But it’s his face that makes a groan rise from somewhere under my stomach. His olive skin is sallow and his eyes rimmed with brown. Something black drips from a hole in his temple. He looks at us sideways and pushes his mouth against the fence. It looks like it hurts. I want to tell him to stop.
I plod forward with Nelly at my elbow. The others stand in a group ten feet away from the fence line and part at my advance. Barnaby, silent for once, lifts a paw and drops it, as though trying to figure out why this Adrian is on the other side. Dan holds Caleb back from where Marcus stands with one cheek missing, head cocked and teeth bared.
“Caleb,” John’s voice carries forward. “Let one of us—”
Caleb screams something unintelligible and rips from Dan’s grip. He races toward the fence, knife raised, and rams the blade through the links. He follows Marcus down, every jab linked to a shriek so shrill and piercing that my ears ring, and then he sinks against the fence. He reaches a finger through to touch where Marcus lies on the ground. There are other, freshly killed Lexers outside the fence. They didn’t touch Marcus and Adrian, like we asked.
When I’m a few feet away, I stop. Adrian’s eyes are a dead silvery green. His teeth grate on the metal when he tries to connect with the hand I hold up. I’d thought maybe I’d say something to him, but I’d rather talk to his lifeless body than this creature. This isn’t him—it’s a germ, a virus, a fucking parasite.
Without lowering my eyes, I fumble in the bucket for a spike and wrap my fist around the handle. Another step and I’m close enough to do it. I raise it to my ear, but I can’t make that initial thrust, can’t find the power that I’ll need to crush it through bone, especially the tougher bone of someone so recently turned. I’ve held these spikes hundreds of times, pushed them through the fence into eye sockets, the backs of throats and the bases of skulls, but I can’t do it to him. I could if he were coming at me, if there wasn’t a fence between us, if there were no one here but me. I can’t do it this way, though, not if I ever want to sleep again. I don’t want to be a coward. I thought I was stronger than this.
“Cass.” Nelly’s hand closes over the spike. “Don’t.”
Adrian rattles the fence. I can smell him. I’ve always loved his scent, and this smell of spoiled meat and shit makes my stomach twist. His teeth are still white, which means he hasn’t found anything to eat. That was his worst nightmare.
I let the spike fall into Nelly’s hand. John catches my waist when I stumble backward and turn away. I won’t look again, because I was wrong. I can imagine terrible things—awful, scary things—but nothing could be worse than the reality of Adrian at the fence. Ana’s eyes are as soft as Penny’s when she passes to help Nelly. I close my eyes to wait for the crunch, and when it comes I can’t hold back the helpless sound that escapes.
John murmurs something I don’t hear. I push out of his arms. I’m no longer in a holding pattern; the flight has landed. It doesn’t seem real, but it is. This is real. It’s real.
Peter grips my elbow when I trip to a stop and heave until what little is in my stomach comes up. He gathers my hair and holds it at the nape of my neck. “It’s all right,” he says. “It’s all right.”
I don’t see how it will ever be all right.
29
Adrian and Marcus have been brought to the orchard, while the other bodies have gone down to the field where we stack or bury them. They’ve set him under a tree, but I don’t go until they’ve laid a sheet over top and moved away. I hate how scared I am, how disgusted I am by the body of the person I love so much.
The apple trees are in bloom and petals drift through the air to land on his makeshift shroud. The trees on this side of the orchard are gnarled and old, straight out of a fairy tale, and the air sweet and clean, until I get close. I force myself to breathe through my mouth when I kneel beside him.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” I say, and realize how furious I am when I hear my clipped tone. I don’t want to be angry with him; I want to say goodbye.
I’ve put on my gloves, and I move the sheet enough to find his hand. His fingernails are crescents of dirt, and the skin is puckered and pale. He’s less decomposed than if he had died in an ordinary way three days ago, but the fact that I can’t touch him—won’t touch him—without gloves makes me angrier. I’d already touched him for the last time; I just didn’t know I had.
