Copyright

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

No generative artificial intelligence (AI) was used in the writing of this book.

HOLLOW CHILD: REDUX. Copyright © 2025 by Amanda Hocking. All rights reserved.

THE BOOK OF MERCY. Copyright © 2025 by Amanda Hocking. All rights reserved.

HOLLOW CHILD. Copyright © 2024 by Amanda Hocking. All rights reserved.

www.HockingBooks.com

To my new co-writer Quigley Ponderosa, who spent more time distracting me with purrs and cuddles than actually helping

“I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.”

T. S. Eliiot

Other Books by Amanda Hocking

The Hollows

Hollowland

Hollowmen

Hollow Stars

Hollow Child

Hollow Valley (Coming Halloween 2025)

Hollowland: Redux

Hollowmen: Redux

Hollow Stars: Redux

Into the Hollow Dark (Short Story)

Into the Hollow Horde (Short Story)

Into the Hollow Years (Short Story)

The Book of Mercy (Novella)

The Hollows: A Graphic Novel

The Hollows Collection: The First Two Years

My Blood Approves Saga

My Blood Approves

Fate

Flutter

Wisdom

Swear

Letters to Elise (Prequel Novella)

Little Tree (Short Story)

My Blood Approves: Complete Saga (eBook Bundle)

Valkyrie Duology

Between the Blade and the Heart

From the Earth to the Shadows

Trylle Saga

Switched

Torn

Ascend

Frostfire

Ice Kissed

Crystal Kingdom

The King’s Games (Short Story)

The Lost City

The Morning Flower

The Ever After

Watersong Saga

Wake

Lullaby

Tidal

Elegy

Forgotten Lyrics (Short Story)

Standalone Novels

Freeks

Bestow the Darkness

Muses of Wespen

Muse

Magik (Coming 2025)

Seven Fallen Stars

Virtue

Tristitia

A Hungry Heart (Short Story)

To my new co-writer Quigley Ponderosa, who spent more time distracting me with purrs and cuddles than actually helping

“I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.”

_ T. S. Eliot

Map

Hollow Child

1

Remy

Every time I killed a zombie, I hoped that it would be my last, and that after nearly ten torturous years, the zombie plague that had taken over the world would finally be gone. But with each new spring, when the snow melted enough, a fresh crop of zombies would head north.

The lyssavirus genotype-8 was ceaseless, an unending and infinitely patient monster far worse than the creatures it created. Once infected with the virus, the host could never find a natural death, never again know a moment of clear thought, and never feel anything beyond the infernal hunger. They became hollow husks of humans, little more than living dead, following a lone instinct to consume human flesh and blood.

The zombies I encountered were not angry or sad or anything at all. They were nothingness, a vacuum for all that was good in this world.

But I had also learned to accept that they were part of this life. Another mutated branch in our vast ecosystem. They were something to be avoided and dealt with when necessary, like a rabbit tearing up a garden or a wildfire approaching through the forest.

The journey between my lakehouse and the old farmhouse was a long one to travel by foot, but it had already grown familiar. Over the past two years, I had gone on it a half-dozen times. Since I only travelled in the warmer months, the Canadian landscape didn’t change that much from one summer to the next.

It also helped that Ripley knew the way. The last half-day of the trek always went by quickly because she was so excited about getting there, she would pick up her pace. The lioness had been my companion since I had found her eight years ago, chained up outside the ruins of Las Vegas.

According to an old encyclopedia abandoned with the lakehouse, Ripley was likely an African lioness. Their lifespan was typically sixteen years in the wild, and twenty in captivity. I didn’t really know what her life with me counted as. She slept in the garage, but the side door was always open, so she could roam without fences and hunt freely. We shared our food with her, and she spent the long winters curled up inside the main house more often than she was outside.

As she had aged, Ripley slowed down some, and she had definitely mellowed, seeming to prefer naps by the fireplace over stalking prey most days. Although, she did still love giving chase whenever a zombie happened across our path. She hated them more than I did.

I did know that we both had a good life. An astonishingly good life, considering we survived a zombie apocalypse. I could never be anything other than grateful for all that I had and the people who shared my home with me, those that I considered my family.

We lived in an isolated lakehouse, with only the very rare friendly visitor passing through. Meaning that most days, it was only the same five people and one lion trapped in the same four walls or on the acreage around the house. During the harsh days of winter, when long nights and frigid temperatures made it unsafe for us to venture out, it could feel suffocating at times.

Even then, I knew I was still so lucky, because it was a large house with books and games, weapons and fishing poles. It was a virtual paradise compared to so many other places I had been, with space to breathe and feel safe.

All of that gratitude didn’t change the fact that after a long winter, I was looking forward to the week I spent away from my family. It had started as a simple hunting trip with Ripley two summers ago, looking for the game that her presence scared off for around the lakehouse.

And then I had found Lazlo Durante setting up camp in an abandoned farmhouse. We had spent time together in the earlier days of the apocalypse, and we’d gotten split up so we ended up going years without seeing one another.

Lazlo had established himself on a homestead with his family, but it was nearly on the other side of the province. I lived on the edge of the Coast Mountains, but Lazlo and his family were over 150 kilometers away, nearing the border between British Columbia and Alberta. We had some old maps and an atlas, and we tried to do the best we could at making sense of where things were located.

We had also found calendars and aligned ours so we could make plans to meet up two or three times a year. That way we could exchange food and information, without risking the full hike between our respective homes. Even with meeting at the old farmhouse, roughly in the middle, the round trip through the forest and over the river took a week.

That meant that we had to keep the visits few and far between, but it was hard to complain after we had spent nearly six years apart in radio silence. This was definitely preferred.

I remember the first time I saw him at the old farmhouse two years ago.

He was completely the same, and entirely different. His dark eyes, his welcoming smile, the tattoos that decorated his forearms beneath his sleeves – those were all the same. His thick beard, the noticeable limp in his leg, the lines around his eyes, the silver streak at his temple – those were all the proof that so much time had passed between us.

“Hi,” he said, breaking the silence first.

“Hi.”

“Have you been walking long? Do you want to sit?” He motioned to the stained, tattered couch.

I nodded because my legs felt unusually weak, and I collapsed back onto it. “This isn’t your place, is it?”

“No.” He hobbled over and sat down on the other side of the couch. “I have a place to the east of here.”

“Mine’s back to the west. Ripley and I are on a hunting trip.”

“Yeah. Me, too. I’ve been foraging, hunting, scavenging, gathering all I can for winter.” He leaned forward, his elbows rested on his legs, and he smirked at me. “Holy fuck, Remy King, how have you been?”

All through the night, we chatted and caught up on our lives and how they’d been different. He lived on a homestead with his partner Nova, and they had a young daughter together. Lazlo had found Harlow alive, and she and her girlfriend lived with them, too. They had built a good life for themselves, just one that was far away from where I had built my life with my family.

Our time together had been painfully brief, but it left an indelible mark on my life. After talking, we both woke up in the morning at the old farmhouse, and we packed up our things to go.

“It was really great seeing you, Laz,” I said as I headed for the door.

“You, too, Remy. Take care of yourself.”

“Yeah. You, too.” I forced a smile at him, and then I turned away.

My hand had just touched the doorknob when he said, “Wait.”

His hand was suddenly on my back, and when I faced him, he pulled me into his arms. His mouth crashed against mine, and I held him to me. Our lips never parted, and it wasn’t a kiss of passion or romance, but something else. Something like friendship, like love, like need.

And then we parted, both of us breathing roughly, and I didn’t brave looking in his eyes.

“Goodbye, Lazlo,” I said, and when I reached for the door this time, he didn’t stop me.

And that was how our planned visits had begun. We had seen each other a handful of times since, and there was never any other physical contact. It wasn’t about that. We were old friends connecting again.

Ripley and I were finally close enough that I could see the roof of the old farmhouse through the branches filled with bright green buds of early spring. It was in a clearing, but the grass around it was already growing high.

Lazlo usually arrived first, since he travelled on a mule, so I was often greeted by the smell of a fire and something cooking. Today, there was no fire, but Ripley raced on ahead.

We hadn’t been there since the fall, but when the lion ran at the front door, it opened easily. I followed her, and the house was in slightly worse disarray than how we had left it.

I liked keeping Ripley in the house with the door shut, because Lazlo and I usually kept my lion and his mule apart. They got on well when they interacted, like the lion sensed that he was a friend and not food, but I had also seen her take down a full-grown elk before, so I wasn’t about to push my luck.

I set about doing all the things that Lazlo usually did before I arrived. First was gathering up wood for the woodburning stove, so the outdoor chores were finished before nightfall. Next I swept up the dust and debris that made its way into the house over the winter. I aired out the few belongings we kept stored here in the small closet: blankets, a pot to cook in, several candles, a cribbage board with cards, and a few tools. Some of it we had brought from our respective homes, and others we had found in the old farmhouse and cleaned them up.

By the time it was dark, I realized that Lazlo wouldn’t make it here today. He would be bedding down for the night, so the very earliest he would arrive would be tomorrow.

That’s what I told myself when I lay on my bedroll and stared up at the water damaged ceiling as the lion snored beside me.

After a night of fitful sleeping, Lazlo and his mule didn’t arrive in the morning. Or the afternoon. Or the evening. In fact, I saw no sign of either of them over the next two days.

Ordinarily, I would only stay at the farmhouse for three nights. With the roundtrip, I would be gone for a total of ten days, and it was difficult packing and carrying enough provisions to last me that long for a ninety-kilometer hike.

On the fourth night, I ate the jerky I had brought to trade for Lazlo’s raspberry preserves and hazelnuts, and I played solitaire until I passed out.

In the morning, Ripley and I ventured just slightly to the east, checking to be sure Lazlo wasn’t stuck somewhere nearby with a broken leg. Ripley kept sniffing around, but she never pursued anything, and eventually, we had to go turn and head west, back toward the lakehouse.

Before I left the old farmhouse, I tacked a note up onto the closet door, telling Lazlo that I would be back in two months’ time, and that I hoped all was well with him.

There was nothing more to say, nothing more to be done, and so I turned and headed on the long journey back home with Ripley by my side

2

Stella

The biggest tree at the edge of the lake was my favorite place to spend warm afternoons. According to The Big Book of Arbory in the library of our lakehouse, it was a weeping willow (Salix babylonica). They were non-native to our land, but it seemed to be thriving anyway. The long, drooping branches were covered in verdant leaves, and the trunk grew thicker with each year.

The lake behind our house didn’t have a name, at least not an official one that we could find on maps. According to the old photobooks and papers we’d found, the house had belonged to a family called the Tremblays. A mom and dad, a boy and girl. Erin the nurse who loved birdwatching and kayaking, Mitchell the dentist was an avid hunter with a thirst for knowledge, Ryder a boy of ten with an affinity for fishing and games, and Avalyn a girl of eight who had so many stuffed animals and books of pressed flowers. They were outdoorsy folk, at least here at their vacation home on the lake they affectionately referred to as “Tremblay Lake” in their scrapbooks.

The house was immaculate and fully stocked when we found it eight years ago, so I don’t think the family had been here since B.Z. – Before Zombies. I liked to believe they found somewhere else safe, somewhere too far away to ever get back here. But safe and together, growing up and finding their way in the world. Ryder would be almost twenty now, and Avalyn would be sixteen, the same as Max.

When we had first moved into this house, and I had taken over Avalyn’s pastel infused bedroom, I had worried about the Tremblays coming back and kicking us out, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I would wake up in the night, after nightmares of a zombie Avalyn chasing me out of her room, and I would run across the hall to sleep in Max’s bed with him.

Eventually, I realized that the Tremblays were never coming back. And even if they did, we had a guard-lion, so we would be fine.

After that, I became fascinated by Ryder and Avalyn, trying to learn everything about their picturesque lives and happy family from the belongings they had left behind. It wasn’t much, but I’d never known any kids, outside of Max.

Truthfully, I didn’t remember much about my life before Max. I told him I was seven when we met, and I had to have spent those earlier years doing something. I must have had parents and a family of some kind.

But the only family I ever knew was Max, Ripley, Boden, Remy, and Serg. And to a certain extent, I suppose I considered Ryder and Avalyn to be family too. I slept in their beds and made my dresses quilted from remnants of their too small clothes and curtains. I played with their toys, and I read their books. I lived the lives they would’ve if they had been here.

I spent too many hours reading the Little House series, Anne of Green Gables, and Wind in the Willows that had belonged to Avalyn’s mother, Erin, back from before she was a Tremblay, and still wrote her name in big blocky letters. But my favorite was Boxcar Children. I liked to read it over and over again, under the weeping willow watching the clear water of Tremblay Lake.

On particularly hot days, Ripley loved to swim around in the lake, but it was still early spring, so the water was too cold. The lion wasn’t here anyway. She was gone with Remy on their hunting trips where they visited an old friend. It was nice, because she always came back in a good mood with tasty preserves and cheeses we didn’t have here.

Max and Boden were out fishing, where the rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and kokanee (Oncorhynchus nerka) were plentiful and fat. They often brought in trout weighing ten pounds, and Boden claimed there were giant white sturgeons (Acipenser transmontanus) living in the depths of the blue glacial waters of the lake. He claimed to have snagged one once, but it was too big to haul in and the line snapped. Max believes him, but I think one of us would have seen it by now if we had a literal dinosaur in our lake.

That’s why they were out there, absently fishing, but mostly making sure that there aren’t any zombies or bears around. When Remy and Ripley were gone, the boys were always on edge.

Boden was something of the patriarch in our little clan. He had been a soldier in the U.S. military until the zombies took over the military base and quarantine zone. He was twenty-nine and taller than anybody else here. His hair was blond when it was long but looked darker when he shaved it, like he did last week. He loved to read in the evenings by the fireplace and go fishing in the morning with Max. For as long as I could remember, he shared a bedroom with Remy, and he’d been helping take care of us.

Max was Remy’s younger brother, and he looked a lot like her. They both had thick eyelashes, observant gray eyes, and dark brown hair. Max was taller than Remy since his growth spurt last summer. With his smattering of freckles, easy smile, and wiry frame, he was deceptively strong. Most impressively, though, he was more thoughtful and kinder than anyone else who survived the zombies.

Boden was standing at the edge of the lake, wearing waders and a threadbare flannel shirt. Max stood on the shore in old boots held together with tanned deer hides, and his tee shirt was too small and snug across his chest. It was too chilly to be dressed so light, but he insisted he preferred it with the feel of the sun on his skin.

There was a splash in the water, so I looked up from my book and called down to them, “Are you getting any bites?”

“The fish just don’t seem interested today,” Boden replied.

“Remy should be back soon, hopefully with something good,” Max said, the way he had been frequently commenting for the past couple days.

His sister was late coming back from her trip, and he was nervous. I wasn’t, because I knew that Remy would make it back. She always did.

Despite the chill in the air, I was starting to feel hot. The fabric of the sweaterdress I’d made from remnants of Avalyn’s old sweaters wasn’t even that thick. Sweat prickled on my forehead, and my mouth felt dry.

All at once, I wanted to go inside and drink some water. I closed my book and rose to my feet, but I had to catch myself on the tree trunk.

Maybe I hadn’t eaten enough today. I had been hoping that Max and Boden would catch something for dinner, but the thought of fresh trout made my stomach roll.

“Are you heading back inside, Stella?” Max called after me as I hurried up toward the house on the hill behind Tremblay Lake.

“Yeah. I’m going to see if Serg needs any help,” I said, which was only a half-lie. I would see if he needed help after this uneasy, sick feeling passed, but I didn’t want to worry Max needlessly. He worried too much as it was.

“Hopefully, we won’t be too far behind, if these fish will just start biting,” Boden said.

But I didn’t reply to that. I just kept walking up through the tall grass and early wildflowers.

I went into the house, and the scent of freshly baked pita bread greeted me, thankfully calming my stomach. Serg was in the kitchen, setting the bread on racks to cool.

“The one good thing about Ripley being gone is that I don’t have to worry about her swiping any of my baking,” Serg said. “I don’t mind sharing, but I don’t think pita is part of a lion’s diet. Then again, neither are zombies.”

Serg was a thirty-four-year-old man who had joined our group back before the lakehouse, back when we had still been wandering. He was lean with skin a medium-brown color no matter the season, though it did turn russet when he spent too much time out in the summer sun.

Out of everyone in our little family, Serg was the one who was most earnestly interested in foraging and living off the land, besides me. The others learned about it because they wanted to survive, not because they were curious. Together, Serg and I gathered cattails to make flour and dandelions to make yellow paints.

“I do have plenty of bread to spare,” Serg was saying. “If you’re hungry.” Then he finally looked up at me, and his dark eyes widened in alarm. “Stella, are you alright?”

“Wh-why would you ask that?” I leaned against the dining room chair to support myself. “I am actually feeling under the weather, now that you mention it.”

The room pitched to the side, and I heard Serg shouting my name. Then everything went black.

3

Remy

When I woke in the morning, half a day’s walk from home, Ripley was already gone. We had stayed in the back of an old Dodge Caravan that had long been left to rot on the side of the road. Other than clearing out some human bones slumped over the steering wheel, it had been a decent place to camp out.

However, Ripley had made it clear that she didn’t want to stop last night. She kept pacing outside the van while I was cleaning it out, and I had to really coax her in with my last bit of jerky. She had likely wanted to keep walking through the night since we were so close to the lakehouse. That was just not something I could do, especially not when it was dark and I heard zombies in the distance.

The lioness had left me sometime in the night, taking her body heat with her, so I awoke shivering as brave mice explored my bedroll. It was barely dawn, but I couldn’t sleep with the rodents crawling about, and I had wanted to get to the lakehouse almost as badly as Ripley.

The whole hike back home, I had a ball of dread hardening in my stomach. Lazlo hadn’t shown up, and I didn’t know how to reach him or find his homestead. With the distance and the lack of clear direction, it was not a trip I could make lightly. Especially not when I had no way of knowing the reason for his absence. He could have moved, died, or even become a zombie.

I walked as quickly as I could, hoping that I would feel better when I was home and talked it all over with Boden.

But when I saw the lakehouse – the spacious log cabin on top of a hill next to a lake – in the mid-afternoon sun, my unease didn’t lessen. As I walked up the long gravel driveway, half-overgrown with grass, no one came out to greet me. Usually, at least Max or Stella would hurry out to me after I had been gone for a while, and more often than not, Boden or Serg would join them.

But today, there was no one. Not even Ripley.

When I finally made it to the house, I opened the front door to murmuring voices in the living room. Boden and Serg were standing beside the couch, and Stella was curled up with Ripley on it. Max sat on the arm of the couch near her head, looking down at her.

Stella noticed me first, her eyes brightening at the sight of me, but her cheeks were flushed, and her wild auburn hair stuck to her forehead. “Remy!”

“Thank god,” Serg said under his breath when he looked at me, and the worry in his eyes was alarming.

Boden came over and pulled me into his arms and kissed my temple, his stubble tickling my skin. “Fuck, Rem, I’ve missed you.” Then he pulled away so we were eye to eye when he said, “Stella passed out two days ago, and she has been throwing up on and off for a week.”

“What?” I brushed past Boden to go to Stella. In her oversized sweaterdress with the big cat curled up with her, she looked so small and frail.

“I feel better in the evenings, and I only passed out that one time.” Stella tried to minimize her illness with a weak, unconvincing smile.

“Come on, kiddo, even the damn cat knows you’re sick,” Boden said in an exasperated tone.

“She just missed me,” Stella argued, running her fingers through Ripley’s thick fur.

The lioness had taken to Stella and Max as soon as she met them. Maybe because they had been so young, and Ripley had never had cubs of her own or even been around another lion in years. At any rate, she had always been especially fond of the kids, gentle and more affectionate with them than she was with me.

But she didn’t usually race ahead of me to smother Stella on the couch, which made me worry that the lion could sense or smell something I couldn’t.

“So what’s going on?” I asked Stella. “Did you eat anything strange?”

She glared up at me with her pale gray eyes. “You know I would never do that.”

To her credit, Stella had become the family expert on foraging and botany, thanks to the extensive library in the lakehouse. She read everything she could, studying them for hours, and she knew better than any of us what was edible and what wasn’t.

“You’ve been throwing up and fainted. Have you had any other symptoms?” I asked.

“I’ve already gone through this a dozen times,” she complained.

On the coffee table, there were stacks of medical books, encyclopedias, and even the first aid kit. Boden had some medic training in the military, but that was it. We had no other ways to diagnose or treat Stella.

“She’s been throwing up, mostly in the morning, but she’s also been tired and gets the chills sometimes,” Max supplied, since Stella didn’t seem to want to explain it again.

“Tired, chills, vomiting,” I muttered to myself, trying to think of what it could be. “And no one else is sick.”

Serg shook his head. “We’ve all been feeling pretty good, actually.”

I glanced down at Ripley nuzzling against Stella’s stomach, and the words morning sickness floated in my head. I looked at Stella, and my heart dropped.

“Everyone out,” I snapped. “I need to talk to Stella alone.”

“What? Why?” Max asked in dismay.

“Out!” I shouted because I didn’t have the fortitude to explain just then.

The boys grumbled as they left, but they did leave, so I didn’t care. I sat down at the edge of the coffee table, and my stomach rolled as I leaned forward and took the hand of the girl that I had helped raise for the past eight years.

“Stella,” I began carefully, “have you missed your period lately?”

Two years ago, when she had first started menstruating, it had given us all a scare. I hadn’t had my period in years, since some overzealous doctor had taken my uterus, and it was something that I just didn’t think about anymore. There were usually more important survival issues to contend with anyway.

Ever resourceful, Stella had found instructions on how to make simple sanitary pads in the survival books, and since then, she’d essentially handled her menses on her own.

“It’s been a little while, but the books say that irregular periods are normal in teenage girls,” she said with an indifferent shrug.

I took a fortifying breath, then asked, “Do you know how babies are made?”

“Are you talking about sex?” she asked.

“Yeah. I am. Have you ever had sex?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m too young. So we only made love.”

It felt like the ground had fallen out from underneath me, and I could only stammer, “With wh-who?”

“Max,” Stella replied, like it would be obvious, and a rush of relief and horror washed over me.

Relief because it wasn’t with Boden or Serg. I hadn’t wanted to believe it could be them, but the world had shown me that all kinds were capable of the worst depravities if the opportunity presented itself.

Horror because Max and Stella were having a baby with limited medicine and plenty of zombies. Not to mention they were children I had tried to raise as siblings, and they were still very much children. Max was only sixteen, and Stella was even younger at nearly fifteen.

“What’s the difference between sex and making love?” I asked.

She squirmed, embarrassed and uncomfortable about the conversation topic. “You know. The girl bends over and the boy is behind her, like the rabbits do it. And making love is the other way, with the girl and the boy facing each other.”

I sighed and said, “Stella, I think you may be pregnant.”

“But I never had sex!” Stella protested. “I knew we weren’t ready for a baby yet.”

“What you described are two different positions, but they’re both sex,” I explained as evenly as I could. “Both are a form of procreation. But we can discuss the birds and the bees later.”

“What do the birds and the bees have to do with anything?” Stella asked, confused on top of shocked.

“I don’t know honestly,” I admitted. “Right now, I think we should bring the others in, and we’re gonna have to have some awkward conversations.

4

Stella

This isn’t how I expected it would feel. I had imagined having a family with Max plenty of times. Some of our own and some that were lost orphans, the way I was before Max took me in. But not so soon.

All of the books I read spoke of health risks when a mother was too young, and giving birth at fifteen was certainly too young.

Whenever I had imagined falling pregnant, it had been joyous and spectacular because it was something Max and I chose. But this was peculiar and disorienting, almost like I was watching it happen to someone else.

Remy was still sitting across from me on the edge of the coffee table, her elbows resting on her knees, and she was so hopeless. Her eyes were usually hard but they were especially dark today. Her skin was tan but gaunt, and she wore long sleeves, even in the hottest days of summer, to hide the scars on her arms.

“Are you ready?” Remy asked at length, her voice flat and defeated. “Should we let the others know what’s going on?”

I nodded because I couldn’t keep this from them. There were only five of us in the house, and we were all a family. Max and I had only kept our relationship private because that was what had happened naturally.

My first memories were of Max, and he had kept me safe no matter what. From the very start, we had held hands and cuddled often, and as we got older, we started kissing, and eventually, we touched in more intimate ways.

As it was happening, it all felt like such a natural, loving progression. Max had been my best friend and my protector since the moment we’d met. I had never truly known a life without him, and I never wanted to.

When we were younger, I would crawl into his bed at night because I was scared, but it had been a long time since I had been really scared here in the lakehouse. I kept crawling in his bed at night, anyway, because I liked being with him, and I liked how it felt when we touched.

I loved him completely, and he loved me the same.

“Max, Boden, Serg, you can come back in.” Remy stood up when she called for them, because she tended to pace when she was distressed. I think she felt safest with distance between her and everyone else.

Max returned first, hurrying over to sit on the arm of the couch next to my head, and he looked down at me with worry darkening his eyes.

“What is going on?” Boden asked, and his gaze was on Remy as he and Serg entered the living room.

“Um. So… there is no point in dancing around it.” Remy took a deep breath and rested her hands on her hips. “I think that Stella’s illness is… because she’s pregnant.”

“What?” Boden and Serg shouted in unison, immediately followed by Boden growling, “Who’s the father?”

But I barely even noticed them. All I could see was Max, and the tears already forming in his eyes. In a trembling voice, he asked me, “We’re having a baby?”

“I think maybe, yeah,” I admitted with an uneasy laugh.

“Holy shit.” He smiled and wiped roughly at his eyes. “This is amazing.” He dropped to his knees beside me, and he touched my belly next to Ripley’s big lion paw.

“I’ve been walking for days, and I need a minute,” Remy abruptly announced and went upstairs.

Boden collapsed back in the chair, looking as though he might be sick. “You’re both so young,” he said, and he spoke like stating the facts aloud could somehow change them. “How did this happen?”

“We were trying to be careful,” Max insisted. He squeezed my hand but kept his eyes downcast, afraid to meet anyone’s gaze.

“What does ‘careful’ mean in this context?” Boden asked.

“I think I’m going to the library to see if there are any books on pregnancy,” Serg excused himself and left down the hall.

“We only ever made love,” Max said.

“Making love and having sex are the same thing, according to Remy,” I whispered to Max.

“What?” he asked, then looked to Boden in confusion. “How come you and Remy don’t have kids? If sex and making love are the same thing, what are you two doing?”

“We…” Boden looked down and tapped the arm of the chair with his fingers. “Your sister and I… need to come up with a much better plan for your sex education.” He exhaled roughly. “And she never … Remy can’t get pregnant.”

“Oh.” Max’s face fell in understanding. “From the experiments back at the government quarantine?”

Neither Max nor Remy talked about it much, but I knew that they had both spent some time as medical experiments in a military quarantine zone. They had what Max called “special blood” because it attacked and successfully warded off the lyssavirus genotype-8. Meaning they were immune to becoming a zombie.

Max shared almost everything with me, and even he didn’t like talking about it. All I really know was that doctors had tortured them, leaving them covered in scars, and the quarantine zone fell before they found a cure or a vaccine for the zombie virus.

Boden was quiet, staring off into space, and then finally, almost to himself, he said, “Maybe that’s why we had such a blind spot. You’re only kids, and we didn’t think pregnancy was an option for anyone.”

Then he looked over at us. “How long has this been going on?”

Max shrugged one shoulder. “Always.”

“Always?” Boden raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

Then, realizing his mistake, Max’s face turned crimson and he hurried to amend, “The physical part like… only a year, maybe. Less, I think.”

Boden settled back in the chair. “Well… this is a shock. I am in shock. But people have been having babies for thousands of years, even young ones like you, and it will be okay. We’ll figure this out together. I mean, raising a baby can’t be harder than surviving a zombie apocalypse, right?

5

Remy

Knocking on the bedroom door startled me so badly that I barely bit back a scream. Then my eyes adjusted, and I realized that I was safe in my bedroom at the lakehouse.

I had only meant to kick off my shoes and sit a moment, while the afternoon light was bright, but now it was dark, and I was lying on my bed with all my clothes and shoes still on. Exhaustion was a real bitch.

“Remy?” Boden tentatively opened the door.

“Yeah, come in. Sorry. I didn’t mean to pass out.” I rubbed my eyes with the palm of my hand and sat on the edge of the bed.

“You were gone a long time, longer than normal, and the cat came back before you.” Boden knelt down in front of me to help me take off my shoes.

“Lazlo never arrived at the farmhouse. I stayed around a couple extra days.” I shook my head. “But he never showed up.”

“Damn. I’m sorry.” His hand was comforting on my leg, and he gave me a sympathetic frown. “Maybe he was just held up with something at his homestead.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I grimaced down at him. “Was that just a nightmare, or are Max and Stella really having a baby?”

“No, that unfortunately seems to be true,” he admitted grimly.

“Ah, hell. We really fucked up, didn’t we?”

“No, no. It’s not that bad. We kept Max and Stella alive in a zombie apocalypse. That has to count for something.”

“Ugh.” I groaned. “What are we going to do? Pregnancy and labor are so difficult and dangerous in the best of situations, and this is definitely not that. How are we gonna keep a newborn baby alive?”

“We’ll take it one step at a time, day by day, and we’ll do what we can.” He gently massaged my calf with his hands. “Right now, Max, Stella, and Serg are downstairs reading everything they can find in the house that even mentions pregnancy.”

“Are there any home remedies that would cause an abortion?” I asked.

“Maybe, but I think they want to keep it. They were already talking about baby names,” Boden explained.

I slumped because that meant that I had to pretend to be excited about this absolutely terrifying thing.

“I know this is scary, but it might not be the worst thing that’s happened,” Boden said.

“How can you even say that?” I asked incredulously.

“Because having children is what civilizations do.”

“The six of us are not a civilization,” I corrected him.

“Maybe we’re at the very beginning of a civilization. This could be the early days of the world’s next great dynasty,” Boden said with a crooked smile.

“I suppose my last name is King. I should end up as a ruler eventually,” I muttered, and he laughed. “But really, what do we do now?”

“Help Stella avoid stress and get plenty to eat for the next four months,” he said.

“Four months?” I shook my head. “No. Babies take nine months to cook, maybe longer if they’re really big.”

“Stella kept track of her cycles in her journal, and based on the medical books, she thinks that she is about twenty weeks along.”

“Twenty weeks?” I ran my hand across my face and took a deep breath. “How are Max and Stella doing?”

“It’s hard. Everyone is in shock.”

That was certainly true. The kids had always been more resilient than me, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that they adapted to the news better than I had. By the next morning, Stella had already moved onto acceptance.

“The baby is the size of a small banana, according to the book I found about what to expect,” Stella explained over her breakfast of mushy oats and berries, and she frowned as she did. “But I can’t remember how big a banana is.”

“About the same size as a carrot,” Boden offered up.

Stella’s brow furrowed. “That can’t be right, because next week he is the size of a small carrot.”

Now Serg looked confused. “Bananas are definitely bigger than carrots, right?”

“Why are they comparing a baby to fruits and vegetables anyway? They come in such a variety of sizes,” Boden said.

“Were bananas all that common B.Z.?” Max asked, using his preferred term for life Before Zombies.

“Yeah, they were everywhere,” I answered as I got up to rinse my bowl in the water basin. “You could get them at the gas station.”

Everyone seemed so happy and excited, or at least nonchalant, about everything, and all I could think was that Max and Stella couldn’t even remember bananas. What else had they forgotten? What else will they never even know about the world? What all has been lost that they will never have?

And now, they were bringing another helpless, innocent little thing into the world. How could I keep them safe and teach them about everything they need to know? How, when I have clearly overlooked some very important shit with Max and Stella?

“Hey,” Max said, pulling me from my thoughts. He stood beside me, with his porridge bowl in his hands, and he smiled sheepishly up at me.

Intellectually, I knew that he was sixteen years old. It was impossible to ignore it in his physical appearance. His shoulders had broadened, his voice deepened, and he was even taller than me now. But the light dusting of freckles on his cheeks and the earnestness in his eyes made him appear even younger.

Really, the issue was that Max had been seven when our parents had died in the zombie apocalypse, and that was when I had become solely responsible for keeping him alive. Somehow, that became the age he was frozen in my mind, as this timid, sickly little boy who clung to me.

“It’s going to be okay,” Max told me encouragingly.

“I know,” I lied, because it wouldn’t help anything if he knew how terrified I really was.

A week later, Stella reminded us that the baby was the size of a carrot, and the week after that, the baby was a papaya. That devolved into another debate because none of us could really remember how large one was.

The week Stella announced it was the size of a butternut squash was when we realized that this pregnancy wouldn’t be smooth.

Before then, of course, I was worried, the way we all were, and we watched with trepidation if she threw up or felt faint or seemed pale or tired. The turn into the third trimester had actually started out good. Stella had been more tired and had to let out her clothing for her growing belly, but her morning sickness had stopped and her mood had been good.

And then, when she was out in the garden one afternoon, she collapsed and shook violently as a seizure took over. I had been in the house, but I saw her fall. I raced down to her, and Max and Boden were already by her side. The moment before the seizure hit, Ripley had been mewling, and now she paced nearby and panted in distress.

By the time I reached her, Stella had already fallen still, and she blinked up at the blue sky.

Unfortunately, that turned out to only be the first seizure that she would experience during her pregnancy.

After the third one, when she was sleeping it off the way she always did with Max and Ripley by her side, the rest of us sat around the table. By candlelight, we discussed what was to be done about Stella.

“It seems that it’s likely preeclampsia or eclampsia,” Serg said, since he’d been the one scouring the most books, outside of Stella.

“So how do we treat it?” I asked.

Serg shook his head dismally. “We don’t. All of the books say she needs to go to a hospital immediately, so there are no suggested treatments beyond medical intervention.”

“It’s just high blood pressure, right?” Boden asked, as if he could bargain with a life-threatening illness. “Stella and I have been doing meditation in the morning. She’s been resting more and drinking lots of water. We’ve been trying to get all the foods and vitamins she needs. Isn’t that helping?”

“Sure, she would likely be worse without those things, but she is still having seizures, and she has two months left of this pregnancy,” Serg reiterated. “I haven’t spent a lot of time around pregnant people before. I don’t know how to help her more than we already have been.”

“Dammit,” I muttered under my breath. Then I lifted my head and announced, “I have to go to the old farmhouse next week.”

“To meet Lazlo?” Boden asked. “I thought he wasn’t even there last time. And Stella’s sick. You can’t be gone for a week when she’s like this.”

“I have to go because Stella is sick,” I argued. “Lazlo’s partner gave birth, and both she and the baby survived. They have to know more than we do, and we are drowning here. Laz wasn’t there last time, but I left a note saying I would return.”

“And you said you’d return next week?” Boden asked.

“I didn’t know Stella was pregnant then,” I reminded him.

“What if something happens and you’re not here?” he pressed.

“What if something happens, and I am here?” I countered. “I don’t know what to do for her. I have to get help.”

6

Stella

Remy left early in the morning, and for the first time ever, the lioness stayed behind. Ripley hardly left my side, other than running to hunt me down a squirrel or a rabbit, and while I appreciated her intentions, it was overwhelming.

It was all overwhelming, honestly.

I could feel the baby moving inside me, and sometimes kicking me in the ribs. My stomach stretched out, feeling odd and distended. Headaches came and went without warning, and sometimes fear overtook me so hard that I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from sobbing.

The only thing I could really do in the face of all that was try to stay calm and relax. Relax, everyone would tell me with terror in their eyes.

And so I did the best I could. I sat in the room I’d inherited from Avalyn on her plush little bed with Ripley snoring on the floor and a stack of books on the bedside table.

I read to escape. I read to run from the afflictions and fear of my body. I read because there was nothing else to do.

“How are you?” Max asked, and he stood in the doorway to my room. His face was nearly gaunt. He’d lost weight where I’d gained it, and his eyes appeared even larger.

“Good,” I lied, because there was no point in telling him I was sick and terrified. He already knew.

“How’s the baby?” he asked.

“Feisty today.”

“Just like their mama.” He smiled and sat on the bed beside me, and he put his hand on my belly. “Will you tell me how you’re really doing?”

I set aside my book and sighed. “It wouldn’t do you any good to worry.”

He grimaced. “You know that only makes me worry more.”

“Today me and the baby are alive and well.” I put my hand over his, much smaller but just as calloused. “But the baby won’t settle down, and I am tired and want to sleep.”

“Maybe I can help with that.” He brightened, then bent over and rested his cheek against my belly and started singing. It was an old lullaby that his mother used to sing him called, “À la Claire Fontaine.”

“It’s still so weird to me that you remember all the words but not what they mean,” I said when he finished.

“I never really knew French, not fluently. I only know the song because my mom would sing it to me every night,” he explained. “She was from France, and she spoke with an accent.”

“An accent?” I asked. “What did she sound like?”

He changed his voice to have soft, nasally intonations and exaggerated melody when he said, “Yoo arr so byoo-tee-ful.”

“I haven’t heard that many accents, not that I remember anyway,” I said, trying to think. “There was that one guy a couple years back who stayed with us a night and stole Serg’s moonshine.”

“Oh, yeah. That guy was Russian, according to Boden,” Max recalled. “He was the one who gave me the brass knuckles.”

From downstairs, Boden yelled, “Remy’s coming up the driveway!”

“Already?” I asked in surprise, because we hadn’t expected her to return for another three days.

Max got up and went over to the window, peeling back the curtains so he could see the driveway. Ripley joined him in staring outside, watching his sister.

“How does she seem?” I asked, since I couldn’t see from my spot propped up with pillows on the bed.

“She’s too far away still, but she’s walking okay, and she’s alone.”

A few minutes later, Boden yelled up the stairs for us. “Remy is calling a family meeting!”

Max and I exchanged a look, then he helped me up, and we made our way downstairs.

Even though she had to be tired from walking, Remy was pacing in front of the fireplace in the living room. Ripley ran over to sniff and chuff at her, but Remy kept pacing.

It wasn’t until we were already settled – me, Max, and Serg on the couch, and Boden sitting in the chair – that she finally stopped and looked at us.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking, and I know it sounds extreme, but I don’t see any other chance we have at keeping Stella and the baby alive,” Remy said bluntly. “We have to go to Emberwood, and we have to go now, before Stella is too pregnant to travel.”

“Isn’t she already too pregnant to travel?” Max asked.

“Emberwood?” Boden asked skeptically. “That town is at least 150 kilometers away, and none of us have ever even been there. You’ve only heard about it from Lazlo.”

Emberwood was a settlement that Lazlo had told me that he had visited before. He claimed that a few thousand people were living there, and they had markets, inns, and most importantly, medical care. It had been built on the remains of a small town that had fallen during the zombie apocalypse, but allegedly, it was a place where people had been living safely ever since.

“Did Lazlo tell you that we need to go to Emberwood?” Serg asked.

Remy shook her head. “Lazlo wasn’t at the farmhouse. I haven’t talked to him since last fall.”

“Do you think he went to Emberwood?” Boden asked.

“I have no idea where Lazlo is, but he has nothing to do with why I’m suggesting this,” Remy said. “I know this is risky, but it’s worth it to keep Stella and the baby safe. We’ve always taken risks when we need to, and we need to now.”

7

Remy

It wasn’t until they all agreed to my plan that I realized I had been hoping they would talk me out of it.

Boden held my gaze for a long moment, dark and uncertain, the lines creasing beside his eyes. When he nodded once, I suddenly felt queasy.

“If that’s the only way we can get help for Stella, then I think it’s a risk that we have to take,” he said finally.

“You really think the best thing we can do is leave the lakehouse right now?” Max asked, staring up at me expectantly.

“I do,” I said. “It’s early August, so the weather is good, and Stella is only going to get more pregnant every day.”

Max looked over at Stella, and she looked at him. There was so much tenderness and love in the looks they exchanged, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed what was going on under my own roof.

It was so unnerving because what else had I missed?

“Then we’ll go,” Stella decided with a brave smile that somehow made her appear even younger.

“When do we leave?” Serg asked.

“As soon as we get our supplies together. The sooner, the better with the suspected due date looming,” I said, then carefully, I added, “You know, Serg, you don’t have to leave if you don’t want to. The lakehouse is likely safer.”

Serg smirked at me. “Come on, Remy. After all this time? I’m going with you guys.”

“I just wanted to make sure that we all understand that we have options,” I said. “I’m not a dictator telling you what to do.”

Both Max and Boden laughed at that.

Everyone went our separate ways to start getting things together, and I took Boden’s hand so he’d come with me upstairs to our bedroom. All the way back from the old farmhouse, I’d been steeling myself for a fight, and then everyone had acquiesced so easily, I felt like I was losing my mind.

“Going to Emberwood is a horrible idea. Why can’t any of you see that?” I asked him the moment we were alone in our room.

Boden gave an incredulous laugh. “What? You’re the one who suggested it!”

“I know but you were all supposed to argue with me and point out how ridiculous it is for us to leave somewhere that has been a safe harbor for us for so long,” I insisted. “That walking that far with a sick, pregnant teenager to an unknown place is borderline fatalistic. We haven’t had to seriously fight off zombies in years. We are practically thriving here. How could we leave all of this behind for certain death?”

“I am not arguing with anything you’re saying, because those are all valid points,” he admitted, but his voice was thick when he said, “Stella had another seizure while you were gone, and I am afraid that if we don’t do something, we’re going to lose her.”

“Fuck,” I whispered.

Anger surged through me, and I had to pace to keep from punching a wall. A broken fist wouldn’t help anyone now, but I really wanted to break something.

“I kept the kids alive for all these years and…” I scowled because I couldn’t even say it aloud. I couldn’t even imagine it.

“Remy, you haven’t kept them alive,” Boden said gently, and I glared over at him. “I know you did your damnedest, but life is so much more than me and you. It’s entropy. It’s chaos that brought the zombies, it’s chaos that brought us together, and it’s chaos that’s throwing us back in the wilderness again.”

He stepped toward me, and when I didn’t move, he closed the distance between us. He slipped one hand around my waist, and the other brushed the hair back from my face.

“That doesn’t mean that I don’t love our life here, or that I’m not sad and scared about leaving the lakehouse,” he said. “But it does mean that even if everything goes sideways, it’s not your fault or mine or even Stella’s or Max’s. Life is chaos, the way it always has been, the way it always will be.”

I lowered my head and rested my forehead against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around me.

“What happened at the farmhouse?” Boden asked.

“Nothing. Nobody had been there since I was last there a couple months ago. So I turned around and came home.” I winced at the last word. “Are we crazy for leaving our home behind?”

“No. We’ll make a home wherever we land,” he promised. “Me and you, Serg, the kids, and the cat.”

It took four days for us to be ready to go, much to my chagrin. Only four days to pack up all that we could carry and board up the house, in the hopes that it might still be here if we returned in the future.

Even in the best of situations – we make it to Emberwood and Stella safely delivers a healthy baby – we couldn’t travel for months, not with a newborn. Winter came early in Canada, and we wouldn’t be trekking through that, newborn or not. I didn’t even go to the farmhouse to visit Lazlo during the winter, and that was about half the distance away from the lakehouse.

The soonest we would return would be next spring, and that was assuming that everything turned out right.

“Since we’re heading out, do you want to go over it again?” Serg asked as we waited in the driveway while Boden finished boarding the front door shut.

I pulled out the map that Lazlo had sketched for me, using an old atlas as a reference. He’d marked the path to Emberwood in the north. It seemed simple enough. We’d have to cross through a canyon so we could meet up with the Staulo River and follow that north until hitting a waterfall. Just above that was the settlement of Emberwood.

8

Stella

I know that I was born somewhere else, somewhere south of here and warmer, to a woman I couldn’t remember. But the only place I ever really recalled living was the house on Tremblay Lake and the surrounding forests.

Boden and Remy walked in front of us, leading the way, but I was content to trail behind and admire all the things I hadn’t seen before.

Before we’d left the lakehouse, Serg had made me a walking stick from a twisting branch of whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis). It was already going to be difficult for me to walk long distances because of my pregnancy-induced lethargy, and of course, the infant themselves, floating above my pelvis and growing stronger everyday as they kicked my internal organs.

When the pain got bad, I would recite the common name and scientific name in my head of everything I saw. It was something I had been doing since I was little whenever I was sick or too scared. It helped distract me from the fear and pain.

The hike started good, but by mid-day, when we met the dilapidated old highway, everything hurt, and I was struggling to keep my grimaces to myself.

The green forests that I was most familiar with gave way to a dramatic change in landscape. The towering rocky spires and sand dunes looked more like they belonged in a desert than the Canadian wilderness. I had read about them in my books back at the lakehouse, where they described how they were formed by water and glaciers, and I’d even seen a few pictures.

None of that had prepared me for seeing them in real life. It had only been trees and the lake for so long that it was literally like stepping into another world.

A canyon cut between the spires and dunes, and that was easiest for me to handle with my walking stick, so Max, Boden, and I stuck to it. Remy and Serg headed to a higher, trickier path on the top of the outcroppings so they could have a better view of the area as we passed through.

On the walls of the sand dunes, pictographs were etched in faded black and red. Some were handprints, with long fingers stretched out, and others were animals. An angry bear was gnashing sharp fangs at a cervid with antlers, like a deer or an elk.

“Did the zombies draw these?” Max asked.

“No,” Boden answered with an amused smile. “These were here long before that, likely by the humans that first lived here.”

“I read about these in a book. They’re thought to be a thousand years old,” I said. I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach their handprints, and I put mine on top of it. Mine seemed so tiny in comparison.

Something about it made me think back to Avalyn’s room and the crayon drawings she’d hidden on the walls of her closet. Just little marks letting the world know what she had seen or felt. A reminder that she had been there.

“So people lived here for a thousand years, and then the zombies drove them out,” Max mused.

“No, we’re still here,” Boden countered.

Ripley had been sitting behind me, licking her oversized paws, but she suddenly began to growl. I looked back over my shoulder, and she’d gotten to her feet and moved closer to me, with her gazed fixed on the trail to our right that cut through the dunes.

She chuffed as a group of people rounded the corner, only a couple meters away from us.

9

Remy

I had been at the top of the outcroppings, trying to get a better look at the forest that stretched on beyond the dunes. Serg decided to go with me, but neither of us said much, since we were focused on climbing to the top.

And then I heard the lion growling a moment before Stella let out a frightened yelp.

I rushed to the edge of the rocky spire to get a better look, and Stella, Max, and Boden were only five meters below me, standing on the smooth canyon trail. Ripley was in front of Stella, glaring straight ahead, and the fur on her beck was raised up as a group of strangers stood before them.

I counted five of them: an older white man with a baseball bat in the front with a black woman standing by him holding an axe, and three younger people huddled together in the back. One of those three was a teenage girl with medium brown skin and long black hair in a loose fishtail braid. The other two were a boy and a girl, both pale skin and matching brown curly hair and hazel eyes, and they appeared to be a bit younger, around Max and Stella’s ages.

“Stand back, and we’ll take care of the cougar before anyone gets hurt,” the older man said, and the woman beside him raised her axe like she meant to throw it at Ripley.

“No, she’s with us! She’s our pet!” Stella shouted, and Max grabbed her and pulled her away from the lion, because if the axe missed the cat, it could easily hit her.

Ripley growled again, likely reacting to the tension, and Boden rushed around her holding his hands up and moving deliberately to defuse the situation.

“Hey, why don’t we all put our weapons down and introduce ourselves?” Boden suggested genially.

“Tell your pet to stand down, and then we might be willing to put our weapons down,” the woman with the axe said.

“Well, she is still a cat, so she doesn’t always listen,” Boden explained. “But if we calm down, she won’t hurt anybody.”

“That’s not very convincing,” the older man said.

At the end of the rocky spire where I stood, there was a slope heading down the trail behind the three teenagers huddled together. I rushed toward it and slid down it as quickly and quietly as possible while Boden tried to reason with them. Ripley refused to move and continued to glare at them while flicking her tail aggressively.

I dropped in right behind the trio of teens, and I pointed my crossbow right at them.

“How about this?” I asked loudly, and they all whirled around to look at me with startled eyes. “You put your axe and your baseball bat down, and I’ll lower my crossbow, and then nobody is hurt.”

“We don’t mean you any harm,” the man said, and he was already lowering his baseball bat and setting it on the ground. The woman beside him seemed much more reluctant to lower her axe, and she narrowed her eyes at me.

“Good because nobody needs to be harmed if we all stay calm,” I said and kept my crossbow pointed at the teenagers.

“If you get that crossbow off my daughter and the other kids, that would really help ease my fears,” the man said, and he held his hands up in a gesture of peace.

He was an average looking survivor, at least compared to the ones I’d seen drifting around the lakehouse over the years. His hair was graying, and a wild, thick stubble hid the harsh ruddiness of his face. His eyes had that weathered desperation of someone who has seen things that no one was ever meant to see.

That haunted look could fit almost anyone who had survived this long, but it morphed depending on who held it. In the woman, it had become a fierceness, a clear declaration in her dark eyes that let anyone who crossed her know that she would do whatever she had to do. Her black hair was worn in long box braids, and she appeared to be in her forties.

“I really don’t think they meant anything,” Max called to me from where he stood on the other side of the strangers, with Stella and Boden. “They were just spooked by Ripley.”

“We didn’t realize the lion was with you, and we were looking out for you,” the man piped up. “We thought it might be hunting you.” He gave a sheepish smile. “You understand our confusion.”

“Where do you even get a lion anyway?” the girl with the fishtail braid asked. She was a bit taller than the other two teens, and I guessed a bit more bold since she spoke up first, and her gaze had an unabashed intensity.

I finally lowered my weapon, and the woman lowered her axe.

“I found her a long time ago, when her last owners were killed by zombies,” I explained my origin story with Ripley.

“Well, we’ll just leave you and your friends to go about your business,” the man said, stepping back closer to the teens. “No need to hold you up when the journey to Emberwood is already long enough.”

“You’re going to Emberwood, too?” Stella exclaimed, and inwardly, I cringed. We didn’t know these people, and there was no need for them to know our destination.

As Stella greeted the others with a delighted smile, I once again worried about the unseen effects of raising Max and Stella in such isolation.

Not that we had really much choice to do otherwise. They had been just north of kindergarten when civilization had fallen to the zombies, and when I had first met Stella, she had seemed nearly feral. It had taken us so long to get her to open up to anyone outside of Max, but after we’d retreated to the lakehouse, she had really blossomed.

In those intervening years, for safety and necessity, Max and Stella had interacted with almost no one outside of our family. Which meant that they had little understanding of how the real world worked, and how fear and distrust should be the primary reaction when meeting new people, not excitement and friendship.

In a world full of unimaginable horrors, we had somehow managed to shelter Max and Stella from too much.

“We could travel together,” Stella suggested before introductions had even been made.

“Well, yeah, sure! Yeah!” The older man went from reluctant to enthusiastic with almost comical speed. “That would be great. I’m Garrison, and this is my daughter, Samara.” The bolder teen girl stepped closer to him, and she gave a forced smile.

“I’m Lillian Waterston,” the woman with the axe said.

“I’m Castor,” the boy said, and he motioned to the matching girl beside him. “This is my twin sister, Polly.”

“It’s short for Polluxia,” she added. “Our parents were big fans of Greek mythology.”

That had explained why the names sounded vaguely familiar to me. Castor and Pollux were the twins of Gemini in astrology, which I had an interest in during my younger days.

“And who would you all be?” Lillian Waterston asked, and her sharp gaze went from Stella’s belly – visibly swollen underneath her threadbare dress and knit cardigan – to Boden standing tall nearby her.

His jaw tensed, but he didn’t hurry to explain the circumstances, and instead went on with the introductions. “I’m Boden, the cat is Ripley, this is Stella, and that is Max. Remy is the one with the crossbow, and Serg is the one up in the spires that you probably haven’t even noticed yet.”

Everyone turned to look up at Serg, and he gave a wave before skittering down the same way that I had.

“Is that everyone in your group?” Garrison asked, still wearing his pleasant smile.

“This would be all of us,” Boden said.

“Well, no need for us to waste any time, if we’re all going the same place,” Garrison said. He stepped to the side, motioning for Boden and the others to join me and lead the way on the trail straight ahead.

“Have any of you been to Emberwood before?” Stella asked them.

“Nope, we have not had the pleasure yet,” Garrison replied.

“We haven’t either,” Stella admitted. “But Remy knows someone who has, and he gave us a map.”

“Well, won’t that be nice then?” Garrison asked. “All of us seeing the town together for the first time?”

10

Remy

We’d only just met the others shortly before sunset, so we had no choice but to camp out with these virtual strangers. Boden and the older man Garrison kept discussing it as if it was such luck that we’d found each other so we could share labor. They crowed about it as we set up camp under the outcroppings of the sand dunes, and Serg and the twins ventured out to the nearby forest for firewood.

“And we’ll be able to sleep more because we all can take turns at the night watch,” Garrison said jovially, while I broke some larger sticks over my leg for kindling.

“I’ll stay up most of the night anyway. I can’t sleep in an open space like this,” I said, which was true, and also much more diplomatic than admitting that I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t trust the others sharing our camp.

I didn’t dare go too far from the firepit that Boden and Max built, according to Lillian’s specifications. She seemed surprisingly comfortable standing off to the side and delegating what the others should do.

“Samara, why don’t you sweep away the dust and gravel so we can all sleep on that flat rock over there?” Lillian asked and pointed to the spot. “And Stella, since you’re just sitting there, you can get –”

“Stella’s resting,” I cut Lillian off, and she looked at me in surprise.

I knew we were already asking so much of Stella, too much considering her current state. But the only way we could get to the town and potential medical help was by walking.

“For her safety, she’s on bedrest once we get to camp,” Boden clarified.

Lillian was looking back over at Stella, laying on the ground using the lion as a pillow, and she asked, “So she is pregnant then?”

“Seven months,” Stella answered.

“It’s a difficult trek to make. Are you sure that you’re up to it?” Lillian asked.

“I’m stronger than I look,” Stella assured her.

“I am sure you are, sweetheart. We all are, or none of us would’ve made it this far,” Lillian said, and her eyes went over to Boden with a new scrutiny. Garrison and his daughter Samara even looked at him with suspicion.

“Max is the father, and he and Stella aren’t related,” I blurted out so everyone would stop looking at Boden like he was some kind of a creep.

“Well, um, that’s good to know, I suppose,” Garrison said with a nervous laugh.

“What about you then?” Samara tilted her head and looked at Boden. “Are you single?”

“I’m with Remy.” He motioned to me, and I just nodded.

“And you?” Samara asked as Serg returned with an armload of firewood. “Are you paired up with the lion or something?”

“No, I’m sorta my own thing,” Serg explained. “I always have been.”

“What about you all?” Stella asked. “Any of you dating?”

Lillian shook her head. “No. We’re just travelling companions.”

Tensions eased enough that we were able to sit around the fire and eat supper together. The others had a duffle bag of supplies, and neither group suggested sharing, much to my relief.

Boden and Stella seemed bizarrely eager to get to know the others, and Max and Serg were friendly. I was the lone one who seemed completely uninterested in banal conversation with strangers.

“How did you all hear of Emberwood?” Boden asked. His arms rested on his knees as he ate jerky, and the warm fire highlighted his rugged face and brilliant eyes.

“We were in a government quarantine outside Seattle,” Lillian answered, and she motioned to Garrison and his daughter. “I had been there practically since day one of the outbreak. Garrison and Samara arrived only a few months before the quarantine fell to the zombies. They told me about Emberwood, and it sounded like a much better alternative to dying in the rubble.”

“Wait. You’re claiming that a quarantine zone held for almost a decade? How?” Boden asked.

“It was a very elaborate base with walled off quadrants and plenty of redundancies,” Lillian said. “But the zombies finally got in the place anyway, and it was overrun about six months ago.”

“They’re still overrunning shit?” I asked. “Even after all this time?”

“Remember when they told us that the zombies would die out within a month?” Serg asked, and all of us shared some joyless laughter.

“So, Garrison, if you’re the one who told Lillian about Emberwood, how’d you find out about it?” Stella asked.

“We just heard others talking, and saying it’s a nice place where people can be safe,” Garrison explained. “Samara and I started out in Vermont, and we’d had her mom and our other daughter Nadja…” He trailed off, then cleared his throat. “We’ve come a long way since then, through bases and homes that all eventually went to the zombies.”

“And yet you think Emberwood will be different,” Samara said dryly. “All the settlements eventually go to the undead.”

“We’ve survived this long, humanity has survived this long, and we will continue to find a way,” Garrison insisted.

This was followed by a heavy silence until Stella piped up again and asked, “What about you, Polly and Castor? How did you hear about Emberwood?”

“A woman who was helping us mentioned it, and after her face was eaten by a zombie, we decided to keep going north,” Castor explained flatly.

Later on, when everyone had bedded for the night, except for Lillian who was the first to stand guard, I stayed up watching her from the shadows.

“You should sleep,” Boden whispered beside me. “Tomorrow is going to be long enough as it is.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, as if I had a choice. It wasn’t like my body would let me just close my eyes and pretend we were safe out here.

“You’ll have to get used to being around people again,” he murmured before drifting off to sleep.

11

Remy

I did manage to catch a few minutes here and there, but I was the first one up at dawn. The grass was still covered in a thick dew by the time we were all awake and on the move.

We met up with the highway that ran along the Staulo River, and according to the map, that would lead us straight to the waterfall below Emberwood. Walking on the road was much easier than hiking through dense forests, even with it being cracked and overgrown with grass and weeds.

Boden wasn’t wrong about it being a long day, but we took frequent breaks for Stella, so I made the most of those.

Near dark, we found a rusty old school bus on the side of the road. Ripley chased away a few raccoons, and then it was safe for camping.

Stella seemed oddly excited about cleaning raccoon shit and trash out of the bus. It did make more sense to me, though, after we settled in, and she pulled out a battered copy of the first Boxcar Kids book. It was a series of children’s books about four orphaned siblings who solve mysteries and briefly live self-sufficiently in a boxcar. There had been dozens of them back at the lakehouse, and she read them so often, they were practically falling apart.

Most of our new travelling companions hadn’t even heard of the books before, and Castor and Polly asked so many questions that eventually she just started reading it aloud.

I stayed at the back of the bus, near the broken-out windows. Ripley was sleeping underneath the bus, and I caught glimpses of her through small rusted out holes in the floor.

Most of the old bench seats had been ripped out long before we discovered it and its vermin inhabitants, but Max found one of the few remaining seats and tilted it around the firepit that Serg and Garrison made out of rocks and broken metal. Lillian had set up her bedroll near the front, and Samara was lying down next to her. Garrison, Polly, Castor, Serg, and Max were all sitting around the fire, listening in rapt attention as Stella read aloud to them.

Boden had been sitting nearby, watching and listening, but as darkness fell, he came over to join me in the back. The bus wasn’t that large, so I could still hear Stella reading, but they likely wouldn’t hear us if we whispered.

“How are you doing?” he asked softly as he sat down beside me.

“Fine.” I turned and looked out the window at the trees around us and the sky above. “How about you?”

“Good enough.” His voice was a rumble in my ear, he was so close, and his arm snaked around my waist. “Why don’t you get some sleep? We’re safe here, and I’ll stay awake.”

“All night?” I asked, as if I wasn’t exhausted and hadn’t been fighting to keep my eyes open by digging my fingernails into my skin.

“No, not all night, because I am not a stubborn masochist with a superhero complex,” he replied with a wry smirk, and he pulled me closer to him. “But I will have Serg take over for me when I’m too tired, and then he will trade with Max, and all of us can get some rest.”

“Max needs his sleep. Have Serg wake me up instead. I only need a few hours.” I relented and curled up into Boden, using his body for a pillow.

“If you insist,” he agreed with a sigh, and he kissed the top of my head. “Now rest, so you can outrun zombies tomorrow.”

