They stared back at me, either disbelieving what I said or so numb they didn’t care. Heather turned her face away from me.
“I’m going to keep you safe,” I said. “I’ll get us to Ohio. We’ll be safe there. But I need you all to trust me and help me out the best you can. If you do that, we’ll all be okay.”
None of them bothered to respond. I waited for a while, then turned to Kylie and told her to get us moving, headed north. I looked across her lap, at the gas gauge on the dashboard. The needle had sagged even lower than I thought.
I really hoped I hadn’t just told these girls a horrible lie.
CHAPTER 42
We rolled into Princeton with just fumes left in the tank.
It was hard to find the looter camp. There were no signs up anywhere telling us where to go, and none of the girls had been there before. I realized then just how much Adare had kept in his head all the time—all the lore and experience he’d stored up over his years in the wilderness. As naive and ignorant as I was, I was likely to get us stranded just miles from the camp as we wandered the streets of the empty town, looking for any sign of life.
Instead, of course, we found signs of death—the usual pile of zombie bones piled up outside the camp. Mary spotted them from blocks away.
The Princeton camp was built into a giant spiral parking structure, a helix of concrete rising from a block of abandoned office buildings. A gate made of hammered metal blocked the entrance, while bored-looking snipers looked down on us from a curving ramp overhead. Kylie honked the horn, and they let us in without question.
If only it could have stayed that way.
We edged up the spiraling ramp, threading our way past the makeshift hovels of what Adare called “retailers”—mechanics, car washers, ammunition sellers. They had been built into the parking spaces, and some spilled out into the ramp itself. Two levels up we found an open parking spot, between a bunch of dusty motorcycles and a hearse with a chrome skull mounted on its grille.
The driver of the hearse was working on his car, polishing its fender when we pulled in. He called out “Hey, Adare!” and straightened up, waving his rag. I saw he had his hair sprayed up into two wings above his forehead, and that he had filed his canine teeth down until they came to wicked points. “Long time no . . .”
He stopped and squinted at the SUV. Then he ducked and bobbed his head around, looking in all our windows.
I tried to ignore him as I climbed out onto the ramp, but clearly he wasn’t going to let me get away without asking.
“Where’s Adare? That’s Adare’s ride. You steal that from Adare?”
I tried pushing past him, intent on getting a better idea of the amenities available in Princeton—where best to buy gasoline was uppermost in my mind.
He grabbed my shoulder, though, and gave me a good shake. “I asked you a question, kid.”
He had a pistol on his hip and the hilt of a knife sticking out of his boot. I opened my mouth to say something, to tell him what had happened, but just then Kylie jumped out of the driver’s side of the SUV and came over with a big smile. I could hardly believe it—I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her look like that.
“Zombies,” she said. “Hi, Justin.”
The guy with the hair wings let go of my shoulder and nodded at her. “Hey, K. What do you mean, zombies?”
“Zombies got Adare.”
Justin shook his head. “Nah. After all this time? I don’t buy it.”
Kylie kept up her big smile and shrugged theatrically.
For a second I thought Justin was going to draw on us, or ask more questions, or start some kind of trouble. But he just kept watching Kylie’s face, as if it might change. It didn’t.
“Zombies,” he said finally. “Goes to show you never can tell.”
I nodded agreeably and walked away, pulling Kylie after me. As soon as we were out of view of Justin and his hearse, Kylie’s smile vanished. It just fell right off her face. It had been an act, all of it.
“Why did you lie to him?” I asked.
Kylie didn’t even shrug as she answered. “Adare didn’t have friends, really. But a lot of people respected him. If I told people I killed him, they might try to hurt me. Or take me for their own.”
“Maybe they would respect you for standing up for yourself,” I said.
She seemed to consider the possibility, at least. Then she said, “No. I’m a girl.”
I shook my head. “You could tell them I killed him.”
That made her shake her head. “Oh, no, Stones. Nobody would ever believe that.”
CHAPTER 43
We headed up and down the ramp, looking to trade our meager loot for gasoline, but nobody would deal with us. They all wanted to hear about how Adare had died. Many of them refused to believe it on principle—Adare had been out there surviving zombie attacks since day one of the crisis. I began to suspect that Kylie had picked the worst possible story. If she’d said a bear killed him or he died of an infection, people might have believed that.
Still—she’d had to come up with an explanation for his disappearance on the spot. I couldn’t have done better.
Not everyone we met was sad to hear the news. We found an old woman living in a shack made of rusting car fenders, up on the top level of the garage. The sun beat down on the metal, making it very warm inside her hovel, and it didn’t help she was brewing tea on an a little alcohol fire. She kept cooing over Kylie, brushing her hair with one wrinkled, leathery hand, telling her how happy she was that Kylie was free now.
I looked between the two of them. “Do you know each other?”
“I don’t look like much, now, do I?” the old woman asked. “I was a doctor once, though. Adare brought Kylie to me once, long time ago now. She’d been running from some zombies and she sprained her ankle. He had me set it for her, and the whole time he kept saying, ‘See how I take care of mine? See how I treat my girls?’ But everyone knew what he got up to.” She poured us each a cup of tea and smiled at us when we drank it. It tasted like dirty water, but I didn’t say anything, of course.
