“I think he bit me.” Nick wets his pale lips and draws his arm to his chest. “I need to go to the hospital, right?”
Dad nods again. Without taking his gaze from Nick, he says, “Clara, go pack some warm clothes while I bandage Nick for the ride. Grab water and food from the kitchen, things that won’t go bad. We’ll go to the hospital first.” I watch more drops hit the carpet. “Now, Clara.”
I obey the way I haven’t in years, my usual resistance replaced by autopilot. I stuff jeans, socks and underwear into an old school backpack, then go downstairs to the kitchen, where the headlights through the windows provide enough light by which to see. I pull food from the cupboards, dropping a can of this and a box of that on the counter. A thud from the second floor startles me out of my daze. I stare at the can of soup in my hand and wonder why I let Dad avoid my question. I have to know. He needs to tell me.
Dad fills the kitchen doorway a minute later, a gym bag in his hand. “I have my gun. Are you ready to leave?” He wears the hunting knife he uses while camping, and he holds out a smaller leather sheath. “You get the truck and pull out of the garage when I’ve moved your car. If you have to, you stab them in the head and don’t let them bite you. If they bite you, you’ll die. Do you understand me, Clara?”
Jeremy bit Nick. He attacked Mom. I look Dad in the eye, ignoring his instructions. “What happened to Mom?”
“Put the knife on your belt, Clara.” He uses his growly voice, but his body sways and he sets a hand on the doorjamb to steady himself.
I search the shadows behind him. “Where’s Nick?”
“He can’t come. Take the goddamn knife, Clara.” He moves forward and roughly shoves the sheath into my hand. “We have to go.”
Moans and a crash from the woods come through the window. Nick mentioned zombies, and I laughed. It should be impossible, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. I drop the knife on the kitchen table and grip a chair to stay upright. I want Dad to say it. I want him to speak the words aloud so I don’t have to. “You said we’d take Nick to the hospital.”
“Clara,” my dad says in a barely controlled voice, his lips thin enough to see teeth. “Nick is dead. So is your mother.”
My head fills with static at the inconceivability of his words. Mom is dead. Nick is dead, and Dad killed him. I want to ask if he killed Mom, but I can’t form the words. Dad’s face is set in stone until he glances out the window and curses. Zombies surround my car, the lights and door chime having drawn everything nearby. Our lawn is a thoroughfare for wandering figures.
“They might leave when your battery dies,” he says, as if he hasn’t just completely demolished every last bit of normalcy in my life. “We’ll move your car then.”
He leaves for the living room. Discussion over. I ball my hands into fists. I want to run after him, to scratch and bite him the way they would out front. But if I follow, he’ll keep me from seeing her, and the weight of my mother’s body presses down on me. I have to see. I have to know.
I find the kitchen flashlight and make my way upstairs, avoiding the creaky steps. At the top, I clutch the banister and swing toward my parents’ room. I step lightly, my heart thudding so loudly I can barely hear, so forcefully I can barely breathe.
Before I can chicken out, I wave the light across the floor of their room. Nothing. My hand shakes when I raise the beam to their bed and find a lump on Mom’s side. I drag myself closer. She’s on her back, head on the pillow, hair messy beneath her.
I feel the rumble of my moan before it breaks the silence. Part of her cheek is gone and her molars are visible through the wound. Dried blood cakes her jaw and neck. Mom wasn’t overly vain, but she’d aged well. Now, purple capillaries have come to the surface and there’s a grayish tinge around her eyes.
Something glints on the pillow just behind her ear, wedged under her head somehow. I watch as my fingers hover above the silver. They don’t belong to me. This doesn’t belong to me. I’ve barely brushed the cool steel when I identify it as one of our steak knives—the ones that never need sharpening even if they hit bone. It’s embedded in the softer spot behind her ear.
I drop the flashlight on the bed and stumble away, then shriek when my father clutches me. He makes shushing noises, pinning my back to his chest, but I sink low and elbow him so that he releases me with a grunt. The flashlight’s glow is enough to see his emotionless face. Mom was the sunshine to Dad’s storm. The peal of laughter to his grudging smile. And now it’ll be all storm and no sunshine.