Then I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, it was light out. Boden and Max were already awake, and I cursed them both out for letting me sleep so late. I wanted to get some hunting done with Ripley before Stella and the others were ready to go. We had plenty of travel safe protein, but it was always beneficial to have fresh meat, especially since our party had grown so large.

For the next two days, we walked along the river, but mid-morning on the third, the road veered away when we reached an incline. The water cut a sharp bluff through the hillside, and the road curved up and around it. At the top of the cliff, the river was about five meters to the right, and to our left, there was a huge piece of property surrounded by a chain link fence.

We walked on the road between the fence and the river for a few kilometers until we finally reached the open gate, and we stopped to read the sign out front. Over the top, the words Eat the Dead had been spray-painted in neon green. Beneath that, the official title was visible in big block lettering Tarik Copper Mine, and below that, in slightly smaller letters, A Weiland-Uylee Corporation.

“Tarik Copper Mine, huh?” Garrison squinted up at the sign. “I didn’t know there was anything like that around here.”

“This is one of the largest mines in North America,” Lillian said, and her words were tinged with loathing. “Open pit mines like this one have some of the worst environmental impacts, with extensive habitat destruction, land disturbances, and an abundance of pollution.”

“Wow.” Stella looked impressed. “You know an awful lot about the mine.”

“I got my PhD in Earth and Environmental Engineering from Columbia University,” Lillian explained, and her expression straddled the line between proud and embarrassed. “Back when those things used to matter, when I thought there was still time to save the world, it was my job to know about things like mining and fracking and water contamination.”

“On the bright side, they’ve finally stopped mining, so the environment was saved,” Samara said sarcastically.

“That is the silver lining, I suppose, even if it comes at the cost of everything else,” Lillian agreed.

“So you know so much about these places,” Boden said to Lillian. “Is it worth a look through for supplies?”

“It was a working mine employing hundreds of people, so I am sure there were a great deal of supplies at one time, but I don’t know that it would be a worthwhile use of our time to crawl through so many buildings when we have such a long journey ahead,” Lillian said.

“Well, we’re here. Why don’t we make a pass through to see if we can find anything useful while the others rest?” I suggested, and Stella and Max were already sitting down to eat. They were actually the reason I suggested it, because the longer we were wandering around looking for junk, the longer Stella could rest.

Boden shrugged. “Sure, why not? Anyone else want to explore with us?”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing what this place looks like now that nature is reclaiming it,” Lillian said.

“I’d like to see a mine,” Castor volunteered, and his sister looked at him in surprise. “It sounds interesting. You can stay back if you want.”

So Polly did, along with the others. Serg stayed back with them, too, and I figured between him and the lion, Max and Stella should be safe. Boden, Lillian, Castor, and I headed through the open gate, following the gravel roads that gave way to grass and dandelions.

“It’s so quiet,” Castor commented as we walked through buildings made of rust and vines.

It wasn’t until he said it that I realized there were no birds calling, no squirrels chittering, and no sounds of wildlife. But it wasn’t silent. There was an eerie deep humming at such a low frequency it was almost inaudible. It was closer to the sensation of a rumbling than a true sound.

“What is that?” Lillian asked, so I knew I wasn’t the only one hearing it.

Boden pointed up ahead. “I think it’s coming from over there.”

We weaved through the buildings, following the humming sound. It grew slightly louder until we finally reached the spot past the buildings were the earth opened up before us. Nearing the edge of the pit, the gravel on the road actually vibrated and bounced from the reverberation.

The mine was a vast crater carved into the ground, where the deepest part was at least 100 meters below. The walls had a stepped appearance, but they were massive steps. About a kilometer wide and at least fifteen meters tall, like a staircase built for Paul Bunyan.

The enormous open-pit mine below us was filled with zombies. On every level, in every state of decay. Hundreds of them, thousands of them, milling together, and the humming was coming from them.

12

Remy

“What the heck are they doing?” Castor asked, as we stared down at the sea of zombies.

“Seems like they’re just sort of existing,” Boden answered.

“They can’t die, and they can’t get out, so this is all they can do,” I said.

“How do you know they can’t get out?” Castor asked, with an undercurrent of fear in his incredulity. “Maybe they’re just hibernating here.”

“If they were hibernating, they wouldn’t be moving.” Lillian pointed to the ones closest to us, maybe fifteen meters beneath us on the benched step of land. They were stumbling and hobbling, not really going anywhere, but their feet shuffled beneath them.

Castor was at the edge, and he leaned forward slightly. His toe brushed against a small rock, and it rolled down the sheer dirt wall until it bounced off and hit a zombie right in the head.

The zombie looked up, tilting its head, and its eyes never seemed to look beyond the wall of dirt and stone just before it. But the rock had made it aware of us, and it walked straight ahead and ran into the wall.

“They don’t climb,” Boden said. “They took down walls at the government quarantine by ramming into them with brute force and waves of their bodies. But they didn’t climb over it, and they don’t really look up.”

“So they’re just trapped down there, without any food or water?” Castor asked.

“There’s water.” Boden motioned to a stagnant pond on the lowest level of the mine, where it was the most crowded. Presumably because the zombies would stumble and fall over the edge on the higher levels but never climbed back up.

There were so many zombies, it left hardly any room for them to stand, and yet they all avoided the pond, giving it a wide berth. They were all cramped together, mashing each other between their decaying bodies and dirt walls.

“Zombies don’t need water to survive,” Lillian said.

“They don’t need anything to survive. That’s the problem,” I grumbled.

“Why are they so afraid of water?” Castor asked. “I only see them avoid rivers and lakes. That kind of thing.”

“They’re not afraid of anything, because I doubt zombies feel anything at all, except hunger,” Lillian said. “The virus that causes zombification is a mutant cousin of rabies, and that induces hydrophobia. I can’t remember why exactly anymore, but I am assuming that the there must be some sort of central nervous system active in the zombies, so they can walk and grunt and devour.”

“It’s the humming sound I can’t make sense of,” I said, and I shivered as if I could shake it off. “Have any of you heard that before?”

Lillian shook her head. “No. Death groans, howls, whatever grunting moan that one is making, I have heard all of that before. But the humming is new.”

A friend of mine in high school used to have an old car with subwoofers so big that the bass resonance would feel like an earthquake when we listened to Snoop Dogg. Standing here listening to the zombies gave me a similar, but much more macabre, feeling.

“It’s like bad subwoofers,” I said.

“It reminds me of bees,” Boden said.

Castor looked at him like he was an idiot. “Bees buzz, and the zombies don’t have wings.”

“No, not when they’re flying, but when they’re killing an invading wasp,” Boden elaborated. “I saw it on a nature special once. They crowded around the wasp and vibrated their wings so intensely that they kill the wasp.”

“Maybe it’s all those zombies crammed together, trying to move and breathe, and the sound is echoing through the mine,” I speculated.

“How long do you think they will stay down there?” Castor asked.

“Maybe someday, when humans rise up again, and those zombies are little more than bones and dust from weathering the earth for so long, people will come and bury them underneath layers of dirt and rubble,” Lillian imagined. “But even in their graves, I bet they will still hunger.”

“Christ, that’s dark,” Boden said, but he didn’t disagree.

“Maybe they’ll drop dead tomorrow, but that doesn’t seem likely,” Castor said, somewhat more optimistically.

“All that matters to me is that they can’t get out of there.” I pointed to the only roadway down into the mine, and it looked to have been blown up some time ago, leaving charred rubble and no way off of the first step of the mine without scaling a wall.

“They don’t have anything to offer us,” Lillian said with a flat finality as she stared at the pit of thousands of zombies. “We should split up and look for supplies. There are so many buildings, and we should move on soon.”

It sounded reasonable enough, so Lillian and Castor took the buildings to the south, and Boden and I took the ones to the north.

“Anything good in there?” Boden asked as we went into a musty, bloody cafeteria.

I shook my head. “Anything good has already been taken or rotten a long time ago.”

“If there’s a lot of people passing through on their way to Emberwood, this has all been well and good picked over,” Boden commented.

“Yeah. Just let me take a quick pass through the storage room behind the cafeteria. Then we can head back in.”

“All right. I’ll wait for you outside,” he said, probably because the smell inside was putrid.

He went out, and I took a quick walk through the storage room. A skeleton lay in a pile of waterlogged toilet paper, stained rust red. But there was nothing we could use.

I made my way back to the main cafeteria. The front doors were open a bit, letting in sunlight, and I could see Boden waiting just outside.

“Hey,” a girl’s voice, approaching out of sight, and I think it was Polly.

“Your brother is around scoping for supplies with Lillian,” Boden said, answering a question she hadn’t asked yet. “They’ll probably be back out front soon, since there’s nothing really worthwhile here.”

“Bummer,” Polly said with a sigh. “Where’s your wife?”

“Just inside. I’m waiting for her,” Boden replied as I was reaching the door.

“I’m not his wife,” I said as I came out, and they both turned to look at me.

“Oh. Sorry. I just kinda assumed you were married,” Polly replied awkwardly.

“We’re together,” I amended. “But we’re not married because there’s no governments or religion anymore.”

She frowned, looking perplexed. “Ooookay. I don’t really care that much so you don’t need to tell me your life story.” Then she turned back to Boden. “Which way did Castor and Lillian go? I want to catch up with them.”

He pointed to the north. “That way. But like I said, they’re probably heading back to the gate by now.”

“That’s fine. I wanna get out of here soon anyway,” Polly said. “That low rumbling sound is giving me a headache, and it smells awful around here.”

“Take as long as you want. No need to rush,” I said as she went off to find her brother.

“Why did you do that?” Boden asked once she was gone, and we started making our way back to the gate.

“Because I want Stella to have as much time as possible to rest,” I explained.

“No, not that,” he said, annoyed. “Why did you correct Polly when she called you my wife?”

“Because I’m not,” I replied with a shrug.

“I know that. But we’ve shared our life and our bed together for years,” he contended. “Is it so bad if someone considers us married?”

“No, it’s not bad. It’s just not true,” I said, growing frustrated. “Are you actually upset about this? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know what I am,” he admitted and stopped walking, so I had to stop and look back at him. “What would you say if I told you that I wanted to be married?”

“I’d say that now is not the time,” I told him, because I honestly couldn’t think about it then. “We’re still weeks away from getting Stella through a zombie infested wilderness.” I took a step closer to him and put my hand on his arm. “You know what you mean to me, Boden. But right now, all I can really think about is ensuring that everyone in our family lives long enough to see that baby be born healthy and safe.”

“Yeah. Yes. Of course.” He nodded like he understood, but he wouldn’t quite meet my eyes. “We can talk more once we’re in Emberwood.”

I stood on my tiptoes, kissing him on the mouth. He kissed me back, but he broke away first.

“We should get back,” he said, and we fell in step beside one another.

I lowered my voice, since I didn’t know if Polly or any of her group were lurking around, and I asked, “What do you think of the others?”

“We’ve been travelling with them for a few days now, and they haven’t tried to murder, assault, or rob us, so they’re better than most people we’ve met since society fell,” he reasoned.

“I guess that is true,” I agreed reluctantly.

“You don’t like them.” He stated it as fact.

“Like and dislike are too strong of words,” I argued. “They’re fine as long as they pull their own weight and don’t put us in any danger.”

13

Stella

It had been five days since we left the lakehouse when we ran into our first real town. Other than the mines yesterday, we'd only found an isolated house here or there, nothing too notable.

I still had my walking stick, and for the most part, I had been handling it well enough with that. I stumbled a few times when I felt weak or my vision blurred, but I stayed on my feet.

Until yesterday afternoon, when a seizure had taken me down while I was walking, and I sustained a bump on my head. I was fine, just tired and upset to be cutting our day short without arriving anywhere interesting. Since then, Max had taken to holding my free hand, but I didn’t really mind because I liked holding his hand.

I had been looking forward to seeing a town from B.Z., because I didn’t really remember them anymore. The only vague images I had in my mind were of people everywhere and cars that zoomed by and buildings so tall they touched the sky.

Cities and towns used to be alive, and it had been so long since I had even seen their skeletons. I practically cried out in delight when I saw the sign proclaiming Priest’s Mill – “A Place Where History Lives.” It was a big billboard, painted like a postcard with an old mill, steamboats, and a historic fur trading post.

“Finally, a town to explore,” I said and squeezed Max’s hand.

“Or at least a place to rest for the night,” Remy said with her eyes on the sun lowering in the sky.

“Or maybe a little of both,” Max suggested when he saw my disappointment.

Remy insisted I sit and rest every moment I had the chance. Sometimes it was necessary. Sometimes I was so exhausted, I was about to pass out on my feet. But this was my first time out in the world since I was a little kid, and if I could handle exploring, I was going out to explore, no matter what Remy thought.

“Looks like there might be steamboats here.” Garrison motioned to the river that ran alongside us. “I would like to have a peek out at the docks if you all don’t mind.”

Samara rolled her eyes at her father. “You always do anyway. Docks and train stations every time we pass one, even though there’s never anything there.”

“Well, you don’t have to go with me if you don’t want to,” Garrison said.

“I want to see the houses. There might be some good stuff left,” I said. “I’ve been hoping to find a few things for the baby.”

“We can look for you,” Remy offered.

“I’d like to look for myself,” I persisted. “I’ll rest when we find somewhere comfortable, and then I’ll have Max and Ripley with me.”

“I’ve seen zombies take over the world, and that lion following you around everywhere is one of the stranger things I’ve seen,” Polly commented.

“Lions live in prides with their families in the wild,” I said. “They like being with family and take care of each other. They’re pack animals, like humans.”

“I never really think of humans as pack animals,” Remy said.

“That’s because you think that you’re a lone wolf,” Serg replied, and we all laughed at that. Remy even smirked, but Boden seemed to laugh a little too loud.

We strolled down the road that rolled right into a quaint main street. The houses and buildings that lined it – a cutesy log cabin, a gas station, a thrift store next to a market, a tiny post office with a totem pole carved into a bear out front – had their windows broken out with vines and plants overgrowing and overtaking everything they could. I was surprised that the totem pole had held up, but it was carved from a very sturdy log.

“How about the old mill?” Lillian asked, peering in one of the windows of a historic looking structure. It was a rustic three story building made of brick situated directly on the river.

“‘This gristmill was constructed by Father Constantine in 1821. It played a crucial role in the development along the Staulo River. Preserved by the Staulo River Historical Society,’” Samara read off the bronze plaque by the front door of the mill.

“What the heck is a gristmill?” Castor asked.

“It ground grain into flour using wind or water back before we had electricity,” Lillian explained. “This one uses the water from the river.”

Garrison peered into the window. “It held up after all these years, and the Lord only knows what else it has endured in the past decade. It’d be a great place to rest up for the night.”

Remy opened the door and went inside, and Boden followed behind her, armed with his machete in case zombies had gotten trapped in. I sat down on the curb outside, waiting for them to let us know it was safe, and my feet were throbbing. Every day we walked, my boots grew tighter and tighter, no matter how much I loosened the laces.

I shrugged off my knapsack with a wince. My shoulders burned and my back was screaming from the strain of carrying all my possessions on my back and my baby in my belly. None of it was easy, but I knew that this journey was the only way to find help for me and the baby. So I gritted my teeth and did my best to grin and bear it the way that Remy had always taught me.

“How are you doing?” Max asked me softly. He must’ve noticed the pain on my face. He noticed everything. He had always been so perceptive and considerate, especially with me.

“My back hurts, but it’s manageable.” I downplayed my discomfort.

“Here.” He sat down directly behind me, with his back gently touching mine. “Lean back against me. See if that helps.”

I did as he said, and instantly felt some relief in the sharpest pain of my lower back. “Thank you. That is better.”

“No problem.” His hand was at his side, and I reached back and took it in mine. “I’ll carry you all the way to Emberwood, if you let me.”

“I would let you if I didn’t think we’d both end up with a broken leg,” I replied honestly. He was tall, wiry, and strong, but carrying me that far would be way too dangerous and exhausting, if not impossible.

“Do you think I have enough time to head to the docks?” Garrison asked, and he glanced down at the mechanical watch he wore on his wrist.

By then, we’d mostly been resting while the others were getting the mill ready. Cleaning out garbage and animal debris so we’d have a safe space to lay our bedrolls.

“Darkness is coming soon, and we’re in a strange area,” Remy said. “Why don’t you wait until morning, and we all can explore the town together?”

“Yeah. Sure. Right,” Garrison agreed, but he sounded a tad disappointed. He had to be thirty years older than Remy, and he’d only recently joined up with us, and yet he already deferred to her.

At home, Remy had this way of taking command of everything, but I had wondered if that was just the way she behaved inside our family. It was interesting to see her have the same effect on other people, although I doubted that Samara or Lillian would have folded as easily as Garrison.

By the stony exterior of the mill, I had assumed the interior would be more of the same, but everything was covered in natural wood. There were circular grinding stones on the main floor, and giant funnels on the second. Above that was another floor that Remy and Boden cleared of zombies or danger, but there was more than enough floor space for all of us to camp out on the second level, so that’s what we did.

After we all ate, Remy and Lillian went down for the first watch, while Boden, Serg, and Garrison laid down for the night.

Despite the long day, I felt restless and unable to relax. When I whispered as much to Max, Polly and Castor overheard and agreed that they felt the same.

“Let’s go up to the third floor, so we don’t bother the others,” Max suggested and motioned to the wooden staircase.

Samara had been sitting on her bedroll next to her father, but when she saw us going upstairs, she hurried after us. As did Ripley, but she followed me everywhere I went.

Max brought a candle, and a little of the fading sunlight made it through the third story window. The attic was empty, aside from a few old boxes, cobwebs, and rat droppings.

I went over to the window and looked out at the waterwheel in the river at the back of the mill. To the north was a cemetery. Before we’d gone inside the mill, I had mistakenly thought it to be a park, but now I could clearly see the headstones all over. In the very center, among broken gravestones, there were the burnt remnants of a pile of bodies. Human skeletons blackened and stacked on top of one another.

“Make a wish,” Polly said behind me, and I nearly jumped.

“What?” I asked.

“The first star is out.” She pointed to the bright light in the bruise-colored sky. “If you make a wish on it, it will come true.”

I shook my head. “I hadn’t heard that before.”

“Star light, star bright/First star I see tonight/I wish I may, I wish I might/Have this wish I wish tonight,” Polly said.

I repeated her words, and I put my hands on my belly as I wished silently in my head. I wish that the baby is born happy and healthy.

“Come sit down,” Max said, patting a spot next to him on the floor. “You should still rest.”

My body ached, and I eagerly sat down beside him. Samara and Castor were already sitting across from us, their knees brushed up against each other, and Polly sat between her brother and me.

“So…” Samara said, eyeing us. “You two really aren’t brother and sister?”

“No!” Max and I both shouted in unison, appalled.

“Remy is my only sibling,” Max elaborated.

“Are you Boden’s sister then?” Polly asked me.

I shook my head. “No, the rest of us aren’t related by blood. But we’re still family.”

“So it isn’t weird for you two to be hooking up with someone in your ‘family?’” Samara asked with airquotes around family.

Max bristled. “No. I mean, Remy and Boden are each other’s family, and they’re in love.”

“Are they?” Polly asked dubiously.

“Yes,” Max insisted. He was always quick to defend his sister against perceived criticisms, sometimes too quick. “Family has many different forms, and this is ours.”

“I guess I can understand that,” Samara finally conceded. “My sister died first, and then my mom died a couple years ago, but it hasn’t really been just me and my dad since then. We’ve always found other people.” She smiled over at Castor when she said that, and Max squeezed my hand.

14

Remy

After a morning scavenging around the mill, we headed down to the docks. Most of the town had been picked over, the way most everything was after so long, but we’d managed to find a large dog collar and leash. The dog it had once belonged to was long gone, but the pictures in the house showed some kind of gigantic mastiff with a thick neck and slobbery smile.

That proved lucky for us, because Stella had been worrying about how we’d get Ripley into Emberwood. After the way that Garrison and Lillian had initially been ready to kill the lioness, it didn’t seem unreasonable. Lately, Ripley had been glued to Stella’s side, but a heavy-duty collar and leash would go a long way to making the townsfolk and any guards feel safer with her presence.

The collar fit Ripley, but I didn’t try using a leash just yet. I wanted her to get accustomed to the collar first, and she seemed to be tolerating it with only mild annoyance.

After the foraging had concluded, our group – now containing the six of us, and the five others – convened outside the mill. Once we were all together, we followed the street signs painted with faded ink that pointed the way to the Historic Landing District.

Before we even reached the dock, Garrison let out a loud whooping sound, startling nearby birds to take flight.

“Hey, man, I know you’re excited, but maybe not alert any zombies,” Boden chastened him.

“I’m sorry.” Garrison looked sheepish but couldn’t suppress his smile. “I can already see the steamboat. This might be amazing news!”

He burst into a jog, hurrying ahead. Boden cursed under his breath, then ran after Garrison, likely to ensure that he didn’t run headfirst into danger, and then Castor sprinted after them.

“What are you doing?” Polly called after her brother.

“I wanna see the boat!” Castor replied and kept on running.

Stella wasn’t about to run, and Max walked with her, so Serg and I lingered back with them. Lillian, Samara, and Polly were only a few steps in front of us, but eventually, Samara and Polly decided to run after the others.

By the time I reached the dock, Garrison had let out many more delighted squeals, and that had to be driving Boden insane.

At the end of the dock was a two-story boat with wrap around balconies on the top level, and large waterwheels in the back. It was filthy and weathered, so the white exterior appeared more like a dull gray. On the roof of the second level was another small, windowed room with a large smokestack on top.

On the side of the boat, painted in letters that had likely once been vibrant red but were now a washed out pink, was the boat’s name: S. S. Barbarabelle.

Garrison had apparently been inside the boat, and he rushed back out and leaned against the railing at the end of the ramp to wave at us with a manic grin on his face.

“This is incredible!” he shouted. “Absolutely incredible!”

“That a boat is still here?” I asked dubiously.

“That this boat is here, and that I can get it to work.”

“What?” Lillian asked, echoing my skepticism. “Really?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “It’ll take some work, but yes!” Then he turned around and rushed back inside, calling for us to hurry.

It wasn’t until we made it up the ramp and onto the boat that Boden came out to meet us.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

“I don’t know shit about getting an old steamboat running, but Garrison seems optimistic,” Boden said. “I haven’t had a chance to check the place over, and everyone needs to be careful. There’s a huge dining room and kitchen and dozens of guest rooms, so there could be anything inside.”

He held the door open, and we all went in. It was less musty than I imagined, although there was definitely an undercurrent of dampness. It was also significantly more opulent than I anticipated. The walls were covered in dark mahogany, and the floors had plush carpets and expensive rugs. A circular sofa sat in the center of the lobby, covered in a lux brocade, and a baby grand piano sat nearby. Light from the windows caught on the crystals of the small, elegant chandelier, and cast rainbows on the grand oak staircase.

“Holy shit, it looks like the Titanic,” Serg said.

“Yeah, I noticed that, too, but I wasn’t going to say anything,” Boden agreed.

“That’s because the 1900s were just a fantastic time for boating,” Garrison said as he came out from around the staircase. “Around the same time, this was a booming logging community, and they used steamboats to travel and carry cargo up and down this river. The exterior and the engine room are near replicas of the exact steamboats that worked this river back then, complete with paddlewheels operated by burning either coal or wood.”

“Are you trying to claim that this swanky boat is a replica of a logging vessel?” Lillian asked as she gestured to the lavish trappings.

“No, of course not,” Garrison said with a laugh. “Only the exterior is related to the original working boats. All of this interior is the Louis XV style that was very popular among the luxury liners of the same era as the original steamboat was working. Most notably seen in the Titanic.

“This current boat was built about two years before the zombie virus appeared,” he went on. “It was meant to be a tourist draw with forty guest rooms and a grand dining hall, and it travelled up and down the old logging route on the Staulo River.”

“He read a lot of that off the wall.” Samara was sitting on the circular sofa, and she pointed to the giant painting of the S. S. Barbarabelle in its glory, and below that was a sign with small text. “But he did know some of that off the top of his head. He’s always been a boat nerd.”

“This boat will still run?” Serg asked.

“I think so, with your help,” Garrison said. “And then we can take it straight down the river to the waterfall beneath Emberwood. That could cut as much as 4-5 days off our trip.”

“Seriously?” Max asked, already excited about the prospect of Stella travelling quickly with ease.

I tended to believe that if something sounded too good to be true, it usually was. How had I not taught him that?

“What do you need from us to get it going?” Serg asked.

“Well, I’ll need at least two of you, I think.” Garrison’s gaze went to Serg and Boden, who were stronger and taller than the rest of us.

“While you two go with him, I should scope out the boat and make sure it’s safe,” I said. “If this thing does get going, I don’t want to end up trapped on it with a bunch of zombies or a grizzly bear.”

Boden nodded and looked over at me. “Be careful.”

“You, too,” I said, and turned back to the others. “Max, Stella, and Ripley can hang out here in the lounge. The rest of us should split up with one group going up to the second level and the other should stay down here and check out the main floor.”

“We’ll take the main floor,” Castor offered, motioning to between himself and his sister.

“I’ll go with them,” Samara volunteered.

I looked to Lillian. “It’s me and you versus forty guest rooms on the second floor.”

“Sounds lovely,” she said with a wry smile, and we started toward the grand staircase.

The hallway down the center of the second floor was wider than I’d expect for a boat of this size, and it was styled in the same fancy way as the lobby. There were surprisingly few signs that this had survived a zombie apocalypse: a blood stain on the elegant rug, a tear in the gilded wallpaper, a nautical painting broken on the floor.

The doors to the staterooms closest to the staircase were open, so Lillian and I peered inside with our weapons in hand – my crossbow, and her axe. The brocade curtains were torn, but the sliding glass doors that led onto the private balcony were still intact. The bed was even made in the plush linens, although they were rumpled and dusty, and the sitting chairs were tipped over.

“It’s small, but it’s a nice room,” Lillian commented and poked her head in the on-suite bathroom. “I would’ve paid to stay here.”

“It seems weirdly nice for a riverboat cruise in the middle of Canada,” I said.

“We’re not quite in the middle of Canada,” Lillian corrected me. “And I see the appeal. The river is gorgeous, and a cruise into a bygone era is a nice escape from reality.”

“Well, I can always appreciate the appeal of escapism,” I admitted grudgingly.

The two of us continued down the hall, checking the rooms and finding more in similar states to the first few. Some were a bit worse for the wear. One had a decomposing arm in a bed, and several others had shattered balcony doors, which had let in enough harsh weather to render the rooms unusable.

As we made our way closer to the other end of the boat, the rooms got a bit nicer and bit larger with more high-end features. When we reached one that was nearly immaculate, aside from a little dust, Lillian let out a contented sigh.

“This one is mine, if Garrison does actually get the boat running,” she declared.

“We can call dibs already?” I asked. “Although all I really care about is a large comfy mattress and a door that locks.”

“I know what you mean.” Lillian ran her hand over the satiny comforter. “My back isn’t really cutout for bedrolls on a hard floor.”

I grimaced in agreement. “It did seem easier when I walked across the continent ten years ago.”

“Everything was so much easier and so much harder back then," Lillian reminisced. “In those early days, I thought civilization still had a chance to rebound. I held onto that hope for far too long, but I was also the last one in my grade school who still believed in Santa Claus. My mother used to call me pathologically optimistic.”

“There are worse things to be,” I said as I stepped out into the hallway, and there was a loud banging sound, followed by an all too familiar groaning.

“Zombies,” Lillian said, and then I heard the screams coming from downstairs.

15

Stella

Ripley was sitting in the corner of the grand lobby of the riverboat, one of her back legs outstretched as she groomed herself. I leaned back on the circular sofa, not minding the few holes torn into the exquisite fabric, and Max sat with my feet on his lap. He’d taken off my boots for me and rubbed my swollen, aching appendages.

“This is a very ritzy place,” he said as he admired it. “Hopefully, this will be a nice little break for us.” He smiled down at me. “Like our first vacation.”

“I suppose a –” I started to say, but then Ripley’s sudden growling interrupted me.

The hair stood up on her back, and her eyes were fixed on the double doors that separated the lobby from the dining hall. Samara, Castor, and Polly had only gone through them ten minutes ago.

There was a loud banging on the other side of the door, and Max was on his feet, grabbing his weapons from his knapsack.

“Get underneath the piano,” he told me over the sound of zombies groaning and howling.

“Zombies!” Samara shouted a warning from the other side of the dining hall only a moment before twenty zombies came crashing through the doors.

I leapt to my feet, grabbing my walking stick as I did, and I dove under the baby grand piano.

Ripley immediately pounced on the quickest zombie, while Max faced off against another with brass knuckles in his left hand and the billhook in his right. Remy had long ago insisted that we learn how to fight ambidextrously, but Max had taken to it much better than I had.

At the top of the grand staircase, Remy suddenly appeared and shouted, “Max, watch out!” as she took aim with her crossbow. She fired and a bolt flew through the zombie’s decaying gelatinous skull, spraying thick green goo all over as it exploded.

Then she raced down the stairs, hurriedly loading and firing at other zombies as she did. Lillian followed just behind her, armed with her hatchet.

A moment later, Castor, Polly, and Samara ran into the lobby from the neighboring dining hall.

Between the six of them, and a serious assist from Ripley, they decimated the zombies relatively quickly, leaving a splattering of guts and flesh all over the fine furnishings.

“Is everyone okay?” Lillian asked after the carnage ended.

“Yeah, I think so,” Castor said, just as a zombie stirred next to his foot, and he stomped on its head to finish it.

“Are there anymore zombies?” Remy asked, but she didn’t bother waiting for a response before pushing through the double doors to go into the next room.

Max came over and helped me out from under the piano. “How are you?” He brushed back my hair so he could look me in the eyes. “Nothing got you?”

“No,” I assured him. “They never came anywhere near me. How about you?”

He smiled. “I’m always good. You know that.” He kissed my forehead, and his hand without the brass knuckles went to my belly.

Ripley came over and rubbed up against me, which was her own way of inspecting to make sure that I was okay.

“Where did all those zombies come from?” Lillian asked. “Were they free roaming around?”

“No, they were in the kitchen,” Castor explained. “In the pantry, and I moved a stovetop out from in front of it because I thought there might be food –”

“Wait.” Lillian cut him off and held up her hand. “Someone had blocked off the door with something very heavy, and you just moved it to the side and opened the door right up without checking anything? Hasn’t anyone ever told you about Chesterton’s Fencing?”

When Castor shook his head, Lillian went on to explain, “Do not remove a fence until you know why it was first placed. Because if you don’t, you have a tendency to release something that was better kept on the other side of the fence.”

Remy returned from the other room and said, “I didn’t see any other zombies around.” Then she turned to me and Max. “We cleared the rooms upstairs. You can rest comfortably and lock the door so you’ll be safer.”

“Any room except for Room 238,” Lillian said as Max and I gathered our things. “That one is mine.”

“I’ll go up with you to make sure that everything is clear,” Remy said.

Ripley ran on ahead of us up the stairs, but I moved slowly. The plush carpet felt amazing on my bare feet, but everything still hurt.

Remy led Max and me most of the way down the hall, pausing in front of Room 236. “I think this is a nice one.” She opened the door, peeking inside, and then nodded. “Yeah. This is perfect.”

It was dusty, but otherwise clean with a large queen bed in the middle. That was all I really cared about, and Max and Remy hit the blankets in attempt to release the dust.

Once they’d finished, I laid down and let out a delighted sigh. “Oh, this is heavenly.”

“Glad you like it,” Remy said. “Boden and I will be in the room across the hall, but right now I’m going down to the engine room or whatever to see what they’re doing. You two just stay here and rest.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Max said with a salute. She smirked and left, and he turned back to me. “It’s stuffy in here, isn’t it?” He went over and opened the sliding doors to our private balcony, letting in a fresh summer breeze. “Much better.”

“Why don’t you come sit with me?” I asked, patting the bed beside me.

He glanced down at himself, his t-shirt splattered with zombie blood. He pulled it off and tossed it aside before rummaging through his knapsack for something clean.

Max was lean but muscular, and his abdomen was marked with faded scars. Most of them came from his time as an experiment in a government quarantine, but some came from surviving since then.

After he pulled on another shirt, he grabbed our water canteens, and our lunchbox containing smoked caribou (Rangifer tarandus), pine nuts (Pinus pinea L.), and fresh berries (Gaultheria procumbens), and then he climbed in beside me.

“Are you ready for your vacation feast?” he asked.

“I am both famished and queasy,” I told him honestly. “So, yes, I am.” I quickly devoured a handful of berries and took a long drink of water. “Have you ever been on vacation before?”

“We went to France once, before I started school,” he explained. “My mom wanted to show us where she was from, but I don’t remember much. I know that we were happy, and we had fun.”

“That sounds nice,” I said. “What was your mother’s name again?”

“Rafaella.”

“Rafaella,” I repeated, liking the way it sounded on my tongue. I leaned back, resting my head on the pillow and munching on pine nuts. “What do you think of Rafael for a boy?”

“I like it,” he said. “But I thought you wanted to wait until we me the baby to decide on a name.”

“That’s still true, but I want to have a few ideas so I don’t just latch onto something without meaning,” I said. “I can’t remember my parents’ names or anything about them. But we could still honor yours, since you do.”

“We could go the ‘junior’ route. Maxime Junior for a boy, or a Stella Junior for a girl,” he suggested with a smile, and when I wrinkled my nose, he laughed.

“How about –” I began, but there was suddenly a loud rumbling that shook the whole boat. That was immediately followed by a loud whistling, and then everything went quiet. Ripley had been on the balcony, but she ran back into the room.

“What was that? Should we be worried?” I asked.

“I don’t know what it was, but don’t worry just yet,” Max said as he got up. He went to the door and pressed his ear against it, and when nothing terrible happened, he tentatively opened it and peered out in the hall.

“Anything out there?” I asked.

“No, I don’t see or hear anything.” He closed the door and started back toward me, but then he stopped. “Do you feel that?”

“What?” I asked, because I didn’t feel anything but anxious, queasy, and tired.

“I think we’re moving.” He hurried out onto the balcony, sidestepping Ripley. “Yeah, we’re moving!”

“So we’re really getting our vacation?” I asked gleefully.

He ran back in and jumped onto the bed next to me and kissed me on the mouth. “Our vacation dreams are coming true!” Max kissed me again, more deeply, and his hand went to my waist, pulling me to him.

Someone knocked at our door, so Max pulled away and said, “Come in!”

“Hey,” Boden said, closing the door behind him. His hands were black and dirty, and he grinned down at us. “I just wanted to let you know that we got the boat going, so we’re heading up the river toward Grizzly Falls and Emberwood. And I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“We’re excellent,” I said, ignoring the body aches and exhaustion. “We’re ready to have fun at sea.”

“Are you gonna be okay hanging out in here?” Boden asked.

“After all the walking of the past week, I’ll relish it,” I said. “We were just discussing potential baby names.”

Boden’s smile deepened, turning sentimental. “Oh yeah? Can I ask what they are?”

“We aren’t deciding anything until the baby is actually here, but I was thinking of incorporating Rafael or Charles for a boy, after Max’s parents,” I said. “I also really like the names Alden and Henry.”

Boden’s brow furrowed, and he looked to Max. “What were your parents’ names?”

“Rafaella and Charles King,” Max answered.

“Wait. Your first name is Charles, isn’t it?” I realized. “I always forget that Boden is your last name.”

“My name is actually Charlie,” he clarified. “Charlie James Boden.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have two Charlies,” I said.

“Those are all great names, and I’m sure you will make a great choice,” Boden said, but he seemed deflated. “I should go check on Garrison. If I don’t see you later, have a good night.”

After he had gone, Max laid and rested his head on my belly. I asked him to sing to us, and he slipped into the soft French lullaby that I loved the most.

16

Remy

At the front of the boat, my hands were wrapped around the paint-chipped railings, and the pine trees along the shoreline were flying by. It seemed like we were going quite fast down the river, but then again, maybe I had forgotten what it was like to travel on a moving vehicle.

A few hours ago, I had gone down to the engine room to see how this all worked. Garrison tried to explain, but I had never been mechanically inclined. He, Boden, and Serg were taking turns shoveling coal, which seemed like dirty, hard work. I offered to lend a hand and do my fair share, but when they declined, I hadn’t pushed.

After that, I roamed around the boat, looking for any errant zombies that might be on the loose, but it did appear that we had taken care of all of them in the lobby. I did find a family of rats who seemed quite happy living in a nest inside a mattress in an empty room, but I left them to their own devices. They were so small, I doubted Ripley would even bother with them.

By the time the sun was low in the evening sky, I found myself alone at the front of the boat.

“Hey,” Max said behind me.

“How are you doing?” I asked him.

“I’m good. Stella had some seasickness, and she’s napping now.” He leaned against the railing next to me. “Wow. It really is beautiful out here.”

I looked back and realized he was right. The amber sunlight lit up the tops of the lush trees, and the dark blue water flowed around us.

“Yeah, I suppose it is,” I agreed.

“How long until we’re at Emberwood?” he asked.

“Garrison thinks we’ll make it to the end of the line by nightfall,” I said, repeating what he’d told me.

“What is at the end of the line for us?” Max asked. “The waterfall?"

I nodded and reached into my back pocket, where I stored my carefully folded up map. We boarded the boat at Priest’s Mill, and I traced my finger on the thick squiggly line that marked the river until it stopped at the waterfall labelled Grizzly Falls. Above that, nearly an inch away on the paper, was the place marked Emberwood.

“We’ll camp out on the boat tonight near the waterfall, and then we’ll head up past the falls and to the town. Maybe another day or two,” I said.

“How are we getting up the waterfall?” Max asked.

“Lazlo said there’s a trail next to it.”

“And you trust him?”

I was taken aback. “Why would you ask that?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged and turned sheepish. “You always told me that I should never trust strangers, and I don’t know him. You don’t even know him that well anymore, and he’s a total stranger to me.”

“Good to see you did absorb that lesson after all,” I muttered. “But yes, I trust him, and I trust the map. I mean, it’s gotten us this far.”

He nodded but he stared off in the distance. “Yeah. I just worry this has been too easy. It’s been a long walk, sure, and I know it’s been difficult for Stella. But the zombies have been leaving us alone.”

“Maybe there aren’t as many anymore,” I said, but my mind went back to the copper mine full of zombies, thousands of them all trapped inside. “Or at least most of them are out of commission.”

I folded up my map and put it away, then I rested a comforting hand on my brother’s shoulder. “You’re under a lot of stress right now, and it’s totally reasonable to be anxious and worried. But we’re almost to the town. Stella and the baby are going to be okay.”

“I know,” he said and exhaled roughly. “But I should get back and check on her, in case she got sick again.”

We went back inside, down the hall to our respective rooms. I opened the door to my room in time to see Boden walking out of the on-suite bathroom, shirtless with his jeans unbuttoned and hanging on his hips. His short hair was damp, and he raked his fingers through it.

“Did you just shower? Is there running water?” I asked excitedly.

“Yeah, it has gravity pumps and a filter, so we filled the tank up with river water,” he explained. “We still need to boil it first before drinking it, but the catchment tank uses the sun to warm it. It is plenty good enough to get off all the dirt and grime from my shift in the engine room.”

“You’re done for the day?” I asked.

“Yeah, we’re nearly to the waterfall.”

“So that means I can grab a shower?”

“It’s still a little cool, but it’s refreshing,” he said with a weak smile. There was something dark in his eyes, but probably he was just tired from a long day.

“Why don’t you get some rest?” I suggested.

“That was my plan,” he admitted and rubbed the back of his neck.

He had left several candles burning in the bathroom, illuminating it in a warm glow. The little bottles of soap and shampoo remaining from the boat’s last voyage were congealed and gross, but being able to rinse off the filth and sweat was enough. It was more tepid than warm, but it was plenty refreshing.

A plush robe was hanging on the back of the door, and I shook it out before slipping it on. Honestly, it was probably cleaner than most of the clothing in my bag.

When I came out of the bathroom, Boden was sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning back with his arms propping him up. The fading sunlight came in through the wide gap in the curtains, and in that light, I could see that he looked more than tired.

“You went with the robe,” he commented when he saw me. “But you’ve always been more of a risk taker than me.”

“I never really thought of myself as a risk taker,” I said and started toward him. “Are you okay?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that your father’s name was Charles?” he asked.

I stopped in my tracks, confused. “What?”

“My name is Charlie, and his is Charles. You’d think it would’ve come up sometime in the past eight years.” He was looking up at me, sullen and angry.

“Nobody calls you Charlie. I think of you as Boden,” I argued. “It never occurred to me, I guess. I know your family’s names. Your parents were Jimmy and Samantha, and your sisters were Kate, Emma, and Libby.”

“You know about them because I told you.” He said that like it was an accusation.

“Well, if you were so concerned about my parents’ names, you should’ve just asked me,” I snapped back at him.

“I could’ve asked, and you would’ve deflected or gotten annoyed or just plain walked away from the conversation, like you do any time I try to really talk about the past,” he argued. “God forbid I even mention life before you met me.”

“Because before that, everything was awful!” I reminded him harshly. “We didn’t have any peace or happiness until the lakehouse. Why would I want to remember any of that?”

“Because I want to know you!” Boden yelled.

“You think you don’t know me?” I shook my head. “That’s absurd. Just because I don’t like talking about the past –”

“It’s not just that. You still hold me at arm’s length.” His jaw tensed as he stared up at me. “You were so offended when Polly thought we were married.”

“I was not offended,” I insisted. “I was caught off guard. But is that what all this is about? You want to be married?”

“Yes, I do! I love you, and I’m sharing my life and my bed with you. Why wouldn’t I want to be married to you?”

“Because marriage is for religion, tax breaks, and having kids. None of those things apply to us.”

“Why about love?” he asked me in dismay. “Why can’t we get married for love?”

Before I could answer, someone knocked at the door. It could be important, so I gave Boden an apologetic look as I went to answer it.

Lillian was at the door, and she smiled at my wet hair and musty robe. “I see you’ve had a chance to enjoy the amenities.”

“Yeah. Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Everything’s great. We’re nearing the waterfall, so we’ll be anchoring for the night. Some of us were thinking about doing supper together in the dining hall. Would you want to join us?” Lillian asked.

“Uh, that’s a real nice thought, but I think I’d just like to rest for the night.” I glanced back over my shoulder. “Boden, do you want to go down for dinner?”

“Nah, I’m good,” he replied flatly.

Across the hall diagonally from our room, the door opened, and Castor stepped out. When he saw me and Lillian in my doorway, he smiled and waved.

“Are you coming down for a family dinner?” he asked.

“No, I was just telling Lillian that Boden and I are pretty tired, so we’re staying in.”

“Oh, yeah, I get that,” Castor said. “My sister’s staying back because she’s seasick. Samara is already downstairs getting things set up, so it should be a real nice time if you end up changing your mind or feeling better.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Stella’s been dealing with morning sickness and now seasickness, so she has some herbal remedies if Polly is struggling.”

“I’ll let her know,” Castor said.

“Have a good night, and we’ll see you in the morning,” Lillian said, and as they walked away, I closed the door behind them.

I went back over to Boden, standing in front of him, when I finally said, “I’m sorry. I love you, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know,” he admitted quietly.

“But I… I don’t know how else to be.” I gave a helpless shrug. “Everything that came before, it nearly broke me. And now I’m just trying so hard to survive and keep everyone alive, and most of the time, that is literally all I am thinking about.”

“But that’s not all on you, Remy. We keep each other alive.” He sat up and took my hand in his.

At that moment, the boat suddenly lurched to a stop, and I tumbled on top of Boden, both of us falling back onto the bed.

“We must’ve anchored,” I said.

“We must’ve.” He put his hand on my cheek, so I would look at him. “You are still the most beautiful badass I have ever met,” he murmured, and his lips were nearly brushing mine as he spoke. I kissed him deeply and hoped that he would understand how much I truly loved him.

17

Remy

The view from the front of the riverboat was that of a waterfall, and the early morning sunlight in the mist gave it a golden aura. It was almost surreal seeing something so beautiful.

The air was still chilly when I stepped out on the balcony. We had anchored just south of the falls, away from the churning water crashing into the river.

“That is looking pretty steep,” Boden said, giving voice to my own unpleasant observation as we looked out at the trail that ran alongside the falls.

He’d been out here for a while, leaning on the railing. When I woke up this morning, he was already gone, and the bed had felt so cold and empty without him. But I didn’t say any of that.

“Maybe it only looks like it is steep because we are so far away, but when we get up closer, it won’t be so bad.” I tried to be optimistic, but I didn’t sound convincing, even to myself.

Once everyone was awake, we all headed to the land. Since there wasn’t a dock around here, we had to take a life raft across. Ripley forwent the little boat and swam across the relatively placid river.

To get to the top of the waterfall, we had to walk on a trail alongside the river for nearly a kilometer. It was a smooth easy path with only a slight incline, but the falls still loomed ahead of us. On either side of it, the sheer stony cliff face stretched hundreds of meters up into the air.

The closer we got to it, the more others began expressing their concerns about the sheer gradient of it. Most of the griping came from Garrison, but he was in his mid-fifties, older than the rest of us. None of us were exactly out of shape, because we really couldn’t be and survive this long.

“Gosh, the more I’m looking at this, the more I’m worrying about the group managing a climb like that,” Garrison said, and he cast a look at Stella, who already needed her walking stick on more stable ground.

“And I’m no spring chicken myself,” Garrison continued with an uneasy smile. “Are we sure there isn’t another more gradual way around?”

“There might be,” Lillian said, and she unshouldered her backpack to pull out her battered atlas.

Everyone took that as a sign of a break, and they all dropped their bags and sat on the rocks or fallen logs around us. I got my hand drawn map out of my back pocket, comparing it to Lillian’s official map marked with a red pen. Boden, Serg, Garrison, Lillian, and I crowded together around it with our maps.

Mine had much less detail, but the major landmarks, like the river, the waterfall, the towns, all matched up. Lillian’s was a relief map, showing the changes in elevation.

“It does look like we could go around here.” Garrison traced his finger in a large circular path out to the west of the falls. “The incline seems much more gradual.”

“It does,” Lillian allowed. “But it also looks like…” She trailed off, muttering numbers to herself as she did some quick math in her head. “It would be about 40 kilometers out of the way, and that depends on whether or not there is a maintained trail. But I would guess that it would add another day or two to our journey, at least.”

Garrison frowned. “How long do you think it would take to climb up the trail next to the waterfall, assuming we all even could?”

Lillian looked up at it and the zig-zagging path of switchbacks carved into the stone beside it. “What time is it now?”

Garrison checked the Vostok mechanical watch he wore on his wrist. “It’s almost half past eight.”

“Then we could probably make it to the top by two or three this afternoon,” Lillian figured.

Castor let out a long, low whistle. He was sitting on a log behind us next to Samara, while Polly was resting on the ground nearby.

“That is quite the difference,” Castor said.

“Lillian is only speculating,” Garrison countered. “We don’t know for sure how long it will take, and if that climb up alongside the waterfall is steep and slippery, making it treacherous, that could take us a lot longer. I mean, how tall is this waterfall anyway?”

“According to the inset on my atlas, it has a drop of nearly a kilometer,” Lillian said. “The trail up, with all those switchbacks, would probably be six to seven times as long as that. So, maybe five kilometers.”

“It seems obvious then,” I said. “Five kilometers versus forty. Even if it’s an intense hike, we can take plenty of breaks and still make it up by nightfall. It’s a no-brainer.”

“Maybe for you.” Garrison gave me a hard look. “Have you even asked Stella if she thinks she’s up for something so arduous?”

I looked back over to where she was sitting on a large rock. Max was behind her, rubbing her shoulders, and she was leaning forward against her walking stick. Her auburn hair was pulled up in a messy bun, and her cheeks were flushed and sweaty.

“I would like to at least try the steep trail next to the waterfall,” Stella said, sounding more energized than she looked. “It’s better for everyone if we get to the town sooner.”

“If we go on the steep path, we’ll camp out at the top, and we’ll be able to make it to Emberwood by tomorrow evening,” I reasoned. “Tomorrow. Then this long road would be completely behind us.”

“I vote for the steep path,” Stella said.

“Are you sure?” Max asked her. “I don’t want you pushing yourself too hard. Another couple days won’t make that much of a difference.”

“We have time to take lots of breaks, and we’ll still be way ahead of schedule,” Stella said. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“I think we should take the steep path, too,” Castor agreed.

“Me, too,” Samara added and gave her father an apologetic smile. “It really does seem like the best option, even if it’s not quite ideal.”

“I agree,” Serg said. “It will be tough, but we will all help each other, and we can go as slow as needed.”

“I am voting for whichever one is faster,” Polly grumbled from where she laid on the ground. The hood of her sweatshirt was pulled down over her eyes to keep the sun out, but she was apparently awake enough to contribute to the conversation.

Garrison looked back at me and Lillian, his pale eyes sad and defeated. “I know where you two stand.” Then he turned his attention toward Boden and Max. “Come on. You both have to know that it’s not safe for Stella.”

“This is what she wants,” Max justified. “It’s what everybody wants. We ought to at least try it.”

Garrison’s shoulders sagged, and Samara came over and put her hand on his back. “Come on, Dad. We’ll all help each other.”

He forced a smile at her. “I know, sweetie. Let’s go.”

We all gathered up our things and made our way toward the steep trail. Near the bottom was a faded but clearly official sign reading Grizzly Falls: Watch for Bears and Slippery Rocks, and then below it, written in red paint, someone had added the words and zombies.

Next to the official sign was a much smaller wooden one with only the word Emberwood painted on it along with a white arrow pointing toward the trail.

Once we got on the pathway, it didn’t seem quite as steep or bumpy as we’d feared, but it was very, very narrow. The width was just barely enough for one person to walk on it. It was carved into the stone of the cliffside, varying between smooth incline and shallow steps.

We went up in a single line, and we chose our order carefully since there really wasn’t room to change it. Lillian led the way, with Castor right behind. Then it was Samara, with Garrison between her and me, so we could both help him if he needed it. Behind me was Max, and Stella was sandwiched between him and Boden, so they could both help her. After them, it was Serg, and Polly requested to go at the very end. Castor had wanted her to walk next to him, but she had insisted on going last.

“My stomach still isn’t right from the boat,” Polly said. “I’m gonna need to stop more than the rest of you, and I don’t think anyone is gonna wanna stand around and wait while I do what I will need to do.”

Nobody argued with her after that, so we began the climb up. Ripley charged on ahead, leaping up to the path crisscrossed above us, and she made the whole thing appear effortless.

It was not as easy for the rest of us, but I don’t think it was as bad as Garrison feared. If the path wasn’t so narrow, it might even have been almost nice. The sun grew hotter as we hiked, but when we did the hairpin turns near the waterfall, the mist was quite refreshing.

“How are you doing, Dad?” Samara asked Garrison.

“Oh, not too bad,” he answered in a tight voice. “I’ve just always been afraid of heights. That’s why I stuck to trains and boats instead of getting planes.”

“You collected model trains and boats. How could you not handle model planes?” Samara asked, teasing.

“Well, I suppose that I never liked them because I associated them with heights,” Garrison replied.

“Wait. Didn’t you propose to Mom at the top of the Empire State Building?” Samara asked, turning dubious.

“They had a fence around the edge of the building so you can’t fall off,” her father explained. “And I loved your mom, and she loved An Affair to Remember, so I did what I had to do.”

“What’s An Affair to Remember?” Castor asked.

Lillian laughed. “It’s a very old movie, and it’s quite romantic. A pair of lovers vow to meet again on the Empire State Building after a torrid affair.”

“Careful. There’s zombie guts up ahead,” I said, pointing to them.

The trail was much too narrow and steep for zombies to navigate with their clumsy, jerking steps, tottering around like enraged drunks on damaged limbs. But that didn’t stop them from trying apparently.

There were no moving zombies on the trail, but the pathway was littered with viscera and broken bones. The zombies would evidently make it up high enough that when they inevitably fell, they crashed into the stone and exploded like overfilled water balloons.

The slippery guts were honestly the most difficult part, as well as maneuvering around the litter left behind by other uninfected travelers. Jackets and bags, either accidentally dropped or abandoned, and trash like chicken bones, broken bottles, soiled underwear, and tattered blankets were left behind.

“There must be quite a few people in Emberwood to leave so much trash behind,” Max said. “It’s gonna be so strange to be around so many people.”

“It will be different, but you’ll get used to it,” Boden said from behind us. “It’ll be good.”

By late afternoon, we were nearly three-quarters of the way up, and everyone was doing really good. We stopped often, mostly for Stella or Polly, and the rest of us had been enduring it well.

As we got closer to the top, the eastern most turns of the switchback drew even closer to the waterfall. We never quite touched it, but the mist was enough to dampen our clothes.

“It is absolutely gorgeous here,” Samara said breathlessly as she paused at the turn to marvel at it. “I never imagined I’d be this close to a waterfall.”

She smiled and laughed. Her straight black hair was in a loose fishtail braid over her shoulder, but a few errant strands were stuck to her damp cheeks. As she turned back toward the trail, her shoes slipped on the wet stones, and she fell.

“No!” Garrison shouted, and he lunged for her. In the process, his own feet skidded on the rocks, and he tumbled forward.

Samara had managed to grab onto a rocky edge of the trail with both her hands, and the only thing that would catch her if she fell was the river half a kilometer down. Castor knelt at the edge and grabbed her hand.

When I reached them, I peered over and saw that Garrison was hanging off Samara. The watch he wore on his wrist had gotten caught on her backpack somehow, and he was dangling from that off of her.

“Hang on, Garrison!” I yelled, and I reached over to the edge to try to grab his hand. “Max, hang onto my legs so I don’t go over!”

Max did as I instructed, and I laid on my stomach, so I could stretch my arms as far as I could. Below us, the water churned furiously, and the mist sprayed in my eyes. Garrison’s free hand was flailing wildly, and I grabbed onto it with both of mine.

“I got him!” I shouted. “Max, pull me back!”

“I’m trying!” Max yelled, and I could feel him pulling on my legs, trying to slide me back down the trail.

“Oh, shit, she’s slipping!” Castor shouted in dismay.

“Don’t let me go!” Samara cried.

“I won’t!” Castor promised her, but I wasn’t so sure that he would be able to keep it.

The path was too narrow for anyone else to get around to help us, and Max’s grip on me and Lillian’s grip on Castor was enough to keep the two of us from going over with Samara and Garrison, but not much more. Everyone’s hands were slick from the mist, and Samara and Garrison’s bags were overloaded and weighing them down. Castor and I just didn’t have enough working in our favor to be able to pull up two grown adults over the edge of that sheer drop.

“Remy, save my little girl,” Garrison said, looking up at me with tears glistening in his eyes. “Let go of me, so that you can pull her up.”

“Dad, no!” Samara protested, but I could see Castor struggling to keep his grip on her.

Garrison let go of my hand, but I still hung on.

“Make sure she makes it to Emberwood, please,” he asked me.

“I will,” I told him, and his hand started to slip out of mine, so I let it.

“No, Daddy! Hang on!” Samara screamed, but when I reached for her hand, she took mine, gripping it tightly.

Garrison hadn’t fallen yet, because his watch was still hooked on her bag. He reached up with his free hand and undid the clasp. Within a second, his hand slipped free, and he plummeted downward. He bounced off the edge of the cliff with a wet thwock, and then disappeared in the dark water below.

As soon as he’d slipped free, I had felt the weight lighten. With both Castor and I working together to pull up only Samara, it didn’t take long for us to get her safely up onto the trail again.

Samara was wailing by then, crying for her dad, and Castor held her close to him.

I leaned back against the stone wall and exhaled roughly.

“Are you okay?” Max asked me.

“Yeah,” I said, and I put my arm around him, because I could.

18

Stella

There were still hours left of light when we reached the top of the waterfall, but we would go no further today. About halfway, the burning pain in my thighs had turned into a cold numbness, and the stunning view often pitched to the side with my dizziness.

But I had made it to the top, with my walking stick and Max and Boden. Even with all my aches and pains – and they were numerous and severe – I still had not suffered as much as Samara.

She had eventually gotten moving again, after crying for a very long time. After that, she had lapsed into an eerie, vacant silence, but she kept on going.

Castor was taking care of her, and when we reached the top, he brought her over to rest in the cool shade of a tree. I sat down on a flat rock right near the path simply because I didn’t want to walk any farther. I leaned against my walking stick and tried not to think about anything at all.

Everyone took a break, because we all desperately needed it. Instead of the usual chatting or disagreements, we hardly spoke.

“We need to find somewhere to camp out for the night,” Lillian said, the first to break the long silence. “Those of you that need to continue your respite, you should do so, but the rest of us need to get firewood and find somewhere that we aren’t so exposed.”

“There’s trees and a rocky outcropping over there,” Remy said, motioning to the cluster just off to the west of where she sat.

So, she, Boden, Serg, Lillian, and Castor went off in search of a safe haven for the night. That left me, the nearly catatonic Samara, and the sickly Polly, along with Max who stayed back to help us.

“Are you okay?” Max asked me softly. “Do you want something to eat? You haven’t had much today.”

“I’m fine,” I said, because the mere thought of food made me want to retch. “Why don’t you check with Samara or Polly? They need help.”

“No, I don’t need any help,” Polly snapped. She was on the ground with her hooded sweatshirt bunched up underneath her head like a pillow, so she lay in a tank top on the dirt. “I just need to get some sleep.”

“Go ahead. We won’t bother you,” Max said, sitting down beside me. “I’ll just take in this view while I can.”

I glanced over at Samara, staring off at nothing, and I hoped that she would be okay. But I didn’t know how to help her, especially not right now when I could hardly even think straight.

Ripley had a much easier time than the rest of us, but even she seemed tired, laying nearby and licking her paws.

The others had only been gone a short while when the lion suddenly perked up her ears and stood up. Max got up more slowly, and he grabbed his billhook knife.

Ripley growled, and Serg walked out from the trees with his hands up. “Easy, kitty. It’s just me.”

“How are things?” Max asked.

“Good. I’m actually here to get you all because we found a nice little cave to shelter in for the night,” Serg explained.

That all sounded good, except that Ripley still hadn’t relaxed, even when she saw that it was just Serg. She was staring past him, into the trees, and her tail swished in agitation.

“Something’s wrong,” I said, but then we all heard the crunching branches.

A huge grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) came barreling out of the woods, running toward where we were resting by the waterfall.

“Oh, shit,” Serg said, and he dove out of the way just as the bear took aim at Ripley.

The lioness was half his size, but she ran at him, fearless and ferocious. That seemed to startle the bear. His eyes were already wide and bulging, and he stumbled backwards.

Ripley kept running at him, and when he turned, she swatted her paws against his backside.

Remy with her crossbow and Boden with his machete came out of the trees as the lion chased the bear off. Remy took aim, but she didn’t fire, and soon, both Ripley and the bear were out of sight through the trees.

“So that’s why they call it Grizzly Falls,” Max said.

“Are you all okay?” Boden asked. “Was anybody hurt?”

“I think we’re all okay,” I said.

“Let’s get back to the cave and get a fire going,” Remy said.

The cave was nestled in the small thicket of trees about five meters from the waterfall, and the rapid river that fed it. It wasn’t that large – maybe half the size of a school bus – and the ceiling was just tall enough that Boden and Serg could enter without ducking.

The roof of the cave was covered in a downy-looking moss, and when Boden saw it, he commented, “It looks like a hobbit hole.”

Lillian, Serg, and Max all laughed at that, and later Max told me it was from the big fantasy book he’d read last summer.

“Careful, there is bear scat and diarrhea around here,” Lillian said.

“Are we safe here if this is a bear’s home?” Samara asked. The charging grizzly had snapped her somewhat out of her stasis.

“We’ll make a fire, and we’ll have Ripley to scare them away,” Remy assured me.

