“We need something to bring us back together,” I said. Macky and Luke and Ike and Kylie all just looked at me, waiting to hear what I was going to say next.
I had nothing.
CHAPTER 99
We’re not here to demand food. Or that you heal the sick. We know some things are just too much to ask from you.”
“That’s a relief,” I said.
This latest committee of supplicants was a mixed bag. Men and women, a few scrawny children. One of them had been a boss back in the camp, and a couple had been shopkeepers. Now they were just concerned. They were worried, and they’d come to me asking to be heard. I sat down on my blanket and looked at them one by one. They were starving. I could see it in the sharp cheekbones. In the rail-thin arms. I was sure I looked just as bad. They were exhausted. Only a few of them had decent shoes anymore. The rest had their feet wrapped in bloody pieces of fabric.
What they were not, for the most part, was angry. Unlike most of the groups that came to me, they didn’t look like they wanted a fight. What they did want remained to be seen.
“This isn’t about ultimatums.” Their spokesperson was a woman with dreadlocks who was, if no fatter than the rest, slightly taller. Her eyes stayed on my face as she spoke. She took her time. I didn’t know her, but I could already tell she was a born leader. I would have to create some new task force or scouting group and put her in charge. It had worked—kind of—so far. “We don’t want miracles.”
“Okay,” I said. “Well, thanks for coming by, anyway. If you don’t mind—”
“We just want to know where we’re going.”
I closed my mouth.
So this was it. The big question. The one I couldn’t answer.
For people like Adare or Red Kate, it wasn’t a question that ever needed a real answer. They were happy to just roam the world, looking for whatever it brought them. Some of the positives who walked out of the camp were probably of the same type—born wanderers, survivors who knew that staying in one place too long was going to get them killed. But these people were different.
These weren’t looters. They weren’t, as Red Kate put it, maggots on the corpse of the world. These were people who had been born in cities, who had expected to spend their lives there gardening and maintaining. Whatever had made them positives—whatever exposure they’d had to the virus—had changed that and uprooted them. But the camp had held out the promise they could go home again.
They were, on the surface, like me. Wasn’t that what I’d been fighting for all this time? A safe place to sleep? Food enough to keep me alive? Friends and family around me, and the security of knowing they were likely to be there when I needed them?
It’s funny. Until that very moment I’d had no idea how much I’d changed. Of how much more I expected from life now.
“We’re going west,” I said.
The woman with the dreadlocks frowned. “That’s it?”
I reached behind me and picked up my road atlas. “Eventually we’ll hit Indiana. See? Here. Indiana.”
“And there’s something in Indiana we’re headed for?” the woman asked.
I could feel them all tensed up, feel them like coils bent in my direction, metal springs held back by a loose catch. What I said to them now could make them nod and accept things and go back to their blankets and get ready for the next day’s march. All I had to do was say that something was there, some refuge, and they just had to hang in there. I could say that the city of Indianapolis would take us in. I could say there were looter camps where we could make a new life.
In other words, I could lie.
But I’d been taught one thing along the road, one thing that stuck. You could look at the people who’d come before you, the people who you went to with these questions, and you could do exactly what they’d done. Or you could try to do better.
“I won’t lie to you,” I said.
“That’s—good,” the woman told me.
“I don’t know what’s out there. I honestly don’t. I just know that west is better than east. Because east means going back and pleading with the camp guards to let us back in. To admit we made a bad mistake and we’re sorry and we’ll be nice children from now on. We’ll put up with the mud and flies and the dogs and the guns and everything we left behind. West,” I said, trying to make it sound profound, “is better than east. It has to be.”
I’d hoped that would at least stir them. Make them nod and bite their lips and think, Okay, he’s right, and we’ll give him a little more time.
Even then I didn’t fully understand what hunger and exhaustion could do to rational people.
“Many of us think east is better than west,” she said.
“What do you think? Personally?”
“I think we got food back there for our work,” she told me. Which wasn’t a real answer. That was the point, of course. I had tried to single her out and make this about individual decisions, and she was here to present a unified front. She knew how the game was played as well as I did.
So all I could do was give her more honesty. It was the one thing I had in good supply. “I’m not your boss,” I told her. “I’m not your CO. You walk with me because you want to. If you want to be in charge and lead these people back east, it’s up to you to convince them to do that. Looks like you’ve got a head start.”
One or two people in the crowd chuckled. Well, that was something.
“I’m going to ask you for a favor, though,” I told her. “Give me one more day. Walk with me tomorrow, walk like we did today, to the west. And then tomorrow night you can make up your mind.”
She never did say yes. She just shook her head and walked away, and her people followed.
Macky spat on the ground when she was gone. “You need to start showing some backbone. People want to be bullied, a little. They want to know their place.”
I smiled at him. “You want that, you can head back to camp. Because,” I said, rising to my feet, “I won’t do it like that. I’ll lead these people honestly, or not at all.”
“That second thing you said,” Luke said, “is looking pretty likely.”
