but a memory. “Three days. My family all got sick and died, so I was with a friend for a while.” He looked down. “The zombies got him.”

  I swallowed, thinking about having to watch the dead rip apart someone I cared about. I couldn’t even imagine it.

  “I’m sorry,” Kiaya said, her voice gentle and brimming with empathy.

  Hank nodded but said nothing, and he didn’t look up.

  After a moment of silence, I cleared my throat. “Well, I’m glad you found us. I’m Rowan, by the way, and this is Devon and Kiaya.”

  Hank lifted his head, forcing out a smile despite the sadness brimming in his eyes. “Nice to meet you.”

  Kiaya gave his arm a gentle pat and said, “You, too.”

  Hank looked down to where her hand had touched his arm. Pink spread across his cheeks, and when he’d once again lifted his head to look at her, a little bit of life sparked in his eyes.

  Oh, Lord.

  Devon, unaware of the teenage crush blooming in the back seat, lifted his gaze to the rearview mirror. “How long have you known about this zombie thing?”

  “Um...” Hank’s voice came out squeaky the way only a teenage boy’s could, and he cleared his throat. “Only three days. My friend, Justin, and I were trying to blow off some steam and thought we’d recreate that scene from Zombieworld.” His gaze darted between us. “You’ve seen that movie, right? The one with Hadley Lucas?”

  Devon nodded, and Kiaya said, “Yeah.”

  “Sorry.” I gave him an apologetic smile and shrugged. “Scary movies aren’t really my thing.”

  “It’s more of a comedy,” Hank said, returning my shrug. “But I get it. Zombies are an acquired taste.” He frowned. “Or were, anyway. Now I guess we’re the acquired taste.”

  Devon snorted out a laugh.

  “Anyway,” Hank shook his head, “there’s this scene in the movie where the characters try to blow off some steam by destroying a store. It’s stupid, but funny, and Justin and I wanted to recreate it. It was really more about distracting ourselves from what was really happening than anything else, but it was fun, too. At least at first.

  “We were in this touristy gift shop in the historic Route 66 district, just smashing things up with baseball bats, when this guy stumbled in. He looked weird, and he smelled like shit, but we just thought he was sick. Since we didn’t want to catch anything from him, we told him to go away, but he wouldn’t listen. Then Justin tried to scare him by swinging the bat. He wasn’t trying to hit him, although it might have been better if he had.” Hank paused and frowned. “The guy grabbed his arm and took a bite out of him.”

  Kiaya put her hand on Hank’s arm again, this time leaving it there, and the kid’s gaze moved down. Despite his sorrow over his lost friend, a smile tugged at his lips, and I had to bite back one of my own. Only a teenage boy could manage to swoon over a cute girl at a time like this.

  “I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she said.

  “I fought the guy off.” Hank sat up straighter, squaring his shoulders. “I hit him until he let go of Justin, and we took off. He was bleeding everywhere, but probably would have been okay if we hadn’t run into more of them. We did, though. We turned a corner, and there was this huge group. There had to be sixty of them. Justin was already bleeding, and they must have been able to smell it, because they were on him in no time.” Hanks’s shoulders slumped. “I couldn’t do anything. I tried, but all I managed to do was get bitten myself.”

  He lifted his left arm, the one Kiaya’s hand wasn’t resting on, revealing a bite just below his elbow.

  I gasped, and Kiaya scooted away from him, her eyes widening in fear.

  “Shit.” The car swerved, and Devon righted it before looking over his shoulder at the kid. “How long ago was this?”


  “I told you. Three days.” Hank looked between us, confused and uncertain. Then understanding dawned, and he shook his head. “I know what you’re thinking, believe me. Even though I managed to get away, I thought I was dead because I’d been bitten. I mean, I watched zombie movies. I know how it’s supposed to work. But nothing happened. It hurts like a bitch, but I’m still alive.”

  Kiaya, who was as close to the door as she could get, relaxed a little but didn’t move back—much to Hank’s disappointment. “So, the bites don’t turn you?”

  “We were wondering about that,” I explained to Hank. “We only found out about the zombie thing this morning, so we don’t know much. That was one of our biggest concerns.”

