I tickle her side. “Stop with the drama already. Everyone’s agreed to go.”
Hank is excited enough to jump up and down with Bits, which makes me glad we’ve said yes. Who knows when they’ll go swimming next? Definitely not during an Alaskan winter.
We drive past the ranger cabin to a boardwalk that passes through a warm water swamp. Even walking softly, fifteen pairs of feet are loud on the wooden planks that wind through the autumn woods, but I don’t let myself get crazy about it. I’m not going to pass up this chance and hope we get back one day. Besides, we’ve grown pretty good at feeling out an area, and with the way the birds call and little rodents scamper in the underbrush, it seems we’re the only living or undead humans here.
The boardwalk becomes a bridge where we get our first glimpse of a long pool surrounded by a riot of red and orange bushes. Tendrils of steam rise into the cool air and yellow leaves float on the surface. Several staircases lead into the water from a roofed wooden deck that houses changing rooms and cubbies for clothes.
“Ladies first,” Zeke says. “We’ll get in once y’all are in the water.”
We strip down, me to nothing and the others to their spare underwear. I’ve brought my zombie-water clothes in order to wash them, but I don’t want to wear them until they’re disinfected. I take the soap, shampoo and conditioner and shiver my way to the steps.
“Oh. My. God,” Jamie says when she hits the water. “This is amazing.”
I sink into the hot water, every muscle crying in joy, then sit on the wooden benches built at the sides of the pool to scrub Ana’s clothes with a bar of soap. I slip on the bra and underwear once they’re rinsed.
“Get over here with that rat’s nest,” I say to Bits. She swims over, spitting out water, and I drag the brush through her snarls while she acts as if I’m murdering her. Now I wish I had taken Ana’s conditioner instead of a small bottle of cheap stuff.
Bits hangs on Peter’s back like a monkey when he comes up from dunking himself, hair freshly shampooed. “All aboard,” he says, and brings her to the opposite end and back again.
“You’re nice and clean,” I say. “Sorry about the mouthwash debacle.”
“You were trying to keep me alive. How mouthwash was going to do that, I don’t know, but it’s the thought that counts.” I splash him and stand to cool down.
“Your cup runneth over,” Nelly says, eyes on my chest.
I look down. Ana’s bra is a bit too small, hardly inappropriate, but I turn a few degrees hotter than the water anyway. Peter glances down and away just as quickly. It’s a basic black bra, but he might recognize it as hers. I sink into the water and glare at Nelly.
“Let’s live here forever,” I say because we need an immediate subject change. “We’ll eat moose and bison and drink pine needle tea so we don’t get scurvy.”
“Pine needles have vitamin C?” Peter asks.
“Doesn’t everyone know that?”
“I didn’t,” Adam says.
“I did,” James says, and we high five.
Margaret is on a bench, eyes closed, looking younger and more relaxed than I’ve ever seen. “I knew.”
“See?” I say. “So we’ll be set.”
Kyle sits on the steps, dipping Nicki in the water by her armpits so her cast stays dry. He looks less ashen now that we’ve stopped for over ten minutes. “I’m down. I’m tired of puking in the truck.”
The peacefulness of the water soaks into me along with the minerals the brochure raved about. I float on my back and listen to the sounds of merriment, then swim to where Peter sits staring into the forest. “Hey. We’re almost there.”
“We are.”
He doesn’t look happy to be almost there. I sit beside him, run my hands through the water and blurt out, “I’m sorry I have to wear Ana’s clothes.”
“They’re just clothes.”
“I don’t want it to upset you.” This is probably where I should stop, but my mouth keeps going. “I wouldn’t, except I didn’t have underwear or a bra. I didn’t think I’d be wearing it in front of people or I would’ve washed my old one. It doesn’t fit that well, but running without a bra is, you know…Well, I guess you don’t know, but—” I finally get my mouth to shut and watch a leaf float by.
“I didn’t know it wasn’t yours,” he says.
“Great. So I’ve made it worse.”
“You haven’t made it anything. I told you, it’s fine.” There’s a long silence in which I decide that drowning myself will be the best way to never have to look at Peter again.
