“No,” Bits says. “They’re like us, but better. Maybe she’s a ninja, like Ana.”
I laugh. Bits and Hank have become fast friends, as though they’d been looking for each other all their lives. They’re collaborating on a comic book about two kids who single-handedly save the world from zombies. I thought it might frighten Bits more, but imagining herself as a zombie killer seems to have had the opposite effect.
“How about they live forever, like zombies, only they’re still alive?” Hank takes off his glasses and rubs them with his shirt. “Maybe they took the antidote. Or the reverse virus or something?”
Bits gives him a hug, leaving him flustered. He may have grown up a lot, but he’s still the socially awkward boy I love. “Yes!” she yells. “That’s totally what they should be! And maybe the first scene is where they find the vials in a secret research lab.”
Hank drops his trowel altogether and says, “Yeah!”
It’s hard not to think of Adrian as we follow his directions on where to plant. I love growing things, but he loved it so much more. I swipe at the one tear I can’t contain and dig a hole for the next plant. By plant number three the lump in my throat is gone.
“How’s it going?” We look up to see Dan standing over us. “Bits, I think you forgot your shoes.”
“We don’t wear shoes when it’s hot,” Bits replies, and points to my feet. “Our feet need to run free.”
“Those are some dirty, free feet.”
“Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it,” I say. “We may be filthy, but we can wiggle our toes whenever we want. Unlike you, all trapped inside your boots.”
“Well, now I have to try it.” Dan bends down to strip off his heavy black boots and socks, and then moves his toes in the dirt. “You’re right.”
“See?” Bits says.
She swipes at him with her black toes. Dan catches her foot and tickles until she’s lying in the dirt gasping for breath. I can’t help but laugh at the belly laugh that erupts when she’s tickled, but I shake my head at Dan. “Feet are easy to clean. Dirt in the hair—not so much.”
“Do it again!” Bits says. “Please, Dan!”
He kneels to brush off her hair and points his thumb my way. “I would, but I don’t want to get in any more trouble than I’m already in.”
I smile and move to the next row. Bits and Hank run their latest comic storyline by Dan, who shows so much interest that they end up in a circle discussing the finer points of Lexer slaughter. It looks like I’m the only one in our assigned rows who’s going to do any work today. I don’t mind, but I’ve already decided not to come back tomorrow. This lends itself to too much thought.
Dan’s feet appear in my row. “Want help?”
“Sure.” I show him what to do, and we finish the last row in record time, starting on opposite ends and meeting in the middle. We strip off our gloves and sit on the dirt.
“Thanks,” I say.
He waves at the green that surrounds us. “Well, I should probably help to plant since I’m planning to eat. I like it.”
“And the tomato plants smell so good. Rub a leaf and smell your hand. I wish I could bottle that smell and wear it.”
“They do smell good.” Dan leans forward. “And you are wearing some. Or some dirt, at least.”
He rubs his finger across my cheekbone. It’s more a friendly gesture than anything else, but I want to be touched so badly that I can’t breathe. I want to lean into his hand and close my eyes. I want him to be Adrian.
I bolt to my feet, cheek tingling and stomach queasy. “Yeah, I guess I really need a shower. Thanks for helping.”
Dan looks a bit startled by my abrupt departure, but he shrugs. “Sure thing.”
I grab my boots at the end of the row but don’t head for the showers. The wrinkled petals of the apple trees are soft under my feet as I walk to Adrian’s grave. Someone’s put wildflowers on the rock that marks his mound of dirt. I should have been doing that, I guess. I slump against his tree and let two weeks’ worth of tears go.
CHAPTER 39
I’m driving because I want to live to see another day, sort of. Ana sits in the passenger seat of the VW bus and rests her boots on the dash. “I wish we could play some music.”
“Why don’t you see what’s on the radio?” I ask.
“Ha ha. You know what I mean.”
I keep my eyes on the dirt road that takes us up the mountain to the lookout. “No music. We can’t hear anything with music.”