“Ma’am,” I said, “we’re in kind of a situation here, and—”
The old woman laughed. It was a warm sound. “Now this one has some manners!”
I smiled at her and said, “I’m afraid we’ve run out of gas. If we’re going to get anywhere, we need to trade for some more.” I sincerely doubted she had any—I didn’t see any fifty-five-gallon drums sitting outside her hovel—but maybe she knew who to talk to.
“Oh, son, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for that,” she said. “The helicopter came a while back, but everyone’s already traded for fuel. I doubt there’s a drop to be had anywhere in this camp.”
I thanked her for the information. I offered to give her something for the tea—a couple of pills, maybe a mostly empty liquor bottle—but she refused. “You just take care of Kylie,” she said. “And remember—if you aren’t good to her, one of these days a ‘zombie’ is going to get you, too.”
I stared at her, but she just looked away, smiling. She knew we were lying. Did everyone else know, too? Nobody had questioned us too hard, but maybe because they knew we weren’t going to give them a straight answer.
The news she’d given me wasn’t good, either. It could be days before the army came back to the Princeton looter camp, days before I could trade our loot for fuel. In that time, anything could happen—and we had no way to escape.
Little did I know we weren’t going to have a chance to stay in Princeton for long.
When I got back to the SUV, it was to find that all the girls had gotten out to stretch their legs. Mary and Heather were both leaning on the edge of the ramp, looking out at the sunshine. I didn’t see Addison at first. As we got closer, though, Kylie went stiff and her face froze—even
more than usual.
I tried to follow her gaze, and then I saw where Addison was. She was sitting in the front seat of the hearse. Justin, the guy with the filed-down teeth, was leaning in his driver’s-side window, talking to her and grinning a lot. Addison looked scared, but she had her hands folded in her lap and wasn’t moving. After so long with Adare, she’d probably learned to just do whatever older men told her to do. I have no doubt that Justin had simply asked her to get into his car, and she’d done it.
Maybe she would listen to me, too. “Get out of there, Addison,” I said, storming up to him. He gave me a nasty look, then went back to talking to Addison in low tones.
“Get away from her,” I told Justin.
He didn’t look particularly scared of me. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Word is you guys need gas. I can spare a little.”
I narrowed my eyes. I had a feeling I knew what he wanted in exchange.
“I know a guy in Rahway. He’s always looking for little girls. Young enough they can be trained. And this one don’t even need much training, I think.” He gave Addison a big smile. “My friend’s real nice to his girls. Doesn’t put them to work until they’re thirteen or so.”
I felt rage boiling inside my skull. “Get the fuck away from her.”
“Or what?” he asked.
I stood there and fumed.
“Maybe a zombie’ll get me,” he said, and laughed right in my face.
I wanted to look at Kylie, to see what she wanted me to do. But I knew that would just make me look weaker. Instead I headed around the back of the hearse, intending to open the passenger-side door and pull Addison out of there if need be.
I never got there.
The hearse had a back hatch door that opened on good steel springs. It popped open as I walked by, nearly clipping me in the head. Inside, another looter was lying in the red velvet upholstery. He had an eye patch and a little pistol in his hand, which he pointed right at my face.
“Maybe you want to think again, city boy,” Justin said, with a chuckle.
I remembered the attack of the road pirates, when I failed to fire my weapon. I remembered not fighting back when Adare tried to castrate me. I had always assumed I was a coward and I would never be able to fight.
Lucky for me, my body didn’t remember those things. My hands moved without any thought required. My knife came out of my belt and slid across the looter’s arm with one effortless motion. The pistol spun out of his hand and clattered on the ground. I scooped it up in the time it takes to say so.
If I’d let myself think about what I was doing, none of that would ever have happened.
The looter curled up, moaning, inside the hearse. His blood was very bright on the dark red velvet. I slammed the hatch down again, sealing him away. Then I lifted the pistol and pointed it at Justin. “Kylie,” I said. “Go get Addison.”
Justin frowned at me. “You know what happens if you kill somebody in a camp like this?” he asked. “Every looter in here is going to come down on your ass.”
“Yeah, but you know the problem being the guy they avenge?” I said back. “He’s still dead.”
Justin didn’t have a comeback for that.
I, however, had a brand-new idea. “I couldn’t help but notice when I looked inside your vehicle. You’ve got a bunch of spare gas cans. I believe we’ll be taking those.”
His eyes went wide. I came closer to him, got the pistol right up in his face. His eyes went even wider.
In a minute’s time, we had gasoline. I got everybody into the SUV and told Kylie to get us the hell out of Princeton.
Nobody tried to stop us.
CHAPTER 44
Here, take this route,” I told Kylie, showing her the atlas. I wouldn’t feel truly safe until we were well clear of Princeton and everyone who had seen us there.
