Thunder Rolling

by Ripley Proserpina

  A pit of dread filled my stomach. “But this is what I do. This is my whole job. I give you guys energy. I fix what’s wrong. What other purpose do I have, if not that?”

  He blinked rapidly, staring at me for a long moment. “Are you kidding? We’re all in love with you. Deeply in love with you. Your point is to be Whitney, to be here with us. What is any of our purposes when it really comes down to it?”

  I ached everywhere, but I threw my arms around him anyway. “When you were gone there was a hole in my soul.”

  His body shuddered against mine, so I held him. When he spoke, his voice was low, barely a whisper. “In my whole existence, living or dead, no one has ever felt that way about me. My dad was an abusive piece of shit. My mom took off when I was a baby. Didn’t want to deal with my crazy dad or a crying kid. My stepmother couldn’t have cared if I lived or died. She was nice to Isaiah but different with me. And… Isaiah took off as fast he could and never looked back. No one has ever cared whether or not I was around.”

  “I do.” There was that shudder again. Neither of us moved. Where did we have to go anyway? If this was the way the world ended I wanted as many hugs and kisses and soft moments as possible. I’d be selfish that way.

  6

  Nick

  Every time I came to Roanoke, I was glad to leave it. That was true before I died, too. I never got into so much trouble as I did when I walked through the city. But we needed medicine and, damn it, I was going to fucking find some.

  I started down the mountain, the old car I found bucking and whining all the way down. As I tested the brakes, I realized this was the first time in weeks I’d been alone. Usually, having space to breathe was what I wanted. I’d snuck out of Zero multiple times when humanity, ha—humanity—became too overwhelming, and if one more person spoke to me, I’d punch them in their stupid face.

  But things were different now. I didn’t want to be alone. Maybe I should have had Isaiah come with me. No. He’d get the machines to Dante, and between him and Brandon, they’d fix it.

  When we’d first run away from Gil Lake’s kingdom, I was a little hesitant about hiding out in the woods.

  Again.

  We were down in the city, we might as well take advantage.

  But John and Isaiah were certain we’d be better off in the hills. I would never admit this, but they were right. And god damn, it was beautiful. The sun had risen and as far as I could see were the Blue Ridge Mountains. I’d be happy living up here for as long as we could.

  I eyed the gas gauge. While I was out, I’d need to find gas, too. And probably stop at an auto parts store because I didn’t like how squishy the brakes were. They’d hold out for a while, but I wasn’t willing to take the risk, especially if Whitney was in the car with me.

  I stopped, leaning over the steering wheel to consider the routes. End of the world scavenging wasn’t quite as obvious as people thought. Pharmacies. Grocery stores. Those places were long past looted.

  And things had expiration dates. Even if I did happen to drive up to a drug store, go inside, and find a hidden cache of antibiotics, chances were they’d be as effective as a spoonful of sugar.

  Which was to say, it’d be a waste of my time.

  No. I had to be smarter. Savvier.

  Sneakier.

  And damn, I could be sneaky.

  I crossed over a set of railroad tracks and it came to me. The train yards. Roanoke had dozens of lines into the city. In the early days of the Infection, it’d been one of the few reliable ways to transport supplies. Why hadn’t I thought of this before?

  There was the potential for not only medicine, packed to last over long journeys, but canned goods. Maybe even gasoline. Who knew what was there?

  I drove through the deserted streets, grateful the people who’d abandoned their cars often drove them off to the side of the road. Considerate. More, I could siphon gas from them in a pinch.

  Every so often, I drove by a Controlled. Out here, they were in pretty bad shape, and I doubted they were part of Dex’s horde. They wandered aimlessly, stopping when they heard the engine of my car to watch me as I drove past. One started after me, dragging its rotted leg as I watched it in my rearview mirror. Would it go on and on forever? Only stopping when it could no longer pull itself by its fingertips?

  Was that going to be me someday when Whit was gone? I shook my head. I couldn’t go there. Right now I had a fucking task, and I was going to complete it, end of story.