“We’ll see. She didn’t say no. A lot can happen in a day.”
Except for most of that next day, it didn’t. We got back to walking, the endless, foot-killing walking. The sun burned us until I wished it would rain—pour down on me, as miserable as that might be, because it would be better than this late-summer dry heat. The scouts went out and I waited for them to come back, waited for them to bring me some kind of sign. Anything.
And then . . . amazingly enough . . . they did.
“It’s about three hours away,” one of them told me, still panting from having run most of the way back. The rest of his crew had stayed with the thing they’d found.
“We have about an hour’s daylight left,” I said, frowning.
“Keep ’em walking. It’s worth it.”
I nodded at the scout and sent the order back—we would keep walking, even when night fell. More than one emissary of the disgruntled came hobbling forward to tell me I was on borrowed time, that making them walk all night wasn’t going to get me anything. I just smiled and shrugged my shoulders.
And then—just after the moon rose—they all saw it, and a noise went up from the throng behind me. Not exactly a jubilant whoop. They were too tired for that. But a sound of thanksgiving, all the same.
Up ahead, just off the side of the road, was an enormous building behind a parking lot full of abandoned cars. In giant letters over the building’s doors read the legend: FOOD QUEEN.
A grocery store big enough to feed an army.
CHAPTER 100
Inside the Food Queen was darkness and cool air, and row after row after row of shelves standing silent and frozen in time. That didn’t last. To be
honest, we made a mess of the place.
Positives ran up and down the aisles, pushing each other around in shopping carts, shouting with joy. They kicked over the standing displays of fresh food that had long since rotted away to husks and leathery rinds. They swarmed back through the meat department into the stockrooms. Most of them, though, crowded into the canned food aisles, where shelf after shelf of preserved food stood waiting for them, every can lined up with its label pointed outward. Every can was a little treasure.
I used my knife to pop open can after can of peaches in syrup, of corn in water, of soups of every description. Some of the cans had rusted until their contents had leaked and dried out. Some had swollen up so much they burst, and their precious food was lost. But most of them, the vast majority, were still intact. Positives pointed out the “Best Used By” dates on the cans and laughed to think of times so long ago when people could be picky about freshness and tore open the cans anyway and crammed the food in their mouths, barely taking the time to chew.
Even the disciples of the skeleton idol cried with joy. Even the grumblers rushed up to slap me on the back and tell me what a hell of a job I was doing. The woman with the dreadlocks just kept shaking her head, but her face was split by an enormous smile. “I doubted you,” she kept saying. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”
I’d gotten lucky—far luckier than I deserved—and I started to protest, to say I couldn’t take the credit, that I didn’t make the Food Queen appear, but Ike pulled me hastily aside and told me to shut up. “Everybody knows that,” he said, “but you don’t have to remind them.” He had a can of creamed spinach in his hand, and he shoved green goo in my mouth and I nearly choked as I laughed.
I did my best to stay in charge of the party. “Don’t eat so much you get sick,” I told people. “This haul has to last us a long time.” But it was no use. The people had been hungry for so long they wouldn’t stop now. Eventually I gave up and just walked the aisles, giving a word of encouragement here, sharing a bit of excitement there.
In one aisle, a couple of positives had set up some empty plastic barrels and made drums of them, beating out a wild and exuberant rhythm. Some women were dancing around them, swaying their hips, lifting their hands in the air. I joined in, and everybody laughed as I tried to keep up with the dancers.
In another aisle, a group of positives had set up some folding tables and had constructed something resembling a family meal, with bowls full of food and even plastic forks and knives, napkins, salt and pepper shakers . . . it looked so much like something from my lost youth in New York I wept a bit. They asked me to join them and say grace, and I was happy to oblige.
Eventually, when the clamorous riot had settled down to a contented rumble, I climbed up on one of the checkout lanes, up where just about everyone could see me. The dark was lit by flickering candles and I could see all their faces, peering up at me. Luke climbed up far enough to hand me a lit candle of my own, so I could be illuminated as I made my big speech.
Except—this wasn’t a time for a speech. It was time for celebration. I didn’t need to rouse these people, not that night. I needed to give them something. A reward for freeing themselves, and staying free.
So I kept it simple. “Eat up, folks. Enjoy. We’ll sleep here tonight, indoors for once.” There was a great deal of cheering at that. “And tomorrow . . .” I thought for a moment. “No, tomorrow we’ll stay here, too. No walking tomorrow!”
That got me a round of applause, a thunderous noise of hands slapping together. They loved the idea of being off their feet, if only for a while.
When I climbed back down, Kylie was waiting for me. She took my hand and led me to one side of the store, through aisles of glass cookware and kitchen gadgets, few of which I understood. No one else had bothered to go back there since there was no food to be had. Kylie led me farther, to a door that opened on a tiny office that must have once belonged to the store’s manager. She closed the door behind us and locked it. I set my candle carefully on the desk, propping it up so it wouldn’t fall over and start a fire.