She agreed with a nod and followed the directions I gave her, taking us back toward the open road. Being out on the highways again actually did feel kind of good. It felt like we were making progress. It was going to be a long ride to Ohio, but we had everything we needed. Adare’s map would show us the way to go. Our brand-new cans of gasoline would carry us there. We had plenty of food and water in the SUV.
We were going to make it. We were really, truly, going to get to Ohio, and the medical camp, and safety.
Of course, nothing is ever that easy.
But for a little while, I could breathe. I could let down my guard, just a hair.
I wasn’t the only one. That night, when we pulled into an old train shed where we could spend the night, Kylie switched off the SUV and then lay back in her seat, sighing in contentment. It was a very human sound, and I knew she had let down her armor, if just for the moment. I didn’t want to interfere, afraid that if I said anything or touched her hand or made any sudden movements at all she would just freeze up again. I tried not even to look at her, though it was hard.
She surprised me, in the end. After the other girls had fallen asleep, when I was starting to doze off myself, I heard her move in her seat. It was so dark I couldn’t see anything, but I felt her moving toward me, coming closer. Then her lips brushed mine. One of her hands came up to touch the side of my face.
“You don’t have to—” I said, but I couldn’t finish the thought. Maybe for the first time—maybe not—I wanted her to . . . well. I’m not immune to temptation.
But whatever I might have wanted, it didn’t matter.
“That was to say thank you,” she told me, in a whisper softer than the creaking and groaning of the steel shed around us. “I would have sold her. If I was in charge.”
“No,” I said. “No, you would have thought of something.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t me who had to,” she said. “Stones?”
“Call me Finnegan. Call me Finn,” I told her.
“Good night, Finn,” she said, and went back to her own seat.
CHAPTER 45
I told Kylie to keep as much as possible to the smaller highways and not go back to the turnpike. That definitely slowed us down. The less-traveled roads were in bad shape, decayed by time, but much worse were the places where they were choked with abandoned cars. That had never really been a problem before—Adare had told me that the government had swept the turnpike clear once, long ago, back when they still thought they could reestablish interstate commerce. Off the main road it was a major hassle. Several times that day we came to places where the road was just one long parking lot stretching off into the distance, filled with heaps of rust that used to be cars. I tried not to think of what it must have been like during the crisis, when people had to get away so fast they just left their cars where they sat. They must have been running just ahead of hordes of zombies, whole cities’ worth of the things . . . it would have been panic, absolute, blind mayhem.
Now the roads were silent. But just as gridlocked.
There was no way to thread our path through those blockages—the cars were nose to tail, and anyway, Kylie thought the rotting vehicles would make great nests for zombies. “They like to sleep in cars like that, to get out of the rain,” she said. “They come out at night to hunt, but if we wake them up now—”
I remembered perfectly well what a crowd of zombies could be like, from my time atop the road sign in Fort Lee. “We’ll go around,” I said.
Using Adare’s map, I tried to find ways around the jams by taking surface roads, even though that meant we risked getting lost. In one place, though, there just didn’t seem to be any options. The cars had clotted up all the ramps and access roads and there just didn’t seem to be any way forward. I had Kylie stop the car while I studied the map.
“We’ll have to double back,” I said finally. “Come around up here, on . . . Route 33.” I showed her the map.
“That takes us right into Trenton,” she said. She poi
nted at the city on the map. Adare had crossed it out with a big red X. “What does that mean?”
“I have no idea,” I confessed. “It can’t be good. Maybe it just means the place is overrun with zombies.”
“No, that’s what we think all the Zs means,” she said.
I shrugged, feeling helpless. “Our only other option is to head all the way back to the turnpike. We’ve got fuel now, but not enough we can waste it like that. And once we cross the river here, on the other side of Trenton, we’ll be in Pennsylvania.”
My logic seemed to be enough for her. She nodded and put the SUV in reverse, then made a U-turn and headed back the way we’d come. Route 33 proved to be clear as far as we could see, but I kept my eyes open as the buildings of Trenton came into view ahead of us.
Or what was left of them.
There were no intact buildings at all, as far as I could tell. Most of them had been reduced to one or two walls, crumbling at the top and pierced with holes that might have been windows. The side streets were full of debris—broken bricks and chunks of concrete. Piles of dust choked the buildings, dust that twisted up into the wind and splattered across our windshield. The road we traveled was mostly clear, but Kylie still had to keep swerving around downed telephone poles or collapsed piles of what might have been houses twenty years ago. In some places, the city looked like it had burned to the ground. In other places, plant life had moved in to take over from the former residents. Weeds sprouted everywhere in the vacant lots, and ivy was slowly strangling the broken walls in its green grasp. It looked like nobody, not even a zombie, had been there since the crisis.
I couldn’t help but feel something was wrong with that place. Some subtle poison in its bedrock, some ancient curse that was dragging the town down into the earth, but very, very slowly. I got the distinct impression we didn’t belong there, that we weren’t welcome. I tried to push it away and think rationally, but Trenton had an uncanny feeling I couldn’t shake.
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