She stood outside the entrance and listened to the hushed tones coming from within. It sounded like a whispered conversation, and Kyra felt shame warm her neck at the thought of eavesdropping on adult banter. Instead of trying to make out what they were saying, she leaned forward, swept the curtain of beads aside, and entered the tent.
The cramped interior was well-lit by a gas lantern that hung from the wooden beam supporting the structure’s roof. Kyra stared at the assortment of posters hanging from the walls. Madame Rhodan! one of them said, beneath an illustration of an old woman wearing red robes, whose eyes glowed a brilliant yellow. Soothsayer! Psychic! She’ll tell you your future, if that is what you want to hear! A fake skinned chicken and a collection of papier-mâché skulls dangled from strings between the posters. The skulls stared down at her with their creepy, empty eyes.
A circular table sat in the center of the sandy floor, so large that there was barely enough room to fit anything else in there besides the three chairs around it. Vines were carved into the legs of the table, snaking up and over the surface. Kyra felt a chill come over her.
“Ahem.”
Startled by the sound, Kyra glanced up to see a woman hovering by an opened flap at the rear end of the tent, bathed in shadows. The woman then stepped into the lantern’s light. She was old and very thin, with tufts of white hair sprouting from beneath an unseasonable wool cap. Her nose, face, and neck were all exaggeratedly long, making her look more bird than woman. She wore a blue dress and held a deck of cards in her hands. A cigarette dangled from her lips.
“Uh, Ma’am?” said Kyra, timidly.
“Yeah, kid,” Madame Rhodan replied. “Why’re you here?” Her voice was gruff yet sane, and years of smoking were made known by the rumble in her throat when she exhaled.
“I dunno,” replied Kyra. She could barely hear herself speak. “I just saw the tent and came over. Julie and Stacey didn’t come, though. They’re…”
“Self-centered,” said Madame Rhodan with a wave of her hand. “Most big sisters are.”
“Uh, I guess so.”
“No. It is so. Trust me, little girl. That’s exactly what they are.”
The bird lady’s lips curled into a cynical grin. She pulled out a chair, sat at the table, and began flipping the cards between her fingers the same way coins fell through one of those zigzagging piggybanks. Then, without warning, she slammed the cards down on the table. Kyra let out a little yelp as she jumped backward.
“So, little girl,” she said with curt aggression, “I’ll ask you again. Why’re you here?”
Fear clenched Kyra’s ten-year-old heart. She didn’t like the tone of the old woman’s voice. Though she was wrinkled and slender, just like her Grandma Lucile, there seemed to be no kindness in her. In that moment she reminded Kyra of the scary lady from the Disney movie about the chipmunks who save a kidnapped little girl. She gulped.
“I…I dunno…” she repeated.
The bird lady gazed into Kyra’s eyes and, as if noticing something she hadn’t seen before, she sat back. Her tone suddenly changed—the tenor lifted, the rumbling in her throat diminished. “Oh, sweetheart,” she said, gesturing to the chair across from her while snuffing out her cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. “You’re just a confused little thing, aren’t you? Here, take a seat and we’ll see what I can do for you.”
Kyra’s young mind was put at ease by the transformation. She complied, trudging through the sand and lifting herself onto the chair. She folded her hands atop the table and sat there, swinging her legs, waiting for Madame Rhodan to speak. But the old woman simply stared at her and traced the carvings on the tabletop with her finger. Finally, Kyra asked, “What do I do?”
“You ask me a question, if you like,” replied the old woman. “What do you want to know?”
Kyra shrugged.
“Do you want me to tell you what boy you like? Who you will marry? What your job will be when you grow up? Anything from the future you want to learn, I’m here to disclose to you.”
Kyra squeezed her eyes shut. Images ran through her mind’s eye: She saw Randall Livingston and his bright blue eyes, the picture she’d drawn of the White House in first grade, the portrait of her family on the wall in her living room. But there was one image that forced its way to the foreground. It was something she’d never seen before, a vision of an ashen, withered man with gray hair, empty black eyes, and a sinister grin. He hid in the shadows behind a statue of Paul Revere, eyes fixed on her. Kyra shivered, and her eyes shot open.
