I abruptly sat up, pieces of the previous night flashing in my mind. Stunned, I touched my fingers to my mouth at the memory of Jake’s lips on mine, of his body against mine. I glanced over, expecting to see him, but I was in bed alone.
Hearing the slamming of the door again, I crawled out of bed. My head was pounding, and I needed some water…immediately. I trudged into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and half-heartedly fixed my hair, but I quickly gave up on making myself look more presentable. I slid my slippers on, headed out into the hallway, and stood on the landing. Confused, I took in the chaotic scene below me.
In the front yard, Sarah was screaming at Biggs—I could hear her through the door—while Sanchez and Harper hustled around in the library, Cooper following them excitedly. I watched them in confusion, uncertain what all the fuss was about.
“Is everything okay?” I called down to Harper as he hurried across the foyer.
“Oh…hey, Baby Girl. We’re leaving.” He smiled and wriggled his eyebrows, knowing I’d be happy to hear the news.
My mood brightened instantly. “For Colorado?” I asked hopefully.
He nodded and continued into the piano room—Biggs’s makeshift communications center.
“Wait, what can I do to help?” I asked, running down the stairs, completely forgetting my headache and sore body.
“You can start by getting properly dressed. You look like you just rolled out of bed,” he called from out of sight.
I stood at the foot of the stairs, evaluating my attire. “I did.” Before I could head back upstairs to dress and pack, Jake walked in through the front door, his face drawn. Sarah and Biggs were still shouting at each other in the front yard, and I could tell not everyone was happy to be leaving.
Jake seemed like a different person than he’d been the night before. He had dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept at all, and his shoulders hung under the weight of his anxiety. I could feel it emanating from him and knew he was dreading returning home.
Timidly, I approached him, unsure what to say. I wanted to console him—to tell him everything would be fine—but I knew I couldn’t promise such a thing.
“Hey,” I said dumbly.
“Morning.” He managed a weak smile, but he was clearly distracted. He looked at his nonexistent watch. “You slept in.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
Jake was more intimidating without the liquid courage flowing through me. I recalled his concern from the night before—that I wouldn’t remember the kiss—and hoped the heat in my cheeks and my shy grin told him otherwise.
I met his eyes. “So, H told me we’re leaving,” I said to break our silence.
Jake only nodded.
“I’m assuming you’re coming too?”
He smirked, finally showing some of the playfulness from the night before. “I told you I can’t let you get yourself into more trouble without me being there. You’re a magnet for it, you know?”
Although he was teasing me, there was truth in his words, and I was grateful to him for skirting around wounding my pride.
The door flung open, and Sarah stomped into the foyer, Biggs trailing behind her. “It’s a horrible idea, Riley, and you know it!” she yelled.
Biggs stopped in his tracks and looked down at the marble floor.
When Sarah heard his footsteps come to a halt, she took a deep breath and turned around. “Look, I understand you want to leave with your team. I don’t want them to leave us any more than you do, but we have a baby to think about now. We have a pretty good idea of what we’ll come up against out there, and I don’t want to chance anything. Do you?”
As the scene unfolded, I felt completely out of place. But I stayed anyway.
“And what’ll we do here?” Biggs argued. “We’ll be alone, Sarah. Is that what you want? To sit here and die alone? Eventually that could happen you know? We haven’t even been to the city yet, who knows what condition it’s in. We’re living in a bubble. We can’t stay here forever.”
Biggs walked to Sarah as some small semblance of understanding registered on her face. “I’m only one person, and we have our whole lives ahead of us. We have a baby that’s going to need to be delivered by someone who knows what the hell they’re doing. We can’t stay here out of fear. What if something happened to me? What would you do, alone…with a baby?”
Wiping away her sudden tears, Sarah cleared her throat. “Nothing will happen to you, and we have plenty of food here,” she said, grasping for anything that might change his mind. I could tell that the thought of never seeing her home again was heartbreaking to her.
“Yeah, maybe for a while. But do you really want it to be just you and me for the rest of our lives? I love you, Babe. I really do, but it’d be nice to have someone else to talk to, a family to share our memories with, and friends to laugh with and help us when we need it.”
The tears continued to run freely down Sarah’s face, and Biggs wiped them away with his thumbs. “I don’t want to go.” Her voice was weak as she gasped for air.
“I know, Babe.” He pulled her into a hug, gently rubbing her back and whispering reassurances in her ear. He bent down, gathered her up into his arms, and scaled the stairs toward her bedroom.
I looked back at Jake as he walked out the front door, rubbing the back of his neck as memories of Gabe and Becca flashed in his mind. Cooper whined, his tail hanging low as he trailed behind him.
47
ZOE
After a day of planning and packing, we loaded our clothes, food, medical supplies, and everything else into the two vehicles. Once Sarah had taken a moment to say goodbye to her childhood home, she locked the doors for the final time and joined Biggs in Dave’s truck. Finally, we were headed to Colorado…unsure if we had enough fuel to make it.