I wasn’t sure if that was safe, but I was in no place to argue. Max laid out my bedroll in a flat spot near the back of the cave, and I laid down as soon as I could.

On my side, with an old shirt bunched up between my knees, I watched as Ripley returned a short time later, looking no worse for the wear. Samara, Max, and Castor “cleared” the cave as best they could, sweeping out debris and chasing off the spiders. The others gathered firewood and got the fire going near the mouth of the cave.

Except for Polly. She lay down on the ground across from me. Her brother offered to roll out her bedroll so she’d be comfortable, but she insisted that the cold ground felt better. Her skin was red from an apparent sunburn, so she had that on top of everything else.

At least Polly fell asleep almost right away, and fortunately, I wasn’t very far behind. Max woke me up once, trying to get me to eat, but I just couldn’t stomach food then.

“You need your strength. You should eat,” he pressed. The flames flickering across his face amplified the worry in his gray eyes.

“I need my sleep,” I insisted. “We’re going to Emberwood tomorrow, and I’ll make it until then.”

“Okay. Get some rest.” He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “I love you.” Then he bent down and kissed my belly. “I love you, too, little one.”

“We love you, too,” I murmured and closed my eyes again.

Thanks to the baby sitting on my bladder, I woke up plenty of times to pee. Mostly, everyone else was asleep through the night, except for whoever was keeping watch. First Remy, then Boden, followed by Serg, and lastly, Lillian. Ripley lay just outside of the cave, sleeping under the stars.

Once when I woke up, Samara was crying softly while Castor rubbed her back. The next time I got up for a bathroom break, Serg was having a nightmare, and Boden was waking him and comforting him. The time after that, Polly was tossing and turning, so I asked if she needed anything, and she just snapped at me to leave her alone.

The final time I woke up, and I crept outside to do my business in a nearby bush, the sky was showing the first hint of the approaching dawn. Lillian was tending the fire, and she gave me a tired smile as I went by her on my way back to my bed between Max and Polly.

When I had left, I’d thought that Polly was asleep, but now she was moving around, almost as if she was writhing.

“Polly?” I whispered. “Are you okay?”

Suddenly, she lifted her head and glared at me with feral, bloodshot eyes. “No!” Polly snarled.

“Oh, no, you’re a zombie,” I realized, and she dove at me. I swung at her with my walking stick, and she fell backward against the wall of the cave.

“What are you doing?” Castor yelled in dismay.

“She’s a fucking zombie!” Remy shouted, and she was up and racing across the cave with Lillian’s axe in hand.

Everything after that happened so quickly. Max grabbed me and pulled me back out of the way. Castor tried to stop Remy, but Boden grabbed him and held him back. Remy went at Polly with the axe, hitting her three times with a slick, wet whacking sound, and I threw up in my mouth.

“What did you do?” Castor was howling as Polly’s body lay on the ground twitching.

Remy bent over and pulled up Polly’s pant leg, revealing a festering bite wound on her ankle. Then Remy straightened up and glared at Castor with his sister’s blood splattered on her face.

“She must’ve been bitten on the boat,” Remy said. “Did you know about that? Did you help her hide it and put us all in danger?”

“No! I didn’t know!” Castor collapsed to his knees after Boden released him. "I didn’t know. I just thought she was sick.”

Remy dropped the axe and wiped the blood off her face with the sleeve of her shirt. “Sorry. But it had to be done. She wasn’t your sister anymore.”

19

Remy

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and our long stretch of warm, sunny days was coming to an end. All the while that we had been walking, the weather had been near perfect, so it wasn’t surprising that our luck had finally turned. And holy shit, how it turned.

The cave echoed with the sounds of people crying and screaming, but my focus was on the mangled body slumped at my feet. Three jagged axe wounds split open her forehead, her cheek, and just above her left ear. Her blood pouring out all over my bare feet was still red, instead of the green it would have eventually become. Her face was contorted in a final, permanent expression of rabid anger and hunger, but it still looked like it belonged to Polly.

“Remy?” Max asked, and I wondered dimly how long I had been staring down at the body since the outburst.

“It’s going to rain, and everybody is awake. We should get going, so maybe we can stay ahead of the weather for a little while,” I said. “Put on any rain gear if you have it.”

“Are you okay?” Boden asked, and he moved closer to me, peering down at me with concern.

“Yeah. I’m fine. I just don’t want to waste any more time today.” I brushed past him to the mouth of the cave, and I gave Lillian her axe back. “I need to get washed up.”

The river wasn’t too far, and it was light enough that I could see the way. I knew that there could be bears or zombies or even a rabid raccoon, but I couldn’t force myself to care in that moment. All that mattered was getting Polly’s blood off me.

It wasn’t even about a possible infection. I was immune to the zombie virus, and that fact had been proven again and again when I had been held as a lab rat at the government quarantine.

“Normally, when the virus is exposed to blood in a petri dish, it rushes toward it,” Dr. Daniels had explained to me once, about what he’d discovered while I was being experimented on. “But with you, it only interacted with your blood when it accidentally came in contact with it.

“It tried to attack your blood, the way I’d seen it do before,” he continued. “But when it engulfed your cells, the virus acted strangely. Instead of expanding and growing, latching onto things and mutating them, it moved erratically. It stopped moving or interacting with anything, so essentially, it died.”

It was not the fear of infection or my own mortality that drove me down to the river. I just had to get her blood off of me. I couldn’t stand how warm and sticky it felt as it dried on my skin.

I waded out into the shallow edge of the river, so I could clean off my toes, and I crouched down so I could wash it off my hands and face and neck. The water was frigidly cold, but I didn’t mind.

My chest hurt because my heart was beating too fast, and I could barely get the air down in my lungs no matter how desperately I tried gulping it down.

Suddenly, I slipped and fell into the river. I grabbed onto a sturdy reed along the shore before I could get swept down to the waterfall, and I crawled back up the bank.

The cold shocked something out of me, and I could breathe again.

I wrung out my clothing to remove as much excess water as I could, then I headed back to camp. Everyone was slowly gathering their things. Even Castor was managing with the help of Samara.

“Aren’t you going to change into something dry?” Boden asked when I came back and started pulling on my socks and shoes.

“It’s going to rain, so there’s no point,” I replied flatly. “The hike will take a few hours. I’ll be fine.”

Boden sighed. “Okay.” He walked away, and I never looked up at him.

We left the cave behind as dark clouds blotted out the sunrise. The sky was gray, and beyond the wooded area we’d camped out in, the land was barren and flat. At one time, fairly recently by the look of the stumps, this had been a thick forest, but all of the trees had been cut down.

A well-worn dirt path ran between the lost forest of felled trees. Midmorning, when the rain started, it quickly turned to mud that slipped and squelched under my shoes. Soon it came down hard enough that we couldn’t see more than half a kilometer in front of us.

Complicating the matter was the fact that we could not hurry given the state of our group. Castor was practically a zombie himself, stumbling along as Samara led him down the path by his hand. How she could manage that after what she’d gone through the day before, I have no idea.

Garrison’s watch was loose around her wrist. I had caught Samara staring at it a few times and struggling to hold back tears.

And there was Stella. Max walked at her side, holding her arm, while she used the walking stick in her other hand. She was setting the pace for the group, which meant she was the one slowing us all down.

“Come on, Stella,” I urged. “We’re so close. Let’s give it your all so we can get there.”

“What the hell, Remy?” Max snapped.

“Jesus, Remy,” Boden added in exasperation. “Everyone is already giving their everything! We’ll get there when we get there.”

“Oh, I am so sorry that I want all of us to survive and not get taken out by hypothermia or zombies or bears,” I replied glibly.

“The rain is letting up,” Lillian argued. “We’ll all be fine.”

“We are not all fine,” Samara said sharply.

“Can everyone just please stop yelling?” Stella asked, sounding tired and angry. “Everything is horrible enough without all the fighting!"

“Do you need to take a break?” Max asked her gently.

“No, I need everyone to just shut up and keep moving!” Stella shouted. “Please!”

Everyone fell silent after that, much to my relief, and over the next ten minutes or so, the rain slowly tapered off. It was still foggy, so we couldn’t see that far in front of us, but at least it wasn’t so cold or wet.

But of, course, good things couldn’t last forever. In the distance, I heard the groan of a zombie. Stella couldn’t really hurry up, but it turned out that didn’t really matter, because a group of zombies suddenly appeared from the fog, heading right toward us.

20

Stella

The zombies were fast, faster than any I had seen in years. I remember them being so quick when I was younger, in my early days with Max and in the few flashes I have of the time before I met him. They were like lightning made of shadows, darting from behind buildings and out from trees.

But that had been so long ago. The zombies that wandered around the lakehouse were lumbering and decaying, and I sometimes wondered if they were more in search of death than in pursuit of food.

With the zombies running toward us, there was no mistake. Their gnashing teeth and frenzied snarls with greedy hands outstretched in front of them, they were the hungriest beings I had ever seen.

Boden let go of Ripley’s leash – not that I think he could’ve held her if he tried – and she immediately lunged at the zombies. Everyone sprang into action, getting their weapons, and they went at the zombies.

Remy grabbed the machete and ran at them headfirst, while Boden was a few steps back with the crossbow. Serg with his spear and Max with his billhook knife stayed near me. I couldn’t run very fast or very long, especially not in this muddy terrain. I planted my feet and wielded my walking stick like a staff.

Serg and Max were excellent with their weapons, taking off a zombie’s head and stabbing another through the heart before they had a chance to sink their teeth into anyone.

When a zombie did make it between them, I swung my stick and knocked it back. I jammed my stick into its chest, to puncture the heart and kill it, but the ribs wouldn’t give. Ripley spotted me struggling, and she grabbed the zombie by the legs and dragged it away to finish it off.

The world suddenly pitched to the side, but I was still standing on my feet. The dizziness crashed over me, and I leaned on my walking stick as a familiar sensation hit me.

“No, not now,” I whispered, as if I could hold back the impending seizure with sheer force of will.

But I couldn’t. All I could really do was scream Max’s name. His eyes met mine, and I lost myself to an explosion of pain and light inside my brain.

The seizures I had been getting the last few months were not things that I could remember when they were over. There was only pain, and then time suddenly jumped forward.

Before I opened my eyes again, I knew that I was moving, with a chilly wind stinging my face. When I opened them, I realized that I was in Boden’s arms, and he was jogging down the muddy trail.

My mouth tasted like dried blood, and I had the intense full body aches and tiredness that always came afterwards. But there was also a sharp pain in my abdomen, just underneath my belly. With every step Boden took, the pain flared.

“Stop,” I said weakly, and he immediately did.

“She’s awake!” Boden announced, and suddenly Max and Remy were there. Beyond them, I could see Serg, Lillian, Castor, and Samara standing nearby.

“Put me down,” I said.

“Are you sure –” Boden began.

“Put me down!” I repeated more forcefully, and he finally complied and set me carefully on the ground. The pain in my belly lessened but didn’t fully go away.

“Do you want your stick?” Max asked, holding it out to me, and I took it from him gratefully.

“The zombies are gone?” I asked, because I didn’t hear or see them anywhere. All around us were just the tree stumps, except for a kilometer straight ahead, where a tall fence blocked our path. “We’re almost to Emberwood?”

“Yeah.” Max smiled at me and put a hand on my back. “We made it, Stella.”

“Let’s go then,” I said.

“Are you sure you should walk?” Remy asked.

“I’ll be fine,” I insisted.

I cradled one arm around my stomach and leaned against the walking stick with the other. Between my exhaustion and the sharp pains, I couldn’t move fast, but I knew I could get there on my own two feet.

At the end of the trail was a sign that said Welcome to Emberwood. A fence ran all around the town, and it had to be at least six or seven meters tall. The bottom meter was made of stone, concrete, and broken glass, while the five or so above it was made of vertical logs. The tops were sharpened to a point, and barbed wire was wrapped all around the logs.

As we approached the gate, I saw a smaller sign warning of an examination upon entrance and that all animals must be secured.

Lillian, Samara, and Castor jogged on ahead of the rest of us, and they reached the gate first and started pounding on it.

Boden made sure he had a secure grip on Ripley’s leash, and the gate opened. Two people came out wearing full body suits that reminded me a bit of astronauts. Except the helmets were made of the same thick fabric as the rest of the suit, and the only window for the eyes was a small, plastic rectangle. Instead of the typical white of a spacesuit, they were a dirty, faded yellow color. When the people who wore them spoke, their voices were muffled and robotic sounding.

“You will all be separated for examination. If you show any signs of infection, you will be denied entry,” they explained in their alien, neutral tone. “You will all be separated for examination. If you show no signs of infection, you will be welcomed into Emberwood.”

“Can I stay with her?” Max asked

“You will be separated –” they started to repeat, but Max held up his hand to stop them.

“Yeah, I got it,” he snapped.

They sent us down a narrow pathway between the exterior stone and wood fence and an interior chain link fence, and Max hung onto my hand for as long as he could. Ahead were a row of small sheds, and it wasn’t until we stopped at the first one that the separation they’d warned of began. They directed me to go through the door into one, and Max squeezed my hand and promised he’d see me soon.

The little shacks were made of sheet metal, and they had no windows. They did, however, have electricity, and they were lit by a bright white light. A folding chair sat in the center, and in one corner, there was a basin with clean water and a mirror above it. In the other corner, there was a bucket of sawdust for waste.

“Sit down and someone will be with you soon,” the people in the spacesuits said, and they closed the door behind them.

I stripped down to the bandeau bra and boxer shorts I’d made from the clothes I had outgrown at the lakehouse. The fabric had clouds and rainbows of the little girl who had loved them before me.

The door opened without a knock, and someone in a space suit came in carrying a tacklebox. They shut the door behind them, and with their gloved hand, they pulled out a thermometer.

“You can sit if you want. I need a few vitals,” they said.

“I can’t. It hurts to sit or straighten up,” I said. All I could comfortably do was lean against my walking stick.

They quickly took my temperature, my blood pressure, and checked my pupils, along with a few other tests that I didn’t understand. Then, much to my surprise, they pulled off their helmet, and revealed a woman with a round, kind face. Her dark hair was graying at the temples, and her tentative smile was comforting.

“You have a fever, but no other signs of infection,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Stella.”

“How old are you, Stella?”

“I turned fifteen in June.”

“Do you know how far along you are in your pregnancy?”

“A little over seven months, I think,” I said.

“Stella, you are sick, but I think you know that,” she said gently. “My name is Jovie Galaway, and I’m a midwife. I want to help you.”

Tears formed in my eyes. “Really?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “I’ll leave you to get dressed, and then we’ll get you out of here. Okay?”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

She left, and I dressed as hurriedly as I could. The ache underneath my belly made it difficult. I ran my hand along my bare skin, and I felt a wound. My fingertips were red with blood.

My heart dropped, and I looked to the mirror. I couldn’t see under my belly, so I stood on my tip toes, lifting it up and tilting back until I could see it in the reflection. The waistband of my boxers were red with blood straight beneath my belly button, and I could see the shape of teeth, small but clear.

A zombie had bitten me.

21

Remy

I could hear Ripley grumbling through the shed walls as I hurried to get dressed after my exam. When I tried the door, I half-expected it to be locked even though they had told me that I was free to go. Just being in a cramped box like this with too bright of lights reminded me of my time in my last quarantine zone, but I never let myself think about that anymore.

The door opened, and the person in the HAZMAT suit that had cleared me was waiting to tell me how to enter the town. I didn’t ask how anyone else was doing, mostly because I didn’t think they would tell me, so I just got out of the shed and raced to find my family.

Max was the first, waiting in an area with benches surrounded by a chain link fence. Boden and Serg were calming Ripley, who was tolerating her leash okay, but she always got restless when she was caged. The others were milled about – Lillian, Samara, and Castor – but Stella wasn’t there.

“Max!” I ran and hugged my brother, but he didn’t really hug me back.

“I don’t know where Stella is,” he said before I even released him.

“She’ll be here soon,” I said. “Everyone else is.”

The gates to the cage opened, and a well-dressed man greeted us with a hundred-watt smile. He was white and appeared to be in his late forties, with dark thinning hair. He was slight for a man, but he stood tall in a flashy pair of leather boots with heels.

“Good afternoon, folks,” he said with a warm drawl. “I am Vaughn Douglas, the democratically elected mayor of Emberwood for nine years running. Since it is your first time here, I am happy to be the one to explain to you how things work here in our blessed little hamlet.”

“We’re not all here yet,” Max said. “Where is Stella?”

“Stella is the pregnant young woman that is with you?” Vaughn asked, and Max nodded. “She has been taken by our wonderful midwife Jovie Galaway to her clinic. As you likely were aware, Stella arrived here in need of medical attention. Jovie runs a fantastic little clinic that focuses on the treatment during pregnancy and when children are young, and she truly is the best help you can get for a woman in Stella’s condition in these times. With that said, Jovie wanted me to pass along to you that Stella is currently stable, and she is getting the care she needs.”

“I need to be with her,” Max said, stepping out away from me. “She’s sick and scared and carrying my baby. Take me to her. Please.”

“Certainly.” Vaughn looked back over his shoulder, and he motioned to a slender young man waiting in the wings. “This is my alderman, Wilder Cruz.”

Wilder had light brown skin, delicate features, and his black hair was slicked back into a short ponytail. His suit was perfectly tailored in a stiff, dark crimson fabric, and it reminded me vaguely of a barbershop quartet.

“I will be happy to take you directly to Jovie’s clinic,” Wilder told Max, and gestured for him to follow him.

“I should go, too.” I started after him, but Vaughn held up his hand to stop me.

“Jovie’s clinic gets crowded easily, and there is so much to go over about Emberwood,” Vaughn said. “It is best if newcomers have the tour if they can, especially since two of your family members are missing it.”

“Will we be able to see Stella right after the tour?” Boden asked before I could start putting up a fight.

“I will take you straight to Jovie’s the moment we are done,” Vaughn promised us, and he made a motion like he was crossing his heart.

I relented and stepped back beside Boden. Vaughn went around, doing quick introductions with all of us. When we had finished, the mayor said, “There is just one thing I need to know before we begin. Are you moving to Emberwood, or are you only here on a visit?”

“We’re all moving here,” Lillian answered for the group, and I didn’t correct her because I really had no idea how long we would be here.

“That is excellent news.” His smile widened. “We have many housing opportunities for newcomers. All we ask is that you contribute to the community. Now let’s begin!”

About the same time as we were entering, a group of hunters were returning carrying two large bear carcasses behind them.

“We try not to hunt too many bears, because they help control the local zombie population, but we are having a great feast tomorrow night!” Vaughn explained exuberantly. “You’ve all arrived at just the perfect time.”

He stepped back and spread his arms wide, like a great showman. “Welcome to Emberwood!

“Back before the zombies changed everything, this was a sleepy little hamlet called Baptiste,” Vaughn explained. “It started off as a trading post for the hunters and loggers back in the 1800s. Until about a decade ago, it had been little more than a few houses, a post office, a general store, and a church.

“Most of the original residents were lost to zombies, unfortunately, but the cold impedes the virus, so ingenious survivors decided to make this somewhere people could live again,” he went on. “This town is flanked by a cliff to the south, a river to east, and a mountain to the north, so it is hard for zombies to enter. We have fenced in an area of fifty acres, and nearly three thousand people live here.

“We have markets, greenhouses, schools, clinics, and much more,” Vaughn boasted. “Some of the original buildings here have electricity through solar power, but we are expanding that with wind power in the future.

“That right there is the mayor’s office.” Vaughn pointed to a church. “It also houses my apartment in the back, a storm shelter in the basement, and jail cells, though they are rarely needed. Behind that is the town garage where we have a very small fleet of electric vehicles that we can use for special circumstances.

“That right there is an old post office, but now it’s sort of a culture center.” The mayor pointed to a squat log cabin-style building with a sign out front painted to say The Athenaeum of Emberwood.

The front door was open, and I could hear music softly playing inside, along with the sweet scent of tea and pastries.

“There’s live music and books to buy or rent, and on Fridays, they even play movies,” Vaughn was explaining, but the music caught me, and I tuned him out.

It was an old Britney Spears song that I hadn’t heard in years, and it was being sung by a very familiar baritone.

“Remy, where are you going?” Boden asked as I walked towards the music.

“I’ll be right back,” I called over my shoulder, and I jogged into the Athenaeum.

In the center of the room, a man sat on a stool with an acoustic guitar across his lap as he played a bluesy cover of “Toxic.” As he strummed, he looked up and saw me, and he smiled.

It was Lazlo Durante, and he was alive and well.

22

Remy

I had been trying not to worry about him all summer, ever since he had failed to show for our scheduled meet at the old farmhouse. I hadn’t even let myself think about all the things that could’ve befallen him, and for the most part, I had been able to avoid it all because I was so focused on everything with Stella and Max.

But now, as Lazlo stood before me, a rush of emotion came over me. It was as if the dam that had been holding back all my darkest fear suddenly burst, and for a horrible moment, I felt too much.

Lazlo’s smile fell, and he hurried to close the distance between us. A sob escaped my lips because I couldn’t contain it.

“Hey, Remy, are you okay?” he put a hand on my shoulder, and his dark eyes were filled with concern. “Did something happen?”

“I thought you were dead,” I admitted, and he pulled me in for a hug.

“I’m sorry,” he said thickly. “My homestead caught on fire in the winter, and we all managed to get out alive, along with some of the animals, but we had to get here before the cold got us, and I couldn’t go back to the old farmhouse to meet you or leave you a note.”

“Your homestead burned down?” I asked, and I released him so I could look him in the face as we talked. “What happened?”

I had never been to his homestead, but I knew that he lived on a nice property that his partner had owned before the virus. It was already set up to be self-sufficient, with livestock, gardens, and solar panels, so Lazlo and his family had been doing well for themselves.

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you another time,” he replied vaguely. “But what are you doing here? Did you come looking for me?”

“No. I mean, I had hoped that I would see you again somewhere, but that’s not what brought us to Emberwood,” I said. “Stella is pregnant.”

His forehead pinched. “Stella? Isn’t she a little kid?”

“She is fifteen,” I said. “And my sixteen-year-old brother is the father.”

“Oh, shit,” Lazlo said, and then quickly corrected himself, “Or congratulations?”

“Probably both, I guess,” I said. “Stella has been sick, so we came here to get her help. The mayor says that a midwife took her or something.” I glanced around the Athenaeum, which was mostly empty other than a few people drinking tea or perusing the books on the shelves.

I lowered my voice when I spoke again anyway. “Is this place safe? Is the mayor good?”

“Yeah, this is a good place,” he assured me with a smile. “It’s safe, and life is a lot easier living in a community. Are you planning to move here?”

“I don’t know. The plan so far is to do whatever is needed for Stella and the baby, and for the time being, that means being here,” I said.

“So you just got here today?” he asked.

I nodded. “The mayor was giving us a tour when I heard you singing.”

“Well, my singing is certainly the highlight of any tour,” he said with a wry smirk, and glanced around at the mostly empty room. “Not a lot of people listen, but I’m still happy to play.”

“It is really great to hear you again,” I said. “But I should get back to the tour and see how Stella is doing. Do you know where the midwife Jovie Galaway’s place is?”

“Yeah, I do. I can take you there. This town can be a little confusing until you get used to the layout,” Lazlo said. He looked back over his shoulder and called to the bespectacled woman wiping down the tables. “I’m heading out for the day.”

“That is always allowed,” she said without looking up. “See you later, Laz.”

“Come on,” Lazlo said to me and gestured for the door. “Jovie’s clinic. There’s another clinic that treats wounds and illnesses for everybody, and some animals, actually. That one is run by a veterinarian, a nurse, and an orthopedic surgeon. Jovie just focuses on pregnancy and children under four.”

“At home, we’ve been getting by with a first aid kit and some old books, so all of that sounds like a real upgrade,” I said, even though just thinking about doctors or medical equipment made me sick to my stomach.

“Harlow lives in an apartment just over there.” Lazlo pointed, and I followed his finger past clothes hanging on the line, a chicken pen built up against a log cabin, and a stand where a vendor seemed to be selling toad kabobs.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, straining as if I could see her through the walls. “How is she? I’d really like to see her while I’m in town.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she’d love that,” Lazlo said. “She was hurt in the fire, and she had a real rough go of it for a while. But she’s doing better now. I think she’s really happy here. Her girlfriend Kimber’s working on expanding the town’s electrical grid, and they live together. Harlow just opened up her own boutique a month ago.”

“That’s really great,” I said. “Are you happy here?”

“I am.” He nodded and smiled. “Me and Nova have this tiny farm on the northern end of town. Still inside the fence, of course, but it’s just a great little bit of land to take care of. Our daughter Sage just turned four, and she’s growing up so smart and strong.”

“When you and Nova had your baby, was it here?” I asked.

“No, we had her on the homestead, but Nova had a really easy pregnancy,” Lazlo clarified. “We were also in our mid-twenties. So I don’t blame you for getting her help. Jovie has been really good with Sage when she’s gone to see her.”

We walked down the roads between small buildings made of found materials, like reclaimed wood and scrap metal, and they had been turned into surprisingly quaint homes and shops. I had forgotten about how loud life in a town could be, especially in a cramped one with livestock. People were riding bikes, horses, and donkeys down the roads, along with the other pedestrians.

“Jovie’s clinic is just over there,” Lazlo said.

But I already knew. It was a cute little two-story house with a barn roof, and Boden was standing on the covered porch out front. His expression was grim, and my heart sunk.

“Boden?” I called and jogged away from Lazlo. “Where is Stella?”

“She’s inside, and the midwife is helping her,” Boden said, and he was speaking with that tone and had that look, like what he actually wanted to say was, Don’t freak out, Remy, but he knew that would only make me freak out faster.

“Is she okay?” I asked as I went up the front steps, and Boden stood blocking the door. “Let me see her.”

“Just give me a minute. Max and Serg are with her now, so she’s not alone. But I have to tell you something first.” Boden was still speaking in that irritatingly soothing tone, and I could see the pain and fear in his eyes.

“Just fucking tell me then!” I snapped.

Boden let out a shaky breath. “Stella was bitten.”

I blinked, not understanding. “By what?”

He waited a beat. “A zombie. Earlier today. One must’ve gotten her somehow during her seizure.”

“No. She wasn’t bitten.” I shook my head. “I would’ve known. I would’ve seen it.”

He just looked at me, and I knew he was telling the truth, no matter how badly I didn’t want to believe it.

“Let me see her.” I tried to push past Boden, but when he touched my arm, I started shouting at him. “Let me see her! I raised her! She’s my kid!”

“I know. She’s my kid, too!” Boden yelled back, and he grabbed my arms to keep me from barreling into the house. “But you’ve got to calm down! Stella and Max don’t need to see you like this. So get ahold of yourself.”

Finally, I relented. I leaned against him, and we held each other. “What are we going to do?”

23

Stella

I told Max and Jovie the moment I was alone with them both. Jovie had brought me to the clinic on the back of something she called a “rickshaw,” where a person pedaling a bike pulled us on a wagon through town.

The clinic had obviously been an ordinary home before. The living room was set up like a waiting room, and Jovie led me into a dining room that had been partitioned with wood ad converted into a few small patient rooms.

I had only just laid down on the wooden bench in the patient room while Jovie laid a blanket over me, when Max came running into the house, breathless and frantic.

“Stella!” he said as he raced over to join me at the bench. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, and when I opened my mouth to say that I was, I instead heard myself blurting out, “I was bitten by a zombie.”

Max and Jovie both froze in place for a moment, too stunned to do or say anything. I pulled up my shirt and moved my belly, so they could see the bitemark for themselves. I had been hoping that I was wrong about it, but when Max flinched at the sight, my worst fears were confirmed.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I said, and Jovie finally pulled her gaze to meet mine. “I didn’t want to risk hurting anyone, but I need to make sure that you save my baby.”

By then, Max was crying softly, and he squeezed my hand. I looked at Jovie, because the only thing that really mattered in that moment was ensuring that she would take care of our baby.

“When were you bitten?” she asked.

“Earlier today. Maybe a couple hours ago,” I answered as best I could.

“Okay,” Jovie said. “I need to… I need to check some things.” She turned and walked away.

After she’d gone, I finally looked at Max, and the devastation in his face was enough to make me start crying. I tried to stay calm and collected, because I didn’t really have time to waste on emotions. Not that I wanted to feel them anyway. Underneath so much sadness and uncertainty, there was only fear. Cold, palpable, and ready to devour me if I gave it a chance.

“Maybe you’re immune, like me and Remy,” he said hopefully.

“Maybe,” I allowed, but I had never seen anyone bitten and survive. The memory of Polly’s face contorting with ravenous rage was all too fresh.

“Listen to me, Max,” I said, my voice calm but thick with tears. “We need to prepare for the worst. You have to make sure our baby is safe, no matter what else happens.”

He took a deep breath and wiped roughly at his eyes. “Okay. What do I need to do?”

Jovie returned then, carrying a logging chain in her hands. “I know this isn’t pleasant, but I have to think about the safety of the whole community.”

“So you’re gonna chain her up?” Max was appalled. “She’s not even showing any signs! She might not even be sick! It’s too soon!”

“I am supposed to banish her or execute her,” Jovie replied coolly. “This seems much kinder and more prudent.”

“It’s fine,” I said before Max could argue further. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. You all need to be safe, too.”

He nodded, but he wouldn’t look at me for a little while. Not even when Jovie suggested we move to a room at the back of the house, with a door that could lock. He helped me up and took one arm, while Jovie took the other, and we shuffled through the house.

My new room was small, with whitewashed wood paneling on the walls and floorboards that creaked underneath my feet. Pressed flowers were framed and hung on the walls, and a quilt made of patches of various red fabrics lay across the twin bed.

Max helped me into it, and Jovie made sure I was comfortable with the pillows and blankets.

And then she wrapped the chain around the wrought iron bed frame, securely locking it. When she finished with that, she took the other end of the chain and wrapped it around my ankle before locking it on. Max flinched every time it rattled, but I didn’t.

“This is just a precaution,” Jovie repeated. “I am still going to treat you until… I’ll treat you as long as I safely can. So let’s start with that wound and trying to get your blood pressure down.”

She went into another room and returned with a kit to clean and sterilize my bite wound. It hurt some, but I didn’t mind that much. I just stared up at the ceiling while Max held my hand.

Jovie had almost finished bandaging it when I heard an irritated lion’s growl followed by a thud at the door.

“What was that?” Jovie asked, clearly alarmed.

“That’s Ripley,” I said and looked to Max. “Let her in before she destroys the door.”

“Let who in?” Jovie asked.

“We have a lioness, but she’s very friendly,” I explained as Max went to open the front door.

“What?” Jovie straightened up in surprise, but I already heard the cat’s big paws on the floor.

Jovie screamed as Ripley came running into the room, her leash dragging on the floor behind her. The midwife pressed back against the wall, but the lion ignored her and instead put her paws up on the bed so she could nuzzle me.

“Sorry about that,” Boden said, and I looked up from petting Ripley to see him standing in the doorway of my room. “It’s hard to keep the cat away from the girl.”

“Are you… Stella’s family?” Jovie asked uncertainly, and he nodded. “Why don’t we step out and talk for a moment, while we let Stella and… and her cat reconnect.”

I didn’t mind because Ripley was so focused on nuzzling me. All I wanted to do was bury my face in her fur and cry and hug her as tightly as I could, because I knew she could take it.

When I looked up from her, I could see Jovie, Boden, and Max standing just outside the doorway, and the three of them talked in hushed voices. They weren’t speaking for long, but I saw Boden’s whole body sag, and I knew that they’d told him.

When they finished, he slowly walked over to my bed, and tears were swimming in his eyes. “Hey, Stella. How are you doing?”

“I don’t feel too bad,” I said with a weak smile. “Where is everyone else?”

“They’re all out getting situated in their new places,” Boden said. “But I just wanted to see how…” He paused, seeming to choke on the words, but he finally managed to get out, “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I am okay for now,” I said.

“Good. Good.” He cleared his throat. “Remy will be here real soon, and Serg won’t be far behind. He’s just getting the keys to our new place. The mayor says we’ll be right down the road from where Samara and Castor are staying.”

“That will be nice to be so close to friends,” I said, and I meant it. “Max will need all the support he can get.”

Boden’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I will always do everything I can for you, for Max, and for the baby. And Ripley and Remy will destroy anyone who even tries to hurt them. No child will ever be more loved than yours or safer in this world. I can promise you that.”

“I know, and thank you,” I said. “But I’m not gone yet, so don’t go getting all weepy.”

He blinked back tears and shook his head. “I know. I’m sorry. I should go out and wait for the others. Make sure they can find the place okay.”

He came over and kissed me on the forehead. “I love you, kiddo.” Then he hurried out of the room.

24

Remy

The first time I saw Stella, she had been so small and timid, I had thought she was younger than her seven years. Her auburn hair had been so filthy it appeared brown and was practically matted to her head.

When my brother had found her, I think she had been semi-feral from trauma. But he’d taken care of her and made her feel safe, and she had colored pictures on the walls and made toys out of glass bottles.

And then, after a long arduous journey where we almost lost Stella to an obsessed zombie, we had ended up safe at the lakehouse, and she had truly come out of her shell. She had taken to the quiet, country life immediately, caring for Ripley, foraging and gardening, making a necklace from wildflowers, and learning to sew her own clothes.

Somehow, through it all, Stella was curious, kind, generous, intelligent, hardworking, and determined. And she was only fifteen. Her whole life was still ahead of her, and she had a baby on the way.

It wasn’t right for her to be like this, in a strange room that smelled so strongly of antiseptic. Jovie’s place was clearly intended to be cozy and comforting, but that was just a poor attempt to hide that a clinic was little more than a laboratory. The walls were sterile white because it was easier to clean off blood and shit, and the scent of tree oil and caustic lye was meant to mask it all. All of the lights were so bright, like spotlights blinding me and humming with electricity.

I tried not to think about those things, or the way my stomach rolled at the sight of anything medical. The syringes and vials, even the cannister of cotton balls or a roll of sterile gauze made me nauseated.

Then I felt Boden’s hand, splayed across the small of my back. His voice was low and reassuring in my ear, “Stella’s room is this way.”

When we were still on the porch, Boden had warned me that she already had a precautionary chain around her ankle. I still wasn’t prepared for the visceral reaction I’d have when I caught a glimpse of it through the open door to her room. The second I saw it, this blinding rage burned through me, and it was literally all I could do to keep from punching something or throwing up.

“Remy.” Max’s voice pulled me from that, and I blinked to clear my head.

When I saw the heartbreak written all over his face, I had never felt more lost or overwhelmed. Not even when I had to tell him that our parents were dead.

I had no idea what to do, as every single thought inside my head vanished. I couldn’t move or speak or react at all when my brother rushed over and threw his arms around me.

“Max,” Boden said with his voice full of the warmth and empathy I wished I could’ve conveyed, and he wrapped his long arms around me and Max, hugging us both.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Remy,” Max said, his voice muddled from crying. “I don’t know what to do.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I finally managed to say, because I had to say something, and I didn’t want him to know that I had no idea what the fuck to do.

We finally parted, and I went over to Stella. She looked so tiny and frail in the bed, even with her round belly. Her hair was fanned out on the pillow around her, and she smiled weakly at me.

“Hi, Stella,” I said, because I had to start somewhere. “How are you?”

“I’m okay, all things considered,” she replied.

“What can I do to help you?” I asked.

“Just take care of Max and the baby.”

“Of course I will. There’s never been any doubt of that,” I promised her. “The same way that I’ll take care of you for as long as I can.”

“Stella, please don’t talk like that.” Max sat down on the edge of her bed, taking her hand in his. “It’s still early. We don’t know what’s going to happen yet.”

“I have an IV and fluids,” Jovie said, and she slid by me and around Max to treat Stella, since Ripley was laying on the floor on the other side of the bed. “We need to treat her preeclampsia.”

The sight of the IV made the hair stand on my neck, and all the scars that were thatched across my torso ached, as if I could suddenly feel the icy steel of the scalpel slicing me open all over again.

“I need air,” I said, and I rushed out of the room without waiting for anyone to respond.

I ran out to the front porch, leaning on the railing and gulping down air. My whole body was trembling, and I was freezing cold and covered in sweat. Tears stung my eyes, and I heard Boden’s footsteps behind me.

“Go back inside. Stella needs you,” I said without turning to look at him.

“You need me,” Boden replied quietly.

“Not like she does, and you know it. She’s dying, and I’m being overdramatic and selfish,” I insisted between ragged breaths.

He put his hand on my back, gently rubbing it and grounding me here with him. “Take a deep breath. Feel the air on your face, and my hand on your back. You’re free, and no one is going to ever experiment on you or your family again.”

“You can’t promise that,” I disagreed.

“Yes, I can,” he asserted calmly. “Don’t argue, just keep breathing.”

I tried, but a moment later I was throwing up over the railing while Boden held my ponytail back. When I finally managed to calm down, I wiped my mouth with the back of my arm, and I sat down on the bench on the porch.

“I think I’m better now,” I said, but he sat down beside me anyway. “Or at least as better as I can be.”

“It’s no problem,” he said, but I felt ashamed anyway. I hated when I couldn’t control my body like that.

“Where is Serg?” I asked. “And the others that came in with us?”

“Serg is getting our new house set up,” Boden said.

I raised my eyebrows. “We have a new house? Already? How does that work?”

“People come and go a lot around here, apparently, and the mayor likes to have new housing available for the refugees of the zombie apocalypse,” Boden elaborated. “He gave us the keys to a house on Eliot Lane, and it is just a short walk away from where Samara and Castor will be staying. They’re living together for now. I haven’t had a chance to see anything yet, because I came straight here, and Serg went on ahead so we’d have somewhere comfortable to stay tonight.”

“The five of us and Ripley will all be living together still?” I asked.

“Of course. Family stays together.”

“What about Lillian?”

“She’s staying at an inn near downtown, because she wants electricity,” he said. “Our house, and most of the houses here, don’t have any.”

“How do people pay for things around here? Is there money?”

“I think some folks are using gold or silver as currency, but mostly, it seems to be a combo of bartering, working off debts, and communal living.”

“I guess that all sounds fair enough. I’ve definitely lived worse places,” I said grimly. “We’ll be fine here for a few months.”

“Yeah, we will,” he agreed. “Do you want to go back in with Stella and Max?”

“Not yet. She needs rest, and I…” I couldn’t force myself back into the clinic, but I couldn’t admit that. I faced up against zombies no problem, but a doctor’s office had me shaking like a leaf.

“Okay,” Boden said. “I’ll just sit with you for a while.”

And so we did. The days getting here had been exhausting enough, and this particular one had already been much, much too long, and it wasn’t even nightfall yet.

Boden went in once to tell Max and Stella that we were just outside if they needed anything, but he came back to report that they were sleeping. Stella in her bed, and Max and Ripley on the floor beside her.

“Jovie is watching over them, making sure that Stella and the baby are stable, and she has other nurses and assistants to watch when Jovie is otherwise occupied,” Boden informed me when he returned. “She thinks we should get some rest. Why don’t we see if we can go find our new house and get a good night’s sleep?”

“You should do that,” I agreed. “But I’m going to stay out here.”

“On the porch? All night?” he asked.

“We’re safe in the city walls, and it’s only August,” I reasoned. “I should be fine, and I need to be close to Max and Stella.”

I thought he might argue with me and insist that I go somewhere safer to rest. Instead, he took off the flannel shirt he wore over his tee shirt and draped it over my shoulders.

“In case it gets cold tonight.” He bent down and kissed my temple. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

25

Remy

The earlier storms of the day had brought in a rather chilly night, but the sky was clear and the stars were bright. Although they were not quite as bright as I was used to out at the lakehouse. Emberwood had enough people and electricity to throw off a fair amount of light pollution, and that was definitely not something I missed about civilization.

I sat on the bench outside of Jovie’s clinic, with my legs folded underneath me and Boden’s flannel shirt tightly around me to ward off the cold. The roads directly passing by were empty and dark, outside of a few lamp posts, but the air was filled with the scent of a bonfire and the distant sounds of laughter and music.

The screen door to the clinic swung shut, and Jovie came outside carrying two mugs and a crocheted blanket underneath her arm.

“I brought you some tea with honey.” She held the mug out to me, and when I took it she handed me the blanket. “And this, in case you’re cold.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“I know.” She sat down beside me, holding her mug in two hands.

“How are they doing inside?” I asked.

“All are asleep, all are good.”

“Good.” I sipped my tea while people cheered in the distance.

“They’re having a feast to celebrate a prosperous hunting season,” Jovie explained. “Mayor Vaughn is always trying to find reasons to celebrate.”

“There are worse things to do with your life than find excuses to be happy,” I supposed.

“You don’t have to stay out here, you know,” Jovie said. “I have extra beds and cots inside.”

“I’m better out here,” I replied simply, because I didn’t know how to explain the overwhelming nausea and terror I felt stepping beyond the threshold. The bright lights, the scent of cleaners and illness, everything about it was too much.

“Boden mentioned that you couldn’t really stand to be around medical stuff,” Jovie said. “I’m not about to pry about what you’ve been through, because lord knows we’ve all been through hell. So all I am saying is that you can stay out here for as long as Stella is under my care, if that’s what’s easier for you.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly. “What do you think are Stella’s chances of surviving all this?”

“Her blood pressure is down since I’ve given her Hawthorne berries and IV fluids,” Jovie explained. “So her chances against the preeclampsia are slightly improving. But we both know that is not the worst of her issues.” She exhaled deeply. “I have never seen anyone survive a zombie bite.”

“But she doesn’t have any symptoms of infection yet,” I persisted with uncharacteristic optimism because I needed it to be true.

“That is correct,” Jovie allowed. “But it hasn’t even been twelve hours yet, and it takes at least twenty-four hours for signs to start appearing. Most people don’t go full zombie until around seventy-two hours after exposure.”

“What about the baby?” I asked. “If Stella is sick… how long before the baby is too?”

“The good news is that the fetus likely isn’t infected at all,” she said, but not in a way that sounded like it was actually good news. “The lyssavirus attacks the central nervous system, so there’s very little risk of it crossing into the placenta.”

“So what does happen to a fetus if the mother turns into a zombie?” I asked, even though I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to know.

“I saw a pregnant zombie once.” Jovie stared off into the night, her voice sounding faraway. “It was the first year after the virus, and I was still hiding out in Winnipeg. She was alone, stumbling along the road. Her pale pink maternity dress was rotting right off her, just like her flesh. Her stomach had the strangest appearance, almost like a deflated basketball. Her side had been ripped open, exposing her ribs and her rotten womb. And falling out, like tiny brittle little bird bones, was the skeletal remains of her fetus.”

“Holy fuck,” I whispered under my breath.

“When a healthy pregnant woman dies, the fetus has a matter of minutes to maybe an hour to survive without medical intervention, usually a C-section,” Jovie explained. “For our intents and purposes, a person is dead the moment they become a zombie.”

“What does all that mean for our situation?” I asked.

“As far as we can tell, Stella is about thirty-three weeks along, which is considered late preterm,” Jovie said. “It is survivable, even in our current world, but there are always risks with preterm births. To improve the baby’s chances, we should leave them where they are for as long as we are able, so they can continue to grow. But to be completely safe, we do need to take the baby before she turns into a zombie. I can’t even perform a C-section on a properly tied down zombie.”

“Is that the plan then?” I asked, after processing for a few moments. “We watch and wait and prepare, and if things go wrong, you’ll cut out the baby?”

“Yes, I think that is the best course of action,” Jovie replied. “That, and we all should rest while we can. With that in mind, I am going to head in for the night. My bedroom is on the second floor, and my assistant Eden is watching over Stella. Feel free to come get either one of us if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” I said again, and she got up and started toward the clinic. “Can I ask you something before you go in?”

She paused and looked back at me. “Sure.”

“How bad is Stella’s preeclampsia, really?” I asked. “Like, if we hadn’t left our home and walked all the way here, how do you think she would be doing right now?”

“It’s hard to say, because I know she’s under stress from all the recent activities. But if you’re asking if she would’ve been better off if you never left your home?” Jovie gave me a sympathetic look and shrugged. “Maybe, but women and babies have died during childbirth, even in good health and with proper medicine. You didn’t make the wrong choice bringing her here just because things haven’t gone the way that you had hoped.” She smiled tiredly at me. “Good night, Remy.”

“Good night, Jovie.”

26

Stella

Music was playing from the other room, something melodic but scratchy, and I sat up slowly in the bed. At some point, Max had pulled in a chair from another room, and he was engrossed in the copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting I had taken from the lakehouse.

“What time is it?” I asked with warm sunlight spilling in through the windows.

Max looked up, startled, and he immediately set aside the book and leaned closer to me. “Stella. How are you doing? Did the music wake you? I can have Jovie turn it down or off entirely.”

“No, it’s nice. Who is it?” I asked.

“Something called Mazzy Star.” He shrugged. “Jovie thought you might find it relaxing.”

“What time is it?” I asked him again since he still hadn’t answered.

“A little after noon.”

“Noon?” Angry tears sprang in my eyes. “How could you let me sleep so late?”

“You were exhausted and needed rest,” he reasoned, sounding bewildered and hurt.

“Max, I don’t have time! I can’t sleep the day away when I only have two days left!” I shouted at him.

He lowered his eyes, and his jaw tensed. “You don’t have any symptoms. We don’t know how much time you have left.”

“That’s my point exactly!”

“I’m sorry. I just wanted you to get better.”

“I know. I’m not mad at you.” I softened and took his hand in mine. “I’m just mad because this wasn’t how any of this was supposed to go.”

He was quiet a moment. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah,” I lied, because I knew the baby needed all the strength they could get.

“I’ll go see what I can scrounge up in the kitchen.”

“Thanks.” I squeezed his hand as he stood. “Make sure you get something to eat for yourself.”

He nodded and left, and when he was gone, I let myself cry. I didn’t want him to know how scared and angry I truly was. I was utterly enraged that I had survived this long only to be bitten right before my baby was born. How unfair and cruel the world could be to take me away from my family the very moment that I create my own.

I wanted to cry and scream and burn the house down around me. But what I told Max had been true. I didn’t have enough time. No time to cry or scream or wallow. Very, very soon, I would be gone, but the baby and Max would be here. I had to help them as much as I could before I left.

Ripley had been sleeping on the floor, and she nuzzled up to me when she heard me crying. I cuddled her a moment, because time with her was never wasted, but then I had to get to work.

I grabbed the What to Expect book off the nightstand, along with a pencil. There were a few blank pages in the back, where the previous owner of the book, Erin Tremblay, had made lists of possible names. The first one included Skyler, Piper, Mason, and Ryder, and the second one was Isolde, Avalyn, and Riley.

Beneath that, I wrote my own list of names. I had picked one for a boy and one for a girl, with Max’s input, of course. But I didn’t want him to change it to Stella or Stellan if I died. I didn’t want grief or guilt to cause him to act differently than we planned.

I suddenly thought of Avalyn’s room at the lakehouse and her crayon drawings on the wall, or the pictographs drawn by ancient people on the sand dunes. All of us just making little marks letting the world know that we were here, that we had lived and felt and thought.

I hadn’t written much when Max returned carrying buttered toast for me, and Eden was following a step behind.

Jovie did most of my care, but when she wasn’t able to, her assistant Eden Tambor helped out. Eden was a tall woman with olive skin and her black hair was cut in a short blunt bob with bangs.

When we met last night, Eden saw Ripley, and she told me about how she had worked as an animal wrangler B.Z. I asked her how she ended up as a nursing assistant here, and Eden had explained that she was a transgender woman.

After she’d first arrived in Emberwood, she had gone to Jovie because she needed certain treatment so she could live comfortably in her body. Over time, Eden had repaid Jovie for her help by working at the clinic, and she learned more and more about how to help Jovie’s patients.

In my limited experience with her, she seemed quite knowledgeable, and her dark eyes were kind and clever.

“I don’t mean to bother you,” Eden said. “But there are a couple of your friends at the door. Samara and Castor. They stopped by because they know you’ve been sick. I can send them away if you want, or they can come in for a visit, if you’re feeling up to it.”

“I would like to say goodbye to them,” I said. I hadn’t gotten to know them all that well over the short time we’d travelled together, but they were still among the few friends I had in this world.

“I’ll bring them in but be sure to hide the chain and don’t mention anything about being infected,” Eden said, because Jovie had trusted her with my secret so she could help with my treatment. “You’re not supposed to be inside the walls of the city if you were.”

“I won’t say a thing,” I assured her. I didn’t want to get kicked out, and I really didn’t want to talk about zombies or dying anyway.

Eden went to fetch them, and Max set down my toast on the end table before hurriedly hiding my ankle chain underneath the blanket so no one could see it.

He sat down on the edge beside me, and Samara and Castor came in. They both looked much better than they had the last time I had seen them. Rest and security did wonders for people.

“Hey.” I smiled up at them. “It’s so nice of you to visit me. How are you doing? Are you getting settled in okay?”

“Yeah. Everyone’s been really nice so far,” Samara said. “How are you and the baby doing?”

“Oh we are…” I laughed so I wouldn’t cry. “We’re better now that we’re here.”

“It looks like you’re getting the color back in your cheeks,” Samara commented, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that was because I had a fever and my face was burning up.

“So, Max,” Castor said, sounding perplexed. “Why is your sister sitting outside and not in here with you?”

“She likes the fresh air,” Max answered flatly.

“Did you hear that your house is right down the road from ours?” Samara asked brightly, likely trying to cheer me up. “Once you’re better and in your new place, we’ll practically be neighbors. I’ll even be able to help you babysit. I’ve always been really good with kids.”

“That’s so kind of you to offer.” I looked to Max because I knew he’d be the one who needed the extra help when the baby was here and I wasn’t. “Max and I will certainly be happy to call on you.”

“Good.” Samara smiled. “Emberwood really is a nice little town, and the houses for refugees are so cute.”

“Refugees?” I asked.

“That’s what Mayor Vaughn calls us,” Castor clarified. “Refugees of the zombie apocalypse.”

“Isn’t that everyone?” I asked.

“Well, there are visitors who live elsewhere and only come here to trade, and there are citizens who have been here building it up for years,” Castor elaborated. “The refugees are the people like us, who have moved here because we had nowhere safe to live.”

“Oh,” I said, because it made sense even if it sounded strange.

“When do you think you’ll be well enough to move back to your house?” Samara absently toyed with her long hair, and the sunlight caught on the large face of her father’s mechanical watch on her wrist. “Or are you staying in the clinic until the baby is born?”

“Um, I think I’m staying until I give birth,” I said, and it was suddenly hard to talk around the lump in my throat.

I was hit by the realization that I would never actually see the house where Max and our baby would someday live. I would never see the bed our baby sleeps in, or know what the morning sunlight looks like through our bedroom window.

I would never even see our baby or know the color of their eyes.

“Stella’s really exhausted and needs her rest,” Max said, abruptly it seemed to me, but when I looked to Samara and Castor, they were blurry, and I realized that I was crying.

Max thanked them for the visit because I couldn’t and he ushered them out of the room.

“What do you need from me? What can I do?” he asked when he returned.

“Stay with me and cry with me,” I said, because that was the only thing that I could ask that he could actually give.

He climbed into bed beside me, the two of us clinging to one another, and we cried because this was awful and unfair and impossible.

Ripley and Max hardly left my side, and usually only with the prodding of someone else. Boden had to practically drag the lion out twice a day so she’d go to the bathroom, but otherwise she was nearby.

Serg came to visit, telling me all about the new house and his contributions to the town. He was cooking at the Public Cafeteria, which was where people could get a free meal once a day.

Emberwood really did sound like a nice place to live, and I tried to take comfort in knowing that I was leaving my family somewhere good, where they could thrive. And I tried not to get too jealous and angry, because I wouldn’t get to see it, because I would never get my own chance to thrive here, too.

By the evening on the third day, it was indisputable that I was sick. My head hurt so badly, I threw up if I even looked at a glass of water, and I kept yelling at Max and Jovie, even though I wanted my last hours to be kind. I just couldn’t help myself. I was so angry, and my head hurt so much, and I didn’t want to be chained to a bed anymore.

I refused all visitors at that point, except for Max and Ripley, and that was only because they wouldn’t leave if I tried. Jovie was here, too, because I needed her. She had to be here to take the baby before I died, and she was doing what she could to keep me comfortable until then. As comfortable as I could be while slowly succumbing to a virus without any real pain relief or medicine.

By then, I was too tired and too sick to fight it, and I was sleeping more than I was awake.

I woke up once, when it was dark outside the window, and my room was lit by a string of twinkling white lights. Max and Jovie wanted to make my last coherent moments beautiful, and they did appear magical with my hazy eyes. Jovie’s Mazzy Star record was playing, and it was soothing, almost lulling me off.

There was a buzzing in the back of my head, a gnawing vibration, and I knew that I didn’t have much time left.

“It’s so strange, don’t you think?” I asked, thinking aloud more than speaking to anyone directly, but Max stirred. He was lying beside me in the bed, his arm around me, and he lifted his head to look me in the face.

“What is?” he asked quietly.

“That the baby’s life will begin when mine ends. We won’t really ever live at the same time,” I said.

“No, no, don’t say that,” Max insisted. “You’ll be with me and the baby forever. I am made of you, and I’ll never stop loving you.”

“I love you,” I said, because it was already too hard to talk, too hard to think, too hard to breathe.

I closed my eyes, and the last thing I heard before going dark was the sound of Ripley growling.

27

Remy

Just before midnight, Stella fell unconscious, and Ripley left her side and cowered in the waiting room. Jovie had her assistant Eden go get Boden and Serg, because they wanted to be here for this. Once they all returned, Jovie sent Eden home, because what would happen here tonight didn’t need any more witnesses.

I stayed on the porch, trying not to think of anything. Serg hugged me before heading inside, and Boden lingered on the porch.

“Have you been inside?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. But I know Max needs me in there.”

“I’ll be right by your side the entire time, and we will survive this because we have to,” he said simply.

And he was right, so I took a deep breath and nodded, and he put his hand on my back.

We went into the house, and the lights were dim. The scent of lye and soap was overwhelming, but somehow it couldn’t mask the odor of decay I’d come to associate with zombies.

Max was softly singing a lullaby I hadn’t heard in years, the one that our mother had first sung to us, and that I had sung to him and Stella when they were younger.

In Stella’s room, she lay in her bed, appearing like a pregnant sleeping beauty. Max knelt beside her bed, holding her hand as he sang.

“Ma petite étoile,” I said, using the pet name that our mother had given him, and I knelt beside him and rubbed his back.

“What does it mean?” he asked. “This song. I don’t remember French anymore.”

“I don’t remember either,” I admitted bitterly.

“Il y a longtemps que je t'aime/Jamais je ne t'oublierai, which means, I've loved you for a long time/I will never forget you,” Jovie translated for us.

Max’s eyes were swollen and red from crying, and he looked like he’d aged several years since we left the lakehouse. But he was still my little brother, this sweet heartbroken boy, and I would’ve done anything to take his pain away.

All I could do was hold him close and let him cry. We had lost so much already, and I had held him before as he sobbed after we’d lost our parents. But this was the most visceral, anguished sound I’d ever heard him make, as if his heart was being ripped from his body.

Behind me, Boden quietly asked Jovie, “How long do we have?”

“We can hold off a bit longer, but with her breathing so labored, we shouldn’t push it too much,” Jovie said.

Max pulled away from me, sniffling and wiping his face with his sleeve. “Will it hurt the baby if we wait too long?”

Jovie cleared her throat. “Yes, the risks are higher if we wait much longer.”

He shook his head. “I can’t risk the baby. Stella would never forgive me if I did that.” His breath caught in his throat. “But I can’t…”

Max looked to me then, his face crumpling, and I understood. He knew what needed to be done, but he couldn’t be the one to say when to end the life of the girl he loved. He couldn’t be there to participate or witness it, even if he knew it was the right thing to do.

“It’s time,” I said, and I stood up first, so I could help him up.

As we walked by, Boden hugged Max and kissed the top of his head. I led Max out to the waiting room, where Ripley was hiding and Jovie’s record player could drown out the sounds. Serg had followed us out of Stella’s room after saying his own goodbyes to her, and he pulled Max in for a rough hug.

Boden stayed back to help Jovie. She could use another pair of hands, he had some medic training from the military, and it couldn’t be me. I had to squeeze my eyes shut when she brought the sterile instruments in from the kitchen.

The lion abruptly made a distressed sound and jumped to her feet. She ran toward Stella’s room before I could stop her, but I ran after her while Serg comforted Max.

“Ripley, what are you doing?” Boden asked. He reached to grab her collar, but she darted away and went over to Stella, chuffing and sniffing her.

“I cannot perform a C-section with a lion in the room,” Jovie said in dismay, and she held her hands up and stepped back from her tools.

Stella’s dress was pushed up, leaving her full abdomen exposed, but no incision had been made yet. Her skin rippled with the baby kicking and moving inside her.

“Ripley!” I called, but the cat ignored me even more than normal. She put her massive arm protectively over Stella’s chest and nuzzled her.

“What’s going on?” Max asked, standing in the doorway to her room.

“I don’t know. Ripley usually hates zombies,” I said. “I thought when she growled and ran out hours ago, it was because she smelled the virus on Stella, but now…”

“Do you think Stella is still in there?” Max pushed past us and went over to her side. “Stella?”

Ripley kept rubbing her giant head against Stella, and Max took her hand and squeezed it.

Her eyelids fluttered, and she mumbled, “Ripley, stop.”

“Stella?” Max repeated excitedly. “Stella, are you there?”

“Max?” Her eyes opened, and they were her eyes, not the glassy rabid ones of a zombie. “Am I still alive?”

He laughed with tears streaming down his face. “Yeah, you are.”

“What’s happening?” Boden asked.

“I don’t know,” Jovie said, sounding as stunned as I felt. “I’m just a midwife, and I have never seen anyone come back from the brink of being a zombie.”

28

Stella

Waking up felt like coming back in my body. It was strange because I didn’t know where I had been, but I knew I had been gone.

I had these moments of clarity, where I could see Max’s face and feel Ripley’s fur on my skin, but then I would slip away again, like disappearing under water.

I couldn’t tell for how long this went on, the limbo between awake and asleep, between human and zombie, but eventually, my fever broke. When I opened my eyes, the world made sense. The buzzing in the back of my head was gone, and I could hear my own thoughts again.

My room was bathed in pinks and purples of a setting sun, and the last thing I clearly remembered before that, it had been night, so I lost at least a day to the limbo. Max was on the floor, asleep with Ripley as his pillow, and Boden was sitting in the chair, absently flipping through one of my books.

He lifted his eyes and immediately broke out in a grin when he saw that I was awake. “Good evening, Stella.”

“Hello,” I said, and my voice cracked from being so dry. “Can I have some water?”

“Yeah, absolutely.” He set down the book and grabbed a glass of water with ice chips from my bedside table. He helped me sit up to drink, because I was still weak, and my big belly made it difficult.

“Thank you,” I said when I drank my fill.

“No problem.” He sat down at the edge of the bed, and he brushed the hair from my forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Much better. How is the baby doing?”

“Good, by all the metrics that Jovie can measure,” he said, but I had known, because I could feel them moving around inside me. “Their heart sounds strong, just like yours.”

“What happened?” I asked. “How come I’m not a zombie?”

“We don’t really know yet,” he admitted with a soft laugh. “But we’re so damn happy.”

“Stella?” Max asked, sounding both excited and groggy, and he hurried to get up to see me better. “You’re awake, really awake.”

“Yeah, I’m me again,” I agreed happily.

Jovie was summoned by Max’s exuberance, and she set about making sure that I was okay. She asked me a few questions, checking my cognition, and I aced that part. Then she did a few medical tests – shining lights in my eyes, checking reflexes, listening to my heart, and taking my blood pressure.

Once she finished her exam, everyone was crowded around my bed to see the miracle of my recovery. Max and Ripley never left, but Boden had stepped outside to wait with Remy and Serg in the other room until she called them back in afterwards.

