by Walls, Annie
Reece watches my actions. He bites his lips together, and I know he won’t ask me about the dream. He doesn’t want to know. Dreams of Mago are never pleasant. “I agree with you,” he finally says. “If Mago wanted to contact you under normal circumstances, he could have with no problems, but we need to keep up appearances. If they leave today in a hurry, that’ll raise red flags. Too risky. Keep your head cool.”
“But—” I cut off and take a much-needed calming breath, knowing he’s right.
He sighs. “Just imagine them all as Rudy in his underwear or naked, I don’t care. He loves it when you get all awkward and stupid, anyway. And for god’s sake, Kan, they’re just teenagers.” He pushes me out and closes the door in my face. I let out a shaky breath. Exactly. It hasn’t been that long ago since I was one. All right, so it’s been about twelve years, but I still remember what it was like. I’m pretty sure the apocalypse hasn’t changed them.
As I come upon the school, I’m a bundle of nerves. The sun bounces off the solar panels on the roof. Everything else that’s going on gets shoved to the side. The fatigue burrows a bit further as tension in my shoulders and neck. Speaking in front of people isn’t exactly a forte of mine. Speaking in front of teenagers is downright dreadful. This school is smack dab in the middle of the neighborhood and used to be an elementary school in the old life. I know there’s a middle school and a high school not too far, but both buildings are too big and would take a lot of energy to power.
I park my dirt bike next to a rusted bike rack. Two people come out of the door, waving when they spot me. The team and I are like heroes in the eyes of this community. It’s not something I enjoy but begrudgingly agree that it’s necessary, no matter how much I don’t like it. It’s not my goal to gain this kind of attention.
“Kansas! We’re so glad you’re here. The students can’t wait to pick your brain,” the school organizer lady, Marilyn, tells me with a huge smile. I notice a few heads peek out of offices and classrooms within hearing distance.
I laugh a little nervously, and her smile dips. “I’m not late, am I?”
She shakes her head and points down a hall. “You’ll be in the high school wing. I’ll call down and get them ready in room 404.”
Before stepping into the wing, I can already smell the hormones. If Hanna is anyone to go by, they’re big, breathing balls of know-it-all brains, puberty, and zits. I wipe my hands down the denim of my shorts.
They all pile out of classrooms and head into one room. I follow as inconspicuously as I can, but who am I kidding? They see me—if their points and whispers are any indication. I pull back my shoulders and put pep in my step. Hanna smiles and waves, looking every bit of her father’s worst nightmare. No wonder she gives Nastas borderline heart attacks on a daily basis. To prove my point, she motions to a tall guy in front of her and mouths, “That’s him.”
My heart warms a bit, remembering when I crushed on Malachi in high school. He’d been my only crush but I never gave in to his advances. It took me a year to warm up to the idea of having a boyfriend or the hormones took longer for me than most girls to kick in. I’m glad Hanna has the chance to be a normal teenager.
Realization strikes that I’ve been letting my emotions get the best of me lately. There’s a reason I make sacrifices and that reason is staring me in the face. It’s happening, all around me, every day. I need to look on the bright side if I’m going to keep changing things. And maybe, just maybe this was the real reason I didn’t want to come here—to be reminded of the bigger picture.
I blow out a breath. Shame on me.
For the first time in a while, I push any worries back and smile without prompting myself to do so. I smile at the possible future that’s ahead of these guys.
I waggle my eyebrows at Hanna, making her laugh out loud before she walks into the room. When I get to the doorway, I stop dead in my tracks, causing someone to bump into me from behind.
“Sorry,” I mutter and take in the various weapons and posters on the wall. I knew the school taught them basic self-defense, but I had no idea the extent of it. Wow. Sparring mats take up the front of the room.
“Our idea of gym class,” a voice says behind me. I turn to another tall dude as he holds out his hand. “Kansas Moore, nice to see you again.” I shake it, remembering his face from around. Of course, everyone’s face is familiar, but it’s hard to remember names when I’m gone half the time. “Daniel. Seattle.”
