I’m not dropping this. “You won’t mess it up.”
“We’re such good friends. What if we’re here for ten years? I had to be sure it’s the kind of thing that could last for ten years.”
He’s talking in the past tense, though, so he must already have decided.
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be. You should be friends, or it’ll never work.” He nods. “So, is Ana a ten-year kind of girl?”
“Yes.” He actually looks shy, and my smile widens. “Yeah, I think she is.” He puts the carrots and cucumbers on a plate with the hummus.
“Then stop waiting. We may not have much time, so don’t waste it. It’ll be my birthday present!” I clap at my idea.
“You want your ex-boyfriend to hook up with another girl as your birthday present.” Peter shakes his head in wonder as he picks up the plate and turns to leave.
“I just want you guys to be happy.” My voice is wistful and he turns back with questioning eyes. “Haven’t the two of us wasted enough years of our lives being unhappy?”
His smile is sad. “You’re right, we have.”
“But not anymore.”
“No, not anymore.”
A current of that new happiness passes between us. We grin at each other, and I realize that Peter’s become one of my very best friends. I’m so glad he’s here. He nods and turns again.
I jump off the counter and smack him on the behind. “Go get ‘er, tiger!”
He leaps a foot into the air. “You know, maybe I liked it better when you weren’t speaking to me.”
I narrow an eye. “No, you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t,” he says with a wry smile.
A few more dances and I sit the next one out. Bits decides on “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.”
Peter pulls a record from the pile. “After that’s a slow one,” he says to Ana, who’s eating a hummus-covered carrot. “Save it for me?”
She stops chewing and smiles, her face shining. Then she swallows hard and gulps some water.
I wink at her. “Peter knows how to waltz and fox trot and everything. He had to learn it for the cotillion.”
He rolls his eyes. “There was not a cotillion, Cassandra.”
I knew that, I just like to bother him about being rich.
Ana laughs and bites her lip. “I won’t be able to keep up.”
Peter smiles. “I barely remember the steps, anyway. You’ll do just fine.”
I turn away to hide my huge grin. It’s finally going to happen between them, and I didn’t even have to use my gun. I was starting to consider it as an option. Nelly spins a giggling Bits as her song begins. I eat my cake and decide that, in a strange way, this might be the best birthday ever. There’s so much to celebrate, even if there’s so much to mourn.
“Nelly!” Bits screams.
The fear in her voice makes me drop my fork and spin around. Nelly holds her in his arms. She points to the windows, her mouth open in a silent scream. It looks exactly how I’d thought it would, all these years of avoiding windows at night, afraid I’d see a ghostly face looking in. The screen of the window above the couch bulges in from the pressure of the infected. They press their mouths against it, snarling and moaning.
“Jesus Christ!” John yells. He never swears, and I’m not sure if it’s an oath or a plea for help. “Get the shutters!”
We spring into action. The wood usually seems so heavy, but I lift it like it’s nothing. James races to help and tightens the screws. Peter and Ana get the other porch window and hold it there, their muscles straining as they force it back against the onslaught. The screen must have ripped through.
Nelly has set Bits down, and he hauls the sliding door shutters across the room. She stands on the rug, pale and whimpering. I run to Nelly, and we get the boards there right as the glass breaks. They must be everywhere. A pod.
Neil Sedaka finishes singing about being true, and in the silence I hear Flora and Bert and the chickens screaming and clucking. And, of course, those horrible, ghastly moans.
The shutters buck under us. I turn my back to my board and push against it, but my feet slip millimeter by millimeter along the floor. Just when I think I can’t hold it any longer, Ana’s next to me, and we connect with the frame. John’s steady hands fasten the bolts.
Hands at the other higher windows leave slimy tracks in their wake. Faces appear and bite at the glass before they fall back; maybe they’re standing on other infected. Penny’s lugged the shutters to their respective windows, and we attach them. It makes me feel a little better that we can no longer see them and they can’t see us. My mouth is dry, and the sweat that runs down my back turns to ice when I realize we’re completely surrounded. We’re trapped.
