***
The clouds threaten rain, which would help to cover our noises in the woods. As long as it’s not snow. We know from last year that snow alone isn’t enough to freeze Lexers—you need days of temperatures where it consistently dips below freezing before they fully succumb. Snow and warmer temperatures will only make driving difficult or impossible.
I put on Ana’s leather pants for warmth and protection, then layer as much as possible without restricting my movement. It’s a delicate balance, which is why I spend half my life freezing my ass off. I give Nelly medication instructions and tell him to take care of Bits.
“Always,” he says, and tweaks her nose. He’d tried to volunteer, but he’s not quiet in the woods the way we are.
I hug Bits. “Be back soon, honey. Love you.”
Bits nods and tightens her lips. I want to stay, but I’m sure-footed in the woods, if nowhere else. If the Lexers discover we’re here, their moans will call back any who’ve left.
“Love you,” Bits says.
“More than all the poop in the toilet?” I ask.
Peter heaves a sigh. But you’ve got to play to your audience, and my audience is amused by potty words. It sends her into a coughing spell, but she’s smiling. I wanted that to be the last thing I saw.
“There’s a whole lot of it,” Nelly says. “If you’re good, I’ll take you up to see it later.”
“Gross,” she chokes out.
Peter says goodbye without being vulgar and we head upstairs to a side window close to the trees. Kyle cuts the screen rather than pop it out and attract attention. Liz does a quick check before saying, “Lexers to our left down the driveway. Stay low and head straight.”
Liz drops to the crunchy grass and hurries into the trees. Kyle soundlessly follows, more agile than one would think. I check for any new threats before I meet them at the base of a tree. The leaves on the forest floor would be crunchy but for a recent rain that’s made them a softer covering of mulch.
Peter moves to my side, takes my arm and moves his finger between us. I nod that I’ll stay close. I roll my feet as we inch through the trees. Short, fast moves are sometimes better because they mimic animals, but animals don’t hang around with zombies, so we use slow shuffles, although it’s hard to go slow when your body is yearning to run. And although I’m worn-out and ravenous from the past couple of days, that’s exactly what my feet want to do.
We avoid a few who linger by a tree to our right. Everyone freezes when a twig cracks under someone’s foot and continues when there’s no reaction. The moans are louder out here, more so as we near the road. Another twig cracks and a Lexer appears. I sink behind some brush and wait for it to pass, Peter’s hand on my back.
Now that there are fewer trees between us and the road, we can see a few dozen Lexers near the base of the driveway about a hundred feet down. We could drive through those no problem. But it’s a different story farther down the road, where it’s packed with zombies in varying stages of decay—from riddled with mold to freshly-turned this summer. They haven’t moved the way pods do, unless this isn’t really a pod.
The days we’ve spent trapped have given us plenty of time to ponder why the road was blocked in Wasilla. The highway could have been cleared by survivors from Whitehorse, which would’ve attracted all the lone zombies to the area. For all the time I’ve spent around them, Lexers are still a mystery. Why some form into moving pods and some don’t, how long the mold will take to kill them, and how the hell they exist in the first place are questions no one knows the answer to. No one I know, anyway.
Liz raises her eyebrows and points to the end of the road. The walk may be 500 feet, but it takes us twenty minutes of tiptoeing and skirting around Lexers to make it to where the gravel road begins. We saw the dead end the other day, but in our haste to turn around we hadn’t seen the clearing that provides access to the train tracks but for a lone tree. The trunk is four inches in diameter, thick enough to damage a vehicle if it isn’t cut down. But before we tackle the tree we need to take out the few Lexers between us and the tracks. And the only way to do that is to cross the road in plain sight.
It doesn’t take them long to notice us once we leave the safety of the trees, and their noises seem to echo for miles. I bring the spike of my axe into one still wearing a coat and one thin glove and get the next with a side swing through its ear. When they’re down, we sink into the trees along the tracks. Peter drops and creeps forward until he’s resting on a railroad tie. He looks one way and then the other before crawling back.