“Oh yeah.” That’s right. He was a part of the group we gathered from the Seattle revolutionist compound.
Smiling, he ruffles his messy brown hair. “They all want your account of the train fiasco.” He chuckles. “I tell them about it all the time.”
“Ty’s the train expert,” I say, feeling my lightheartedness dim. The trip is the reason Ty pulled from the team. The loss of him was that of losing Mac. I’m still not over it and he isn’t either because he’s still not talking to us.
The train fiasco is one way to put it, but all I remember is a crashed bus and days of pushing trains, cars, and debris off the rails to get over three hundred people to Arizona safely. Not to mention, the wood we had to chop for the train to even work. My arms were sore for weeks, and my wrist—that had just healed from when I broke it in Tennessee—flared up for months. “In fact, we kept the train in case we need it for upcoming missions,” I tell the students with a little more confidence, knowing what I can talk about now. I stare around at the fifty young adults in front of me and swallow. Shit. Maybe not, my mind goes blank and an awkwardness settles over the room.
“Who cares about the train? Show us some self-defense moves,” a voice says from the front row.
I narrow my eyes at the kid as he scans my body. Hmmm… this is more like it. It’s what I do best. Crossing my arms, I lift a brow. “You volunteering?”
“Heck yeah!” He stands.
I peek at Daniel, silently asking for permission. He claps his hands together, and then waves toward the mats. “Sure, this is different. Ought to be interesting.”
Excitement waves around the room with whoops and whistles. Another genuine smile from me within a half hour. Things are looking up. I stretch my neck and arms and survey my opponent. He sends me a smirk, his body loose and relaxed.
“Justin, my man. You’re about to get that smirk wiped right off your face.” Daniel laughs.
Justin just grins wider. I like the easy companionship Daniel’s got going with his students. “We’ll see what the old lady’s got.”
I snort. Old? Maybe. But… I crack my knuckles. “Oh Justin, I’m not a lady.”
Chapter Five
I’m smiling by the time I make it to city hall. Reece and Glinda sit on the sidewalk sharing an ice cream cone like they’re posing for some 1950’s diner promo.
Sam’s leaning against the wall, still and brooding. “Someone’s in a good mood,” he comments and if he wasn’t wearing sunglasses, I’d be able to tell if his eyes narrowed.
I shrugged, still happy in my earlier epiphany but just as happy to keep it to myself. “You know kicking some ass always puts me in a better mood.”
Reece speaks up. “At the school?”
I grin and nod. “Self-defense moves.”
Glinda laughs as Reece helps her stand. “Leave it ta Suga ta be beatin’ on the kiddos.”
Andy watches us pile inside. He takes our weapons. My only one being the pocket pistol.
Nastas appears from the hall. “This way, gang. We’ll be in the bigger conference room.”
The council has five members, and in the past five years, only two of them have changed. They sit side by side with notebooks at the ready. Nastas motions to the chairs across from them. “We’re not sure what the zombie was about,” he starts.
“The genetic engineering of the virus is much the same, but a small strand has mutated,” Gregory, a man with a thick scar dripping down his nose and lips, informs us. The zombie is his area of expertise, even though we’ve recruited lab
techs from the compounds who have more knowledge than he does.
His news isn’t news. I look down the table to my teammates. “Find a subject to test it on.”
Four of the council members sigh. “We’ve been over this before. No people,” Nastas says—finality jars his tone. Only Gregory goes still and void as if he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself. I lock eyes with him, but he gives nothing away.
“I didn’t say a human subject.” My dry tone is directed at Nastas but I keep my eyes on Gregory. I’m willing to bet he voted for human testing. I’m also glad he didn’t get his way. That would make us no better than the revolutionists.
They have tested their “recreated” virus on zombies to see if it changes the zombie in any way, but so far, it’s only sped up the life of the virus already in the zombie.