“How’s your side?” he asks. “Those bruises look like they hurt.”
I don’t want to think about the bruises, have barely looked at them. “Only to touch. How’s your cheek?”
“Better than yours.” His has faded to a pink mark, while mine is a lovely purple-black.
“I’ll have to practice my punching, then. I guess it’s almost time to get out.”
I rise off the bench. I haven’t looked at him since schooling him in the hazards of running without a bra, and he takes my arm. “I’m fine. I was just thinking.”
“Sorry I interrupted with the insanity of how my underclothes don’t fit properly.”
I’m relieved that he wears his half-amused by my antics expression. “I’m used to your insanity. And you look nice—” He stops with his lips pressed together.
I’m not sure how to respond to being told I look nice in a bra by someone who isn’t unfastening it or selling it to me, and I stare at him for a few seconds before a giant laugh escapes. I think his ears might be pinker.
“I have no idea why I said that. I didn’t mean—”
“It was the automatic you-look-nice reflex,” I say, and pat his shoulder. “You look nice in your underwear, too. There, now we’re even.”
Bits swims between us and comes up with a splash. “Cassie, quick, what do you want to eat?”
“Vanilla milkshake with French fries for dipping.”
“Really?” Bits asks. “That’s gross.”
I widen my eyes at Peter. “Oh, no, she’s never dipped fries in ice cream. This is not okay.”
“It’s delicious,” Peter says. “I thought it was gross until Cassie made me try it.”
“Then I want to try it,” Bits says. “Maybe we can in Alaska?”
“I’ll do my best,” Peter says. “All we need are potatoes and cows. They’re a dime a dozen.”
Peter winks, but I know he’ll move Heaven and Earth to get that cow and potatoes. The little things that make life sweet, like milkshakes, are rare these days. The big things, like people who’ll do their damnedest to get those milkshakes, are even harder to find. But I’m surrounded by them.
CHAPTER 43
The warmth of the woodstove dries my hair to its soft brown self and my jeans will be dry by morning. I feel almost normal. We’ve brought mattresses down to the lobby and enjoyed our famous wafflecakes in celebration of our last night of traveling. None of us says it’s our last night because no one wants to jinx it, but everyone settles on their mattresses in better spirits than since we started this journey.
I toss and turn all night with worries about Whitehorse and nightmares about Whit, who wins our battle in sleep if not in real life, and wake up feeling as tired as I did before bed. They’ve managed to get a rusty VW in the lot working, thanks to Miss Vera’s battery, and Peter’s at the wheel when the sun pokes up its head.
“Bye, hot springs,” I say from the passenger’s seat. “I’ll miss you.”
“Bye, Cassie,” Peter says in a deep voice. I crack up, and he says, “I figured one of these times the inanimate object should talk back.”
“And that’s the hot springs’ voice?”
“Hey, it was pretty good.”
“It was great. Although it did sound a bit like Scooby Doo,” I say, and dodge his retaliatory pinch.
Everyone left of last summer is in the VW. It magnifies the people we’re missing, but I take co
mfort in the fact that anyone is left at all. I poke around in the Grateful Dead-stickered glove compartment and find a CD case. This VW is nowhere near as nice as Miss Vera; the only upgrade is in the aftermarket CD player.
I flip through the case. “Let’s see—Grateful Dead, Grateful Dead and surprise, surprise, Grateful Dead. Well, we’ve got all the concerts that are highly admired in the Deadhead community.” Nelly groans and flops back on the bed next to Adam.
“How do you know they’re highly admired?” James asks from the floor near Penny’s feet. Hank is crammed by the gearshift, head resting on my thigh.
“The daughter of Patrick and Abigail Forrest knows her spacejams. Even if, according to them, she doesn’t appreciate their genius.”
I flip until I find a few that aren’t The Grateful Dead, and one of them couldn’t be more perfect. “This one goes out to Peter Spencer,” I say in a radio announcer voice. “For talking me down off the ledge.”
“What is it?” he asks.
“You’ll see.”