He points east with a shake of his head and then says, “But west isn’t bad. Maybe twenty. Spread out.”
Kyle’s head bobs. “Now how about that tree?”
We stare at the tree as if it might just suddenly up and move of its own accord. I hold up my axe in answer, but the impossible part is going to be chopping down a tree without bringing everything in a mile this way.
“Distraction,” Liz says, and points to the woods that separate us from the highway. If someone made noise in there it would cover up the chopping. My axe is sharp; it shouldn’t take that many blows to get the tree down, especially if Peter or Kyle wields it.
I point east. “It’ll get them off the road, too.”
“And surround whoever’s in there,” Kyle says.
“I’ll go,” Peter offers.
“Chop it fast and they won’t have time to surround us,” I say because I’m going with him. I hand Kyle my axe and stare Peter down. He’s the one who volunteered for the job after telling me to stick close. Besides, if I stayed to chop down the tree, I’d probably cut off my own fingers. “We’ll give you a few minutes before we circle north to the house.”
Kyle passes me his machete. It weighs a ton and I’m more likely to drop it on my foot than lift it into a zombie’s head. I hand it back and pull the knife from my belt. It’ll have to do.
“Ready?” I ask Peter in a voice that sounds a lot less scared than I am. I’ve never purposely walked into the middle of a pod. Unless you count the quarry, which was in an ambulance and a completely insane idea.
Peter nods. “When you hear the first shot, start cutting.”
We cross for the woods. Fifty feet in, Lexers stand singly and in groups. Some cross the forest floor while others sway with limp arms, waiting for something to interest them. They’ll get it soon enough.
This side of the woods is noisier—leaves rustle underfoot and moans filter through the air—so we don’t have to be as quiet. Still, we scurry from tree to tree and make a wide arc around a few dozen who wander in circles. I try not to count them, but I can’t help it. We want to draw as many as possible our way, but every one we pass is one more we’ll have to fight through to get back to the house.
It reminds me of being trapped in the woods with Adrian and Marcus, and I don’t want to be the only one who makes it out this time. We crouch at a wide trunk and Peter points to a clump of trees on a small rise 400 feet east. We’ll have to skirt around a lot of Lexers to get there, but it’s far enough in that Kyle should have the time he needs.
Footsteps near. We press ourselves against the bark, barely breathing. Tattered jeans and the back of a head of matted, blond hair come into view. It stops for a moment and raises its head before continuing on.
Peter whispers, “Once they start coming, we run.”
His heartbeat pulses in his neck, but he looks focused. Adrian was focused, right before he took off to save me. Peter wouldn’t hesitate to do the same, and the thought of him running off is more terrifying than zombies.
“Together,” I whisper. “Don’t leave.”
Peter grips my arm and leans close. “Never.”
We dodge from tree to tree and slam through bushes when we’re close. At the top of the rise, it becomes apparent just how many there are, and they all start toward us at Peter’s yell. We space out our shots to keep their attention away from the distant hatchet thuds I think I hear.
They’
ve closed in enough to cause panic, for me if not for Peter, and we run for a clear area of forest away from Kyle and Liz. I fire into the crowd, not caring if I hit, only that I make enough noise to keep them coming.
“Behind you!” Peter yells, and grabs my hand before I have time to fully take in the new group coming our way.
We run in the direction of the road, zigzagging through trees and over logs until we come upon a solid line of Lexers that blocks escape—a search party combing the woods. Peter drags me straight toward them. He’s planning to hit them head-on. The Lexers move into thicker formation, but Peter doesn’t stop and neither do I, although in a perfect world I’d sit him down for a discussion of what exactly doing something stupid entails. When we’re five feet away, Peter yanks me down the line to an opening that wasn’t there before, and we’re through.
We slide through a muddy ditch and cross the road into the north woods. Lexers march down the gravel and struggle up the incline behind us, but the forest is clear except for a few buzzing around that we don’t bother to kill. The cold air burns my lungs as we climb higher into the trees. The house is built on a hill; if we move up and to the west, we’ll eventually find it below.