Riding in Dave’s truck proved to be too difficult for me because of the memories it provoked. The scratch on the center console reminded me of the many times Sammy had scampered between the front and back seats, and the miniature stuffed Wally—the mascot for the Red Sox—swinging from the rearview mirror made me think of Dave winning it at the Suffolk County Fair. Although I remembered the happier times we’d shared, my thoughts continuously circled back to our rocky relationship near the end…before his death. Did he suffer? For how long? Was he with Stacey? An hour into the journey, I opted to switch vehicles and ride in the van with Sanchez and Harper.
“I never asked you what led to the sudden decision to leave,” I said to Harper as we drove through the middle of nowhere, otherwise known as Kansas. “Did something happen?”
Harper considered my question too carefully before answering. “I had an unsettling vision.”
“About…?” I prompted.
“About Clara, so…Sanchez and I thought it’d be best to leave.” For what seemed like the hundredth time in only a few minutes, Harper glanced into the rearview mirror
The mere mention of Clara’s name made me feel like a million invisible spiders were scurrying over my skin, and I rubbed my arms. “What was in the vision? I mean, what happened?”
Harper’s eyebrows drew together as he tried to make sense of what he’d seen. “She was in a dark room, smiling evilly. She was leaning over someone I couldn’t see, and she said something like, ‘When I’m done with you, you won’t remember anyone…you won’t even know who you are.’” His grip tightened on the steering wheel. “I knew she was going to hurt whoever it was, and the hatred in her eyes worried me…I thought it might be you. When I told Sanchez about it, we decided we should keep moving.” Harper’s frequent glances in the rearview mirror were starting to make more sense. “There’s strength in numbers,” he said and then shook his head. “…at least there used to be.” I thought of Cece and all the trouble she’d caused. It didn’t work out so well for Dani and Jason.
By the time we’d reached Garden City to look for Harper’s uncle, Curtis—who was nowhere to be found—the van had run out of fuel. Unable to find more, we shu
ffled all of our belongings from the van to the truck. Wanting to get off the main road and set up camp, we all piled into the truck—Jake, Cooper, and Harper riding in the bed—and drove along Highway 50, following the Arkansas River over the Colorado border.
We thought our fuel would last the rest of the way, but we ran out about a hundred miles from our destination and were forced to continue on foot. We sorted through all of our things, separating what we were taking from what we would leave behind. We eventually distributed the food, medical supplies, and camping gear among us, adding whatever personal items we could fit in our packs. Because we’d lost most of our belongings in the fire, we didn’t leave much behind.
After a week of walking in the cold, we arrived in Pueblo, a city south of Colorado Springs filled with ample food, medical, and hygiene supplies, plus weapons. It didn’t escape our attention that Pueblo was completely abandoned. Although we thought it strange that there were no survivors to speak of, not even Crazies, I wasn’t complaining. Jake, however, became increasingly wary—I could feel his apprehension grow the closer we drew to the Colony. Thankfully, he knew the surrounding area well, and after a long discussion, we agreed to wait for Dani and my brother, whether they were together or apart, south of Colorado Springs in a valley near an old mining town called Cañon City. I was too busy worrying about how Dani or Jason would find us to pay much attention to the conversation.
It was on our third day of trekking through the valley, looking for the perfect place to set up camp, that we stumbled upon a ramshackle ranch. We all agreed the abandoned barn would be sufficient in serving as our new, temporary home. Although the rusted tack and rustic farm tools made it seem like the place hadn’t been used in years, the new, nearly finished roof and an unfinished foundation a few hundred feet away indicated otherwise. Inside, the weathered, red barn provided enough stalls that each of us could convert one into our own sleeping quarters—hay bales for seating, sleeping bags, and our few belongings were all that filled them.
Uncertain of what to expect over the next few weeks, we preserved our nonperishables by living off the land as much as possible. Jake and Cooper continued their hunting efforts as needed, and I fished for trout in the creek’s brisk waters.
Most nights, the six of us sat around the campfire, feasting on a freshly caught dinner with beans or boiled vegetables. We’d found an untended winter garden behind an old farmhouse outside of Cañon City, providing us with an assortment of roots—carrots, potatoes, and turnips—to cook with.
I had an inkling of what the average day for a settler on the Frontier might have been like—hunting, gathering berries and firewood, washing clothes in frigid water, and roasting game over a fire. The Zoe who’d worked at the gallery wouldn’t have recognized me at all.
As the days went on, we settled into a daily routine of hunting, training, scavenging when needed, and practicing our Abilities. And, we watched Sarah’s belly grow at an unnatural pace—after two weeks it was noticeably larger, and after three weeks she could no longer wear her jeans. Biggs acted like she might burst at any moment, insisting Harper examine her every time she yawned, burped, or frowned.
Although Harper didn’t know what to make of the unprecedented progress of her pregnancy, he’d had enough nieces and nephews to know her symptoms were more or less normal. When Biggs wasn’t coddling her, she spent her time eating obscene amounts of food, napping, and watching from the sidelines as I got my butt kicked during training.
I was learning to embrace my Ability—it felt more natural and fluid every day. I no longer struggled to tune out people’s feelings and memories, and if I wanted information about someone, it was there. Anything and everything about that person was scattered in my mind like a broken stained glass window, only I couldn’t figure out how to piece it together to get the answers I was seeking.