“Fuck,” Nelly says. “We’re fucked.”
“We don’t know how many are out there,” John says. “I’m going to the loft to check it out. Shoes and armor on, everyone.”
We do as he says. The house echoes with the banging. A window breaks in one of bedrooms, but they can’t climb up, and Penny has closed the doors. I shrug on my holster and tend to Bits, who stands like she’s in a trance. I put on her shoes and zip up her jacket.
I hug her stiff body. “It’ll be okay.”
John leans down from the loft. “There are too many of them, with more coming out of the woods. We can’t make it to the van.”
I climb the ladder. They’re everywhere. They crawl up each other onto the porch and pace in the driveway. They surround the van at the corner of the house.
“If we can get them over here somehow, I can go out the hall window for the van,” John says.
“We can break the loft window and climb out, shoot our guns, maybe throw a lamp,” I say. “Fire might attract them.”
John nods in the dim light. We head back down, and John explains the plan.
“I’ll stay up in the loft,” I say. “As soon as I hear the van, I’ll throw the lamp and come running.”
“We’ll come running,” Nelly says. “I’m coming with you.”
Penny clutches Bits on her hip and nods with wide eyes. I hold the oil lamp I plan on using. It casts a flickering glow on our faces, like we’re telling spooky stories at summer camp. There’s no time to say anything else; the pounding has gotten louder and the shutters are holding, but they shift with each thump. They’ve bought us time, but maybe not that much, not with the number of infected out there.
Nelly and I climb to the loft. I use my cleaver to crack the windows, and Nelly pushes out the glass with a chair. We step out onto the porch roof.
“Up here!” I yell.
We kneel at the edge of the roof and aim for their heads, even though we’re only trying to get their attention. There’s no way to kill them all, but there’s no sense in wasting bullets. Their hands reach up and wave like they’re at a rock concert. The air is foul, filled with the stench of death. They’re trampling my mother’s flowers, which should be the least of my worries, but I hate them even more because of it. Nelly strips the armor off his arm, and I see the glint of metal in his hand.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He draws the knife across his forearm and blood wells up. “Giving the people what they want.”
He holds his arm out. The blood runs down and drips onto the infected. The instant it hits, they go insane. The moaning and hissing is so loud it attracts the stragglers to the front, and when they smell the blood they join the crush.
The motor of the van revs to life, and he gives his arm one last shake. I pick up the lamp and aim for an empty spot. I think again of that year of softball. It certainly would have served me well to practice more. I never would’ve guessed those skills might save my life; I’d always thought playing softball might be the thing that killed me.
I heave the lamp and it shatters and the oil ignites next to one of the infected. We slide down the ladder and run for the hallway.
The van is backed up to the window. Peter and Ana stand on either side to shoot at anything
that gets too close. More Lexers move our way, the distraction short-lived. James helps Penny and Bits into the van. There’s a crash of wood followed by the terrorized squeals of Bert and the goats. Bits covers her ears and stares at me with wide eyes as the rest of us make it in.
The van rocks as bodies slam against it like caged animals. John guns the engine. I hold onto my seat as we bump over the grass and plow down anything in our way. I wonder if I’ll ever see my beloved house again, and I turn to take one last look. And as the lamp oil ignites the tattered clothes of the infected and the flames race up their backs onto the porch, I wonder if there will even be anything left here to see.
CHAPTER 104
We spend the night in the van. The only one who gets rest is Bits. The rest of us sleep in fits and starts, waiting until there’s enough light to safely move on. Penny bandages the deep gash on Nelly’s arm.
“That was what drove them over the edge,” I say. I grimace as I remember the noises they made when the blood hit. “Does it hurt?”
“Nah,” Nelly says. “It’s fine.”
We leave when the sky is streaked with yellow. There’s a faint orange glow in the direction of the house. I tell myself we’re too far to see a fire and it’s the sunrise, but I don’t believe it.