“The lyssavirus seems to be inactive in you at this time,” Jovie said once she finished. “But we still have to get your other pregnancy related conditions under control.”

“That’s excellent news, doc, and don’t take this question as me complaining, but what the hell happened?” Boden asked, with Remy and Serg flanking him on either side.

“My formal education is actually in midwifery. I’m not a doctor or a scientist, and even if I was, I don’t have the equipment or the support staff to properly research all that I’d need to,” Jovie answered, sounding almost weary. She was sitting on the chair beside me, one leg crossed over the other, wearing a modest summer dress. “So you will have to take everything I say with a very large helping of salt, because frankly, we’ll never fully understand what happened here.”

“Does that mean you have some suspicions?” Serg asked.

Jovie nodded. “I do. There is a phenomenon called microchimerism that sometimes occurs in pregnancy. Fetal cells will cross the placenta, entering into the mother’s body. When they do this, they bolster the mother’s immune system, helping to repair damaged tissue and even fighting infections.”

“You’re saying that the baby fought off the virus?” Max asked.

“Not quite that literally, but sorta,” Jovie said.

Max looked to his older sister. “It’s because of our blood, isn’t it?”

Remy’s brow furrowed. She didn’t like him talking about their immunity in front of strangers, but Jovie wasn’t really a stranger anymore.

“A doctor that experimented on our blood once explained to me that our blood attacks the virus and basically causes it to freeze,” Remy said.

“The virus is frozen?” I asked, alarmed. “Will it unthaw when the baby is born? Why aren’t they dead?”

“Viruses can’t die because they don’t truly live,” Jovie clarified. “They can’t survive without a host, but they can be damaged enough to become inactive and essentially harmless.”

“And that’s what you think happened?” Max asked.

She nodded. “That is my best guess.”

“So you think that I will be okay?” I asked.

“I don’t think the lyssavirus will be an issue for you or your baby going forward,” Jovie confirmed. “But you need to eat to keep your strength up, and you’re dehydrated. The recent stress hasn’t been good for you, so you still need to rest and try to get your blood pressure down.”

“I think I can do that,” I said with a confident smile. Honestly, everything sounded so easy and possible after the turn around I had made.

The relief made me feel so light and untouchable, like I could handle anything. Nothing could ever hurt me again. Euphoric invincibility was the only way to describe it.

“Yeah, of course you can,” Max agreed and squeezed my hand as he smiled at me with happy tears in his own eyes. “Together, we can do anything.”

29

Remy

It was surreal how quickly everything could change. I’d gotten used to abrupt changes being terrible, traumatic things, but this one had been an absolute rollercoaster. Two weeks ago, we’d all been at the lakehouse, one week ago Stella had been bitten by a zombie, and today, she was doing so well, I’m helping Boden and Serg settle into our new house while Max stays back with Stella at the clinic.

We weren’t out of the woods yet, but I felt like I could breathe for the first time in so long. We were together, we were alive, and we had a home. On top of all that, Lazlo and Harlow were here, and I would be able to spend more time with them again.

Was this what optimism felt like?

“It’s the one up ahead,” Boden said as he led me through the narrow dirt roads between little houses.

Our street was marked with a wooden signed labelled Eliot Lane. Most of the trees had been cleared, presumably for building the houses and the city fence. The surrounding homes were all of similar design and build. They were squat with sharply pitched roofs, and the walls were made of a mixture of logs and something called “cob” that was apparently similar to dark brown plaster.

The one that Boden pointed to was a bit taller than most, and it had a roof made of oxidized sheet metal. The windows were mismatched, like they had been repurposed from multiple different builds. The front door was made of reclaimed wood and stained a dark crimson color, and an awning was over it, creating a little porch with a gravel floor. In the side yard was a small garden shed.

“It is not as nice as the lakehouse,” Boden prepared me, since he had been there already. “But it’s cozy, and we have running water.”

“Running water?” I asked, growing excited. “What about electricity?”

“No electricity, so the water only gets lukewarm,” he said.

“Well, running water is an upgrade at least.”

Boden opened the door and motioned for me to go inside. Cozy was definitely a way to describe it. The floors were made of stones and gravel, and the curtains were a patchwork of rags sewn together.

From the front door, we stepped right into a mid-sized room that served as the living room and kitchen, based on the battered old leather sofa at one end and the sink built into a simple row of cabinets at the other. Right next to the sink was a contraption made of bricks with a cooking grate on top, and Boden explained it was essentially a homemade woodburning stove.

“There’s two bedrooms on this floor.” He motioned to the far left and far right doors, and he opened the one in the middle to reveal a small room with a toilet and a shower. “This is the bathroom.”

“Nice,” I said. “But there’s only two rooms? For the five of us and Ripley?”

“There’s a loft.” He touched a ladder on the wall between two of the doors. “Serg took the room on the left, and we thought the room on the right would be better for Max and Stella, because they can’t be climbing up to the loft with a baby.”

The ceiling above the main floor living area was open to the exposed beams of the roof, while the area above the bedrooms and bathroom had a loft with a railing along the edge.

I climbed up ahead of Boden and discovered that he’d set up a bedroom for us between the sharp peaks of the roof. A mattress sat on the floor beneath a round skylight, and it had been neatly made by joining our bedrolls together. There were two end tables – one made of an old milk crate, and the other one a hunk from a log. The milk crate held a candle, and the other had a mason jar of red and orange chrysanthemums. Underneath the bed was a surprisingly soft bearskin rug, as I discovered when I kicked off my boots and dug my toes into it.

“This is fantastic. Did you do all this?” I asked.

“Serg helped with the main floor stuff, and he’s been working on our little garden in the backyard,” Boden explained. “But this up here was me. Everything’s been so stressful lately, to put it mildly, and I wanted us to have somewhere we could be comfortable.”

“You could’ve waited for me to help. Life has been stressful for you, too, and you didn’t have to do this all on your own.”

He smirked down at me. “If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black.”

“I know,” I admitted with a laugh, and I put my hands on his chest. “But you know what I mean.”

“Why do you think I got the bed up here right away?” he asked as he slid his arm around my waist and pulled me closer to him. “I wanted somewhere to relax with you.”

“How is the mattress?” I asked.

“I don’t know what it’s stuffed with, but I’ve enjoyed it, although I do always sleep worse without you,” he said.

“But I’m here now.” I looked up into his eyes, hoping he could see how much I appreciated all that he did for me and our family. “And I'd like to try out this bed.”

I stepped backward and took Boden’s hand to pull him with me. I fell onto it, landing softly in the plush bed, and Boden grinned as he climbed in with me. He propped himself up on his arm so he could look me in the eyes, and his other hand gently held onto my waist with a tender longing that I didn’t often feel from him.

“I missed you, Remy.”

He leaned down, kissing me deeply, and I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him closer to me. I had missed him too, but it was so hard for me to admit that to him.

His mouth was hungry on mine, but my hands were frantic on his clothing, unbuttoning his shirt to get to his bare skin. His body burned hot against mine, and I could feel the excited racing of his heart under the palm of my hand.

He kissed my neck and murmured that he loved me in a husky voice, and I wrapped my legs around him.

Then a knock at the front door stopped us both cold.

“Do you think that could be about Stella?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’m in bed with you.”

“I’ll get it,” Serg called from downstairs, coming out from his bedroom beneath us.

“Serg was home?” I asked Boden in surprise.

“Yeah, but he was giving us some time together.”

I pushed against Boden’s chest, and he rolled off me. We both got up and went over to the edge of the loft, our clothing and hair in a disarray. As we reached the railing, Serg opened the front door, and Lazlo was standing on our doorstep.

“Is this where Remy King lives?” Lazlo asked Serg.

“Yeah, hey, Laz,” I said, and he glanced up at me and Boden in the loft. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything is great on my end,” Lazlo said. Serg opened the door wider to let him in, and I started down the ladder. “I was just coming to see how everything is going with you.”

“Yeah, no, everything is good. Better, actually,” I said, and I inwardly cringed at how flustered I sounded. “Do you know Boden and Serg?”

“Sgt. Boden, right?” Lazlo looked past me to Boden, who was standing behind me buttoning up his shirt. “I met you a couple times back at the Blaine County Quarantine Zone.”

“Yeah, I remember you,” Boden said as he eyed him up. “You used to pal around with Tatum and Kerrigan.”

“They were good soldiers,” Lazlo said, and he turned his attention to Serg. “I don’t believe we’ve met at all.”

“I’m Sergei Talwar.” He narrowed his eyes, studying Lazlo. “Are you sure we haven’t met? You look so familiar to me.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Lazlo replied vaguely.

Even with the beard and more rustic wood smith vibe versus his old alternative rock style, he was still recognizable. It had been a decade since he had performed with his band Emeriso, but once upon a time, he had made a living as a famous rock star. He didn’t like talking about it much these days, so I would fill Serg in about the truth after Lazlo had gone.

“How are your brother and Stella doing?” Lazlo asked, turning his attention back to me.

“Better, a lot better,” I replied simply.

“Good.” He smiled but he seemed uneasy. “I figured with things being so stressful, you could use a break. Me and Nova wanted to invite you… I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but are you guys a throuple?”

“What?” I asked in surprise.

“A throuple?” Boden echoed, equally confused.

“No, nothing like that,” Serg answered for us. “I’m asexual, and they’re a couple. But together we’re roommates, friends, family, platonic co-survivors.”

“Ah, okay.” Lazlo nodded in understanding. “I suppose it doesn’t matter either way. Because all three of you – and Max and Stella if they’re feeling up to it – are invited to a dinner out at my farm with me, Nova, and our daughter.”

“When?” I asked.

Lazlo shrugged. “Whenever works for you. We’re pretty flexible.”

“Thanks, that’s so kind,” Boden said. “We’d love to.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, since Boden had already accepted on our behalf. “Maybe next week?”

“That sounds great,” Lazlo said.

“How long have you been living here?” Serg asked.

“Since about February,” Lazlo said. “It wasn’t something we’d ever planned on doing, but it’s worked out well for us. Having the safety net of a community is a real relief.”

“That is what I am hoping for us, too.” Boden put an arm around me in a way that I couldn’t quite tell if it was possessive or simply affectionate.

“Anyway, I should leave you all to get settled in,” Lazlo said, and he stepped back out the door. “It’ll be nice seeing you around.”

After he left, Boden’s arm was still around me, and he said, “That’s nice. It’ll be good to have friends and neighbors again.

”

30

Stella

The grass between my toes felt warm from the summer sun, and my ankle felt so much lighter without the chains. It was such a relief that they trusted me again so I could be up walking around and getting some fresh air.

Although I honestly hadn’t really wanted to walk much lately. I have been so exhausted, from the illness and the pregnancy itself. It made sense that I didn’t have energy.

But today I felt good enough to go for a walk. I had been wanting to explore Emberwood, because I hadn’t seen much of anything outside my room at Jovie’s.

As I looked around, I realized that I had somehow gotten outside of Emberwood. The tall fence was behind me, and all around me, trees had been cut down, leaving short stumps in a grassy field. No one else was nearby. Not even Max or Ripley, and I hadn’t thought to bring my walking stick.

The sky overhead began to darken, and the air began to cool. Wind blew through a bush close by that was adorned with vibrant berries, and I noticed that something was crouching behind it.

“Hello?” I called out as I walked closer. “Is someone there?”

They didn’t respond so I went around to get a better look and found a little boy. He looked to be about seven, with shaggy dirty blond hair. His eyes were bright emerald, and his nose was broad and running slightly. The most remarkable thing about him, though, was that his skin was the ashy green color of a zombie.

He was crouched down facing me, holding a human foot and calf in his hands, munching on it like it was corn on the cob. His mouth was covered in blood, and hunks of flesh were stuck between a gap in his front teeth.

He held the leg out to me, offering to share, and my stomach suddenly rumbled. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had eaten, and at that moment, I felt like I would literally starve to death and die if I didn’t eat something right then.

I knelt down in front of him, and I bit into the meaty flesh of the leg and took a bite. It was hard to chew, but the flavor was so delicious, better than anything I had ever had before. It was sweet and invigorating. It tasted exactly like being alive was meant to feel.

I grabbed onto the leg with both hands, chowing on one side while the little green boy chewed on the other. Together, we were ravenous animals, and I couldn’t have slowed down, even if I wanted to.

Then suddenly, there was this horrible pain inside me, and I doubled over. Everything felt like it was clenching, and the baby thrashed against my stomach.

I woke up screaming in my bed. The room was dark, except for the twinkling string lights, and I could see Max rushing to my side from the floor, grabbing my hand.

“Stella you’re okay,” he told me soothingly. “It was only a nightmare.”

“No, no.” I shook my head as my abdomen contracted, and in between my legs felt wet and sticky. “The baby is coming.”

“Now? It can’t be now. It’s too early!” Max insisted, his eyes wide and terrified.

“I don’t think the baby cares, because he is coming now!” I shouted at him.

Ripley had been sleeping on the floor, but she ran out of the room when I started crying. Those same exact noises summoned both Jovie and her assistant Eden.

“What’s wrong?” Jovie asked, alert with her housecoat billowing around her.

“She says she’s having the baby!” Max shouted, sounding both alarmed and incredulous.

“I am having the baby!” I insisted through gritted teeth as another contraction took hold.

“Okay. How far apart are the contractions?” she asked.

“They do not feel very far apart to me.”

Jovie kept talking to me in a calm voice, and Max let me squeeze his hand as hard as I needed to, but most of what happened after that was a blur of pain and sweat. When I squeezed my eyes shut, I would see the zombie boy from my nightmares and feel that terrible hunger deep within me.

And when I opened my eyes again, it was Jovie and Max telling me to push and to breathe, but everything hurt, and I felt like I was being ripped apart. Somewhere deep down, I was so terrified and so excited to meet the baby, but mostly all I felt was pain and wishing it would be over.

“The baby is crowning!” Jovie shouted, and by then, the morning light was coming through the window, and I didn’t think I could go on for much longer.

“You’re so close, Stella,” Max told me enthusiastically. “You’re doing great! Our baby is almost here!”

I gave it my all, and I pushed until everything went black.

And then I heard the sound of a baby crying. My vision cleared and I could see Jovie, holding a tiny, bloody baby between my legs.

“How is he?” I asked. “Is he breathing?”

“He is a little girl,” Jovie corrected me with a smile. “And she’s absolutely perfect.”

And then she laid my newborn daughter on my chest, and the happiness and relief was so intense and overwhelming, it was painful. All I could do was hold her close and sob.

31

Remy

Our house had a small yard where Serg had been cultivating a small garden with autumn vegetables, and I’d been spending the morning helping him, even though I had never been the one with green thumb.

I walked ahead of him, using a trowel to turn up the dirt, and Serg was carefully planting the little vegetable sprouts and seeds he’d gotten from the town greenhouses and hydroponic gardens.

“So far you’ve planted so many rows of potatoes and spinach,” I commented. “That seems like sort of an odd combo.”

“My dad was Pakistani, my mom was Russian, and I lived in Idaho, so one thing I know how to work with is potatoes,” Serg said, and he was only half-joking. “Besides, spinach is really good for pregnant and breast-feeding woman. And anything we grow we can share at the Public Cafeteria or trade for something else that we do need.”

“That is really smart.”

“Well, I am a really smart guy,” he replied with a smirk.

I had gotten far enough ahead of him that I could take a break, leaning against the hoe as the morning sun beat down on us, and I wiped the sweat from my brow.

“How is it working in the cafeteria?” I asked.

“It’s good. Cooking has always made sense to me, you know that, and they have such a greater variety in their ingredients than we did back at the lakehouse. They have dill and sour cream, so I was able to make traditional borscht for the first time in years!” His face lit up when he talked about food. “And the people here seem nice. You should come down for supper one night. Mayor Vaughn is there a lot, and he really seems to care about making this town a beacon for humanity.”

“A beacon for humanity?” I repeated with an arched eyebrow.

“Yeah, he does actually say that sometimes. Or maybe a lot.” Serg shrugged. “It’s cheesy, sure, but it’s still a nice sentiment. It’s refreshing to be somewhere that is about thriving and building things up instead of just surviving.”

“I didn’t think we were just barely surviving at the lakehouse,” I disagreed.

He sat back on his knees and gave me an apologetic smile. “I know. I liked it there, too. But I also liked civilization, and I have enjoyed having some semblance of that again.”

“Yeah, I guess I get that,” I relented. “But isn’t anyone else worried about a population of this size attracting hordes of zombies eventually?”

“They have a few different ways of keeping them at bay, and the cold really helps in the long winters,” he said. “Plus, the town has been continuously growing for nearly a decade. The fences are still standing, and I don’t even hear any zombies.”

“That is true.” I realized that I hadn’t heard any zombies since we’d been here, but the general noise of the city life may be drowning them out, too.

“Hi!” Eden said, waving to catch my attention. She was standing in front of the house, breathless because she had been running, and I knew her because she worked at Jovie’s clinic.

I immediately dropped my trowel and walked over to her. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” She smiled at me. “The baby is here.”

“The baby is here?” I asked.

She nodded. “Mother and baby are doing well.”

“Holy shit.” I turned back to Serg. “Go tell Boden. I’m going now.”

And I didn’t wait a moment longer. I sprinted down the roads I had already learned, racing ahead of Eden. I ran up the steps and into the clinic without any hesitation for the very first time.

In her room at the back, Stella was laying in her bed, looking both exhausted and strangely content. Max was standing with his back to me, holding a mewling bundle wiggling in a soft blanket in his arms. He turned to face me, and I finally laid eyes on the tiny, pink baby.

“Remy, I want you to meet your niece, Rafaella Avalyn King.”

“You named her after Mom?” I asked, and my voice cracked.

“We needed a beautiful name for a beautiful girl.” He moved toward me. “Do you want to hold her?”

“Wash your hands first!” Jovie interjected. She was sitting in the bedside chair. “There’s soap and water in the kitchen.”

I glanced at my hands, covered in dirt from gardening. “Oh, right. Sorry.”

I rushed to the kitchen to wash my hands, and by the time I had finished, Boden had arrived. I borrowed his much cleaner flannel shirt to wear over my dirty, sweaty tank top, leaving him in a t-shirt. And then I ran back to the room so I could finally hold the baby.

Even before the zombies, I’d never been one of those people that flocked to babies. When my brother was born, I had been eleven, and our mom had to bribe me to hold him because I initially wanted nothing to do with him.

Eventually, I had warmed to Max when he was old enough to move around and laugh when he saw me, but he was still the exception to the rule. I didn’t like babies or kids, but I had always liked him specifically. Later on, I had come to like Stella, too.

But now I couldn’t wait to hold Rafaella.

When Max put her in my arms, I had the strangest sensation of my chest swelling. Like there was suddenly so much love and light inside me that I had to expand and grow to contain it all.

“She’s so precious.” Boden was there, whispering at my side as he reached down and touched her tiny hands. “She’s so small.”

“She came into this world at just over 5 lbs, and she’s a few weeks early,” Max said. “But she’s strong, and she’s already latched well.”

“Latched?” Boden asked.

“Breastfeeding,” Jovie said. “That’s one of the bigger concerns with preterm babies, but she’s eating and swallowing like a champ.”

“When was she born?” I asked.

“A few hours ago. It all happened so quickly, and Jovie wanted to wait until she was sure we were all stable before she sent Eden to fetch you,” Max explained.

“No need for an explanation,” I said. “You’re a dad now, and your priorities have shifted.”

“Yeah.” He had a big goofy grin as he laughed. “I’m a dad now.”

“You are a dad now and forever.” Boden turned his attention away from the baby and went over to Stella. He kissed the top of her head, and he asked, “How are you, kiddo?”

“Tired, relieved, terrified, ecstatic, hungry, and I think that almost covers it,” she said with a sleepy smile.

“Oh, I can get you something to eat.” Serg jumped at the chance to be useful.

“There’s food in the fridge and pantry.” Jovie motioned vaguely toward the kitchen, and I realized that she sounded very tired herself. She had given so much to ensure that Stella and Rafaella were safe.

"When do you get to come home?” I asked.

“To be on the safe side, I’d like Stella and the baby to stay for another week,” Jovie said. “Obviously, Max and Ripley are free to go as they wish.”

“I think I want to stay with my girls, as long as I am not in the way.” Max sat on the edge of the bed and took Stella’s hand.

“That’ll give us time to get the nursery ready,” Boden said. “So far, we only have a basinet.”

Serg returned a moment later with the food, and then he took his turn at holding the baby. Both he and Boden were so excited to be uncles, and their faces lit up like Rafaella was the sun when they held her.

32

remy

I sat at the end of my bed with my knees pulled up to my chest and my arm wrapped around them. Up above was a skylight made out of melted down glass bottles, so it had a warped look. The morning sun and clouds were pulled around like a stretched-out funhouse mirror.

Boden stirred behind me. “You’re up early. Bad dreams again?”

“No, not last night.” I shook my head, and I felt his rough hand warming the bare skin of my back. “It’s the opposite, almost. There’s such a relief, but now I keep feeling like I’m forgetting something because I’m not waking up in a panic about Stella or Max or the baby or something.”

He sat up, looping an arm around my waist as he slid closer to me. “You should be getting sleep while you can, because in a few days we’ll have a newborn crying all hours of day and night.”

“I know, but I actually think I’ll like that better. The house is too quiet.”

“You never trust peace or silence.” He kissed my shoulder. “But you don’t have to worry. Chaos will find us soon enough. It always does.”

“You’re probably right.” I leaned against him, and he enveloped me in his arms, my back pressed against his chest. “What are your plans for the day?”

“I need to head down to talk to the Guardians,” Boden said, and his voice rumbled through me as he spoke.

“The Guardians?” I snorted. “That still sounds like such a silly name to me. Why don’t they just call them guards?”

“I don’t know. Someone liked the way it sounded,” he supposed. “But regardless of the name, they’re keeping the town safe, and with my experience as a sergeant at the last quarantine zone, I want to help.”

“No, it sounds good. You should be a Guardian. I just don’t love the name.” I wrapped my arms over his, and he kissed my neck. “They need someone smart and brave like you.”

“They could use someone smart and brave like you, too,” he suggested playfully.

“I don’t think that’s for me, not that I really know what is for me,” I said. “My only job experience was being a bagger at a grocery store in high school, and then my time as a human guinea pig at the BCQZ.”

“You’ll find something,” he assured me. “And there’s no need to rush. Max and Stella will likely need help once they move here.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. My stomach fluttered in an anxious way I couldn’t quite explain, but it felt something like dread.

Boden had been kissing my shoulder but he stopped. “Are you okay? You just tensed up.”

“Yeah, I’m great,” I lied, because I should be fine.

We had everything we could ever hope for. Life could be so much worse after all we had gone through, but here I am in Boden’s arms, preparing for the return of Max, Stella, and the baby.

Shame washed over me because I knew that I should be happy, grateful, and relaxed, but I just wasn’t. I couldn’t be.

I wriggled out of Boden’s arms, because I couldn’t handle the affection in his touch when I knew that I didn’t deserve it.

“Sorry. Was I touching your scars again?” Boden asked, already taking the blame for something that wasn’t his fault.

“No, you’re fine.”

His fingers often brushed against my scars, because it was nearly impossible for him to avoid it when I was naked. I could handle it most of the time, but every now then, he would touch one, and I’d recoil from it.

I got out of bed and pulled on my underwear and jeans. “I want to see Max and Stella, and I need to spend some time around town figuring out what I am going to do while I am here.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” he agreed, but there was a hesitation in his voice. I didn’t press on what it might be because I was afraid of what it might be.

“Stuff’s good, so I gotta make myself useful.” I pulled on a t-shirt, and then I grabbed Boden’s flannel to wear over it. “You and Serg have your things, and now I’ve got to find mine.”

“So you’ll be gone all day?” he asked, looking up at me from where he sat on our bed, naked under the blankets.

I shrugged. “Probably. But I should be back by supper.”

I walked over, kissing his cheek, and told him goodbye before heading to the ladder.

“Remy,” he said, so I paused and looked back. “I love you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, of course.” I forced a smile at him. “I love you, too.”

Boden smiled back, and I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not. But I felt too restless to stay in the loft, so I told him to have a good day, and I left.

It was still early, so Emberwood seemed to be mostly slumbering. There were a few people awake, and chickens and geese wandering all over. I normally didn’t like walking around here. It all felt so crowded and loud and pushy after living isolated for so long. But this early in the day, it was quiet and not so bad.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take that long for it to change. Soon, everyone seemed to be awake and in a hurry. I let the crowd take me downtown, and I spotted the Athenaeum I had seen Lazlo playing guitar.

I couldn’t hear him now, but I drifted toward it anyway, hoping that I might see him again. I had been so focused on everything happening with Stella I hadn’t really had a chance to reconnect with him.

When I had left the house, I told Boden that I wanted to go visit Max and Stella, and I meant to. They didn’t need help from me, because Jovie and Eden were there, and Stella was breastfeeding. And it wasn’t like I had any practical advice or any real experience with babies. I was more clueless than they were.

So I wasn’t in that much of a hurry to see them, even though I did truly love my niece. I just didn’t really know what to do around her.

Inside the Athenaeum, there were a few patrons reading books and drinking tea, but none of them looked like Lazlo. I went over to peruse the books on the shelf, because it had been a long time since I had anything new to read.

“You find anything you like?” the bespectacled woman I had seen working here before asked, and I looked up from a battered copy of Shane by Jack Schaefer. “That one’s a real classic from my own personal collection.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked.

“It’s one of my favorites,” she enthused. “Are you that friend of Lazlo’s?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Has he been around lately?”

“Not today, but he does come in from time to time,” she replied.

“I am so sorry to interrupt, Athena, but I am in a state that requires interruption,” Mayor Vaughn Douglas said, and he came walking over to us with his sight fixed on the bespectacled purveyor of the Athenaeum. His hand was resting on his tailored vest made of chocolate colored corduroy, and he gave me an apologetic smile. “I promise to take but a moment of the lady’s time.”

“Sure, no problem.” I stepped to the side to flip through the book and give them both space.

“Do you have anything to settle a stomach?” Vaughn asked her quietly. “I have been under the weather for days, and none of my usual remedies seem to be doing the trick.”

“I have some ginger tea I could make with a little honey,” she offered. “That usually settles my tummy.”

“I would be much obliged if you could whip me up one of your finest cups of ginger tea posthaste,” he beseeched her.

“Sure thing, Mayor,” Athena said, and before she went to do that, she turned back to me. “If you’re looking for Lazlo, she’ll know where he is.”

She pointed to someone who had just walked in, and I looked over to see a thin blonde young woman dressed in a meticulously styled distressed sweater and torn denim skirt. Her long, wavy hair was underneath a black hat with a wide brim. She wore heavy eyeliner and lipstick. The thick pink burn scar that ran from her chin on the right side down her neck to her cheek below her eye was new.

“Harlow?” I asked.

She smiled at me. “Remy?”

I walked over to her. “Holy shit. You are so grown up!”

Lazlo had told me how she was doing, and I knew that she wasn’t the young girl I had last seen eight years ago. But it was still another thing to witness it for myself.

“And you’re…” Harlow looked over me with an expression I couldn’t read. “… you’re basically the same.”

I glanced down at myself and shrugged. “I suppose I don’t change much.” Then I motioned to a nearby table. “Do you want to sit down and have some tea or something?”

“Sure.”

We sat down together and ordered lavender tea, and Athena brought it out in two mismatched ceramic cups. The silence between us felt heavy and unexpected, and my thoughts went back to the last time we had spoken.

Harlow had only been thirteen then, and she’d overheard that I was planning on leaving her for good.

“How could you do that?” She looked at me, her eyes sad in the fading light. “You were gonna leave without saying goodbye.”

“I didn’t know how to. I thought it’d be easier on you,” I said.

“You thought disappearing would be easier?” Harlow looked at me skeptically. “After all the people I’ve lost who I never got to say goodbye to?”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” 

“I don’t want you to go,” she said quietly.

“I know. But this is a nice place here, for you.” I lowered my voice a little bit, knowing that Lazlo was probably eavesdropping. “And Lazlo needs you. He needs someone to take care of him.”

“Will I ever see you again?” she asked.

“Honestly, I really don’t know.”

Without warning, she threw her arms around me, and I hugged her for as long as she would let me. After she calmed down, we went back inside, and I didn’t see her again.

“Lazlo has told me that you have your own boutique, and you’re living with your girlfriend,” I said.

“The boutique is great, and Kimber is amazing.” She smiled, her face brightening a moment, and she fiddled with the cross necklace. “Lazlo told me that you were in town, but that you had been busy with some family issues.”

“My brother had a baby with his girlfriend,” I said. “Rafaella. She’s two days old and perfect.”

“I did hear about that,” Harlow admitted. “Emberwood is a very small town, and word travels like wildfire. That’s actually why I came here. I had heard you were wandering around town.”

“People were gossiping about me this morning?” I asked, glancing around uneasily.

“You’re new, and you have a lion. People are gonna notice you,” she pointed out with a smirk. “I can’t believe you and Ripley are still together.”

I shrugged. “She’s a pack animal on the wrong continent. What else is she supposed to do?”

“She seems more tame now, with a collar and leash.”

“Time and domesticity have a way of doing that,” I said. “How have you been?”

“How much has Lazlo told you about my life?” she asked.

“Basically just what I said. You’re happy, you like drawing and making clothes,” I said. “He did mention that you’ve had some rough times over the years.”

She frowned and looked down at the teacup. “I know you’re curious about the burns. Everyone always is. So I’ll just get it out of the way. After the BCQZ fell, I escaped with Laz, Kimber, and some other people. Kimber and I ended up being held captive by these deranged people from the Loth Family Ranch. Have you heard of them?”

I shook my head. “No. Should I have?”

“It’s better that you don’t. They’re super fucked up and… and eventually, Laz and Nova rescued me and Kimber. Things were bad, there was a fire, and a lot of the Loth family died. We managed to get away though, and Laz and Nova brought us back to their homestead. We actually had a good life until February of this year.

“The Loths wanted revenge,” she went on. “But they had been hurt, and it took them a long time to find us. But when they did…” She trailed off and chewed her lip. “They burned everything down, and I nearly lost my life.” She shook her head, clearing it. “But we made it out alive. We eventually made it here, and we found happiness again.”

“I am so sorry all that happened to you. But I am pleased that you were able to find happiness here.” I smiled wanly at her.

Harlow was still staring down at her tea when she said, “It’s always so important to me that something good comes out of something bad. Emberwood has been that for me. Maybe it can be that for you, too.”

33

Stella

I had always imagined raising my children in the lakehouse, the home where I had grown up, where Max and I had fallen in love, where our family truly became a family. It was also the only place I had ever known, the only place I could even really remember. So maybe my imagination just didn’t stretch that far.

Whatever the case, my pregnancy and the birth of my daughter hadn’t gone the way I had thought or hoped. Not even close. So I really wasn’t bothered by the fact that our home would be different. All that mattered was that we had somewhere safe we could be together.

That meant that seeing our room decked out for me, Max, and Rafaella was a wonderful, overwhelming surprise. The floors throughout the house were a weird dirty gravel, but in our room, there was a rug that stretched to nearly all four corners. Our bed was soft and plush underneath quilts and pillows, and Fae had a sweet basinet hanging from the ceiling made from wood and macrame. Boden, Serg, and Remy had even managed to get a rocking chair, a few children’s books, and a basket full of cloth diapers and baby blankets.

I cried the day we all came home. I had never been happier or felt more blessed.

But I didn’t fully appreciate all the help that Jovie had been giving me. She helped Rafaella latch when the baby was fighting it, she knew how to burp her and soothe her when she cried, and most importantly, she knew when to worry and when the sound the baby made was normal.

I hadn’t really slept since we had been home. I was sitting on the bed, exhausted with a sleeping infant in my arms, and I knew that I should sleep. All the books and Jovie told me to sleep when the baby slept, but skin-to-skin contact was so important with preterm babies. They needed it to regulate their temperatures and breathing.

My arms ached, my breasts hurt whenever anything brushed up against them, and my eyes were burning. But if I closed my eyes or passed Rafaella off to her dad, I just knew that something terrible would happen. It didn’t matter how tired and off I felt. The only thing that truly mattered was keeping the baby safe.

Out of all the ways Jovie had helped, the one I had most overlooked was that I had not needed to be so vigilant when she was around. I could relax and let my guard down for minutes or even hours sometimes. Blissful moments where I could sleep or think of anything other than Fae.

Then I would feel so guilty for even wanting to think of anything other than her.

So I held my ten-day-old little girl, and I stared out the window while I wondered how I will handle the next ten days.

“Stella?” Boden asked, and I looked over to see him standing in the open doorway to my bedroom.

“What? What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing. I just saw you and thought you might want a break or some company.”

I shook my head. “I’m fine. Fae is sleeping, and Max is outside washing the cloth diapers. We always need more clean diapers.”

“Yeah, that is true with babies.” He came over and sat down on the bed beside me. “Why don’t you let me hold Fae while you take a nap?”

“No, that’s okay. You already do too much,” I said, and that was very true.

Boden, Serg, and Remy made sure that I had food, clean clothes, and that I had everything I needed. Remy didn’t really seem to know what to do with the baby, but she was always nearby. Mostly up in the loft with the lion, who also had no idea what to do with this tiny human who cried so often.

“Holding my niece is hardly doing too much,” Boden insisted. “And you need your rest to be a good mom. You’ve got to take care of yourself, too.”

I stared back out the window at the dark brown house next door, and when I blinked, tears spilled down my cheeks.

“I don’t know how to be a mom,” I admitted thickly. “I read the books, but I thought I would just instinctually know what to do. But the only thing I really know is that I hate letting her out of my arms. I don’t even remember my mom, or anybody else’s mom, for that matter.”

“I don’t remember my mom very well,” Boden said quietly. “She died when I was in kindergarten. My dad remarried when I was a teenager, and I do remember my stepmom, and I remember helping her take care of my much younger half-sisters. I don’t know what it means to be a mom, either, but I know how to help, and I know how to hold a baby.”

“She needs skin-to-skin contact,” I reminded him.

“Good thing I have skin.” He started unbuttoning his shirt. “I won’t force you to hand her over, but if you do, I promise I’ll stay right here in the room with you, and I’ll wake you up if she needs anything.”

“Okay,” I relented, mostly because I was too tired to fight it.

“Okay?” Boden asked, smiling hopefully.

I nodded, and he gently took her from me. He moved to the rocking chair in the corner of the room, holding her gingerly against his bare chest.

My heart was racing like there was a zombie in the room with us, but it was only the man who had raised me, caring for the baby that we all loved. I took a deep breath and laid down on my side so I could still watch them. I wasn’t brave enough to close my eyes yet.

“What happened to your little sisters?” I asked.

He was quiet a moment before answering, “The same thing that happened to everyone’s little sisters when the zombies came for them.”

“Do you know any songs?” I asked, changing the subject away from something so sad. “I am running out of songs that I remember all the words to, and I don’t want to keep singing the same ones over and over to the baby.”

“Yeah, I probably know a few,” he said. “Did you ever hear of a band called Nirvana?”

“I don’t think so. Can you sing them now?

“Sure, I guess, but I don’t know how good I’ll be. I haven’t sung in a long time.”

“That’s okay. I just want to hear something new,” I said with a yawn.

He cleared his throat, and a shy baritone came out as he sang something he called “All Apologies.” I tried to stay awake, because I did want to learn more lullabies, but I was drifting off by the chorus.

I wasn’t asleep for long. It felt like a split second, truly, and then Boden was shaking me roughly awake.

“You have to feed the baby,” he said in a commanding voice, like he was upset with me.

“Okay.” I took my daughter from him, and she somehow got heavier while I slept, or maybe my arms were weak. “Are you sure she’s hungry? She seems sound asleep.”

“You’re her mother. You have to make sure she has enough to eat.” Boden turned and walked out, and he slammed the door shut behind him.

Fae and I were alone, so I tried to gently wake her. He was right. I had to make sure that she was fed, and I got her to latch easily.

I looked out the window, watching the little bit of the world I could see from my bedroom, and nursed my baby.

Suddenly, she clamped down, biting into my flesh.

“Ow!” I screamed and tried to pull her off, but she growled and sunk her teeth deeper.

It didn’t make any sense. She was a newborn baby, without any teeth and hardly any strength. But she was latched onto my breast with the ferocity of a rabid zombie.

Blood soaked my cotton nightgown in red, and I screamed as I tried futilely to rip my baby off of me. But she refused to let go.

“Help!” I was screaming at the top of my lungs, but nobody came. I didn’t want to hurt the baby, but she was consuming my flesh and blood.

The door to my room wouldn’t budge, and I could hear the baby growling and chewing. I ran to the window, hoping to open it and run for help. But just on the other side of the glass was the same little boy I had seen in my nightmare before Fae was born. His brilliant emerald eyes and ashy green skin were unmistakable.

“Stella!” Max shouted, and all at once, I was back in my bed. He was kneeling beside me, trying to comfort me. “You were having a bad dream.”

“Where’s Rafaella?” I asked between ragged breaths.

“She’s right here.” Max leaned back, and I could see Boden in the rocking chair, holding the baby against his chest. I looked over to the window, still expecting to see the zombie child, but he was gone.

“Fae’s just fine,” Boden assured me. “You haven’t even been asleep for that long if you want to keep resting.”

“Will you stay with me?” I asked Max. I was tired, but the intense, vivid nightmare still clung to me like a cobweb.

“Of course.” Max laid down beside me and wrapped an arm around my waist. “I’ll stay with you for as long as you need.”

I felt his arm, safe and strong around me, but I was hesitant to close my eyes. My chest still ached, and even with my eyes wide open, I could still feel the pain of the baby chewing on my flesh.

34

Remy

We’d agreed on 6:00 pm for dinner, because it had seemed like a good idea. Boden, Serg, and I were going over to visit Lazlo and Nova. I hadn’t had an opportunity to meet Nova yet. She never came to the old farmhouse with him because she was needed back at their homestead with their daughter, the same reasons that I didn’t bring Boden or Serg with me.

By the time the night of the dinner rolled around, it felt like a very bad idea. Max and Stella had only been home with the baby for a week, and it didn’t feel right leaving them alone so soon.

Boden came up with an answer for that, though, and he invited Jovie to hang out with them while we were gone. He seemed to really be looking forward to the dinner, and I couldn’t explain why, but the whole thing made me feel uneasy.

“I don’t know why it’s so important that we go out tonight,” I said with ten minutes before we were set to leave. “We can have dinner with them another night.”

Boden scowled at me. “That’s ridiculous. You did your makeup and dressed up already. Rafaella’s had a good day, and she’s asleep. Max and Stella had supper, and Jovie is here now. Everything is fine, and we should go.”

Serg, Boden, and I had all cleaned up the best we could, because we had so few excuses for it anymore. I had traded a few pelts from rabbits I’d hunted for a small makeup kit. Just eyeliner and eyeshadow, but it was more than I usually wore.

For my clothes, Harlow had given me a dress she made. Something woven from pale thread in a loose-knit midi-dress that I paired with my sneakers because I wasn’t going overboard on this whole thing.

“You’re right,” I said, because I couldn’t keep making excuses.

“And you hardly ever leave the house,” Serg added. “It’ll be good for you to get out.”

I cast a look at him. “Are you two ganging up on me?”

Serg shrugged. “We only do that when we’re worried.”

“Well, there’s no reason to worry, so let’s go,” I announced.

Lazlo and Nova lived on the northern side of Emberwood on a small farm. On Eliot Lane where we lived, with the newest housing, the homes were small and compact with little slivers for yards. It was to make the most of the finite amount of land within the fence. They could – and likely even would need to – expand the fencing around the town someday, but it was difficult, dangerous work with the zombies, wildlife, and Canadian weather.

The closer we got to the fence in the northside, the more spread out the houses. They soon became small farms with enough room for livestock. Most of the vegetables were grown in the greenhouses, but there were fields of corn and wheat along with pastures for grazing.

Still, Emberwood wasn’t that big, and it only took us a little over twenty minutes to reach the address Lazlo had given me. The house itself was similar to ours, but theirs also had a side pen made of tensile wire. That seemed a bit excessive for farm animals, but then I saw the pair of wolves relaxing in the shade. I had forgotten that Nova kept them as pets.

I knocked on the front door, and a tall, curvy Native American woman opened it. Her eyes were dark and framed by long lashes, and her smile was kind but uneasy.

“You must be Lazlo’s friends,” she greeted us. “I’m his wife, Nova.”

And I froze at the word wife. Lazlo had never called her that before, although he been very clear that he loved her and she was the mother of his child. On top of all that, I had no desire to pursue a romantic relationship with Laz, regardless of his relationship status, and I was with Boden, who I loved.

Yet, when Nova said wife, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.

“I’m Boden, and this is –”

“– his wife, Remy,” I finished for him. I don’t even know why I said it, and I had blurted it out before I could even think.

“And I’m Serg, and I’m nobody’s wife,” Serg said.

Nova laughed and opened the door wider. “Come on in. Lazlo’s just finishing up making dinner.”

“I brought this cloudberry hard cider.” Serg held up a gallon-sized mason jar filled with an amber-colored liquid. “I got it at the market yesterday.”

“Thank you. That sounds delicious,” Nova said.

As we went into the house, I could feel Boden looking at me, but I refused to meet his gaze.

Lazlo was in the kitchen, with his four-year-old daughter, Sage on his hip. He shouted a quick greeting over his shoulder, and the little girl watched us curiously. She looked more like Nova than she did him, except for his eyes. She had his same dark eyes.

The dining table had a candelabra in the center, next to a basket of dinner rolls and neatly folded napkins. We sat around the table, with me between Boden and Nova.

The grownups made polite conversation, talking about how all of us enjoyed the town or the shops. Most of us, anyway. Boden ended up playing a game with Sage that involved her hiding behind napkins while he pretended to be surprised.

When the food was finally finished, Lazlo joined us at the table, and the mood lightened some. We had the rosemary quail and root vegetables he’d made to keep us busy, and I had been sipping enough of Serg’s hard cider that I didn’t feel quite so tense.

As the meal went on, the conversation flowed easier, and by the time it finished, I was thinking that maybe this hadn’t been so bad after all.

“That was fantastic. Lazlo, you really outdid yourself tonight,” Nova said and patted her belly. “I am so full.”

“Yeah, I would love to get the recipe,” Serg agreed.

“It’s honestly super easy,” Lazlo said, downplaying it.

“Do you do most of the cooking?” Nova asked Serg.

“I do. I’m the best at it of the three of us, so it just makes sense,” he elaborated.

“That’s so interesting,” Nova said, and then she turned her gaze to me and Boden. “How long have you two been together?”

“A little over eight years,” Boden answered before I finished doing the math in my head. “What about you two?”

“About seven years,” Nova replied and smiled across the table. “They haven’t always been blissful years, but they have been better than we deserve.”

“So, Remy, when was it that you and Lazlo dated?” Serg asked so nonchalantly, and suddenly my stomach dropped.

“Um, I don’t even remember. It was so long ago.” I tried sidestepping the question and took another sip of my drink.

“It was about eight and a half years ago,” Lazlo said.

“I’ve never been so good with math,” I muttered, when really I wished that we would just talk about something else, anything else.

“Why did you two break up?” Boden asked.

“I…” I stared down at my plate and toyed with my bent handmade fork. “It’s not interesting. I’m sure I’ve told you.”

“It’s really not interesting,” Lazlo agreed. “We basically just ghosted each other.”

“Ghosted?” I scoffed, and I hadn’t even meant to, but he was grossly mischaracterizing the situation. “You made it sound like I just stopped talking to you out of the blue. I was locked up for six months in the medical ward, and you were evacuated.”

“Wait.” Something seemed to have occurred to Boden, and he rested his arms on the table and leaned forward as he stared at Laz. “You were there when Remy was locked up for all that time, and you never tried to get her out of there?”

Lazlo bristled. “Of course I did. I plotted and planned with another soldier, but it just couldn’t be done. They put me in the stockades for helping her little brother escape, and they were going to exile me if I was caught again. I had to be careful because I had Harlow to think about, too.”

“And that’s why your relationship ended?” Boden pressed, and I could hear the anger simmering just below the surface. “She was locked up, and you just left her behind?”

Lazlo shook his head. “She volunteered. She voluntarily went up to the medical ward so she’d play human shield for her brother. She made her choice to protect him, and I had to make mine to protect me and Harlow.”

“Voluntarily?” Boden sneered. “They were vivisecting her without pain relief. Any consent that she gave –”

“Boden!” I snapped, and I felt strangely cold and out of my body. “My pain isn’t yours to share.”

Boden sagged, immediately looking ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

“And you both really ought to stop talking about Remy as if she’s not here,” Nova interjected, and she looked over at me. “You are right here. What do you want to say about all of this?”

I squirmed as everyone’s attention turned on me. “I don’t know. It was a long time ago, and neither of us made the wrong choices. We’re all just doing the best we can.”

“And I think we all ended up where we were supposed to,” Lazlo said, and he looked lovingly at Nova and their daughter. At his beautiful little family.

“Here, here!” Serg raised his glass for a toast. “To the here and now!”

I gulped down my drink, and Boden leaned back in his chair and put his arm around me. Normally, I didn’t like public displays of affection, but tonight, I leaned into it, tilting my body toward his.

When there was a lull in the conversation, I heard the sound of zombies howling. I had noticed them being loud on our walk here, and we didn’t usually hear them at our house, even when the baby wasn’t crying, so I commented as much.

“Oh, yeah, that’s because they feed the zombies at this end,” Nova explained. “That’s also how we’re able to have so much more land out here, compared to you southies.”

“Th-they what?” I stammered in surprise. “You guys are feeding the zombies?”

“Yeah, it keeps them away from the entrance of Emberwood,” she elaborated. “The zombies all congregate at the feeding area where the fence is reinforced. We give them the junky parts of our red meat. Zombies won’t hunt deer, but they do seem to enjoy their intestines.”

“When you get the zombies all together when you feed them, why don’t you just kill them?” I asked in dismay. “With arrows or bullets or blades or fire. Just kill them all.”

“No bullets, waste of arrows, blades are too risky for a bite, and it’s wildfire season, so no fire,” Nova replied. “The zombies aren’t hurting us, and it’s easier and kinder to learn how to live with them than to eradicate them, especially when I don’t believe full extinction is even possible.”

The evening eventually came to an end, with all of us in a better mood and tipsy. But I was still nervous about the walk home, afraid of what Boden would want to talk about. Would he be angry or confused or hurt?

He didn’t bring up anything, not even after we got home and Jovie left, or after we said goodnight to the rest of the family. We went up to our loft together, and in the darkness, he helped me out of my dress and we began to kiss.

Without saying a word, we made love in our bed. When we finished, he wrapped his arms around me, and he held me tighter than normal.

35

Remy

Earlier in the dinner conversation, we had been talking about the different ways people contributed to the communal living. Boden had gotten accepted and started his Guardian training, Serg worked in the cafeteria, Lazlo and Nova provided the wares from their farm (crops, eggs, milk, wool), but they also had other jobs. Lazlo played music when he could, and Nova did hunting and foraging.

Nova was the better hunter between her and Lazlo – they both attested to this – and he was also weakened by his old knee injury. The only reason I had run into him at the farmhouse a couple years ago and not Nova was because she had been nursing their daughter at the time.

Back at the lakehouse, I provided for the family primarily by hunting, foraging, and chopping wood. Ripley had always gone with me, but I was a good shot with the crossbow.

Since this was the only thing I had any proficiency in, Nova suggested that I go hunting with her on her next expedition outside of the town. And because I couldn’t think of any good reason to say no, I had said yes.

That was how I ended up meeting Nova outside the entrance at dawn two days later. It was going to be her and Eden, the assistant who worked at Jovie’s clinic. The hunting trips were infrequent enough that most hunters had another job.

In addition to Eden, Nova had also brought her mule, Vince, and her two wolves, Frost and Sable. I knew Vince from his travelling with Lazlo, but I had never met the wolves. The canines were massive, both of them on thick leather leads, and the smaller of the two had a muzzle.

“I didn’t realize the pets were coming,” I said. I had left Ripley at home with Stella. The lion didn’t really want to be away from her much.

“The wolfdogs are good at a hunt,” Nova assured me, and scratched the bigger one behind the ears. “They’re just not good with people.”

“But who can really blame them for that?” Eden joked, and she smiled down at me. “It’ll be nice to have you on the hunt, Remy, as long as you can keep up with us.”

“I will do my best,” I said.

“Once we get through the gates, there’s a chance for zombies or bears, so be ready to go,” Nova explained as we made our way toward them. “We’ll be hiking to the west until nearly dusk. The mule deer like to pass through that area at this time of year. We should be able to get a few and leave in the morning. We should be back to Emberwood eating venison by suppertime tomorrow.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“Oh, and when we come back in, they will examine you,” Eden reminded me, pointing to the maze of chain link fences and tiny shacks for the exams. “They do it thoroughly every time you come in to keep the town free of the virus. So let us know if you are bitten, because they will catch it, and they will execute you immediately. If you tell us, we’ll just let you wander off to live with the other zombies if you want.”

Since there was no inspection on the way out of Emberwood, passing through the exit went much quicker. We just walked out a gate into a holding area. Once the interior gate closed, the exterior gate opened, and we went outside of the town.

As soon as the gate closed behind us, Nova unleashed and unmuzzled the wolves, and they jogged on ahead of us.

“How are Stella and the baby doing?” Eden asked as we hiked on the even terrain down the sloping hill. “I haven’t seen her much since she left Jovie’s.”

“They’re both doing good, almost better than we could hope after a difficult pregnancy and premature birth,” I said. “But I do think Stella’s getting a little stir crazy being trapped inside with the baby. She was used to spending her days outside in the summers, swimming in the lake, and climbing trees with Ripley and Max.”

“I do miss that about my old homestead,” Nova said, wistfully. “We had acres of land for my daughter and the animals to roam. Even Harlow and Kimber would spend most of their time outside.”

“That is the trade-off of society versus living off-grid,” Eden said. “But I was alone for too long before I ended up here, and I know that I would be doing so much worse without the community.”

“No, I know, and I am so grateful for Emberwood,” Nova agreed. “I don’t know what would’ve happened to my family after the fire. With Harlow’s burns and losing our house in the dead of winter, we barely even survived as it was.”

“How is Harlow?” I asked. “I haven’t been able to spend much time with her.”

“She’s strong and resilient,” Nova said. “In the beginning of summer, when Lazlo and I decided to get married, she insisted on making our clothes. I’d tried to get her to rest, but she insisted, and my dress was amazing.”

“It really was,” Eden chimed in. “I attended the wedding, and it was such a beautiful day. The apple blossoms were in bloom.”

They had only been married a few months. That’s why Lazlo hadn’t told me about it. He hadn’t had the chance.

“What did you wear when you got married?” Eden asked me. “I know I’m a badass frontierswoman, but I do still love fashion.”

“Um. I didn’t really wear anything.” I shrugged. “Like, it was a nonevent. Boden and I have been together so long that… we’re just married.”

“Not very romantic, but it is pragmatic,” Eden said.

“That is usually how the post-apocalypse goes,” I muttered.

By midday, the landscape had change from felled trees to dark scorched earth and fresh greens. As we passed through, Eden explained that the wildfires had come through in the spring.

We talked somewhat, but mostly we were quiet, not wanting to scare off any prey. The wolves walked in front of us, but they stayed closer to us than Ripley did with me when we went hunting.

At dusk, we spotted a herd of mule deer crossing the valley. We crouched down in the brush on the ridge, and Nova sent the wolves around to loop back and chase the deer up to us. It worked amazingly, and between Eden, Nova, and myself, we were able to kill four mule deer. That would provide us with plenty of meat and hides.

With the light fading, Eden started a fire to keep away wild animals, and so we could see well enough to field dress the deer carcasses we’d strung up in the trees. It was a laborious and sometimes gruesome process, but it was necessary to do right away to keep the meat safe until we could return with it tomorrow.

“Save the stomach and the intestines,” Nova told me as I worked. “We use them to feed the zombies.”

I stopped and looked over at her. “Why are we feeding the zombies?"

"Back at Emberwood. We feed them at the north wall so they don’t linger around the south gate,” Nova reminded me.

“Feeding zombies just seems so antithetical to everything I’ve ever known,” I said.

“If it keeps us safe, I don’t see what the problem is,” Nova said.

Something about the way she spoke, it reminded me of a conversation with Lazlo when I had first saw him at the old farmhouse.

“You think that zombies aren’t dangerous anymore?” I had asked him.

“No, of course not. They’re incredibly dangerous. But so are sharks and bears and lions.” He glanced over at Ripley strolling around, and corrected himself with, “Well, wild lions, at least. But maybe some zombies can be domesticated or aren’t that bothersome if you give them space.”

That wasn’t something that I had believed then, and I still didn’t now.

“It’s really helpful keeping them occupied with all the visitors coming and going, especially with the Emberwood Fest coming up,” Nova went on.

“Emberwood Fest?” I asked.

“It’s this big festival we have every year on the harvest moon to celebrate surviving another summer before the winter closes us in for so many months,” Nova explained.

I frowned as I thought about what she was saying. “So, you have this town full of people where you feed zombies, and then you invite strangers from all over to come and party with you? And all of this is safe?”

“It has been so far,” Eden said, sounding unfazed. “I do understand that all of this might sound risky to you, but Emberwood is about more than just doing the bare minimum so we never rock the boat. Life is for living, otherwise what’s the point?”

36

Stella

Everyone wants to help, and they offered as much as they could. Boden and Serg would volunteer to take Rafaella every time she fussed or cried. But they didn’t have the one thing she needed.

I feed her, and I feed her, but it is never enough? How can one small baby be so ravenous?

“I can hold her, if you need a break,” Max said. That was the third time he had offered in the past hour, according to the clock tick-tick-ticking on our bedroom wall as I paced.

“She’s hungry,” I snapped, because that should be obvious since the baby was attached to my breast, whimpering and crying between suckling.

“I just think you could use a break,” he persisted. “You could even put her down in the basinet for a few minutes, and we could go outside together and get some air.”

“I won’t just abandon my baby!” I shouted at him.

“No one wants that. I would never abandon Fae.”

“You told me to just leave her, even though she’s crying!”

Max raked his hands through his thick, dark hair in exasperation. “For a few minutes!”

“But she needs me!”

“And you have needs, too!” he shot back.

A knock at our bedroom door silenced our argument. Neither of us moved toward the door, so Boden tentatively opened it and poked his head inside.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“How does it sound like we’re doing?” I asked him in bitter exasperation.

He frowned in understanding. “Put the baby down, and put on your sweater. There is someone here to see you.”

“I can’t –” I started to argue, but Boden held up his hand.

“Five minutes, Stella. That’s all I need,” he assured me.

Max moved toward me with outstretched arms. “You don’t even have to set her down. I’ll take her.”

The way Boden and Max looked at me was full of sympathy, pity, and fear. But the way they came for me felt aggressive, like they were cornering me to steal my hungry baby away from me.

My arms tightened protectively around her, and I backed into the wall behind me. Anger and fear bubbled inside me so much that I could hardly hold back a growl. If Max reached out any farther, I would’ve bitten his fingers.

Maybe he sensed that, because he hesitated and took a step back. He held up his hands, palms out, and his voice was soft and tender. “Stella, please. I love you, and I love Fae. Please let me help.”

Somehow, that broke through. I still wanted to growl and yell at them to leave me alone, but deep down, I loved Max and trusted him more than anyone in the world. If he was saying I needed to let him help me, then I should let him.

“Okay,” I said finally.

“Okay?” Max repeated, and he waited until I nodded to take Fae from me.

“We won’t be long,” Boden reassured me.

I pulled on my crocheted sweater over my white nightgown, and Boden led me through our little house and out onto the small front porch. Lazlo was waiting out there, and my heart immediately dropped. Remy was due back from her first hunting trip with his wife today, and I feared that something had gone wrong.

“What happened? Where’s Remy?” I asked.

“She’s fine,” Lazlo said quickly to ease my fears. “She is still out on the hunt with Nova and Eden, but they will be back by nightfall. They always are.”

“Oh,” I said, but I didn’t feel any less anxious because I still didn’t understand why Remy’s old friend was on our porch while Boden stood protectively behind me. “Why are you here then?”

“I brought a gift.” Lazlo motioned to a brown and white speckled goat tied out in our side yard, just out of range of the garden. “This is one of our dairy does, Minnie. She’s friendly and produces milk every day. If you dilute goat milk with water, you can feed it to a hungry baby.”

I bristled. “How did you know my baby was hungry?”

“I reached out to Jovie because you and Fae seemed to be struggling lately,” Boden explained.

“And Jovie talked to me because she knew that we had dairy goats,” Lazlo elaborated. “Nova had to supplement breastfeeding with goat milk when our daughter was a baby.”

“Oh.” I went over to the goat and held my hand out, so she would sniff it. From the pictures I had seen in books, I thought she looked like a dwarf goat (Capra hircus). “She has such unusual eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a goat up close before.”

“Well, she is also a very friendly goat, and she will be happy to help your family,” Lazlo said.

“Lazlo has assured me that we can keep her on a tie out in our side yard, and she can shelter in the little shed that we store our gardening supplies in,” Boden said.

“Oh.” I pet Minnie’s head and stared into the horizontal pupil and golden iris of her eyes.

“How are things going around here?” Lazlo asked.

“Good, good,” Boden answered. “We’re all settling in, I think. I’ve been working the third shift as a Guardian, which is nice, and Remy’s finally found something she likes.”

“The baby is hungry,” I said, because I heard Fae crying inside the house. “How do I feed her?”

“Milking a goat as calm as Minnie is very simple,” Lazlo said. “And I also brought a couple baby bottles.”

Lazlo crouched down next to her and began explaining the process of milking her swollen udders. Boden listened and even gave it a go, but all I could hear and all I could think about was the baby crying inside the house.

It really didn’t take that long to gather milk and prepare it with warm water, although it felt like an eternity to me as I listened to her cry. Max asked if I wanted to be the first one to try bottle feeding the baby, but I just shook my head, and I went to lay down in our bed. He stayed out in the living room with Fae, and Lazlo and Boden gave him tips about how to feed her.

Soon enough, Max came into our bedroom and proudly announced that she’d taken a bottle of goat milk and wasn’t crying anymore.

My baby had been starving, but I hadn’t made enough to feed her. Deep down, I had already known that. How else could I explain why she and I were so ravenous?

37

Remy

The silence of the forest ended too quickly, and we returned to Emberwood. I was happy to come back to my house and see my family, but I would also be lying if I didn’t feel some anxiety about the town. I could smell it and hear it before we arrived, and the sound of the zombies rumbled to the north.

Neither of the wolves nor the mule nor my fellow hunters Nova and Eden seemed the slightest bit bothered by the small zombie horde that lingered around the northside fencing. They thought this seemed safe, that this seemed normal.

I returned to a quiet house in a noisy neighborhood, and a goat bleating in the side yard. Inside, Max was asleep on the couch, Stella and the baby were in their bed. In the loft, Boden was sleeping because he worked later tonight, and Ripley was asleep because she was a cat.

Serg was the only one awake, so he made us both a cup of tea, and we brought out two chairs onto the front porch so we could watch the sunset and talk.

“How were things while I was gone?” I asked.

“Lazlo brought the goat over this morning.” He motioned to the goat tied out to the post in our yard. “Things have been better since then. From what I gathered, Stella wasn’t making enough milk, and so they’re supplementing with goat’s milk. Fae has been quiet and more content now that she’s not so hungry.”

Before I had left on the hunting trip, I had thought that the baby was crying a lot, but I honestly had no idea how often babies were supposed to cry or poop or grow. They were a mystery that I never thought I’d have to understand, not until Rafaella practically fell in my lap.