“I know. Fine. Did you see how my tomato plants are the biggest?” She hasn’t shut up about her plants since we got them in the ground a week ago.
“Yes, Ana. For the thousandth time, your plants are the biggest. Maybe you’ll win a blue ribbon at the state fair this year.”
“Look who’s Miss Cranky today. Geez.”
I glance at her. She’s raised her hands stick ‘em up-style. “Sorry,” I say.
“No, it’s fine. I like my women feisty.”
My laugh is drowned out by the song she starts to sing. This is not a good thing, and not because of zombies. Ana is tone-deaf, unlike Penny, who sings like an angel.
“Stop!” I yell. “You’re killing me.”
She raises her volume. It’s a Top 40 song that almost makes the apocalypse welcome, since I thought I’d never have to hear it again. I whack her on the head, and the last howled note hangs in the air as I pull into the driveway and park at the abandoned house. We wait in silence, but nothing appears.
I follow Ana up the steep trail. It’s five hundred feet to the top of the mountain, and though I might be in good shape, keeping up with her makes me winded. The trail opens to a clearing dotted with stumps, which has been enlarged with chainsaws and axes to afford a view of much of the south of the farm.
Ana hands me binoculars and raises hers to her eyes. “Penny’s on me about you.”
“What?” I ask, and turn to where she continues scanning the terrain.
“She thinks you’re all messed up and doesn’t like for you to be doing guard so much.”
“Messed up?”
“Yeah, she said something about the stages of grief—that you’re not doing them right. I don’t know.” She shrugs. “You know I never listen to my sister. She said I needed to stop encouraging you.”
I’m speechless and can’t see a thing through the binoculars with the way my hands tremble. I would kill Penny if she were in front of me right now. She’s got indoor plumbing, a baby and James. She has no idea what this is like.
I scan the quarry. The man who owned it had high hopes when he started mining, according to Adrian, but it never produced large amounts of granite, and eventually he gave up. The road that separates the three lakes is wide enough for one vehicle, although I think it must have been wider in the past. The fences have long been torn down by people seeking respite from a hot summer’s day. Lexers bob in the water. I can’t tell if they’re finally dead, since none of them are doing the backstroke. I see a Lexer moving across a field, and another standing by a farmhouse, but there’s nothing else interesting. I hold my binoculars by the strap and stare at a tree stump.
“All clear,” Ana says. She drops her glasses and notices my slumped shoulders. “Hey, don’t worry about Penny. You know she wants everything to make sense. She probably read a book about it. I say that if you want to be out here, you should be out here.”
I start down the path, wondering if everyone thinks that I’m doing this wrong. I know Bits does. She wants to be held all night. She wants the Cassie who was fun. I can only keep it up for so long before I need to escape. I thought I was doing okay, better than when my parents died, at least. I start the bus and drive down the hill at a snail’s pace because I don’t want to go back to the farm. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m failing everybody.
“Lexers at eleven o’clock,” Ana says at the bottom of the hill.
There are five of them heading up the road. They’ll probably be at the far
m by this afternoon or evening. They’ll scare Bits. We’ll kill them and then have to drag their bodies far away to lessen the stench. We could nip the whole thing in the bud right now.
I hit the brakes and my chest flutters in anticipation. “Want to take them?”
Ana drops her feet to the floor with a laugh. “Really?”
I lift my cleaver and swing open my door. Ana races around the side of the bus and calls, “Hey guys, where you goin’?”
They turn. I think they were four men and a woman; it’s hard to tell sometimes, especially when they’re almost skeletons like a couple of these. I steady my cleaver. I have two guns and Adrian’s knife as well, so I’m not worried. One heads for me, thinking he’s going to get dinner, but he’s dead wrong. I take three big strides and the flat blade hits his neck with a crunch. His moans are cut off with his head. Some of them are easier to kill than they were last year, as if their muscles and bones have weakened from cold or time. I turn to the one who’s just laid a hand on my shoulder and shove him back. I saw him coming and knew I had time. I banish the thought that I might not have cared that much and push the spike into the soft spot under his chin. Ana’s finished two, and the last one stands in the center of the road, blinded by the moss that’s grown over her eyes.
