by Sarra Cannon
Her mother was exceptionally talented, but she wanted it too badly. In her performances, she let her fear of never being good enough guide her. She tried too hard.
Her father, a cellist, had done the same thing. When he practiced and thought no one was listening, the beauty of his music would bring you to tears.
But when he played for others, he seemed to forget who he was. He focused on the performance and what others would think, rather than the music.
He focused on what he wanted to get from it, rather than what he wanted to give to others by playing from the heart. That was the best way Zoe could think to describe it, but she’d learned not to give her opinion when it came to their music.
Her mother, in particular, was never one to take criticism well.
The one time Zoe had tried to tell her about letting go of the fear, she’d thought her mom was going to hit her, she got so angry.
“I’ve been performing my entire life,” she’d said. “I don’t need a six-year-old telling me how to improve. Now, leave me alone.”
So Zoe had learned to keep her opinions to herself, and instead, she’d focused on not making the same mistakes. She’d learned to just be herself and to think about what she could give to others, rather than what she might get if she did a good job.
That was a lesson she’d learned from Parrish.
Her older sister was never afraid to just be herself, no matter what anyone else thought of her. She stood up for people even when she knew she wouldn’t get any kind of reward. She did the right thing when no one was watching.
She was the same person in the quiet privacy of her bedroom as she was when she stepped out into the world.
Zoe had some idea that Parrish was unapologetically herself because she thought no one was watching her.
But Zoe had been watching.
Learning.
So, over time, that’s how she had mastered her fear of performance and had become one of the best young violinists in the world.
That should have carried over to amazing patience and willpower when it came to dealing with the world as it was now, too, but waiting for David to come back was bringing her to the edge.
Something had happened during those weeks in the hotel room alone. Something inside her had come slightly unhinged. She wasn’t sure she could survive that again. He had to come back.
She itched to open those curtains and just take a look.
What if he was out there on the ground, needing her help? She wasn’t sure why he had no voice, but so far, they’d only been able to communicate by him writing things down or, more recently, in their minds.
But if he was hurt, maybe he couldn’t use his powers to reach out to her.
After another half hour of waiting as patiently as she could, she had practically convinced herself that David was either dead or dying.
There was no reason for it to have taken this long. Parrish and the others were expecting him to reach out around noon, but now it was nearly two in the afternoon. Zoe had no way of reaching them on her own. Not that she knew of, anyway. She needed him, and without David, her sister might never find her.
Zoe curled up on the couch with a blanket tight around her body. She hummed quietly, trying anything to get her mind off those curtains and what might be happening beyond them.
She closed her eyes and tried to rest, but that didn’t work either.
Instead, she stood and paced the floor. She even tried sitting down in a meditation pose and reaching out to Parrish on her own.
Nothing worked, and the more time went by, the more she started to worry.
Trust him. Trust Parrish. Don’t trust your fear.
She repeated this to herself over and over, but by the time another hour had come and gone, she couldn’t wait any longer.
The mantra in her head had turned from trust to panic. Something must have gone terribly wrong, and David wasn’t coming back.
Just look outside. He might be out there. What if he needs me? I have to look.
Scared, she took a deep breath and carefully pulled back the curtains.
Thirty-One
The Boy
David had spent most of the morning searching for some way through the big ships and barriers that blocked the waterways all around the city.
Between private boats, freighters, and Navy ships sent in to try to get control of the area, every river was a mess. It was like a ship graveyard out there.
While the section of the Hudson that came around near his apartment was one of the relatively open waterways, he’d quickly realized that the problem for Crash and the others would be the sections closer to Manhattan. There was no way through, even for a small boat. Not that he could tell from where he was, anyway.
He’d had to travel around pretty far into the city to get a better look at it, but he hadn’t seen anything that looked good.
At best, they’d be able to dock somewhere in Manhattan and make their way to Concourse from there, but it was going to take them a lot longer to get there on foot than it would for him if they were flying.
Today, he had been looking at a spot around the Brooklyn Bridge to see if there was any way a small boat could fit through. He was pretty sure there was enough room for a small boat, but they’d only make it so far before they were on foot anyway.
He didn’t think Parrish was going to like his suggestion of them just staying put until he could get Zoe safely to their boat, but it was really the best way, even if it took him a week to do it.
The problem, of course, was that the Dark One knew now to be looking for a young boy and girl traveling together. With all her eyes and ears out searching for them, he wasn’t sure how best to keep their location hidden.
Even jumping around from building to building throughout the day today had presented some unique challenges.
He couldn’t be sure it was the Dark One’s doing, but there were definitely more rotters hanging out on rooftops today. Usually, the zombies stayed inside on sunny days. The heat made them decay faster and while these things weren’t particularly smart, they did still seem to have at least a little bit of survival instinct left in them somewhere.