Then I turned around and saw that Kylie was sitting on a wide couch up against one wall. She chewed on her lip as she watched me, waiting for me to do something. I wasn’t entirely sure what she had in mind.
“Adare never kissed me,” she said. “Not once. Kissing’s okay.”
I moved over to the couch and sat down next to her, feeling more nervous than I had ever felt while looting a zombie-infested suburb. I had no idea what I was doing, but I really, really wanted to do this. I put a hand on her hip, but she picked it up and moved it away. I touched her face and that seemed to be okay.
I kissed her gently, and she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me close and kissed me harder. For a long time we did just that, just kissing, and it was innocent until it wasn’t anymore, until it grew passionate and wild and I kissed her neck, kissed her throat, kissed the top of her chest—
I felt her tense up. I’d gone too far. I’d triggered her—reminded her of something Adare had done once, or some other man who’d seen her as nothing but a doll to play with, a doll that didn’t even scream when you squeezed it too hard. I jumped back, away from her, horrified of what I’d done. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry—Kylie, forgive me, I—”
“Shut up,” she said. She was breathing very heavily. She stared at the floor, her hands hovering in front of her. Shaking. “Let me—let me do this, because—because I have to. If we’re ever going to be.” She shook her head. “I wanted us to pretend to be a family, once. Remember?”
“I do,” I said.
“I wanted us to pretend to be married. Except I didn’t want to just pretend. And if it’s ever going to be real, I have to let you . . . do things to me. You want to, don’t you? I mean, I’m not ugly to you?”
She reached up and touched the scar across the bridge of her nose.
I took her hand, pulled it away. Then I leaned in and kissed the scar. Her eyes fluttered closed.
Then she reached down and unbuttoned her shirt. Unhooked her bra. She lifted out one of her breasts and put a hand on the back of my head, pushing my lips down, down until they touched her breast. I kissed her nipple and felt it harden in my mouth.
It only lasted a moment. She pulled me away—not too fast—and covered herself up again. “That was good. Gentle,” she said. “Finn, you’ll always be gentle with me, won’t you? I need that. I need you to be . . . careful with me.”
“I promise,” I told her.
“And I promise that next time, we can do a little more. A little at a time. Do you think you can wait? We’ll get there. We’ll get there together.”
“Of course.”
She nodded and wrapped her arms around me and held me close. “I don’t want to be dead inside anymore. I want to be like you. But it’s dangerous.”
“I’ll protect you,” I told her. “Just like you’ve protected me.”
“Sleep with me tonight. Okay? Not—you know, not—”
“I know,” I told her. “We’ll just sleep.”
And so we did.
CHAPTER 101
I woke in Kylie’s arms the next morning. I thought I’d heard a noise outside the little office, a commotion of some kind, so I disentangled myself from her still-sleeping form and went out to take a look. A lot of the positives were crowded in the back of the store, clutching at one another, while others—mostly the young men—were up front, by the big plate-glass windows that were the only source of light in the Food Queen. So many of them were near the window I couldn’t see what was going on.
I elbowed my way through the crowd to get a look and recoiled at what I saw. A zombie was pushed up against the window, smearing its greasy body against the glass. Its long hair was bleached by the sun, and its eyes burned a dull and mindless red. It had been so long since I’d
seen a zombie that I’d forgotten how gut-churningly awful they were. Human, in all but mind. A terrible perversion of what we could be.
“Everyone get back,” I said, pushing at the air with my hands. “You’re just encouraging it.”
The zombie licked at the glass and tried to scratch its way through with its fingernails. I didn’t want to look at it. I didn’t want it to exist. “It can’t hurt us in here—just, everyone, get back.”
Some of the positives obeyed me. More than I’d expected, frankly. That just gave others a chance to move in for a better look.
The thing was naked, its skin covered in sores and blisters and patches of terrible sunburn. It looked like it couldn’t hurt a fly. We would have to deal with it when we left, but for the moment I was willing to just let it bump harmlessly against the glass.
Ike, on the other hand, was less patient. Maybe he was just bored—he hadn’t killed anything in a while. He came forward, holding his assault rifle over his head. It was the only firearm we had—the only weapon other than knives. The crowd parted for him and made a wide clearing around the gun. “Give me some room,” he said. “I got this.”
I looked out the window, and in the split second before he fired I said, “Wait, Ike, don’t—” But it was far too late.
His rifle sputtered three times with a noise that filled the entire Food Queen. Three red holes appeared in the zombie’s forehead and it slumped to the ground. At the same time the entire windowpane shattered in a trillion tiny cubes of glass that spilled out across the floor like chipped ice. Positives laughed as they danced back, away from the glass. Hot air billowed into the cavernous store.
“—there’s more,” I finished. I pointed out at the parking lot.
Where maybe fifty more zombies were already staggering toward that giant hole in the glass front of the Food Queen.
“I think they heard that,” Ike said, his eyes wide.
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