“Father! Jacob! Open the door! Open it now!”
His father’s voice was so near he had to be standing right outside. “Until you repent of your defiance, Zacharias, you will remain in your room without rations. I recommend you think very hard about where your loyalties lie. The Bible commands you to be an obedient son.”
“What does the Bible say about imprisoning and starving your children, you damned hypocrite?” he shouted, wrenching on the door with all his strength. When it failed to give, he returned to banging on it until his palms stung.
“You’ve forgotten your duty.” The calm in his father’s—and Zach wondered how he could bear to think of him that way anymore—voice was terrifying. Zach could deal with the reverend when he was enraged, but now Maurice spoke with absolute confidence, a peaceful surety that he was right and he would win. “Once you tell me where the ammunition is, we’re leaving this place. We need to go somewhere isolated, where we can establish the sort of faithful society God means for us to have. I know of a place in the Northwest. A retreat for men of God. There will be supplies there and room for us and any others we might bring. A new Eden.”
“A faithful society with you in charge, I suppose?” Zach scoffed. “Sounds like you’re buying into your own self-serving bullshit. You’ve been playing the role of the zealot so long to thrill crowds that you’ve started to believe it. Do you even hear yourself?”
“Perhaps after you’ve fasted and prayed awhile, the Lord’s plan will be clearer to you,” the reverend said with the sort of pretentious, long-suffering benevolence Zach had always despised. “I’ll check on you in the morning.”
“Father! Father! Let me out of here!”
There was silence from the other side of the door. Zach pummeled it with a flurry of angry kicks and blows, but it was useless. Panting, he slid down the panel to sit on the floor, thudding the back of his head against the door in frustration. The bars on the windows—another testament to Maurice’s vanity and paranoia, considering how far out in the country they lived—painted stripes across the floor in the rising sunlight. No help there. He’d have to take the hinges off the door once his panic calmed. He closed his eyes, willing his heart to be still.
Lord, please help me. Please show me how to live in peace with him.
The serenity that normally filled Zach when he prayed was nowhere to be found. Just emptiness and despair. No matter how he begged God for guidance regarding his father, he got no answer.
Or is that what I’m not getting? We can’t live in peace. Is it Your will for me to leave him behind?
There it was. There. That spark in his chest. Hope. Grace.
The man he’d been struggling against the whole winter—since last year, really—wasn’t his father anymore. It was time to let go of filial obedience and listen to the guidance of his own soul.
He remained there and lost himself in prayer. He didn’t know how long he sat there on the floor. He simply listened to that sense of rightness until he was sure of what he had to do.
Voices from the backyard pulled him out of his meditation, and he looked out his window to see his father standing on the patio steps, holding a baseball bat. Jacob stood at his shoulder with a golf club.
“Come out of there! Come out of there right now!” Maurice shouted at the shed.
Slowly, the door opened, and Nico stepped out, one hand held behind his back. Zach’s breath caught at his first sight of the man he’d known only by voice for weeks. Nico’s clothes were filthy and his hair stringy. Weeks’ worth of beard covered the lower half of his face, and he was thin, nearly gaunt. But still, he was beautiful. Sober, dark-fringed brown eyes peered out from a light-brown face, and Zach felt that rightness in his chest again.
He wasn’t meant to be with his father and Jacob. Whether or not they could be saved and brought back to God wasn’t a task the Lord meant for Zach to take on. He was meant to go with Nico.
As Zach watched, something dawned on Nico’s face.
Recognition?
“Reverend Maurice Houtman. Wow. Well, that just fucking figures.” Nico shook his head, his tone both bitter and amused. “Of all the yards for me to wind up in.”
“How do you know me?” the reverend snarled suspiciously. “Did someone send you here?”
“I recognize you from the vids. I could never watch anything on Sundays without seeing you running your mouth on some pundit’s show or another. Then, of course, there’s also the fact that your RAL goon squad tried to murder my mother.”
