by Tara Brown
“Flawed and all.” My words are whispered compared to his.
“What about three other things you miss the most, not your mom?” Kyle asks quietly. We are always quiet here. “And you can’t pick any other people.”
“Oh, that’s easy then. Netflix, popcorn, and my phone.”
“Wow.” He scoffs, tossing the small stick he’s twisting at me. “You’re lame. No imagination at all.”
“Fine.” I toss the stick back. “What else do you miss? Something imaginative.”
“Listening to your voice on the phone when you were really tired. You would sound so sleepy you could barely form words, but we stayed on the phone. The taste of peaches fresh off the tree, still warm from the sun.” He sighs, tapping his finger on his lip. “And feeling the warm wind on my face whenever we went sailing in the Mediterranean.”
“Your answers are too intense. You can’t miss those things the most.” I have to laugh at him. “You’re trying too hard for it. They have to be things you miss the most because you had them all the time.”
“I might not have had them all the time but I cherished them. And now they’re things I will never have again. I will never hear your voice on the phone again, or sail in Greece and Croatia again.”
“We might find a peach tree,” I offer cheekily.
“I really hope we find a peach tree.” His smile makes me tighten inside as something cuts off our discussion.
Everything is always cut short here.
In the distance, something makes a noise.
Kyle smiles through it. He can’t hear it.
I lose my smile as I listen, my eyes lose their focus.
His lips move and my brain flickers back to the moment we proved that something is wrong with me, something different. I am different. I am different from every other person on the ski hill.
I can climb. I can jump. I can aim.
All these are normal human abilities, but I do them with more.
We’ve tested it out for a week solid, and the answer is I am more.
We’ve cut me so deep I saw my bones and it healed instantly.
I can run so fast, so much faster than I ever imagined possible for humans.
I am more.
The little robots inside me made me better.
But I didn’t want to be better. No one asked me my thoughts on being more.
At the most, all I wanted in life was to be better at lacrosse and schoolwork. I wanted to be a better healer in raids. I still wanted to be normal though.
And now that’s something I will never be again.
Hearing the sounds, I know I have to go down there. I don’t let the undead get close. “I have to go to the bathroom.” I grab the branch in front of me and hop out of the tree.
“Be care—” He pauses. “Never mind. I’ll just wait here.”
“Okay.” It makes me smile when he tells me to be careful. He isn’t used to me being a freak show yet either.
Trying to move silently, I make my way to the road, to the noises.
His bloodshot eyes are the first thing I notice. Despite the distance, I cringe at the way they dart, proving he’s smarter than he appears.
His right arm doesn't move so well, not as well as the left one that grabs quickly at the fallen animal in front of him.
The undead eat animals now too. They aren’t driven to spread their disease to the rest of humanity.
All they do is function.
It’s them and food.
And me.
Me, stuck unsure of where I belong.
Not wanting to kill him, but knowing he can’t be this close to the Littles, I lift the bow I always carry on guard duty, now that we ration bullets, sighting him in, and release the arrow, hurling it silently across the forest. The slice of the arrow is the only noise in the forest for half a second until he falls to the ground, crunching on the branches of the forest floor. Hitting the biters in the head, preferably the eye, still kills them.
I’m not certain if it would kill me or not. I don’t want to try it out, though deep down I wonder if I will ever die.
Instead of walking back to Kyle, I sit and lean my back against the tree I’m next to.
Standing here with the wind whistling around me, I close my eyes and let it be just us. Me and the eerie wind.
I swear it's the only thing that can stop the voices of every person on the hill. I hate hearing them all.
My silence is short-lived.
Over the cold whistle of wind, I hear something else. Voices. Quiet voices. New voices.
I open my eyes and focus, turning my head toward the sound.
People are slinking along the roadway, scanning around and moving forward.
Their faces are familiar, giving me memories of before. It’s not that I know them, any of them. I don’t.
But I know what they’re thinking and fearing. I see it all over their faces as they sneak along the side of the road. They move slowly, always together. Always surviving.
We’re surviving, all of us. But I don’t know why.
I don’t know what we’re surviving for, what the point is. It’s a question I suspect we all ask ourselves.
My personal mission is keeping the Littles alive, but I don’t understand why we can’t all just fall asleep and wake up in Heaven, peaceful and quiet. Dad and Mom will be there, waiting with their arms open.
It’s time for a new world, a better one.
This one has become worn out. It’s used and battered. Something we broke.
We can’t put it back together, not the way it was.
And us leftovers, the ones still surviving, are in worse shape.
We’re different now.
We are all different.
Some of us are different in good ways and others in bad.
Some of us got weaker while others thrived.
Every time I see our leftovers, the last of us, on the roads, they all look the same. Not as before, but the same now. We have one look. It’s homeless chic.
And as they all do, the lost people below me are shuffling from whatever they left behind, toward the lies they have allowed themselves to hope for.
