The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed

by Fleming, Sarah Lyons

  The ground is flat for fifteen feet before it slopes down, crisscrossed by narrow asphalt roads until it hits trees a quarter mile away. There are no houses, and few trees except the ones by the fence. I stare at the view, numb and confused. A park, maybe.

  “You okay?” Lana asks. “Let’s move away from the fence and clean you up.”

  I look down. My hands are stained brown. I peer closely at a blob of something. Is that…? Yes, it’s eyeball. Stuck to the edge of my fingernail like brown Jell-O. My stomach flops. Another person’s eyeball is on my hand.

  “You need a pair of gloves,” Troy states, then claps my back so hard it hurts. “Popped your zombie cherry with that one. I knew you had it in you.”

  Maybe I had it in me, but everything else is fighting to come out. I heave twice and puke my lunch all over the ground. If there’s a more disgusting vomit than tuna fish stained pink by and dotted with chewed maraschino cherries, I haven’t had the pleasure of making its acquaintance. My stomach surges a few more times, sending up pink tuna-cherry flavored bile, and then I dry heave at the taste in my mouth.

  I raise a hand to wipe my face, remember the eyeball, then spit and fumble at my side for water. I swish and spit, then do it twice more. I’m never eating tuna again. Rose hates fish with a passion, and I’ve always thought her overdramatic. No more. She’s the smartest person I know. She’s a fucking genius.

  “They’re coming,” Daisy says, moving toward us from the fence.

  “Let’s go, Cherry,” Troy says with a chuckle. He steers me past a stand of trees by the fence, where a couple of buildings are visible down the hill. “They won’t see us farther down. Not a thing in here. Must be fully fenced.”

  Lana hitches up her pack and points at the buildings. “The first is probably a mausoleum, but the second could be an office. We should check it for supplies and figure out where to go from here.”

  My boot lands on something hard. A headstone, the kind set flush with the ground. Finally, I recognize the spaces where no grass grows, the gentle rolling hills split by roads one travels to visit with a departed loved one. A distant corner with traditional upright headstones. It’s a cemetery. Of course we’re in a goddamn cemetery. We’re on the run from the dead, and we’ve ended up in the safety of a cemetery. Maybe it isn’t true irony, but it’s certainly absurd.

  My laugh splits the air. I feel their eyes on me, but I don’t care. I killed someone—not a true someone, but still. The world is so over it isn’t funny, and my mixture of amusement and mania makes me laugh harder.

  “What’s funny?” Lana asks.

  I gulp in air and manage to wheeze out, “A cemetery is the safest place around.”

  Lana cackles, and Daisy giggles over Francis’ low laugh. Troy shakes his head, though he cracks a smile. “You’re an odd one, Cherry. Welcome to the club.”

  30

  Craig

  The office is a large house, made up of tasteful waiting areas and multiple offices where they sold burial plots and whatever else cemeteries hawk. Large windows in every room look out at the grounds. I stop at the water cooler in the waiting area, which sits beside a table laden with tea bags, instant coffee, and the accompanying accoutrement.

  “Can I use this to clean up?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, can you?” Troy asks in return.

  I force a laugh—the minute in which I felt like I belonged has passed. I killed that zombie, sure, but I don’t remember how I did it, like a dream gone hazy. Repeating the experience doesn’t seem likely.

  “We’ll check out the rest of the place,” Lana says. “Do you need soap or anything?”

  Like utensils, soap was another item I didn’t consider. I shake my head rather than admit it. They must have dispensers in the bathrooms. After the others disappear, I fill two paper cups with water and head for the restroom, where I drop my pack to hold the door open while I wash up in dim light. The soap is wonderful, the cool water glorious, but I don’t allow myself to go back for another cup. Potable water should be saved for drinking, even I know that.

  I dry my hands with a paper towel, use another half-cup of water to take that half of Xanax—I need it, for God’s sake—and head in search of the others. A door marked Employees Only leads me into a large central space attached to untidy, non-public offices and a kitchen. It’s silent. If they came this way, they’re no longer here. And since they haven’t returned to the other side, there’s only one explanation.