  At the train yards, I parked and checked my surroundings before exiting the car, then I checked them again. If I got caught, I was screwed. I didn’t want to be killed by any mouth breathers so the guys had to rescue me and Whit had to fix me.

  Or worse, end back with Dexter.

  I’d been one of the last ones to escape to Zero before the deluge in Roanoke had separated him from so many of his horde. Of course, a huge number of them were on their way back to him now. In my head, I could hear him sometimes. Talking. Thinking. Tuning in seemed to be my psychic role in this mess. I was a receiver. I could listen.

  I just didn’t want to.

  I made my way into the train yard, carefully watching my steps so I didn’t make noise. The first car I saw held only dead bodies. In a sick way, it was interesting. Some people actually perished and then didn’t rise again.

  But back in the day, before the Infection, people died. And then after, when they knew what could happened, they torched their loved ones so they didn’t come back. Before Whit, I thought the ones who stayed dead were lucky.

  But then, I hadn’t had any loved ones when Gil Lake strapped me to a tree and had me tortured to death.

  I hated the bastard about as fiercely as I loved his daughter.

  The next car had a better stash. I’d had the presence of mind to grab a backpack, and I filled it up with bandages and antiseptic, both found in the corner of the car. There were shoelaces. I grabbed them, knowing anything could turn out to be useful.

  No antibiotics or medicines, not yet. I just had to keep looking.

  A sound outside caught my attention, and I stopped moving to listen. Was it an animal or a human? I crept forward, holding my breath. Seconds turned to minutes as I stared through the crack in the door, waiting.

  Finally, I saw them. Two children. The living variety. Thank God.

  There really was nothing worse than seeing the children in the horde—their bodies failing, their eyes unfocused and opaque. I didn’t know if Dex had the ability to let them die, but I doubted he’d be kind enough to let it happen.

  He’d been a teenager himself when he perished. Part of what was the problem with him. As Dante had said, Dex’s frontal lobe never fully developed. Whatever that meant. The guy was a douche.

  “I heard someone, Reid. I know I did. If it’s a zombie, I want to gouge out his eyes.”

  The other kid kicked something. “No, I didn’t hear anything, Matthias, and you know what Mama said. They could eat us.”

  “Not you,” the boy said. “You smell like poop. Not even a zombie would touch you.”

  “You smell like poop. And boogers,” the other countered.

  “How can someone smell like boogers, dummy?”

  These two were going to bring out every Controlled within a mile. Though they were funny as fuck, and I was sort of wondering what boogers smelled like, too, they had to shut up.

  But it was tricky. Kids were different these days. When I was little, my parents taught me about stranger danger.

  Well, amp that up by about a thousand. There were bad guys everywhere. Not only the living ones, but the undead ones. The kids who survived in this world were ruthless.

  I guess they had to be.

  I wouldn’t say I was a coward, but I definitely wasn’t stupid. Things wouldn’t end well for me if they were bait and I was the hapless idiot who tried to help them.

  I didn’t know where these kids came from, and I didn’t know if they were on their own or if they had family.

&
nbsp; Or a gang.

  I knelt behind a crate. It was probably best if I stayed hidden. Let the kids go on their merry, insult-laden way. I was pretty content with the decision when I heard it. Groaning.

  Fuuuuuuck. This messed up all my plans.

  “I told you to shut up!” one of them yelled.

  Jumping out of the car, I took out the first Controlled who’d crawled from under one of the engines to drag itself toward them. Like ants, they came toward us, most of them legless, and some with only one arm.

  The Controlled were reaching for me, their ruined fingertips grasping at my boots. I kicked it away. One of the kids—Reid? Matthias? Who knows? All kids looked alike to me—stabbed it in the eye with a long, sharp pole.

  Like I said—ruthless.

  Now that they were busy, the kids were quiet. Both boys worked methodically, intelligently, until the stream of Controlled was just a heap of flesh.