James has planned a route that skirts around Bennington, but it’s jammed with abandoned cars, so we stay on the main road. It’s wide enough that we can weave our way around obstacles. We pass farmland choked with weeds and dandelions. In some places there are signs of a struggle, strewn bodies on the ground and cars tipped off the road. In others it’s the same woods of the northeast I’ve run in my whole life. On one lawn a Lexer sits in the sunshine like it’s enjoying the beautiful summer day. It stumbles to its feet, but by the time it’s on them we’re gone.
“There’s no one,” Penny says quietly. James takes her hand.
The houses become more frequent as we head into Bennington. We pass the Friendly’s restaurant where Eric and I would give ourselves ice cream headaches eating Reese’s Pieces sundaes. We’d slam the ice cream and then gulp our water, which would taste warm by comparison. I smile at the memory and watch John weave through an old roadblock where the ground is littered with black garbage bags.
“What’s funny?” Nelly asks.
I’m about to answer when we hit a bump. There’s a popping sound and the van shudders. John drives a few more yards and stops.
“Everyone stay inside,” he says.
He walks back and rips up the plastic to reveal boards of wood studded with nails. His face is tight when he returns and leans in the window. “Every tire’s flat. They must have abandoned the roadblock when things got bad. We need four tires or a new vehicle.”
Penny buries her head in her hands and moans. We spill out of the van and blink in the sunlight. It’s early in the morning, but the sun already feels hot enough to burn the back of my neck. My shirt sticks to me. I’m not sure if it’s from the sun or the fact that we’re standing in the middle of a deserted street, exhausted and with nowhere to go. There are cars past the roadblock and we try them all. The few that have keys won’t even turn over.
Peter pounds a fist on the roof of a hatchback. “Damn it!”
James points at the buildings down the block. “That looks like Main Street. How about we head there and see if there’s anything. We need to go west on Main anyway.”
“We may as well drive the gear down,” John says.
The wheels grind on their rims as he rolls along beside us. Main Street is a line of brick buildings with wooden storefronts. There are no cars, only a wide expanse of asphalt.
“James has an idea,” Nelly says. “He saw some houses with trucks and RVs as we drove in. Maybe we can find keys in the houses. We’ll take the bikes and go while y’all wait here.”
Penny looks at James in desperation. “I don’t think we should separate.”
“Pen, we can’t all go,” James says softly. “We don’t have enough bikes, even if all of us could make it. We’ll be gone an hour at most.”
I don’t like it either, but I don’t have a better plan. Not only do we need a car, but we also need one big enough to hold us all.
A sign on the corner building says Bennington Brew Company & Pub. It’s a three-story brick building with ornate white moldings around the windows. I think I see something move as a curtain in an open second-story window twitches. I watch as it flutters again, but there’s nothing else. It must have been the breeze.
“We can wait in the van or in here,” Peter says. “Maybe we should check it out.”
Inside, sunlight enters through the huge windows, making the polished oak and brass of the bar shine. The front room and back kitchen are empty. We unload the van and pile the bags by the bar.
“Peter and I will clear out the nails at the roadblock so they can get through. We’ll be gone fifteen minutes. You girls stay here with Bits. Put on the radio,” John says, and he and Nelly each put an earpiece in. I place the radio on the bar.
“Be back soon. Promise,” James says to Penny, who nods mutely.
I feel a sense of foreboding as the lock clicks on the door and am suddenly sure they’re never coming back. I watch as they pass the side windows, willing them to be safe. When they move out of sight, I notice Bits. She watches me carefully, her face devoid of hope, and I realize it’s a mirror of my expression. I force myself to smile.
“Be right back,” I say, and head to the kitchen where I spotted some bottles of fancy ginger ale. Back in the main room, I pull out four glasses and stand behind the bar.
“What are you doing?” Bits asks.