“Who’s the creepy man?” she asked.
Madame Rhodan’s expression soured, becoming one of motherly concern instead. She slowly reached under the table and pulled out a small, flat object. It was a handheld mirror. She held it out to Kyra.
Kyra started to have second thoughts. “Actually…” she began, but Madame Rhodan cut her off with a wave of her hand.
“I’m sorry, my dear, the decision’s been made.”
The old woman placed the mirror facedown on the table and slid it across. Kyra picked it up by the handle but hesitated before turning it around. An odd feeling she didn’t like came over her. It felt like she was swimming though sitting still.
“You don’t have to look, child,” Madame Rhodan said. “You can simply put it down and walk away if you like.”
Kyra squinted, scrunched up her nose, and impulsively spun the mirror around. She stared at her own reflection, smiling at the sight of her freckled cheeks, gapped teeth, and wavy red hair. There was nothing to fear, after all. The old woman had been wrong.
A fog rolled over the mirror’s surface just then, the way mist does in the shower. It blotted out her view. Kyra wiped at the stuff, but it wouldn’t come off. She could feel Madame Rhodan wince when the fog parted, revealing the mirror’s secret. Kyra couldn’t make it out what it was at first, so she drew the mirror closer to her eyes until the image became clear.
Then she screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
* * *
Josh awoke with a start, still enraptured by his dream and unsure where he was. He glanced around him, taking in the faded, flowery wallpaper, dusty picture frames, and boarded-up windows of their newfound home. The day’s first light shone through the cracks between the boards covering the windows.
He felt pressure against his back, and a soft shudder, and slowly craned his neck. There lay Kyra, almost naked. She was shaking and tears rolled down her cheeks. Guilt bubbled in his throat, but it wasn’t the same kind he’d experienced over and over again for the past few months. No, this was helpful guilt, the type of guilt that told him it was time to stop being a baby and start acting like a man. He rolled over.
“Kye,” he whispered, gently rocking her shoulder. Her green eyes fluttered open, sopping with wetness. He smiled at her, and she broke down. She almost leapt into his arms, squeezing his neck tight as she clung to him.
“Whoa, Kye, what’s wrong?”
She sniffled in response.
He stayed still for a long time afterward, letting her sobbing die down to a small chain of sighs. He softly urged her away from him and looked in her eyes. She seemed to have composed herself, and she shrugged the bit of the old blanket that had lodged in her armpit away, revealing her rapidly enlarging breasts. Josh tried his best to keep his focus on her face. He felt his eye muscles twitch and thought that he must’ve looked quite peculiar in that moment.
“Hey,” Kyra said, forcing a grin.
“Hey, yourself.”
She sat up, looking around the room the same way Josh had done earlier. Her expression said she couldn’t believe she was sitting there, in that house, in that bed, with him. Josh propped himself up on his elbow and tapped her knee.
“So what happened?” he asked.
Kyra shivered, exhaled, and dropped her chin to face him. “Nothing. Bad dream. You?”
Josh grinned. “Good dream. The best one in a long, long time.”
“Lucky bastard.” She smirked as s
he said it, as if trying to force herself out of a bad place. Then she leaned forward, kissed his nose, and said, “You seem much chippier than I’ve seen you in a while.”
“Yeah,” Josh replied. “I guess there were some things I had to work out.”
She looked at him sideways. “And that’s all it took? One good dream?”
“Well,” he said with a frown, “not exactly. It’s not that easy.”
She opened her mouth to say something more, winced, and then grabbed Josh’s hand. She guided it to her belly and placed it on the hard spot. The child within her squirmed, and a faint knot moved beneath her flesh. Josh’s eyes widened, his lips quivered, and his other hand soon joined his first. Before too long they were both sitting there with their hands on her stomach, quietly reveling at the miracles around them—the life they’d created, the life they still had, the connection between them. Josh noticed moisture starting to form in Kyra’s eyes once more, and he guessed it was that last miracle that she was thinking of, a miracle that he’d done everything he could to make it seem like a mirage.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She nodded. “I know.”
“I’ll do better.”
“You better. Or else.”
