“Apparently all of it,” Lilly says. “I know we don’t know each other very well, but I’d think that you of all people would understand why we have to shut down the District. You were there. You saw everything.”
“I participated, too,” Abby says in a soft voice.
Her eyes are distant. There’s a budding look of horror on her face, and I notice she looks older…much older, though she’s not even middle-aged.
“Abby,” I say. Lilly turns the car off to save fuel, so my voice is loud when it’s not meant to be. “You can’t blame yourself for that. You were just doing what you had to do to survive.”
She turns on me, her eyes wide. “You blame yourself for what happened at Haven, don’t you?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I look away from her. The horrors of what happened to our little safe haven in San Francisco come to me in a terrible blur.
“Yeah, I know,” Abby continues. “We carry these heavy things. We carry them in our hearts, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t build a time machine. We can’t get the years back and try to do things the right way. We have to live with them. You have to live with your mistakes, just like I do.”
I’m still quiet because I don’t know what to say. What could I say?
Abby puts her hand on me. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean it. My—it’s just my adrenaline. That didn’t go as planned.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
I mean it, too. It is okay. I understand. And she’s right, we do have to live with our mistakes. As much as I wish I could bring Darlene and Junior back, and all those I lost in the process of my life, I cannot.
“What did we end up with, anyway?” Abby asks. It’s the first time she’s asked about what we got from the warehouse.
“Besides a bunch of bruises and bloodstains?” I say. “Not much.”
“How much?” Abby asks.
“One,” Lilly answers.
Abby’s jaw drops like she doesn’t believe her. She must’ve been really out of it when Lilly and I were loading the barrel into the truck bed.
“See for yourself,” I say.
She leans to the side, peers into the bed at the one measly gas drum.
“It’s all I could manage. I got attacked again on the way out,” I say. “Those are heavy as hell, too; I’m not as young as I once was.”
She snorts, reaches out and pats me with the side of her hook, making a show of wiping the dead guy’s eye juice on my sleeve. “Please, Jack. Even if you were young, you wouldn’t have grabbed any more than one.”
I shrug; she’s not wrong.
But then she’s saying, “You know I’m just joking around.”
“No, you’re not,” I reply.
Then we both laugh. God, I missed her.
Six
Before Lilly restarts the truck, I climb into the cab, and slip in the backseat. It’s kind of cramped, especially with my long legs, but it beats riding out in the open in the bed. Though we’re in a rural part of Indiana, we’re still in District country. If a sniper on a lookout tower sees our wheels kicking up dust, and I’m out in the open, I might be sporting a fresh bullet wound pretty soon.
We drive in silence for a while. Traveling east.
It gets completely dark outside. And I mean totally.
Since the world ended, not too many places are running electricity. You can go just about anywhere, look up at the night sky, and see every last star up there. Even in New York City. Well, I don’t know about New York for sure, but I’d wager a good amount of cash (not that money matters any longer) that New York is as messed up as everywhere else.
Abby is looking over a map. I lean forward and try tracing the route with my eyes in the dim glow of the dashboard. We try not to turn on the overhead light, if we can help it. Same goes for the radio, the air conditioner, the heat, the windshield wipers. It’s Abby’s way of conserving fuel. It takes a lot of willpower for me not to say that if we wanted to conserve fuel, we should’ve traded the truck for a Prius.
I’d be joking, of course.
When we escaped Chicago, Abby only had the keys to her truck. At the time, breaking the window of a different car would’ve been impossible, would’ve drawn too much attention. That was exactly what we didn’t need after a shootout and a daring jump to a window washers’ scaffold outside of a skyscraper twenty stories above the pavement.
“We’re gonna come up on a town pretty soon,” Abby says. “If it’s empty, we’ll crash there tonight. Sound good?”
“Oh, God, yes,” Lilly says. “I don’t think I can look at the road much longer.”
“I’ll take the first shift,” I say.
“No, I will,” Abby says.