  Of course they left you. You screamed and puked like a baby.

  Something slams in the kitchen, and my four traveling companions spill from a door I didn’t notice beside the refrigerator, holding boxes they dump onto the counters. Francis nods my way. “There was a lot of food in there. Snack stuff.”

  I enter slowly, eyeing the small bags of cookies, fruit snacks, nuts, and crackers. My stomach growls. I watch as they divvy it up, choosing their favorites from the selections and cramming them into packs and pockets before they rip open fresh bags and stuff their faces.

  “What are you waiting for?” Lana asks. “If it’s for us to stop eating, you’ll be waiting a long time.” As if to drive the point home, Daisy opens another bag and shoves a butter cookie into her mouth.

  I don’t want to seem too eager, but once I pick up a package of fruit snacks, I tear into them as though possessed. I’m so hungry, and I want the tuna taste gone. Once my mouth is filled with the magnificent flavors of fake grapes and strawberries, I say, “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank us.” Troy wipes Ritz Bits crumbs from his beard. “Thank the fella down the hall in the manager’s office. But don’t. He’s dead. Looks like he blew his brains out.”

  “He ran a cemetery but was afraid of dead people,” Daisy says. “Maybe he thought they’d come back to punish him for price gouging.”

  The others laugh. I want to be one of the cool kids, but I can’t be so flippant about the man down the hall. I admit I’m overly sensitive on the subject to begin with, but it was also only this morning that I entertained the same idea. Before I can stop myself, I whisper, “He must’ve felt hopeless.”

  Quiet descends over the group. Chewing slows. I catch the what a party pooper look between Daisy and Troy. “Sorry,” I say.

  “You’re right,” Lana says softly. “But if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. And I’ve cried enough recently to last a lifetime.”

  “Good Lord,” Troy says, “she sure did. She blubbered for the first two days after I met her.”

  “That was because I’d realized I was stuck with a Republican for the foreseeable future.”

  Troy barks out a laugh. “Libertarian, thank you very much. And I admit I shed a few tears when I found out you were a communist.”

  “Democratic socialist, twerp.” Lana turns to me with a grin. “Don’t hold it against him, though. Troy’s all right. And he knows his way around a gun. Taught me almost everything I know.”

  Troy salutes her, then sizes me up. “When we find a decent weapon, it’s yours.”

  I nod noncommittally. I don’t like guns, never have. Instead of saying so, I start on a bag of Wheat Thins. They’re delicious. Buttery and crunchy. It’s possible nothing has ever tasted better.

  “Load up the stomach and the bag,” Troy says to me. “Then we’ll move the rest of this to that waiting area and figure out what’s next.”

  Fifteen minutes later, a map is spread out on the coffee table between the couches, and the five of us stare at the twisting lines that mark roads out of the area. They lead to a choice of two bridges that cross the water to the north, or a few roads east that will get us either to another bridge or closer to Stockton—a city they want to avoid. Troy runs his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair, then massages his temples. “Maybe we can get across the bridge into Vallejo.”

  He pronounces it the Spanish way, rather than the English-Spanish mishmash the way locals do: Va-Lay-ho. It took me years to get the local names right, and Rose said it was similar in
New York City: You could always spot a tourist when they pronounced Houston Street like the city in Texas. It’s HOW-ston, and I didn’t make a fool of myself when we went there for a visit six years ago. Rose showed me and Mitch the place she’d grown up while marveling (and lamenting) at how much it’d changed. We had a great time, just the three of us, the way we always do. Even going to the grocery store turns into tears of laughter and stares from people who wonder why three grown humans are acting like teenagers.

  The conversation has continued while I was woolgathering, and I return to it as they debate the zombie population of the bridges versus heading east toward Stockton. Traffic is the issue, since traffic usually means zombies. I take a breath and then point at the Benicia-Martinez Bridge. “There’s a railroad bridge in between the two car bridges. Maybe there won’t be Lexers on it.”

  It feels funny to say Lexer aloud, but it’s also less frightening, less implausible, than zombie. I decide I like it.

