Until the End of the World (Book 3): All the Stars in the Sky

by Sarah Lyons Fleming

  “We’ll do that tonight,” Maureen says. She closes her eyes and breathes deep, then turns and stands at the counter as though she’s forgotten her next task.

  “Let us cook,” I say to her. “You don’t look well.”

  “I’m tired, sweetheart.”

  Sometimes I wonder why we want to keep on living, especially people like Maureen, who have absolute faith in the afterlife. Why they don’t give up and go to their reward is a mystery to me.

  “I’m okay,” she says. “Just having a hard morning.”

  We insist she sit down. I’ve brought the cinnamon from the house, and I look over our stock while Penny dumps some in with a bit of sugar. We have seven MREs. Five packs of ramen. Five pounds of flour. A few pounds of sugar. A bottle of oil. Canned pineapple. What’s left of the rice and oats. A couple jars of blueberry jam, and green tomatoes from Quebec that show no sign of ripening.

  After today, we’ll be halfway there. With the wheat berries, it may be enough to feed seventeen people for five days. We’ll still look for food, but we haven’t yet reached the point where food is worth endangering our lives. It very well may happen—last year, it took us close to a week to make the four-hour drive from Brooklyn to my parents’ cabin.

  When breakfast is ready, Penny lines up the various containers and scoops out wheat berries. They’re brown and somewhat gloppy looking, but they smell good. The bar has been lowered to the point where if it’s food, it’s tasty. I hand them out the door to Bits and Hank, who take them into the house. James comes into the camper for his, and when Penny turns to the counter, both James and I quickly spoon a bit of ours into her cup.

  Penny clears her throat. “Stop. I know what you’ve been doing, and I want you to stop.” We look guiltily to where she stands, hands on hips and lip trembling. “I don’t want extra food.”

  James is silent, so I say, “You need extra food, Pen. We don’t.”

  I wasn’t able to sneak her any pasta last night. James might have, but if I’m this hungry, then she must be starving.

  “I will not take your food.” She enunciates each word before she walks to her cup and scoops out a spoonful. James has hidden his cup behind his back, and she says to him, “Give me your cup. Now.”

  “No,” he says.

  “Give it to me.”

  “You cannot have my fucking cup.” He towers over her with narrowed eyes. James usually lets Penny get her way because she doesn’t ask for much, but it’s obvious it’s not happening today.

  Penny lowers her eyes to the cup I’ve covered with my hand. “Please, take it back.”

  I shake my head. “You may not have to actually eat for two, but you shouldn’t be on a diet.”

  “Neither should you. I swear you’re both skinnier, you know that? I don’t want to be the reason you starve to death.”

  “No one’s starving to death.” James wipes a tear off her cheek with the hand that doesn’t hold his cup. If he sets it down she’ll throw some in there. “You’re eating it. I don’t care if I have to hold you down and shove it down your throat for you.”

  Penny’s shoulders slump and she turns to me. “Give your food to Bits and Hank if you have to give it to someone. It’s not your fault I’m pregnant.”

  “It is James’s fault, though,” I say, and point at him accusingly. “I don’t want to waste time telling you how babies are made, but I will if I have to.”

  James laughs. Penny fights to keep her frown in place, loses, and then kicks me.

  I clutch my shin. “Ow! You’re lucky I don’t kick pregnant people!”

  “Sorry!” Penny covers her mouth. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”

  “Because you were frustrated. But, geez, woman, don’t do it again. Go kick a zombie or something.”

  “Stop giving me food, then.” She tries to contain her giggle, but it comes out with her words, and I follow suit until all three of us are gasping.

  “Fine, but you have to let James,” I say when I’ve caught my breath. She nods, but it’s obviously only to shut me up. “Stop lying or I’ll raise my ban on kicking pregnant people. Promise me.”

  Penny crosses her arms. “Fine. I promise.”

  “Now eat your food,” James says. He spoons his into his mouth without taking his eyes off her.

  “Right now?”

  “No, tomorrow. Yes, now.”