My mother is dead. My brother is worse than dead. Poor Nick thought he got lucky, but Jeremy sentenced him to death and Dad carried out the execution. My rage boils over, coupled with my familiar urge to provoke a reaction—any reaction.
“You killed her,” I spit out. “You killed her, you asshole.”
He flinches, maybe, but his face doesn’t change, so I go for him. I batter and kick, and he takes it. He mans the fuck up and shakes it off. It’s only after I run out of steam and stand with slumped shoulders, my chest hollow, that his lips tremble.
“I’m so sorry. God…I couldn’t leave her like…” Dad moves to the bed, where he smooths my mother’s hair, a hoarse sob cutting off his words, before he mumbles, “I had to, Clara. We take care of our own.”
It’s the same thing he said to me when I was younger, when Grandma moved in while she waged, and lost, her final battle with cancer. It’s what my grandma said about my grandpa, whom she nursed until Alzheimer’s took him. We Jensens take care of our own.
Dad holds Mom’s hand to his cheek, body bent double. I wanted to break him, but now I want my inflexible father back. I don’t want him this way; it’s almost scarier than what lurks outside.
He doesn’t notice when I leave for downstairs. The banging on the porch has stopped. The zombies still wander, but most stand by the car, moaning over the maddeningly persistent bing of the open driver’s side door.
Dad comes downstairs eventually and finds me flipping through channel after channel of snow—the cable is out. The couch groans when he drops beside me and takes my hand. Then, in a low voice, he speaks of Jeremy and my mother, of why he had to kill Nick. He comes clean the way I wanted him to, without holding a single thing back. I listen while he tells me about the end of our world—maybe the end of the whole world—in a matter-of-fact way.
But that’s my dad. Bottle it up and hope like hell it doesn’t explode. I shove the despair and tears down, then squeeze his paw of a hand before I leave for the kitchen, chest burning with a fierce insistence that I will survive. We will survive.
The knife is on the table. I unbuckle my belt and slide on the sheath. There isn’t a ton of food, but I begin placing the contents into reusable cloth bags my mother uses at the farmer’s market. Dad gets moving, too. He fills our pitchers and a few buckets from the garage while the upstairs bathtub fills.
My phone rings. It already seems out of place, as if Dad and I are the only people in the world besides the dead. I freeze before I come to my senses and pull it from my back pocket. Holly’s name flashes on the screen, but there’s no one there when I answer. I try her number to no avail.
Dad touches my arm. “Can’t get her?”
He has a soft spot for Holly. She’s friendly and agreeable in ways I’m not. She doesn’t throw herself at guys the way I do. That’s mainly because she likes girls, although she’s too shy to admit she likes anyone, much less offer herself up to them. I shake my head. “What if she doesn’t know?”
Part of a text arrives: ...gate blocked. We’re OK. Where are you? Be safe! Love you!
My dad reads over my shoulder and exhales. “They know something’s up.”
I want to be with Holly. I want this to be more than just me and Dad because this harmony between us is so foreign, so unnatural, that I’m not sure it can last. I want Holly’s mom, Rose. I want Jesse to be okay.
“We should go there now, before it’s too late,” I say.
“No.”
No explanation, no nothing. Just no. The inevitable annoyance rushes in. “Why?”
“We’re not leaving now.”
“We should be there. What if we’re stuck here tomorrow?” Forget an inch, I can tell he won’t give a centimeter. I pick up my backpack. “I’m going, with or without you.”
“Goddamn it, Clara!” he roars.
The moans from outside grow louder and the garage door rattles. Dad stiffens. I have to escape from this house with my brother outside and my mother upstairs. “I’m going! I’m not staying here with—” I cut off at Dad’s pained look. He thinks I mean I don’t want to stay here with him.
“Please don’t make me stay here.” I point to the ceiling, to my mother, with a strangled sob. “They have a fence, Dad. Please.”
“We’ll take the back way,” he murmurs, eyes on the tile floor.
“Thank you.”