  As soon as our mutual enemy was dispatched, they turned their pointy murder-sticks on me. “Stay away!”

  Studying them without worrying about the zombies, I found two boys who didn’t look anything alike. They were about the same height, which made me think they were similar ages, but one had brown hair and pale skin, and the other brown hair and brown skin.

  They poked at me with the sticks, like they were trying to herd me, and I slapped them out of the way. “Watch it, boogers.”

  “Get out of here!” The boy with pale skin said. He was the one who talked about his mom. Reid.

  “I’ll be on my way,” I said, stepping away. I watched them carefully. No doubt if I gave them my back, they’d stab me. And I wasn’t going to die today.

  “What did you find, boys?” a high, soft voice asked.

  From behind a train car stepped a girl. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen, or fourteen, but her eyes were hard.

  “A man, Mama,” Matthias answered. “He was in our train.”

  She was obviously not their biological mother. Maybe it was more of an honorary position.

  I just needed my backpack and then I would go. No way was I leaving without the stuff to help Whitney. “I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m going. I saved your boys’ lives.”

  She eyed me, her lips pursed, a gun visible on her hip and a shotgun on her back. This woman was no joke. “You’re not like them but you’re not like me either. I heard there were some like you. You’re dead. But you’re not dead. You people… you’ve come back.”

  Well, she’d summed that up nicely, but with her assortment of weaponry, I wished I’d picked another place to scavenge.

  I took a breath and let it out. People who survived the Infection were… strange. One wrong word or gesture and they might blow my brains out. I studied the girl, trying to come up with a plan. What the hell. I might as well try being nice. “I’ve heard about you people, too. Humans who have somehow managed to survive outside of settlements anywhere. It should be next to impossible and yet you do it.”

  She nodded, once. “That we do. What do you want here?”

  “Do you own this place? Because it looks like it’s open for scavenging, so I’m not sure I have to answer to you.” Shit. That didn’t sound nice.

  She straightened, and I braced for an old-timey showdown. She had guns, maybe with bullets, and I had a gun with three bullets, give or take.

  Also, I was a zombie. So I’d be walking out of here no matter what happened.

  My thoughts came to a halt.

  Dammit. While those guns wouldn’t kill me, they sure as hell could hurt Whitney. I didn’t want that to happen, but I knew how things worked. I couldn’t cower in the face of some wilderness woman. I’d look weak, and then I’d be a sitting duck.

  “You saved the boys so I’m going to let you go without blowing your head off. But don’t come back here or my husband and the rest of us will take you out. I’m easy. They’re… scary.”

  I didn’t like being threatened. Never had. It got my back up. “Maybe watch your kids better. I could have stayed in that car and let them die. Unless you and your scary husband don’t care if your kids grow up. Trust me, you don’t want to find them in a horde six months from now.”

  With that, I left. My backpack sat on the edge of the train car, so I grabbed it and swung it onto my back. With each step toward the car, I fought the urge to look over my shoulder. It wasn’t until I shut the door and started the car that I let out a breath.

  Guess she meant it. Huh. Honesty was a rare quality in this world.

  The rail yard was a bust, except for the antiseptic and shoelaces. As I drove away, I longingly eyed the unopened cars. Fuck. What a waste.

  But I wouldn’t give up yet. There was medicine out there, and I was going to find it.

  7

  Brandon

  I stared at the X-ray as Isaiah and Dante talked about the settlement. Dante wasn’t really listening to Isaiah, which was unusual since he was always the most attentive guy around.

  I could fix it. I’d been apprenticed in Roanoke as an electrician and I’d spent part of that time working in the hospital there. Then I’d gotten too close to Whit and they’d sent me to work with my father on landscaping, construction, and maintenance.

  I could fix almost anything. But I couldn’t fix Dante. I’d never seen my friend so lost. He nodded his head at whatever Isaiah said, but he wasn’t really paying attention. His gaze was on the floor and he kept his arms crossed, every so often dropping his new arm and clenching his hand.