He’d been watching these things for more than a month, and he’d never seen so many out in the daylight. Especially not on the rooftops.
Had the Dark One figured out how he traveled?
Were these rotters specifically stationed up here to look for him?
He couldn't be sure, so to be on the safe side, he was extra careful. He kept an eye on any of the rotters nearby and with precise calculations, he only moved from one rooftop to another when none of them were looking.
It took a lot of time, and he had to go from not moving at all to moving very quickly in short bursts, but so far, he was certain he’d managed to avoid any of them seeing him.
Where he ran into some issues, though, was when he’d finally made it home to his own apartment.
There were several rotters hanging out on the roof of the apartment building across from his, and there was one on his own roof.
Because of the way they were staggered, there was never a time when at least one of them wasn’t facing his apartment window.
He’d spent at least an hour crouched in his hiding place a few buildings down, timing their movements and waiting for an opening. His legs were cramping up from sitting in one position for so long, but there was never the right opportunity.
He tried to reach out to Zoe through his mind, but every time he tried to connect to her energy, all he felt was fear and panic. She was too freaked out to allow him into her head. To him, it felt like some kind of static he couldn’t push through.
He just hoped she could hold on without doing something to compromise her position.
If it had been anywhere else, he might have risked being seen, as long as he could figure out a way to hide again somewhere along the way. But this was the worst case scenario.
If they saw him going into the apartment, the Dark One wo
uld know exactly where they were. All she would have to do was wake up the rest of the rotters in his building and send them straight to his door.
He knew for a fact there were at least fifty zombies rambling around in the apartments and stairwells just in his one building. Within a block radius, there might be a thousand.
He wasn’t sure he could grab Zoe and enough food to survive for a few days fast enough to get her out of there. Besides, he wasn’t sure where he would take her. He wasn’t ready yet to make the journey back to Manhattan. Not with so many rotters on the rooftops.
He needed to think of something fast.
Back in his younger days, more than two thousand years ago, he’d been one of the best strategists around. Many people had come to consult with him about their lives, their businesses, and their plans.
Eventually, the Council of Fire had taken notice of his abilities. They’d recruited him to their war council, and he’d worked for centuries as one of the top war strategists in the land. Most of his work there had centered around avoiding wars, not fighting them.
After a thousand years of rewriting or resetting himself here in this world, though, his strategic mind was a bit rusty.
There had to be a way to get back into that apartment without being seen or detected.
He tried the old distraction trick, trying to get the rotters to move away from their posts, but when that didn’t work, chills broke out across his arms.
The only reason a rotter wouldn’t act according to its own basic instincts was because it had been given a more specific directive.
These rotters were being controlled by someone, and he cursed himself for not realizing this would be the Dark One’s next move against him. He should have known better than to leave Zoe behind. He should have gathered up all his supplies and food today and taken her with him when he did his recon. As long as they were together, they could have stayed hidden inside a building for months.
Split up, though, they were in trouble.
He couldn’t even contact the others and tell them what was going on. Without Zoe, the connection between them all was too weak. He could still feel their energy and sense their location, but he couldn’t speak directly into their minds. Not without a direct connection to Parrish’s bloodline and power.
He needed to be physically touching Zoe’s body to make that connection, and the dumbest thing he’d ever done was leave her behind.
Parrish and the other guardians would be waiting for him already. He wasn’t wearing a watch, but he guessed at this point, they’d been waiting at least an hour. Maybe longer.
He just hoped they were patient and trusting, because the dumbest thing they could do would be to come up here to New York without working through a specific plan with him first.
If they tried to come to New York to find the two of them, it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. The Dark One would find and kill them all before they ever got to think about going to the island together or reuniting Parrish with her sister.
He hoped they would wait for at least a few days before they made any sudden moves, but he had to admit, he didn’t think Parrish seemed like the patient type when it came to her little sister.
Which made some sense after everything she’d been through in her first life. Even if she didn’t remember that life anymore, some part of what had happened with her sister must have still been imprinted on her soul. No one ever really forgot a heartbreak like that, even after being rewritten dozens of times.
Zoe would be worried by now, too.
He wanted to wait for dark to see if he could evade them better at night, but he wasn’t sure he had that kind of time.
As if to prove his point, a fluttering movement across the way caught his eye, and he stiffened.
Don’t do it, Zoe.
But it was too late.
Zoe had done the one thing he’d begged her not to do. She’d moved the curtains to look outside.