I stick in the CD, find the track and turn up the volume. This stretch of road is empty, the windows are rolled up, and I want to drive with music blasting one more time in my life. Just for this song, I’ll pretend that everything is normal and sane. I glance at Peter when “Don’t Worry Baby” begins. He looks away as though embarrassed, and I tug his non-crunchy hair until he cracks a smile.
The Beach Boys’ harmony fills the car and tells us in the loveliest way possible that everything will be all right. That it’ll all work out in the end. We travel through lush, colorful forest and wind our way past a deserted car as the song fades away.
“Again,” Hank whispers.
Peter rests his hand on Hank’s head before bringing it back to the wheel. I press the button and wipe my eyes. I notice I’m not the only one who does.
***
We’ve passed through one other town on our way to Whitehorse, which was empty but for the requisite Lexers. Our cheer at the Whitehorse city limits wakes Bits, who’s asleep on my lap. “Are we here?” she asks.
“We are, baby girl,” Peter says.
She presses her face to Hank’s. “We’re here, Hank!”
“I know that,” he says matter-of-factly, but his smile is dazzling.
“Why would they want the Safe Zone in the middle of everything?” I ask. Whitehorse is one of the Safe Zones in the middle of a city, or as city as it gets in the Yukon. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that the more populated a place before zombies, the more zombies there are now.
“Look here,” James says. I spin for a view of his map. He points out a ridge that runs along one side of the downtown, with the river on the other side. “John said they dug out the ridge to make a wall so they only had to close off two directions. He wished we had something like that.”
And I wish John were here to see it. The road’s sides have been dug away, leaving only a bridge of asphalt to the first gate—the open first gate. It’s not a good sign, and I tighten my arms around Bits when she slumps. The road dips and makes a sharp left at a wall of concrete and rebar. We travel its length until we hit another wall. Mark and Zeke leave the pickup to knock on the giant wooden doors.
“Hello?” Zeke booms. No one answers. Peter pulls close for a view over the barrier and we climb to the roof.
I can see why they chose this area: The large metal buildings offer plenty of housing, and a wide expanse of field to the north appears to have been gardens. And I can see why they left: The field is mostly empty, but the rest of the Safe Zone is inhabited by Lexers. They walk and stand and crawl in and out of the buildings. Windows are shattered. Clothes and everything from lanterns to furniture are strewn on the streets.
Nelly rests his head on the wall. “Of course. Why did we think it would be any different?”
I rub his back before he jumps down. Zeke tries to smile when our eyes meet, but he looks as dispirited as I feel. The only thing that’s been keeping me sane after a long night of nightmares has been this moment. It was going to be a dream come true. I look over the wall one more time. This Safe Zone is ugly and flat and rocky, so far removed from Vermont and its pretty green mountains and farmhouse and fields. I tell myself I wouldn’t want to live here, that I wanted to be in Alaska anyway, but I’m lying to myself. All I really want is to be safe.
CHAPTER 44
We have to spend the night near Whitehorse, since it’s afternoon, but we’ll do it farther north. We don’t want to wake up surrounded. It only takes ten minutes to be clear of the city—ten minutes in which no one speaks, except for James to say that we have enough gas to get two vehicles to Talkeetna. We’ve just passed a few homes when we hear a yell and turn to see a thin woman with short dark hair running up the street waving her arms.
James slams on the brakes. The woman nears and he says, “Dude, is that Liz?”
I gasp. It is Liz, our friend and fellow patroller from Kingdom Come, who was in one of the first trucks to leave when the giant pod arrived. We’d assumed they’d been stuck in the giant pod and had met the same fate as everyone else. We throw open the doors and she stops with her legs spread and arms thrown in the air.
“Holy shit!” she screams. “Holy motherfucking shit!”
I don’t know who starts crying first, but by the time we’ve reached each other we’re both in tears. “I can’t believe this.” Liz uses her sleeve to wipe her face. “You’re here, right? I haven’t gone nuts?”
“Nope,” Zeke says. “If you’re nuts, then we are too.”