  Amazing.

  The pieces of the machine lay in front of me. It’d be easier to know what I was looking at if it had come with some sort of owner’s manual. Or if I could have Googled it. I narrowed my eyes at the wall-mounted device.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a Geiger counter,” I muttered. At least then I’d know if something was leaking radiation. I’d figure it out, but it would take me longer.

  The power had been re-routed to the exam room, so all I’d had to do was flick the switch to see if the machine came on. It did. But when I’d tried to X-ray my foot, I’d found the images were blurry. I needed someone else to be the guinea pig.

  “Isaiah,” I called, interrupting him and Dante. “Come here and take off your shoes and socks.”

  “Is it safe?” he asked, leaning down to untie his boot.

  “Actually,” Dante interrupted him. He stared at the machine and gave me a half-smile. “Might as well check me out. I’m the one with the most damage. I’m taking the most energy. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

  “What’s left?” I asked without judgment. His arm had regrown, as had his jaw. I thought I knew how he’d been injured.

  “Leg,” he said, hefting his weight onto the steel table. “I don’t have to take my pants off, do I?”

  “Just roll it up as far as it will go,” I answered.

  He did, and I stared at the divot on the top of his leg. It looked like something had taken a bite out of him.

  “Controlled?” I asked him, centering the X-ray tube over his fibula.

  “Train track. I tripped. Landed on my leg.” He shifted on the table, turning enough so I could see the back and the thick knot of white scarring. “I had to push the bone back through to the other side.”

  Our sensations had been dulled when we were undead, but still—

  “Was this before or after Zero?” Isaiah asked.

  I pointed to the small cordoned off area where the nonfunctional computer was. The wall would be lined with lead to prevent radiation exposure. I didn’t know if it would affect us, but we didn’t need to risk it unnecessarily. I’d already had a dose today, and I’d have one more. After that, I’d grab some of the plated blankets I’d found in a cabinet.

  Cover my junk.

  Isaiah didn’t argue. From the safety of the nook, he called out, “Dante. Before or after Zero?”

  “After,” Dante answered quietly.

  “Shit,” I interrupted. “I forgot something.” Dante glared at me
, but I didn’t take it personally. It had been years since I’d done this, and it wasn’t like I’d gone to medical—er—vet school.

  I found a recording plate and put it in a drawer beneath table. If this worked, then I’d see his leg on the recording plate after I pushed the button.

  “Okay,” I said. “Ready?”

  “You don’t want to cover the rest of me?” Dante asked, gesturing to his chest and hips.

  “Shit,” I said again, and found the lead-lined blankets I planned to use for myself. “Okay. Now are you ready?”

  Dante nodded, and I lined up the tube again. Here goes. There was a hum and a click, then it was done.

  “How long does it take?” Isaiah called out.

  “I have to develop it,” I replied, and opened the drawer, removing the plate and the photographic film. “And then we have to find a place to read it. This is old school until I fix the computer.”

  “One more thing to the list.” Isaiah stepped out from behind the wall. “Nothing’s easy.”

  He had that right.

  My friend got off the table and rolled his pant leg down, fingers grazing the old injury. No wonder Dante was quietly freaking out. He didn’t have a working leg. Whit had nearly died replacing his arm. What happened when the inevitable happened and she fixed the leg? Could she survive it?

  I didn’t have the slightest idea how to fix this. And I could fix everything.

  8

  Whitney

  Okay. I’d had enough sitting around. My energy level was nonexistent, but that didn’t mean I was going to waste an entire day in bed. There was too much to be done.

  John jumped up as I swung my feet off the bed.

  “Where are you going?”

  I pointed at the bathroom. “First there. Then somewhere else.”

  “Whit, you had a heart attack. You should probably rest. At least until Isaiah or Nick or Carson get back with some medicine and maybe an actual doctor who isn’t Dante just genius-ing things out.”