Rumors that have ridden the whistling wind to wherever these people have come from.
A town where no one died.
A town where the zombies never came.
A town where they fought back and everyone is working together.
A utopia that rode out the storm.
That’s a lie. When the dust settled, I believed it for half a second and I made a wish based on that belief. But I remind myself there’s nowhere that wasn’t touched by this. Nowhere. And so that must be a lie or a trap of some sort. And as much as I want to help these people below me, I can’t. I can’t spare the food or the housing. So I have to let them walk in hope toward a trap.
Hope is dead.
It’s weakness playing with your mind.
A town might exist where no one died, but they don’t want us. They don’t want another mouth to feed. They don’t want more burden. They’re full up. They will protect whatever it is they have managed to preserve.
Just like we have up at the ski hill.
We’re full up.
The people on the road don’t care about burdens and being full up. They’re scared. They move along, hoping.
They fascinate me.
Maybe because I’m different now.
When I see them, I protect them if I can.
The world has gone crazy and it has taken me with it.
I’m a hostage forced to taste and feel and smell everyone else’s fear.
They don’t walk alone, the people on the road.
They huddle.
They move in herds, slowly becoming the animals we proved we were in the end.
No. Animals are better than we are.
They never would’ve done what we have, never. Not to each other.
What we did was beyond imaginable.
We turned each other in
to zombies. We bit and chewed each other. Cannibalistic chaos.
We blew up cities.
We killed each other.
Scientists and government and military and some man’s version of God, and whoever else was in on it, killed us.
My father’s blamelessness fades daily like my memory of what ice cream tastes like.
Every time I see another herd of silent people, creeping amongst dead cars and hiding in the shadows, I see his part in it all.
He did this.
He built this.
He ruined us.
He didn’t mean to, but he did.
I love him. He saved me. He was my dad.
But there is a realness to his blame.
Just like there is a realness in me, in what I have become.
And that’s also his fault.
I heal too quickly.
I run too easily.
I see too far.
I smell things miles away.
Am I still human?
No.
Yes.
Maybe.
There’s no easy answer for that. I was once. I was a girl with dreams and time. So much time.
I miss freedom and the lazy world we lived in.
Kyle might miss his romantic gestures and sailing. I miss sleeping in and pouring cereal into a bowl and eating it slumped over the counter playing games on my phone.
Taking a breath, I bring my focus back to why I’m here on the side of the road, leaning on a tree.
The group of people below me is small, the herds are getting fewer.
When the snow first melted, I heard there were huge migrations of them on all the roads.
But it’s been weeks without snow, and I fear most of them have headed for the promises whispered on the winds.
They lift their heads, plot their next steps, weaving in and out of burned-out cars and debris on the road. They plan before they breathe their next breath.
Something else makes a noise down the road beyond them.
It’s a second one—a second biter.
He’s walking, eating, and peeing his pants.
That’s all they do now, those biters. They drink when they have to, eat when they need to, and pee their pants. It’s disgusting. The only time they look for a host now is when they get sick.
But it’s not them looking for a host. It’s the tiny parasites. Nanobots of doom. Sounds like a kids’ TV show, not something we’re actually enduring.
When you shoot biters in the head and they fall to the ground, their blood moves with purpose. Blood driven by nanobots who survived the seventh day, somehow. Large numbers of hosts imploded, just not all. And I don't know how to kill the blood that slithers.
I lift the bow, sighting the second creature in. Taking a deep breath, I pause before I release the arrow, hurling it silently across the highway.
He spins and drops.
The scurrying group doesn’t see it. They’re still plotting their next move.
They hustle along, not realizing I’ve just saved them. Seeing them moving and going somewhere makes me want to join them. Remaining in one spot up here feels like the wrong choice, like I’m being drawn by them.
But I know that’s a bad idea. Staying here at the cabin is our best bet.
It’s what’s best for Joey and the Littles.
Maybe it’s the nanobots who want me to become a nomad again and follow those people.
“Lou?” Kyle calls down the hill. He does it softly, knowing I can hear from too far away.
I push off the tree and get up to hike back to where he is.
He’s leaned against the tree he was in, his green eyes sparkling with mischief.
“Hey.” I sling the bow over my shoulder.
“Was it more than just a pee?”
“Yeah.” I chuckle.
“Maybe a little biter killing?”
“Two of them were down there and there was a group of people.”
“Coming here?” he asks cautiously.
“No. They moved on,” I offer as he pulls me into him and kisses me.
I close my eyes and pretend for one whole second that we’re in the real world, the other world, the world before. I pretend everything is good again. We’re just two lovesick kids roaming the forest and having fun.
And for that one second, I relax into him and it’s bliss.
Chapter Seventeen
“Lou!” My little sister, Joey, runs toward me as we walk up the hill to our cabin. She’s shoving our massive Irish wolfhound out of her way while he nudges her. “Furgus, don’t!” she shrieks.