“Holy. Motherfucking. Shit.” She gives us all back-clapping hugs and steps back. “Is this…everyone?” We nod and her eyes flicker around the group, cataloging all the missing people. Her mouth thins.
“Who’s with you?” Nelly asks. “Why are you still here?”
“Mikayla, Ben and Jasmine,” she says. “We’re out of gas.”
***
She directs us to a fenced-in house with a metal roof. Liz closes the chain-link gate behind us and kicks it with her boot. “Not that it’d do dick against a pod, but it’s better than nothing.”
Zeke laughs and tugs his beard. “Why are you here, then?”
“We were hoping someone would drive by and give us a ride.” She shakes her head in disbelief and punches Nelly, which is much more a Liz-type show of emotion than crying, then opens the door and calls, “You’ll never guess who I found.”
We walk into a living room with couch and kitchen table on one side and mattresses on the other. A large woodstove graces the back of the room. Mikayla drops her spoon when she sees us and brings her hand to her chest. She runs forward, screaming, “Ben!”
Her ringlets are greasy and there are streaks of dirt on her clothes, but her golden-brown skin glows and her eyes are bright. Ben enters in a panic and stops, eyes bulging. His compact, muscular frame is as limp as the curly mop of brown hair that lays flat on his head. He’s one of those still-waters-run-deep kind of guys, but when I throw my arms around him he almost breaks my ribs.
Half an hour later, we’re eating boiled potatoes and listening to the end of their story. It’s similar to ours, except they drove across the top of the United States and southern Canada. It wasn’t so bad after they reached the Dakotas, narrowly escaping the pods we’d last heard were in Iowa.
They’d managed to save eight year-old Jasmine from the school bus by waiting out the zombies for two days before driving back to look for survivors. Jasmine answered their calls from under the seats, blocked in by bags where her mother had stashed her, and they had to kill a lot of good friends to get in. Liz tells me quietly that Henry was taken care of, but they didn’t check the roof of the ambulance. I’d like some closure, but I know there’s no surviving a zombie bite. Dan is gone either way. She tears up at mention of John.
“I would’ve looked at the bodies if I’d known he was there, Cass,” Liz says.
“I know.” I squeeze her arm and resign myself to never knowing what’s become of him.
Jasmine inherited the doe eyes and serious demeanor of her mother, but when she saw Bits she dragged her to the floor in ecstasy.
Ben rubs his eyes. “So we’re all that’s left.”
Everyone stares into space until Mikayla says, “Nineteen is better than four, right?”
It’s hard to dismiss her optimism because she believes it wholeheartedly. And she’s right, nineteen is better than fifteen and most definitely better than four. Ben wraps an arm around her shoulder. They still have each other. I’m glad someone does, and I’m happy that I’m finally able to feel glad instead of bitter.
Jamie stands, eyes averted. “I’ll go check on the kids.” We sent them to another room to play with Jasmine’s scavenged toys while we spoke.
“How is she?” Mikayla asks once she’s gone.
“Better than you’d think,” I say.
“So what’s the plan?” Ben asks. “Talkeetna?”
Kyle nods. “What else is there? Can’t stay here.”
“What were you planning to do for the winter?” Mark asks.
“We’ve been stockpiling as much as we could,” Ben says. “There’s a back way down into the potato fields at the Safe Zone. We used the last of our gas to load up the truck and now we’ve been going by bike. We fill up bike trailers and bring them back.”
“We were going to be pretty sick of potatoes by spring,” Mikayla says with a soft smile. “But we thought we’d move into the Safe Zone once they froze. It looks like the survivors left quickly. I’m sure they left behind food, like we did.”
“There’s got to be fuel in there, too,” Ben says. “The rest of the city is dry.”
“And ammo, for hunting,” Liz says. “We tried to get in there once. I’m not trying that again without an army. Or at least not without Zeke.”
Zeke bellows. He and Liz have always been friends who admire each other’s badassery. “Well, we think we’ve got enough gas to get two vehicles to Talkeetna,” Zeke says. “We don’t want to hit Anchorage in the dark, so we’ll take two nights to get there.”
Until the End of the World (Book 3): All the Stars in the Sky Page 22