  “Sounds like a plan.” Troy stares at the map a moment longer, tracing a route with his finger. “Going to be quite a trek. We’re hoofing it without bikes unless we can find a vehicle and empty road.”

  Francis checks his watch, worn on his left wrist, along with a wedding band on that hand. Evidently, Francis once had a wife. And though his cargo pants and boots bring to mind a gunslinger or ex-military, his watch would be better matched to a suit. I wonder what, or who, these four people were a month ago.

  “How far do you think we can make today?” Francis asks. “I’m thinking we shouldn’t stay here any longer than necessary. With those ones at the highway, they’re going to flock to the fence. They’ll get through if they try hard enough.”

  “What if we make our way to the railroad tracks and take them to the bridge?” Lana asks. “Lots of times they’re fenced. Might be safer than roads.”

  “I think they run along the water,” I offer, then quickly add, “but I’m not positive about that.”

  Francis checks the map and nods, then looks to me. I shrug—I don’t want this plan resting on my head. It’s bad enough I mentioned the railroad bridge at all. If it’s blocked or covered in Lexers, it’ll be my fault. I shut my trap before I can dig the hole deeper.

  Troy squints my way. “What? Don’t hold out on us. We don’t know this area well.”

  I clear my throat and point north of the red dot Lana drew on the map to denote our current location. “Um, well, this is all pretty populated. That means more zombies, right?” I see the others nod out of the corner of my eye, though I don’t look up. “Someone might say that we should take either the John Muir Parkway or,” I point below the parkway, where a thin black line travels east-west, “Alhambra Valley Road. They’re both pretty rural out of the city. We could cut up to Martinez and get on the tracks there, then get to the bridge.”

  “Someone might say?” Daisy asks. “Or you might say?”

  Moisture rolls down my back, pooling under my ass. It’ll probably look like I’ve wet myself when I stand. “It’s what I’d choose,” I mumble. “If it were just me.” I leave out the part where if it were just me, I’d be dead in my hallway right now, likely with pants full of pee and poop.

  Francis pulls what resembles a pocket watch from his coat. It’s silver and round, with a tiny disc that extends from a foot at the bottom. He presses the disc to the map and runs it from the red dot along the coast all the way to the second bridge, then inspects what would be the watch face. By now, I’ve seen it isn’t a watch at all, but some sort of dial with a spinner and numbers. Francis does it again with the two other routes, then nods. “That southern route is shorter by five miles. If it’s not packed with traffic, we could use a vehicle.”

  “Safer and shorter?” Troy asks. “That’s one for the record books.”

  The others laugh. I try, but my mouth won’t work. I might’ve just sent us all to die. This is the time to tell them that they shouldn’t pay any attention to me, to do what they think is best, but I can’t even do that.

  Before we leave, we check for keys to the few vehicles out front. One, a van, is the most practical, but try as we might to find them, the keys are nowhere. When the noises from the fence become loud enough to hear—meaning a shitload of Lexers have joined the first—we buckle on our packs and go. My bag is too small to carry all the food I want, so I tie a found shopping bag to my pack that crinkles softly with every step.

  The cemetery’s front gate deposits us onto a main road with a gas station and small shopping plaza, both empty of cars and zombies. Aside from a few houses that line the right side, and two churches on the left, it’s quiet. The sun blazes in the blue sky above, though it’s dropped low enough to the west that Troy adjusts his baseball cap to escape its glare.

  After we walk past a beat-up sedan parked on the shoulder, Troy stops at a shiny silver pickup outside the next house. It’s compact, with a tiny bed, though the cab is four-door. “Road looks clear so far. Let’s see if we can’t find the keys.”

  It’ll be the difference between walking or driving what Francis’ magic map reader said is twenty miles of travel. The brown ranch house is fully fenced with tall wrought-iron, and when Daisy reaches inside to open the latch, the gate swings inward with a faint creak. We step into the graveled front yard one by one. I have no clue what I’m supposed to be looking for, though I assume being aware of advancing zombies is probably smart. So far, there are none.

  My hand sweats on the screwdriver handle. Experience should’ve made me more confident, but it hasn’t. It was a fluke. I held the screwdriver at the right height as a zombie came for me—nothing less, nothing more. There’s no way I can do that again.