  Hank shrugged and waved his arm. “I was bitten, and I’m good.”

  “I guess whatever made us immune to the virus makes us immune to the bites as well,” Devon said, his expression thoughtful.

  “I guess so,” I agreed. “I mean, it sure seems that way.”

  “Thank God,” Kiaya said. “That’s one less thing to worry about.”

  She was right. Not that I had any intention of letting a zombie get close enough to sink its teeth into me, but it was nice knowing if it did happen, I wasn’t doomed to turn into a flesh-eating monster.

  “We still need to be careful,” Devon said, as if echoing my thoughts. “The human mouth is riddled with germs, and just because a bite won’t turn us into a zombie, that doesn’t mean it can’t kill us. There are no more hospitals, no more doctors we can run off to if we get hurt. An infection could mean death, and we can’t take that lightly.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  “That’s a good point.” Kiaya turned to face Hank. “Maybe I should check out that bite? Make sure it looks okay?”

  The kid shrugged like he didn’t care, but he didn’t stop her from taking his arm. He did, however, gaze up at her like a lovesick puppy, and I had to stifle a laugh.

  I leaned back so I could get a good look at it as well, and the red, angry bite came into view when Kiaya twisted Hank’s arm in her direction. It was swollen, and the skin around it shiny. If it wasn’t infected already, it was getting close.

  “That doesn’t look good,” I said.

  “It hurts, but it’s not awful,” Hank tried to assure me.

  I could tell he was lying when Kiaya probed it and he grimaced like he was biting back a hiss of pain. His gaze darted to her face as if trying to make sure she didn’t see it, though. Luckily for him, she was focused on the bite. Not that it would matter. He was a maybe fifteen or sixteen at the most. Too young for Kiaya.

  “We need to find some antibiotics,” I said as I turned to face Devon.

  “Not sure what we’re going to come across from here on out.” He nodded to the paper map stuck in the console—the same one I’d been given when I got my travel papers. “Want to take a look?”

  “Sure.”

  I pulled out the now familiar piece of paper so I could scan the route. Not many towns were marked since the map was more or less just an indicator of which way the government had expected me to travel, but there were a few.

  “Shamrock, Texas isn’t too far,” I said, looking up like I would be able to see the town looming in the distance. “We could give it a shot.”

  “Okay.” Devon blew out a long breath and rolled his shoulders like he was trying to ease the tightness in them. “But only if it’s a small town. I don’t want to run into the same problem we had in Amarillo.”

  “Agreed,” I said, refolding the map and stuffing it into the console.

  In the back, Kiaya mumbled her own agreement, but Hank said nothing. When I snuck a peek at them, I found the kid still staring at her. I wasn’t even sure if she noticed, but if she did, she was doing a great job of acting like she didn’t.

  We drove for a while in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I’d still been tense when we left Amarillo behind, and I took the opportunity to convince myself that—at least for the time being—everything was okay. It was a difficult thing to wrap my head around, considering the world was now overrun with the dead and I’d been seconds from shooting myself, but I still tried.

  The world whirled by as Devon sped down the deserted road. After about a half hour of driving, we came upon a group of old VW Bugs that had been buried nose down and spray-painted in bright colors. I turned in my seat as we passed, watching them disappear in the distance and trying to reconcile that old world—the one where people had spent free time creating odd attractions to amuse strangers—with the one I now found myself living in. It seemed unreal.

  A little after that, a giant cross came into view, looming in the distance. The thing looked huge at first sight, but the closer we got, the more I realized exactly how big it actually was. Hundreds of feet tall, probably.

  “Look at that,” Devon muttered, breaking the silence that had followed us out of Amarillo.

  “Weird,” Kiaya said.

  “Seems like a waste of money.” I shifted so I was looking at Devon. “Like that huge Jesus statue off Interstate 75. Remember?”

  His lips twitched. “The one that got struck by lightning and burned down?”

  “Yeah. We called him ‘Touchdown Jesus’ because of the way his hands were lifted toward the sky.” I raised my own hands in imitation of the statue, shaking my head as I did. “I never got why a church would spend money on something like that. Imagine all the people they could have helped.”