What they don’t know is, the revolutionists are trying to mutate what they’ve already created. It’s not the virus doing it by itself. What we’re trying to figure out is how do they want to change it? We all have a different theory. Reece thinks they want them smarter. I think he’s been playing too much Resident Evil with Robbie. Fran, our own tech, thinks they want the virus to work faster, change a person within seconds or minutes, and then slow down once the process completes. Maybe make it in a way the body stops decomposing. She knows the revolutionists were playing around with rabies and toxoplasmosis, saying they’re just experimenting, but she doesn’t think they were being honest and forthcoming.
The whole thing gives me the heebies no matter what they’re trying to do to it. I only had a few minutes in Dr. Finnegan’s presence, but one thing he said stuck out to me and plays in a loop in my head sometimes. “Kansas, the zombies won’t last forever. They will die out.” It had been the only thing he said with real, true confidence, but as though he wished it were different. Yeah, I hadn’t been asking the right questions, but that… that I know is significant.
“Anything else?” I ask.
Nastas pauses a moment before shaking his head. “That particular lab wasn’t there for very long and most evidence was damaged therefore inconclusive. Just the log for the zombie.”
“Nothing of interest in that?”
Nastas looks at Gregory to answer. He shakes his head. “Nothing. It was transported from New York, so it had the same behavioral logs as we’ve studied ourselves of zombies from that region.”
I drum my fingers on the arm of the chair, willing myself to stay calm. I feel more than see Reece shift beside me. I say what I know they want me to say. “That was a waste of time.”
Nastas nods. “This is why we need to focus on survivors only. We shouldn’t worry about what the coalition is doing. Let them worry about that. It’s their job.” I almost snort but Nastas continues. “All in favor of not wasting any more of our resources on non-survivor missions?” He holds up his hand, as do three others. Gregory reluctantly raises his palm. My mouth drops open. “It’s closed for discussion, Kansas.”
I realize, belatedly, I should be more outraged, and I would be if we weren’t researching the virus on our own. It’s so quiet, we can hear a rodent scuffling somewhere.
“On to more important things. Like helping people.” Of course, this is all he cares about. More people for the town, more people to help, the better it is.
The council spends the next hour figuring out where to go. During this time, I negotiate us leaving in nine days. Plenty of time for Sander, Sam, and Mya to go to Birmingham—so I don’t care where they decide to send us. There are several places they suspect compounds to be. Of course, they steer toward the ones on the east coast in warmer temperatures, which are compounds I’ve ruled out before in favor of more zombie-infested, geographical locations.
“Jacksonville might be our best bet to save numerous survivors in one go,” Nastas says.
“Great choice.” The oldest council member speaks up. “We have the means of taking on so many and a way to get them here.”
Reece clears his throat. “Since that’s where we come in, how exactly, are we getting them here?”
Nastas smiles. “The train.”
The team and I swap uneasy glances. Ty.
We burst from the front doors. I veer left and head into an alleyway. “Sam?”
He’s already shaking his head. “No way. There’s no way he’ll do it.”
“Sam’s leavin’ tonight, suga’.” Glin chews on her bottom lip, not caring about her lipstick. A sure sign this is all falling apart before our eyes.
I nod. “Okay, I’d rather you check on Rudy, Sam.” I pace. “Okay, okay. I’ll convince Ty.”
“You going to try to get in touch with John?” Reece asks me. “The zombie at the chemical plant was from New York.” So, he caught that, too, huh?
“So?” Sam asks.
I stop. “In New York, I thought I’d come across a zombie I didn’t sense,” I tell him with quotations. “I thought it was a fluke. Killed it before I could think about it. And then in Texas, I didn’t feel the zombie in that vault before Mr. Nightshift blew its brains out.”
His eyes widen. “You’re sure?”
“I know, it’s crazy. And to answer your question, Reece, we received a message last night. Everything in Colorado is gold so far. Bruno made it and John’ll be in touch as soon as he finds out anything, but I should try to get in touch with them. Might be hard.” Communication to Colorado is still tricky business. I look to each of them in turn and point to city hall. “But I need to go in there tonight.”