“Has Ripley met the new goat?” I asked. She got along okay with Lazlo’s mule Vince the few times she’d met him, but a mule was much bigger and stronger than that fat little goat.

“The plan is to keep the two of them apart forever,” Serg said. “Boden and I cleaned out the shed, so we can put the goat in there at night, or to keep her away from Ripley.”

“I brought a deer femur home for Ripley.” I pointed to my bag, with the thick bone sticking out the top. “She hasn’t had any in a while.”

“How was the hunting trip?” Serg asked.

“Fine. We got as much meat as we could carry,” I said. “But then they brought back some organ meat to feed the zombies.”

“Well, you knew they fed the zombies. Where did you think they were getting the food?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t want to think about it. It feels so perverse to me, feeding the zombies. We don’t feed raccoons or rats or bears because we don’t want to have them around, so why the hell are we feeding zombies?”

“I agree that it sounds counterintuitive, but Emberwood has been here for nine years. They clearly know how to keep their community safe when nobody else has,” Serg reasoned.

“Or maybe they’ve just been really lucky,” I countered.

“Do you really think that?” he asked.

“Everyone who is still alive is really damn lucky. But eventually that luck always runs out, especially if you get careless and start thinking you’re safe,” I said. “The moment you think you don’t have to worry, and you forget to check for the monster under your bed, that’s when the real monsters show up.”

“I know that at the lakehouse, we had to be on guard because we were really the only defense, especially the three of us as the adults,” he said. “But here, with so many others to help, we can actually rest. Recuperating is not being careless – it’s being alive.”

“The ‘so many others’ thing is actually the danger, though,” I insisted. “They’re building new houses because new people are arriving every day. Which also means that every single day, the population has never been this large before. The zombies are drawn to our scent, and they’re feeding them, so the local horde has to be constantly growing, too.

“Maybe the fence holds a few hundred zombies, or even a few thousand,” I went on. “But what about hundreds of thousands? Or a million zombies?”

“There are nowhere near a million zombies outside,” Serg argued.

“Not today, no, but there could be. Someday,” I persisted. “They’re attracted to humans, and there are so many of us here. How far can a hungry zombie travel to find the largest bastion for humans in the country?”

“I don’t know,” Serg admitted. “But I do know that there isn’t anything close to that here now. Why are you suddenly so worried about this?”

“Nova told me about this thing called Emberwood Fest,” I said. “People from all over come to celebrate, and Nova said that a lot of folks who come to the fest end up moving here. So there’s going to be a big population boom, just before winter, before the zombies hibernate through the cold.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about the fest,” Serg said. “We have to make more food at the cafeteria.”

I looked at him, appalled. “And this doesn’t bother you?”

“They’ve been doing it for years, and it’s been fine.” He shrugged. “Besides that, what can we even do about it? Stella and the baby won’t be ready to leave until spring. What would we have done if we were at the lakehouse now? We didn’t have a goat to supplement the milk. How would we ever ensure that Fae doesn’t starve to death if we’re alone and Stella has no milk?”

“I’m not saying we should leave. At least not now,” I said. “But I think we should be prepared to leave on a moment’s notice, if need be. It’s not as safe here as it seems.”

“It’s not safe anywhere,” Serg reminded me with a sigh. “You know that better than anyone, Remy.”

I sunk lower in the chair, because he was right. We hadn’t been safe enough at the lakehouse, we weren’t safe here, we would never be safe again.

But then, I supposed, maybe we never were really all that safe to begin with. We are all such fragile things.

The door to the house opened, and Boden came out. The crocheted blanket from our bed was wrapped around his shoulders because he was shirtless.

He smiled groggily down at me. “You’re home. You should’ve woken me up.” He bent down and kissed my temple.

“I wanted to let you rest. I figured you needed it.”

Serg got to his feet. “I think I’m gonna go inside and have a shower before turning in for the night.”

“Thanks for the tea,” I said again before he departed.

“So how was it?” Boden asked, taking Serg’s chair beside me. “Did you have a good hunt?”

“It was fine.” I shrugged and told him the same thing I’d told Serg.

And he’d responded the same way that Serg had when I mentioned bringing back the organ meat from the animals I had harvested to feed the zombies: “Well, Nova told you they fed the zombies. Where did you think it came from?”

“I guess maybe I didn’t care before because I wasn’t the one who had hunted their food. The zombies weren’t benefiting from my work done with my own two hands,” I said.

“I suppose I can understand that,” he allowed. “Do you want to do something else instead of hunting?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what else I’m good at that could be useful around here.”

“I mean, there are plenty of options, if you want to look.”

“Are you happy here?” I asked and looked over at him.

“Um.” Boden was clearly caught off-guard. “Things have been rough and intense since we arrived, but yeah, I do think I could be happy. You aren’t happy here, though, are you?”

“I don’t like it here,” I admitted. “I don’t like how everyone acts like it’s so safe here. But I know that this is where we need to be right now.”

“Did Serg introduce you to Minnie?” he asked.

“Who is Minnie?”

“The goat.”

“Oh, yeah. He said she’s made things better.”

“Well, it’s too early to say that,” Boden corrected me. “But I hope things are better. Stella has seemed so frayed lately, and not like herself. Some sleep might make things right, but… I don’t know.”

“This isn’t home, and she just became a mother. Maybe she doesn’t feel like herself right now.”

“It’s a lot of adjustments for everybody.” He leaned over and put a hand on my knee. “But home is where the seven of us are.” The goat bleated loudly then. “Okay, eight of us.”

38

Remy

According to Nova, she usually went on hunting trips twice a month. They had other hunters that would go out at other times on a rotating schedule, but they still tried not to go out too frequently to cause a local scarcity.

However, this time of year was different. The Emberwood Fest was one week away, and along with it came an influx of people who came to celebrate, and they were all bringing their appetite. That meant we needed additional meat, and with meat smokers and freezers, we could stock up ahead of time.

While I still wasn’t thrilled about the idea of a festival, it was happening either way, and people would need to eat. I volunteered to go on the hunting trip with Nova and Eden, and I planned to keep my contrarian opinions to myself for a change.

Admittedly, I also wanted to go on the hunt because it got me out of the house. I wasn’t used to spending so much time stuck inside, especially not such a small, dark home. The baby had been crying less since the goat arrived, but there still seemed to be a dark cloud hanging over everything.

Boden was sleeping odd hours, and it was rather jarring to be sleeping alone after such a long time. Serg had been spending more time away from the house, since he was working on getting extra pastries and other treats done for the fest. Max was busy being a new father, and he was still overwhelmed, but he seemed mostly happy. Stella and Ripley… I didn’t know what to make of either of them. They spent so much time staring off into space and sleeping.

And I had no idea how to help them. I wanted to, but I didn’t even understand what was wrong.

That was the real reason I asked to go on the hunt. I couldn’t stand to be trapped in that house, useless and unable to help. So I went to go where I could do something.

I left after dawn. Boden had just fallen asleep, so I kissed him on the cheek and didn’t wake him before going. Max was up feeding the baby with a bottle, and I promised that I’d be back by tomorrow night.

The town was still quiet and slumbering when I met Nova, Eden, the mule, and two wolves nearby the exit.

“Good morning, ladies,” Mayor Vaughn called and waved at us while he speed walked past us. “I can’t chat because I have much too much to do today, but I want to once again thank you for all your service, and I wish you well on a splendid hunt. Bring home tasty bear meat!”

“We’ll do our best,” Eden said, but he was already disappearing around the corner.

“We’re hunting bears this time?” I asked.

“More meat to feed more people,” Nova explained as we headed toward the exit. “Plus it helps spook the bears away so they’re less likely to bother visitors or refugees.”

“But don’t bears keep the zombies away?” I asked.

“Zombies are easier to handle than bears,” Nova reasoned. “We just feed ‘em and stay out of their way.”

“Bears aren’t contagious,” I argued.

“Yeah, but zombies aren’t 300-pounds of muscle with a bite force of 1,000 pounds and wingspan of two meters, and they can’t reason or open doors the way a bear can,” Nova said. “Zombies are way easier to kill.”

“And yet we’re out here hunting bears,” I said.

“Well, we can’t eat zombies,” Nova replied. “But if you don’t want to go on the hunt, you can always stay back.”

“No, I want to go,” I said, and because I felt like I had to give a reason for being so argumentative this morning, I added, “I’ve just never been on a bear hunt before.”

“Without the wolfdogs, it can be dangerous and difficult, but with them, it’s not so bad,” Nova said.

“We’re going after black bears, and they’re not quite as big and bad as grizzlies,” Eden added, trying to assuage concerns that I didn’t even really have.

In a group like this, and after seeing the way the wolves helped us on the last hunt, I had no real fear of the difficulty or danger. The wolves were also much more co-hunters than Ripley, who still behaved like a cat.

We left through the gate and went west and slightly to the south. Eden said that more bears lived down that way. We avoided the sheer waterfall trail where Garrison had fallen to his death, and instead took the sloping path and stayed to the west.

The air was cold, even for late September, but it had a density that I couldn’t explain. It felt heavy and thick and ominous.

The sky had been overcast all day, beginning a dull pale gray that made it look like all the color had been drained. But by afternoon, the clouds had grown dark and angry, and more concerning, the air had warmed some, adding a chill humidity.

“It’s too late to go back,” Nova said, and the clouds thundered overhead. A cold wind blew through the branches of the pine trees around us. “We need to make camp now and set up a shelter. Whatever’s coming tonight, we need to prepare.”

“What about the bear hunt?” Eden asked.

“The bear doesn’t matter,” Nova said. “We’re switching to survival mode now.”

Nova’s plan was to build a tree pit shelter right where we were. She picked the evergreen with the fullest, densest branches, and she told me to start digging out a pit next to it. It had to be at least two feet deep and wide enough to hold all three of us and the wolves. Nova went to work on the lower branches of the tree with her axe, and Eden went to find dry kindling for a fire.

I dug quickly, using the shovel from the mule’s pack. My hands were tough and calloused from my life at the lakehouse, but I still managed to get a few new blisters.

All the thundering had me fearing rain and hypothermia, but when the sky finally opened up, it was heavy, fat snowflakes that fell. A thunder snowstorm was rare, but I had been in one once or twice.

Nova used the branches she cut to make a lean-to roof against the thick trunk of the tree, leaning over the pit, and secured with a rope.

I kept digging, right up until Eden returned with the sticks for the fire. Nova tied down the mule close by, under the branches, and she covered him with a blanket.

The snow came down fast and heavy, and I couldn’t believe how quickly it was accumulating on the ground. Eden got the fire started, and the wolves began howling and barking nearby.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“They found something.” Nova hurriedly made a torch with a stick, a rag, and fire, and she grabbed her bow and arrows. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Eden was crouched in the shelter, feeding the fire, but I stood outside, watching Nova disappear into the swirling snow.

The wolves suddenly stopped barking, but I couldn’t see the light from Nova’s torch. For a moment, there was nothing but the wind howling through the trees, and then there was a loud cracking of branches.

“Remy!” Nova called. “Bring me my knife.”

I grabbed her hunting knife from her bag, and I made my own torch and raced into the dark forest, following her footsteps that were already disappearing in the fresh snow.

Finally, I saw her light, and I found her crouched by the body of a black bear.

“The wolfdogs treed him, so I shot him,” Nova said as I handed her the knife.

“I thought you said that the hunt didn’t matter,” I said.

“We can really use the hide,” she explained as she stabbed into the bear’s chest to start slicing him down the middle. “We’re caught up in a freak snowstorm, and we need all the shelter we can get because we’re fifteen kilometers from home.”

The wolves started growling, staring out in the forest and the blinding snow. I worried there might be another bear until I heard the familiar death groan of a zombie, and it was alarmingly close.

I held my torch out and stood behind the wolves, blinking back the snowflakes, when something finally came into the light.

It was a young boy, no older than six or seven. He was looking right at me, like he could actually see me, but he had the ashy green skin of a zombie.

39

Stella

The baby had been content and sleeping because the baby was full. For almost a full week now, since Minnie arrived, the house had been quiet, and everyone had seemed happier. Except for Remy and Ripley, but neither of them had been happy since we got to Emberwood. They didn’t like being leashed or caged.

Sometimes I was happy, and sometimes I was numb, but always, always, always, I was hungry.

I had been hoping that now that my body wasn’t the sole source of food for Rafaella that my appetite would go down as demand decreased. But that wasn’t the case. If anything, I felt hungrier than ever before.

Every day, I ate as much as I could. Every person was rationed in communal living. But at night, when everyone in the house was asleep, I’d started sneaking into the pantry to eat anything I could get my hands on.

At first, it had only been half a jar of cloudberry preserves or leftover dinner rolls Serg brought home from the cafeteria. But as my options decreased, my desperation only grew. Raw potatoes, a yellow onion, breadcrumbs, and a full mason jar’s worth of tomato sauce were all things I consumed as frantic midnight snacks.

The morning after I had eaten the whole onion, I had heard the others whispering in the loft about it. Remy, Boden, and Serg had a secret discussion about how I was eating anything I could get my hands on. The solution seemed obvious to Remy, who told Serg to bring home more food from the cafeteria. Boden recommended everyone stop keeping anything in the house that they didn’t want me to eat or that might not be healthy for humans to consume in large quantities.

None of them talked to me about it directly, and I pretended that I never heard them. It was not a conversation I wanted to have, especially because there was nothing to be done. I couldn’t stop the hunger, and the scraps of food I did manage to find never satiated it.

I craved meat, thick hunks of elk or deer. Something red and juicy, as close to fresh as I could get it. Serg refused to serve me rare meat the way I wanted, because he insisted that wild game was too full of parasites to risk undercooking.

Last night, when Remy told us that she was leaving on another hunt, my first feeling had been jealousy, because she’d be eating her fresh kills around the campfire.

But I had to stay back with the baby, in a house where everyone was content and full except for me.

Sleep had been plentiful as of late, but it wasn’t very restful. Every time I closed my eyes and let sleep overtake me, I dreamed of the voices.

Nightmares about zombies were nothing new. I had been having them for as long as I could remember. Gnashing teeth, hungry hands, and the scent of death and decay.

These recent dreams were different. There were no images, only sounds. Clear and vivid, even if they were only death groans and other zombie noises. Garbled breathing, grunts, moans, and their haunting howls.

Sometimes it sounded almost as if one of them was trying to speak. Not that any of their words made any sense. It was still only grunts and groans, but it had the cadence of speech.

But tonight, after the voices filled my head for hours, an image took form. The little boy I dreamt about before Rafaella was born, the one that I had first thought had been a vision of my son until my daughter arrived, and I knew I was wrong, because he was not Fae.

He was standing in the snow, pine trees surrounding him. His brilliant green eyes were staring straight ahead, looking straight through me.

I felt cold all the way through, deep inside my bones. Colder than the harshest days of winter, colder than a grave buried six feet below the earth, colder than death.

When I woke up, I sat upright with a jolt, and I was safe in my bedroom. Max slept soundly beside me, and the baby was asleep in her basinet. Our windows were closed, but the cold lingered inside me.

The hunger returned the moment I was awake, and I wrapped a sweater around my shoulders. Quietly, I slipped out of the room and crept out to find something to eat. Everyone was asleep, and a fire crackled in the woodburning stove.

Outside, I could see the snow falling heavy and fast in the moonlight. My stomach growled, and as I headed toward our meager pantry, my eyes landed on the bone on the floor.

It was a hefty femur of a mule deer, and Remy had brought it home on her last hunt for Ripley. It had still had tendons and meat stuck to it, but the lion had gnawed that off right away. She’d stripped it clean and broken it in half, trying to get at the tasty marrow in the center.

But she hadn’t been able to get it all. Not yet. She didn’t have long fingers or tools like I did, and my mouth was already watering at the thought of the bloody marrow.

I rushed over and grabbed the bone. I tried to shove my hand inside it, desperate to get any scrap of food, but the sharp broken edges dug into my skin, slicing open the back of my hand.

Behind me, the front door opened, and Boden came in, letting in the blustery air around him. Snowflakes clung to his hair and jacket.

I dropped the bone as a wave of shame rushed over me, and the clatter of it against the floor caused Boden to look at me in surprise.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He was quiet and grave as he slipped off his boots and jacket.

“I thought you were sleeping or maybe at work,” I said.

“No. I was over at Lazlo and Nova’s farm,” he replied, and he was staring off, not really looking at anything in particular.

“Why were you there? Did something happen with Minnie?” I asked.

“No. She’s warm and safe in the shed.” Boden looked over at me, really seeing me for the first time since he got home, and his eyes widened in alarm. “Stella, you’re bleeding.”

I glanced down, having forgotten entirely about the gash across the top of my hand. “Oh.” It didn’t hurt, but the blood was dripping onto my nightgown, staining it red.

Boden grabbed a clean rag from the kitchen, and he rushed over to wrap my hand. “What happened?”

“I accidentally cut myself on Ripley’s bone.”

“I told Remy to throw that damn thing away the other day,” Boden griped. “But she insisted that the cat would still get some use out of it.”

“There is still marrow on the inside,” I said, and my stomach rumbled.

He brought me over to the table, and we sat down as he cleaned and dressed my minor wound.

“Why were you at Lazlo’s?” I asked.

“Because Remy and his wife are out on a hunt, and the unexpected snowstorm hit,” Boden explained. “Lazlo and I are leaving at first light to help them get home.”

“Remy will be okay. She always is,” I reminded him.

“And the Titanic was unsinkable until it sunk,” he muttered, and he looked up at me apologetically. “Sorry. I don’t want to scare you, especially when I know you’re probably right.”

“It’s okay that you’re worried. I know how much you love her,” I said.

He smiled wanly. “How are you, Stella?” And then his smile fell away. “I don’t know why I asked. I know that you’re not doing okay.”

“No, I am,” I lied. “It’s just been… a lot of changes.”

“I know. But I’ll always love you and Fae, and I’ll take care of you both, no matter what happens,” he promised.

40

Remy

“Nova, hurry up!” I shouted.

“I’m almost done,” Nova grunted behind me. “Frost and Sable will keep us safe.”

The strange zombie child stood in front of me, watching me with eyes that seemed to actually see me. Zombies usually looked straight through the person they were chasing.

“Get back!” I shouted at the child. In one hand, I had a machete, and when I swung my torch out at him, he flinched.

He flinched.

I had never seen a zombie react to fire with fear, even when they were literally on fire themselves.

From behind him, more zombies came out of the dark, walking toward us in the falling snow. Nova was right that the wolves were on them in a flash, but there were so many zombies, more than two canines could handle, no matter how fierce they might be. The zombies trudged through the snow, and they all seemed to be older, decaying, and rotten with so little flesh and meat on their bones.

Nova and I had time to outrun them, even if she was dragging the bear hide behind her. But to where? In the thundering snowstorm, we could only safely head back to the shelter we’d made, where Eden and the mule were waiting. What good would it do to bring the zombies back to surround the shelter and devour them too?

“Nova, we’ve got to stay here and fight, and you’ve gotta get ready right now.”

I had a machete in my right hand, and the torch in my left. I charged at the zombies who made it past the wolves’ frenzied attacks, and I sliced their head right off with the blade, easily cutting through their gelatinous bones like butter.

The next zombie who came at me I lit on fire because I wanted more light, and the old, ragged cloth and dried flesh burned like tinder. The quickly falling snowflakes hissed as they melted in the flames.

On the other side of the wolves, Nova was taking down zombies that came at her, using her knife to run through their brittle bones.

Suddenly, the child zombie who had been standing motionless since after he’d flinched away, let out a howling scream, like how I imagined a demonic fox might cry out if its foot was caught in a trap.

But this was so loud and went on for so long, I couldn’t help but put my hands over my ears. Even the wolves whimpered and backed off in complaint. When I looked over at the zombie child, he had his hand out in front of him in a stop motion.

All at once, the zombies began to fall back. They turned away, walking into the darkness behind the zombie child, and only once they were all gone did the child turn to follow them. I raised my blade, starting after him, and Nova grabbed my arm and stopped me.

“He’s retreating. Let him go,” Nova insisted.

“He can control other zombies!” I argued in disbelief.

“Yes, and he led them away,” she said.

“Only because he realized they were losing! He let them attack until after we’d started taking them down,” I said.

Her expression changed, and she looked back into the night where he had disappeared. “You’re right. He realized something.” She turned back to me. “He was a zombie, and he could think and plan. He was a child, and you want to strike him down?”

“What would you prefer? That he and his friends all hunt us down instead?” I shot back. “Should he use our flesh to fuel his burgeoning intelligence?”

Her eyes turned hard. “Fuck off, Remy.” She went back to grab the bear hide. “They’re gone now, and we should get back to the shelter.”

I helped her carry the hide back so we wouldn’t leave a trail of blood behind us for the zombies or other predators to follow. The wolves jogged ahead of us, leading the way back to the shelter.

Once we reached it, I left Nova to deal with spreading the hide out on the roof, blocking out the snow and wind. I cleaned my hands in the snow. It melted against my warmer skin and washed away the zombie and bear blood, and then I went into the shelter to warm by the fire.

“How did it go?” Eden asked, sitting cross-legged on her bedroll.

“Nova killed a bear, we killed some zombies, and a zombie child flinched at fire before commanding his brethren to retreat,” I explained succinctly.

“What? One zombie could command others? And then they retreated?" Eden asked.

“Seems like it, anyway,” I said.

“Well, everything just got a lot more complicated, didn’t it?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I think it did.”

41

Remy

The three of us took turns sleeping, so someone was always awake to keep watch and tend the fire. Just before dawn, Eden woke up to say we’d run out of firewood. It was still too dark to go out, so we huddled together with the wolves, and we managed to keep warm.

As soon as it was light enough, we gathered more wood. Over the night, at least two feet of snow had fallen, and with temps hovering around freezing, it was a heavy, sticky snow that clung to everything.

The branches and the bear hide kept it out of the shelter, but we had to scrape it off to keep from collapsing. The snow was too deep for the mule to hike through – and us, honestly – and we’d have to wait until some of it melted to make the trek back to town. I only hoped it wouldn’t take too long, since it usually didn’t snow this early in autumn.

Nova came back from getting firewood with the backstraps of meat she recovered from the bear she’d killed last night.

“Are you sure that’s safe?” I asked.

“We need to eat something, the cold kept it nearly frozen, and I always cook bear meat thoroughly because they have roundworms,” Nova said, and she sliced it thinly with her knife and cooked it over the fire.

“How was it walking around out there?” Eden asked. “Do you think we’ll be able to leave soon?”

“We’ll have to wait and see,” Nova answered noncommittally.

I didn’t like being trapped in a small shelter, so I went out and tended to the mule. He was happily munching on grass he’d rooted out underneath the snow. As the sun rose, warming the air, the snow began to melt. It dripped down from the branches like rain pouring from the sky.

“Should we pack up camp and head out?” Nova suggested as the snow turned to slush around us.

“We won’t make it home by dark, so we’ll have to camp out again,” Eden said. “Or we could wait until morning and make the trek in one day.”

“I want to get back to my daughter,” Nova said. “I’ll take another campout if it means getting home earlier tomorrow.”

“Me, too,” I agreed, because I didn’t want to spend more time in that tiny shelter. Moving sounded better, and I wanted to get away from the zombies who could plan and plot against us.

So we packed up our campsite, taking the hide and bear meat on the mule, and we headed home. The snow was still thick in places, and all the melting made it slipperier. That meant it was slow going, trudging through the slushy mess, but I still preferred that to sitting in the shelter or even the house in Emberwood.

Late in the afternoon, I heard a soft humming sound. We all did, even the wolves stopped to cock their heads, and it was only growing louder.

“What is that?” I asked uneasily.

Nova suddenly brightened. “Rescue snow mobiles! They’re charged by solar panels, but they are only used in emergencies or special circumstances. They must be looking for us!”

She ran ahead, toward the sounds, and the wolves howled as they chased her. I couldn’t run because I was holding Vince’s lead, and the mule still couldn’t go fast in the slush. Eden stayed back with us, presumably because she didn’t want to fall either.

“They have snow mobiles?” I asked her. “Why are we out here walking when we could be using them for our hunting trips? We could go farther, or not camp out so much and reduce our risk.”

“Because the town has five electric snow mobiles, and we used to have a dozen,” Eden replied. “Some crashed, one was lost in a lake when someone tried to travel over weak ice, another was stolen, and two have just broken down with frequent use and lack of materials for proper upkeep. They won’t last forever, so we only use them when a situation truly calls for it.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

The wolves started barking excitedly, and then I heard the sound of men’s voices. We rounded the trees, and I saw them in a small clearing. A snow machine pulling a trailer behind it, just large enough for a mule. Between the trailer and machine, it carried three men – Boden, Lazlo, and Eden’s boyfriend Alek.

Nova and Lazlo were already reuniting, and Eden ran over to greet Alek. I quickened my pace as much as I thought the mule could handle, and Boden jogged over to me.

“I am so glad you’re okay!” He threw his arms around me and embraced me tightly.

“Of course I am. You know I’ve survived much worse.”

“Just because you’re immune to the virus doesn’t mean you can survive everything.” He sounded exasperated with his voice muffled in my hair because he still refused to let me go.

“Seriously, Boden. It wasn’t even that cold last night,” I said, bewildered by the intensity of his response.

“No, it wasn’t just the cold or the snow, but those both could’ve killed you, too.” He finally let go so he could look at me. “We… we saw something today unlike anything I’ve seen before.” The fear in his eyes made my stomach drop.

“What?” I asked.

He glanced behind him, and I heard the distant sound of another snow mobile.

“Are there others coming?” I asked.

Boden nodded. “We had to bring two machines to haul back all three of you and the animals, and we brought extra hands in case you needed help. But I should probably explain before they get here.”

“Explain what?” I asked. “What did you see?”

“A zombie child commanding a small horde.”

I grimaced, remembering what I had seen last night. “Yeah, him. He is creepy as hell, but he left us alone when he realized we could take him and all his followers out.”

“Well, we dispatched the two dozen or so zombies following him,” Boden went on. “It took all of us – me, Lazlo, Alek, Mayor Vaughn, and that alderman Wilder, and it wasn’t easy. I worried about what they might have done if they found you in the snowstorm.”

“I’m fine,” I assured him, and I took his hand in mine. “But why did you need to tell me about that before the other snowmobile got here?”

“Because we didn’t dispatch the zombie child,” Boden said. “He started howling loudly, so Vaughn had Alek and Wilder grab him. They bound his hands and feet so he can’t run or hurt us, and they put a rag in his mouth, so he can’t bite or howl.”

“Wait. They captured a zombie?!” I was incredulous and angry. “Why not just kill him?”

“Because he’s different. Mayor Vaughn thinks we can use him to find out more about the zombies or how to control them,” Boden explained.

The second snowmobile came into the clearing, pulling an additional trailer behind it. The mayor was driving, with Wilder on the trailer holding tightly onto the bound zombie.

“This is glorious!” Vaughn beamed as he turned off the machine. “You’ve all survived!”

“Yeah, it’s great, but can you tell me why in the hell you have a zombie tied up?” I demanded to know as I marched over to him. “First you feed them, now you’re keeping them as pets? What is wrong with you?”

“Now this zombie isn’t like the others –” Vaughn tried to explain and held his hands up in a non-threatening way.

“No, he is so much worse!” I cut him off. “He can reason and command others, and I bet he’s just as contagious.”

“If he’s a child who can think and reason, we shouldn’t be killing him or capturing him,” Nova argued.

“We can’t leave him running loose to command hordes, so what do you suggest we do?” Vaughn asked sardonically.

“My vote is still for killing him,” I said.

“And then we would lose all that we can learn from him!” The mayor was appalled at the very notion. “How can we ever hope to find a cure without studying the virus or the infected?”

“Fuck a cure,” I growled, and my scars throbbed, the way they did whenever I was reminded of my time as a lab rat.

Mayor Vaughn narrowed his eyes at me. “And who are you to decide that? I am the mayor of the current largest and longest standing settlement in North America. Thousands of people have voted for me to represent them and protect them from a brutal, wild world.

“Because of my largesse and our mutual desire for a greater community, for a chance for humanity to thrive once again, you have been welcomed with open arms,” he went on, stepping closer to me as he spoke. “When danger befell you, I led a rescue mission to find you.

“Now, I – the official representative and leader of the people of Emberwood – in my wisdom and compassion toward all sentient beings, decide to bring this afflicted child into our care. Mind you, we are using the utmost of caution, and we do so in hopes of finding an end to the cruelest illness known to mankind. One that has taken so much from every single person still alive today. And your response to that is ‘fuck the cure,’” he continued with his tirade.

“My question to you is, what makes you think that any of us give a flying fuck about any of your opinions?” Mayor Vaughn finished.

But I refused to back down. I kept my shoulders back and my chin up, because I knew it was a very bad idea to bring a super smart zombie inside the city walls.

“She’s had some medical trauma,” Boden said, trying to explain away my anger, and he moved so his shoulder was slightly in front of me, putting himself between me and Vaughn.

“I understand that this isn’t about me,” I said, meeting Vaughn’s intense gaze. His eyes seemed to bulge a little, and his cheeks were sallow. “But it should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that bringing zombies into a human safe haven is going to end badly.”

“Your complaints are duly noted, and you are free to move on if you no longer feel safe under my protection,” Vaughn replied, and he turned back to the snowmobile. “Oh, and you are so very welcome for the rescue.”

“We didn’t need to be rescued,” I muttered, but I knew there was no point in arguing. The mayor had made up his mind, and I wouldn’t be able to change it.

42

Stella

I sang to Fae in the mornings, because that’s when I felt the happiest. I’d eaten as much as I could in the night, and I had breakfast of goat milk and eggs and biscuits with cloudberry preserves. So it was as close to content as I felt all day, nursing my daughter in the warm morning light.

My favorites were “All Apologies” and the lullaby that Max’s mother and Remy used to sing. Boden and Max had both written down the lyrics, with Max writing the lullaby phonetically since he didn't know French or how to spell it.

This morning, though, I didn’t feel my usual relative serenity. Maybe it was because Boden had left to help get Remy home. Maybe it was because he’d interrupted my midnight snack last night, so I hadn’t gotten my usual fill. Maybe it was because I was trying to raise a newborn in a world overrun by zombies.

Likely it was all of the above. But whatever it was, I felt ill at ease while I was singing to Rafaella, and I didn’t like it.

“It looks like Fae is asleep,” Max said. He was leaning against the doorframe to our room with a pensive expression, so I knew that he knew that something was wrong. “Why don’t you let me hold her so you can nap, or you can put her down and we could do something together?”

“What is it that you see?” I asked, tilting my head at him. “When you look at me?”

He straightened up, startled by the question. “I see…” He cleared his throat. “I see the most beautiful person I have ever known, inside and out. In a more specific sense, I see a very lovely and very tired young woman, who still gives so much of herself even when she has nothing left to give.

“I see my best friend, the love of my life, and my other half, in the most literal sense.” He walked over and crouched before me, putting a hand on my knee. “And I also see that you’re scared and struggling, and I want to help you. Not just because I love you, but simply because you need it.”

“But why?” I asked with tears welling in my eyes. “I love you, and I love Fae, and I’ve always wanted to have babies with you. We were so happy before, and life wasn’t easy then. So why is this so hard? Why am I struggling so much?”

“I don’t know,” Max admitted sadly. “Life is unfair, because you haven’t done anything wrong. I know how hard you’re trying and how much you love us.”

“So what should I do?” I asked.

“Let me take care of the baby, and you go take a shower,” he said. “I’ll make a snack and tea, so you can eat when you get out.”

“Do we still have venison?” I asked. “And honey?

“Uh, sure. Deer meat and honey. I can get that ready for you.”

“I mean honey for the tea, and rare for the meat,” I clarified.

“Right. Yes. I will do that.”

He was offering me a lifeline, and I had no choice but to take it. I handed him our baby, and I went to the bathroom for a long shower.

I closed my eyes and tried not to think of anything at all, but it was so hard to do. Even before I’d had Fae and voices came to me in the night, I struggled to silence my mind. My thoughts never seemed to stop.

But I needed to rest and relax, so I was determined to try.

My eyes had only been closed for a minute, with my thoughts drifting to Max and the baby. But that was quickly shattered by the sound of a zombie screaming.

I clamped my hands over my ears, but it didn’t help because the sound was coming from inside my head. It was so loud and powerful, it felt like my skull would split, and I almost hoped it would so it would release all the pressure.

My eyes were squeezed shut, and I was overtaken with a vision. The zombie child from my nightmares appeared, standing in a pool of sticky red blood. He didn’t move or speak, but I could feel his fear and hunger radiating off him in waves. His terror and anguish clenched my heart, and his hunger rolled my stomach.

And then there was a word, single and clear: Help.

“Stella?” Max knocked on the bathroom door. “Are you okay? I thought I heard you moaning.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied.

The vision cleared, and I was standing in a lukewarm shower with my head still aching terribly. “I’ll be out.”

I wrapped myself in a robe that Max had left for me, and I opened the door to see Max and my midwife Jovie in our living room, sipping lavender tea.

“Oh,” I said in surprise and drew my robe more tightly around me, even though Jovie had already seen my most intimate parts.

She looked at me with a tight smile, and her eyes conveyed so much pity and concern. Max avoided my gaze, so she was likely here on his behest. They were worried about me, which meant that my behavior must be worrying.

Too late, I realized that I must be more unwell than I thought I was.

“Oh.”

“Stella, Jovie’s here because…” Max trailed off, sheepish.

“We’re both concerned about you because we care about you,” Jovie finished for him, but I already knew that. I wanted something new.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked and already silent tears were spilling down my cheeks.

“I have some ideas, based on what I’ve observed and from what Max has told me,” Jovie said. “If you’d like to sit down and have some tea, we’ll talk about it.”

Max held his hand out toward me, and I took it and sat on the couch beside him. I was hungry, and I quickly drank the tea with honey, so I’d have something filling my belly.

Jovie was sitting on the chair across from us, and she leaned forward slightly when she asked, “Have you heard of postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis?”

“I read about it in a book, I think. You cry a lot after the baby is born,” I said, summarizing my understanding.

“It’s more than that. The sudden changes from pregnancy, in addition to all the stress and sleep deprivation of a newborn can cause big changes in someone after giving birth,” Jovie explained. “Symptoms can include intense sadness, anger, anxiety, and all the way over to extreme hostility, hallucinations, and even delusions.”

“Hallucinations?” I asked.

“Hallucinations are seeing or hearing things that aren’t really here,” she elaborated. “Do you think you might have been experiencing something like that?”

“I-I don’t know,” I stammered uncertainly.

“Given that you had an unexpected high-risk pregnancy at such a young age, in a stressful environment, after a somewhat traumatic illness and birth, it is normal to struggle,” she said. “The fact that you’re still alive just proves how incredibly strong you are, and there’s nothing wrong with asking for help. You are not being a bad mom or anything like that. Life is cruel and difficult and unfair. But we can help you.”

“I need help,” I admitted quietly, and then tears were coming down so fast and hard.

And they were my tears, and it was my fear in my heart, but it was also his – the zombie child’s. I felt it as much as I felt anything, and I wanted it to stop.

“Sometimes the first step is realizing that you need help.” Jovie smiled warmly at me. Then she grabbed a large medicine bag and pulled out herbs and teas, a few books, and a tiny vial of liquid. “I’ve brought some tools to help you through this, because you can make it through this.”

Max wrapped his arm around me, and he kissed my shoulder. “I love you, Stella, and I know that you can overcome anything.”

43

Remy

Mayor Vaughn and his alderman Wilder snuck the zombie child into the town through the walls by the cover of night. It was late after we got back from the hunting-trip-turned-rescue-mission. The snow mobiles had made it quicker, but they were slowed down by all the weight.

Vaughn hid the zombie under the bear hide on the back of the trailer, and he drove the snowmobile through the gates after passing his examination upon entrance. They went straight to the town garage, and from there, Wilder carried the zombie – still bound and wrapped up in bearskin – into the mayor’s office and down to the jail cells in the basement.

The office in actuality was an old church, the first non-domicile structure built in the former town of Baptiste in the year 1863, or at least that is what Vaughn claimed as he led us through the building. Boden and I followed him and Wilder, but all of the others had gone home. They were more concerned with seeing their families than making sure the zombie was secure.

In the main sanctuary, all of the pews had been cleared out, so it was a big empty room. Metal folding chairs were stacked in the corner, likely for when town meetings were held. The raised alter area where the pulpit had once been was converted to an office with a desk, file cabinets, and a potted ficus plant.

On the western wall, there was an old choir balcony with a large circular stained-glass window. Beneath that, there was a small apartment that the mayor called home, but I didn’t have a chance to do more than glance inside at wood paneling and olive-green carpet.

The mayor led us downstairs to a musty basement. The walls and floor were cinderblocks and concrete. Jail cells had been made with bars of scrap metal welded together in a crude but effective manner. Wilder dropped the zombie child in his new cage, still bound and gagged, and he closed the door and locked it.

Vaughn turned to me, not bothering to mask any of his weary contempt anymore. “I trust that you are satisfied with the zombie’s containment.”

“It’s good enough, but I still want to say again that this is a very dangerous and very stupid thing to do,” I reiterated.

“Well, I will be sure to make a note of that in the town records that one Remy – what was your last name again?” Vaughn asked.

“King.”

“Right, I will make note that Remy King has expressed great displeasure at the mayor’s decisions,” he finished.

“Aren’t you going to untie him at least? It seems inhumane leaving him like that,” I said, ignoring his tone.

“It doesn’t need to be humane! He’s not human,” Vaughn argued. “And this is plenty good enough for a zombie.”

“What are you going to do with him?” Boden asked.

“I need to speak with my council and the scientifically inclined folks, and we’ll decide from there,” Vaughn said.

My heart raced as I remembered how the scientifically inclined folks had treated me when I was in a cage.

“Come on. Let’s go, Remy.” Boden put a hand on my back, leading me away from staring at the zombie child.

It was early enough in the evening that everyone was still awake. I told Max, Stella, and Serg about the hunt and the rescue, but with the notable exception of the zombie child. I didn’t mention him at all, because I didn’t want to worry them, and I couldn’t change anything. Thankfully, Boden supported me on this.

Then life went on, as it always did. While the temperatures weren’t exactly soaring, it was warm and dry enough that all snow melted in a matter of days after the storm.

Max and Stella filled us in about how she had been struggling with postpartum issues, and she started making changes to feel better. One of the things that Jovie suggested was that Stella get outside in the sun and take walks. She went out with Boden when he took Ripley out on a leash, and she’d go for afternoon strolls with Serg.

Within a few days, Stella seemed to be noticeably doing better. She smiled more, and the lullabies she sang to Fae sounded cheerful again instead of so melancholy. Over dinner, she would talk about her excitement for the rapidly approaching Emberwood Fest. There was to be food, music, and dancing, and Stella had never experienced anything like that before.

I still didn’t think the festival was a good idea, but I decided to shut my mouth about the whole thing. I couldn’t change it, and people needed something to look forward to. Especially Stella.

It was actually Serg who came up with the idea that we ought to get new clothing for such a big event. Then I remembered that Harlow had a clothing shop, and I offered to go down and get something with Stella.

The boutique was located in the front room of a small house that Harlow lived in. It was downtown, in one of the homes fortunate enough to be on the solar panel grid. It was rustic and cute, built at least fifty years before the zombies arrived.

Clothing was on racks all around the room. Some were Harlow’s own creations, most notable for an edgy chic mixed with a feminine touch via lace or silhouette. Other clothing was clearly premade or traded from elsewhere, like denim jeans and t-shirts with screen printed designs.

Harlow had always believed that there was no reason the post apocalypse couldn’t be stylish, and it showed in her boutique. She was organizing necklaces hanging by the sales counter, but she smiled brightly when she saw us.

Her blond wavy hair hung in a loose braid over her shoulder, and she wore layers of necklaces and clothing. Her dress and shawl were made from a combination of repurposed fabric, soft rabbit pelts, and trimmed out with lace and tassels. The whole thing felt like Stevie Knicks by the way of Mad Max.

“Hey, Remy. Are you finally ready to spruce up your wardrobe?” Harlow asked as she approached us.

“Actually, we did want to get something new for the upcoming fest,” I said.

She looked at me with a cocked eyebrow. “Really? I Never assumed you’d be one for that kind of thing.”

I bristled a little. “What kind of thing?”

Harlow shrugged. “Fun. With other people.”

“You’re right,” Stella told her. “Remy doesn’t want to go. She’s only doing it to make me feel better.”

“Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?” I grumbled.

“You must be Stella.” Harlow finally addressed her and held out her hand to shake it. “I’m Remy’s old friend, Harlow.”

“Nice to meet you.” Stella smiled up at her, and it was a real one, not one of the forced one she’d used so much as of late when she was pretending things were fine. And suddenly, I didn’t mind so much that she and Harlow were ganging up on me.

“Have you ever been clothes shopping before?” Harlow asked.

Stella shook her head. “I mostly made mine or found it or someone handed me something and hoped it fit.”

“Ugh. I know exactly how that goes. I wore boots that were way too big for me for months,” Harlow commiserated. “But this is my boutique, and here you’ll be able to find something that’s perfect for you in size, color, and style.”

Harlow took Stella’s hand and started leading her around the room, asking her questions about her preferences and interests as she pulled things off the rack for her.

Within twenty minutes, she gathered a flurry of clothing, and she sent Stella to try it on. The changing room looked like it had been a closet before, but Harlow had updated it with a saloon door and removed any of the shelving to leave plenty of room to move around.

“How are you doing?” Harlow asked me while Stella was busy trying things on.

“Good, good. Everything is going… good,” I replied.

“That bad, huh?” Harlow asked me wryly.

“Everything’s changed so much so fast, but everything is still good,” I said, unable to defend my position any better than that.

“Honestly, I’m surprised you’ve lasted as long as you have. You’ve been here, what? A little over a month?” she asked. “I figured you’d be gone within a week or two.”

“The baby’s too young to travel,” I said. “But why would you even say that? You haven’t seen me in years. You don’t really know me anymore.”

“I lived with you for six months in the Arizona quarantine zone, and I travelled with you for a few weeks,” Harlow reminded me. “I love you, Remy, and I know I’m still alive because of you. But don’t pretend that you don’t run or push people away every chance you get.”

Before I could answer, Stella opened the door and stepped out in a lovely maxi dress. The fabric was black with little red flowers, and Harlow had embellished it with lace on the sleeves and neckline.

“What do you think?” Stella asked, but by her smile, it was obvious that she knew she looked fantastic.

“You are radiant!” Harlow exclaimed.

After a few more enthusiastic compliments toward Stella, Harlow handed me a stack of clothes and shoved me into the changing room to try them on. Meanwhile, she took Stella around the store to pick out jewelry and accessories.

It wasn’t until I was in the changing closet that I noticed that there were two mirrors across from each other on the side walls. It was to give people a full 360 view of themselves in an outfit, but I hated looking in mirrors.

My skin had become an unpleasant reminder of everything I had been through. The scars crisscrossing across my abdomen and back from the medical experiments. The bitemarks on my hip, wrist, and shoulder, all from zombies who had managed to take a bit of my flesh before I killed them. Knife wounds on my arms, neck, and chest, a bullet wound in my calf, and an arrow wound in my left arm – all of those were from violent but uninfected humans. The gnarliest of my scars was a twisting on my side from when an elk had nearly gored me three summers ago.

My body looked like a map of all the terrible things that had happened to me.

Boden didn’t feel that way. In the few times I let him see me naked in the dim light of a fireplace, he had told me that I was so beautiful. I knew that he meant it by the look in his eyes, and by the tender, almost reverent way that he touched me.

“Every scar you have, every mark on your body is just a sign that you are still alive,” Boden had told me in a low, emphatic voice. “You have survived and endured, and I wish you had been spared all the pain. But you are here, alive, in my arms, and I can’t think of anything more beautiful than that.”

But he wasn’t here now, so I kept my head down, and I hurried to pull on the dress that Harlow had handed me.

I came out of the changing room to show them how I looked, and it was just in time to hear Stella asking Harlow, “How did you get those scars?”

“Stella!” I yelled, aghast. “You can’t ask someone that!”

“Why not?” Stella seemed genuinely confused. “Everyone can see she has them. Why can’t we talk about them?”

“You just can’t. It’s rude,” I said, once again realizing how sheltered Stella and Max actually were.

“She is right,” Harlow agreed with me, but her tone was much gentler than mine had been. “You shouldn’t ask strangers about their scars because they might not want to talk about them with someone they don’t know. But since you and I are friends now, I don’t mind.”

“Are you sure?” Stella asked, looking apologetic. “I don’t want to upset you.”

“No, it’s okay.” Harlow was trying out different floral clips in Stella’s auburn hair as she spoke. “Some years ago, I ended up in this place owned by the literal worst people in the world, a family called the Loths. They’d once farmed cattle, but now they farm zombies.

“After several months of awful things, I was finally able to escape,” Harlow went on. “Before I did, though, I managed to take out a few of the Loths for all the terrible things they had done.”

“Did they burn you when you escaped?” Stella asked.

“No, these scars happened much later,” Harlow said. “I thought the Loths were dead and gone, but it just took them many years to find me.”

“And what happened when they did?” Stella asked.

Harlow frowned at the memory. “They set our house on fire. We lost so much, but my family made it out alive. And all I have are these scars.” She forced a smile then. “Now I have my boutique, and we’re safe in Emberwood, and I’ve gotten to spend time with you and Remy. Life has a way of working out the way it was meant to.”

“Do you really think so?” Stella asked.

Harlow nodded. “I do.” Then she blinked, clearing away the dark memories, and she looked over at me. “You look so rad in that, Remy, but we have got to accessorize that just right.”

44

Remy

I hated to admit it, but it was a beautiful night for a festival. The air was crisp with only the slightest of chills, and it smelled like bonfires and autumn leaves.

The festivities began at dusk, so we had plenty of time to get ready. Except for Serg, who was down cooking at the Public Cafeteria. Harlow had sent Stella and I home with clothing for everyone: in addition to our dresses, button up shirts for Max, Serg, and Boden, and an adorable knitted red romper and matching hat for the baby.

Mine was a body hugging loose knit black dress with a pair of thigh-high socks and my regular shoes. Harlow had even forced me to take a few rings, and when I slipped one on my finger, I noticed Boden given me an odd look. We were both up in the loft, and he’d been sitting on the bed, watching me get ready.

“What?” I asked.

“Is that for keeping up appearances?” he asked, and I must’ve looked confused because he said, “You put the ring on your wedding finger. Are you pretending that we’re married again?”

“No. I wasn’t thinking that.” I shook my head. “It was just something that Harlow made me get, and it fit that finger.”

“Sure,” he replied flatly, and he got up and started toward the ladder.

“Boden,” I said, and he paused at the top of the ladder.

“Are you two ready up there?” Max called from the main floor great room. “Me and Stella and Rafaella have been ready for ages.”

“I won’t be able to stay out too late with the baby, so I want to be there as soon as it starts,” Stella added.

“Let’s just go and try to have a good time,” Boden told me quietly, but he sounded resigned to being miserable already. “The kids deserve a fun night out.”

“Yeah, of course,” I said, and I followed him down to join the others.

Stella did seem quite excited about going. Jovie had given them a stroller, and the baby was safely tucked into it with a blanket around her. Max pushed the stroller, Stella walked with her arm looped through his, and the three of them looked like a perfect happy family. Even with the baby, they walked faster than us, but Boden was practically dragging his feet.

“If you don’t want to go, we could go back to the house,” I told him as we walked down the road toward the fest. “Max and Stella will have a fine time without us.”

“No, I wouldn’t want to deprive you of any more happiness,” he muttered.

I stopped short. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” He stopped and raked a hand through his hair before turning to look at me. “Why did you tell Nova that you were my wife?”

“What?” I asked. “That was so long ago. Why is it bothering you now?”

“It never stopped bothering me. I just didn’t know how to bring it up.”

“I thought that’s what you wanted anyway, for us to be husband and wife,” I said.

“Yeah. I wanted that, and I wanted you to want that, but you didn’t, and that’s fine,” he said, but it didn’t sound fine. “I could handle that. Until you heard Lazlo was married, and suddenly your tune changes. And so I have to know… was it to make him jealous? Or was it because you’d been holding out hope that you’d be reunited with him? If he wasn’t with Nova, would you be here with me right now?”

“Yes, of course I would! Where else would I be?” I asked.

By then, Max and Stella were ahead of us, so caught up in their happy family to notice Boden and I waiting behind. But that was how I preferred it. They deserved to have a good night instead of getting dragged into whatever this was.

Since I’d raised my voice, people started looking at us. We were also standing in the road, partially blocking those heading to the fest by foot, bicycle, or equid.

Boden noticed it, too, and he motioned to a pathway between two buildings. It was something like a narrow alleyway with a composting bin on the ground floor, and clothing lines strung between the buildings for the second story apartments above. On one side was an apothecary on the main floor, smelling of incense and herbs, and on the other was a tannery, giving off an acrid and earthy odor.

Passersby would still be able to watch us from the road, and the businesses were closed for the fest, so I kept going down the alleyway until we went around to the back of the tannery. There, animal hides in various states were hanging from a pergola, and it gave us plenty of privacy.

Boden stood with his hands on his hips, staring down at the dirt, and I folded my arms across my chest, watching him expectantly.

“I really thought that it wouldn’t matter, as long as you came home,” he said finally in a low, husky voice. “When you came back, you were always so happy, but you brought that into our life, so I didn’t even mind.”

“What are you talking about, Boden? You’re not making any sense.”

Now he gave me a hard look. “Don’t bullshit me, Remy. If Nova hadn’t been in the picture when you and Lazlo found each other again, you would’ve taken Max and Stella and ran off with him.”

My heart dropped, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is that what you think would’ve happened, or what you wish would’ve happened?”

“Why would I wish that you left me for another guy?” he asked, incredulous.

“Because then you wouldn’t be stuck with me!” I shot back. “I know that I’m not easy to love, and that I’m cold and aloof and selfish. I’m basically a completely defective human being. I’m not good at anything that a wife should be good at, and I can’t even be a mother.”

“You think that I am upset because you can’t have kids?” Boden asked. “You told me about that right away, and I said that I didn’t want to bring kids into this world, and I meant it.”

“Yes. I remember very clearly. You never said that you didn’t actually want kids, just that you didn’t feel right about it given the state of things,” I reminded him. “I have seen you with Rafaella, and I used to listen to you talk about your sisters. I would tell myself, oh, that’s because he loves them. But then I saw the way your face lit up when you played with Lazlo’s daughter. You want a family, but instead you’ve been saddled with me.”

My voice was cracking, but I pushed on and finally admitted, “That’s why I didn’t want to be married to you. I didn’t want to trap you more than I already had. But now that we’re in Emberwood, you’re free to find someone who will make you happy and give you the babies you deserve.”

“Jesus, Remy, is all that what you really think?” he asked, looking at me in shock. “Because you couldn’t be more wrong. Yes, I like kids, especially Rafaella, but that doesn’t mean I want any for myself. And most importantly, you never kept me from having a family. You gave me one.”

“Because I had two kids in tow –” I started to argue but he stopped me.

“No. You are my family. If it were only me and you at the end of the world, I would still have a family.” He moved closer to me, closing the gap between us. “I can’t speak for anyone else, but you have always been so easy for me to love. I started falling for you almost right away, because you were so strong and such a badass, but I could still see how much you cared.

“And I refuse to believe that I wouldn’t have loved you in any other place, any time that I met you, whether you are traumatized or not. I have never loved anyone the way that I love you, and I don’t want to be with anyone else but you,” he said. “But if you don’t want to be with me, and you’re in love with someone –”

“No!” I shouted, startling him, and I put my hands on his chest. “I am in love with you and only you. I care about Lazlo, and I always will, the same way that I still care about Harlow.

“You are the only one who makes me feel safe, and sometimes I worry that you know me better than I know myself.” I stared up at him with tears in my eyes and a tremble in my voice. “I love you so much, Boden, but I’ve always known that I don’t deserve you.”

“Nature is completely indifferent to what anyone deserves, and the virus is certainly proof of that,” he said. One of his hands went to my waist, and the other to my face, gently cradling it as he stared into my eyes. “But you deserve happiness and love as much as anyone else.”

He kissed me then, and I stood up on my tiptoes and pulled him closer to me. The kiss grew more intense and urgent, and he suddenly lifted me up and set me on the workbench behind me. My hands went to unbutton his jeans while his hand went under my dress to make sure I was ready.

His mouth was still on mine when he pushed inside me, and we found a quick, rough rhythm together. My legs were wrapped around his waist, and he had one on my back, pressing me to him. His other hand held the back of my neck, tender but firm, so we were looking in each other’s eyes.

It made me feel so vulnerable and exposed. I wanted to close my eyes or look away, but he needed this from me. So I stayed in the moment with him as pleasure and pressure built inside me.

I finished first, but he followed right after me. He slumped against me, kissing my neck and shoulder as he caught his breath.

Afterwards, when I straightened out my dress, Boden wrapped his arms around me and murmured that he loved me. For once, I let myself believe him.

We’d taken long enough being off on our own, and we didn’t want to worry anyone, so the two of us hurried hand-in-hand smiling until we arrived at the fest.

Large white string lights stretched across the plaza in the middle of downtown, lighting the place up. A stage had been set up in the center, and Lazlo was performing with some friends. He was singing and playing guitar, Eden was on bass and backup vocals, and the alderman Wilder was on the drums. They were covering an old David Bowie song, “Life on Mars.”

In the crowd, I could see Max and Stella standing nearby Harlow and Nova, with little Sage on her shoulders. Boden and I joined them in watching the performance until a woman brushed past us. I didn’t even really notice her all that much, but then Harlow began to scream.

“She’s here! She found me!” Harlow shrieked. “Mercy Loth is here!”

45

Stella

The woman Harlow called Mercy Loth had already disappeared into the crowd, but she was left inconsolable and frantic. I had managed to catch sight of Mercy for a few moments, and she looked to be in her early thirties, with dishwater blond hair, pale skin, and a nose that was slightly too broad for her face.

When she’d went by us, Mercy had actually bumped into me, and she dropped a book. I bent to pick it up, and that’s when Harlow began to scream. The book was still in my hand, but I feared it would only upset Harlow more if she knew about it, so I tucked it into Fae’s diaper bag.

“Mercy Loth is here?” Nova asked her. She gripped Harlow’s arm, forcing her to look at her instead of falling into hysteria.

“Do you know what’s happening?” Max asked me in a low whisper.

“Someone that really hurt Harlow and her family is here, maybe even stalking them,” I explained as simply as I could.

By then, Harlow’s outburst was drawing attention. Lazlo and his band were still playing, but they were noticeably distracted and looking into the crowd.

A moment ago, the night had felt almost magical, holding so much promise, and now it was cold and ominous. The hunger I had been trying to ignore since Jovie started me on my treatment was roaring awake. But I just suddenly felt so, so empty, like everything inside me had been scooped out and filled with ice.

“What’s happening?” Samara asked, pulling me from my thoughts. She and Castor had apparently been drawn by the commotion, and they were hand-in-hand. I hadn’t seen them in weeks, but we’d all been busy rebuilding our lives here.

“I don’t know really,” I said, because that was easier than explaining whatever was actually going on.

“It looks like Remy is taking care of it,” Castor said, looking past me to where Remy was talking with Harlow and Nova.

“She always does,” Samara muttered with a sneer.

I was about to ask her what she meant by that, but Lazlo announced that the band would be taking a break for a few minutes. He set down his guitar and got off the stage to attend to Harlow.

“Are you okay?” Max asked me. He picked up Fae out of her stroller, holding her arms, and that seemed smart given the uneasy feeling simmering in the crowd.

“Yeah, yes.” I nodded. “You?”

“Yeah,” he said, but his lips were pressed into a thin line. “I just… I want you to get out more, but I don’t know if it’s safe for us tonight.”

“If you think we should go home, then let’s go home,” I said.

“We should get my sister and Boden first,” Max said. “I doubt Serg will be able to leave since he’s working, but I’m sure he’ll be fine anyway.”

Lazlo had gone over to be with Harlow and his family, and Remy and Boden had moved on, setting their sights on the mayor. He and his alderman Wilder were pushing through the crowd.

“Vaughn, you have to listen,” Remy was saying, and she grabbed him by the elbow, so he stopped cold and glared at her. “There are so many strangers here tonight, and some of them are very dangerous. Do you have any protections for us against the uninfected?”

“You are virtually a stranger to me, Ms. King, and I don’t know why you keep seeing fit to tell me what I can and can’t do in my own town,” Mayor Vaughn retorted. “If you would let go of me, I have matters to attend to that are much more pressing than whatever rumors you’re busy chasing.”

The way Remy glared at him, I thought she was going to punch him. Boden must’ve had the same concern, because he put a hand on her back and said, “Come on, Remy. Let’s go.”

She continued to glower at the mayor, long enough that Wilder’s hand went for the baton holstered on his hip. When Remy finally released Vaughn, he immediately made a beeline for the stage. As soon as he got to the microphone, he started pacifying the audience.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Remy muttered.

“What do you expect him to do?” Boden asked her. “Shut down the whole fest because one person here may have hurt someone else?”

“Harlow was more than hurt, and I’ve had a bad feeling about this whole thing,” Remy insisted.

As Vaughn droned into the microphone about how our community was a beacon for all of humanity, and Remy continued to gripe that no one was taking the dangers seriously, I found myself unable to focus on what either of them were saying.

The hunger inside me grew, but it was something more than that. There was a pull inside me, a calling. I was drawn away from the crowd, leaving my family watching the mayor speak.

All around me, the air was filled with the scent of food. Tangy kabobs and spicy chili and venison sausage. But despite my extreme hunger, none of it sounded appealing. It all smelled as appetizing as dirt.

That left me with no real distractions as I followed the pull, letting it lead me away from the stage and toward the mayor’s office at the edge of downtown.

But I wasn’t the only one.

The woman Harlow accused of being Mercy Loth, I saw her again, and she was sneaking into the side door of the mayor’s office. She slipped in with the door closing behind her. But it didn’t matter that I lost sight of her, because I knew that I’d be able to trail her the same way a dog would track its prey, and I went inside.

Since the mayor’s office had been a church before, the exterior walls were lined with large stained-glass windows. The lights inside the old sanctuary were off, but all the excess lighting from the fest made the room glow crimson and emerald through the stained-glass.

Mercy was nowhere to be seen, but my legs marched directly across the room. I opened a door, leading to a staircase into the basement. It had a dank, musty odor, but underneath that was something familiar, something that summoned me down the stairs.

As I made my way down, I heard a woman weeping softly.

“What have they done to you?” she cried.

In the basement, there were several jail cells. The only one that had anybody in it held the same zombie boy from my nightmares. His hands and legs were bound with a rope, but he was sitting near the bars so Mercy could reach in and untie him.

“Don’t worry. Mama will get you out of here, and everyone who hurt you will have hell to pay,” she promised him.

Suddenly, the whole world began to shake, and dust and dirt rained down from the ceiling above.

46

Remy

“As an ember will ignite a flame, we will reignite the human race,” Vaughn was saying as his speech meandered around again. His voice became shrill at times, and his eyes were practically bursting out from his skull. His face had a puffiness, like maybe he was drinking too much booze, or maybe having a mild allergic reaction to something.

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from,” Vaugh said, adding a recitation of T.S. Eliot to his already long speech.

“There is something seriously wrong with that man,” I told Boden as I glared up at the mayor on the stage.

“Hey, where did Stella go?” Max asked. He was holding the baby and glancing around.

“Wasn’t she just here with us?” Boden asked, sounding alarmed.

The air felt charged and dangerous, and out in the town plaza, we were exposed and vulnerable.

“We have to find her, and we have to go,” I said, and there was no pushback from either Max or Boden.

The mayor was still talking because the band was still on a break. At the edge of the plaza, Harlow was sitting at a picnic table between Lazlo and her girlfriend Kimber. Nova stood nearby with Sage in her arms.