My stomach threatens to send up its contents again. I try to think of something good, but all I see is his face grinding against the fence. I can’t see his smile or his dimple or the warmth in his eyes. I have to see him. I ease the sheet back, chest tight, to find they’ve closed his eyes. He looks enough like Adrian that I can breathe. The snarl is gone, replaced by a soft jaw, like when he’s asleep.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”
The scritch-thump noise of the shovels stops. We have to put him in the ground. I want him in the ground, safe under the soil. After they died, my parents were taken straight to cremation from the morgue. I said goodbye to their ashes, not their bodies. Since then, I’ve wondered how someone lets go of a loved one’s hand that last time. How they finally, irrevocably let go. But now I know—it must be when holding on to the alternative would be even more terrible.
“What am I supposed to do?” I whisper.
The thought leaves me empty, like there’s a great, yawning chasm that starts here and ends when I die, too. I want to tell him that I love him until the end of the world and after, but he already knows, and I don’t think I can say it aloud.
His jeans are stiff with dried blood and torn where a mouth or hand might have found an artery. I don’t want to know for sure, to relive his final moments with any accuracy. His knife still hangs on his belt. It was a gift to him from my dad, who always said a good knife was worth its weight in gold. When I unclasp the knife from its bloody sheath, a silvery glint beneath catches my eye; the band of my engagement ring has worked itself halfway out of his pocket.
I reach for the ring but then stop myself. I don’t want it. His knife still has purpose; it has happy memories. The ring was a promise—one he can’t keep now. But I can make him one. I push it down until I’m sure it’s secure. It’s the same pocket he carried it around in, waiting for the perfect moment. The Underwear Moment. I wouldn’t think it possible, but a smile pushes through my tears.
“Hold onto this for me?” The words are barely audible, but I know he can hear. “No changing your mind, though. You can give it back the next time I see you.”
I squeeze his hand twice, and then I let go.
30
The restaurant is full of people speaking in murmurs and wiping away tears, while I sit with dry eyes. I didn’t think I would ever stop crying, but while I watched them fill the hole under the apple trees so I would know for sure he was under the earth, the tears dissipated like they were buried along with Adrian. I want them back, though, as awful as they were. Right now I’d like to feel something besides this emptiness that’s so dark I can’t imagine being able to produce a tear. I can’t bear to sit here, I can’t bear to get up, I can’t bear to think of what the next minute or hour or month will be like.
Ben walks over with Mikayla, who hands me a steaming mug of tea. It’s a heavily rationed item, and I know she’s trying to do something to make me feel better.
“Thank you,” I say.
“If there’s anything I can do for you, you’ll let me know?” Ben asks for the third time. He looks desperate for an answer. And he’s probably worried; he might have been Adrian’s partner, but Adrian’s the one who kept all this running.
I force myself to sip the sweet, milky tea. “This is good. Thank you.”
Mikayla leads him away. She leans into him when he wraps his arm around her waist. Watching them is like being stabbed in the lungs. I need to be alone, but I have nowhere to go. I can’t go to our room. I’ll set up a tent, at least for tonight. I won’t sleep, anyway.
Peter sits next to me with Bits in h
is arms, her face buried in his neck. I rest my hand on her hair and say, “It’s all right.”
Peter covers my hand with his, and I realize it’s what he said to me. Adrian said it, too. Maybe we humans tell each other it will be all right—even when we know it probably won’t be, even when we don’t believe it ourselves—otherwise we’d never be able to go on.
Bits leaves Peter’s arms for mine, and my shirt grows moist from her tears. I rock her and scan the long table. Penny fingers her handkerchief and huddles next to James. Nelly sits on my other side, head in hands, while Ana clenches and unclenches her fist and stares into space. John lays a heavy hand on my shoulder before settling back into his chair. Adrian would have hated this. I hate this. I can’t stand another minute.