Zach wanted to reject the accusation. He didn’t want to believe his father was capable of being behind the RAL’s actions. But he couldn’t. Not anymore. He’d overheard his father’s conversation the previous summer, the one that had coincided all too well with everything Zach knew about the RAL’s attack on that midsummer bonfire.
Maurice tightened his grip on the bat, shifting his defensive stance. “Who are you?”
“Nicolás Fernández. Or maybe you’d recognize my working name, Octavio Costas.”
“The faggot son of the whore,” he sneered. “Get out of here before I finish the job God’s soldiers failed to do.”
“Try it and you’ll be dead before you can finish swinging.” Nico lifted his chin defiantly, raising the hand he’d been hiding to aim a handgun at Maurice. “I won’t let you murder me. Where’s Zach?”
“Zacharias is praying and repenting. Now it makes sense, his disobedience. You are Satan’s own emissary, sent here to tempt him away from the Lord. But I won’t allow it. Once my son knows what you are—a sodomite and a whore—he’ll finally see his error.”
Nico’s eyes flickered at that, doubt crossing his face. “If that’s true, fine. I want to hear it from him. I’m able to travel now, so I’ll leave, but I want to see that he’s all right first.”
The reverend shook his head. “He’ll be better once you’re gone. We’ll go away, somewhere that your kind can never reach us again.”
“Still trying to elevate yourself to a position of authority?” Nico smirked. “Your whole self-serving, power-hungry dogma would be a lot more convincing if I didn’t know just who your campaign contributors were, back before the pandemic.”
“You think the opinion of someone who gained his notoriety by selling his body matters to me?”
“I may have been a hustler, but at least I was never a hypocrite,” Nico said with a shrug. “Where’s Zach? And spare me the whole repentance bullshit, because I know he’s no bigger fan of your fire-and-brimstone idiocy than I am.”
“Zacharias is none of your concern. Get off my property!”
“I swear I will go through you if I have to, and if I do, it’s going to be very bad for you.”
Zach was tempted to open the window and call down, but he worried that if he distracted Nico from his standoff with Maurice and Jacob, they might manage a blitz attack and get ahold of the handgun. Swearing, Zach rushed over to his desk and ripped the drawer out, spilling its contents on the floor to find something he could use on the hinges of the door.
He worked frantically, aware of his father’s incensed and increasingly less coherent shouting. Using the flathead screwdriver he’d found as a lever, he lifted the pins out of the hinges, then wedged his fingers into the gap at the bottom of the door to pull it open, despite the hook latch his father had installed on the other side.
Then Zach dug in his closet for the duffel bag he’d traveled with when they’d been stuck in quarantine over the holidays and stuffed two changes of clothes, several pairs of socks and underwear, and an extra pair of shoes inside. He hesitated a moment before adding his Bible, as well. Not the one his parents had given him for his confirmation, but the secret one he kept tucked away.
Storming down the hall to Naomi’s bedroom, he flipped the mattress over and dug out the boxes of shells and spare rounds. From the gun cabinet downstairs, he loaded one handgun and stuck it into his waistband, threw another into the duffel, and slung a shotgun over his shoulder, lea
ving the other behind. He couldn’t leave them completely defenseless.
The bag was heavy, dragging on one shoulder, pulling him off-balance. Sooner or later he’d have to replace it with a rucksack, but for now it would have to do.
Jacob spotted Zach first, giving him a startled look as he came through the patio door. Zach drew the handgun from his waistband. He held it at his side, but the safety was off, and if either of them looked ready to use their clubs, he’d use it. A warning shot, first, and then to wound only if he had to.
“Put down the bat.” Zach’s voice was calm. He was calm. The terrible fear and impotent rage he’d always felt when confronting Maurice before was gone. The anger was there, but it was a steady, purposeful, righteous anger. He’d never been more sure of himself. “I’m leaving. We’re leaving.”
Maurice spun, staring at Zach in astonishment for a moment, before looking back and forth between him and Nico, or rather, the guns they each held.