He grabs me in a hug so surprising and powerful that it takes my breath away. It’s not a hug to keep me silent or safe, nor is it the perfunctory hug we’ve exchanged for years. It’s the hug of my childhood, back when he was King of the Universe and I was his princess. I kiss his cheek when he lets me go, just as I used to, and think I see the ghost of a smile before he says, “All right. Let’s go.”
We pack as much as we can carry. We’ll travel across the backyard and then cut through the woods in a trip I can practically do blindfolded. Dad peers through the blinds on the living room’s sliding glass doors. “We’ll have to run.”
I nod, feigning confidence instead of showing fear. There’s safety inside, and I’m forcing us into danger, which could very well be the wrong decision.
I can’t say goodbye to my mom; I want that image erased. I pull our most recent family portrait from its frame. I’ve always hated when my mother drags us every couple of years to take a photo in which we all smile like jerkoffs, but I’m glad for it now.
A clatter comes from out front. Jeremy. We can’t save him, but we can take care of him. I draw the knife at my belt and walk to the front door. My teeth clack together and my hand trembles on the knob when I think of what awaits us out front. I don’t want to say Jeremy’s name aloud. The only way I can do it is to think of him as something other than my brother.
“Clara! Where are you going?”
“We take care…” I can’t say the rest.
Dad’s face shows signs of crumpling before he tightens his jaw and joins me at the door. He moves my hand from the doorknob, flips the light, and steps onto the porch. Everything on the lawn starts toward the house, excited by the light and movement. I back up, thinking I’ve made another bad decision, but Dad searches the faces in the advancing crowd.
They mass at the base of the stairs. A few begin to crawl up, and I help throw the porch furniture onto the steps to give us time. The light allows for a detailed observation of dead eyes and blood-stained teeth that turns my legs to jelly. Dad points to where Jeremy struggles to break through the rear of the pack, and then he leans over the porch rail to grab one by its hair. He buries his knife in its ear and tosses the body to the side. Then he does it again and again, moving along the porch, stabbing at their eyes and mouths to clear an opening for Jeremy.
With my knife in my sweaty hand, I approach the porch railing and grab the first one’s grimy long hair. She snaps her teeth at my wrist like a wild animal, and her fingers brush my legs through the porch balusters. I hold my knife near her eye, shaking so hard I’m sure I’ll miss, and then push it in before I can think about it too long. My own eyes close, and I shudder at the thought, the feel, of the blade grating on socket bone. I’d planned to toss her to the side, but her wilted body slips from my fingers to the flowerbed.
The next two are almost as bad, though I manage not to shudder, and then Jeremy makes a beeline for us through the remaining few. I saw what taking care of Mom did to my father; I don’t want him to have to do the same to his son. I raise my knife, unsure I’ll be able to stab him the way I did the others, but I insisted on this. I’ll finish it.
Dad pushes down my arm, gun aloft in his other hand, and fires. The top corner of Jeremy’s head disappears, and his body crashes to the ground. I gape at his splayed limbs until Dad pulls me into the house and falls against the door. His frame is sunken, shoulders frail—the way he’ll look as an old man.
He did it so I didn’t have to, no matter what it took out of him, because my dad will take care of me until his final breath. We’ll fight again—it’s too ingrained in our natures not to—but I swear I’ll do my best to remember this moment.
Dad squares his shoulders and pulls me to the kitchen, where we quickly wash up. Without a word, we move across the back lawn, and I lead my dad through the woods that hold a million memories of my best friend. Holly is one of my own. There’s nothing to live for if we don’t have that.
10
Tom
I was a hair’s breadth away from breaking completely when I called Clara from where I sat on the kitchen floor. Had she not come home despite my call, I might’ve snapped. I’m not surprised she came—Clara is as obstinate as I am. We fight like cats and dogs or, given our similarities, like alley cats. She always dragged her feet when it came to my requests, so I began issuing demands, and Clara likes demands about as much as I do. But her stubbornness will serve her well—she doesn’t give up, either. It’s time to shake it off, to be there for my daughter, whether she wants me to or not.