She playfully punched his shoulder, and Josh feigned insult. They began wrestling together, causing the bed to creak. Even though Josh heard the sounds of people waking up downstairs, he didn’t stop. It had been so long since he’d felt this good. It was like a lifetime of regret had been cleansed from his soul. He wanted to share that feeling with the only woman who cared.
Before too long, Kyra’s panties were off and they were making love for the first time in ages. Josh was careful not to hurt her, not to press too hard on her stomach. He moved gently, gliding his hips in a slow, sensual rhythm. He felt Kyra’s chest hitch, felt her breathing pick up pace, but he didn’t speed up. He wanted this to be slow, to be felt, to let her know how sorry he was.
What he didn’t know, seeing as he was behind her, was that Kyra silently cried the whole time.
CHAPTER 3
HECTOR GOES TO THE DOGS
Desperate fingers reached through the gate, grasping at air. Rotting faces pressed against the bars, opening sores, causing blood to cascade over the thin steel shafts. Empty eyes stared straight ahead while mouths filled with the remnants of teeth hung open, releasing groans that sounded like the final cries of drowning men.
Charles “Corky” Ludlow stood in the center of the pavement in front of the entrance to the Clinton Resort. The way in was efficiently blocked by the heavy iron gate, making him breathe a little easier. Still, it was tough to look at the monstrosities trying to force their way inside. They were disgusting, depraved, inhuman. In a way, the sight of them made him sad.
“This sucks balls,” he muttered.
Horace Struder, the old scientist, stood beside him and let out a groan that sounded eerily like the walking dead folks outside before saying, “Very true.”
The weather had become unseasonably warm up on Mount Clinton, to the point where Corky had heard Larry proclaim more than once, “Can we get some real weather now? I’m tired of this shit!” Corky agreed. After a freezing cold fall and a winter where it seemed to snow every day, all he wanted was some nice, comfortable seventy-degree temperatures. But no, nature had to go out and make it close to ninety. In spring. He sweated so much that his armpits and inner thighs were chaffed. Without enough power to run the air conditioning inside the hotel, he was left to deal with it as best he could.
Ideally, he would have trekked down the mountain, raided the local pharmacy of as much baby powder as he could carry, and apply it liberally all over his body. But alas, groups of zombies—freaking zombies—started showing up out of nowhere, which made leaving the walled interior of the resort an iffy proposition, at best.
Corky sucked in a wad of phlegm, gathered it in his mouth, and spit it at the beasts. It hit one of them on the face, and when the gob rolled over its lips it closed its mouth. For a moment it stopped its bleating and scrunched its forehead, as if it had just tasted something wonderful but couldn’t place the flavor. Then it was back to beating on the bars again seconds later.
“That’s disgusting,” said Horace.
“The least I can do,” replied Corky, “what with the way they screwed us and all.”
Horace shrugged. “It’s not so bad, actually.”
Corky chuckled and rolled his eyes. “Yeah? Oh really?”
“Yes, really. Think about it. We’re up in the mountains, away from civilization. Right now there are what, six or seven outside the gate? Consider how bad it must be in other places, where the populations were much more…dense.”
“Oh,” Corky said. “I see your point.”
Horace nodded.
Doug Lockenshaw walked by them, wearing a tank top and cut-off jeans. He moved with precision, muscles tense, his hair that hung just above his shoulders bouncing with each step. In one hand he held his rifle by its strap, in the other a huge bowie knife. He marched to the gate with purpose and went about jabbing the knife through the bars, stabbing eyes, mouths, necks. The undead fell one at a time until only two remained. Those last two, apparently sensing the danger to themselves, stepped away from the gate. Doug dropped the knife, shouldered the rifle, took careful aim, and cut them down with two shots.
As the young Marine wiped the blood off his hands with the towel attached to his waist, Corky asked, “Why didn’t you just shoot ’em all?”
Doug glanced up, shook his head, and, with a hand pressed against his temple, replied, “I’m running out of bullets. Don’t wanna waste them.”
“Oh.”
The kid gathered up his things and proceeded to walk back to the building. On the way he turned his head and offered the two observers a bit of advice.
“By the way, staring at them don’t accomplish anything.”
Neither Corky nor Horace had a retort for that. They followed him inside.