“You’d choose some wetback faggot whore over your own family, Zacharias?” the reverend demanded, his eyes burning with fury. “Go, then. Get out of my sight. I no longer have an elder son.”
“You’ve lost your way, Father. And you’re leading Jacob down the same wrong path.” Zach turned his eyes to his younger brother, who was watching him with a disdainful expression. Only eighteen and so full of avarice and warped ideas. “You can come with us, you know. You don’t have to be like him.”
“Why would he follow you when he could come with me to find God’s remaining chosen? With a new Eve, we’ll begin to populate the world. Like his namesake, Jacob will beget a nation.”
“Don’t let him do this to you, Jacob,” Zach pleaded, praying to see something other than contempt in his brother’s eyes. “Listen to him. This is insanity, and he’ll take you down with him. Come with us.”
He thought he saw the briefest flicker of doubt in Jacob’s eyes, but it disappeared in an instant, replaced by that gloating smirk he always wore when the reverend favored him over Zach.
“You heard my father,” he said haughtily. “Go. Go on with your faggot boyfriend. We don’t need you.”
Zach closed his eyes for a long moment, then nodded once before tucking his gun away. “I left you one shotgun. You’ll find the shells in Naomi’s mattress.”
The reverend stared impassively, gesturing at them to get a move on with an imperious jerk of his chin.
“I’ll pray for you both,” Zach whispered, his throat thick, and turned away.
Zach stood guard while Nico gathered his gear from inside the shed, in case his father or brother got any ideas. But Jacob and the reverend were content to stand together on the deck and watch until they were certain Nico and Zach had left the property.
They didn’t speak. Nico seemed to respect the enormity of what Zach had just done, severing his ties with his last surviving family. How many others out there were in the same situation? How many people had lost everyone and were now alone in the world? Were there families, anymore? Or were they all just the straggling remnants of humanity, too foolish to die with the rest of their species?
Zach stopped on the road that ran through what had once been acres of corn adjacent to the Houtmans’ property to set down his duffel and rotate his aching shoulder. His arm felt like it would fall off.
“Here. Trade me.” Nico shrugged off his rucksack and grabbed Zach’s duffel before he could protest, then took off, apparently to forestall any argument.
Zach scrambled to get the rucksack on his shoulders and catch up. “What, you think your arm’s not going to get as tired as mine?” he asked curtly, grimacing at the sound of his own petulance. It seemed easier to snap at Nico than to let the weight of the morning’s events settle in and crush him. Now that they no longer had a yard and a wall between them, it seemed he had forgotten how to talk.
Nico shrugged, not meeting Zach’s eyes. “I’m stronger than I look.”
Zach took a moment to take in Nico’s lithe stature. He didn’t have the build of someone who could haul a heavy duffel for miles. “Is it true what you said back there?”
Nico glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Which part?”
“What you did before the pandemic. Were you—”
“An escort? Prostitute? Whore? Rentboy? Hustler?” Nico snorted. “Yeah, I was. And yes, most of my clients were men, and I was more than happy with that situation. Is that going to be a problem?”
His demeanor was so defensive that Zach immediately regretted what might have, on the surface, seemed like a very judgmental question. “No, not . . . not for the reasons you assume. I was just wondering what sort of survival skills that particular career path came with.”
“More than you’d think.” Relaxing, Nico flashed him a grin. “I’ve got black belts in tae kwon do and tang soo do. My mother made sure all her employees were able to defend themselves. As for guns, well, I’m not at my best there, but I know the basics.”
“That’s a relief. Hand-to-hand fighting isn’t going to do you much good against revenants. Not unless you want to end up infected anyway.”
“I won’t get infected.”
“That’s pretty cocky of you.”
“Would you believe I’m immune?”
“Nobody’s immune.”
“Trust me. I am.”
Nico picked up the pace, making it difficult for Zach to keep up even though he was carrying the more portable load, much less demand an explanation for his outrageous claim. He ended up trotting to try to match Nico’s apparently inexhaustible strides.