  She takes a bite and gives a dramatic swallow. I eat some of my own. It’s not bad—chewy and nutty, and the cinnamon makes it taste like breakfast food. I finish it in no time and watch Penny take her final bite.

  “Happy?” she asks.

  “When did you get so cranky?” I ask. “I thought pregnant people were supposed to be nice.”

  “You try being pregnant in the zombie apocalypse.”

  It’s supposed to be a joke, but her hand runs along her glasses. It’s her tell, as Nelly the poker player would say, and gives away her fear, uncertainty or nervousness every time. I give her a hug and whisper, “Just let him do this for you, okay? He needs to do something.”

  She nods tearfully when I take her cup and leave. Maureen, who’s been sitting on the sofa with downcast eyes, follows me into the house.

  “I could stand to lose a few pounds,” she says while we wipe out the breakfast dishes, and pats her round hips. On the farm, we never went without. “I’ll go back down to two meals a day.”

  “No, don’t you start—”

  “Just until we find more food. I don’t need extra stamina the way you all do, and I’m pretty sure I’m done growing. Don’t argue, Cassie. You won’t win this one.”

  It’s nice to have a mother figure until they get all bossy on you.

  “Okay,” I say, and wonder how many more times I’ll have to have this conversation. It’s preferable to being surrounded by selfish people, but the fact that we have to have it at all is beginning to wear on me.

  CHAPTER 21

  Once we’re on the road, I lie in the bedroom and watch movies with the kids. Disney movies might not be my first choice, but it’s like a vacation to watch anything, to lose myself in a world where I know everything will work out okay. I feel guilty that I get to lounge around in the relatively spacious RV while others ride in the pickup, but I’m not leaving Bits and Hank in a separate vehicle. No one asks me, Peter or Kyle to take a turn, so I guess they understand.

  The RV turns onto a bumpy road instead of the smooth asphalt we’ve been traveling, and I leave for the kitchen. “What’s going on?”

  “We decided to try some of these houses for food,” James says.

  A vast expanse of farmland is to our right, a small neighborhood to our left. Modular homes that look to have been well-kept before the grass grew sky-high line the dirt road, although there isn’t a tree within a half-mile radius. I go for my gloves, but Kyle stands and lays a hand on them.

  “You stay, I’m going.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” he says, brows so low I can barely see his eyes. “I’ve been sitting here like a damn fool while you all go for supplies. I should be out there.”

  “What about Nicki?” I ask quietly.

  “I always come back. See no reason that’d change now.” He checks his magazine, slides it back into his gun and draws his machete out of its sheath to scrutinize the blade. “I know you’d take care of Nicki if something happened.”

  I wave a hand at myself. “Hey, Kyle, do I carry around an umbrella?”

  Kyle double checks just to be sure. “No.”

  “Do I have a British accent?”

  “No. What the—”

  “Good. I was starting to think I was Mary Poppins or something, the way everyone tries to pawn their kids off on me.”

  I don’t know if my joke was funny or if it’s the stress needing an outlet, but the laugh that blasts from deep in his belly seems to take even him by surprise. I bounce on my toes, feeling victorious—even if we all end up dead on the side of the road, having failed
on our mission to reach Alaska, I’ll have accomplished my mission to make him laugh. Nicki runs from the bedroom, probably because her father laughing is not an everyday occurrence. He picks her up in one hand and wipes his eyes with the other. Another chuckle escapes. “I’m going to the houses. Be back in a little while, all right?”

  Nicki’s brows come down exactly the way Kyle’s do. I hold out my arms. “Come here, munchkin. We’ll hang out while Daddy goes.” I look at Kyle after she’s wrapped her legs around my waist. “I’ve got her, you know.”

  He knows what I really mean. “I know you do, Mary. But I’ll be back.” I laugh as he walks out to meet the others.

  They’re back in thirty minutes with a jar of salsa and expired baby formula, which could be added to our morning glop if necessary.

  “It probably took the virus longer to spread this far north,” James says. “They had time to eat everything.”

