by Logan Keys
“There’s shoes to try out here,” Thomas yells as if clairvoyant.
“Okay,” I call back at half the volume.
My hair is another matter entirely. Thick and curly, it reminds me of a giant snake lying limp across my shoulders, half-wrapped around my neck.
I comb my fingers through the tangles as best as I’m able until the curtain of it settles at my waist.
Leaving the restroom, I collect my thoughts. When Thomas hands me a zip-up hoodie, I practically leap into it stuffing my hands through the arms with my back turned. It’s like a security blanket.
He seems to notice my discomfort and, clearing his throat, he says, “I’m going to light a fire in this stove thing, here. Hopefully it won’t smoke us out.”
He’s already working at it skillfully when I ask, “What did you call me back there?”
“Huh?”
“Back at the bathroom. You said ‘Mary’ something.”
“Oh.” Thomas rubs his hand against the back of his neck, where his brown hair just touches. “I sort of made up a name for you back on the island. You were always asleep, but you were my only …” He pauses, thinks for a moment. “Neighbor,” he finishes. “So I called you Marilyn.”
The name sounds familiar.
“Marilyn?”
“Yeah, like Monroe, you know? She was a movie star.”
I squint at him, and he shrugs.
The fire begins to melt our reservations.
Thomas casually folds up his knee, tucks it under his arm, like the cramped space doesn’t bother him. Or, rather, like he’d gotten used to a too-small place. This thought makes me sad.
“How old are you?”
His mouth lifts. “Eighteen.”
Wow. Not at all what my guess would have been. His face is aged more than expected, though strong. Brown hair and eyes of the same color. Handsome, easily, with a generous mouth that moves a lot while he’s in thought. The eyes are full of pain. My gaze strays back to his mouth to avoid what dives in too deeply for our first meeting.
He said I’d been asleep for a year. So where had he been all that time? I already know the answer: Trapped.
Like me, he hasn’t been eating enough. When he does, though, he’ll be a mountain of a man.
Has he considered this? That this tiny girl with no name will be tiny no matter how much she eats. She’ll be in the way, and no help against the zombies.
“If you don’t want to take me with you …” I say, accepting that I’m a burden.
He stills for a beat, and his face softens, restoring his youth. “Of course you’re coming with me. Bump on a log, and all.”
Thomas makes me laugh, and that’s good—very good. My smile heats me up more than the hoodie, helps me forget the hidden scars. Makes me forget I forgot.
“Do you need to rest?” he asks.
Time to be the reassured one. “No. Sounds like I’ve rested forever.”
“You have. And me, too. Let’s just heat up and get the hell out of here. Sound good?”
“You’re the boss.”
When we check the window, my attention is drawn to something through the rain.
“Thomas,” I whisper, “is that what you were talking about?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
We both watch the thing lumber through the water, aimless, lost.
Chapter Eleven
Dallas
Lotte wants to see me, but her place is a long way off from mine. Cara and I stay down by the edge of the gate, along with the rest of the people who don’t fit in, out on the farthest side from where the founders of Ironwood live. We like our space.
“Wipe your feet.”
Lotte’s a walking contradiction. She’s baking cookies, and they smell divine, but don’t let the Betty Crockerness of wafting chocolate chips confuse, there’s a darkness to Lotte that’s held her leadership role since the beginning. People have tried, they have, to remove her, and they’ve come and gone, but mostly gone.
“Have a seat.”
I do. She offers me no cookies. Her dark skin glows with the heat we’ve been blessed with for the day.
“Sara came to see me.”
I rise to leave.
“Sit down.”
I stay, but standing.
“Would you rather we have a meeting?”
A slight shake of my head is the best I can offer. My innards are curdling. If they make me leave, I’d have to face the Wilds again—alone.
“You’re a good fighter, and guardian of this place,” Lotte says. “But we’ve seen Joe come back from hunting like he’s found himself a pot of honey out there in them woods, one he ain’t sharing with the rest of us.”
I sit before my legs give out.
“You know my rules?”
I nod.
“Good. Then if you don’t start no trouble, there won’t be no trouble. That goes for whores, as well.”
Lotte’s lip curls in disgust when I don’t deny it.
I find enough backbone to leave, but she snags my wrist.
My knife is out fast. I don’t even feel myself reach for it. Lotte’s equally ready for this brawl. She snatches my hair and drags me to the table, putting a knee onto my knife-hand and grinds it into my wrist, again and again, until I finally, nervelessly, let go.
I feel naked without it.
Lotte’s mouth finds my ear. “Now you listen to me, you little, no-good drifter. You’re strong and young, full of fire and death, and I like that. But you’re stupid, as stupid as that philandering son of a bitch Joseph if you don’t think this will come home to roost. He even wait until you were eighteen?”
My hot and messy tears burn tracks across my nose, dripping onto the table that’s scratching my cheek. Fear of being found out was always there, waiting to destroy me.
“Answer me,” Lotte grinds out.