“Fine! You’ve proven your point. Please, slow down.” He came to a halt and bent forward, panting to catch his breath. When he looked up, Nico seemed startled.
“I’m sorry,” he stammered, his rich-brown complexion growing ruddy. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“You mean you weren’t trying to rub my nose in the fact that I doubted you could handle yourself?”
Nico shook his head, looking troubled. “No. I’m sorry. I just didn’t realize that I was— It didn’t feel like I was going that fast.”
“I bet it didn’t. You’re not even winded.”
“I’m sorry.” Nico shuffled his feet, kicking at an old, picked-over cob lying on the ground. He turned in a circle and glanced around. “Do you have anything in this state besides corn?”
“Besides soy? I’m sure we do, but at the moment, I can’t think of a thing.” Zach looked at his duffel and laughed. The sound was harsh and nearly hysterical. “I didn’t bring food. Oh God. I packed clothes and guns, but no food.”
As if the strength suddenly drained from his legs, he dropped to sit on the road and covered his face with shaking hands, praying. He hadn’t even eaten breakfast.
“It’s okay. We’ll manage.” He felt the weight of Nico’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently, and the pressure bolstered him. “You know, once I figure out where we’re going.”
“Yeah. Of course. I’m sure we’ll find what we need. Sorry. Didn’t mean to fall apart. It’s been a hell of a morning.” There was that hysterical laugh again.
“Sounded like it. What happened in there?”
Zach shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.” He drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Okay. Let’s figure this out. You still want to head to Colorado Springs?”
“I don’t know where else to go, honestly.” Nico dropped the duffel and sat on the road beside him. “It’s the only place I know survivors are gathered, and I figure there’s safety in numbers, right? And there’s a government and military presence there. It’s where they quarantined the last surviving cabinet and Congress members over the winter.”
“How do you know this?” Zach turned his head to study Nico, getting his first close-up look at the man who had suddenly become his traveling companion.
“I spent the winter with a general from the Pentagon. He had power and information feeds.” Nico’s scowl warned him off asking any more about that particular situati
on.
“All right. I guess we just need to figure out food, then? And how we’re going to find shelter at night. And transportation. And how to avoid the revenants, and—”
“Breathe, Zach. Just breathe.”
He took Nico’s advice, resting his forehead on his knees. The spring breeze was cool, too cool really for the shirt he was wearing. God. He hadn’t grabbed a coat, either.
“I figure our best chance of avoiding the revenants is to stay away from the cities,” Nico started. “That’s where the most people were, so that’s where they’ll mostly be, right?”
Zach nodded, his brow rubbing against the fabric of his jeans. “Right.”
Nico hesitated. Then he seemed to come to a decision and blurted, as if plunging into deep water, “As for supplies, I guess the best thing to do, for now, would be to try to find my lightcar. It’s wrecked, but it was packed with supplies. If no one saw it crash and looted it already, that is. The question is, how to transport it all.”
“Looted. Oh Lord. Everything will have been looted by now, won’t it?” Zach closed his eyes and began to pray silently again, seeking God’s presence to ameliorate his panic.
“Maybe, maybe not?” Nico’s tone was the verbal equivalent of a shrug. “By the time the ration drops stopped, it was full winter. The roads weren’t cleared, even if people had dared to leave their houses, and by spring . . .”
“Everyone was already dead,” Zach finished bleakly, lifting his head to look around.
Nico nodded. “Yeah. So here in the north and in the plains states, it won’t be so bad. Probably worse in the warmer regions where people weren’t snowed in. Maybe. Hell, I don’t know. I could be talking out my ass.”
“If you had information feeds over the winter, you’ve got a better idea of what was going on than I do. That’s good enough for me.” Zach closed his eyes for a moment, bracing himself more mentally than physically before rising. “Okay. I know there’s a farm a few miles down the road, where they used to sell preserves and canned goods at a roadside stand. Maybe . . . maybe they still have some stores we can eat while we figure everything out.”
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