  “Looks good,” Francis says.

  The door is locked, and a gentle rap goes unanswered for thirty seconds before something throws itself against the other side of the wood. I gasp. The others appear unperturbed. Lana steps to the window beside the door and cuts through the screen with a box cutter, then pushes up on the glass until it opens wide. “I love people who didn’t lock their windows.”

  Her voice draws a man to the opening. He has the same dark-veined gray skin and light raging eyes of the other Lexers, though without the mangled skin and open wounds of most. It isn’t until he throws his arms out the window that the round bite mark on his forearm is visible. The gauze with which he bandaged it has come loose to rest around his wrist like a gruesome bracelet. Maybe he was bitten and came home for safety.

  Lana side-steps the man’s flailing arms, snatches his short brown hair, and drives her long, thin knife into his ear. He falls immediately, his torso bent over the windowsill and the fingers of his dangling arms just brushing the gravel.

  “Looks like that’s it,” Troy says.

  He yanks the man through the window, drags the body a few feet away, and then climbs inside. A few seconds later, the front door opens, and we follow Troy through a foyer and into a living room. Toys sit in a corner, though there are no signs of an actual kid.

  Francis inspects a key rack by the door. “No car keys here.”

  “Maybe the kitchen,” Daisy says.

  The kitchen looks out on a graveled yard landscaped with bushes and littered with outdoor toys. Two dirty glasses wait in the sink. Otherwise, the kitchen is clean, with no keys in sight. Troy lifts an envelope on the table, addressed to someone named Gwen. “Poor bastard must have written this.” After a pause, he pulls out the note inside, his eyes scanning the paper quickly. “Oh, Christ. When am I going to learn not to do this?”

  “Never, obviously,” Lana replies. “What’s it say?”

  “He says he waited as long as he could, and he’s sorry he took the pills to kill himself. But once he realized the virus was making people into monsters, he didn’t want to hurt her and Jackson, their kid. He said he thinks God will forgive him, since he was about to die anyway. Blah, blah, blah, love you forever, Lonnie.” Troy drops the paper to the table. “Well, it didn’t work, Lonnie. You still turned into a zombie.”


  No one mentions the wife and kid, though going on the sighs and downcast eyes, I’m certain everyone thinks of them. They didn’t return. They probably never will.

  A search of the house turns up a few cans of food. I help myself to a fork and spoon in the kitchen, a hand towel and bar of soap in the bathroom, then grab a package of baby wipes. I reenter the living room to find the others shaking their heads. This time, I notice an empty prescription bottle on a side table. It reminds me of my pills, of how I planned to end it all, just like Lonnie.

  “Dammit,” Troy says. “No keys. We’ll try another house.”

  “Did you check his pockets?” I ask. “If he was bitten when he got home, he might’ve shoved them in his pocket and forgotten.”

  Troy gives me an odd look, then steps out the front door. We listen to him huff and puff until he peers through the window with a grin and a set of keys dangling from his hand. “Cherry gets a point. The rest of us get the dumbass award.”

  I try not to smile when Francis claps me on the back. We throw our packs in the pickup’s bed and take off down the road, me in the backseat with Lana and Daisy.

  The houses become more numerous, though the town has a rural feel. The sky is huge above us, and the green mountains of what I think is the Diablo Range sit in the distance. For me, all the ranges blend together until you get to the Sierras or the Cascades, where the peaks are taller and covered with white for much of the year.

  I can identify the mountains of the Oregon Cascades. When Dad wasn’t either angry or absent, he was eager to impart his knowledge of the outdoors. Our camping trips were the only time I felt close to him, even if I spent them feeling like I didn’t measure up. Those were the times he seemed interested in his sons, if disappointed in one of his son’s abilities.

  It was only years after he died that I entertained the idea that maybe it was Dad who hadn’t measured up. He wasn’t the father he should’ve been. After Mom died last year, I cleaned out the house, hoping to find something, anything, that would take the sour taste from my mouth where my father was concerned. A note, maybe one Mom had kept from us. An explanation of some sort.