  Zeke looks around for children, and when he sees none, says, “There were a bunch of bodies in one that had a woodstove, looked like they froze. There wasn’t a scrap of wood furniture in any of the houses. They must have cut the trees for fuel. There are stumps under all that grass.”

  It explains the complete lack of trees, but not the fact that there are still stands of trees along the main road. Maybe they were too weak from starvation or sickness, or it was too snowy to harvest them and bring them back. I’d imagined all the horrors that could happen throughout the winter while I was safe and warm on the farm, and I probably wasn’t far off base.

  Zeke pulls himself out of whatever vision he still sees. “Well, we’d best hit the road.”

  We stay well above Saskatoon. As we near the Safe Zone that must have taken in Saskatoon residents, the excitement in the RV is palpable. John and Will used to say that Safe Zones need fuel to radio out, but they don’t need fuel to live. They could be safe and sound.

  We make our way onto streets with plain but nice houses tucked into conifer trees. At the corner, a fence begins and travels alongside the school-turned-Safe Zone. Nelly stops at the main gate and we stare in silence at the plywood sign that used to read Safe Zone-All Welcome. Someone has since spray-painted UN- in front of the word Safe. Something bumps against the wooden gate, but the doors have been braced with diagonal wooden posts and locked with a chain for good measure.

  Kyle opens a window. It lets in cold air and the moans of what’s on the other side of the fence. “Maybe we can get in there. At least get to the food.”

  Shawn reverses the pickup and climbs to its roof. He spends a full minute peering over the top of the fence, while the hisses rise in volume and the gate is battered hard enough to make me fear the posts will give out. He finally turns and shrugs, although his nonchalant veneer has cracked a little. “We’d never make it to the buildings. It’s not worth it. Let’s go.”

  Bits runs into the living area and leaps into Peter’s arms, the others close behind her. “We’re not going in there, are we?” Ash asks. She must think we’re even crazier than we are.

  “No, honey, we’re not,” Zeke says. He pulls her to his side, where she huddles under his arm.

  If we still had the Command room in Whitefield with its map of the Safe Zones, it’d be another black pin replacing the green. But Whitefield’s a black pin now, as are Quebec and Kingdom Come. Maybe we’re green pins on Alaska’s map, or maybe Alaska’s the same as this Safe Zone and the ones we left behind. I have to believe it isn’t—otherwise, mustering the courage to travel through this deserted landscape might become harder than it already is.

  We pull away, leaving the zombies to their frustration and us to ours.

  CHAPTER 22

  James was right when he said there likely wasn’t much food around. We’ve wasted time stopping at dust-filled kitchens along the way, but I’m sure the last Safe Zone went on patrol and cleaned out everything within a fifty mile radius. That’d be fine, if what’s left of it weren’t locked within that fence.

  “The bridge should be just down this hill,” Mark says. He raises a finger and his eyebrows. “Well, look at that. I didn’t think I’d be using the word hill anytime soon.”

  The tiny lines around his eyes bend and fold with his amusement. Mark has the permanently wind-burned skin of someone who’s been outdoors much of his life. He’s hiked all over the world, rock climbed when he was younger, and was an archery pro. He’s small but strong, with bright eyes and energy that belies his sixty-some years. Sometimes I get the sneaking suspicion he views all of this as one giant adventure—in fact, I think he might view life that way, zombie apocalypse or no.

  I stand to look out the windshield. Sure enough, we’re heading downhill. It’s not a very steep hill, but it’s Mount Everest compared to the rest of the topography. The bridge over the muddy, wide river could use repaving. Zeke says as much and Mark replies, “Interesting. I hadn’t given it much thought, but we might find the way back east difficult. If we ever do go back.”

  “Why?” Penny asks from her new home on the cabover bed.

  “Bridges need fairly frequent repairs. Roads as well. A few years would be fine, but ten years, twenty years, and people are going to find moving around a lot harder. We won’t quite be back to the days of the Oregon Trail, but rivers will have to be forded, roads will need to be cleared.”

  “We’ll have to use wagons like Laura Ingalls did, right?” Bits asks.