“No, really. You got pretty beat up—”
She glares at me. “I did not! I totally had that situation under control.”
“Uh…I think you’d be sporting a new hole in your head if Lilly and I hadn’t distracted that guy long enough for you to stab his eye out. Which, by the way, was pretty freaking gruesome,” I say. “And awesome.”
“Now, now, you two,” Lilly says. “No bickering. You’re family, so start acting like it.”
“Hilarious, Mom,” I say.
“I would’ve been fine,” Abby says. She folds up the map and pops the glovebox open, sticks it inside. “I know how to handle myself. I wanted that guy to take me hostage. It was all part of the plan.” She winks at us.
It was definitely not part of the plan.
Up ahead, the headlights shine on a sign covered in ivy and surrounded by weeds. I can’t make out the name, but Abby announces it as we drive by and enter the town limits. She had seen it on the map.
“Ridgewick,” she says.
“Sounds eerie,” Lilly says.
“It does,” I say. “But everything is eerie these days, isn’t it?”
They mumble their agreement.
Lilly speeds the truck around a curve. On the other side of the curve, where the road straightens, we can see the downtown area. It’s dark, and the buildings stand like gargoyles, backlit by the moon.
“Eerie,” Lilly says again.
Seven
Abby points ahead to a parking deck. “What about there? Just for tonight?”
“Can’t start a fire with concrete,” Lilly says.
“We don’t need a fire,” Abby replies.
“I agree,” I chime in. “As nice as one would be, we’re in unknown territory here. Don’t want to draw any unwanted attention, from zombies or otherwise.”
“Guess I’ll just freeze my balls off,” Lilly says.
She turns the wheel and guides the truck into the parking deck. It’s one of those spiraled jobs where you go round and round and feel like you’re getting nowhere and the walls are going to come down on you. It’s not a place I want to be when the dead come, trapped in there like that.
Then again, I know why Abby picked it: we can get up to the top and get a good look of the layout of the town. If there are any fires out there tonight, we’ll see them. I hope we do. Not because we’re out here looking for allies, or anything like that, but because if we see flames, we know we’re not dealing with the brightest of adversaries. Fire does draw a lot of unwanted attention, and if someone is out there, huddled around a campfire and enjoying the warmth, we know they’re not smart—at least, not as smart as us—because any zombies out here will be heading toward the brightness and the smell.
However, there is a chance that if fires are burning, we might be dealing with a large group of people, an army of people. Dangerous people. And we’re just three, with limited ammunition between us.
I can’t think about that, can’t worry about it, not yet.
Up at the top of the parking deck, Lilly turns the engine off, and we get out of the truck. It feels good to stretch our legs. The weather isn’t too cold, either. Crisp with a cool breeze. Light jacket weather. The beard on my face, and the way my hair hangs down to cover the back of my neck c
ertainly helps against the elements, too.
We go to the edge of the structure. We don’t see much, either. The town is like any of the other million small town places around the USA…well, like how they used to be. The big difference is that there’s no people milling about now. No cars driving up and down the road, no music thumping from the bar, or people standing around outside, drunk and glassy-eyed.
“The place is deserted,” Abby says. “I think we’re safe here.”
“No place is ever deserted,” Lilly says. Her hand is over her brow, shielding her eyes from the moonlight, which is bright tonight.
I get a bad feeling, thinking about that full moon.
“There are always zombies around,” Lilly continues. “Unless they’ve been cleared out.” She points. “Look up there.” We do. “See all those houses, all those residential streets?” I do. “I bet you there’s a hundred zombies locked up inside. People who caught the sickness and turned in the very bed they thought they could get better in.”
“Pretty grim, Lilly,” Abby says, but she says it with a smile on her face.