Early one morning, I was sitting by the fire with Harper, half asleep and trying to focus.
“There’s just too much to sort through,” I explained.
“Try to control what you’re seeking, Baby Girl,” Harper said. “Are you thinking of something in particular, or are you just jumping in to see what you can find? Maybe it’s overwhelming because you’re not searching for something specific. For instance, you think about the ocean and hundreds of memories and feelings will pop up, but if you think of the East Coast, there will be fewer to wade through because it’s a smaller part of your life. Try it.”
“Yeah, but that’s me, my memories. If I don’t know someone, how will I know what to look for?” I whined, tired of practicing so early every morning. I could feel Harper’s patience growing thin, and I flashed him a “please forgive me” smile.
“Really, Zoe? I know you’re not a morning person, but you’re not even trying. I thought you were sleeping better…doesn’t that help?”
“Meh,” I said. I was still having the recurring nightmare about my mom and her car accident.
Harper shook his head. “Deciding what to look for in a stranger is probably the easiest part. Think about it. You’re walking out by the river and you come across someone. What’s the first thing you want to know?”
“If they’re a Crazy,” I muttered.
“Exactly. If you ask Sanchez what she really thinks of your chili and she brushes you off again, what do you look for?”
Sanchez passed at that moment, eyeing us with a wry smile on her face.
“The truth.” The answer seemed like a no-brainer.
“Precisely. So…be specific when you’re searching someone’s mind. Now try it on me,” he prompted, looking out at the woods encircling the ranch.
It was easy to think of something I wanted to know about Harper. Ever since I’d seen Sanchez’s memory of the two of them in bed together, I’d wanted to learn more about their relationship. So, as Harper and I sat by the fire, I decided to find out for myself.
I couldn’t help but smile at what I saw. His mind held tons of memories of them—working together and sleeping together. Sometimes his arm was around her, and she’d fling it away. Other times, she was nipping at him and batting her eyelashes, trying to get his attention. They laughed and argued like friends always do. I also saw them having enough sex to fully awaken my body from its morning stupor.
“How long have you and Sanchez been sleeping together?” I asked Harper.
His eyes widened, and he burst into laughter. “I knew you stumbled onto something good with that giant-ass grin on your face.” Whistling and slapping his thigh, he said, “A while.”
“As in…years?”
“Yeah. We’ve known each other for a long time, but don’t tell her I told you…or I’ll say you were snooping.”
“But what about your very public proposition to me at the cabin?” I asked, recalling the constant, severe expression Sanchez had worn the first few weeks I’d known her.
Harper waved away my question. “It’s nothing serious.”
I just snickered and buried the knowledge with all the other information I was never meant to know.
Like the days, most nights passed rather routinely, with all of us playing cards or telling stories. I spent most of my free time sketching and documenting what we saw and experienced. I mapped out the paths we took and the landmarks around the valley. I hoped that if I was able to contact Dani at any point, I’d have enough information to make sure she could find us.
I also documented the different types of Crazies we ran into: the slow movers we deemed the “AW’s” or the “Aimless Wanderers”, and the violent “Grunts” who mostly dwelled in more populated areas, among others. Everything I was learning about myself and my surroundings went into my sketchbook, and when I ran out of pages, I started a new one.
“How many of those things did you bring?” Jake asked me one night, cleaning his rifle while I was sketching the campfire’s jumping flames.
“Enough.” I smiled and leaned back against his chest. “I’ve been gathering them up wherever I can.” I flipped through
the pages of the sketchpad, showing him my own personal post-apocalypse field guide.
Curiosity piqued, Jake read through my entries. I immediately felt his mood change when he saw Clara’s name:
Classification: Manipulator (Clara)
Species: Homo sapiens
Region: All
Origin: Infected by Virus; Survived
Symptoms: Easily agitated; Conceals aggressive intentions and behaviors; Uses victim’s psychological vulnerabilities to determine effective tactics; Willing to use sufficient level of ruthlessness and cause harm to the victim; Generally covert and sneaky.
Dwelling : Groups of survivors (more targets to choose from)
Weakness: Entitlement—greedy and moody leading to irrationality and unexpected outbursts that expose them for who they really are, oftentimes giving them away and turning their followers against them.
I tried to ignore the negative emotions that cycled through him as he read, still blaming himself for what Clara had done to all of us.
His arms wrapped around me, and I happily abandoned my sketchbook and snuggled closer to him. Being in Jake’s arms was as surreal as everything else we were going through.
“I want you to have something,” he said. He held his knife out in front of me.
“I can’t take that, Jake.” Although I didn’t know the story behind it, I knew it was probably the most meaningful thing he owned.
“I want you to have it. You’ve been training hard, and I think it’s time you had a weapon of your own—something small enough to hide, but sharp enough that you can do a lot of damage.” He gave me a wry, crooked smile. “I’m sure you’ll need it.”
“But what will you use?” I asked, eyeing it carefully.
“I have others; this one’s just the best.”
I looked back at him, not sure what to say because “thank you” seemed inadequate. “That means a lot to me,” I told him. “I promise I’ll take care of it.”
The Ending Series: The Complete Series Page 46