  “It’s certainly possible,” Mark replies. “But we know a lot more than they did back then, so we might have it a bit easier. Wagons with struts, at least.”

  Bits climbs onto the dinette and points at a tree-covered island in the center of the river. “Look at that island, Peter. Is it like the one you stayed on?”

  “This one’s bigger,” Peter says. “Too bad there’s not a cabin on it. You could have a big garden and livestock, too.”

  He watches until it’s out of sight. Peter’s told us about the island he stayed on with Chuck, Rich and Natalie last summer after we were separated in Bennington. Natalie, Chuck’s teenage daughter, had lowered a ladder out a window for him to escape a certain death by zombies, and he’d stayed with them until his hurt ankle healed enough to travel. He’d hoped the three would make their way to Kingdom Come this summer; but whether they were happy on their island or tried to reach us and failed, we’ll never know.

  “I wonder where they are,” he says.

  “Probably safe, since they’re surrounded by water,” I reply. “They can walk out when they freeze and make their way somewhere else.”

  Peter doesn’t remark that the lake could have filled with floating Lexers from the giant pods. Lexers who would’ve eventually made their way to the island. I’m sure he wants to imagine the three of them safe and sound in their little cabin with their moat of a lake, waiting out the worst of it. I do, and I’ve never even met them. I’d like to give Nat a big hug one day for saving Peter’s life.

  “I have a new mission for us,” James says. “We’re going to need a ton of gas to get to Alaska, and I don’t know that one tank’s going to do it. This stretch of road—” he runs a finger along the large map from the Yukon into Alaska, “looks pretty empty.”

  “We’ll have just enough to get to Whitehorse if we start from Edmonton with every tank full,” Mark adds, “but if we can’t stay at the Whitehorse Safe Zone and can’t find more fuel, we’ll be stuck. We need a larger reserve of fuel than we have. James and I have us going north before Edmonton, but it may be necessary to pay the city a visit.”

  “Then our first order of business is more fuel containers,” Zeke says. “We’ll top off everywhere we can and hope to avoid Edmonton. Y’all find the next town and we’ll stop there to see what we can find.”

  Zeke rubs his eyes and leans by the sink. I jump to sit on the counter and put my arm around his bulk. “What’s up, sugar?” he asks.

  “Nothing. I just wanted to see how my favorite zombie killer’s doing.”

  He smiles, but his usual good cheer
is absent. “Tired. Just goddamned tired of this.”

  I squeeze his shoulder in answer. It seems to be a running theme today.

  “I was gonna retire in three years, ever tell you that?” he asks. I shake my head. “Except for Mama’s retirement home, I had no bills. Owned my house, my bike and car outright, and had money socked away. Dentistry’s a good job and all, but I worked my ass off so I wouldn’t have to do it forever. I mean, how many times can you tell patients to floss and have them ignore you before you want to punch them?”

  “You’d think they’d listen to you, the big scary dentist.”

  Zeke lays a meaty hand on my knee with a chuckle. “You’d think. I was going to take a long road trip, maybe a year or so. I’d start out south and work my way up north come summer.”

  “On the bike?”

  “Yup.”

  “By yourself?”

  “There was someone I’d planned to do it with, but she passed away.”

  I’ve never heard Zeke’s story, not all of it anyway. I know about his travels to Whitefield from Kentucky, but not his life before the LX virus. “I’m sorry. Did it happen on the way—”

  “No, she died a few years before that. Breast cancer. I might’ve preferred this way. Faster. Cancer took two years to get her, but get her it did.”

  I’ve always wanted Zeke to find someone. He’s kind and funny and has a heart even bigger than his big self. I’m glad to know that he had that kind of love once, even if it didn’t last. “She was a lucky lady to have you. What was her name?”

  “Julie. Jules.” He squeezes my knee. “I was luckier. Can you believe she put up with me for seven years?” Zeke’s eyes are bright with amusement or tears, or both.

  “Oh, stop. You’re the best and it’s time you knew it.”

  “Sugar, I can always count on you for a morale boost.”

  “I’m only speaking the truth. I’m serious.”