The zombies on the rooftops noticed the movement just as quickly as he had. If she’d just looked but not exposed her face, it might have been okay and he could have bought them all some time, but Zoe pulled the curtain all the way back, leaned out the window, and looked down at the sidewalk below.
When she stood upright again, the silver in her necklace caught the light just right, and the zombie nearest to him on the roof touched its hand to its forehead. Its eyes lit up from the inside, a deep blood red that flickered like candlelight.
The Dark One had found them, and he didn’t have a second to waste.
He took a deep breath and jumped.
Thirty-Two
Crash
Afew years ago, Left 4 Dead was one of Crash’s favorite games on XBOX 360.
He played it all day and night, grouping for co-op with random strangers online, until he’d earned every possible badge in the game.
But the truth was, fighting zombies was a hell of a lot more fun when you had the option to restart every time you died.
As he hovered over maps of New York and tried to come up with a strategy that wouldn’t get them killed, he yearned for those days when his worst fear was running out of Red Bull after the stores closed.
“Something’s got to be wrong,” Parrish said, pacing the floor near the windows.
She’d been doing that for the past hour, muttering to herself.
Noah had managed to calm her down several times, but Crash could feel the tension rising with every minute that ticked by. It was about two-thirty now, and they’d heard nothing from David.
They’d managed to use the delay as wisely as they could, riding their bikes out to the marina to choose a good, speedy boat and load it up with supplies. They also raided some of the houses further down the strip and came up with a gold mine of tech at the big white house on the end.
Bluetooth earbuds.
Enough for their whole party, which meant Crash could connect them all together so they could chat without trying to use mind magic or be limited to holding the stone.
He was pretty excited about that, so he’d spent a bit of time setting it up before he’d gone back to the satellites and video feed.
Crash wasn’t too worried about David and Zoe. The city was a shit-show, and there were all kinds of things that could have delayed the kid.
In fact, Crash was pretty sure the rotters on the rooftops were the main source of the delay. He’d been keeping his eye on David’s building and the surrounding areas, and he currently had an iPad he’d found in one of the houses propped up against a bag on the kitchen counter that was cycling through the four cameras that faced David’s street.
From what he could tell, there were now one or two rotters on top of every building in that area. Planted there by the Dark One? Or by Lily?
Maybe, but he couldn’t be sure.
They weren’t there last night when he’d looked, but they were there today, and after what David had explained to them about the way he liked to travel, that had to be costing him time.
The good news, though, was that none of the rotters seemed to be alerted or concerned about anything in particular. If they’d found David and Zoe, there would be some kind of commotion or crowd gathering.
Instead, things seemed calm.
Besides, worrying about a two-hour delay during an apocalypse where everything was unpredictable wasn’t going to help anyone.
What would help, however, was continuing to work on a plan.
He’d meant to do some of this work last night, but he’d spent the greater part of the evening wrapped in Karmen’s arms again.
She’d been practicing ways of shielding his dreams from Lily or the Dark One or whoever might be watching in, and for the past several nights, she’d managed to make it so that he didn’t have any dreams at all.
Of course, that could have had more to do with being so close to her all night, but he had no regrets there, either way.
In fact, he would have preferred to spend the rest of his life in her arms
.
The way things were going, last night could have very well been the rest of his life, but he didn’t want to think of it that way. He wanted to think of it as a potential beginning for something even better than late-night gaming by himself.
If he had to face real zombies and the threat of actual death to get to that new beginning, he was going in guns blazing.
“Why don’t you all come over here for a second and get your mind off David,” he said. “I want to run these maps by you and show you where we’re going tomorrow.”
Everyone joined him at the kitchen island where he’d spread out his maps of the city that he’d gotten back at Tank’s, as well as his satellite feeds on the laptop.
“Alright, so here’s the plan.” He pointed to where they were right now on the Jersey shore. “From here, it’s a straight shot to New York. We’re going to come in through this section under the bridge and into the Upper Bay here. Then, we’ll curve around into the East River. I’m thinking we can find a place to dock here near the Queensboro Bridge.”
“I thought David said the East River was trashed,” Noah said.
“He did, and it is,” Crash said, pulling up the most recent images he’d been able to pull from satellite. “But the Hudson is even worse. Look at this.”
He shook his head as he scanned the Hudson River side of the island. By the time you got to the Bronx, it wasn’t too bad, but they had to get around Manhattan first.
That wasn’t happening. There was a massive container ship blocking the entire entrance there. Crash had no idea how that had come to pass, but it seemed to have crashed into the island and dumped half its cargo in the river. Lots of smaller boats and ships seemed to piled around it, as if they’d been trying to go around and had crashed into each other.
It was an epic disaster area.
“Where’s Concourse Village on this map?” Parrish asked.