I try to look mysterious while I pour the ginger ale and follow it with grenadine syrup. I find an unopened bottle of maraschino cherries on a dusty shelf. I drop a few in each glass and slide Penny, Ana and Bits their drinks.
I lift mine in the air. “Shirley Temples. To the girls!”
Bits grins. The four of us clink glasses and sip through our tiny red straws.
“Yum. It’s been forever since I’ve had one of these,” Penny says. “I bet it would be good with vodka.” I reach down and pull out a bottle of the cheap stuff, since all the top shelf liquor is gone. She shakes her head and laughs. “What’s it, eight in the morning?”
“It’s a brave new world,” I say. “Cocktails at eight in the morning are practically necessary.”
There’s a burst of static from the radio. “Cassie.” John’s voice is forceful but not panicked. “There’s a pod coming our way. Be ready to let us in and lock the door.”
“Copy that,” Ana answers. Penny and I run to the door. They fly past the windows and race into the bar. Penny slams and locks it behind them.
“I think they saw us,” Peter gasps.
We wait in silence, hearts pounding. A cacophony of groaning tells us he’s right. Lexers appear in the side windows. There’s a crash as one throws itself against the doors. I don’t know if they can see well, but milky eyes peer in like they can. No one breathes. Bits sits on the stool with her drink clutched in her hands, halfway to her mouth.
The doors give a little. The lock holds, but it won’t for long. The gold of the deadbolt shines dully as the doors crack wider. The room is dim now, the streams of sunlight blocked by the crush of bodies outside the windows.
“In the back,” John says.
Peter grabs Bits in one arm and two backpacks in the other and backs through the kitchen door. We follow with as much as we can carry. The last thing I see are our Shirley Temples, my vain attempt at normalcy, waiting on the bar.
CHAPTER 105
The banging is muffled in here. I peer out the door window into the alley. There’s a parking lot directly behind us, but it’s on the other side of a chain-link fence. The only way out might be to the left, where the alley narrows and leads to the next block, but several dumpsters block my view of the other end.
“I’ll see where it goes,” John says. He opens the door. “It’s clear.
We’ll go down the alley to the street. Let me see where Nel and James are.”
He explains the situation into the radio and then listens. “There’s a pickup they can take. They’re getting it and coming our way. They’ll be at the end of the alley. Only take your daypacks, in case we have to run.”
I throw Bits’s little pack on her back and grab my daypack out of my backpack. It has food and ammo and first aid supplies, the stuff you don’t want to leave behind. There’s an explosion of glass in the front. They’ll be in soon.
“Let’s go,” Ana says. She closes the door with a gentle click once we’re out.
“We’ll—” John begins, but before any of us can move he’s yanked us to the ground behind the dumpsters. Infected are coming down the alley. Thanks to John they haven’t seen us.
“Where are you?” John whispers into the radio. “Change of plans. You’re going to have to come to the parking lot behind the bar. We’re behind the chain-link fence.” He pauses. “We’re going to have to try.”
He turns to us. “A few more minutes. They’ll call when they’re close.”
A garbage can in the alley crashes and rolls away with a clang. I peer through the crack between the dumpsters and see at least a dozen in my narrow field of vision. They’re forty feet away now.
“How are we going to get over the fence?” Penny’s voice is so quiet I have to read her lips.
She, Ana and Bits hunker against the building’s wall. Peter’s crouched next to me, against the dumpsters, his jaw clenched. He gestures for me to look in the crack again. The alley is packed. There won’t be time to get everyone over the fence. John, on my other side, takes a look and runs a hand down his face.
“We need a distraction,” I whisper to them.
It worked at the house. There’s silence as we think. I run through any number of scenarios and dismiss them all. There’s nothing to do but run and hope for the best.
Peter’s breath is warm on my ear. “Remember what you said before we left the city?”
His eyes search mine. I have no idea what he’s talking about or why he’s bringing it up now. He sees my confusion and leans forward again. “That sometimes we do things that jeopardize our own safety because we love someone?”
Until the End of the World (Book 1) Page 32
