The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed

by Fleming, Sarah Lyons

  Sam doesn’t hear, and I ignore her. I want to see if there are other people, another place to go. This morning, I’m not as thrilled at the thought of staying at Rose’s as I was yesterday, and it wasn’t on my wish list then.

  Sam drives the wrong way down a one-way avenue. Cars are stopped by the curb and mid-street, but there’s room for travel. The street is two lanes, lined with stores, squat office buildings, and trees that will be thick and green in a month or so. The fire station—a brick building with rolling glass doors—is empty, the doors smashed to hell. Two zombies lurk within, and they trip for the sidewalk as we pass. The businesses are looted, though there aren’t many before it turns residential, and the streets are the same as on our way into town—destroyed houses, bodies on lawns.

  How many people didn’t have food, or left a light on and were attacked, or went out searching for a loved one? All the gunshots we heard, the sirens, painted a picture in my mind, and that picture was eerily accurate. Stores come again—a corner market destroyed, a fire in a small plaza. The food establishments have broken doors and windows, leading me to believe that food was scarce in this part of town.

  “Shit,” Rose hisses when we’re close to the fairgrounds.

  Three blocks ahead, where the fairgrounds take up a good six blocks, is a mass of people. Not people. Zombies. The street is packed with them. Whoever is in the fairgrounds, if there is anyone in there, is not having a good day. Sam slams on the brakes, pulls into the driveway of a vandalized house, and turns the way we came. He makes a right at the next street, only to brake at another throng two blocks down.

  “Goddamn it.” He spins the wheel and heads back to Thirteenth.

  “It looked clear down Oak,” I say.

  Sam nods and flies by Rose’s office, then turns south past more office suites and tree-lined sidewalks. A pack of zombies veers into the street, possibly heading for the source of the earlier shots, and comes toward us. Sam makes a hard right into a parking lot, then bumps over the curb into another lot and shoots out onto the perpendicular avenue.

  A clunk comes from the back, followed by a yelp, and I turn to see Rose holding a hand to her temple. She leans around the driver’s seat, eyes huge. I face forward. The Safeway parking lot is crawling with bodies, and every single one sees us coming. Three hundred, maybe four hundred, and the first fifty are moving into the intersection ahead. Sam looses a string of expletives and swings up the curb, shearing off the side view mirror on a telephone pole. Two zombies in the dry cleaner’s narrow parking lot advance. It’s either hit them or stop, and there’s no stopping now.

  “Hold on!” Sam yells.

  We clip the first body and throw it to the side. The second, a slumping man chewed through the middle, hits the hood at the right corner. The thud shakes the car, and his torso rolls up the windshield with a spray of liquid that coats my side of the glass. Sam thumps over the man’s lower half and swerves into the street.

  “Rosie?” he calls. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Rose watches the road with round eyes, waiting for whatever new horror it’ll bring. I don’t blame her—I’m sure there are plenty.

  “Damn wipers,” Sam mutters, fumbling with various levers while keeping his eyes on the road. I reach over and push it to get the washer fluid going. After twenty seconds, the glass is clean enough for a view. A few zombies lurk, but not many, and I allow myself to relax just enough to breathe.

  “Take this down or cut over?” Sam asks.

  This street curves, and the only outlet is onto Willamette Street. The plus of Willamette is that it’s wide. The minus is the stores and supermarket ahead. If it’s anything like Safeway, we might be fucked.

  “You can cut across,” Rose says, “but almost everything’s going to lead you to Twenty-Eighth, and if it’s blocked, we’re screwed. Whoever designed Eugene should’ve been taken out back and shot.”

  I’ve had that thought many times. In Eugene, streets end and don’t go through. They curve and dog-leg and dead-end without notice, as if modeled on the aerial view of a toddler’s scribbling.

  “Let’s see where this takes us,” Sam says.

  A few small apartment complexes flash by. Short, ugly office buildings. A bookstore on the left. Small restaurants and stores set back in a plaza on the right. It isn’t too bad, though we’ve gained a small following of bodies. We pass a bicycle shop. Bikes would be useful—all of mine are at home—but there isn’t time to stop.

