Chapter 1
It has been 28 years, 14 weeks and 9 days since a virus turned more than half the world's human population into flesh eating zombies.
Between the people who were turned into zombies and those who were eaten by the zombies, more than 95 percent of the population died within 6 months of the initial infection. Those who survived holed up wherever they could find safety.
My parents had found safety in the Cube. According to my father, the building had originally been intended as a prison for extremely violent offenders. Construction hadn't quite been finished when the Cube had been re-purposed as housing for survivors. Life inside the Cube is just as restrictive as you would imagine life in a maximum security prison would be, but we are safe.
Mom and Dad have always told me the sacrifices we made to live in the Cube were worth it because we were safe.
It’s been 13 days, 12 hours and 42 minutes since my parents disappeared without a trace from our apartment inside the Cube.
In two hours, I was going to leave the Cube for the very first time in my life. My hands refused to stop shaking as I ran my fingers against the laces on my father's old hunting boots. The soles were cracked and the leather incredibly frail. The laces had been knotted together in the places where they have worn through and the gray-white cord in the center is showing on the outside. The boots are easily 3 sizes too big for me, but I'm going to have to make do. You can't get new boots inside the Cube. There's no leather for the uppers. There's no rubber to make the soles out of.
If I'm lucky I'll be able to find a newer pair that fit me better on the hunting trip. If I'm unlucky, I'll trip on the stupid things and get eaten by a zombie.
It’s the luck of the draw.
Shame I've never been real lucky.
I was so nervous that I'd already thrown up all the spoonfuls of my nasty little refried bean and cheese breakfast. The beans tasted better on the way up then they did going down. Probably because they were moving at a faster rate of speed.
“I'm glad you decided to join us.” Drake's voice echoed through the early morning darkness from behind me. I turned around and forced myself to smile at him. His golden eyes almost matched the dark amber pendant he wears chained around his throat. His chest, legs and arms ripple with muscle under a fitted black jacket and seamless black pants. His boots are beautiful shiny black leather, polished and free of the wear and tear that plagues almost everything in the Cube.
Drake has always been beautiful and I suppose he always will be, but I no longer stop and stare whenever I catch sight of him. I stopped openly drooling after Drake when Julie died. Turns out the frivolous amusement of unrequited love isn't nearly as much fun when you have no one at all to share your obsession with.
“I like your boots,” I told him. It seemed rude not to reply when he spoke to me but the truth was I didn't have any idea what to say to the boy who I'd spent hundreds of hours holding fantasy conversations with inside my own head.
“The Scavengers always have the best things,” Drake pointed out calmly. “Of course, we're also the most likely to die.”
“Is it worth it?” I hadn't meant to ask the question but the words spilled out of my lips on their own.
“Dying?” Drake asked.
“Being a Scavenger.”
“I've got a waiting list with three hundred and fifty names on it. That means there are at least 350 other people in the Cube right now who would be willing to take your place here today if you don't want it. Must be worth something.” Drake pulled a heavy knife off his belt and began polishing the blade with the hem of his t-shirt.
“I didn't ask how long the waiting list was,” I clarified. “I asked you if you think it’s worth it. If you went back in time and you had to do it all over again, would you become a Scavenger?”
Drake hesitated for a brief second and then shrugged. “I'd rather be a Scavenger than a sheep.”
“A sheep?” I asked, confused.
“Sheeple,” Conner said as he strode into the room. He was dressed head to toe in worn out leather and carrying a heavy backpack slung over his right shoulder. A gun, strictly forbidden by the Powers That Be, was proudly displayed on his hip.
“Sheeple?”
“That's what we call-.”
“No, we don't.” Drake made a slicing gesture at Conner's throat. “We don't.”
Conner laughed harshly. “I do.”
“You don't either.”
Conner leered down at me. “We're the Scavengers. Everyone too scared to go out and fend for themselves in the big bad world-.”
“Sheeple,” I said. “Sheep people.”
“We don't really call them that,” Drake snapped. I looked up into his gorgeous golden eyes and realized he was lying.
“It's okay. I get it.” I swallowed the taste of burned out beans on my tongue and hoped my voice came out as steady as it sounded in my head.
Conner laughed and thumped me hard on the shoulder. My knees nearly buckled. “It's okay, Drake. She gets it.”
Drake raised one of his beautiful, perfectly arched eyebrows at me and shot me a look that could only be described as skeptical. I knew what he was seeing: a stocky girl with little muscle tone, olive colored skin, frizzy hair and sunken brown eyes with deep, dark circles underneath. My clothes had been my Dad's and they were all about 4 sizes too big for me. My own clothes simply weren't suited for leaving the Cube. I'd treated too many newly initiated Scavengers for frostbite and incurable infections during my years in the hospital ward.