“Bits, sit with Peter, okay?”
I scoot her back onto his lap and pry myself out of my seat. Caleb sits at the end of the table, staring down into a mug of coffee. Coffee for him, tea for me. Lucky us. Toby moves so I can sit, and I take Caleb’s hand in mine. His eyes are rimmed in pink and his lips are puffy.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “He was so funny. You know, he picked on you because he loved you so much. He reminded me of my brother. He could beat the crap out of me, even though I was older.”
After my parents died, I’d always appreciated when someone showed me they’d left a mark on someone besides me. Caleb laughs and wipes his nose on his sleeve. He wraps his arms around my neck just like Bits does.
“Adrian loved you so much,” he whispers in my ear. “Everyone wanted what you guys…”
It’s too much, and I try to stop the strangled sob that escapes. People turn and then look away when they see it’s me. I don’t want to be this person again—the one everyone looks at apologetically, the one everyone tiptoes around.
The entire room watches me kiss Bits’s hair before I leave the restaurant. Her eyes are so blue against the bloodshot whites, but the spark that dances in them is missing. It will most likely return, although it seems to grow a tiny bit dimmer every time she loses one more goddamned thing to this world. How many more before it’s extinguished entirely? All that’s left is to keep that light shining, to keep her safe, no matter what. It’s all I have, until I meet up with that ring again.
It’s a six person tent, not that I’m planning on a party, but it’s nice to have space. Nelly found me setting it up by the greenhouse at the back of the farm and helped me without a word. He brought me bedding, a chair, my bag of toiletries and a lantern. I watch his profile from the chair while he unrolls the sleeping bag and lays a pillow at the head. Adrian was his friend, and he had to kill him. My gut clenches again, but there’s nothing to come up.
“Nel—” I say. “Thank you—for…at the fence. I thought I could…”
The hard line of his mouth turns down like he’s trying not to cry. “I didn’t. Ana…”
If anyone could do it, it’s Ana, and not because she’s heartless. I remember the sympathy in her eyes as she walked to the fence, the way she was struggling to hold herself together in the restaurant, and know it wasn’t easy for her to do, even if she’ll pretend it was.
31
I’ve spent a week staring up at the blue ceiling of this tent. My friends take turns bringing me food I can’t eat and sitting with me in the evenings until I kick them out. John hovered for days in a silent vigil, until I begged Maureen to make him leave. She lost her husband on the way to the farm last year, and I knew she’d understand my need to be alone. She held me tightly, wordlessly, and then led him away.
Bits and Sparky stayed over one night. We played Uno, but Bits got tired of reminding me it was my turn and asked me to lie with her. I held her until she fell asleep and wished there was someone to do the same for me. Barnaby hasn’t left my side. He follows me everywhere I go and stretches out alongside me, and although comforting, it doesn’t help me sleep.
It’s still chilly, especially at night, but if I want to get warm I work in the greenhouse. It’s quiet, and when people see me they find another destination. I don’t mind; they may not know what to say, but neither do I. Asking how I am is a sure way to make me cry, and I hate to cry in front of people. I’ll have to go to my room soon, though. I can’t live like a hermit on the back of the farm forever.
The tent ceiling has turned a light blue, which means it’s morning, so I leave to use the bathroom and brush my teeth, Barnaby at my heels. I’m surprised to find an eight-man tent behind the outfitter tents, not forty feet away. Dan sits out front and smiles as I walk past.
“Hey,” he says. I raise a hand. If I’d known he was out here I would’ve cried quieter last night. “I hope you don’t mind. I pitched as far away as I could. I like having my own space once it’s warm enough.”
He did this last summer and fall, too. We called his tent The Love Den, just to bother him. I shake my head that I don’t mind and continue walking.
“We’re heading to Whitefield today, to help out,” he calls after me. “Bringing those chickens and some other stuff. You want to come?”