  We hear the next group before we glimpse them between the stores ahead. A swarm like the last, but hundreds more in number, stands in the shopping plaza with the supermarket, PetSmart, and a sporting goods store. More are across the street. The droning sound grows to a hum I feel in my chest and ears, and sweat forms a slippery layer down my back. There’ll be no barreling through these if they reach the street before we pass.

  Sam keeps the car straight down the middle and zips forward, jaw set. I’m sure he has the pedal to the metal, but there’s no roar from the electric engine, which makes me want to jam my foot over his to be sure. I don’t like losing control, and losing control of your own survival is as bad as it gets.

  The zombies are on the curb. Stepping off. Stumbling out. Sam moves as far left as he can without hitting the other encroaching pack. At the entrance to the shopping center, the first bodies of the righthand pack thump into our rear. A short, high-pitched squeak comes from Rose when we fishtail toward the bodies on the left.

  Hands batter the hatch window, but Sam spins the wheel like a pro, slowing only enough to straighten out. He floors it past a collision in the next intersection and heads uphill, past a couple of lone zombies in the street. Beads of sweat run down his face into his beard. “That was close.”

  “Nice save,” I say. “You should’ve driven a stunt car.”

  “Thirty years of New York City driving is almost the same.” Sam glances in the rearview. “You okay, Rosie?”

  “Fine,” Rose says quietly.

  I turn back to where she sits, still and stiff. And with good reason—that swarm was no joke. She meets my eyes and looks away just as quickly, and I remember how irritated I was before. Clearly, she hasn’t forgotten. I’m not good at apologies, and if she wants to be annoyed at me, she has every right to it.

  Sam veers right and climbs uphill. We’re entering our territory now, where the homes spread farther apart and the trees are plentiful. Morse Farm appears on our right. The green expanse of public land dips down to a historic farmhouse and a dog park where we ran our old dog years ago. A few moving bodies dot the landscape. We turn again, still rising, past houses with cracked windows and open doors.

  “There’s a turtle on the dash,” Sam says after another minute. There’s nothing on the dashboard, and I think Sam is going senile before I follow his finger to the display behind the steering wheel. Sure enough, the icon of a turtle flashes where before there was a number—the number of miles the car would travel before the power went. “Pressing the gas but it’s not going any faster.”

  The car slows, losing speed until it stops gently at the side of the road. “I didn’t look when we got in, but maybe the gauge was off yesterday,” Sam says. “Or something ran down the juice overnight.”

  Rose leans forward, both hands on her father’s headrest, then peers out the windows. “It’s not that far of a walk. Let’s go before anything comes.”

  We’re out of the car and walking down the paved road a minute later, me shouldering the two duffels, and Rose the bucket. Sam protested at that, and Rose quieted him with the idea that he’s in charge of shooting at things. When I came around to her other side to keep her between me and Sam, she didn’t say a thing, though she did inch closer to her dad.

  We take a few backyards to avoid zombies, then come out at the intersection. The road is quiet. So are Sam and Rose. I look behind us, then into the trees on both sides. Clara’s old elementary school appears on the right. It opened again a few years ago, and it appears untouched
.

  “The cafeteria might have food,” I say.

  Sam nods. “Good plan. Maybe in a day or two.”

  Rose says nothing, though she’s usually the first to praise someone’s idea. I know why—she was friendly last night, told me things I’m sure she doesn’t share readily, and I responded before I shut her down. Only Rose would insist someone pick up a guitar in the midst of the zombie apocalypse. It’s a ridiculous idea. Even more ridiculous is that, for a brief moment, I imagined myself doing so. Then I thought of how Sheila loved to hear me play—would dance around our apartment with baby Jeremy in her arms—before I used work as justification to stop. How I made excuses when Clara asked to sing with me, until I sold my guitars and she finally quit asking. If I refused to do it for the three people I loved most in the world, I have no business doing it now. Two of those people are gone, and there’s only one task I need to be concerned with—keeping Clara from meeting the same fate.