“Those rules don’t—they don’t matter anymore.”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
She gets off me, then turns to pace, her wide hips under her hands. Though her ribs stick out, it’s not weight, just Lotte’s frame.
When she turns toward me as I stand rubbing my wrist, her face smooths and her dark eyes soften, disarming me.
“What happened to you, baby?”
She nods for me to sit, and I do, while tears soak deep pockets into my skin. The salt burns old wounds.
“What do you mean?” I ask, playing stupid.
Lotte sits down, looking exhausted, and her brow furrows with the knowledge of a woman who sees far too much. “Who taught you this was the way, Dallas? That it was okay for a man to play you for a fool, even this far into end. Don’t you know it’s time for us women to be free? We don’t have to put on makeup anymore, those back breaking heels, shake our asses. Time was when I’d worry about my hair, spent hours getting it just right, my weight … Now, a little jiggle means I’m doing real good. Even my skin color was what mattered—better change what you can, ’cause nothing’s ever good enough. But it’s over now, and you should grab that with both hands!”
I swallow, and she softens.
“Was it your daddy?” she asks.
I shoot to my feet and point a finger. “You don’t know me, Lotte. You don’t know anything about me! You’d better shut your mouth, Lotte Jackson, before I shut it for you!”
“There, there child,” she says, sighing, unmoved, and with a heartbroken look. “We can’t help who we were once upon a time, but we sure as hell can change it. Dallas. It’s a nice name. Good choice to start new as someone else, if you ask me.”
Chapter Twelve
Tommy
“More water up ahead,” I yell back.
When you imagine the end of civilization, you don’t think of how much water there is. This close to the ocean, it’s like an aquatic world. Feels like we haven’t moved at all.
“We’ve barely moved,” my companion says, as if reading my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I reply. “Texa
s is so dammed big.”
“Even bigger with all of the water.”
“Never thought I’d see it again.”
“You missed it?”
“Something like that.”
Where we are, the water’s knee-deep, and without runoffs during rain, flooding’s prevalent.
When I mention it’s time for some transportation, she frowns, probably wondering why we haven’t looked sooner.
Well, engines mean noise, of course.
I sigh.
I don’t want to scare her but, reality will show eventually, and when it does …
We find a small boat with a working engine to motor through the streets of Texas, and it brightens us to be able to move above a shamble. I’m at the motor, while Marilyn grips the bow’s sides, the tiny bit of wind blowing through her braid, bringing out a genuine smile that blinds me.
We ignore the things along either side standing on floating objects, or falling off buildings trying to get to us, or even doing a weird swim-drown toward our boat.
We ignore them, because no matter how many times you see those bloated corpses, you shudder and cringe, and wonder how long before they’ll find you, latch on to you.
Marilyn’s not seen so many before, so out of fear and disbelief, she avoids looking at them.
I hate the water. It stinks.
But I also hate it for the fact that for every zombie, there’s its reflection. And ours. We look strange, a little wide-eyed, and beyond weary.
It takes us three days to find the desert. Wet or dry, take your pick—cities appear out of the dank swamp, then the wind throws up the sand, beads that shred the skin.
And it’s a contest of what not to talk about now.
My secrets, her unknowns.
My anxiety grows as her hostility does.
What a pair we are.
She doesn’t understand why I keep close, and she’s appalled when I try to maintain our dialogue while she squats in the woods.
After her absolute silence out of pure shock, I figure she won’t have conversations during that affair … ever.
I stare at her, trying to help her figure herself out.
She stares back out of irritation, taking in my shaggy hair, the fur around my cheeks and mouth. I’d be clean cut if it could be managed.
She stare-stare-stares back, trying to make me uncomfortable. It never works.
I’m comfortable with someone looking at me. No one has, for a long time.
“We’re in Arizona now,” I say, smiling, shading my eyes.
“Is that good?”
“It’s not bad—hey, watch your step there!”
I jump forward to push her off the road and away from a crack that looks to have come from deep within the ground. We step onto the sand.
“Thanks,” she says, eyeing the gap that’s not very wide, but deep.
“Earthquakes.” I kick a rock. “Let’s go around.”
Marilyn follows me up the incline, a strangely shaped dune—much like a wave of water, only it’s sand—and when I get to the top, alarm bells go off in my brain. But it’s too late.
“Don’t come this way!” I cry out just as the ground softens to quicksand, then to an hourglass effect, dumping me into a hole.
I hit the bottom and roll deeper into a bunker.
“Thomas!” Marilyn shouts.
“Stay back!” I yell. “I think … I’m all right.”
I shake dust out of my hair and look around the little, dug-out square of space reinforced with pieces of wood to keep the sides firm. But it’s only one room.
“It’s a trap,” I call up, shielding my eyes.
Marilyn’s at the mouth of the now uncovered hole, carefully gripping the sides and trying to see me at the bottom.
“A trap?” she asks, voice tight with concern.
She glances around behind her.
“Yeah. Is anyone up there?” My own voice is tight now, too. I’m worried someone with binoculars is watching to see who’d fallen in.
“Not … no … I don’t see anyone. Thomas, what should I do? Are you hurt? Can you see a way out?”