“Take care of Max and the baby,” I told Boden, and I went straight for Lazlo and Harlow. “Have you seen Stella?”

Harlow looked at me with tears in her eyes, and her girlfriend wrapped her arm around her shoulders. “She was here when I saw Mercy, but I haven’t seen her since then.”

“Did something happen?” Nova asked me.

“I don’t –” I began, but a low rumbling sound stopped me short.

At first I thought it was thunder, but then I realized it was coming from the front gate. The whole crowd slowly fell silent, and everyone turned to look toward it.

“Why aren’t the Guardians talking or sounding alarms?” Boden asked quietly, and he and Max had followed me.

“Where is the safest place in town?” I asked, hoping that anyone would answer, but I never took my eyes off the darkness around the gates.

“Um, the mayor’s office, maybe,” Nova said. “There’s a storm shelter in the basement.”

The fencing abruptly crashed forward with a bang so loud that it shook the earth. Spotlights illuminated the chain link fences that provided a maze-like entrance passed the examination sheds, and they partially obscured the view of the gates and the exterior fence. But the beast who broke through was an incredible monster.

It was the largest fucking zombie I had ever seen. It was a gorilla, and he was way over two meters tall and probably half a ton of raging muscle. His fur was balding and missing in thick chunks, leaving leathery skin covered in open wounds. His bottom lip had been ripped off, revealing monstrously large and horrific teeth.

There was only a split second – a very fraction of a moment – to appreciate the enormity of the danger that had flattened all of the fences like a child crumpling up paper. And then the zombie horde flooded around the gorilla, overtaking the city like crashing waves.

It was too late for yelling and planning now. There was only moving and survival.

I turned around and started pushing Max towards the mayor’s office at the edge of downtown. I stayed behind him, shielding him from the zombies that were charging at our heels, and Boden was at his side. I grabbed a hefty sledgehammer from where it had been left leaning after being used to hammer up festival posts and décor, because I needed a weapon.

It was already chaos around us. Everyone was running and screaming in a panic. The zombies were howling, and they attacked anyone they could sink their teeth into. There were so many children, so many people, and there was nothing to be done for them.

My vision had shrunk to a pinhole, but it was narrow and clear so I knew where to go. I could only focus on what mattered.

Whenever a zombie came anywhere near us, I swung my hammer, and it either knocked them back or sometimes even took off their heads.

Somewhere, there was a fire, and the acrid smoke filled the air. The bulbs on the lights strung across the plaza exploded and rained down shards of glass as everything became darker. Blood splashed hot on my face, and I don’t even know where it came from.

People were running into their nearby homes or shops, but the zombies crashed in after them, through the windows and knocking down doors.

“Nowhere is safe anymore!” Nova yelled from behind me, but I didn’t know what that meant for us. We couldn’t just stay here and die.

“The garage just west of the the mayor’s office!” Lazlo shouted.

“Come on!” Boden ran ahead of me and Max, clearing the path for us. His blade was in his hand, and he used it on any zombie that crossed him.

People saw us running and some followed us, but that didn’t stop zombies from tackling them to the ground and devouring them while they were still alive. There was no time for help, not even time for mercy, and I kept pushing Max forward.

Jovie emerged from the crowd. Her clothes were torn, and her head was bleeding. Serg was running right on her heels. He was still wearing an apron from cooking, but he didn’t look like he’d been injured at all.

“Have you seen Stella?” Max asked as we all ran together.

“Isn’t that her there?” Jovie pointed ahead, and I saw a very dazed Stella staggering out of the mayor’s office.

She wasn’t running or moving quickly, not like she should be, even when Max screamed at her to run. Boden was in front of us, and he sprinted over to her and grabbed her up, throwing her over his shoulder like a ragdoll.

The garage was just to the left of the office, and I used my sledgehammer to take out three more zombies before we finally reached it. The door was locked with a bolt, and it took two strikes with my sledgehammer before it popped open.

Boden put Stella down, and Max had a moment to hug her quickly. Then I grabbed Serg’s hand, and I shoved them all inside.

I finally looked back to see who was still with us. Lazlo, Nova, Sage, Harlow and Kimber were all together. Jovie was there, too, and Samara and Castor were huddled next to one another. Along with them were a dozen or so strangers I’ve never seen before.

“Was there a giant monkey with them?” Castor asked in shock as I ushered them in and shut the door behind them.

“All of the great apes can get the virus,” Jovie said, leaning against the wall as she caught her breath.

“I think it was a lowland gorilla (Gorilla beringei graureri),” Stella replied.

“How could you possibly know that?” Samara asked.

“My only education was an encyclopedia set and nature books,” she replied with a shrug.

“His name is the King, and he’s been waiting an awfully long time to kill me,” Harlow added flatly.

Meanwhile, Boden, Lazlo, Serg, and I were rushing all around to check what vehicles we had at our disposal. I was really doubting that this building or anywhere in town would survive the night.

I’d been rummaging through the cupboards and drawers along one wall, looking for keys to start the few ATVs and electric pickup truck. But I paused long enough to glance over at Harlow, and she didn’t seem to be fully present in the moment. She stared vacantly into space as her girlfriend tried to snap her out of it.

“I found a set of keys for an ATV, I think!” Serg announced.

“Who gives a shit?” Samara asked. “Nobody will survive on the back of a slow ass electric four-wheeler with a horde of zombies biting their ass. We need the truck.”

“They’ve gotta be here somewhere,” Lazlo insisted. “We’ll find them.”

“Help!” Someone screamed at the door, pounding on it, but they couldn’t get the latch to open.

Castor ran over and opened the door, and a screaming woman covered in blood came racing in. One of her arms was missing and spraying blood everywhere, and a zombie charged right after her. She hardly even made it a step inside before it tackled her to the ground and tore into the back of her neck.

Samara went at it with a shovel, bashing it over the head with a few wet thwocks before the zombie finally stopped moving. Castor tried to close the door, but another zombie pushed its way in. It knocked him back, leapt over the corpse of the other zombie and the armless woman, and it dove right at Jovie.

My sledgehammer was still in my hand, and I ran to help her. The zombie tore into Jovie’s face before I had a chance to even raise my weapon.

Behind me, Boden and Nova were at the door, pushing it shut against the wave of zombies that crashed into it. Harlow was holding Sage, who was crying, and Stella was holding her daughter, so I yelled at Max to help me push a heavy toolbox in front of the door.

Once the door was secure, I went over to where Jovie was laying on the gravel floor. Her mouth was opening and closing, and her hands were trying to press the skin flaps of her face back on. Blood was pouring all around her fingers. She wouldn’t survive. The virus would get her if the blood loss didn’t, so I brought the hammer down on her head and put her out of her misery.

“What the fuck, Remy?” Samara shrieked.

“Don’t open anymore doors until we find the keys and we need to open the garage door to leave,” I said, referring to the rollup doors that were large enough for a vehicle to pass through.

“We’re gonna leave here?” Stella asked in dismay. “What about Ripley?”

“We can’t leave the wolves behind,” Nova added.

“And Minnie. I can’t feed Fae without the goat,” Stella said.

The building we were in looked about as old as the church, so it had likely been a carriage house and stable before it became a garage. There was an old hayloft above us, and I could see a glimpse of the harvest moon through the second story windows.

“You find the keys, and I will go out and get the animals,” I said. “I’ll leave out the upstairs window so no one will have to open doors again.”

“I’ll go with you so I can get my own animals,” Nova volunteered.

“Nova, I should go,” Lazlo said, plaintive.

“I’m faster than you, Lazlo,” Nova insisted. An injury from years ago left him with a bad knee and pronounced limp. “I’ll get the wolfdogs and set the others loose so they can run from the fire and the carnage.”

I grabbed the sledgehammer and headed toward the ladder up to the loft and the window. Boden didn’t try to talk me out of it, because he knew I couldn’t be talked out of it. I was the only one that made sense to go because I was immune to the virus.

“I am going with you,” Max announced.

“Don’t be stupid. I can handle it,” I said.

“Remy,” Max said firmly, and his eyes were hard. “My daughter could starve to death without that goat. I’m making sure that Minnie makes it here.”

In his eyes, I recognized the same determination that I had in myself, and nothing could ever keep me from him. So I nodded. No time for arguments.

Max climbed the ladder first, and I paused to tell Boden, “Find the keys and get the truck running so we can get the hell out of here as soon as we get back.”

“I will,” he promised. “Hurry and come back to me alive.”

47

Remy

From the second story window of the garage, Nova and I used a few old 2x4 planks of wood to make a quick bridge to the flat roof of the convenience store behind it. Most of the zombies were on the ground, running raggedly through the streets and pouncing on anyone they could.

All around us were screams and crying, and the dark smoke was thick enough that it was starting to block out the moon. The zombies moved so fast, running in tandem and consuming anything they could. They seemed more like a swarm of wasps, overtaking an enemy.

“How are we supposed to go anywhere without getting torn to shreds?” Nova asked in horror as she watched the flood of zombies turn the roads red and green with all the blood.

“Over there!” I pointed to a narrow alley half-hidden behind clothes lines and a dumpster. Leaning against one of the walls was a mountain bike. “There’s a bike. The zombies seem fast, but they’re no faster than a human running, and they’re very clumsy and dumb. We should be able to outride them on a bike.”

“I don’t really know how to ride a bike,” Max said. “Dad was just talking about taking the training wheels off when the virus broke out.”

“I can, so we’ll be fine,” I replied, and I could only spare a fleeting thought to mourn all the ordinary childhood experiences that had been stolen from him. Stolen from us all.

“It won’t hold three of us,” Nova said. “And I’m going in the opposite direction. But I think I can stick to the roofs for a bit longer.”

“We’ll see you back in the garage,” I said.

“Take care of yourself,” Nova said, and then she took a long running jump before landing on the roof of the building just to the north of us.

To get to the alley, Max and I jumped on the roof to the west, and then ran along the edge of the roof until we were right above the alley. I dropped my sledgehammer to the ground, and then I jumped onto the clothesline to soften the fall before landing on my feet.

Max followed suit, and I grabbed the bike and straddled it. “Grab the sledgehammer and get on the handlebars,” I instructed. “Hang on tight and swing at any zombie that gets in our way.”

I started pedaling, but it was slow and wobbly at first.

“When was the last time you rode a bike?” he asked

“Too long ago, apparently,” I muttered, but I had until the rapidly approaching end of the alley way to pick up the speed.  The adrenaline and determination got my legs pumping and I finally got a handle on it.

We came out of the alley swinging. Max took out a zombie that ran past us, and I had to struggle to keep the bike upright with the weight shift, but I managed to keep going without wiping out.

I stood up as I pedaled, looking over Max’s head. We weaved between zombies and outraced their desperate hands. Max used the hammer when he had to, but mostly I swerved and avoided the zombies because I didn’t want to risk the bike spilling over if I lost my balance.

Once we passed three children, barely outrunning a horde of a dozen zombies, which was more than Max and I could fight on our own. So I didn’t slow down, not even when Max yelled for me to go back.

“Remy, they’re just kids!” He craned his neck around, trying to see what happened to them. “We have to help them!”

“We can’t save them, and you need to get back to Rafaella,” I told him. “We can’t stop until we get to the house.”

He stopped trying to look around, and he didn’t say anything when I didn’t slow for a zombie devouring an old man while he was still alive.

Since our house was in the newer section, far enough away from downtown, there weren’t as many zombies. Not yet anyway.

I rode up to the door as close as I could get, and I almost ended up crashing into the house. Both Max and I spilled out onto the grass, and quickly got to our feet.

“Go in the house,” I told him as I wiped the dirt from my knees. “Grab anything you need for the baby, and I’ll get the goat.”

“I can get the goat,” he said, as if I implied he couldn’t handle it.

“I don’t know what the baby needs,” I said and pushed him toward the house. “Hurry. And let the cat out.”

Thankfully, he didn’t argue anymore, and he went inside. I turned to go to the shed where Minnie was kept when I heard someone crying out.

“Help me!” A middle-aged woman had a fresh bite wound on her arm, and her stomach had been torn open, so she was cradling her intestines in her arms as she staggered toward me. “Please! Help me!”

“I can’t help you,” was all I said before stalking back to the dwarf goat.

She kept coming, begging for help, but she moved slowly before falling to her knees in our yard. I glanced back over my shoulder once, and then I focused on looping the rope we used to tie Minnie out. I looped it under her legs and around her middle, and then I hooked my arms through the rope, essentially turning the goat into a hefty backpack, so I could still ride a bike.

“Why aren’t you helping me?” The woman was weeping, and I had to walk past her on my way back to the front of the house.

“Because I can’t, and a moment I waste on you could cost someone I love their life,” I replied flatly. “You’re going to die today no matter what I do.”

“But… but I need help,” she cried.

The front door to the house opened, and Max stepped out with my crossbow in hand.

“Can you help me?” the woman asked him hopefully.

“Yes,” he said, and he fired a bolt right into her head.

She collapsed to the ground, finally at peace. I couldn’t fault my brother for being more merciful than I was.

Max came over to me with Ripley trailing at his feet and a backpack on his shoulders. “I grabbed diapers, bottles, food and Stella’s books. Oh, and some more knives and bolts for the bow. Do you think we’ll ever come back here?"

“It’s probably safe to assume that we won’t,” I said. I grabbed my sledgehammer off the ground and handed it to Max.

“You still want me to carry this?” he asked.

“I like it. Now let’s hurry and get back before they leave without us.”

“How is Minnie doing?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow at my new backpack. She was secure, but she was confused and bleating up a storm.

“We don’t have any chance of being sneaky with her, but she’ll hold.”

Max bent over and picked up the bike, and we both climbed on it, me pedaling and Max on the handlebars. Ripley looked at us with uncertainty and concern, but once I got going, she started running alongside as we sped through the streets. She even helped keep our immediate pathway free of zombies.

“I’m sorry I never taught you how to ride a bike,” I told Max as we weaved through the blood and gore and corpses that littered the roads the closer we got to the garage.

“Maybe we’ll find a bike when we get where we’re going,” Max said. “I ought to learn how so I can teach Fae someday.”

“Whenever we get somewhere safe with a road, I’ll be sure to teach you and Stella both how,” I promised.

48

Stella

Nova and the wolves returned first. She’d used old pallets to help them scale the walls, and they all came into the second story window. The wolves had green zombie blood on their muzzles, but I hadn’t needed to see the color to know who it belonged to. It smelled of the virus and urgency and hunger.

I sat on the counter, a wall of tools and potential weapons tacked up behind me, and my daughter was in my arms. She was fussing a little, but not much anymore. The howl of zombies were less shocking to her, and the screams of the other townspeople were growing less frequent as most of them died. Lazlo and Nova’s young daughter Sage clung to my dress as she sucked her thumb, because someone had set her beside me a while ago.

The wolves hadn’t been the only thing that Nova brought back with her. She had found others along the way, survivors who didn’t appear to be bitten. Another ten or so of them, and the garage already felt cramped before they arrived.

I had the strongest urge to run. It was an electric feel in my legs, insisting that I should not be sitting and that I needed to run. But there was nowhere to go, so I held onto Fae, and I chewed on the inside of my cheek until I drew blood.

“What are we waiting for?” someone asked. “Don’t we have the keys? We should go before the zombies find a way in.”

“We’re waiting for the others to return,” Lazlo said. He had found the keys to the truck, and he still held them in his hand while he pet the wolves. “We can’t leave until everyone returns because zombies will come in when we open the garage.”

“How is this even going to work?” Samara asked. “There’s already two dozen people here, not even counting those giant dogs. We can’t all fit in one truck and a couple of ATVs.”

The room was quiet as everyone around was doing the same math. All the people and animals already inside this garage would not be able to escape in a single trip, and Max, Remy, and Ripley weren’t even back yet.

“We don’t know where we’re going anyway,” Eden said. She had been one of the survivors that Nova had found, and the hem of her dress was singed from fire and red from blood.

“The boat,” Serg said, almost to himself. He was leaning on the counter right beside me, and I barely even heard him. Then he straightened up and cleared his throat. “There’s a steamboat on the river. The S. S. Barbarabelle. It’s right below the waterfall, has plenty of rooms, and zombies can’t swim.”

“Too bad nobody knows how to drive it now that my dad is dead,” Samara reminded us bitterly.

“No, he taught me how,” Serg said. “I could drive it again, and I bet Boden could, too.”

“Are you saying that there is a working boat that we could escape on?” Lazlo asked, sounding excited.

“That’s great, but it doesn’t explain how we’ll all get out,” Castor said.

“We’ll split up,” Boden decided. “The kids will go first, and those that stay behind will hide up in the loft. We’ll close the door after they leave, and we’ll be stuck facing off the zombies that make it in, but we’ll be ready, and we’ll have the high ground.”

“Someone will have to drive the truck back to get the rest of us,” Eden pointed out.

“I’ll drive, and I’ll come back for whoever is left,” Lazlo volunteered, and no one disagreed, so it was settled.

Over the sounds of the zombies pounding on the walls and singing to me, I could hear a goat bleating, and I knew that it was Minnie.

My heart soared in relief. I always felt better knowing Max was safe, but more than that, I needed to get away from the zombies and their calls. Once we were far enough away, the electric feeling in my legs would dull, and my hunger wouldn’t feel so urgent.

Ripley came crashing in through the window first, but Max and Remy with a goat strapped to her back followed closed behind. Max came down to greet me, while Remy was pulled into a discussion about who would leave when.

“Are you okay?” Max asked, and he put a hand on my face. “You look pale.”

“It’s the stress.” I leaned into his touch, because it grounds me, and I need to be here with him and Fae. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” He kissed my forehead, and then kissed the baby.

It didn’t take that long for the others to decide how the evacuation plan would go. There was some bickering, but I tuned it out because all I really heard were the zombies. I leaned against Max and closed my eyes, and I wished we could go far, far away.

“Max, Stella, you’re going on the first trip out,” Remy said. “The goat will go with you, and Serg will be there to help you and keep you safe.”

“The goat is going?” Samara asked, disgusted.

“She’s one small goat, and she’ll ride in the back with me,” Max said.

“Whatever. People are going to die because a goat gets to escape in the truck,” Samara insisted. “She still takes up space.”

“My daughter could die without the milk. The goat goes with,” Max said firmly.

“You think that it’s fair that someone will have to stay back and could possibly die because you think that your goat is more important than them?” Samara pressed.

“Fine. Then I’ll go in the second trip,” Max decided. “The goat will go in my place, and that will free up one more spot for someone else. But the goat will go with Stella and the baby.”

That started another argument, because Samara didn’t want to leave without Castor, but there wasn’t enough room for the both of them. Remy didn’t want Max to stay back with her and Boden, and eventually someone I had never met ended up taking Max’s place.

Ripley was up in the loft, her heavy feet stomping around, and she was growling and chuffing. The wolves were unmuzzled sniffing the air, and Minnie wouldn’t stop bleating. It felt like a powder keg about to explode.

“We have to go,” I said, because I knew we couldn’t survive if we stayed much longer, and my baby felt so heavy in my arms. “I have to get Rafaella somewhere safe.”

“I know. Go and be safe,” Max said. “I’ll catch up with you soon.”

“Be careful, and remember that we love you.”

He kissed us both before I climbed in the backseat of the F-150 Lightning. I sat at the left side, and Nova was in the middle with Sage on her lap. On the right side, Harlow was folded up and squished with Kimber.

I held Fae and her diaper bag on my lap. They were the only things I had left in the world.

Lazlo was driving, and a pair of little boys shared the passenger seat. They were brothers, the younger one about eight, and the other about eleven.

Serg rode in the back of the truck, in charge of the goat and keeping her safe. Eden and her boyfriend Alek, along with others I didn’t know, filled out the rest of the back until there was no room.

Four other people were taking two ATVs, but I didn’t know if they could pick up enough speed before the zombies would bite them or rip them off. But I didn’t blame them for taking a risk. We all wanted to survive.

Everyone who stayed behind climbed up onto the loft, and when the garage door groaned open, I folded myself up over the baby. I closed my eyes and covered my ears as much as I could while still holding onto Fae.

I had to block out the sound of the zombies calling, and I clenched my legs and curled my toes to keep from running. My body wanted to move or thrash so badly, and it was all I could do to keep myself still.

But if I didn’t have my daughter, maybe I would’ve thrown open the door and ran with the zombies. Maybe I could outrun them, maybe it would be worth it to be feasted on if I got to churn my legs.

The engine of the truck was quiet, virtually inaudible under the sound of the zombies, but I could feel it surging forward while I kept my head down. Sage was crying, and I think the boys in front were, too. In the back, the people were shouting. Someone screamed but it stopped abruptly.

“Hold on tight!” Lazlo warned and the truck lurched and skidded. The tires were slipping on the blood and guts like they were slush and ice.

The windshield cracked when a zombie crashed into it, but the truck kept moving forward.

“We’re going through a hole in the fence,” Nova said, since I couldn’t look up. “And now we’re outside of Emberwood. We should be leaving the zombies behind soon.”

49

Remy

Getting back to the garage hadn’t exactly been easier, but Ripley helped clear a path and keep the zombies at bay. When we reached the convenience store, we had to ditch the bike before climbing up the pallets leaning against it, and the lion did an excellent job of creating a distraction. Too good, actually.

The horde was more concentrated than Ripley was used to, and she was quickly overwhelmed. Max reached the roof first, and he pulled out his crossbow. With a few well-placed shots, he managed to create enough of an opening that Ripley could break free, and she immediately scaled the wall to reach us.

“You okay, girl?” I asked her. Her ear was torn, and I could see a few patches of fresh blood on her fur where they had managed to tear into her.

But she didn’t seem bothered. She was a big, tough cat, and she rubbed up against me, making sure that I was okay, too.

Max, Ripley, and I crossed the board-bridge over the zombies, and we went back into the second story of the garage where an entirely different type of chaos was unfolding.

There were so many more people than there had been when we had left, and they were all arguing about how we’d leave. I was too tired to argue about it anymore, and Boden helped remove the goat from my back. The rope had dug painfully into my shoulders, and they burned.

It wasn’t until Max volunteered to stay back that I started to pay attention.

“Max, don’t be ridiculous. You need to go with Stella and the baby,” I said.

“No, Samara was right. Someone will stay back because the goat is going,” Max reasoned. “Since I’m the one asking for the sacrifice, I should be the one to make it.”

“It’s not for you, though. It’s so the baby won’t die,” I insisted.

“He’s only doing what’s fair, and I don’t know why you’re even trying to talk him out of it,” Samara interjected. “Let someone do the right thing for once.”

“And I’ll be with you, Boden, and Ripley,” Max added. “We’ll be fine.”

“We will all be fine,” Boden agreed. “But everyone who is staying back needs to be in the loft and ready to fight, because we’re completely surrounded by zombies now.”

Max still had the crossbow, so after he said goodbye to Stella and the baby, he went up to the window in the loft where he could take aim at the zombies. The door to the garage would have to be closed manually, and since I was immune, I took the position on the ground, doing just that. The wolves stayed down with me, but everyone else, even Ripley, was up in the loft.

Lazlo was driving the truck, and he looked to me and nodded. That was my cue to raise the garage door. As soon as it went up, the zombies started slipping in around the vehicles. Max was shooting the crossbow at the ones closest to getting in, and then Lazlo floored the truck. It plowed through the zombies and out into the town. The two ATVs zipped out behind in the truck’s wake, and the zombies rushed inside the garage.

I scrambled to close the door as quickly as possible, and Boden leapt down from the loft, swinging his machete. The wolves immediately started attacking the zombies, and I called for Ripley. I had my sledgehammer, and in short order, we managed to put down all the zombies that had made it in.

I went back up to the loft, and I joined Max in the window. Together, we watched as the truck disappeared into the smoke and zombies.

“They will be safe,” I said, but even I knew that I was only saying it because I wanted it to be true, not because I actually believed it to be true.

“How long do you think it will be before Lazlo comes back for the rest of us?” Max asked.

“It depends on a lot of things,” I supposed. “Maybe a half hour. Maybe longer.”

“It’ll be weird to be on the boat again,” Max said. “But it’ll be nice.”

We stood side-by-side, both of us staring out into the brutal nightmarescape the town had become. The air smelled of a bonfire, roasting flesh, and so much blood, it tasted like metal when I breathed in. I wanted to reach out to my brother, to comfort him, but my hands were sticky with zombie blood, and I didn’t know what more to say.

I turned to check on Ripley, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Samara racing across the loft toward the window. I whirled back, expecting to see a zombie coming in, but instead I saw her pushing someone out.

Max had been looking outside, and Samara’s hand slammed into his back. I didn’t even have time to yell his name before she shoved my little brother out the window.

I moved as fast as I could, but it felt like I was in quicksand with one arm outstretched before me. He was just out of my grasp. The rough fabric of his jeans skimmed my fingertips as he fell headfirst out the window.

He hit the ground hard enough that even up here, I heard the crack of his skull against gravel.

I almost leapt out the window after him. I meant to, but Boden’s arms caught me around the waist, holding me back before I could.

I was screaming Max’s name, as if he could hear, as if he could get up. He was on the ground, unmoving, as the horde of zombies descended on him. They tore at his clothes first, and then his flesh.

Over all the groans and growls of the zombies, I could hear the squelching sound of their hands tearing into his abdomen, and the grisly crunch as they tore off his arm.

Boden tried to pull me away, so I couldn’t see the zombies dismember Max, but I gripped onto the windowsill. I refused to look away from him. He was mine, the thing I loved the most in the world, more than the baby or Boden or myself.

I was there the day he came into the world. I was the first person after my parents to hold him, and I had loved him then and every day since. I had born witness to his birth, and I would bear witness to his death.

It took too long, and it was over too quickly, because then he was gone, gone, gone… Just bones and blood and tatters of muscle and hair. And the zombies that devoured him went back to clawing at the walls because they were still so very hungry.

By then, I wasn’t screaming Max’s name anymore. I wasn’t screaming any kind of word. It was a visceral, primal sound made of rage and pain that consumed me.

I only stopped because my voice gave out. It cracked and broke, and my throat burned like I had scraped off a layer of skin. I gasped for breath because my lungs demanded it, and my face was slick with tears.

“Remy?” Boden said quietly, and his arm was still around me. He was afraid that I would jump out the window after Max, and he was right to have that fear.

“It’s not so great when someone else gets to decide if your loved ones should die," Samara said, and just the sound of her voice filled me with a blind rage.

I was so angry, it was vibrating all through me, and I could hardly think straight.

“You killed my dad, and you killed Castor’s sister,” Samara was explaining as if I gave a single fuck about any thought or opinion inside her vapid head.

She was nothing except the object of my all-consuming rage.

I let go of the windowsill, and I feigned relaxing into Boden’s arms so he would let go of me. It worked, but I was not relaxed. I was coiled so tight, and I needed to find the right moment to strike.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” someone shouted at Samara.

“You don’t understand what she’s like!” Samara insisted, her voice tilting toward frenetic. “She is a remorseless killer!”

“So you killed her brother without remorse?” Boden asked her in disgust. “Your father was a very good man. He would be so sickened by you, Samara.”

“Max wasn’t –” Samara began, but I didn’t let her finish. I couldn’t stand to hear his name in her voice.

I grabbed my sledgehammer, and I slammed it into her head with all my might. I only got one strike before Castor grabbed me, trying to stop me, but Boden intervened and pulled him off me.

With the amount of blood already pooling underneath Samara’s head, and as hard as I had hit, she was probably already dead. But I’d like to think that some consciousness was still there, some pain synapses still firing inside her brain, so that she felt every single blow as I pummeled her head into absolute mush with the sledgehammer.

50

Remy

The only reason I stopped swinging the hammer was because my hands had grown too slick with blood. The handle slid from my grip and fell on the loft floor.

People were crying and yelling. Not all of them, but enough. I hadn’t been able to hear anything when I’d been focusing on destroying Samara, and now the sound all came back like a roar.

“Let me go!” Castor was yelling and bucking at Boden, who still held him.

“Why didn’t you stop her?” A woman was shrieking, and a man moved toward me, like he meant to stop me now.

Ripley had been sitting near the edge of the loft, licking her wounds, but she came over and put herself between me and the man. She gave a low growl, and he moved against the wall, cowering with the others.

After Ripley set everyone straight, they all fell silent, and it was only the zombies outside. Inside, it was just Castor crying, and my own ragged breath.

“Are you done?” Boden asked me.

I nodded, and he let Castor go. He ran past me to crouch beside Samara. There was nothing left of her head anymore, but he pressed his face against her chest as he sobbed.

“I am done… with her,” I said.

But when I moved toward the sledgehammer, Boden grabbed my arm to stop me.

“No, Remy. Nobody else up here had anything to do with Max’s death.”

“I know,” I said, and I did.

But the rage still vibrated inside me. There was something black and dark filling the chasm of agony that had been left when Max died. I felt like I’d been hollowed out, all purpose and meaning and will to live had been torn out of me like a brutal evisceration. And all that was left was pain and anger and an insatiable hunger for retribution.

For ten years, ten long fucking years that were very frequently hellish, I had seen more senseless and unnecessary cruelty. Zombie against man, but even more man against man, or nature against man. All of the death, all of the suffering, all of the sacrifice. All of the pieces of myself I had given up to keep Max alive, to protect him from an indifferent world and a brutal neighbor.

And in a single moment, it was gone. It was all gone. Everything I had done, everything I had lived for, was gone.

Someone had to pay for that. For once, someone had to be held accountable for destroying something beautiful and good. Samara may have pushed Max out the window, but she wasn’t what brought the zombies here.

No, that would be the proud mayor, Vaughn Douglas. I had warned that his fest was dangerous, that keeping the zombies nearby and feeding them was reckless, and that bringing that zombie child here was suicidal.

I had warned him. I warned everyone that I could. But nobody had listened.

I bent over and picked up my sledgehammer, and this time, Boden didn’t stop me.

“Where are you going?” he asked as I started for the ladder.

“I’m going to find the mayor and make sure he pays for inviting this mess here,” I said.

“Remy.” Boden moved around in front of me, blocking my path. “He’s probably already dead, and if he’s not, you don’t know where he is, and if you did, it is suicide going back out onto those streets. And we don’t know when Lazlo will be back with the truck to get us out of here.”

I nodded because I understood what he meant, and it all made sense. It just didn’t matter, because I couldn’t think about anything except killing everything between me and death, until there was nothing left.

“If he’s alive, he’s holed up in that old church,” I said. “And if he’s not there, the child zombie who can command the other zombies will be there, and I am damned sure that kid has something to do with this horde obliterating Emberwood tonight.”

“It’s still ridiculous to go out there. I need you. Stella and the baby will need you,” Boden pleaded with me. “Don’t give up on living to avenge the dead.”

“I won’t ask you to join me, but I won’t let you stop me from leaving, either,” I said.

Once more, softly, Boden entreated, “Remy, please. Max isn’t all that you have.”

“I know what I’ve lost and what I need to do.” I looked into his eyes, so full of heartbreak and fear, but I couldn’t feel either of those things then. A cold numbness had overtaken my body, but there was still rage and hunger gnawing at me.

He didn’t argue with me after that, because he saw the futility in it. I would not listen. I could not be reasoned with.

I stepped around him, and he didn’t try to stop me. I didn’t want to go through the main floor doors and risk zombies getting to the others, so I went out the second story window.

The board ran from the window to the old convenience store behind it, but the mayor’s office was on the opposite side of the garage, so the bridge would only take me the wrong way.

I turned back to face the garage, and I tossed my sledgehammer up onto the pitched barn roof. It slid down some, but the shingles provided enough resistance to catch it. I backed up and took a running jump on the board, and then I leapt up.

My fingers caught the edge of the roof, and I was left dangling over the wood planks and a pit of zombies ten meters below. I tried to climb up with my shoes, but they were still slick with viscera.

And then Boden’s hand was beneath me, giving me a boost up, and I pulled myself up onto the roof.

I grabbed the sledgehammer and hung over the edge with it. Boden grabbed onto the hammer, and as I pulled him up, he used his feet on the siding to climb.

Once we were both on the roof, we sat back and took in the carnage around us. From this vantage point, I could see the multiple fires that had been started all over town. Zombies had tendencies to knock over flammable things and run through the fire without abandon, and people would fight with anything they could.

“You didn’t have to come with me,” I said. “You shouldn’t have, actually. Stella and the baby will really need you.”

“I’m not leaving you. I won’t leave you the same way you won’t be deterred.”

There was a scraping on the wall, and a moment later, Ripley pulled her way up onto the roof. She walked over to me and bumped her head against mine. I buried my fingers in her fur and let her comfort me, because I think she needed it. She was a wild cat, but she had loved Max, too.

“So where do we go from here?” Boden asked.

But before I could answer, there was a rumbling at the old church next door, and we looked over to see the gorilla zombie had climbed onto the roof across from us.

51

Stella

Once we were far enough away from town with the truck bouncing along dirt roads and trails no longer maintained for vehicles, the zombies had all but disappeared. From looking out the window, I had seen one or two stragglers hobbling through the trees and grassy patches, but they were mostly concentrated in the town.

It reminded me of a dead grasshopper I’d once seen in the grass. First one ant found it, and quickly he’d alerted his comrades with pheromones, and soon there were a dozen ants. Before too long there were a hundred or more, swarming the grasshopper to ensure that they would get every last bite.

Away from the smoke, the harvest moon shone brightly, full and orange shimmering above the treetops. It was enough that I could easily see inside the cab of the truck.

Lazlo slowed more now that the zombies were mostly behind us, and we didn’t need to risk crashing into trees or wildlife. The ride was smoother and weirdly calming. All of the children fell asleep – Fae, Sage, the two boys in the front seat. Even the goat fell silent in the back.

I thought back to the zombie child I recognized from my nightmares, and how he had been in a jail cell when that Mercy woman called herself “mama.” And then I remembered that she had dropped the book that I picked up.

Carefully, as not to wake Fae, I slipped my hand into my bag and pulled out the book. It was bound in soft leather, with a title written in elegant pyrography. The Book of Mercy: A True Story of the New Beginning After the End of the World.

I leaned toward the window, so the moonlight would illuminate the pages. The book itself was poorly formatted, despite the careful attention to the binding. It appeared to be written on an off-kilter typewriter, and the letter “r” would land slightly above the rest of the letters.

Even with that, it was easy enough to read, and I found myself quickly flipping through the pages as I learned of the disturbing and often perverse story of a deeply isolated and delusional woman.

It all sounded impossible, like ramblings of an unwell mind. Except that I had seen her unusual child with my own eyes.

And I had seen him, I realized, because he had summoned me. I didn’t understand how fully. Maybe when my body warded off the lyssavirus, some part of me had already been irrevocably altered.

It was what Mercy had written about how zombies were nothing more than a hive that could be controlled by pheromones and a strong hand. It made me think of how I’d been drawn to the child, and the way my legs wanted to run with the rest of the horde. There was a hunger inside me that had never gone away, even after Jovie had started me on treatments for my postpartum issues.

Even now, when riding in this truck while I was scared and tired, my stomach was rumbling. Something inside me was always desperate to eat.

“The river is just up ahead,” Nova announced, pulling me from my thoughts. She leaned forward between the front seats and pointed.

The S.S. Barbarabelle steamboat appeared to be anchored in the same spot in the Staulo River, just south of Grizzly Falls. There was no place to dock it, so we’d left it in the middle of the river, and we’d used a life raft to row to the land.

The raft was still there where we left it, overturned in the long grass near the banks of the river. Lazlo parked right in front of it, so we wouldn’t have to walk far. The headlights of the truck shined on where we would launch the raft into the water.

As we unloaded everyone from the truck, I noticed that we seemed to have lost a couple people in the back. Blood was splattered along the dented sides, and hunks of zombie flesh and gooey bones were embedded in the grill and the tires.

They smelled of putrid decay, with a hint of smoke from the fires, but something acrid stung the inside of my nose. An astringent scent that I couldn’t define, but I noticed it the very moment the truck door opened and the autumn air had filled my lungs.

It was musty, sharp, and in my mouth, it tasted like unripe bitter berries and spoiled meat. In my head, it was as if alarm bells were going off, and my heart raced in a panic. All through the truck ride, I had been relatively calm, but now I could hardly think of anything else beyond the words help and run.

“Stella, are you okay?” Serg asked. He was behind me, holding the goat’s lead, and he put one hand on my shoulder. “Was the ride fine for you and Rafaella?”

“Yeah. Yes. You? Were you okay in the back?” I asked, glancing over at him. His shirt was covered in blood, both the thinner crimson of the uninfected and the thick greenish of the long infected.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” he tried to assure me, and he forced a tight smile. There was a scratch on his cheeks, a red line cutting across his light brown skin. “The raft is in the water. You should hurry and get in.”

It wasn’t safe out here, even if most of the zombies were kilometers away at the top of the waterfall. There were always stragglers, and I wanted to find somewhere safe and lock the door with me and the baby on the inside.

The others were already loading up the life raft. Lazlo was kissing his family goodbye because he was driving back into Emberwood to get more survivors. Serg and Eden helped me, Rafaella, and Minnie into the boat. Alek sat near the bow with the oars, and rather quickly, everyone was on the boat except for Lazlo and Serg.

Lazlo stayed on the shore, backlit by the headlights as he watched us go. Serg pushed the back of the boat, sloshing out into the shallows of the cold water in his boots and jeans to give us a head start.

We hadn’t gotten very far when Harlow shrieked Lazlo’s name, and then I saw the zombies. They were shadowy silhouettes encroaching on Lazlo.

“Paddle as fast as you can!” Serg shouted before giving the boat one final push, and he turned and ran back to the shore. “Lazlo, get in the truck and go! I’ll take care of the zombies!”

But I knew that wasn’t true. The zombies were going to take care of Serg. There were too many, and he was one man.

He raced at the zombies, not even a weapon in his hand, and he punched the one closest to him. Then another jumped onto his back and started tearing into his throat.

“Stop!” I screamed because Serg deserved so much better than this.

And to my surprise – and my horror – all of the zombies stopped. They didn’t freeze exactly, but they let go of Serg and straightened up so they were just standing there.

Serg fell to the ground, blood pouring from his throat. Lazlo had been watching, and he ran over and attacked the zombies with a crowbar. None of them moved or flinched, not even when he bashed their heads in.

“The zombies listened to me,” I realized, and suddenly, I knew I couldn’t go on the steamboat.

“How did you do that?” Nova asked me in a hushed voice.

The raft was rowing slowly out into the river, and Lazlo had just dispatched the final zombie. Nova was holding Sage behind me, and right next to her was Eden.

I turned to Eden, handing her Minnie’s lead, my bag, and my sleeping daughter. “Please take care of her. I’ll come back if I can.”

“What are you talking about?” Eden asked in surprise and confusion.

Before anyone could stop me, I kissed Rafaella goodbye, and I jumped into the water. It was so cold, much colder than I would’ve guessed, and it sent shivers through me.

Nova and Eden called after me, but I didn’t slow or look back. Max, Remy, Boden, and Ripley were still in town, and the zombies had listened to me. Maybe I could protect them or the other survivors left behind.

Lazlo was crouched down beside Serg, holding his hand as he stared up at the night sky and gasped his last breaths. I raced over to join them and tripped on the heavy, wet length of my dress, so then I crawled over to him.

“Serg, you didn’t have to do that,” I said, already crying as I took his hand. “You should’ve gotten on the boat.”

“It was already too late for me,” he said feebly. “Go save yourself. Live your life.”

“I will,” I promised him, and I kissed his forehead. “I love you, Serg.”

He exhaled, and he was gone

52

Mercy

I have always known that I was destined for greatness. As the time draws near when the whole world will know my name, it is important for everyone to understand how all of this came to be and how I saved all of humanity.

I am the product of two of the greatest lineages in all of Canada that existed at the turn of the millennia.

My mother was born Elmyra Zazel Wearghams, and she was of the Wonderous Wearghams. On her father’s side, going back generations, they were famed entertainers. Her ancestor Wilhelm Silvanus Wearghams founded W. S. Wearghams Hippodrome in 1873, and that eventually grew into the legendary Wonderous Wearghams Travelling Circus.

At the height of their popularity during the Golden Age of the Circus, they rivaled any other show on earth. My great grandparents performed to audiences of ten thousand, and they made millions of dollars a year.

Like all good things, the halcyon days eventually led to a decline as moving pictures dominated the public’s interest with cinemas and television. After a long and illustrious run, the Wonderous Wearghams closed their last tent in 1968. My mother was only a teenager at the time, and she went looking for a place that would appreciate her strength, tenacity, wisdom, and unwavering loyalty.

My father was born Ezekial Kaleb Loth at the tail end of the Silent Generation. He was the eldest son of the eldest son of the great Loth family of the prominent Loth Family Ranch and Cattle Company. His ancestor Lazarus Bly Loth founded the ranch in 1886 when he bought 300 acres to raise cattle and horses.

By the time my father was born, the ranch had grown to over 100,000 acres, and by the time that I was born, it was all the way up to 500,000 acres. Millions of cattle had grazed on the land, supplying the booming population in Vancouver with their demand for fresh meat.

Despite the name of “family ranch,” it was a huge operation, one that earned acclaim and respect all throughout the provinces. Not only did it provide high quality and essential services, but the ranch also employed over a hundred local men.

Even with all the wealth and prestige that the family and the business already had, it only grew when my mother joined the Loths.

In 1970, Elmyra finally found someone worthy of what she had to offer. Not only a good, strong, wise man, but one that had a powerful legacy to build on. Elmyra and Zeke (as she lovingly called Ezekial) married, and under their guidance, the ranch soon became the largest and the greatest in all of the Western Hemisphere.

But for my parents, it had become more than a ranch. It was a Kingdom. They were the King and Queen, and my older brothers were the Princes, while I was the lone Princess.

Long before the virus came and the world collapsed, Elmyra knew to prepare for the End of Days. She had felt it coming, an intuition that shook her to the core. With her prescient knowledge, she prepared her children for what was to come. While other world leaders had pampered, spoiled offspring, Elmyra ensured that we were all out working the land and learning to survive without government interference.

My brothers Waylon, Kaleb, Wyatt, and Bly were all so much older than me. Elmyra had assumed that her days of bearing children were behind her when I arrived as a sickly baby girl. First, she questioned whether or not I would even survive, but when I did, she realized that I might be the one to take our family’s legacy beyond our wildest dreams. Our father prepared the boys to run the ranch, our mother prepared me to run the world.

I was born Mercy Zazel Loth, and I was eighteen when the virus hit. Our ranch was built to withstand the test of anything, but our employees were not. They were infected quickly, and with great foresight, Elmyra herded them into one of the buildings on the ranch, believing they would be useful later.

My brother Wyatt had always had a strong interest in science and anatomy, and he began experiments on the zombies to gain understanding. So desperate was he for more information, he deliberately infected Tabitha, his young wife and the mother of his toddler son. He had hoped that since they had a prior relationship, he would be able to reach her in her altered state.

Tabitha was the first member of our extended family that succumbed to the virus, but she was not the only one. Soon after, an accident led to Zeke’s infection, and Wyatt put him in the same empty horse stall where he stored Tabitha.

Over the course of the first year after the outbreak, both my brother Kaleb and my young nephew Colt were bitten by rogue zombies. They too were kept with all of the infected family members out in the barn.

Wyatt believed that the zombies could be tamed, and he enlisted Waylon and Bly to help him. Because of how Elmyra raised them on the ranch, they all had ample experiences with beekeeping and horse breaking, and zombie taming combined aspects of both.

Waylon and Bly considered the work to be too dangerous for me, as their younger sister, so I was not allowed out with them in the barns and fields when they were breaking the zombies. Wyatt wasn’t quite as protective of me, and he would talk about it with me sometimes, when the others weren’t around. That was how I learned that zombies were nothing more than a hive that could be controlled with pheromones and a strong hand.

Over time, my brothers did manage to turn some zombies into domestic guards. They were still bitey and obviously infectious, but they were not that much different than owning wolves or any other feral animal.

With the newfound livestock in tamed zombies, the ranch returned to a prosperous glory. Not as shiny or bright as it had once been, but the whole world had a tarnish to it now.

The barter culture that society had switched to after the virus made it more difficult to amass wealth in a traditional sense, but we had ammo long after everyone else ran out. We never went without a meal, and my brothers drank bourbon every night. Servants took care of our home and cooked our meals in exchange for food and board. With our zombies surrounding us, no one could harm us.

Our Kingdom was stronger than ever before.

My brother Wyatt spent the most time with the zombies, training and experimenting on them. As such, he had perfected safe ways to interact with them and make them easier to handle. A trick he found most helpful was to sew a person’s mouth shut before they turned into a zombie.

It happened on accident at first. One of the servants had been bitten while feeding the zombies. Ordinarily, Wyatt or Bly would toss that servant in with our more particular zombies, the ones that required live prey to feed. But this time, Wyatt chained up the servant and sewed his mouth shut. He ripped out all his fingers and toenails, the same way he had done with his wife Tabitha after she had turned.

That servant ended up being the tamest of all the zombies. When my niece and nephews helped Elmyra pick produce in the garden, he would be there, carrying loads like a pack mule.

In the evenings, my brothers would retire to the den to drink bourbon and unwind. They never asked me to join, because Elmyra insisted that alcohol would diminish a lady’s greatness. Sometimes, though, I would eavesdrop from the next room, while they drank and laughed and discussed their work.

That was how I discovered that Wyatt’s wife Tabitha had become docile enough to continue her wifely duties. Waylon was repulsed, and Bly laughed uproariously. But I was entranced, hanging on Wyatt’s every word as he explained how he safely copulated with a zombie.

It all sounded relatively simple actually. He bound her hands and secured them to the wall in the barn where she lived, and he bent her over so she couldn’t bite or scratch him. Then he proceeded to have sex with Tabitha, the same way he had before. Although, he did joke that she was a more lively and enthusiastic partner now that she was undead.

Waylon, appalled and concerned, had asked the salient question. “Aren’t you worried about getting the virus? Or knocking her up with some freak zombie child?”

Wyatt, unbothered and proud of himself, replied, “I’ve been doing it for weeks without getting sick, and she can’t get pregnant.”

Waylon pressed, “How can you be so sure about the second point?”

Wyatt considered it a moment, and then decided, “I will rip out her uterus before I am with her next time, just to be safe.”

It was at that moment that my true destiny became completely clear, and I immediately set about making it happen.

In the mornings, I sometimes worked in the general store, selling goods to the neighbors and travelers who stopped by. There weren’t that many, but as the reputation of our Kingdom grew, so did the amount of our customers.

Unfortunately, most of them were unacceptable. Old men with missing teeth, grubby young men covered in scars and smelling of sweat and urine. None of them would work for what I needed, and I could not compromise on something as important as this.

Finally, after weeks and weeks of pining, he arrived in the early morning sunlight, walking up as I opened the store.

He was the most handsome man that I had ever seen, a truly remarkable human. He had hair of gold and eyes of emerald green and a smile that made the earth stand still. He smelled of cedar and fresh cut grass, and he told me that his name was Christopher in a melodic voice.

When I asked him to help haul in heavy milk cannisters from the barn, Christopher didn’t even hesitate before saying yes. He had a good heart, and I knew I had found the One.

In the dairy barn, Christopher put his back to me, and I hit him over the head. He collapsed in a heap, alive but unconscious, and I ran to find Wyatt.

Before meeting Christopher, I had confided in Wyatt of my plans, because I would not be able to proceed without help. Wyatt had been surprised, but he eventually agreed. He was curious about the whole prospect, but he also wanted to ensure that I was safe, because our mother would never forgive him if something went wrong.

Wyatt and I carried Christopher to the shed where he did his experiments. Normally, he would send me away, but since this was for me, he let me watch him work. To make it as safe as possible, he cut Christopher’s hands below the elbow and his legs below the knee, cauterizing and sewing up the wounds after each amputation. Once he was done, he sewed up Christopher’s mouth, and all that was left was turning him.

A limb from a different infected zombie, fresh and dripping blood, would be the source. Wyatt handed it to me. Christopher was awake, thrashing as much as his stubby limbs would allow, but he couldn’t escape. I held the zombie arm over his face, letting the infected blood drip into his mouth and into the open wounds from sewing his full lips shut.

It took just over three days for the transformation to be complete. I didn’t see Christopher at all during the change. Wyatt had told me that it was a disgusting process, and he even had to hose Christopher off before he finally brought me in.

His stumps were festering, even with Wyatt’s stitches and cauterizations. He was pale and sickly, and his lips were swollen and infected. But I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw his eyes were the same. I was afraid that since becoming a zombie he would lose that brilliant emerald color, but they were still so enchanting.

A collar around Christopher’s neck was secured to the wall behind him, because my brother was being so cautious. Deep down in my heart, I knew Christopher would not harm me, zombie or not. He had a pure soul, and he had been chosen for this the same way that I had been. It was our destiny, and we could not fight it.

Once Wyatt left me alone with Christopher, I approached him. He was lying on his back, writhing and wriggling, but he did not move away. He lifted his head, his lips straining against the thick black nylon that sewed them shut, and when his eyes met mine, I knew that he would say my name if he could. He wanted this as much as I did.

Wyatt had left Christopher naked to make it easier for me, and a zombie’s body would still react to sensations, especially since he was fresh. He breathed, though he needed no oxygen, and he strained toward me, like a plant toward sunlight.

When I touched him, his body responded, and when he was ready, I climbed on top of him. I tried to control it, but his body knew what to do. He thrashed and finished inside me in a matter of minutes the very first time we were together.

For seven days, I visited Christopher at least once per day, spending ten minutes together trying to create our destiny. On the eighth day, he was no longer able to perform, let alone finish. Wyatt had said that he must’ve dried up. Since there was no more use for him, I kissed him goodnight, and Wyatt took an axe to Christopher. So he wouldn’t go to waste, the servants ground him up to feed to the zombie horde.

It took weeks for me to confirm it, but deep down, I had known it had worked the very first time we were together. Christopher and I had created a new life together, and I was pregnant.

Elmyra was confused and upset when she learned I was with child. All I would tell her was this was what was always destined to happen, because I didn’t want her to get angry with Wyatt. Our relationship suffered, but it was what was necessary.

The life of the chosen ones is never easy. Elmyra locked me in my room, and she brought in new servants. They were jealous of all that we had, and in a rage, they burned down the ranch. They murdered my brother Wyatt, slaughtered our zombies, and tried to kill my mother.

I was seven months pregnant when it happened, and the stress of it caused me to give birth two days later.

I hate to say that I cannot remember the night I gave birth to my first child. It was a blur of stress and loss and agony and joy. The fires were still burning in the fields, and the house smelled like smoke and ash as Elmyra held my hand and told me to push.

But I do remember the moment my son was placed in my arms, so tiny and wriggling, reminding me of his father. He looked like a newborn piglet, all covered in blood, but when I wiped it away, I could see his skin had the same ashy green color of a zombie.

He opened his eyes, and they were Christpher’s eyes, that same brilliant green. But I knew that he was something else. Something the world had never seen before. A hybrid savior for all mankind.

He was my son, the Wonderous Chosen One.

53

Remy

The zombie gorilla that Harlow had called the King was perched on the roof of the old church, like some kind of postapocalyptic gargoyle. Behind him, the dark smoke appeared red, reflecting the firelight back down on Emberwood. The King was looking right at us. One of his eyes was normal, while the other was bulging and full of zombie blood green veins.

“I don’t mean to rush you, Remy,” Boden said beside me. “But I am fairly certain that the monstrous monkey over there can jump to this roof and squash us all, so I think it’s best that we get the hell out of here.”

“Rushing is probably for the best right now,” I agreed and got to my feet.

“What was your plan to get into the church alive?”

Instead of answering him, I wound up my arm with the sledgehammer before letting it loose. My aim was good, and the hammer crashed dead center through the large circular stained-glass window above the choir balcony. The glass shattered, creating a big opening to jump through.

The King was apparently upset by the sound, and he let out a demonic bellow before angrily pounding his chest with his fists.

I started running across the garage roof toward the old church, picking up as much speed as I could on a slanted surface. I jumped and dove forward and went straight through the window.

Ripley followed right after me, both of us crash landing on the balding carpet and shattered glass in the old choir balcony.

“Ah, shit!” Boden shouted, and I could hear the gorilla thundering across the church roof above me.

I scrambled to my feet in time to see Boden come tumbling through the window. Ripley was shaking the glass out of her fur, and I took Boden’s hand and helped him up.

“That thing is right behind me,” he warned breathlessly, and I looked over his shoulder in time to see the King charging across the garage roof to make the same jump we just had.

“Is he smarter than the other zombies?” I asked, and Boden pulled me out of the way as the gorilla came crashing in through the window. His shoulder clipped the window frame, and it cracked the wall and broke the remaining glass.

He had come in much faster than we had, so he went skidding across the balcony and careened through the railings before falling to the empty main floor below.

Ripley didn’t hesitate to jump after him, and she pounced on the massive gorilla’s back, digging her claws into his flesh.

I glanced around the balcony until I spotted my sledgehammer. I grabbed it and raced down the stairs to the main floor sanctuary. Ripley was a skilled fighter, but she had never been up against a zombie gorilla, and I didn’t want her to face him alone.

While she attacked his back, I swung for his face. His bulging eye exploded underneath my hammer, splattering green goo everywhere, and one of his enormous fangs broke in half.

The King tossed his head back to let out another demonic howl, and that left his neck exposed. Ripley saw her opportunity, and she seized it. Her wide mouth wrapped around his throat, sinking her fangs deep within his flesh and muscle, and she tore it open with her powerful jaws.

He must’ve been a very old zombie, because I could hear the gelatinous squelch of his bones as Ripley bit straight through his spine. It had only taken the lioness a few moments, and she had chewed the gorilla’s head clean off.

“I guess lions really are the king of the jungle,” Boden said as he joined me in watching Ripley finish off her kill.

“Do you hear that?” I asked.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly. Why are all the zombies so quiet?” I asked.

And then Ripley seemed to notice too. Her ears tilted this way and that. Fire was crackling, and far away, a baby was crying. But no more groans or howling. The stained-glass was covered in red and green imagery depicting figures on the cross, so the windows blocked our ability to see what was happening around us.

It was only Boden, Ripley, and I standing in the empty sanctuary, and I had no idea what we should do with the eerie silence.

The double doors at the front of the church opened, and standing there was Stella. She was unharmed, but her auburn hair was wild, and her dress was damp.

“Stella?” Boden rushed to her. “What are you doing? How did…”

As he trailed off, staring out beyond her, I came over and looked past him, and then I saw it too.

The zombies hadn’t gone anywhere. They were all still here, but they were standing still and not making a sound. They had parted enough that there was a straight pathway down the middle, a path that Stella had apparently walked to get to us. None of the zombies tried to hurt her or bite her or even move at all.

54

Stella

In the old church, I found Boden, Remy, Ripley, and the headless corpse of a gorilla, but I had not gone there looking for them.

Lazlo had stopped when we got to Emberwood so he could help someone, and I had gotten out then. There were zombies scattered on the roads around us, but before I even had a chance to say anything, the zombies stopped moving and fell silent.

My mouth tasted like cotton, and beneath the scent of death and fire, there was a cloud of something that hovered around me. I first noticed in the cab of the truck, when Lazlo had blasted the heat to help dry me off.

I’d asked him if he could smell anything, but Lazlo had only noticed the fishy odor of river water. But this was something else. Musky and pungent, like freshly tilled soil and the spray of a skunk.

As soon as a zombie came within a few meters of me, when they were close enough to breathe in the pheromones I had been emitting since I yelled for them to stop, they would straighten up and go still.

Lazlo called after me, asking where I was going, but I didn’t reply because I knew I was safe.

I followed the voice inside my head that continued to yell help, and as I walked, the zombies stilled around me. But soon they even stilled far away from me, beyond the immediate range of my scent.

When a zombie stopped near me, I decided to have a closer look. A middle-aged man with long hair except on the left side where his scalp had been ripped down to the skull. He was staring right at me, but his glassy eyes were really looking through me.

I leaned in closer to him and breathed in deeply. His breath smelled of rotten meat, but around him, he had the cloud of musky and pungent that I recognized from radiating off me.

The other zombies seemed to not only respond to my pheromones, but also adopted it and began emitting it for themselves. They heard my message of stop, and they were repeating it and passing it along to each other.

I went through town without any threat from the zombies, and I let the zombie child summon me toward the mayor’s office.

So when I opened the door and stepped inside the old church, I wasn’t expecting to find Boden or Remy. But I was still happy to see them.

“Stella!” Boden rushed over to me first. “What is going on? What are the zombies doing?”

“Something happened when I was infected,” I said, explaining as best I could make sense of it. “The baby helped me kill the virus, but it must have already changed things about me. My pheromones can communicate with their hive mind.”

“Can you send them away?” Boden asked.

“I don’t know. I wanted them to stop, so they have, but I haven’t really tried any other commands yet,” I said.

“Why did you come here?” Boden asked. “Why didn’t you stay at the river?”

“Because I wanted to help you, and because the zombie child is calling me, and I don’t know why,” I said, and then I realized something. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you with Max in the garage?”

Boden exhaled roughly, and I looked past him to Remy. She was covered in blood, mostly human red, and she looked like hell, even by survivalist standards. It was the emptiness in her eyes, like a light had gone out inside of her, that told me the terrible truth.

Yet I heard myself asking anyway, demanding really, “Where’s Max? Where is Max?!”

“I’m sorry,” was all Remy could say, and her voice sounded brittle and cracked.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but nothing could hold back the tears. Max was my other half, my best friend, my only love, my closest family until he had given me our daughter. I had no memory of life before him, and I had never imagined life without him.

When I tried to think of how I could go on without him, it was only blank nothingness.

“Stella.” Boden hugged me to him and kissed the top of my head. “I am so sorry. I love you so much, kiddo, and I’ll do everything I can to take care of you and Rafaella.”

“I know,” I said and pushed away from him. I wiped roughly at my eyes and swallowed down the pain that would consume me later. “But people are dying. We can mourn later, but now, I need to get the child and get the zombies out of here.”

“No, you should go with Lazlo,” Remy tried to insist. “We’ll take care of anything that’s left here.”

I shook my head and stepped over the dead gorilla as I walked toward the door to the basement. “The zombies won’t follow you, but they will follow me. I will lead them away from town.”

“Fine,” Remy said, but she grabbed my shoulder and stopped me. “Let me go down first. I don’t think it’s only zombies down there.”

She walked ahead of me, carrying her sledgehammer. When I walked past Ripley, she sniffed at me. The lion let out a confused, annoyed growl, and she gave me a strange look before jumping up to the choir balcony to lick her wounds.

Downstairs, like everywhere else, the power had been cut, but some kind of emergency lights bathed the room in a dim glow with a red hint from the warning lights under the windows.

At the bottom of the steps were two dead bodies. Young men in their early twenties that I didn’t recognize, not that their features were particularly visible given that they’d died by gunshot wounds to the face, neck, and chest. It had been a while since I had seen a gunshot wound, but it wasn’t something that was easily forgotten.

Blood was smeared all over the linoleum floor, with a trail leading back to where Mayor Vaughn Douglas was sitting slumped just outside one of the jail cells, leaning against the bars. I thought he was dead until he slowly turned his head to look at us as we descended the stairs.

Standing next to him, his alderman Wilder was holding a handgun, and it was pointed directly at the two people in the cell across from them.

It was Mercy Loth, who I had seen untying the child zombie earlier, but now she was locked in the cell with him. She was sitting on a bench in the back, her arms wrapped protectively around the little boy. In the odd lighting, he almost didn’t look like a zombie at all.

“What in the world are you doing here?” Vaughn asked us, sounding weary.

“I think the real question is what are you doing hiding down here while your city is burning?” Remy asked him.

“I’m not the one who brought this nightmare down on us!” Vaughn yelled. He pointed toward Mercy, but he still didn’t get to his feet. “She’s the one who brought them!”