  We walk another half mile to where the house sits above the road, shaded by a few trees. The door opens and Mitch comes onto the front stairs waving. Rose waves in return and blows out a breath.

  “Told you they’d be fine,” Sam says to her.

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Well, I should’ve.”

  Rose elbows her dad, then watches the house glumly on our approach. “They’re going to be upset. About Ethan.”

  “I think it’s a good sign he wasn’t there. He didn’t bleed out, and he would’ve been inside if he’d been bitten and sick, since the doors were closed. It tells me he went out for more food or supplies. Maybe he’s somewhere safe for now.”

  “Will you tell them that? They’ll believe it coming from you.”

  “You don’t?” Sam asks.

  Rose shrugs. The bucket hits her calf with a dull bonk, and she pushes her hair from her face with the hand that holds her knife. She looks exhausted. Since she didn’t wake us for watch, I assume she didn’t get any rest.

  We pick up the pace at a snap from the woods beside the house. A tall, thin woman stumbles over branches and twigs to reach the road, and we break into a run, Rose pacing herself beside Sam. I hang back with them until they reach the fence, then I toss the duffels over and wait to give Sam a hand.

  “Rose first,” Sam puffs.

  Rose throws her bucket over, then herself. Sam gets a leg up on the top wood rail and does a sideways hurdle to the lawn, and I follow as the woman comes for us. Her jaw is off-kilter, and her teeth don’t meet when she bites at air. It’s enough to twist your stomach, but it’s the eyes I hate most. The same staring, menacing gaze as Jeremy.

  I wait for the woman to near. She hits with a growl, and I slam my blade into her eye, grimacing when the feel of socket bone reminds me of Sheila. Her chin smacks the fence with a loud clack on her way down, and she lands limp on the grass.

  By the time we make our way up the slope to the house, all three kids stand with Mitch on the step. Holly is in tears, and Rose goes straight for her, taking her into her arms and murmuring softly. I hear the word Dad and the sob in Rose’s voice, and I feel bad about how short I was with her.

  I smile at Clara, who watches me warily with Sheila’s eyes. I can’t even smile at my daughter without it being a problem. Without a fight. I shake my head and walk inside. It would’ve been better for everyone if I’d gone down with Sheila and Jeremy.

  20

  Clara

  We spent the night worrying. When Rose, Sam, and Dad got home, it was a relief, followed by mourning. Ethan is missing. I know my mother is dead, and though it still seems unreal that I won’t go home and find her reading a magazine on the couch, I have some closure. That kind of closure sucks, but so does imagining the worst, especially when you know it’s the likeliest.

  Holly and I sit in her room the next day, in our usual spots: her cross-legged on her bed, me at her desk, watching out the window. Of course, that window is now half plywood to keep zombies from looking in, but I stare at it the same way I would the glass.

  There’s no scrolling through phones, no music to play, nothing to do except talk, read, play a game, or draw. Well, Holly draws. I doodle and scribble and fawn over her beautifully illustrated pictures. After our fortieth round of War, Holly shuffles the cards and holds them up. “Want to play 52 Pickup?”

  “That joke never gets old.”

  Holly grins, face slightly swollen from last night’s tears she thinks I didn’t hear. She and I are alike in that we keep many feelings to ourselves. The difference is in our methods: I fight while I pretend nothing’s wrong; Holly feigns a cheeriness that puts Pollyanna to shame. And because we understand, we don’t pry when the other makes it clear a subject is a no-fly zone.

  She falls back and flings the cards into the air so that they cascade onto the bed. “Want to check the front window? Maybe they’re gone.”

  “Someone’s sitting there. We’ll know when they’re gone.”

  We’d intended to hit the nearby school for any food in the cafeteria, but zombies killed that plan by congregating out front of the house. Dad and Rose are allowing us to go as packhorses, and though staying in the house is boring as shit, going outside makes my heartbeat erratic. At least I’ve killed a few zombies. Holly is a virgin when it comes to zombie-killing.

  “I might go crazy if this doesn’t end soon,” she says. “What would you be doing if we weren’t here?”