“And Kan?” Reece asks, gesturing toward Sam.
“What now?” Sam asks on a sigh.
I scratch at my temple and tell them all about Mago.
Sam’s face slackens. “Fuck.”
“Copy that.”
Gwen’s house is always comforting except for the fact she has a million pictures of Mac and his older brother, Ben, sitting around. And then a million more of Ben’s family. When I walk in, she’s at her stove with a dish towel over her shoulder. The pot she’s stirring is boiling. I feel antsy as if I shouldn’t be here, like I should be doing other things.
She sends me a smile. “I’m making caramel to drizzle over a cake.”
“Sounds delicious.” Looking into her living room, she’s got blankets and pillows piled on the couch. I take a minute to gaze at some photos. I pick up a frame with Ben and Mac with their arms slung around each other and big smiles on their faces—still young and carefree. Ben looks eerily similar to Mac, and Ben’s two little girls as well. Gwen’s genes were certainly dominant ones. There’s another of the two girls holding teddy bears in front of a Christmas tree. Their blond hair wild with curls. When I first saw the photo, I thought they were Ben and Mac as children.
Julie and Ariella storm inside. Ariella sports her Little Mermaid pajamas, but she looks to be in a mood, not greeting me or Gwen. She huffs onto the couch with a pout.
Julie sighs. “She wants to dye her hair red.”
I laugh. Gwen made cake, I sign. I see her perk with interest, but she doesn’t move. With caramel sauce. Her pout becomes a smile, and she hops up to patter into the kitchen.
I think about telling Julie what’s going on, but I decide against it until I figure what’s really going on. No need for her to worry, too. A few minutes later and we’re all snuggled on the couch, listening to Ariel’s woes for more than she has. It seems worse with closed captioning. When she starts singing about it, Ella jumps up to dance to the vibrations coming from the television. A huge smile smeared with caramel adorns her pretty face. Julie slaps my hand from my mouth. I send her a slight chagrined smile and peek at my fingers. They’re raw and sore from constantly gnawing on them.
Eventually, Julie gets Ella to calm back down and before I know it, my eyes are drooping. I sink further into the fluffy couch and cover myself with a blanket.
Movement causes me to wake abruptly. Julie puts a finger to her mouth as she picks up a sleeping Ella to leave. It’s officially dark outside. I help Gwen fold blan
kets and clean the kitchen. We’re silent for the most part. I think she’s just as worn out as me.
“John will be back soon.”
She nods. “He’s going to want to move there, isn’t he?”
If I’m anything, it’s a realist. “None of us will ever move there.” Pipe dream if I’m honest with myself. The zombie apocalypse will never end. “We just need somewhere private without watchful eyes.” Long minutes pass and I turn to see her studying me. “What?”
A small smile touches her lips. “You’ve grown up too fast, Kan.”
Now I smile. “I had to. I’m pushing thirty.”
“You’re beautiful. Smart. And maybe you’re pushing thirty but you’re way too young to be so jaded.”
“Everyone’s jaded, Gwen. Even Ella… shame on Julie for not dying that child’s hair red.”
She shakes her head. “Oh no. Don’t even think about it.” I glance at her in confusion. She points to herself. “Next time she’s in my care, she’s going home with Ariel hair. Kool-Aid style.” We burst into laughter. I’m smiling more at seeing Julie pissed off about it than anything. “I’m doing it,” she goes on. “Not you. She’ll be the happiest child around.”
I say my goodbyes, walking home with thoughts of little redhead Ariella. I need to wait a few hours before going back into town for operation zombie logs. My bones chill when I see my front door cracked open and grab the .22. I bump the door open slowly, I don’t even have to scan the room because someone made themselves at home. His head of white hair prominent through the dark over the couch. Relief pounds through my limbs and I blow out a breath.
But still… keeping my gun pointed, I let him feel the barrel on the back of his head. “Sitting around my house in the dark is a sure way of getting shot, old man.”