Kyle snickers at the scene, the way he always does, but I manage to keep my laughing to the inside. Joey hates it when we laugh at them.
The massive dog likes to run with her, keeping her in check and in his view at all times. I don't know if he’s smart enough to get what’s going on, but I suspect he’s smarter than he’s given credit for. He’s different up here. Watchful in a way he never was before.
“Lou, did you hear? Men came from the city. It’s real!” Joey shouts a sentence I never imagined I’d hear from her lips. It isn’t just that I doubted the city was real, it’s that my little sister would know about it.
We’ve kept our discussions on the city, the infamous city, to a dull roar. No one knows what to believe. We’ve heard it all, not just the utopia but also this: Somewhere in North Dakota is the new capital city of the new United States which is now just a country called America. There are no states and no borders. Canada has become America. Mexico has become America. America covers all the land that once was North America. America has a ruler, a king. America is no longer a democracy. Martial law is enforced. The military is run by an evil government. The government is a bunch of lies and it’s still chaos out there. The world has ended and no one is running anything.
I don't know what to believe. We’ve heard so little and yet so much of it all.
The news changes frequently.
Some of it's the same.
The mail is up and running.
Electricity is up and running in certain places.
People with bite marks who lived through the process are supposed to turn themselves in. They get taken away and we never see them again.
I’ve hidden my bite, but I think I’m the only one left.
Mr. Milson’s friend with the pacemaker is gone.
The lady who had the leg bite is gone.
The man who got bit on the back is gone.
I had no idea there were so many of us until they got turned in.
No one knows about me, no one but my closest people. And in six months they haven’t turned me in, so I suspect they won’t.
I worry that I’m the last person like me alive. That if the government is taking the people like me away, they’re killing them. Or using them to clear cities and kill the undead who somehow lived through the self-destruction of the nanobots.
Or maybe the nanobots were never going to self-destruct and my dad didn't know as much as he thought he did.
Anything’s possible. Anything and nothing.
“The city is real. Mr. Milson’s friend—the man with the pacemaker—he’s back.” Joey’s smiling an excited gap-toothed grin. I’m nervous instantly.
“Back?”
“What do you mean ‘back’?” Kyle asks her.
“Mr. Milson—” she huffs her breath as Julia and Lissie catch up behind her. “Mr. Milson said something and hugged him. He seemed happy.”
“Mr. Milson asked where he went and the man said he was sent to a facility in Boulder or something,” Julia answers, aware of the details better than Joey who has never been a details girl. “He said he was taken there and they had power and water and people were doing okay.”
“Really?” I cock an eyebrow and glance at the lodge, giving Kyle a not so subtle stare. “You three go inside and take the dog. Lock the door. We’ll go see about that.”
“I think Jamie and Sasha are at the cabin still,” Kyle
says. “They could make you something to eat.”
“No. Sasha went to the infirmary to help. She’s still doing the nurse training thing,” Julie adds as they walk off.
“Weird that Mr. Milson’s neighbor’s back. I thought the military was taking the bitten away, as in they were going to fight or die or something clandestine.”
“Yeah, me too.” He sounds worried but grabs my hand and starts walking to the lodge.
When I turn back to check on the Littles, Furgus is staring back at me. He watches me for a second before turning and bounding after them.
The Irish wolfhound being with them makes everything better.
He’s not vicious at all, but he’s huge. Not the sort of dog you’d mess with.
Kyle squeezes my fingers as we get to the lodge. My hands aren’t sweaty like they used to be. My body maintains its composure better.
Just as the girls said, Mr. Milson is speaking to an older man, laughing and happy.
I walk faster to get to them, desperate to know the truth.
The room’s crowded as people discuss plans and needs and problems. The mayoral meetings aren’t enough anymore. There are too many shortages and issues now.
The mayor’s in the corner, the way he always is, reminding me of a king on the throne and listening to the peasants’ issues.
He doesn’t bat an eyelash in our direction as I pass by people and squeeze my way into the middle of a conversation.
“Hi, Mr. Milson.”
“Lou, my dear girl. This is Harold, my neighbor from Laurel. Harold, this is Lou and her friend Kyle. Her family’s cabin is next to ours.” He loses some of his joy when he says “ours.” He’s still sore over his wife’s untimely death. Her inability to live in this new world robbed him of more than I think she realized it would.
“Hi, Harold.” I grin. “So, you’re back from Boulder?”
“I am.” He nods excitedly. “Grateful to be back.” He shudders, losing some joy.
“What’s happening out there?” I don’t bother with niceties, I want answers.
“Oh, not much,” he lies. His eyes tell me something, a story I’m unable to read. It's not a happy ending, I can tell that much. And not just the eyes, there’s something else. A feeling. A buzz. A hum. It’s the same feeling I get from the undead, only with Harold it’s much stronger.
“What’s Boulder like?” Kyle asks. “We heard there’s water and power.”