“He’s gone mad, and he’s holding me and my son hostage,” Mercy said. “He’s sick, and he’s lost his mind.”

“But you did bring the zombies here, didn’t you?” I asked Mercy and stepped closer to the cell, putting my hands on the bars. “I found your book. I haven’t had a lot of time, but I did read enough to know that you farm the zombies, and that your son is a hybrid of a zombie and human.”

She sat up straighter, as if proud of those facts, and she smiled at me. “You know of the Wonderous Chosen One?”

“You are one of those kids from that horrible Loth family, aren’t you?” Vaughn realized in disgust. “You’re an abomination!”

“Superiority is never an abomination!” she snapped.

“None of that matters!” I shouted, because I was exhausted and I wanted this all to be over. “Remy came down here because she wants to have a word with you, and I came here because I want to take your son far away from here.”

“You mean to hurt him?” Mercy clung to him.

“No, he’s a child, and I wouldn’t hurt a child,” I promised her. “But the town is no place for zombies. It’s not safe, and so I need to take him away.”

“You want to help him?” Mercy asked in confusion.

“I do,” I admitted. The air around him was pungent with his fear and sadness, and he was a small boy with wide curious eyes. “I can hear him calling for help because he doesn’t belong here.”

“I am not letting either of them out,” Vaughn said.

“And I won’t let you run off with him,” Mercy insisted. “He is the Chosen One.”

“I am going to leave, with or without the child, but if he stays behind, someone will kill him, along with you,” I said. “Let him go with me.”

“You aren’t letting –” Wilder was arguing, his attention on me and Mercy, so he didn’t notice Boden taking a swing at him.

In a matter of seconds, Boden knocked Wilder out and took his handgun. Then he bent down and took the jail keys off Wilder’s belt.

“What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?” Vaughn asked, sounding hysterical. “You can’t let a zombie loose!”

“I’ve just never really enjoyed killing children,” Boden replied glibly. He held the gun in one hand and keys in the other, so he unlocked the door. When he opened it, he kept the gun aimed on Mercy.

“Chosen isn’t like other zombies,” Mercy persisted. “He needs me. He won’t survive without his mother.”

“I don’t mind killing zombies of any size,” Remy said. She was leaning against the bars, glaring at Mercy. “And I know what you did to my friend Harlow, so don’t think that I have any pity in my heart for either you or your bastard offspring.”

Mercy started crying then, and maybe I would’ve felt bad if I hadn’t read what her family had done in her book. But I had, and right now, I couldn’t feel anything, because if I did, it would only be at the agony of surviving without Max.

Mercy hugged her son, kissing the top of his head, and she told him, “I love you so much, Chosen. You’re going to save the world whether I’m in it or not.”

I held my hand out toward him, and as soon as Mercy let go, he walked over to me and took my hand. He never looked at his mother or acknowledged her in any way, but he did look up at me.

“Where are you going?” Boden asked as we walked by him.

“I’m taking him and all the zombies far, far away from people," I said, because truthfully, I hadn’t thought farther than that.

“Why will they follow you? What are you?” Mercy asked. She stood up, and Boden cocked the gun.

“It doesn’t honestly matter to you what her deal is because you’re going to be dead in a few minutes,” Remy said. “So let’s just focus on the here and now.”

55

Remy

“Why would you let her just take a zombie?” Vaughn asked in disbelief after Stella and Chosen had gone. “Why wouldn’t you just kill him?”

“I’m sick of fucking killing kids, even infected ones in the shape of kids,” Boden reiterated. “Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

“Because people like him are the real monsters!” Mercy sneered at him as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Not the zombies.”

“Oh, there’s plenty of room for everybody to be a monster,” I said dryly. “There’s no act too cruel or depraved for a human to commit.”

“Then why didn’t you kill mommy’s little monster?” Vaughn was looking up at me. “You aren’t blind to how dangerous a zombie hybrid could be.”

“I’m not,” I agreed. “But I trust Stella to make sure he never hurts anyone again. Mostly, though, I don’t think he’s the one to blame for all the carnage today.” I wagged my finger between him and Mercy. “No. I think that dubious honor belongs squarely with the two of you.”

“I know that you’re upset with some of my choices,” Vaughn said. “I am questioning them myself, but the answers are always so much clearer in the rearview mirror. But I swear to you, I brought that zombie boy here to protect us. To keep Emberwood safe.”

“Then you should’ve killed him!” I yelled. “My brother would still be alive if you had! But instead you summoned every damn zombie in the land. And nothing you’ve done since then has made sense. How could someone so stubborn and stupid manage to go so long without destroying everything around him, I will never know.”

“I already told you,” Mercy interjected, sounding annoyed. “He’s sick, and he’s lost his mind. Can’t you see it just by looking at him?”

At first, I’d discounted her opinions as the ramblings of a lunatic, but now I narrowed my eyes and looked at the mayor with a new scrutiny. The puffiness in his face, his skin covered in sweat despite the chill in the basement, the bulging of his manic eyes.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She keeps saying I got worms because my head hurts and my eyes are a little buggy. My temper’s been short, but I haven’t been sleeping so well, on account of the headaches. It has been a stressful time of year is all.” Vaughn tried to wave her off, but I heard the unease in his voice.

“I saw it all the time.” Mercy leaned on the bars of her cell, looking down at Vaughn. “Back when I worked at the general store on my family ranch. Men would hunt down a bear, and they’d be so excited to eat it, they don’t even bother cooking it enough, and they end up with a belly full of worms.

“It’s called trichinellosis,” she went on. “These tiny little roundworms burrow into your muscle, and they eat and shit and breed. They can even thrive in the brain, munching on and infecting all that gray matter that keeps you alive, and by the time they’re done, it looks like Swiss cheese.”

“You’re lying,” Vaughn said without much conviction.

“Someday very soon, the worms will eat you or the zombies will,” Mercy replied.

“So, is that you’re problem, too?” I asked her. “You got worms on your brain?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I was just raised in a family that left me primed for greatness.”

“Greatness?” I asked with a dark laugh. “That’s what you think you did? If I understand correctly – and I am afraid that I do – is that you somehow managed to rape a zombie in order to conceive some kind of nightmare creature. That is almost literally the opposite of greatness. It’s disgusting and devious.”

“Mediocrity is incapable of truly understanding greatness,” she replied coldly.

“Sure.” I stepped closer to her cage, the hammer heavy in my hand. “But the thing that really pisses me off is that none of this would have happened if you hadn’t been incapable of any kind of decent thought or common sense.”

“I raised an army for the Chosen One,” she said proudly. “I captured and grew them on our ranch after most of my family was killed. Chosen will lead them for retribution for all who crossed us. We had almost finished with Harlow when she managed to evade us.

“I knew she would end up in Emberwood, where all the cowards and degenerates go to hide,” Mercy went on. “On our way here, Chosen was drawn to a pit full of thousands of zombies, more than we had ever even owned on the ranch.”

“Are you talking about the Tarik Copper Mine?” I asked, remembering all the zombies we had seen cramped together in the pits. “You saw that, and you thought it would be a good idea to let them out and bring them to the innocent people that live here?”

Mercy scowled. “Don’t be so naive. None of you are innocent. There is always such a ludicrous emphasis on the wonderous nature of humanity, as if humans are known only for their kindness and empathy. No, if humanity includes the good, then it includes all the atrocities and banality of people, too.”

“Some people are innocent, and some are good,” I assured her, and I stepped through the open doors of her cell. “I’m not. I am not the best of us, and I’m certainly not the kindest or the smartest, or even the strongest. But I am not one to suffer fools, and I know precisely how to prevent you from committing anymore atrocities in the name of greatness.”

I brought the sledgehammer down on her head, and Mercy collapsed on the ground. She never raised her arms or tried to stop me in anyway. Maybe she knew that this was the ending she deserved.

Behind me, I heard a scuffle, and Boden cursed. I whirled around to see Boden knocked to the floor, and Vaughn was standing with the gun in his hand.

“Hey, don’t do anything stupid,” I said, since he was pointing the gun at Boden, and I was too far away with the sledgehammer.

“Death has a thousand hands and walks by a thousand ways,” Vaughn quoted T. S. Eliot again. His manic eyes were on mine, and then he lifted the handgun and pressed the barrel to his own temple. “If you are not careful, you will destroy everything you love.”

Then he pulled the trigger

56

Remy

The sun was rising by the time we reached the S. S. Barbarabelle. Boden was driving an ATV we had found abandoned at the city limits, and I rode with him, leaning with my cheek on his back. My arms were loose around his waist because I couldn’t hang on any tighter.

The adrenaline had pushed me through so much during the night, but now it had worn off, and I was left with nothing but an aching body. My shoulders burned and my arms felt like rubber.

But the physical pain was nice actually, because it kept me from thinking or feeling anything else.

In my exhausted state, I kept forgetting that Max was gone every few minutes. My mind would blank out – maybe I fell asleep for a few seconds at a time – and then suddenly, I would think, “I have to get back to Max and Stella and make sure they are safe.”

And then I’d see him getting torn up again, and I’d open my eyes, and tears were already falling, and I could hardly breathe.

I wanted to squeeze Boden tighter, to hang onto the one person I still had, but my arms wouldn’t work. So I cried into his shirt and didn’t know how to make my brain function without the constant refrain of “keep your brother safe.”

Boden parked the ATV next to the truck on the banks of the river. The Barbarabelle was anchored out in the middle, and the raft was tied to it, so we’d have to swim.

He had to help me off the ATV, and I wondered if I had ever felt more weak. Like all the energy and life had been drained from me, and I was nothing but a dry husk.

“Dammit,” Boden muttered, and I didn’t know why until I looked over and saw Serg in a pile of dead zombies.

“Serg didn’t make it either?” I asked emptily.

My knees suddenly buckled, and I collapsed in the grass.

“Come on, Remy. It’s a quick swim to the boat, and then we’ll be somewhere safe where we can breathe and lick our wounds.”

“No,” I said because I didn’t have the strength to move or feel anymore. “Go on without me.”

“Ah, hell, Remy, you can’t give up now, not when we’re so close.”

He bent down and grabbed me beneath my arms, and he yanked me up to my feet. When I was finally standing on my own, he bent down slightly so we were eye level.

“Listen to me, please,” he said. “I know you’ve just been through absolute hell, but you have survived everything that’s happened to you until now, and you will survive this, too.”

“What if I don’t want to survive this?” I asked, and my voice cracked.

“I mean this in the kindest way, but I don’t give a fuck. I need you to survive, and Stella really needs us both,” he said. “We all lost Max and Serg and our homes. But we need to help each other get through this, so none of us are allowed to give up.”

“I really don’t know if I can swim now,” I told him quietly.

“That’s why you have me and the cat.”

The water was frigid, but after the initial painful shock, it was kinda nice because it numbed all the aches and pains. Ripley walked beside me, as if she knew I needed her, and I looped my fingers through her collar. Boden swam beside me, and I slung my arm around the lion, and she easily pulled me along.

Once we made our way on the boat, we found Lazlo, Eden, and baby Rafaella in the lobby. Already, our teeth were chattering, and Boden was worried about hypothermia, so we only briefly talked as we were passing through.

Lazlo stood up and came toward me, like he meant to hug me, but I didn’t have it in me then. By the look on his face, I assumed he’d heard about Max, and I wanted to talk about that even less.

The baby was doing well, but Stella hadn’t been seen since she led the zombies away. I didn’t know where she intended to take them, but “far, far away from people” meant she’d be gone for at least several hours.

“We’d like to get the boat up and running so we can head down the river, away from all this. But we need help,” Lazlo said as Boden, Ripley, and I made our way toward the stairs. “You both need time to rest up and clean and get warm. But let us know when you can show us more about the boat.”

“I will, thanks,” Boden replied, and his arm around my waist was keeping me upright and moving as we ascended the stairs. “And let us know when Stella returns, or if you need help with the baby.”

“I will, but I think we’ll be alright for a while,” Eden assured him warmly.

Boden ushered me down to Room 237 again, and it was just as we left it, with a rumpled blanket and the robe on the floor. Ripley went out to the balcony to dry off in the sun, and Boden slowly helped me undress before doing the same himself.

Once we were both naked, he turned on the shower, and we got in it together. The water was probably only slightly warm from the tanks it was stored in, but on my icy skin, it felt wonderfully hot.

I could barely lift my arms anymore, so Boden took my hair down and washed it of all the blood and dirt. He washed both of us without complaint.

When he was finished, I leaned against him, crying into his bare chest, and he cried with me as the warm water poured over us.

“I would stay here with you forever, but I should show the others how to work the steamboat,” he said, his voice rumbling as he held me. “And I want to check on Rafaella.”

He wrapped me in the fluffy robe, and he laid me down on the bed. He dressed in dry clothes that he’d left behind, and he went down to help the others, even though he had to be so exhausted himself.

I wanted to help him. I wanted to be useful and productive. But I couldn’t. I had no energy, no strength left. My mind kept blanking out, and I couldn’t fight it anymore.

Later, I awoke, and it was dark. Boden was sleeping beside me. I rolled into him, pressing my body against the warmth of his back.

When I opened my eyes again, he was gone, and the bed was cold, even with the sunlight through the windows. I rolled over and pulled the blanket more tightly around myself.

“You have to eat something,” Boden said when he woke me up later that day, and he practically force fed me bland fish soup.

“How’s the baby?” I asked.

“Good. Do you want to see her?” Boden asked. “I can bring her to the room. Harlow, Eden, and I have been caring for her, but I haven’t brought her here, because I wanted you to rest.”

“Stella isn’t back yet?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. No sign of her yet.”

“Who else is on the boat?” I asked.

“I think there’s maybe fifty of us total. I don’t know most of them,” he said. “There’s Eden, Harlow, Kimber, Nova, Lazlo, Castor. I think that’s about it for the people that I know. A few have been quarantined because they might be infected. Eden’s boyfriend Alek is one.

“Some people are heading back to Emberwood for supplies and other survivors,” he went on. “Some others are talking about moving back to town and rebuilding what’s left.”

“And what do you want to do?” I asked.

“I want to stay here until Stella gets back, because this is where I told her that we would be,” he said. “And I think you could use the time to recuperate.”

“Thank you,” I mumbled, because I didn’t know what else to say, or maybe I just didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

When I opened my eyes again, Boden was gone, and it was dark. I was still numb and hollow and tired.

For a while, that’s how my days bled into each other. Long periods of blissful blank sleep punctuated by moments of Boden trying to keep me alive and then these sharp agonizing times when I remembered that Max was ripped apart and that Serg had died.

Every day, Boden would make me eat and drink, and I would ask about Stella, and he’d tell me that she hadn’t been seen yet. None of the survivors had made it out of quarantine, including Eden’s boyfriend Alek. They were all dispatched and buried on the shore, along with Serg and some of the others who had succumbed to their injuries.

The routine continued until one day, when he brought me fish and potatoes, and Boden said, “I think it’s time for you to get out of bed and see your niece.”

“How long has it been?” I asked.

“Seven days,” he said, and all I heard was worry and weariness and grief. “It has been seven days since you held Fae or left this room or had a meaningful conversation with me.”

“And Stella’s still not back?” I asked. “Where is she? Is she coming back? She wouldn’t leave her daughter, would she?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he admitted. “But I need you to get out of bed and rejoin the land of the living so we can figure everything out together.”

I got dressed, and Boden took me down the hall to the room they’d set up as a nursery for the baby. Minnie the goat was tied out on the balcony, and Harlow was holding Fae and feeding her with a bottle.

“Good afternoon, Remy.” Harlow smiled at me as I came in. “Do you want to hold her?”

“Uh, sure,” I said, when I wanted to say no. I suddenly felt nervous about it, like I had never held a baby before.

Harlow got up and handed me the tiny little girl. When Fae opened her eyes and looked up at me, all I could see was Max.

I held her with trembling arms, and like I had done when her father was just a baby, I sang my mother’s lullaby. Inside, I still felt hollow, but in that moment, I knew that I would learn how to fight and get out of bed every day. For her.

57

Stella

I wasn’t sure if the zombies would follow me forever, or if they would wander off or attack me eventually. The first night when I had to sleep, I climbed up in a tree to be safe, and I was certain that they would be gone in the morning.

But they weren’t, and so we walked onward, me, Chosen, and the horde of zombies.

In the beginning, I didn’t know where we were going. I started out heading south and west. When they kept following me, I realized that I had to make a plan. Then an obvious solution occurred to me: I would return the zombies to where Chosen and Mercy Loth had found them.

Chosen was not exactly like the other zombies, but he wasn’t so different either. He didn’t speak, and he would sometimes play in a way that I hadn’t seen zombies do before. He would chase a butterfly or toss around an old tennis ball, although he had terrible coordination, even for a child of his age.

The entire time we walked together, the zombies following us never ate, but Chosen and I did. He would hunt down rabbits and squirrels, catching them with his bare hands and tearing their flesh. He would always bring some back for me, and we ate together in the evenings. The meat, so bloody and warm while it was fresh and raw, was the very first thing to satiate my hunger in weeks. I would fall asleep at night content and full.

We wandered for days and days, maybe even weeks. I wasn’t keeping track of time very well, but it felt like it had been ages. I knew I wanted to go to the Tarik Copper Mine, but I didn’t know how to find it. I had no map, and my memories felt so foggy to me lately.

Finally, though, I saw a sign for it, and I followed a cracked asphalt road straight to the gates. As far as I could tell, all of the zombies were still following me, and I think I had even picked up a few stragglers here and there.

We walked past all the buildings to the craterous open-pit mine in the center. The roadway down to it had been blown up some time ago, but a ramp out had been created using old sheet metal and boards. It didn’t look very sturdy, but Mercy and her family had apparently done enough to support thousands of zombies climbing out.

It was easy enough to lead them back down, since they all followed me. Once they had filled the pit back up, the way they had been when Mercy first found them, I used my pheromones to still them again.

The hard part was leaving Chosen. He wasn’t a zombie, but he wasn’t a human, and I didn’t know where he belonged. At least with the zombies, they wouldn’t kill him or think he was a monster. He had room to run, and there had to be enough vermin and birds that came by to keep him fed.

I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t tempted to stay with him. Mercy claimed that he needed a mother, and I wasn’t completely human anymore. Not the way that I had once been. The virus had changed me, and I had lost my other half.

Out here with the horde, I could pretend that Max was still alive, back home raising our daughter. I could picture Serg still making them supper, and Boden, Remy, Ripley, and Minnie would all be there too. They could stay the perfect happy family in my mind forever.

But then I thought of Rafaella, and I knew that I couldn’t leave her behind. I had no memory of my mother, but I wanted her to have memories of me. And I needed to be there to tell her all about her daddy, so she would never forget him or how much he loved us both.

“Goodbye,” I said to Chosen. I hugged him and kissed him on the cheek, because it seemed like the right thing to do, but he never reacted. “Stay here and be a good boy.”

When I climbed back up the ramp to get out of the mines, he didn’t follow me. I found an old crowbar and a saw, and within a few minutes, I was able to make the ramp collapse. The zombies wouldn’t be able to get out anymore.

The journey to the S. S. Barbarabelle seemed to take so much longer than the rest of it, likely because I was travelling on my own. The wildlife gave me a wide berth, and I’d gotten rid of all the zombies. I had nothing really to fear except the cold and hunger, but that was plenty enough.

A day later, I made it to the boat. I had to swim from the shore, but since I had been wearing the same filthy clothes since I left Emberwood, it was actually sort of refreshing. And freezing cold.

Eden found me in the lobby, and the first thing I asked her through chattering teeth was, “Where’s my daughter?”

“She’s fine and I’ll take you right to her, but we’ve gotta get you dry before you catch your death,” she said, and she put an arm around me before whisking me away to do just that.

Finally, once I had changed into dry clothes, Eden led me up to the nursery they’d made her on the second floor. I could hear Minnie bleating and a baby cooing before she even opened the door, and tears were already streaming down my cheeks.

Remy was sitting in a chair near the window, holding Fae, and she smiled and stood up as soon as she saw me. I rushed straight over to them, and Remy put my baby in my arms.

As she hugged me to her, she said, “Welcome home, Stella.”

The Book of Mercy

Editor’s Note

A paperback copy of The Book of Mercy was discovered in the settlement of Emberwood after the lyssavirus genotype-8 wiped out most of humanity. The biography was bound in leather, but other loose papers were folded and wedged in the back of the book. These included journal pages, apparently handwritten by a teenage girl Honora Loth, as well as typed letters signed off by the genealogist Pyotr V. Popov. All of the pages have been transcribed and collected together for ease of reading.

Family Tree

Timeline of Ano Mortuorum

To begin with, we must have a timeline that we agree on, or we’ll never come to an understanding. For over two millennia, we lived in the Common Era beginning in Year 1 Ano Domini. That era has recently come to an abrupt end, and we have begun a new one: Ano Mortuorum. The Era of the Dead.

18 July, Year 0 Ano Mortuorum: The first cases of the lyssavirus genotype-8 were discovered.

2 September, Year 0 Ano Mortuorum: Borders close as the virus spreads quickly, but the family survives on the compound of the Loth Family Ranch.

18 July, Year 1 Ano Mortuorum: The Family Ranch survives the first full year of the zombie plague, but not without casualties. Still, the matriarch Elmyra Loth promises a long, glorious reign.

7 September, Year 9 Ano Mortuorum: Mercy Z. Loth decides it’s time to write a book on her life and her legacy.

Chapter 1

Mercy

I have always known that I was destined for greatness. As the time draws near when the whole world will know my name, it is important for everyone to understand how all of this came to be and how I saved all of humanity.

I am the product of two of the greatest lineages in all of Canada that existed at the turn of the millennia.

My mother was born Elmyra Zazel Wearghams, and she was of the Wonderous Wearghams. On her father’s side, going back generations, they were famed entertainers. Her ancestor Wilhelm Silvanus Wearghams founded W. S. Wearghams Hippodrome in 1873, and that eventually grew into the legendary Wonderous Wearghams Travelling Circus.

Like all good things, the halcyon days eventually led to a decline as moving pictures dominated the public’s interest with cinemas and television. After a long and illustrious run, the Wonderous Wearghams closed their last tent. My mother was only a teenager at the time, and she went looking for a place that would appreciate her strength, tenacity, wisdom, and unwavering loyalty.

My father was born Ezekial Kaleb Loth at the tail end of the Silent Generation. He was the eldest son of the eldest son of the great Loth family of the prominent Loth Family Ranch and Cattle Company. His ancestor Lazarus Bly Loth founded the ranch in 1886 when he bought 300 acres to raise cattle and horses.

By the time my father was born, the ranch had grown to over 100,000 acres, and by the time that I was born, it was all the way up to 500,000 acres. Millions of cattle had grazed on the land, supplying the booming population in Vancouver with their demand for fresh meat.

Despite the name of “family ranch,” it was a huge operation, one that earned acclaim and respect all throughout the provinces. Not only did it provide high quality products, but the ranch also employed over a hundred local men.

Even with all the wealth and prestige that the family and the business already had, it only grew when my mother joined the Loths.

Elmyra finally found someone worthy of what she had to offer. Not only a good, strong, wise man, but one that had a powerful legacy to build on. Elmyra and Zeke (as she lovingly called Ezekial) married, and under their guidance, the ranch soon became the largest and the greatest in all of the Western Hemisphere.

But for my parents, it had become more than a ranch. It was a Kingdom. They were the King and Queen, and my older brothers were the Princes, while I was the lone Princess.

Long before the virus came and the world collapsed, Elmyra knew to prepare for the End of Days. She had felt it coming, an intuition that shook her to the core. With her prescient knowledge, she prepared her children for what was to come. While other world leaders had pampered, spoiled offspring, Elmyra ensured that we were all out working the land and learning to survive without government interference.

My brothers Waylon, Kaleb, Wyatt, and Bly were all so much older than me. Elmyra had assumed that her days of bearing children were behind her when I arrived as a sickly baby girl. First, she questioned whether or not I would even survive, but when I did, she realized that I might be the one to grow our family beyond our wildest dreams. Our father prepared the boys to run the ranch, our mother prepared me to run the world.

I was born Mercy Zazel Loth, and I was eighteen when the virus hit. Our ranch was built to withstand the test of anything, but our employees were not. They were infected quickly, and with great foresight, Elmyra herded them into one of the buildings on the ranch, believing they would be useful later.

My brother Wyatt always had a strong interest in science and anatomy, and he began experiments on the zombies to gain understanding. So desperate was he for more information, he deliberately infected Tabitha, his young wife and the mother of his toddler son. He had hoped that since they had a prior relationship, he would be able to reach her in her altered state.

Tabitha was the first member of our extended family that succumbed to the virus, but she was not the only one. Soon after, an accident led to Zeke’s infection, and Wyatt put him in the same empty horse stall where he stored Tabitha.

Over the course of the first year after the outbreak, both my brother Kaleb and my young nephew Colt were bitten by rogue zombies. They too were kept with all of the infected family members out in the barn.

Wyatt believed that the zombies could be tamed, and he enlisted Waylon and Bly to help him. Because of how Elmyra raised them on the ranch, they all had ample experiences with beekeeping and horse breaking, and zombie taming combined aspects of both.

Waylon and Bly considered the work to be too dangerous for me, as their younger sister, so I was not allowed out with them in the barns and fields when they were breaking the zombies.

My middle brother Wyatt wasn’t quite as protective of me, and he would talk about it with me sometimes, when the others weren’t around. That was how I learned that zombies were nothing more than a hive that could be controlled with pheromones and a strong hand.

Over time, my brothers did manage to turn some zombies into domestic guards. They were still bitey and obviously infectious, but they were not that much different than owning wolves or any other feral animal. With the newfound livestock in tamed zombies, the ranch returned to a prosperous glory. Not as shiny or bright as it had once been, but the whole world had a tarnish to it now.

The barter culture that society had switched to after the virus made it more difficult to amass wealth in a traditional sense, but we had ammo long after everyone else ran out. We never went without a meal, and my brothers drank bourbon every night. Servants took care of our home and cooked our meals in exchange for food and board. With our zombies surrounding us, no one could harm us.

Our Kingdom was stronger than ever before. My brother Wyatt spent the most time with the zombies, training and experimenting on them. As such, he had perfected safe ways to interact with them and make them easier to handle. A trick he found most helpful was to sew a person’s mouth shut before they turned into a zombie.

It happened on accident at first. One of the servants had been bitten while feeding the zombies. Ordinarily, Wyatt or Bly would toss that servant in with our more particular zombies, the ones that required live prey to feed. But this time, Wyatt chained up the servant and sewed his mouth shut. He ripped out all his fingers and toenails, the same way he had done with his wife Tabitha after she had turned.

That servant ended up being the tamest of all the zombies. When my niece and nephews helped Elmyra pick produce in the garden, he would be there, carrying loads like a pack mule.

In the evenings, my brothers would retire to the den to drink bourbon and unwind. They never asked me to join, because Elmyra insisted that alcohol would diminish a lady’s innate supremacy. Sometimes, though, I would eavesdrop from the next room, while they drank and laughed and discussed their work.

That was how I discovered that Wyatt’s wife Tabitha had become docile enough to continue her wifely duties. Waylon was repulsed, and Bly laughed uproariously. But I was entranced, hanging on Wyatt’s every word as he explained how he safely copulated with a zombie.

It all sounded relatively simple actually. He bound her hands and secured them to the wall in the barn where she lived, and he bent her over so she couldn’t bite or scratch him. Then he proceeded to have sex with Tabitha, the same way he had before. Although, he did joke that she was a more lively and enthusiastic partner now that she was undead.

Waylon, appalled and concerned, had asked the salient question, “Aren’t you worried about getting the virus? Or knocking her up with some freak zombie child?”

Wyatt, unbothered and proud of himself, replied, “I’ve been doing it for weeks without getting sick, and she can’t get pregnant.”

Waylon pressed, “How can you be so sure about the second point?”

Wyatt considered it a moment, and then decided, “I will rip out her uterus before I am with her next time, just to be safe.”

It was at that moment that my true providence became completely clear.

In the mornings, I sometimes worked in the general store, selling goods to the neighbors and travelers who stopped by. There weren’t that many, but as the reputation of our Kingdom grew, so did the amount of our customers.

Unfortunately, most of them were unacceptable. Old men with missing teeth, grubby young men covered in scars and smelling of sweat and urine, so many of them sickly and malnourished. None of them would work for what I needed, and I could not compromise on something as important as this.

Finally, after weeks and weeks of pining, he arrived in the early morning sunlight, walking up as I opened the store.

He was the most handsome man that I had ever seen, a truly remarkable human. He had hair of gold and eyes of emerald green and a smile that made the earth stand still. He smelled of cedar and fresh cut grass, and he told me that his name was Christopher in a melodic voice.

When I asked him to help haul in heavy milk cannisters from the barn, Christopher didn’t even hesitate before saying yes. He had a good heart, and I knew I had found the One.

In the dairy barn, Christopher put his back to me, and I hit him over the head. He collapsed in a heap, alive but unconscious, and I ran to find Wyatt.

Before meeting Christopher, I had confided in Wyatt of my plans, because I would not be able to proceed without help. Wyatt had been surprised, but he eventually agreed. He was curious about the whole prospect, and he also wanted to ensure that I was safe, because our mother would never forgive him if something went wrong.

Wyatt and I carried Christopher to the shed where he did his experiments. Normally, he would send me away, but since this was for me, he let me watch him work. To make it as safe as possible, he cut Christopher’s hands below the elbow and his legs below the knee, cauterizing and sewing up the wounds after each amputation. Once he was done, he sewed up Christopher’s mouth, and all that was left was turning him.

A limb from a different infected zombie, fresh and dripping blood, would be the source. Wyatt handed it to me. Christopher was awake, thrashing as much as his stubby limbs would allow, but he couldn’t escape. I held the zombie arm over his face, letting the infected blood drip into his mouth and into the open wounds from sewing his lips shut.

It took just over three days for the transformation to be complete. I didn’t see Christopher at all during the change. Wyatt had told me that it was a disgusting process, and he even had to hose Christopher off before he finally brought me in.

His stumps were festering, even with Wyatt’s stitches and cauterizations. He was pale and sickly, and his lips were swollen and infected. But I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw his eyes were the same. I was afraid that since becoming a zombie he would lose that brilliant emerald color, but they were still so enchanting.

A collar around Christopher’s neck was secured to the wall behind him, because my brother had used an abundance of caution when setting this up for me. Deep down in my heart, I knew Christopher would not harm me, zombie or not. He had a pure soul, and he had been chosen for this the same way that I had been. It was our fate, and we could not fight it.

Once Wyatt left me alone with Christopher, I approached him. He was lying on his back, writhing and wriggling, but he did not move away. He lifted his head, his lips straining against the thick black nylon that sewed them shut, and when his eyes met mine, I knew that he would say my name if he could. He wanted this as much as I did.

Wyatt had left Christopher naked to make it easier for me, and a zombie’s body would still react to sensations, especially since he was fresh. He breathed, though he needed no oxygen, and he strained toward me, like a plant toward sunlight.

When I touched him, his body responded, and when he was ready, I climbed on top of him. I tried to control it, but his body knew what to do. He thrashed and finished inside me in a matter of minutes the very first time we were together.

For seven days, I visited Christopher at least once per day, spending ten minutes together fulfilling our divine duties. On the eighth day, he was no longer able to perform. Wyatt had said that he must’ve dried up. Since there was no more use for him, I kissed him goodnight, and Wyatt took an axe to Christopher. So he wouldn’t go to waste, the servants ground him up to feed to the zombie horde.

It took weeks for me to confirm it, but deep down, I had known it had worked the very first time we were together. Christopher and I had created a new life, and I was pregnant.

Elmyra was confused and upset when she learned I was with child. All I would tell her was this was what was meant to be, because I didn’t want her to get angry with Wyatt.

Fearing that our previous servants had been responsible for fathering my child, she culled the old ones and brought in all new ones. These new servants were ungrateful and jealous of all that we had, and in a rage, they burned down many of the buildings on the ranch. They murdered three of my brothers, infected another one, slaughtered our zombies, and tried to kill my mother.

I was seven months pregnant when it happened, and the stress of it caused me to give birth early.

I hate to say that I cannot remember the night I gave birth to my first child. It was a blur of stress and loss and agony and joy. The fires were still burning in the fields, and the air smelled like copper and ash as Elmyra held my hand and told me to push.

But I do remember the moment my son was placed in my arms, so tiny and wriggling, reminding me of his father. He looked like a newborn piglet, all covered in blood, but when I wiped it away, his skin had the same ashy green color of a zombie.

He opened his eyes, and they were Christpher’s eyes, that same brilliant emerald. But I knew that he was something else. Something the world had never seen before. A hybrid savior for all mankind.

He was my son, the Wonderous Chosen One.

Mercy Z. Loth

7 September Year 9

Chapter 2

Honora

Mercy wants me to remember the most important day of our lives. She wants me to write it down, with every detail that I can recall.

So here it is, as much as I remember: It was a cold night in May. The fires burned for so long afterwards, days I think. I only know they began in the middle of the night. I had been asleep, and Grandma Elmyra screamed to wake us up. The metal alarm bells clattered so loud, it hurt my ears and my head. The zombies were howling and growling, and usually, they’re so quiet that time of night.

Grandma Elmyra shouted that all hands were needed outside, but she only meant the strong hands, and the rest of us were sent to the children’s playroom. My cousin Silas was sixteen, and my brother Gatlin was fourteen, so she dragged them both out with her.

My mama and my uncle Bly went out after them, but I didn’t see my other uncles. They must already have been out there fighting.

At ten-years-old, I was the oldest one inside that night, except for Mercy, but she was seven months pregnant and in no condition to fight fires. My younger cousins Abel and Toby curled up under my arms, like I was a mama hen and they were my baby chicks. Mercy stood by the window, watching the family ranch burning, and I can never forget the way the flames made her face glow red.

Outside, the alarms finally stopped, but the zombies raged on. The fire crackled and roared, like it was a monster all its own, even larger and more ravenous than the zombies. Some of the animals cried out, the cattle and horses. And strangely, I think I heard wolves howling.

I remember worrying about the horses that my father used to raise, but I hardly let myself think about the animals or my parents, let alone say it. Instead, I just lied and told my cousins that everything would be okay. To drown out the horrific sounds coming from outside, I sang the old Elvis Presley songs Grandma listened to on the record player.

And then there was screaming, loud and close, and it was too coherent to be a zombie. First it was lost in the noise, but then it became clear. Silas was yelling for help, and along with him, my mama was wailing.

“We have to help them!” Mercy decided, and it sounded like the right thing to do. She grabbed the rifle propped against the wall, her other arm cradling her swollen belly covered in her flannel nightgown.

“Stay here,” I told Abel and Toby as I untangled myself from them.

“No, they have to come with,” Mercy insisted. “We need their hands.”

I didn’t argue, because there wasn’t time, and maybe she was right about that, too. Abel went on his own, but Toby was only six and wouldn’t let go of my hand. I dragged him out of the room and out of the house.

On the covered porch, the smoke was dark and blanketing everything. The air tasted like ash and metal. From where I stood, I saw four people hobbling up to the house on the hill, the house where we all lived. Most of the fire and chaos was happening in the valley of the ranch that surrounded us.

Silas was helping Grandma Elmyra, and she had an arrow jutting out of her neck. My brother Gatlin was trying to carry Mama all on his own, since she couldn’t walk herself. But she was too heavy, and her body was slick with blood, so it kept slipping from his grip. He was dragging her along the ground as she moaned, and he called for my help.

Mercy ran over to Silas, demanding to know what happened. I ran toward Gatlin and Mama, and when the younger kids chased after me, Mercy snapped at them to help her and Elmyra.

When I reached Gatlin and Mama, he’d given up, collapsing onto his knees. Mama was laying on her back, her head resting roughly on his lap. In the firelight, her nightgown looked black and wet. Her flesh and fabric were both so torn and soaked in blood, it was impossible to tell which was which anymore.

“What happened?” I asked, as if an answer could help anything at all. I took Mama’s hand, and she weakly held it as she stared up at the sky, beyond me and Gatlin.

“Harlow set the zombies free, and they got Mama,” Gatlin said, and tears left streaks through the blood and soot on his cheeks. “She shot Grandma. I think Uncle Waylon and Uncle Bly are dead. I don’t even know where Uncle Wyatt is.”

Harlow was a name I knew, but it didn’t make any sense. She was just a servant girl who cleaned our house, and I heard that Uncle Waylon had sights to marry her someday.

“Why would she do this?” Mercy was nearly shrieking, shouting the same question I had. “Why would she turn on our family when we treated her with nothing but kindness?”

Then Mercy started to scream and scream, and Silas yelled, “I think she’s having the baby now!”

Grandma Elmyra crawled over to help Mercy. They had removed the arrow from her throat somehow, and bloody fabric was tied around her neck like a scarf.

I kept hold of my mama’s hand, but she slipped away, going limp as Mercy howled into the night and the flames roared.

That was how my newest cousin came into the world, all squirming and bloody with a dark green umbilical cord.

Grandma Elmyra managed to speak, her voice rasping and strained, and she asked Mercy, “What have you done? How did you make this baby?”

“His name is the Wonderous Chosen One, and he is the savior of all mankind,” Mercy announced in a tired but strong voice. “Everyone will know our name, and everyone will remember today.”

While most of the zombies were kept separate from the house on the hill by a high-tensile fence, it had been damaged in the turmoil. None of the zombies had seemed to notice it so far, not until after Mercy had given birth, but suddenly, a lone zombie came charging through the fence. Even though it was engulfed in flames, the zombie was frighteningly fast as it ran up the hill.

Silas fumbled his gun with clumsy hands slick with blood, but blessedly, the zombie fireball didn’t seem to have a sense of direction. Instead of running at us, it went toward the backyard, where Grandma Elmyra’s cherished rotating carousel sat.

It was an old ride that she haggled from her former circus cohorts, but it still worked, with the horses bobbing up and down to music. In the summers before the virus, when we were only just visiting the house on the hill instead of living here with the whole family, I used to love riding it. I always picked a dark one that looked like my dad’s prized quarter horse.

But now the flaming zombie ran right into the carousel, crashing into it with such force that the mirrors in the center shattered.

Silas finally got a handle on the gun, and with one shot, he felled the zombie. But it was too late. The zombie’s corpse still burned, and the wood and plastic of the carousel had already caught fire, adding a sharp chemical smell to the overpowering sense of destruction that shrouded the family ranch that night.

As I looked out at the flames, and felt my mama’s hand going cold in my own, all I could think was that the Wonderous Chosen One was already too late. There wasn’t anything left to save.

Chapter 3

Pyotr

To: Michael Haugen, Director-General

Cold Shore Global Contingency

I will introduce myself first, so you will understand my expertise. I hold a PhD equivalent in Genetics – what we call Candidate of Sciences in Russia – and a Doctor of Sciences degree specializing in Biotechnology. Before the virus, I was a lead geneticist at the Centre of Genetics and Biotechnology in Novosibirsk, Siberia.

I first learned of the Cold Shore Contingency while working with them, though I must admit that I never believed it would be something humanity would need to rely on during my lifetime. Then, I thought such an event was far from possible – perhaps it was wishful thinking, perhaps denial.

The zombibeshenstvo – the virus we would eventually know as the lyssavirus genotype-8 – spread rapidly as soon as it was discovered. Fortunately, the cold slowed the infected, and the vastness of my homeland meant that we had more time than most.

I must confess, I underestimated the gravity of the situation. Even as ports around the world were closing and news spoke of chaos, I focused entirely on my research. For as long as the lights in our lab were on, the collapse of society stayed out of view. But once the virus reached Novosibirsk, it consumed the city within weeks. All our research, all the preparation were for nothing.

The infected are driven to bite and claw, spreading the disease easily. The incubation period is horrifyingly short – just 24 to 72 hours from exposure to complete loss of reason. They seem to feel no pain, fueled by relentless surges of adrenaline and an insatiable hunger.

Looking back now, I realize that we were doomed from the moment the virus emerged. I stayed too long in the laboratory, desperate to find solutions. By the time I fled with my wife, Irena, and our two children, the city had fallen to the zombies. My wife and younger son did not make it out.

Traveling across the countryside, the scale of the devastation became clear. Millions were dead, and those who survived faced terror not only from the infected but from each other. Resources were scarce, and humanity fell back into their most violent, desperate urges. It took six months to reach the sea and another month to secure passage to Cold Shore.

The events of those months confirmed what I now know: Cold Shore is humanity’s only hope. This is the very catastrophe that the initiative was designed to address. As one of the leading experts in genetics and biotechnology, I am uniquely qualified to assist in this mission. I have devoted my life to these studies, and I am prepared to devote the rest of my life to the contingency.

All I ask for in return is that my surviving son, Dmitry, be allowed to stay with me at Cold Shore. I understand space and resources are limited, but I cannot work if it means abandoning my son.

Especially now, I cannot make that sacrifice.

It may seem bold to make such a request, given that I am not currently apart of your organization. We are not colleagues, and I am just another survivor. But I know that in a world starved of intelligence and expertise, I have the skills and knowledge to justify my presence. I ask you to weigh my words carefully.

With the utmost respect,

Pyotr V. Popov, PhD, DSc

Chapter 4

Mercy

Elmyra’s biggest mistake has always been underestimating me. I know it is in bad form to speak ill of one’s own mother, and with a grand matriarch like Elmyra Loth, it borders on blaspheme. But I believe it’s essential that I speak the truth on all things.

Perhaps it is Elmyra’s very excellence that gives her such myopic vision at times, particularly with me. She is an incredible woman with an incredible life, and she was already half-way done raising her four boys to become worthy Loth men by the time I was even born.

My brothers were the ones taught to manage the farm. Waylon and Wyatt shadowed our father, learning how to run the fields and the barns, Kaleb worked in the office on the books and numbers, Elmyra kept the house and the gardens in order, and my youngest brother Bly went around to fill in any gaps. The redundancies of four brothers meant that there hadn’t been an apparent need for me to learn what they had already been taught.

Now my brothers are all gone, most of them on the night that evil servant tried to destroy us. Wyatt had been murdered out right with an axe to the head in his workshop, while Bly had been eviscerated by our own livestock. Kaleb had been a zombie for well over a year before the fire, but he’d been kept in our barns. Long ago, Waylon had managed to gentle him enough that his kids could even visit him. Until that night Harlow unleashed hell on our ranch and a wolf ripped Kaleb to shreds, so there was nothing left.

My eldest brother Waylon nearly died himself. He was burnt up with a leg and arm torn off, but he was infected in the whole mess, so now he gets by just fine as a zombie. So much of our herds escaped that night, but Silas managed to get Waylon caged up with the tame ones that remain.

Waylon’s not quite there yet, but Silas is learning how to break the zombies. Soon, he’ll be able to handle them just as good as his uncles did.

It's been a month since most of the ranch was reduced to ash. A few barns remain, and the main house on the hill was completely untouched. The general store is still standing, but we aren’t trading anything yet. There’s enough food stocked up in the cellar that the family will be all right for some time, but we can’t spare anything until the farm is fully operational again.

Another obstacle we face is that we don’t have much in the way of able-bodied adults anymore. My nephews Silas and Gatlin are only teenagers themselves, and everyone else left alive is a child or infirmed.

In the past week, we have even gone down another set of hands. My young nephew Abel was out trying to repair the fences that Harlow had cut through, and he was snatched by a feral zombie. He was ripped apart so thoroughly that he couldn’t even be salvaged as a domestic, like Waylon.

My mother Elmyra is still recuperating. She can eat mostly fine, but there’s a horrible whistling sound when she breathes, and her voice comes out in a weak croak. Not at all the robust, commanding way she used to.

If I’m being honest, she looks so frail and weak in her bed. It’s hard to envision her as the Queen of a powerful Kingdom, and I avoid going in her room if I can. Honora is nursing her back to health, and I have my hands full with my miraculous baby boy.

His full name is the Wonderous Chosen One, but I’ve taken to calling him Chosen.

In my darkest moments, there had been a few times before he was born, when I felt him growing and squirming inside my belly, that I feared what he would require once he was outside of my body. I had witnessed so many feral zombies tearing apart other humans. Chosen’s father hadn’t been like that, even after he was infected, but I knew the possibility existed that my son might have a hunger that could never be satiated.

That turned out to be all worry for nothing. I should’ve known that my glorious little one would be remarkable in every way. Since the moment he was born, Chosen has never cried. Not even once. He is most content to be held in my arms, staring up at me with his brilliant green eyes.

He eats frequently, but has never had a taste for milk of any kind. I tried at first, but he refused to latch on my breast. After a few failed attempts with expressed breast milk and cow milk in a bottle, Silas was the one who eventually discovered the solution. He butchered a chicken, and he drained all the blood from it into a baby bottle. Chosen guzzled it all down, and promptly fell asleep in my arms.

He’s an astonishingly quiet, peaceful infant. I had expected more ferocity out of him, given his innate bloodlust, but he seems pleased to sit still and take in the world around him. I can lay him in the crib for hours at a time without any complaint or sign of discomfort. His eyes follow the mobile, watching the stars on strings twirl above his tiny bed, and he is completely happy.

With his unique appetite has come an incredible growth spurt. He was so tiny when he was born, barely over three pounds, but over the past weeks he has grown into a cherubic ten pounds.

Chosen has been an extraordinarily healthy baby. The only complaint is his exceptionally foul-smelling poop. I have changed many cloth diapers in my life, but I have never encountered such an overwhelming grotesque stench. I can’t even be in the same room with him when he needs a change or I will retch.

Fortunately, Honora is able to stomach it much better than I can, and she has been handling all of Chosen’s diaper changes. He’s such an easy baby otherwise that I frequently leave her to watch him while I try to get the ranch back up and running.

All of the boys spend their days out in the field, cleaning up the wreckage and salvaging the livestock and farmland we still have. When my brothers were alive, the children under twelve spent their days around the main house. But we no longer have the luxury, and Toby is out working even though he is just six-years-old.

Honora stays in the house to care for Elmyra and Chosen, while I have been reaching out to our biggest trade partners. Elmyra kept in contact with other communities and trading posts across the province by writing messages and passing them via carrier pigeon.

It's been difficult, pulling the Loth Family Ranch back up after all we’ve been through. But I have managed, and I have done it all without proper guidance. Elmyra has been of little help, and as the days go on, I am finding myself wondering less and less about what she would want me to do.

I am the one who will bring us back to our former glory, and then we shall surpass it. I am the one who brought Chosen into this world, knowing that one day he will be a leader of men. I will give him many, many siblings, so we will have an army to follow him. I will become more than Elmyra ever dared to dream.

Every day, as I watch Chosen grow stronger, and the grass grow greener outside, I know we are promised for something beyond anyone’s comprehension.

It is only from the ashes the phoenix can fly. It is only after the whole world falls that Chosen will rise.

Mercy Z. Loth

12 June, Year 2

Chapter 5

Honora

Dear Diary,10 October, Year 8

I have tried to keep a diary, but it’s always so hard when every day feels exactly the same. Mama Mercy has often encouraged me to journal, because she says everyone in the future will want to know what it was like growing up here.

Mercy isn’t my real mama. Alma was my mama, and Kaleb was my father and Mercy’s brother. They’ve been gone over six years now, and Mercy’s been the one caring for everyone since then. She says it only makes sense now that she’s everyone’s mama, and she doesn’t want it to be confusing to her children, so we all call her Mama Mercy now.

I don’t think her children are all that confused, since they don’t even talk, but I don’t want to talk about them right now anyway. I love them, I really do, but they’re all Mama Mercy ever wants to discuss with me.

Today something happened that made me … I don’t know. It made me feel something different, and I don’t want to forget it.

Really, I shouldn’t be writing this down. If Mama Mercy were to find this, or even Silas, I doubt they would think well of it. They would accuse me of being ungrateful. The only safe place in the whole world is the house on the hill, and that’s because of Mama Mercy and Silas.

I truly do appreciate all that they do for me and our family. I strive to always find contentment in my chores. Making the meals using Grandma Elmyra’s handwritten recipe cards brings me such joy that I can connect with our past while nourishing our future.

Caring for the children is also a source of so much happiness, especially with Mama Mercy always reminding me that she wishes she could do what I did.

“Growing up, my mother raised me to be a housewife,” Mama Mercy often tells me, after she comes out of her office late in the evening. “Being a wife and a mother. It was all I ever thought I’d be, and all I ever wanted. But now running the ranch has fallen onto my shoulders. You can’t imagine my jealousy at knowing that you are the one raising my children while I am cooped in my office.”

Her office is in the back of the general store, away from the house where she can write her correspondence and keep track of what the ranch needs and what we can spare. Carrier pigeons relay messages to her trade partners, and she does bookkeeping and planning while she waits for their replies. Most days, she ducks into her office in the morning right after breakfast, and she doesn’t exit until the evening after the children have all gone to sleep.

At night, she peers at them lying still in their cribs. Her children will wander off in the middle of the night if they aren’t put down in cribs surrounded with tall rails, despite their ages. As she watches them sleep, the wistful pride in her eyes is undeniable. So I believe she would trade places with me if she could.

That doesn’t mean my days are easy. Her children have unique needs and concerns, and in between caring for them, I am expected to keep the massive farmhouse clean. Grandma Elmyra mostly cares for herself, other than requiring some assistance with dressing and bathing, but she is a frail elder, and she cannot help at all with the upkeep of her house.

In the afternoons, when Mama Mercy’s children are down for a nap, I leave Toby in charge of them for an hour. He’s only eleven, but the children don’t leave their cribs, so it’s not difficult for him.

At the bottom of the hill, just beyond the inner fence that protects the house from everything, sits the Loth Family General Store. My brother Gatlin works inside, selling the goods to the various customers that find us. We don’t have many on any given day, but we keep long hours to accommodate those that travel far to reach us.

In the midday, Gatlin needs a break to help Silas switch the livestock between the fields for grazing. We have herds of cattle, half a dozen horses, and thousands of zombies, and it’s quite a bit of work caring for them with so few hands.

Today I went to cover for him, and it began like any other afternoon. I took my time walking down to the general store, because I enjoyed the sun on my cheeks and the bit of my leg exposed between the hem of my prairie dress and my old boots.

“You’re late,” Gatlin told me with a smirk, but he had the big general store barndoors open, letting in the autumn air so I know he understood. Winter will be closing in around us soon, and we had to relish the warmth while we had it.

Gatlin is nineteen, and he’s my older brother, though we don’t look alike. Our dad always used to say he was built like a linebacker, but I think he looks more like an overstuffed steer under a mop of light brown hair.

“You could’ve left if you didn’t want to wait on me,” I told him. “I’m never more than a couple minutes late.”

“I would’ve, but we’ve got a customer.” He motioned over to a young man standing on the far side of the store, perusing the bags of dried jerky we have for sale. “He’s also got a special order on the counter.”

An insulated cooler sat near the register. It was unremarkable, other than a sturdy metal keeping it locked shut and two stickers on the top. One of the stickers appeared to be a logo of some kind, with a red droplet of blood over an icy blue globe. The other sticker was really a piece of torn duct tape with strange letters written on it: образец ткани.

“What is it?” I asked.

Gatlin waved me off. “Doesn’t matter. It’s already paid for. Just ring up whatever else he purchases.”

My brother left after that, presumably hurrying off to help Silas, and I went behind the counter. Usually, I did tidying up while I worked the store, but today I found myself staring at the customer.

I hadn’t got a good look of him yet, since he’d mostly had his back to me, but I liked the way his dark curly hair landed on his neck. He was wearing long-sleeve coveralls in a faded color, like it had been indigo a long time ago but now it was sort of a gray blue. On his shoulder, he had an embroidered patch featuring the same blood droplet and globe logo on the cooler.

When he finally looked over at me, I realized that he was quite handsome. He was about my age, with an angular face and wide, soulful dark eyes. Our eyes met, and my cheeks burned, so I looked away, pretending to busy myself with wiping the counter so he wouldn’t notice.

“Hi. Do you … do you work here?” He sounded uncertain as he approached the counter, and because I didn’t want to be impolite, I braved looking up at him again.

“Yes. Why?” I asked. “Did you need help finding something?”

“No, I just knew you weren’t the boy I was talking to when I first arrived.” He quirked a smile, and I noticed he had a dimple, but only on his left cheek.

“That was my brother. Gatlin. This is our family’s ranch and store,” I explained to him, and for some reason, my stomach felt all fluttery.

“It’s an interesting place.” He glanced around then, and he ran a hand through his dark curls. “You have such a variety of wares. You don’t see that much anymore.”

“We’ve been doing this for a very long time,” I said with pride in my voice. I hoped I didn’t sound too boastful, but I wanted him to think well of my family. To think well of me.

“Do you get many customers out here?”

“In the summer, we can be busy. Not many over the winter, though,” I said, tempering my earlier bluster. “Between the first snowfall and the spring, we are deserted. But the summer sustains us.”

“Just like everywhere else this far north.”

“I suppose so,” I replied, and then because I wanted to keep the conversation going and keep his attention on me, I asked, “Have you been here before?”

“No. This is my first time.” His smile deepened into something proud, and his beautiful eyes gained a sparkle to them. “My father usually makes the trek down twice a year to get supplies, but I figured it was about time that I start pulling my own weight.”

“Oh? How far away do you live?”

“About 900 kilometers to the west.”

“That is quite the trek. Aren’t there any trading posts closer?” I asked, and I immediately regretted it. Why would I suggest some place else when all I wanted to do was spend the rest of the day talking with him?

“There are,” he admitted. “But only this one has what we need.”

“Were you able to find it?” I asked hopefully.

“I was.” He pointed to the cooler sitting on the counter that I had all but forgotten about, and then he held up a pouch of dried strawberries. “And I even managed to find a few things extra.”

After I finished ringing him up, and he traded me a few gold coins, he said, “Thank you so much for all your help. I don’t think I caught your name.”

“Honora.”

“I’m Dmitry.”

“It was nice meeting you, Dmitry,” I said, and no name had ever tasted sweeter on my tongue. My heart seemed to swell with delight when he smiled at me and repeated my name.

“Likewise, Honora. Maybe I’ll see you when I come back in the spring.”

I watched after him for a long time after he’d gone. When Gatlin returned, I considered asking him about the logo on Dmitry’s clothing and what was inside the cooler, but I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that I was thinking of Dmitry at all. Besides that, it will give me something to ask him about when he comes back.

Winter has long been my least favorite time of year, but now I am positively giddy about the thought of spring. Already I am counting down the days until the potential return of Dmitry.

Your devoted writer,

Honora Loth

Chapter 6

Mercy

By the time my son turned two, the ranch had recovered enough, and I knew it was time to give him a sibling.

Chosen has been a remarkably easy child. He never gave me sleepless nights, and when his teeth came in, he switched effortlessly to eating uncooked meat. He has never spoken, but he has a way of conveying his wants and needs with a simple look.

Ever since he learned to crawl, he’s been drawn to the zombies. When they howl, he would rush over to the windows, and sometimes he’d even reply with a grunting sound.

For the first several months of his life, I kept him separate from both the domestic and feral zombies on our ranch. Even with the ones that Silas had broken in, they could still lash out if they were hungry or spooked enough. I didn’t want to risk my son until I was certain it was safe.

Looking back, I feel foolish forever doubting it. Chosen is so wonderous because he is of them and he is of us. He is a connection to both worlds, and it was so obvious the first time I brought him out to meet a few of the domestics.

Silas had two that he’d personally broken in himself. One with his mouth sewn shut called Buddy, and a decaying middle-aged female zombie he called Madame. He kept them both on heavy logging chains so they couldn’t break free, and he’d put a muzzle on Madame, even though he insisted that she never snapped at him anymore.

As I carried Chosen down to meet them, Buddy and Madame began sniffing the air. They’d been milling about, doing the typical shuffle of the infected, but they both turned their attention as we approached.

Chosen, for his part, had begun squirming in my arms, but I held him tightly. Buddy and Madame moved toward us, slowly, their heads cocking to the sides. When we finally reached them, they fell still, and Chosen outstretched his hand to touch Buddy’s face.

“What is he doing?” Silas asked me, holding the chains tightly on our livestock.

“He’s communicating with them,” I explained, remembering what my older brother Wyatt had taught me years ago. “They use pheromones to talk to each other, like bees or ants.”

Chosen’s full potential became clear to me in that moment. He was only an infant, but someday, he would be grown, and he would be able to control an army of the undead. All that he needed was for me to provide him the siblings to serve as lieutenants.

The very moment the ranch seemed calm and prosperous, I set about finding another to father my next child.

Similar to when I searched for Christopher (Chosen’s father) I had to wait several weeks before a good man came in, one who wasn’t too old or infected with one parasite or another, and he needed to have a good heart.

Finally, a healthy young man with dark hair, pale skin, and eyes like the night arrived. He called himself Jesse, and I knew he would be the next father.

Silas helped me the same way that Wyatt had, and the conception was as magnificent and simple as it was with Christopher. After Jesse turned, I coupled with him every day for ten days straight, until he couldn’t anymore. For safety, his limbs had all been amputated before the conception, and as such, he no longer had any use on the ranch. Once the deed was done, Silas slaughtered him and fed him back to the other zombies.

My second pregnancy was even easier than the first. The ranch was thriving again, and I felt so happy and full of energy.

Around five months along, Chosen noticed my stomach. He had never been an affectionate child, so he tended to pay little attention to me, and for the first time, he began seeking me out. He would stare at my stomach in fascination, and whenever he did, the baby in my belly would suddenly become active and flip around.

Despite the ease of the pregnancy, at only thirty weeks along, I went into labor. It all happened quickly, but at least I managed to make it to my bed before she slid out into my arms. She was so tiny, and like her elder brother, her skin was pale green.

When she opened her eyes, looking up at me, one was pitch black like her father’s, and the other was milky white.

My beautiful, miraculous daughter Valorous Sentinelle was born on 22 March, Year 5. She weighed only a few pounds. Silas prepared her a bottle of fresh blood, and she drank it greedily.

The one dark spot on Valorous’s birth, if there is to be one, would be my mother, Elmyra. When my first child had been born, the ranch had been burning and Elmyra had just pulled an arrow out of her throat, so I could not fault her for not being excited about Chosen’s ostentatious entrance to the world.

My pregnancy with Chosen had also been something that I had kept shrouded in secrecy. At the time, I feared she would try to prevent his conception or birth somehow if she knew what I’d done, so a clandestine gestation was necessary for me to complete my path.

While carrying Valorous, though, I felt no need to hide any part of it. Elmyra hardly left her room most days, if she decided to disapprove, but I also had hoped that she would react differently. She had witnessed how amazing Chosen was, and I thought she would trust in me and be as jubilant about another child as I was.

My brothers were so much older than me that I had grown up watching Elmyra up close as she welcomed each new grandbaby into the family. The joy and enthusiasm she had expressed at the birth of all five of my nephews and one niece was a beautiful thing that I wanted for myself and for my children.

But that joy never came. While I was in labor, Elmyra stayed in her room, reading her prayer book and resting. It was only Silas and Honora tending to my needs, but as I said, Valorous slid into the world with exuberant ease.

As soon as I was able, I went down the hall, carrying my precious newborn daughter in my arms. Elmyra’s door was ajar (I had instructed Honora to leave it open so she could hear the birth since she couldn’t actually be present), and she was sitting straight up on her bed. A candle was burning at her end table, and her prayerbook was unopened on her lap. Her room was dusty and smelled faintly like urine and illness, because Honora doesn’t have much time to clean here anymore. She has more pressing duties around the house.

I stepped gingerly into her bedroom and asked, “Would you like to meet your new granddaughter?”

Elmyra watched me as I came toward her bed. When I was close enough, I leaned over a little, so she could get a peak of her tiny brand-new granddaughter swaddled in my arms.