From our vantage point, we see that though many of them walk east to where Peter and I disappeared, plenty remain. The train tracks are still our best bet. We stop to catch our breath on a steep ridge. Peter’s smile is bright against his smudged face. “We did it.”
I don’t want to count our chickens before they hatch, but this should be the easy part. Of course, that could be said about almost everything else in the past week. “We did it,” I repeat with an answering grin. “Although I thought you’d lost your mind there for a minute. Thanks for pulling me through.”
After I say it, I realize I could be thanking him for any number of things. He pulled me through Bennington, through Adrian’s death, through thinking I was a horrible mother, through the four thousand miles of this trip, through the night when I thought for sure Bits was lost. Every time I come up against a wall, Peter opens a door.
“Not that you needed me to.”
“I did,” I say, and I mean it. “Let’s get out of here.”
We walk slowly, both to keep quiet and because my muscles aren’t capable of much more. Strenuous exercise and the lack of food are taking their toll. I have a tickle in my throat which I want desperately to clear. We spot the house and pick our way down to the side window where Nelly’s golden hair shines in the gloom. Only two Lexers remain at the base of the driveway.
Nelly hooks his hands under my arms when I struggle through the bedroom window. Once we’re in he says, “The tree’s down. We’re ready to leave.”
I collapse on the edge of the twin bed. It’s afternoon, but as far as my joints are concerned it’s bedtime. The mattress has been moved to the living room, but I could happily curl up on the box spring for a week.
“You okay?” Peter asks.
“I’m just tired.” He furrows his brow when I stand and stagger. “C’mon, let’s go.”
CHAPTER 50
It’s so easy it’s mind-boggling. By the time we’re in the vehicles and down the driveway, they’ve only just noticed us. We kick up gravel as we round the bend and bump onto the train tracks. I offered to ride in the pickup bed, and now my skull is about to crack open from the jouncing. It still might be better than the VW, which bounces along at a slant beside the tracks so it doesn’t bottom out.
It’s only a few hours to Talkeetna, and I can take a few hours of anything if the end means food and warmth and safety. I eat my mini box of Fruit Loops with my eyes closed and try to ignore the way my throat hurts when I swallow. My plan is to sleep for two days when we get there, after I eat some real food.
The bouncing ceases. I hear a cheer from inside the truck when we reach the highway and my head cheers by reducing its banging to bearable. I nestle in my blanket and sleep until Nelly’s elbow hits my side. “Wake up, darlin’. We’re turning onto the Talkeetna road.”
We count down the distance. The town is fourteen miles from the turn, but we’re bound to hit a fence sooner. I wish everyone were here for this moment. I’ve been plowing through, trying not to think about anything but making it here, and now all the losses press down on me. I’ve cried along the way, but I feel a doozy coming on once I’m through their gates.
We hit a guard house at a crossroads—a cabin high above the ground, same as ours at Kingdom Come. Two men and two women stand on its walkway and watch Zeke step from the truck.
“How are y’all?” he asks. “We’re here from Vermont and Whitefield, New Hampshire.”
The other two above wave while a man and woman climb down the ladder to stand in the road. The woman slings her rifle on her shoulder and sticks out a hand.
“I’m Patricia,” she says. She’s a couple of years older than me, with shoulder-length platinum hair and features that would be delicate if they hadn’t just turned slightly bitchy. She looks us over, a line forming between her eyebrows.
The man is late thirties, with dark, almond-shaped eyes and dark hair tied in a short ponytail. He gives Zeke’s hand a rough shake and says, “Terry. Glad to have you here.” Patricia shoots him a look. He points two fingers up the road. “The gate’s a mile ahead. They’ll meet you up there.”
He waves when we pull away. Patricia stands with her hands on her hips, mouth moving a mile a minute in Terry’s face. I try to figure out what’s wrong with us, but come up with nothing.
“She was nice,” Nelly says.