“Seven out of ten cadets die within their first three hunting trips,” Drake informed me of a fact I already knew. “Nine out of ten die within the first year. It's not too late for you to run away.”
“I don't run away.” I tried my best to ignore the churning in my stomach. Throwing up stomach acid on Drake Bledsoe's boots wouldn't earn me any bonus points.
“Everyone runs away when shit gets real enough,” Conner said with a shake of his head. “Hell, we're running away right now. I am anyways. How about you, Kennedy?”
A slender boy with spiky red hair and too many freckles had just come through the door. He was wearing a baggy dark green military style jacket and rumpled jeans. He looked as if he had slept in his clothes for the last three weeks. “How about what?”
“You running away?” Conner asked.
“From the Cube?” Kennedy tossed his own backpack through the open door of the armor plated school bus that they used to carry supplies during their hunts. “Hell yes. I hate it in here. It’s so stuffy. Too many people in here. I can't breathe air that someone else just exhaled.”
Conner and Drake both laughed. For the first time wondered if maybe I was in the right place after all. “I always feel like I'm choking,” I whispered.
Kennedy looked directly at me for the first time. His eyes were bright blue and slanted. “Everybody always feels like they're choking in the Cube. If I weren't a Scavenger, I'd have clawed my way through the walls after the Brickyard burned.”
“Despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage,” Conner hummed the words.
Without thinking about it, I touched the outside of the jacket pocket to confirm my secret weapon was still safely secured against my skin. I could feel the cool metal barrel through the coarse fabric and I smiled.
Dad's secret was now my secret. It was also my truth. The Powers That Be could lie through their teeth about how my parents must have escaped the Cube in search of a better life but I wasn't about to buy their story. If Dad had left the Cube on his own, he would have taken his gun with him.
He wouldn't have left me behind either.
“I'm ready to go,” I told them.
“Us too,” Conner said. “We can leave just as soon as Shayla drags her slutty ass out of bed and-”
“Who are you calling a slut, you whore?” A female voice demanded as the door opened one more time. Shayla Coppervox strode into the room like she owned it. Her long cherry streaked hair hung
almost to her hips and her neck was thick with chains and gemstones. The jewelry almost made her look like she was wearing an actual shirt when in reality she had a gray silken scarf tied across her chest so that it just barely covered her breasts. Her entire midriff was exposed down to the waistband of her very low-rise and skintight blue jeans. Dark brown thigh high boots overlapped the jeans.
“At least I don't bring my toys on hunts with us,” Conner snapped back. He gestured to the tall, slender boy with blonde hair was following closely at Shayla's heels. His black jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt were practical but lacked the quality seen in the other Scavenger's wardrobe choices. He appeared to be lugging both his bags and Shayla's.
I couldn't remember seeing him at any of the recent ceremonies where the Scavenger's bounties were displayed for the citizens of the Cube. He had to be new to the Scavengers, though judging by the sword on his hip, I was assuming this wasn't his first hunt.
“Your loss,” Shayla told Conner as she blew him a kiss. She focused her attention on Drake. “Time to go?”
“Almost. Waiting on one more,” Drake said.
“Tell me it’s not that whiny, worthless little blonde again,” Shayla said.
“Cya Gree,” Drake said.
“We need to cut that one loose, Drake.” Conner had taken Shayla's bags from the blonde boy. He began loading them onto the bus. “She can't fight. She can't run. She isn't strong enough to carry no supplies. She's weak.”
“Shush,” Kennedy said. He pointed down the hallway. “She's coming.”
“I don't care if she hears me,” Conner said as an almost impossibly petite girl entered the room.
I hated to admit that I could see why Conner thought this girl was weak. She was under five feet tall and built so slightly that she would likely always have the physique of a young girl rather than a mature woman. Her white-blonde hair was chopped short just above her jaw line. Her t-shirt was a shockingly bright lime green compared to the dark browns and blacks that all the other Scavengers were wearing. It even had sparkles sewn into the fabric. Her pants were purple with fabric so thin that it might as well have been see-thru. Her shoes were impractical silk slippers with no sole. I couldn't see any weapons on her person, but I hoped she'd tucked them in the bejeweled lilac purse she'd opted to carry instead of a backpack or duffel bag.
“Hi,” Cya said.
“You're late,” Conner snapped at her.
She blinked at him and then narrowed her pretty blue eyes. “No, I'm not. We're not scheduled to leave until 8 am. It's only 6:23 now.”
“Everyone else was ready to leave 20 minutes ago,” Drake said mildly.
“Our schedules say we leave at 8,” Cya repeated.
“I say we leave now,” Conner said.
“Not arguing,” Kennedy agreed.
I took a deep breath and nodded when Drake looked over at me.
Drake bared his teeth in a false impression of a smile. “Time to go hunting.”