  “They didn’t learn their lesson either,” Devon said. “They built a new one when all this started.”

  “I know. ‘Five-dollar footlong’ Jesus,” I said, letting out a laugh as I once again imitated the monstrosity of a statue, this time holding my arms out as if trying to illustrate how big a footlong sub was. After dropping my hands, I said, “Maybe God was the one who sent this virus. I mean, He did use the flood to wipe out humans when they got too corrupt. Who’s to say this wasn’t His doing as well? It’s not like the world is a beautiful, happy place anymore.”

  “No,” Devon replied, nodding thoughtfully like he agreed but was also thinking it through, “but this isn’t likely to make it any better. Let’s face it, with the collapse of society, the assholes are going to rise up and try to take power. Just wait. You’ll see.”

  “I don’t need to see,” I muttered. “I’ve never been under any delusion that people are basically good. I’m a realist, remember?”

  The corner of his mouth turned up and he looked my way. “I remember.”

  We passed the cross and the town of Groom, which was little more than a blip on our map. Just outside the city limits, we were greeted by yet another Route 66 historic spectacle. This time it was an old water tower with the words Britten USA painted on it, only it wasn’t like any water tower I’d ever seen because it was leaning dangerously to one side. It looked like it might fall over at any minute.

  “You think that was done on purpose?” I asked to no one in particular as we sped past it.

  “Naw,” Devon said. “It’s just old, I bet.”

  “Actually,” Hank leaned forward, putting his head between the seats, “some old guy a long time ago put it up as a way to attract people. He had a restaurant and thought it might help business.”

  “Did it?” Kiaya asked.

  “Yup.” Hank beamed at her as he sat back. “People call it the leaning tower of Texas.”

  “Weird,” I said again.

  After that, we passed a whole lot of nothing. Brown, flat landscape stretched as far as the eye could see only broken up by the occasional sign or building, many of which looked like they’d been abandoned long before the virus hit. We didn’t talk, and I felt a little bad about not trying to get to know Hank, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure what to say to the kid. I could ask him questions, but everything that popped into my head was bound to lead to pain, considering what he’d just been through, which put me at a total loss for words. It wasn’t like me. Although not many of the things I’d done ov
er the last few days were like the me I was used to.

  Devon slowed when we approached a checkpoint, and I started to reach for my travel papers but stopped when nothing moved. A makeshift shelter was set up beside the road that reminded me of something you’d see deployed soldiers in a movie sleeping in, and one vehicle. It was a big military Humvee, Army green from top to bottom. But not a single person was in sight.

  Devon slowed even more before finally stopping only six feet from the Humvee, but he didn’t turn the car off.

  “What are we doing?” Kiaya asked.

  He gnawed on his bottom lip for a second before replying. “I want to take a look around.” He twisted so he could see the rest of us. “If whoever was here got sick and died, they might have left some guns behind.”

  I thought about the other checkpoints we’d gone through and the large automatic weapons the soldiers had carried. Having one—or more—of those would come in handy if we ran into another horde.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled as I scanned the area surrounding the checkpoint. “Good idea.”

  Nothing was moving, but my heart was still pounding like crazy. There was literally no way to go into an unknown situation anymore without worrying, because dead bodies were walking the Earth trying to eat the few of us who were left. It was a strange reality to face, but there it was.

  Devon let out a deep breath before grabbing the gun from the console once again. “Here goes nothing.” He shoved his door open and started to get out but froze when I reached for the door handle. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m coming,” I said. “I stayed behind earlier because I was bleeding, but I’m not bleeding anymore, so there’s no reason to stay here.”

  “How about the fact that you’re not armed?” Devon snapped.

  “I may not have a gun,” I said, pulling out the knife he’d given me earlier and waving it, “but I have this.”

  “Can’t you do anything the easy way?” he asked, but he was already shoving the car door open the rest of the way.

  I gave him the best smile I could manage under the circumstances. “Just because it isn’t your way doesn’t mean it’s not the right way. Remember that down the road.”