“You want it?” she asks.
She grunts and makes a beeline for Ana, but I call, “Yeah, sure, I’ll take it. Over here, lady!” It turns for me, arms outstretched movie mummy-style, and walks eye-first into my spike.
“Nice,” Ana says. She wipes her cleaver in the greenery and then stares at me. “What was that about?”
I clean my glove with an antibacterial wipe we keep on hand for this purpose and throw my cleaver on the tarp in the back of the bus. “Like you said, I want to be out here. You want to look for some more?”
Ana hangs her arm out the window like we’re two girls on a road trip. “You know I do.”
The next group is a bit past the turn to Kingdom Come’s first gate, heading up the north road toward the noise of the machinery outside the gates. Ben has us getting in a few more acres of crops because of the food shortage, and they’re digging the trench that will surround all of Kingdom Come. They’ll have to stop work to take care of the Lexers. We might as well do it for them.
“Think we can take eleven?” I ask, but I’ve already put the bus in park.
“We can from the roof.”
We sit on the roof and call to them. They continue staggering up the road. I sit cross-legged near the edge and whistle, to no avail.
“Maybe they want you to sing for them,” I say to Ana.
She belts out another horrible song, made even worse by her snorts of laughter as they close in. The van rocks when they hit, but we’re safe up here. A woman flattens herself against the bus and growls, her gaping lips a mass of cracks and her tongue black. My spike hits her uvula with a satisfying crunch.
Ana’s brought two machetes from the weapons in the bus. I puncture one head, then another. It’s almost too easy. We enjoy the lack of guttural moans and listen to the warm breeze rustle the leaves and the steady drone of the tractor. The fury that follows me all day, every day, has abated for now. It lies on the ground with the bodies, but I know it’ll follow me home.
“Ana,” I say. “Thank you for taking care of—I couldn’t.”
She wraps her arms around her knees and catches her lip in her teeth. “I didn’t want you to. I thought it would make things worse. Look at Caleb.”
I watch the Lexers on the ground and say what I’ve been thinking. “I should have done it. You would’ve, if it’d been you.”
“I don’t know,” Ana says. She scoots closer so that her knees touch my shoulder. “I’ve thought about it, and I don’t think I would. You’d do it for me.”
I think about having to kill Peter or another one of my friends. It’s almost as bad as Adrian, but I’d do it so she wouldn’t have to. “I would.”
“I know. And promise you’ll kill me if I don’t have time to do it myself. Don’t let Peter. You do it—you’ll get me in one shot.”
“Yeah, right,” I say. “Like that’d ever happen.”
This is the kind of thing Ana jokes about, but the humorless look on her face tells me she’s not this time. “Promise me.”
“Fine. I Promise.”
She nods and stretches out. I do the same, and we lie in silence until the radio in the van crackles. I slide down and peel off a glove.
It’s Mike, at the first gate. “Ana, Cassie, check in.”
“We’re on our way, Mike. All clear.”
“Okay.”
We pull through the gate Shelby’s opened a few minutes later. Mike finishes scribbling in his ever-present notebook—he was a writer in his past life—leans in the bus and pulls his head back out in disgust. “You ran into Lexers? I can smell it out here.”
I’m not good at lying, but Ana jumps in. “A couple on the road to the lookout.”
“Really? There are never any up there.”
Ana shrugs. “Well, they were making their way up, and we didn’t want to be caught out.”
“Good thinking.”
We wash our weapons and clothes before lunch. I feel good, like I’ve taken control of the situation. I ignore the guilty voice that reminds me I’ve broken the promise I made to Adrian. But I promised that I’d never do anything that would keep me from him, and he’s not here.
CHAPTER 40
I’m woken by the sound of clanging metal and Barnaby’s incessant barks. I went to bed at seven in the morning, and it’s only a couple of hours later. I pull the blanket over my head, but when my half-asleep brain realizes that noise is hands on the fence—a lot of hands, from the sound of it—I jump into my boots, grab my cleaver and slip on my gloves.