  “Sitting in a boring class, probably.”

  “Who would you be doing if we weren’t here?”

  I laugh, then roll forward in the chair and kick her. “Hey, at least I was getting some. Unlike some people who run away from people they like.”

  Holly peers at me from between her curls. “Who? I don’t like anyone.”

  “How about what’s-her-face? Helena. All I heard was Helena this and Helena that, and then she calls to ask you out, and you don’t answer the phone. Or call her back.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yeah, that. Aren’t lesbians supposed to move in together after the first date or something? You won’t even go on a first date. You need to up your game or they’ll kick you out of the club.”

  She laughs and buries her face in her pillow. “You know I hate the phone. Unless it’s you, I get weird and have nothing to say.”

  “Then text that you’ll meet them somewhere in person.”

  “You know I can’t.” She flips onto her back with a groan. “I’ll just get a lot of pets and be single forever.”

  Holly hooks up occasionally, and she had one semi-serious three-month relationship, but she somehow fell into those experiences without having to exert any effort, or was drinking when they occurred. Her shyness is legendary, and it attracts admirers like moths to a flame, most of whom are politely sent away by a speechless, blushing Holly.

  I throw a pen at her. “I thought we were going to live together if we were spinsters. You’re ditching me for a bunch of cats?”

  “You say that now, but you’ll find someone one day and fall head over heels in love.”

  Holly smiles, her light brown eyes warm, as though she has the perfect candidate in mind. It’s these times where I’m half-convinced she knows exactly how I feel about Jesse. But that’s a definite no-fly zone. An exclusion zone. I will shoot down any attempt at entry, and I won’t even radio a warning first.

  “I’ll just be over here holding my breath,” I say.

  “He’ll be perfect. I mean, he’ll have a penis, but I guess that can’t be helped. Some people like those, though I have no idea why. They’re so…penis-y.”

  “They really are. And yet men think they should be shared with the world via messenger services. I got three last month.”

  “They’re like the mother who thinks her ugly baby is beautiful. A face only a mother could love.” Holly’s giggles turn to snorts. “Imagine one wearing a baby bonnet?”

  I crack up. “Now that’s a dick pic I need to see. As much as I’d like to discuss penises all day, we s
hould probably stop before my dad hears and has another reason to hate me.”

  “Fine.” Holly sighs and stares at the ceiling. “I’m scared to go out, but maybe we’ll see living people. We might be able to get downtown.” Her ulterior motive is to look for her dad, though she doesn’t say it. Ethan is another no-fly zone.

  Jesse stops in her doorway on his way past. “I want to get out of here. Not that the trips to the well and RV aren’t exciting and all.”

  “I heard you get to heat the food tonight,” Holly says. “That might be fun overload.”

  Jesse smiles and flips his hair from his face, though it barely flips due to the fact we’re all greasier. Smellier. At least we have water, even if we do have greasy hair. We can drink and flush the toilet and take a quick shower in the RV every few days. There have to be people out there who can’t do any of that. There have to be people out there, period, though it feels like we’re the last ones on Earth.

  “You guys want some analog entertainment?” Jesse asks. “I pulled out the board games from downstairs. You could be a winner at the game of Life. If you’re done discussing penises, that is.”

  That sends us into a fit of giggles. Jesse is the odd man out, since most of his friends are away at school and the few in town unreachable, though we include him in all conversations that don’t involve anatomy. He’s taken the situation in stride in the quiet way he has, but being unable to play guitar must be the hardest part. Sometimes his fingers twitch as if they don’t know what to do with themselves. They probably don’t. In high school, he usually had a guitar somewhere nearby, if not in his lap. It didn’t hurt with the girls, a fact I found annoying at the time, though I was one of them. But all that time with a guitar paid off, and he went to school for music. Classical guitar, though he can play anything. Whether or not the girls still tumble into his lap along with the guitar is something I don’t like to think about.

  “I’ll play,” I say. Though we hang out, I keep my physical distance from Jesse, if only because I’m afraid to fall for him again. Close proximity does that.