We pass houses and a sign for an airport before we reach the chain-link gate with a log wall on either side. It heads west down a dirt road and ends at the railroad tracks a few hundred feet to our east. A thin man with a hook nose and a friendly expression swings open the gate. “Hey there. I’m Clark, but everyone calls me Eagle. Frank will meet you down at the brewery. Make a left on Main. You’ll see the sign.”
The two-lane street has wide shoulders that serve as sidewalks. Wooden houses that were once businesses now look more like living quarters. We’re the only vehicles on the street, and the people walking stop to watch us pass. A few raise their hands.
We turn left at a small village green. Main Street is lined with everything from log cabins to larger wooden buildings, many with slightly rusted tin roofs. It could look dreary, but the overall impression is of a quirky, welcoming village.
A man waits outside a blue two-story building whose sign says Talkeetna Brewery. Rooms, a few the color of freshly sawed wood, grow off it in all directions. The man’s skin is tough like he’s been around a lot of Alaskan winters; he could be anywhere in his forties to sixties. He folds his arms as we step out. I take Bits’s hand. She still looks ill, and I’m worried they’ll accuse us of bringing Bornavirus to their Safe Zone.
“I’m Frank,” the man says. “How many are you and were you wanting to stay?”
“Nineteen,” Mark says in a friendly tone, as if the man’s question hadn’t been curt and bordering on rude. “And, yes, I believe you spoke to John at Kingdom Come and told us we’d be welcome? The Vermont and New Hampshire Safe Zones were both compromised by the large pods—you must have heard of them.”
“We’ve heard of them,” Frank says. “But we have a problem. Why don’t you send whoever’s in charge inside so we can talk?”
We look around for the person in charge until finally Zeke says, “Why don’t you tell us your problem?” He crosses his arms in a mirror of Frank’s stance, mouth a line under his beard.
“We can’t take in anyone else. We’ve got a lot of the Whitehorse Safe Zone here.”
James draws himself up to his full height. He’s thinner than usual, but he manages to loom over Frank, and he most definitely isn’t calm. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Bits whimpers and begins to cough. Frank tries to speak over her coughing but finally gives up and waits it out with a blank expression.
“There’s no room?” Peter asks, hand on B
its’s shoulder.
“There’s room,” Frank says. I’m thinking he could look a little more apologetic about the fact that we’ve driven 4,000 miles to get here and are being told we can’t stay. I’m also thinking I’d like to punch him. “There’s not enough food. We’re short food for forty of our people. Add in another nineteen and we’d be cutting it too close.”
Penny steps forward. “We have seeds, and potatoes that could be used for seed.”
“That’s all fine and good come the spring.” Frank speaks quickly as a man and a woman exit the restaurant and walk to his side. “But it won’t do us much good in March when we’re starving.”
“Well, we don’t have food, but we have a dentist.” Mikayla gestures at Zeke and then points to James with her smile that’s never failed to make a friend. “And he’s an expert with solar. We can set up greenhouses. Ben knows farming and the rest of us have been doing this for a year. We’re not here to just eat your food. We’ll work…” She trails off when he shakes his head.
“There are houses on the other side of the fence,” Frank says. “You’re more than welcome to stay there and hunt for your food, set up however you want. But we can’t help you. I’m sorry.”
I drag Bits toward the VW. I’m not going to beg to live in this stupid town. We’ll walk to Anchorage if we have to, where we can winter over and find supplies after the Lexers freeze.
“Cassie, where are you going?” Peter asks.
I spin around. “We’re leaving. Fuck this shitty little town.” Frank looks at me with raised eyebrows. I glare at him. “If you’d shown up in Vermont we would’ve taken you in. We would’ve figured it out.”
“We sure as shit wouldn’t have told you not to let the gate hit you in the ass,” Zeke says.
The woman to Frank’s left tries to speak, but I cut her off. “You don’t know what we went through to get here. We lost people. We couldn’t save them, but this—” I wave my hand at the kids, “this will be on you.”
Until the End of the World (Book 3): All the Stars in the Sky Page 25