I don’t know how she could smile right now, not with Lilly talking all low and huskily, like a fortune teller telling us we’re going to get struck by lightning as soon as we leave the place. I should know never to put anything past Abby; her mind works differently than anyone else’s. She practically grew up in the apocalypse. Her entire adulthood has been spent killing zombies and warlords, and doing it all with only one hand. Not to mention I haven’t seen her in a few years—years she’s been under the influence of the District. That alone is enough to drive a person insane.
As Abby speaks again, and the words she says register in my head, I think she really might’ve lost her mind.
“We should spend the night there, in one of the houses. That’s a good idea, Lilly!” She claps Lilly on the back hard enough to send her shuffling forward.
“What?” Lilly says. “I didn’t say anything about staying there. I pretty much said the exact opposite. Are you crazy?”
Abby says, “I was under the impression you didn’t want to stay here…”
“Well, no—but I don’t want to stay in a zombie infested house, either,” Lilly replies.
Abby doesn’t answer, just skips on toward the truck, so Lilly looks at me for an answer. I don’t have one for her. I just smile and give her a shrug.
“Seriously?” Lilly says.
I shrug again. That’s pretty much my go-to when I don’t know how to respond, something I’ve brought with me from the old world. Whenever Darlene grilled me—Jack, why didn’t you do the dishes? Jack, did you forget how to put the toilet seat down?—I’d just shrug, and that would usually do it. Usually.
It doesn’t do it for Lilly. She’s not taking my shrug for an answer, so I add an “I don’t know” for good measure.
By this time, Abby is already in the front seat of the Ford, key in the ignition. She starts up the engine, and it hums to life. She gets back out.
“I’ll need to fill her up. Better to do it now than when we can’t. Help me, Jack?”
I walk forward. Feel Lilly try gripping me, and her grip slipping off as I pull away. I try to play this off like I don’t know she did it.
“We can’t go stay in one of those houses,” she says. “It’s dangerous.”
“Look around,” Abby says, waving her hand and her hook toward the sky. “Every last place is dangerous. We’ll go in and clear out the house. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find something useful inside. Like Twinkies.”
“Twinkies?” I say. “That shit’ll kill you.”
“Seriously?” Lilly storms over to us, stomping her feet all the way.
“Seriously,” Abby says, as calm as ever. “Twinkies never expire—”
“I’m not talking about the Twinkies!” Lilly yells.
“Shh,” I say. “Unwanted attention.”
“Like going around and knocking on doors won’t draw unwanted attention?”
“No one is gonna be there to answer,” Abby says. “C’mon. I know you want to sleep in a bed.”
“Not if there’s a dead body in it,” Lilly replies.
“Hell, I don’t care,” I say. “I’d sleep right next to a zombie if I knew it wasn’t going to try to eat me.”
“You’re sick, Jack,” Lilly says.
I shrug again.
Abby unhooks the gas drum and rolls it down the bed. She tries taking it off the truck herself. Doesn’t get very far. Her face goes all red, and she’s breathing heavy.
“See?” I say.
She stands up, glaring at me. “Fine, Jack. It’s heavy. You’re right. Big deal. Now help me.”
I go back into the cab and get the red gas canister, hand it up to Abby. Lilly is perched on the edge of the bed, talking so fast I can’t understand what she’s saying. I don’t know if Abby understands, either. It doesn’t matter, she’s ignoring her as if Lilly isn’t there at all. How she can do that, I don’t know. Lilly is hard to ignore when she gets going like this. I try my best.
Sleeping in a bed does sound like a godsend right now, and all those houses do look deserted. Sure, I know there’s a chance that they aren’t. A pretty good chance, actually. But it won’t be something we can’t handle; we’re professional zombie slayers. Warlord killers.
At least that’s how I like to think of myself. I can’t speak for the ladies. Lilly obviously doesn’t have much confidence in us, that’s for sure.
I’ve joined Abby in the truck bed, and I’m holding the red gas canister open.
“I’ll tip it over,” Abby says.
“Maybe let me do that,” I say.