I run toward the shouting that’s been added to the noise. Half of the farm stands watching the east fence. Caleb pushes through them, spike in hand, and I follow. The front of the crowd parts to reveal well over a hundred Lexers at the fence. The chain-link sags under the press of bodies. I don’t know how many it would take to push it down, but it looks like if they sustained this in a single spot for long enough, they might be able to do it.
One detaches from the pack and laces his fingers through the fence a bit farther down. He rattles the metal and releases a high-pitched scream that makes my skin crawl. I’ve never heard anything like it before. There’s an answering scream from behind me. I spot Bits in a tight knot with the other kids, hands fisted and face chalk-white. Her eyes are so wild that it scares me more than the Lexers at the fence. The Lexer’s mouth opens again, and I end his next scream with the spike of my cleaver.
I hurry to where Bits has buried her face in Hank’s armpit. “It’s okay,” he says. “Cassie got him.”
Hank winces when her nails dig into his side, followed by another ear-splitting scream. I wrestle her away and sink to the ground. I fold myself over her head in my lap, but she won’t stop screaming and thrashing, no matter how many times I call her name. I’m still wearing the pair of Adrian’s boxers that I sleep in, and she sinks her teeth into my thigh hard enough to break the skin. She takes off for the cabins when I yelp and let go.
Peter comes to a halt at my side and does a double take. “She bit you?”
“I’m fine. Just see if she’s okay.” Now that the Bits show is over, the other kids stare at the fence with pale faces. I rise to my feet and turn to where Penny stands. “Why are they out here?”
Penny appears overwhelmed by the kids and the scene in front of us, but I don’t care. It’s time she joined me in the real world. “Th—They ran out when they heard the noise,” she stammers. “I couldn’t get them back in.”
“That’s your one fu—freaking job!”
Penny pushes up her glasses and blinks. I don’t think I’ve ever yelled at her, and even now she flashes me a placating smile. “Cass—”
I ignore her and return to the fence. It’s sagging more than it was whe
n I arrived. A fencepost shifts, and the chain-link bulges in a few feet. There are yells from the crowd behind us, which doesn’t help at all. Someone needs to get the spectators out of here if they’re not going to lend a hand. I stab an eye socket and then a forehead. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ashley brandishing a spike and shoving it through the fence.
Ana runs her spike across the links and hollers, seeking to get the crush of bodies to spread out. I move down to where she is and bang on the fence. A dozen detach from their friends and move to us. Liz and Dan do the same on the other end. Once they separate, it’s easy for all of us to finish them off, and we survey the bodies while we catch our breath. The fence is covered in gore, and the stench is terrible. It’s going to take all afternoon to move the stacks of Lexers that lie outside.
“That sucked,” Liz says, and rubs her lower back. She glances at the onlookers, who murmur amongst themselves.
“Are you okay?” Caleb asks her.
“I’m fine, but the old back isn’t what it used to be.”
“Let me help,” he says, and winds his arm around her waist.
“Cabe, I can walk.” Liz tries to shake him off, but he guides her anyway, pointing out rocks in her path. I can hear her mutters from thirty feet away.
Ashley drops her spike in a bucket and walks to where we stand. Her eyes are huge and she offers us a tremulous smile. “I tried to help,” she says, and then she starts to cry.
I put an arm around her. “You did great, Ash. It’s hard, though, isn’t it? Especially the first few times.”
Ashley pulls back and raises a hand to wipe her eyes. Before she can get it there, I grab her hand in mine and hold it up. She looks at the splattered blood and her breath hitches.
“Wash up first and don’t touch anything,” I say. I haven’t heard of anyone getting the virus through blood splatters, but that’s probably because they’re a zombie now.
She nods and leaves for the shower room that’s built onto the laundry. Ana watches her go. “She was good. I wish they would let her do guard.”