I look back. He’s treating me almost like nothing happened, except for the gentle tone of his voice. No one else would ask me to go, except maybe Ana. No one would think I was up for it. But when I imagine getting out of here—away from the farmhouse and the orchard and the concerned expressions—I want nothing more. I’ve never felt trapped here, but now the circular fence I once loved feels like one of the circles of Hell.
“When are you leaving?”
“Couple hours. We’re staying the night.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll be ready.”
The stairs seem insurmountable, and when I’m at the top I stare at my door for a good three minutes before I work up the nerve to push it open. I move to his pillow and press my face into it, even though I know I’m torturing myself. I lie on our bed and stare at the painting I made for Adrian so long ago, of the spot where we first kissed. He’d hung it up even after I’d told him I didn’t love him anymore. I would give anything to take that back, to have those years when I could have been with him.
I try to take comfort in his smell, but all it does is make me livid: at myself for being so stupid and at the Lexers for taking away everything we love. It’s probably only a matter of time before they take Bits, too. I dry my face and move to the dresser, where I shove clothes in my backpack and grab my knife and cleaver. Adrian’s phone is on his desk, fully charged. I zip it into a side pocket and nestle the charger in with my clothes. I shower and twist my wet hair into buns.
I stand at the bedroom door before I head back downstairs. It’s like a place from another life—a life where I truly believed Adrian and I would never be separated again. We were meant to be, and deep down I thought that made us exempt from losing each other. I knew we would get our happily ever after, as long as we were vigilant. Why I thought I deserved anything better than the people who’ve been ripped apart and turned into monsters is anybody’s guess. I was a fucking idiot to think I was entitled to a guarantee. There’s only one guarantee left in this world—zombies never die, never stop and are never satiated.
32
“Of course Bits can stay with me,” Penny says, “but are you sure you should go?”
“I have to get out of here.” I dig my nails into my palms; if I cry, she’ll try to Mother Hen me into staying.
Penny bites her lip and studies my face. “Okay, if you’re sure.”
I hug Bits goodbye. She sits with Sparky curled in her arms on the little couch in the cabin and lifts a finger to her lips. “Careful not to wake her. She’s really tired. I think she’s sad.”
I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to crack the tiniest bit more. I don’t know how to comfort Bits. I can’t even comfort myself. She gets upset when I cry, and I can’t stop crying for any decent length of time, so I’ve been staying away. “Okay, I won’t. I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” she whispers.
I motion Penny outside. “I
was thinking that you and James might want to switch rooms with me.”
“No!” Penny raises a hand to her throat. “That’s your room. We don’t want—”
“I could live here with Ana and Peter. Bits wouldn’t have to go back and forth. She could stay with you when we’re on guard or patrol. A baby would be so much easier in a house with running water. You already have to pee six thousand times a day and would have a toilet right there.” I try to sound like giving up my room is the best idea I’ve ever had.
“No, really, I don’t want you to—”
“I can’t stay there,” I say with a shrug. “So either you switch, or I’ll stay in my tent.”
“I don’t think you’re thinking this through. You don’t want to make a big decision right now, you know?”
“I’m going to be on guard and patrol all summer. I’m signing up for nights, since—” I almost say since I can’t sleep, “no one wants them. Say yes.”
“I’ll talk to James. I think you need to take more time, you’re moving too fast.”
I sling my backpack over my shoulder and shrug again. Penny still feels safe here. She has a boyfriend she loves and a baby on the way. She teaches school. She doesn’t have to kill Lexers day after fucking day so we can live. That’s my job, although I never wanted it. I wanted to be the person dreaming of babies while wrapped in someone’s arms, too. I swallow down my resentment, but I can’t look at her.
“I have to go,” I manage to say before the first tear slips out.
“Cass…” Penny trails off before she begins. Even she doesn’t know what to say to me, which is exactly why I want to leave.
Until the End of the World Box Set Page 56