She frowns at me. It’s a deadly frown, one you don’t want thrown your way. Once she hits you with it, you know you’re in trouble.
“Why? Because I only have one hand?” Abby says. “I can do more one-handed than you could do if you had three!”
Her face is redder, though she’s no longer trying to tip the drum over. She’s pissed off.
“I know, I know, Abby,” I say. “Never mind. Go ahead and do it.”
She huffs.
I’m pretty sure she’s going to drop the drum and douse me in gasoline—then Lilly will light a match and just finish the job, probably—but she doesn’t. Abby’s veins pop out all over her arms and in her forehead. Her face is so red that it looks like brick. The gas pours. A perfect stream. It fills the canister up halfway before I see that Abby is really going to lose her grip.
Lilly sees this too. She lets her worries about breaking into old, abandoned houses go for the moment, and climbs up on the bed to help Abby ease the drum backward.
I hold the canister up to the moonlight, see the shadow of its contents, and say, “Yep. Looks good.”
Abby doesn’t say anything for a moment. When she does, she says, “I could’ve done it by myself.”
“Well,” Lilly says, “you don’t have to. Maybe back when you were with the District you did, but we’re a team. We work together. And when we work together, we get stuff done.” She sighs at Abby’s dejected look. “Man, I had to train Jack, too. Is it humanity in general that doesn’t like working together, or is it just the airheads that came from Haven?” She asks this all with a grin on her face, but Abby doesn’t reciprocate.
I do, then I say, “It’s just us from Haven. My brother’s the same way. Probably the airiest of all the heads you’ll ever meet. Just wait until you get a load of him.”
Abby looks at me, frowns.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I tell her. “He’s the Overlord’s right-hand man. He’s the most brainwashed of them all. Yada-yada-yada. I’m not worried. I believe in Norm. There’s good left in him, trust me.”
“I hope so.” Abby doesn’t sound like she has much hope at all, but I don’t blame her. She takes the gas canister from me, opens the tank and begins filling up the Ford.
“Great,” Lilly says. “That much gas will probably get us to the end of the street.”
Abby and I let her go on. All we can do, really.
After, Abby asks me in a low voice, “What will you do if you can’t change him back? What happens if he tries to kill you instead?”
I take a long moment before answering the question. The truth is that I haven’t thought about that. It just doesn’t seem like a possibility…but looking at the seriousness in Abby’s eyes as she twists the tank’s cap back on, the realization that my brother may never be my brother again hits me hard.
“I guess I’ll do what I have to do,” I finally say. “If he’s standing in the way of the one-eyed man, if there’s no hope for him, and he’s going to continue hurting innocent people, I guess I’ll kill him.” The words don’t sound like they belong to me, but they are my words all the same.
Abby doesn’t look surprised. She just nods.
Then we’re getting back into the Ford while Lilly keeps telling us that leaving the parking deck is a terrible idea.
Eight
The rest of downtown isn’t much. Just a bunch of broken windows, washed-out bricks, and dusty and dirty cars with rusted undercarriages and flat tires.
No people. No zombies. Not even any blood or corpses that we can see.
Maybe this place managed a clean evacuation when the virus struck. Might have bought the citizens some extra time, even if not for long.
Well, what do I know? There could be some of them out in the world still. They could’ve been resistant to the disease like we were, could’ve taught themselves how to fight and survive like we did.
If the zombie plague has proven anything, it’s that the human race is stubborn. Most of us have gone, but some of us stayed behind, fought to stay behind. We’re not going anywhere. Not yet.
So there’s hope.
“What about that one?” Abby says, pointing up the dark road.
A military Humvee has been left behind. It’s in pretty bad shape. The headlights of the Ford illuminate the scorch marks on the side of the vehicle; a starburst of soot, like a grenade went off against it. It’s sitting on four flat tires, and one of the doors is gone. It still sits where it crashed into a streetlight. The metal pole currently rests in the remains of the second story of a house across the street from the one Abby has her eye on.
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