Maybe I should’ve insisted we set up for a long siege. However, there’d be no one to protect Clara if I die, and she’s all I have. The only thing left to care about. I killed half my family tonight. I killed my wife and son, and, if that isn’t terrible enough, I killed someone else’s son. I made it as painless as possible: a snapped neck and then a knife in the brain just in case. Nick never saw it coming. Maybe I had no choice, but I’ll lose my mind if I think about it at length. I can still hear the crack of Nick’s vertebrae and feel the knife scraping Sheila’s skull. I still see Jeremy left to rot on the lawn like he meant nothing to his family. To me.
I shove every last bit of it into the deep recesses of my mind as Holly’s house comes into view. Clara will survive—I’ll see to that. There were sirens earlier, but town has gone quiet except for gunshots that echo over the hills, which might draw the zombies away from us. I follow Clara over the back fence and around to the front door. She makes as if to barge in, but this is the wrong time for that. I hold her arm and knock three times. Brisk knocks. Human knocks.
The window curtain moves aside, and the door opens a moment later. An older man stands there, shorter than me but plenty broad. His beard and hair are blond-white, his face stony, and the pistol in his hand at the ready, but he smiles wide when his eyes move to Clara. “I know someone who’ll be happy to see you, Miss Clara.”
The man moves aside, squeezing Clara’s shoulder as she passes. He locks the door behind me, then sticks out a hand. “Sam McGann, Rose’s father. Call me Sam.”
“Tom,” I say. “Clara’s dad.”
Sam gives a solid shake, then leads me into the dim living room. Clara sits on the couch by the windows, crying in Rose’s arms while Holly rubs her back. A tall woman I don’t know paces between the kitchen and living room, and a boy about Clara’s age sits in a chair staring at the couch with a furrowed brow. He stands as I near. “Hi, Mr. Jensen.”
It’s Holly’s older brother, Jesse. I haven’t seen him in years and have only an inch or two on him now. “Jesse,” I say, and dip my head.
It’s all I can manage. Hours ago, I was dreading small talk at the party. Now I’m here sooner than expected with most of my world destroyed, and small talk is out of the question. I want to be home. Need to be left alone to process the past hours.
“Tom.” The soft whisper comes from Rose, who looks up at me with sympathy in her eyes. She shakes her head to say there are no words, that she can’t believe what happened. What is happening. “What can I get you?”
My wife
, my son, I think. I say nothing.
Rose kisses the top of Clara’s head and gently moves her to Holly, then motions me through the dining area to the kitchen. I follow as I’m supposed to, coming to a halt when she stops at the breakfast counter and mimes removing my pack. I shrug it off into her hands, and she sets it on the floor by the wall.
Her fingers settle on my forearm. “Sit.”
I do, on a stool. “Coffee? Soda? Beer or wine?” she asks. “Something stronger? We have almost everything.”
“Beer,” I say. “Thanks.”
Rose pulls a bottle from the fridge, then pops the top and sets it in front of me. She fills a glass with water and sets that there, too. My mouth is parched, and I drink the water down, then start on the beer. Once it’s half gone, she gets another, pops the top, and lines it up. She stands across the counter, watching the living room, then meets my eyes. Hers are hesitant, afraid, and a deep blue.
“Sheila and Jeremy?” she whispers. “Clara said they’re…”
I nod. Start on the next beer in this strange kitchen with these strange people. I’ve known them for a decade and yet they’re still strangers. I wish they weren’t, wish I’d been like Sheila, willing to make friends and give people a chance.
“I’m so sorry.” Rose’s eyes are wet with tears, and her hand is at her chest as if the news hurts her heart. “You’ll stay with us for now. Until it’s safe, or as long as you need to, okay? We have plenty of room.”
Without a doubt, the woman before me is kind and welcoming. Sheila told me as much. Rather than think on that, I nod again and down half the beer. “Your neck,” I say.
It’s a considerable bruise. Big and dark, as though a half-cup of blood is trapped beneath the skin. She pushes her hair behind her shoulder. Some of it is dry and curly, and the rest hangs in damp tendrils as if she’s showered recently. “When we closed the gate, one of them attacked. It tried to bite me, but my jacket collar was in the way. I killed it with a knife.”
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 7