The interior of the hotel was just as hot as outside, but it felt even hotter because of the stagnant air and restricted space. Corky passed the fountain on his way to the lounge and thought for a moment that he should just go to the basement and turn on the water for a minute. He compromised, deciding that come evening he’d fill up his bathtub with cold water—also frowned upon because of their limited power supply; when people bathed, they were supposed to use a sponge at the kitchen sink—and sit in it until his teeth chattered. That won’t work, and you know it, he thought. The water’ll reach body temperature in minutes. And hell, you don’t even fit in the tub! All good points.
The lounge was filled with people. Hector, Luis, and Larry sat at the bar, downing watered-down vodka drinks. (They had to add water to all alcoholic beverages now, since after four months their supplies were beginning to run dangerously low.) Horace took his place by Doug’s side, sitting beside the window and gazing out at the courtyard. Dennis lounged in his favorite chair, mindlessly strumming the strings of his guitar. Allison Steinberg was by the fireplace, where just a few weeks ago they would all gather at night to chat. She fanned an oblivious Shelly, her cherubic, five-year-old daughter. The only member of the party not present was Tom Steinberg, her husband, who was in the kitchen making sandwiches for everyone.
That’s not true and you know it. Corky frowned and his shoulders slumped. There was someone else missing, someone who’d been gone for quite some time now. He wanted to smack himself for not remembering his friend, Stanley, who’d leapt from the cliff a mile or so from the resort. That was three months ago, and it seemed that every day his brain tried to restrict thoughts of the man, as if letting the sadness in would paralyze him. But each day Corky chastised his inner survivor, telling himself that moving on doesn’t mean forgetting. Not now, not ever.
Tom strolled in, carrying a tray of quartered sandwiches. He made his way around the room, offering them up like a waiter. When he got to Corky and offered the tray, Corky reached out his ha
nd but paused.
“What’s on these?” he asked.
“Spam,” replied Tom, “and a bit of Miracle Whip.”
Corky groaned. “Again? Shit.”
Tom put a finger to his lips. “Hey, we all have to deal with some…restrictions, right? But don’t you worry. We’ll have a lean dinner tonight, but I have a big surprise planned for the day after tomorrow.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
Tom winked. “You’re going to have to wait and find out.”
With that he walked away, heading for his wife and child. Corky grinned. He liked Tom. A lot. Even though the rest had taken a long time to warm to him—a few, like Doug, still hadn’t—there was just something about the man that Corky couldn’t resist. He’d gained some weight, though not nearly as much as he used to carry when Corky would see him on television performing his Speaker of the House duties. He now looked like a strong, capable individual rather than a ghost, though those heavy bags under his eyes never seemed to go away. Tom was also so smart, so on top of things, that Corky passed off his earlier bad behavior and appearance to nerves and fear for his family.
After all, it had been Tom who took up the duties of burying Stan after he committed suicide. It was Tom who suggested they close and lock the front gate, only two days before the first of the zombies showed up. It was Tom who cooked them dinner every night, Tom who assumed Stan’s chess-playing role with Larry, Tom who always volunteered first for every proposed chore. Doug said the guy was trying to buy their affections, just as any politician would. But Corky had seen the man play with his daughter, had watched as he rubbed his wife’s back when he thought no one was looking. To Corky’s way of thinking, a man didn’t do those sorts of things to “prove himself.” No, a man did that because he wanted to.
Because he was nice.
The evening wore on, the sun set, and the temperature dropped to a more reasonable—but still prickly—level. Corky’s resort-mates came and went, sometimes to go to the bathroom, sometimes just to stretch their legs, but by the time the full of evening was upon them, everyone had resumed their usual roles. Hector remained at the bar, looking dreary while he nursed his drink. Luis, Larry, and Dennis left for good, saying they were going to spend some time on the upstairs balcony. Horace and Doug were immersed in conversation, speaking in hushed tones, their eyes never leaving each other—Corky still found their newfound bond amazing, considering how Doug first reacted to the old man after he and Corky had rescued him from the fleshies. And Tom sat in his usual chair with Allison on the floor between his knees, gently stroking her hair while Shelly bounced from one corner of the room to another.
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