“No. Nothing else is down here—wait, I found a pack. It’s … um … it’s got food and water in it.” I show her.
“Food and water? What for?”
“I guess they wanted whoever it was, alive.”
“Thomas, tell me how to get you out of there!—oh God!”
She disappears.
I rush to the side, frantically searching for a place to climb, but there is none. “Marilyn?”
She doesn’t return.
“Marilyn!”
“I’m here. Thomas, I’m here. There’s someone on the road!”
“Car or walking?”
“Car!”
“Okay, let me think …”
“Thomas, they’re coming this way.”
“Okay, okay. Marilyn, listen to me. You’ve got to hide. But first, you see the mesh up there? The stuff I fell through?”
“Uh, yeah. Hide? Where? What do you want me to do!”
“Grab that mesh, and throw it across the hole.” I take a deep breath and bite down my panic. “I need you to—to cover it up again.”
“What!”
“I need you to bury me.”
Chapter Thirteen
Liza
“You want me to what!”
“I need you to bury me, and then bury yourself! Hurry, before they get here.”
I stare into the hole Thomas fell into. A trap, he says. The car is just a dot in the distance, but they’ll be here soon enough. They must catch travelers, knowing they’ll go around the crack in the road, and they feed and water the trapped ones until they arrive.
But why?
I listen to Thomas. He knows more about this place than I do.
After throwing the mesh across—the leafy, tightly braided parts should hold the sand again—I glance down one more time. Thomas looks how I must—afraid. At some point he’ll run out of air.
With the mesh back in place, I just have to push some of the soft sand back over the spot. Some falls through, but with enough of it added in, it once more becomes part of the desert.
I swipe away my footprints all around the trap, as well, then run to the other side of the hill where I lay flat and cover myself as much as I dare. My sand-colored scarf lets me keep my head uncovered, and I peek through it to see. Then I wait.
Not long after, people arrive—two young men, our age. One goes right for the trap and circles the area a few times, looking unsure of where it’s located. He comes up to the top of the hill, too. I’m just on the other side of where his boots scrape, but he doesn’t see me.
He calls over to his friend, “Nothing up here.”
“I told you the heat makes things look like someone’s walking on that road. All right, let’s head back then, check the others.”
The first one once more scans the area, stopping at my head scarf. I breathe in deeply, but then he turns and walks away.
Slowly, I sift out of my makeshift grave and creep to the top of the hill. Their voices carry up to me.
“Toby’s gonna be pissed. Lately, it’s been almost always empty.”
“Or only men.”
“Yeah. Remember when we’d catch whole families in this one?”
“Yep. It was easy during the first days. Some of the traps were so full, they’d run out of food before we could check them.”
He laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s heard all day, and I cringe, shrinking down, pressing my back to the sand again, unwilling to risk being seen.
“Too bad Toby won’t hit up that town. Lots of stock there. Isn’t that where the girl is?”
“Yep. He’s just waiting for the right time is all…”
“Hope that’s soon. Should we … check ...”
After their voices fade, I hear the car start up again.
When they’re gone, I scramble over to the hole to scrape away the dirt. “Thomas!
Are you okay!”
He coughs. “Yeah.”
“How are we going to get you out?”
“Good question.”
After I rip the rest of the mesh loose from the trap, we end up tying my scarf to it, then the mesh to a backpack strap, and that strap to another, and another, until finally Thomas has to remove his pants and his shirt and tie those together.
He tells me to wet it all down so it’s stronger, more able to withstand the weight. I do this, and slowly we get him out with our “rope.”
Thomas checks the area, seemingly more than happy to be free.
“Who were they?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” he replies, “but the Authority doesn’t work like this.”
“They said they were going to attack a town. Something about a girl, and stock.”
“Yeah.” Thomas makes a face at the pit. “Seemed like nice fellas. Must be great being one of their ‘girls.’”
I get his meaning, and I swallow, thinking of how close I was to becoming one.
“I know another way. Let’s get off this road. It was stupid of me to follow the main highway. What was I thinking?”
“That zombies don’t know how to read a map, maybe?”
“Yeah, but there aren’t only zombies in the Wilds. Not anymore.”
As we approach another city, Thomas says this marks the last leg to our destination. We’re still in the desert, but at least it’s progress. He has us post up at the nearest bridge until we're sure no zombie hordes or people wander nearby. A stream of old vehicles sits below, abandoned now in decayed traffic, like they've been forever forced bumper-to-bumper as punishment.
This place is piled high with rubble; buildings remain purely as concrete hills, shading one side of the street at a time.
“What happened here?”
Thomas glances at me strangely before he hops the railing and climbs down the embankment.
I follow with a sigh. I meant, why are the cars abandoned? What could have possibly happened so quickly?
Once we’re on the road, he points up ahead to what looks like an ages-old military checkpoint. “The Authority,” he says, “had been getting out the healthy people who wanted to join, all over the country. But so many times people turned, and they were shot, or the Authority simply closed the passage and let nature take its course.”