In a weak, raspy voice Elmyra managed to croak out, “Is she alive?” Her throat never healed completely right from the arrow, and it’s still difficult for her to talk.

I laughed, because what a terrible, audacious thing for her to say. “Of course she is. Why would you ask that?”

Another gravelly croak: “So small.” Then Elmyra leaned back, her gaze darting away from Valorous. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was recoiling from her own grandbaby.

“Yes, she was a little early, but she’s strong. She’ll be powerful just like her big brother,” I assured her, and it almost looked like Elmyra flinched at that. Her lack of curiosity and happiness was starting to grate on me, and I nearly demanded, “Don’t you want to know her name?”

Elmyra stared up at me when I asked, and I could only find anger and fear brimming in them.

“Valorous Sentinelle,” I said as if she had inquired, as if she even cared. “I thought about using a family name, but my children will be bigger than this family. Bigger than everything you’d even dared hope for.”

Her jaw clenched, and Valorous made a tiny mewling breath, and Elmyra finally looked down at her again.

I took that as an invitation, and I asked, “Do you wish to hold her?”

She shook her head once, and then answered gruffly, “Looks hungry.”

I explained, “She doesn’t have any teeth yet, and she’s not hungry. Silas already made her a bottle, and she ate her fill before I brought her down to meet you.”

Elmyra looked back at me again. “What do you feed it?”

I straighten up at that, moving the baby away so Elmyra can’t even get a peek of her anymore. “I feed her the same as I did Chosen. Liquid blood until her teeth come in.”

My mother made a strange guttural sound, and she looked away, toward the peeling paper on the walls.

After a long silence, she asked, “How many?”

Confused, I replied, “How many what?”

“How many of those will you make?”

“Are you asking how many of these miraculous little babies I plan to birth?” I asked, and she grunted in response. “Dozens and dozens, if I can.”

Mercy Z. Loth

Chapter 7

Pyotr

To Director-General Haugen:

As you know the research we are conducting at Cold Shore might be the most important work done in all of human history. Mankind as a species have just barely survived extinction in the face of a cataclysmic viral epidemic.

The paramount concern has been how to protect the survivors and rebuild society. There are many ways to go about doing this, but not all plans are equal. While I know that the consensus among some here is that a vaccine is the only way forward, I fear that we may be limiting ourselves too much to find success.

To put it bluntly, a vaccine or a cure is likely not possible in the time that is required. With the limited resources we have here at Cold Shore, it could take decades. Even in perfect conditions, with studies and infinite resources, some viruses will always elude us.

Given that the lyssavirus genotype-8 is an offshoot of rabies, a cure seems especially unlikely. However, just because a rabies vaccine was discovered does not mean it’s possible with the genotype-8 because of the differences in their functioning.

The route I propose to combat the virus involves genomes, specifically in epigenetic expression. The natural immunity to the lyssavirus has been discovered in rare cases, but each time, it had a familial connection.

While adjusting genetic mutations may sound more complex, the groundwork is already in place. The laboratories here at Cold Shore will require many more tissue samples in order to complete this, but it is possible.

I am suggesting that we divert our resources away from the futile pursuit of a vaccine and instead turn toward the genetic research we’re conducting. If we do that, I do believe that it is possible that within a decade, we could begin having children born with a natural immunity to the virus.

A decade is still a long time, which is why I urge that we change course immediately. The sooner we put all our effort into this, the sooner we can begin to harvest the fruits.

Awaiting your reply,

Pyotr V. Popov

Chapter 8

Honora

Dear Diary,28 December, Year 8

Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year. I suppose that isn’t particularly unique, even in this day and age. Before the virus, when I lived down the hill with my mom, dad, and brother in our own house, it always seemed like such a magical time of the year. Sledding and hiking through pristine fields of white, making snowmen until my nose was cold, and then coming inside to hot cocoa around the fire.

Even after the zombies, and we moved into Grandma Elmyra’s house, as long as my mom was alive, she tried to keep the magic going. And when she was gone, I tried to keep it going for the younger kids.

So far, I think I’ve done a decent job, even though Gatlin and Silas sometimes sneer at my attempts. But this year, everything went completely off the rails.

Autumn had begun and ended on such a high note. The harvest had been especially good, and Mama Mercy had secured a big trade. I had also made my first friend outside of the family when I met Dmitry (although it may be too forward for me to call him that, I have begun to think of him that way, as a friend of sorts, and I find myself thinking of him most days when I have a quiet moment).

The main thing that had truly made the autumn so pleasant was Mama Mercy’s mood. Her plans for herself and the family are so ambitious that she’s often stressed or tired.

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” Mama Mercy likes to mumble when she’s having a dark day. Sometimes the clouds seem to come for her and block out the whole world.

The days had been lighter because Mama Mercy had discovered she was with child in early September. Ever since Valorous’s birth, she’s been looking forward to having more children, but her attempts have been much less fruitful.

As she tells it, the first few times were so easy. She conceived whenever she tried. But after Valorous, the next three pregnancies followed a much different pattern. Within a month or two, they all ended in a spontaneous miscarriage.

Mama Mercy would awake screaming for me in the middle of the night, and I would go tend to her in her room. Her linens were always covered in so much blood, I was afraid that she would die, but she assured me that she would survive. It was only the babies that had been lost.

Growing up on a farm, I had seen all kinds of strange births and misfortunes. A horse once stepped on a pregnant farm cat, and her babies came out too early and small like pink little beans. They were utterly unrecognizable as kittens, but they were familiar enough that I cried when I found them.

What was expelled from Mama Mercy’s body during her pregnancy losses did not look familiar or humanoid or even alive. She would leave them for me to clean up, all wrapped up in bed sheets. When I left the room, I peeled back the sheet to have a look, and it was so unexpected.

I thought it would be cells, like a clump of menstruation, or a pink bean, like the premature kittens had been. This was neither. It looked like a cancerous tumor, all lumpy and seeping, with exposed veins twisting through it. Under the blood, the flesh of it was a green necrotic color, and it smelled of iron and death.

After each one of the losses, I checked, and they were all exactly the same. I took them out of Mama Mercy’s bedroom and straight out to the firepit to burn them, with the bloodied sheets and all.

Mama Mercy never handled the loss well, not that I blamed her. She would go into these rages where she would scream and peel the wallpaper off the walls, but eventually she would just collapse and sob.

Whenever that finally passed, Mama Mercy would return to herself with a renewed sense of verve. Each obstacle seemed to assure her that she was only being tested for the divinity yet to come.

That was until after the third miscarriage, because then the issue became that she could no longer get pregnant at all. No matter what she tried. She would go off with Silas into Uncle Wyatt’s workshop, all hours of the night trying to figure out what to do.

It had hit her particularly hard this past spring, when Valorous turned three. That meant that it had been three years without another child, despite all that Mama Mercy did and all that she knew she needed for this family.

The dark clouds had been gathering around her more and more, until finally, blessedly, she fell pregnant in September after another attempt with an infected man. And as the weeks turned into months, all of us grew more optimistic. I truly thought that Mama Mercy would finally be able to give Chosen and Valorous a younger sibling.

And then three days before Christmas, Mama Mercy woke me up screaming. More accurately, she woke up the entire house. It was the kind of banshee wailing that seemed to make the windows shake.

Silas and Gatlin peered out their doorways into the hall, but neither of them made a move toward her. They just stared at her bedroom door and her cries of agony.

“I think she’s lost another one,” Silas had whispered, but I was close enough that I could hear him over Mama Mercy’s sobs.

“I’ll take care of it. Go one back to bed,” I told him, because I’d been handling every part of Mama Mercy’s pregnancies and losses. The boys always hid away from it, and Grandma Elmyra wouldn’t leave her room to help.

“Maybe I should go with you.” Silas stepped out of his bedroom, standing tall and broad shouldered like he’d need to wrestle his grieving aunt.

“I can handle her,” I insisted.

“Call for me if you need me,” Silas said as I went onto Mama Mercy’s room.

Mama Mercy was crumpled on the floor, her legs red with blood, her face covered in tears and snot. In her arms, she cradled something pulsating in a blood-soaked blanket.

“Mama Mercy?” I asked gently, when her crying settled enough that I thought she’d hear me. I carefully knelt down beside her. “What can I do to help?”

“Tell me why,” she said in a ragged voice. She looked at me then, her eyes so intense, it was like she could see through me, see through everything that had happened in the past, all the way back to the beginning of the world. And yet she had been unable to find the answer she was searching for.

“Why what?” I asked her.

“Why don’t they live?” Her voice broke with a sob, and she finally tilted her little bundle of joy toward me so that I could get a good look.

It was much larger than her previous losses, but I still would not have thought it had ever been alive. It was a lumpy mass of bones and teeth poking through misshapen flesh, but it in no way resembled a human or baby.

“I-I’m not sure,” I answered uncertainly, and I had to speak slowly to keep from vomiting.

No matter how it actually looked, Mama Mercy believed that clump to be her precious baby, and I can’t imagine her rage if I were to throw up at the sight of it.

“If this wasn’t what I was meant to do, if this hasn’t all been by providential design, then how does that explain Chosen or how prosperous the ranch has been or that we’ve survived the zombies and the fires and everything that has come for us?” Mama Mercy was nearly shrieking as she finished her rant. “How can I fulfill my purpose of creating an army if none of them will live?”

“If that is your purpose, then this all must be part of it, too,” I reasoned, desperate to find some way to comfort her.

“What?” Mama Mercy asked, blinking as she stared at me. “What did you say?”

“I-I only meant, um, that maybe… the trials and tribulations are part of your destiny,” I stammered.

“Hmmm.” She fell silent, thinking for a long while, and I sat perfectly still beside her and avoided looking at the thing she rocked in her arms.

“Chosen is still the Wonderous Chosen One who requires an army,” Mama Mercy said, speaking calmly for the first time since I entered her room. “His needs are legion, but perhaps I am not the vessel for it.”

“He’s already shown that he can communicate with our domestic zombies,” I reminded her.

“He will command them all,” Mama Mercy agreed, almost thoughtfully. Then she exhaled deeply and held out her bloody bundle towards me. “Dispose of the baby, Honora, and when you return, I’ll need help into the bath.”

Since that day, Mama Mercy has been in her room for meditation and prayer. We haven’t celebrated Christmas as a family yet, because Silas and Gatlin insist we have to wait for her.

But on Christmas morning, Toby snuck into my room before chores to give me a tiny horse he’d made me. It had been carved from an old stick, and in truth, it’s more of a block with four legs and a head. The knife cuts are rough and crude, owing to his young age and lack of skill, but it was also clearly made with as much care as he could muster.

“I remember how you always used to love the horses, and I know you never have time to ride them anymore,” Toby explained, as if I wasn’t already in love with the wooden blob of a horse. “And you’re always doing so much for me and everyone around here, I thought you deserved something nice this year. Silas has been teaching me how to carve, but I’m not very good yet.”

“Don’t be silly! It’s the loveliest gift I’ve ever gotten!” I told him, and I meant it. Tears were already welling in my eyes, and I threw my arms around him and hugged him tightly.

As I write this now, the little horse is sitting on my desk, and I’ve somehow grown even fonder of it. I can’t help but smile whenever I look at its lopsided face. It’s a reminder of the good things in life, and I think it’s an omen of the good things yet to come.

Soon, the dark clouds will part for Mama Mercy as they always do, and she will come out of her room. The sun will shine on the house on the hill, and I am certain that Year 9 will have something wonderful in store for us all.

Your devoted writer,

Honora Loth

Chapter 9

Mercy

Three weeks after Honora cremated my child Zebulon Braveheart, she brought me his ashes, so I could spread them over the wildflower field. It was the first time I had left my room in weeks, and it was a harsh, icy day in January. But the frigid air woke me again, and I thought back to the words I’d heard on the day Zebulon died.

“These trials and tribulations are part of the destiny. Chosen has a great purpose, and he will have an army.”

What I have come to realize, though, is that a Queen need not be a vessel for an army to command it. I have too much to do, and creating a life out of my body is so much work.

Truth be told, I only spent a few days in bed mourning Zebulon. I understood even then that he was not intended to come into the world this way.

I had named every one of my babies, even the ones that ended while they were still in my womb. After the Wonderous Chosen One and Valorous Sentinelle, I had four more children: Solomon Gallant Son (conceived and lost in spring of year 6), Isaiah Noble Child (conceived and lost in late summer of year 6), Titus One Truth (conceived and lost midsummer year 7), and finally Zebulon Braveheart lost just before Christmas this year.

My first two pregnancies with Chosen and Valorous had been so easy, but each one after that had gotten harder on me physically. Severe bouts of nausea, frequent migraines, and an intense fatigue that hung on me like a shroud. Not to mention uterine cramps so excruciating, I would curl up in a ball and have Honora rub my lower back.

The happiness over following fate’s true path helped buoy me along through the worst of it. The bitter truth, though, was that when the pregnancies ended prematurely, I felt some relief, because I knew that my physical suffering would be over for a while.

It all became so clear to me during the icy memorial for my sweet Zebulon Braveheart: my body is not meant to carry any more children, because I have other work to do.

Silas only looked at me in confusion when I told him that, his brows pinched together so he looks a bit like his father. We were out in the workshop he’d inherited from my brother Wyatt. He spent most evenings out there after his chores, trying to make sense of the zombies the same way Wyatt once had. It's where I always went to have important discussions with him, away from the prying ears of the rest of the family.

Silas asked me, “Well, how will you grow the army then?

I explained, “There are other ways. I just can’t be the vessel.”

He looked down, kicking his muck boots in the sawdust that covered the floor to absorb the spills. He was bashful as he admitted, “The zombies can’t be the vessel either. An infected womb can’t carry anything.”

His cheeks are bright red then, and I know it’s because he’s tried, the way that my brother Wyatt had tried all those years ago. When I started struggling with conceiving, Silas and I had talked it over and looked at all our options and tried many things.

What I learned were a few simple truths about how to breed humans with a zombie to create a healthy, powerful child:

―      an infected womb cannot carry, no matter if conception happens right after or even shortly before infection

―      an infected man’s seed is only viable for 7-14 days after his exposure to the virus, so conception must happen in the first week after he becomes a zombie

―      for best results, the potential father should be a human in good health before exposure to the zombie virus, with no parasites or visible infirmities

―      and in my experience, the infected men are eager to comply and proud of their contribution to a grander providence, even if it does end in their inevitable death

With a knowing smile, I assured my nephew, “We are both keenly aware of how conception works with the infected. I know that you would father me hundreds of soldiers if you could.”

Silas nodded. “It would be so much easier if I could be the one to do that.”

I said, “Don’t fret any longer. I know your heart and your valor, and I have already thought on this enough to find a solution.”

He lifted his head, and his eyes were hopeful when he asked, “You have? How shall we raise your legion?”

My answer was simple: “With another a vessel.”

Silas didn’t understand and shook his head. “If not you, we don’t have anyone else. Grandma Elmyra’s child-bearing days are certainly behind her.”

I laughed at the thought. Elmyra was an old woman when I was born twenty-six years ago, and now she was practically decrepit.

When the laughter subsided, I told him, “There is one other vessel. Honora is healthy.”

In his surprise, Silas’s smile faltered. “Honora? But she’s just a kid.”

“No, she is a young woman of seventeen,” I corrected him. “Elmyra was nineteen when she had her first child, and I was twenty when I had Chosen. Yes, Honora is a couple years younger, but considering the army that she will bear, it is best if she starts sooner rather than later.”

“Honora?” he repeated, as if he couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “And she will conceive of these children the same way that you have?”

By then, I was getting annoyed by how slow his mind worked sometimes. His father had always been the dumbest of my brothers, so it was no surprise that sometimes I had to hold Silas’s hand to get him to understand what needed to be done.

In frustration, I snapped, “Yes, it will all be exactly the same as it’s always been, except it will be Honora performing the acts instead of me. It will not be my womb the babies grow in, but they will still be created of Loth blood, and I will still be their mother.”

“Oh.” He blinked, finally understanding, and returned his gaze to the sawdust on the floor. “It will be no different than what we’ve done.”

“And no different than what we always intended to do,” I finished for him.

He seemed to hesitate a moment before asking, “How does Honora feel about all this?”

“I haven’t told her yet, but I assume that she will find it to be, well, an honor.” I laughed at my little play on words, but Silas didn’t even crack a smile. I elbowed him gently in the ribs. “Silas? She’ll think it’s an honor, won’t she?”

“Yes, I am certain she will,” he agreed.

I went on, “If we start after the spring thaw, when the customers start coming round again, she could have her first child by this Christmas.”

Silas asked, “That soon?”

I didn’t know why he struggled so hard to grasp that we were continuing the plans we’d already made. Hardly anything had changed, and it made sense to him before. Why wasn’t it making sense to him now?

I bristled and stepped away from him, folding my arms over my chest as I glared at him. “Is this not the path you think we should go down? Is this not all that we’ve worked for? Once Chosen is grown, and he has his horde of zombies led by hybrid lieutenants, he will save the world as he conquers it.”

This time, Silas replied without any hesitation, “Yes, of course. After you took over the ranch, I vowed to follow you down this path, and I have been nothing but steadfast and loyal. That’s why I hope that you will understand when I suggest that we have other unfinished business to take care of.”

Then it was my turn for confusion, and I asked, “What unfinished business do you speak of?”

“Harlow.” He said a single word, and my blood ran cold.

I hadn’t said her name in years, although I still thought of her from time to time. Our family had shown her only kindness and grace. Elmyra had always taken in these broken, abandoned orphans, giving them work on our ranch in exchange for safety and security.

Compared to how most common folks survived after the virus, Harlow and the other servants lived in luxury.

That’s why her turn against the family had been such a betrayal. If she’d had her way, I know she would’ve killed my entire family and burned down everything we had.

Admittedly, I did understand why she wouldn’t want to marry Silas’s father, a man who had to have been three times her age when the union was first suggested. But he was a kind man and a Loth, much better than someone like Harlow deserved. I had never even known her family. She was no one from nowhere, and she should’ve graciously accepted any gift that my family had deigned to offer her.

And instead, she had burned it all down and escaped into the night.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, I had been focused on giving birth, raising my newborn, helping my mother survive, and trying to get the ranch stable enough to support the family. All of that was an immense, overbearing task, so any plans for finding Harlow were forgotten.

On occasion, over the past six years since Harlow left, Silas and I would talk about her and what we would do to her and her friends if we ever found them.

But we didn’t know where to look, and there were always more pressing matters to attend on the ranch or at the general store.

Finally, I said to Silas, “I assumed that once we had our army, she would be the first one that we would unleash them on.”

Silas countered with, “Why wait that long? Chosen has already shown a command of our domestic zombies.”

“He’s still young, and we don’t even know where Harlow is.”

Silas waited a beat before saying, “When I last went to Emberwood for supplies, I heard rumors about a homestead 150 kilometers northwest from here. A family lives there, along with a couple wolves. Two of them are teenage girls who go by Harlow and Kimber. Kimber was the name of that friend of hers that worked in the barns, wasn’t she?”

“I didn’t think it was the right time, with your difficult pregnancy and the loss. But since you’re ready to move on, well, maybe it’s time to focus on avenging our legacy first.”

Mercy Z. Loth

12 January, Year 9

Chapter 10

Honora

Dear Diary,21 February, Year 9

I have not ever felt so lost or confused. In the early days of the virus, I was shielded somewhat by my young age, but now I am old enough to understand all that I witness. The tragedies of the last few days are not ones that I can look away from, even as I struggle to make sense of it all.

It started a month ago, after the dark clouds had finally parted around Mama Mercy. For a few days, she seemed happier, more like her old self, and she even spent some time outside making snow angels with Chosen and Valorous. (Chosen only stood and watched, but Valorous did make an effort of waving her arms when Mama Mercy laid her down in the snow. The children never smiled or laughed, but Mama Mercy did while they played).

There was even a morning, when it had been sunny warm with the promise of false spring, and I had been up in Grandma Elmyra’s room, feeding her porridge for breakfast. She didn’t come out of the room anymore, not for meals, or anything. I gave her sponge baths in her bed once a week. But she liked to listen to old Elvis Presley gospel records and watch out the window at the world below the house on the hill.

While I was feeding Grandma Elmyra, I remarked, “This is going to be a really good year. The air is almost crackling with possibility.”

How wrong could I be? How had I gotten everything so wrong?

It was that very day, after beaming at Grandma Elmyra and singing along with “How Great Thou Art,” that Mama Mercy called the family for an important meeting.

Long ago, we’d eaten around the table every night promptly at six for a big family dinner, but it hadn’t been that way since the farm burned. We rarely had family meetings, either, because Mama Mercy only sought counsel from Silas and Grandma Elmyra.

So it was quite unusual when Mama Mercy called us into the dining room. The big table had been removed, and only the chairs were left. They were still in a circle, as if the table were still there, but Mama Mercy stood right in the center, under the antler chandelier.

All of us took a seat – Chosen and Valorous closest to her, then Toby to my left, and Gatlin to my right. Silas stood until Mama Mercy told him to sit beside my brother.

“Six long years ago, our ranch, our family, our legacy was nearly burnt to the ground by an ungrateful brat,” Mama Mercy began. “We have been busy, bringing this ranch to something beyond its former glory. But now that we have, it is time to remember those who have tried – however futilely – to destroy us.”

She paused then to survey all of us, and the room was so silent, I worried she could hear the nervous beating of my heart.

“Harlow spilled our blood on our own soil,” Mama Mercy declared. “It is time that we are repaid. Each one of us must spill her blood and the blood of her family on her soil.”

“She’s still alive?” Gatlin asked. “I would’ve thought she froze to death or gotten eaten by zombies a long time ago.”

“She likely would’ve, but she had help,” Mama Mercy explained. “Family came to get her that night. They were the ones who brought the arrows that were shot in Elmyra’s neck, and they brough the wolves that tore our zombies apart. Now Silas has discovered where her family lives.”

Everyone turned to look at Silas, and he took a deep breath before saying, “There were rumors about them when I went to Emberwood.”

I had heard of Emberwood, but I’d never been. None of us here had, except for Silas. All I really knew was that it was a settlement of survivors to the north of us, and Silas made the long trek once or twice a year for supplies and trading.

Gatlin made a noise of surprise, and he sat up straighter in his chair. “Well, what did you hear?”

“That Harlow and her wolves and her family live in a homestead between here and Emberwood. By my calculations, it’s over a hundred kilometers from the ranch. We could likely make it there in about five days by horseback,” Silas said.

Mama Mercy stood in the center of us, hands clasped in front of her, with a satisfied grin. “I know that your next question will be, when? On the very next warm days, we will load up our horses, grab our guns, and Chosen will lead a horde of zombies.”

“Who is ‘we?’” I asked, but already, the dread in my belly told me the truth. She meant for all of us to go along, even me and the little children.

“We all must be there,” Mama Mercy insisted with her wide smile. “Chosen must learn to lead the zombies, and we all must spill the blood of those who wronged us. Blood for blood is the only way to find justice and peace.”

“I understand,” I tried to argue. “But Toby is only twelve, and Valorous doesn’t have the same connection with the zombies yet.”

Chosen would run to the zombies’ calls and reach out for them if they were nearby, but Valorous seemed largely disinterested in the infected. In most things, actually, outside of her brother and the mobile above her crib.

“We all must be there!” Mama Mercy shouted, and her smile tightened into something plastic and frightening. “It has been decided. The plan has been made. Now all that is left is to follow through.”

In the moment, I had thought there would be no point in arguing, so I had lowered my head and fallen silent. But now, I desperately wish I had opened my mouth.

I don’t know why I was so afraid to speak up, to say something back. Mama Mercy had punished me before, but it wasn’t even fear of a whipping that silenced me. Maybe I truly believed that she would protect us. I only know now that I was foolish and wrong.

After Mama Mercy’s declaration, we spent the days preparing as best we could. Mama Mercy and Silas had started taking Chosen out to train with the zombies, while I stayed inside with Valorous.

They were so focused on getting the horde ready that they had little time for their regular chores, which meant that me, Gatlin, and even little Toby were left with long, long hours to make sure it all got done. We had livestock beyond the zombies that needed caring for, especially the horses if we intended to have them take us all the way to Harlow’s homestead.

The days turned to weeks, and my dread only grew because I knew eventually, spring would come.

I hadn’t been off the ranch since Year 0. Once the schools closed down, I never left again. Over the past nine years, I have only been in the house on the hill and the surrounding safety of our land. And now I was leaving for the first time to shed the blood of someone I hardly even remembered.

Much, much too soon, an unexpected early season bout of warm weather fell on us, and as I watched the snow melt, I nearly threw up.

Thirteen days ago, Mama Mercy called us down and told us that after breakfast, we would begin our journey to find Harlow as we had always been destined to do when the time was right.

The panic that ensnared me in that moment was such a blur that I hardly even remember preparing to leave. I know I packed a satchel for myself and Toby, making sure we had enough food and warm clothes. I think I packed one for Gatlin and Silas, too, since they were readying the horses.

I rode on Lazarus, a blue roan colored quarter horse that had belonged to my father before he became a zombie. We used to ride him together, but it had been a long time since I’d done more than groom him in the stables.

It should’ve been a joyous moment, something exciting, but it was still only fear as I mounted my horse. Toby got on behind me. He was small for his age, and his arms felt so tight around me. I knew he was afraid, too. He didn’t have any memories of life outside of our land.

Mama Mercy rode my uncle Wyatt’s cream quarter horse, Incitatus. Her son Chosen was with her, while Valorous would be with Silas. Only Gatlin rode alone, so his horse was loaded up with extra supplies.

While we’d been mounting our horses, Silas had let out the small zombie army that would be travelling with us. We had at least a thousand head of zombies on our ranch, but these were fifty of our most well-trained domestics, according to Silas.

Most of my experience with zombies was watching them through the fence or at the end of chains. This was my first time interacting with them up close, and it was more unsettling than I anticipated, since I’d practically grown up around them.

One of them I even knew, though he was hard to recognize in his current state. My uncle Waylon, Silas’s father, had been infected on the night that Harlow attacked, after he’d been burned and lost a leg in the struggle. Silas had affixed a wooden stick, like a pirate’s pegleg, so he could hobble along.

Silas had tried to care for him, I think, but over time, even the zombies would break down. Waylon’s burned flesh had long since flaked off, leaving charred, sinewy bits of muscle and tendon exposed. His nose had rotted off at some point, and what skin he did have had a green mummified quality to it. All of his teeth were missing, and he wore a leather collar with sharp nails pointing outward to protect him from errant zombie fights.

On our ranch, zombies were broken down into two groups – domestic and feral. Domestics were ones that had been broken, meaning their teeth and fingernails were removed so they couldn’t break skin, and they had been trained to obey a few basic commands and walk on a chain.

As long as they were well-fed, there was little chance of them attacking, but they weren’t obedient lapdogs, either. Even the domestics seemed to prefer standing or shuffling around to following a command.

The ferals were the ones that either had not been broken or could not be trained. Most of our livestock fell in that category, and no matter what Silas or anyone did, they would never be capable of being anything more than ravenous beings of irrational thought.

Mama Mercy hoped that someday Chosen would be able to lead the ferals, but since he was not even seven years old, he hadn’t yet been given a chance. The expedition to Harlow’s homestead would be the perfect opportunity to give Chosen experience.

Still, to be on the safe side, it would be only the domestics on his horde this time.

We rode our horses out into the yard where Silas had left the zombies milling about, with Mama Mercy and Chosen leading the way. The zombies were growling and mumbling as they so often did, but they fell silent as Chosen rode into their midst.

The zombies tilted their heads, all looking toward him with their glassy eyes. Slowly, they all shuffled toward him, encircling the horse. It reminded me so much of the way the chickens would swarm around me in the mornings when I went to collect the eggs.

It was enough to make Incitatus nervous, and he chuffed and stomped his hooves before Mama Mercy steadied him.

“What’s happening?” Gatlin asked, watching as the domestics surrounded Mama Mercy and Chosen.

“They’re saying hello to their new leader,” Mama Mercy said with a bright smile, seemingly delighted by the zombies’ curiosity in her son.

“Are they going to crowd around you the whole time?” Gatlin asked. “Because that will make for slow going.”

“No, they will move for us,” Mama Mercy assured him serenely, and then speaking to Chosen, she said, “Now tell them to move and follow us. We have a long journey ahead.”

She urged the horse onward, and the zombies began to part for her, and for all of us. We followed her in a long line, and the zombies waited for us to pass. Then, just as she’d directed, they began following us, and they kept following us right out of the open gate and beyond the safety of the Loth Family Ranch.

Chapter 11

Honora

As much as I want to forget so much of the attack on Harlow’s homestead, it is impossible to disregard the moments of beauty we found along the way. Other than Silas, it had been nearly ten years since any of us had left our property.

It was greener than I had expected, even with the thick blankets of white still covering so much. There were towering trees and dried grass that sprouted through the snow up past the knees of the horses.

Most of the landmarks I remembered were gone or had changed so much I couldn’t recognize them. Roads had broken down into crumbling trails, and homes were half-rotted in the harsh weather.

I didn’t know when I would get a chance to see the world again, and so I tried to take a snapshot of everything to store in my brain. But when I think of it now, it’s mostly a blur. I can remember the feeling so clearly – the exhilarating overwhelming awe at so much beauty – but the actual moments are lost.

What I remember the most is the way Toby hung onto me, and how he’d let go to point at something that caught his eye – a lone bobcat in the distance, a river churning beside us, a tree so tall it looked like it would pierce the sky.

It took us nearly seven days to find the homestead, and the temperatures had been slowly dropping since we’d left the ranch. We all pretended not to notice, because Mama Mercy wouldn’t let us turn back. Not when we were so close.

I bundled up Toby as best as I could, and switched to him riding in front of me so I could wrap him up in my arms and body heat. The entirety of the final day, the sky had been cloudless, leaving a blinding sun and frigid air. As the sun began to set, the sky darkened to a deep crimson, and I feared another night camped out under the stars, trying to keep us all warm and alive.

Then we heard the wolves howling, and Silas pointed to a forested homestead up ahead. I hate to think of it now, but then, when Harlow’s home came into view through the trees, it was only relief that I felt. It was almost over, and then we’d get to go back home.

But of course that wasn’t the truth, not really. We waited, a kilometer away in a patch of trees, until the sun fully descended into darkness. We left the horses tied down, because the wolves would startle them. Silas lit torches for us to carry – one each for me, Toby, Gatlin, Mercy, and himself – and in addition, he and Gatlin had their guns locked and loaded.

Mama Mercy took Chosen’s hand and held her torch high with the other, and she led the way across the field toward the homestead. Snow had melted some recently before re-freezing, leaving it with a harsh icy crust that was hard to step through. Valorous struggled on her small legs, and Silas picked her up, carrying her on his hip as they walked a step behind Mercy and Chosen.

The zombies followed us, as they had the whole way here, but until we started the final march toward the homestead, they had been relatively quiet. There was always the rasp of their breathing and occasionally grunt or grumble, but not much beyond that.

Suddenly, the horde became vocal, letting out gargling howls, as if they somehow knew that they were marching into battle.

On the homestead, the wolves were howling and yelping, alerting everyone to our presence and completely destroying the limited element of surprise we’d been hoping for. There were other livestock on the farm sounding warning alarms, like a mule screeching and angry goats.

As we approached the homestead, I held back and squeezed Toby’s hand more tightly. People were shouting – a man and several women – and they weren’t going to let their farm go without a fight.

“Attack, my children!” Mama Mercy commanded, and for several seconds, there was nothing. She stood tall and unmoving, with the zombies grumbling behind her.

All at once, they surged forward and rushed around her. The zombies ran headlong toward the home and the barns, their arms waving wildly as they snarled and howled.

The wolves ran at them, but there were only a few of them, not a whole pack, and they were little more than gnats for the zombies to flick away on their greater pursuits.

The farmhouse was mostly dark and on a field half-a-kilometer from where we stood. There were flashes of light from a shotgun blast, and I think at least one of them had a lantern. The glimpses I caught were of flailing arms and running shadows.

Mostly, beyond the icy cold, it was sound that I experienced. The usual zombie cacophony amplified into a feeding frenzy, and then animals of all types letting out plaintive cries, and the people we’d come here to kill were shouting for each other, yelling to survive.

“Burn it all down,” Mama Mercy commanded, and this time her eyes had turned to Silas and Gatlin standing at her side. “Nothing should remain except blood and ash when we are done here.”

Silas set down Valorous in the snow next to Chosen, and her brother took her hand. Then Silas and Gatlin left to do as Mama Mercy commanded, following the trail of carnage left by the horde until they could reach a building to burn.

“Honora,” Mama Mercy snapped, because I had just been standing frozen, bearing witness to as much of the battle as I could. “Go with them. Those two alone can’t be expected to burn it all. They’ll need your and Toby’s help.”

“Shouldn’t Toby stay back with you?” I asked, because he was only a boy really, and he didn’t know anything about fighting or shooting or burning down buildings.

“He can hold a torch, and there’s no use for him here,” Mama Mercy said in a way that I knew that the matter was closed. “Go now.”

“Yes, Mama,” I said, and because she could see our torches, I ran quickly onward and squeezed Toby’s hand tightly.

The main conflict seemed to be taking place in the front lawn, where Harlow and her family were left fighting the zombies. I could barely even remember what she looked like after all these years, and I couldn’t make sense of the scattered shadows fighting one another.

I took Toby as far away from that as I could, to the outbuildings in the back that held small livestock like rabbits and for some reason possums.

“Can we let the animals out before we burn the barn down?” Toby asked.

“Don’t tell Mama Mercy, and we have to be quick about it,” I said, because I didn’t see any reason for anything to suffer more than it had to.

We hurriedly ran to open up all the cages, and the fires roared from a larger barn nearby. The acrid smoke stung my nostrils, but I tried to focus on getting the animals out and away from this as quickly as possible.

Every time I heard a gun fire, I nearly jumped out of my skin. They were so loud and close, too close even when I tried to get far away, but they were growing closer as the zombies dispersed around the farm.

“Will the zombies eat the rabbits?” Toby asked after he set a fluffy rabbit on floor of the outbuilding.

“No. They don’t eat rabbits or chickens or cows or most of the things we like,” I explained absently.

But I had stopped freeing the bunnies and stared out through the windows. One of the women had a bow and arrow, and another one wielded a shot gun. The one with the gun had long blond hair, and I couldn’t see her well, but maybe it was Harlow.

“What’s happening out there?” Toby asked, since he was focused on the rabbits. “Are Gatlin and Silas okay?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see them,” I told him honestly, and I wish I would’ve said something more comforting. Something that had made him feel happy and safe.

But I didn’t say or do anything useful. I stared outside, and I didn’t notice when Toby went outside after the rabbits to see for himself.

I didn’t look over until I heard the shotgun blast right outside. There was a flash of light, and a zombie cried out. Then Toby’s body crumpled to the ground just outside the doorway on the dirt path.

When I ran out to him, laying at his feet was a zombie with his chest blown apart. The zombie was facedown, but I recognized the wooden leg twitching in the dirt. It was my Uncle Waylon, and the green blood splattered around the gaping wound in Toby’s chest meant that bullet at gone through the zombie before it hit him.

Toby died before I reached him, and I hope he died before he hit the ground. I hope he died before he even realized it, because otherwise he died alone.

I dropped the torch and burned the rabbit building, but I didn’t light anymore fires. I don’t think I did anything else, not for a long while. Silas grabbed my arm and told me it was time to go, and so we went.

I rode my horse back to the house on the hill, but this time, I was all alone, and it was so much colder.

Your devoted writer,

Honora

Chapter 12

Mercy

What was supposed to be a salve against the rage that burned inside me has only become the kindling for an inferno. Maybe that is what I needed and that’s why things have been going so terribly wrong as of late. I have been looking for ways to ease my own suffering and temper my darkest urges, but everything that has transpired has only sought to embolden me.

That is the conclusion I have come to in light of the disaster that was the attack on Harlow’s homestead. The entire family (well, the entire family with the notable, defiant exception of my mother, who couldn’t be bothered to seek the very retribution that she had raised me to crave) had gone down to see her blood and her family’s blood spilled in the ashes of her home, the way that she had done with us.

It was a perfect plan. My nephews Silas and Gatlin are well trained with guns, and we left with plenty of ammo. My gifted children Chosen and Valorous were in command of fifty of our best domestic zombies. We arrived in the night, and it should’ve been a swift victory.

And yet Harlow and her family escaped unscathed. The only human body we found in the ashes was my nephew Toby. Instead of taking anything from Harlow, we had given her yet another of our own. How can she continue to spill our blood and take from us?

Not to mention that nearly all of the horde we’d brought had been lost, including my brother Waylon. He had been one of Silas’s pet projects since he’d been infected, but I honestly hadn’t expected all that much from him given his age and the state of his body. Still, it was another member of the family that Harlow managed to subtract from us.

But all of this loss has made the truth so obvious: I am not trying hard enough. I have been too restrained, given the ineffable will of my fate. If my kingdom is meant to grow the world over, why would I bring only fifty zombies when I have thousands at my son’s command?

I had thought that we needed to start small on our first ventures out to conquer our enemies, but that was the kind of thinking of a weak dilettante. I am reshaping the entire world and all of humanity. How can I complete such an enormous task while taking such tiny little steps?

No, we should rush forward with all that we have. The world will see my full rage and witness the unstoppable power my children and I command. When I introduce the world to my children, they will tremble in fear. Everyone must bow before the Wonderous Chosen One, or they shall die.

This small attack did not say that. Harlow and her family escaped, but perhaps, it is better this way. They’ve ran off to Emberwood, since it’s the largest free settlement around. Thousands of people live there, and that will be an audience much more suited for the introduction of the Chosen One and his army.

But first I must continue to give him soldiers and lieutenants. That is my only goal until I can destroy Harlow and her family.

Mama Mercy Z. Loth

Matriarch Loth Family Ranch and Army

Chapter 13

Honora

Dear Diary,23 April, Year 9

I know I’ve been quiet the last couple months. I haven’t really had much of anything to say since Toby died. The house on the hill feels so empty without him.

It has been so hard here without Toby. Since the virus broke out, I’ve spent more time with him than anyone else, even Gatlin, and he’s actually my brother.

Mercy keeps on insisting that it’s better this way, that I have more time to focus on all that Chosen and Valorous need. And it’s not that I don’t care about them, because I do. They are only children, even if they aren’t quite like any other.

But as always, life goes on, and there hasn’t been any time to sit and mourn the loss. The ranch requires so much, and without Toby, we have fewer hands than before. With spring here now, that means we’ve all had to work even harder.

Truthfully, the days since Toby died seemed to blur together. I know that I completed my chores, because if I hadn’t, Mama Mercy would’ve punished me, and the punishments never came. But the days all bled together in a gray fog until the sun finally broke through.

Two weeks ago, we opened the general store for the spring. During the winter, on rare occasion, folks will stop by and purchase this or that, but for the most part, the snow and ice keep our customers away until the thaw begins.

With Toby’s absence, Gatlin had to work with Silas, so Mercy had me working the store all morning. While I did that, Chosen and Valorous were in the back office with Mercy, out of the way. It was actually easier than a lot of my other chores, so I didn’t mind the work.

And then, while I was arranging the preserves on the shelf this morning, the door to the general store opened, and when I lifted my head to greet the customer, the words caught in my throat because it was Dmitry.

Until Toby died, I had thought of Dmitry nearly every day. I’d replay our conversation over and over again, and I’d try to imagine what I would say to him if he came back through the doors. And then for the past couple months, I hadn’t exactly forgotten Dmitry, but the fog of everything meant I could hardly think of him at all.

Now here he was, smiling at me.

He looked the same as I remembered him, yet somehow more handsome. Maybe it was because he was real, fully flesh and bone and not some figment of my mind, and he looked all the better for it. His black curls were a bit longer than before, but his smile was just the same, and he still only had one dimple in his left cheek.

“You came back,” I said as he walked toward me.

“Just like I said I would,” he replied. “And you’re still here.”

“Just like I said I would be.”

He brought a cooler with him, the same one he had last time. I was about to ask him what he needed from us when Gatlin came in from the fields.

“I thought that was you coming in,” Gatlin greeted him and went toward the cooler. “Let me get this filled up for you.”

My brother picked up the cooler and left, and then it was only me and Dmitry in the general store.

And then we just talked, the words flowing between us with an ease of old friends. Nothing shared carried too much depth – all pleasantries, no mentions about Toby’s death or the zombies in our barns – but we smiled, and once I even laughed.

Much too soon, Gatlin returned with the cooler and dropped it heavily on the counter. “It’s already paid for, so you’re good to go,” he told Dmitry, and then he gave us both a wave before departing again to get to his chores.

“It was nice seeing you again,” Dmitry said, his attention back on me once my brother had gone.

“You, too, and the store’s open all summer if you need anything,” I reminded him with a smile.

“We’re likely stocked up for the next six months,” he said, and I think he sounded disappointed, but maybe that was just me. “But I’ll certainly back in October.”

“I’ll still be here,” I promised him, and I watched him pick up his cooler and go. October is six months from now, and that’s an awfully long time to wait, but in that moment, my heart was fluttering and I was smiling because at least I had something to look forward to again.

“He seemed pleasant enough, doesn’t he?” Mama Mercy’s voice was behind me, and I practically jumped.

I’d thought she was still back in the office, but I turned around and smiled uneasily at her. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“You like him, don’t you?” Mama Mercy asked. I averted my gaze, but I could feel her eyes burrowing through me. “It’s okay, Honora. You can tell me if you do.”

My cheeks burned as I quietly admitted, “I suppose.”

“He seems to be a strong, healthy young man with a good heart,” Mama Mercy said. “He works with those Cold Shore folks, so he has to be.”

I lifted my head then, intrigued, and thought of the patch on Dmitry’s coveralls. The one with the drop of blood over an icy blue earth. “Cold Shore?”

“It’s some group of militant scientists trying to save the world.” She waved her fingers and brushed it off then, likely because she knew they couldn’t save the world. That is her destiny, after all, not theirs. “But the men they recruit must meet certain health and temperament requirements, so he must be of good stock.”

“How do you know so much about Cold Shore?” I asked, surprised.

“Honora, it’s my duty to know about our trading partners and our enemies.” She tilted her head, scrutinizing me. “What did you think I was doing in my office? I have correspondence and the carrier pigeons, and Silas gathers intel for me.”

“I-I don’t concern myself with your business, usually, and I focus on my tasks,” I stammered.

“That is probably for the best,” Mama Mercy agreed with a strange smile. “But now is when our duties intertwine.”

“How do you mean?”

“As you know, I have been unable to carry any children to term since Valorous,” she began, speaking slow and emphatically. “You’ve cremated all that I’ve lost, so you know better than most. It’s clear that I have not been foreordained to carry any more of my soldiers.”

“I know it’s been difficult for you, and I am sorry, Mama Mercy,” I said, and I meant it. I had seen how much she suffered, the pain that still lingered in her eyes.

“Well, when one is busy being Queen they can’t be expected to carry an army of children,” Mercy said. “And that is where you will need to step up. You are a healthy young woman of seventeen, and you will be the vessel for the next children.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, because I was certain that I didn’t. What she was saying didn’t make sense. “I am already the caretaker for Chosen and Valorous. You wish for me to raise more children?”

“In part, yes,” she allowed. “But where you are most needed is in birthing them. I cannot gestate them any longer, but our family requires a legion of hybrid children. I will still be their mother, of course, but you will carry them in your womb, a womb created of Loth blood, the same as mine.”

The world seemed to close in around me then. It was like everything zoomed in and disappeared around us. Distantly, I could hear our zombie livestock rumbling, but all I could really see and hear was Mama Mercy.

“I-I’m a virgin,” I spouted, because it was the only defense I could think of.

Her expression turned sympathetic, and she put a warm hand on my shoulder. “So was I before I conceived Chosen, but it’s a simple act. Your body knows what to do, and Silas will ensure that Dmitry is broken so he can’t hurt you.”

“Dmitry?” I nearly spat the name at her, and my stomach dropped even lower. My vision felt like it narrowed to a pinhole, like the world just kept constricting around me.

“Yes, Silas will prepare him and infect him, and then you two will procreate.” Mercy explained it all matter of fact, as if it was something that had already been agreed upon by all parties.

“No,” I said, because it was the only thing I could think to say. “He’s… he’s good.”

“That is precisely why he will make a good father,” Mama Mercy replied. “But don’t worry on it now. It won’t happen today. We’ll wait until he returns in the fall, so you have time to ready yourself. I have vitamins you should start taking before you become pregnant.”

“I’m not ready,” I tried to argue.

“You will be,” Mercy insisted firmly.

And then she went back to the office, leaving me agape in the store. I can’t deny her this. She won’t let me. And I have nowhere to go. I have no one outside this family.

As the day has gone on, I have only felt sick, so sick sometimes I fear I might throw up or faint. But I’m still standing, so I suppose I will have to find out a way to reckon with this.

Worse still is what this will mean for Dmitry. None of the infected men that Mercy copulated with had lived beyond their usefulness, which was less than two weeks from the moment she restrained them.

When I thought of Dmitry, I mostly replayed our conversation, but sometimes, I’d imagined what it would be like to run my hands through his curly hair or kiss him on his lips. Yes, I had wanted to be with him – some parts of me desperately yearned for him – but not like this. Not at all like the way Mercy intended.

None of this is right. This can’t be. I know that Mercy means to save the world and that sacrifices must be made. She’s said that over and over since Toby and Waylon were lost at the attack on Harlow’s homestead.

But this… this is too much to ask. Isn’t it? Haven’t I the right to decide who to be with and when to have children?

Of course I don’t, though. I don’t have rights except for the ones that exist inside the house on the hill, the ones that Mercy allows of me.

I can’t survive on my own. I can’t leave the children. And Mama Mercy swears she needs this to save the world.

How can I deny that, no matter how sick I feel? Who am I to matter when up against the fate of the world?

Your devoted writer,

Honora

Chapter 14

Pyotr

To Director-General Haugen:

It seems successes in recent weeks have led to excitement through the laboratories. While it is true that the discovery of the LYVEP1-Δ23 mutation means we may have found the source of the genetic immunity against the lyssavirus, this is merely another important step in the long journey toward saving humanity.

Further complicating matters is that we are low on meaningful supplies. Currently, we are lacking sufficient material to engage in all the testing that is required. The isolated location of the Cold Shore facilities – as necessary as they may be – are only exacerbating this problem. Without fresh tissue samples, it will be impossible to go further.

Some of my colleagues have been experimenting with splicing, and I understand the appeal, since the LYVEP1-Δ23 mutation only arises after an exposure in a parent gene, similar to that of what we had seen in the past with the Zika virus. However, it is a serious waste of our limited organic materials to make any kind of hybridized infected human. Such a creation, although theoretically possible, would be an ethical abomination. It is closer to the horror fantasies of a mad scientist than true research.

The path forward will continue to be slow and arduous, especially with the frequent delays on shipments and obtaining proper materials. But I believe that we are on the quickest route to conquering the lyssavirus. It is another decade away or more, yes, but obtainable, possible, and realistic.

I want to make this final point clear and unequivocal: there is no reason to waste precious tissues and material in creating a hybrid “zombie- human” except to play with monstrosities. Despite what research Dr. Kimble is conducting in his laboratory, it is my sincerest belief that we need to continue on our course. The LYVEP1 mutation will be the way back to humanity. We simply need time and materials.

I have attached a list of what our laboratory requires, and I hope to receive word on a shipment shortly.

Pyotr V. Popov

Chapter 15

Mercy

Our first full scale affront is about to begin, and the anticipation has me so giddy I can hardly sit still. It is now only a matter of days until we introduce ourselves to the world.

Silas went on a short trade mission in August and he returned with the most wonderful news. The settlement of Emberwood is planning a massive celebration on the night of the Harvest Moon. They’re inviting all survivors from all over, and they are expecting a large turnout in addition to the thousands who normally live there.

I also have it on good authority that Harlow and her family had moved to Emberwood, just as I had suspected.

This of course is further evidence of divine providence, because I couldn’t have imagined a better scenario. Everyone will be there. Everyone will see what Chosen and I are capable of, and they will join our kingdom as a willing servant or they will join our horde as an infected soldier. Those are the only two paths forward.

Silas estimates that it will take us over two weeks travelling with such a large horde of zombies, so we will be heading out in the morning. 

When I return, I will be writing again as the Victor and the Queen of an even larger Kingdom. This will expand our territory far beyond the fences of the ranch, and it will be our first step in the conquest of Canada. Perhaps I will be an Empress then, since I am combining more Kingdoms with ours.

Imagine that. Already an Empress, and I am not yet thirty, and my lieutenants are only children. When Chosen and Valorous are fully grown, and when Honora has added another dozen to our legion, we will be unstoppable. We will become the most immutable force of nature.

If this is to be the Era of the Dead, then I shall become the Empress of the Dead and the Living.

Mama Mercy Z. Loth

Matriarch and Queen

Loth Kingdom and Army

7 September, Year 9

Epilogue

Honora

It has been over a month since Mama Mercy left, taking all the zombies, all the horses, and all of my family with her, aside from Valorous. The two of us stayed behind on the house on the hill.

Mama Mercy led the family north to Emberwood, where they would finally get revenge on Harlow. Originally, she commanded that we all go. She wanted every single member of the Loth Family to ride into Emberwood, flanking her as she brought in an army to destroy everyone who harbored those who betrayed us.

Her plan was to kill thousands of people just to get to Harlow, and when I talked to Silas in private, he told me that he could do nothing to sway her mind. He insisted that this is what was meant to be.

Mama Mercy even made Grandma Elmyra go along. Grandma hadn’t been outside in years, and she hollered her protests even as Silas was carrying her down the stairs and out the door. He tied her onto the saddle of the horse so she couldn’t slide off or escape.

Valorous and I had very nearly been forced to go along with them, but this time I hadn’t stayed silent. Not like I had for Toby. I reminded Mama Mercy that Valorous was only a child of four, and she didn’t have the command of the zombies that Chosen did. It would be dangerous to bring such a little girl into battle, and Valorous could be lost just as easily as Toby had been.

That somehow got through to Mercy, and she decided to let Valorous stay back for her own safety. And since Valorous couldn’t care for herself, I had to stay with her.

So I did not march into battle against a settlement of innocent people, and it is a reprieve and a curse. I am spared the violence and the danger, but I am left here with only myself to rely on.

After the family had gone, I locked up the gates and closed down the store, because I can’t run it all on my own. I set the cows out to pasture in the mornings and bring them in at night, and I take care of the chickens and the gardens. There are so many other chores that I can’t get to, not to mention all the things I don’t even know how to do, but I’m doing what I can to keep things going for Valorous and I.

She will only eat fresh organ meat, so I have had to slaughter the chickens myself. Butchering was something I knew well, because that was part of my duties with making the meals for the house. But I had never deliberately taken the life of anything, not even a zombie.

I had only been able to go through with it because Valorous began whimpering in hunger, and I knew that she would starve if I didn’t. She isn’t a normal child, but she is a child, and she is my cousin, and I love her. I vowed to protect and care for her, so I would do what needed to be done for her.

She’s all I have left.

The family should’ve returned by now. When they went, I feared there would be some casualties, but I had still expected some of them to come back. Mercy and Silas at least. But each evening when I go to bed, they still haven’t returned.

Valorous didn’t react at all when they were leaving, but as time goes on, I think their absence is getting to her. She started crying for the very first time in her entire life. She cries and tries to run north, the direction they went when they left, but the fence traps her inside. When I go out and pick her up, she cries and cries, and I put her down in her crib, she only finally rests after she’s hoarse and cried herself out.

I explain to her that the family is gone, but I don’t know if she understands. I used to tell her that they would be back soon, but I don’t say that anymore. I don’t want to lie to her.

One afternoon, when Valorous is down for a nap in her crib, I’m in the back garden, harvesting beets and parsnips, and I hear something. The croaking shout that I’ve come to recognize as Grandma Elmyra’s fractured voice, and a defiant neigh of my father’s horse Lazarus.

I race down from the house on the hill to the main gate. Grandma Elmyra is there, but other than the horse, she is alone.

“You’re alive!” I shout excitedly as I hurry to unluck the door. “Where’s everyone else?”

“They didn’t make it.” Her voice comes out in a rasp, and she grimaces when she speaks, like it hurts to talk. “Help me down and help me in, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

I hurry to do as she says, and I notice a folded-up piece of paper nailed to the gate. On the front of it, I am surprised to see my name written in blocky letters, albeit smudged by the elements. Grandma Elmyra croaks for my help again, so I snatch the paper and shove it into my pocket before she can see.

I help her off the horse and up into the house on the hill. Once she’s settled in her rocking chair with honeyed tea and day-old biscuits, I go back out to tend to Lazarus. He seems skittish and exhausted after the journey, and I can’t imagine what they’ve both been through. They were gone for so long.

In the barn, I finally grab a moment to read the note that bears my name. The paper felt warped and brittle under my hands from time spent in the weather, but the ink inside is hardly even smeared at all. It’s handwritten in the same blocky letters, and I glance at the signature right away to see who wrote it. My heart skips a beat as I read the name Dmitry, and I look back toward the gate, as if I’d see him lurking there.

But he isn’t there now, and according to the date at the top of his note, he hasn’t been here in over a week. He must’ve come by when I was busy in the house or maybe even out in the fields with the livestock, too far to hear anyone at the gate.

“Honora –

I’m not sure if you’re even alive. The rumors are that your family destroyed Emberwood, and that all of the Loths died along with it. But I’m not sure what to believe because there’s crazy stories about a gorilla and zombie hybrids that control whole hordes.

I know that there must have been some dark things happening on the ranch, but I still can’t believe that you’d be part of it, or that the little kids that live here have anything to do with it.

I don’t know why I’m leaving this except in some misplaced sense of hope. I hope that you weren’t part of the Emberwood massacre, I hope that you’re still alive, and I hope that you’ll reach out to me if you need anything. Just send a message to Glacier Valley. I’ll be there until the spring.

Take care,

Dmitry Popov”

My hands are trembling as I fold the note and put it back in my pocket. The word massacre is sharp in my mind, as if it had been written in bright red blood, but I try not to think on it, because Grandma needs me right now.

When I return to the house, Grandma Elmyra has found herself a pen and paper, and she’s scribbling out a note between gulps of tea. I pull up her ottoman and I sit near her feet, waiting until she’s finished. Finally, she holds it out toward me, and I read what happened to my family in a few terse paragraphs.

“It was a complete disaster. Mercy found even more zombies on the way, so Chosen was meant to lead thousands of them. But before we even reached Emberwood, Chosen was discovered and kidnapped by the mayor.

Mercy brought Silas and Gatlin with her to rescue him, and when she did, he summoned all the zombies into the settlement. I refused to ride in with her, so I stayed outside and watched. The zombies flooded it, and the settlement burned.

Then, all at once, the zombies left in a big horde. When the dust settled, I went in the next morning, and I discovered the dead bodies of Silas, Gatlin, and Mercy. I never saw Chosen, but he must’ve led the zombies away after they died. I don’t know where he went or where he took the zombies, but they’re long gone now.

It took me ages to get home because the horse kept getting lost, and I am half-starved and exhausted. I need to eat, and I need to rest.”

“They’re all… they’re all dead?” I ask because I can’t seem to believe it even though she already told me that they didn’t make it.

Grandma Elmyra took the pad of paper back from me, and she underlined a sentence twice before tapping it: “the dead bodies of Silas, Gatlin, and Mercy.”

“I just can’t believe it,” I say, because it’s true. I knew that this attack on Emberwood was a terrible idea, but I don’t think I’d really believed that Mercy could die.

Upstairs, Valorous starts to cry in her crib. Grandma Elmyra looks startled. She had never heard Valorous cry before.

“It’s just Valorous. She’s started crying when she wants something,” I explain. “Right now, she likely wants up. I’ll let her out of the crib, and I can get you something else. Do you want more tea and biscuits?”

She nods, but she still stares off in the direction of her granddaughter’s cries. I leave her to rest in her rocking chair, and I go up to tend to the child.

Valorous standing at the edge, her braids mussed from sleep, and her eyes are red-rimmed from crying. One of her eyes is dark, and the other is milky white. I think she may be blind in that eye, but the other one follows me clearly.

I pick her up and hold her, that’s all I can really do to soothe her, and eventually it does. Down the hall, I hear old Elvis records playing from Grandma Elmyra’s room. Valorous turns to look toward the sound, tilting her head curiously.

“Grandma Elmyra is back,” I tell Valorous as I set her on the floor.

She doesn’t respond to that, but I’m not surprised. Valorous only seems interested in her brother Chosen or occasionally me or her mother. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her interact with Grandma Elmyra at all, but now we’re all that remains of the Great Loth Family – Elmyra, Valorous, and me.

The realization makes me dizzy, and I lean onto the crib to keep from passing out. Valorous wanders down the hall toward the sound of the music, and I let her because I don’t have the strength to do otherwise.

I had worried and cried every day since the family left, but I hadn’t really believed they were gone until now. I close my eyes and take deep breaths and let the scratchy recordings wash over me. It has been so quiet without the family or the zombies, and there is a solace in the sound. Noise means that we aren’t alone anymore.

Tears are sliding down my cheeks, and I cry for Gatlin, Silas, Chosen, and Mama Mercy. I cry for the people of Emberwood, and I cry for everyone we’ve lost since the virus first appeared. I cry for Valorous, and I cry for myself, because I don’t know how we’ll survive.

And then suddenly, there’s a scream. A tiny child’s scream, so it must be Valorous, and Grandma Elmyra lets out a gargled yell.

I race down the hall to Grandma’s room, and I find her standing tall with a butcher knife in her hand. I don’t know where she got it from, it must’ve been on her when she arrived, and she’s got Valorous cornered. The little girl’s arm has already been sliced, and the wound is oozing with her thick greenish blood.

“Grandma, what are you doing?” I yell to be heard over the music and Valorous’s plaintive cries.

“It can’t live!” Grandma shrieks, raising her knife high over her head, and I realize that by it she means Valorous. She means to kill her granddaughter.

“No!” I shout, and I run at Grandma, easily knocking her to the ground. She’s a frail old woman, and the only reason that Valorous couldn’t protect herself is because she’s hardly more than a toddler.

“It must be stopped!” Grandma’s voice is harsh and strained, but she’s fervent and her eyes are wild. “Mercy’s plan has to come to an end if we are to survive.”

“No, Grandma, Valorous is only a child,” I insist. “I won’t let you hurt her. Mercy is gone. Her plan is over.”

Grandma sneers up at me, baring her teeth at me in anger. “Not if it lives.”

I don’t know what to do, so I take the knife from Grandma. Valorous has stopped crying, but she’s injured, so I go over to check on her.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

By the time the words are out of my mouth, Grandma has already scrambled to her feet. She reaches for my hand, meaning to get the knife again, and I jerk back reflexively. The blade connected in her throat, right where she had the scar from the arrow, but it slides easily through the tissue.

I let go of the handle of the butcher knife, and Grandma falls backward, her hands flapping uselessly at the throat to stop the blood that’s gushing out.

I didn’t mean to kill her, but I don’t try to save her. I doubt I could even if I wanted to. She lays on her back, staring at the ceiling. The blood is pooling over the floor, and I pick up Valorous so she doesn’t get any on her bare feet.

Once Grandma falls still, I turn off the Elvis record, and I carry Valorous out of the room and shut the door behind us.

The next morning, Valorous wakes me crying and pointing to the north, and I realize the only person she’s ever really cared about is Chosen. They have always been able to sense their own kind, so maybe Valorous can sense him.

According to what Grandma Elmyra had written, Chosen had led the zombies away for some reason, and his body hadn’t been found.

If he is out there somewhere, maybe Valorous can find him. It’s worth trying at least. Her and Chosen are the only family I have left, and I don’t want to lose them if I can help it.

My father’s horse Lazarus is tired, but I only let him rest up for another day. The air is getting colder, the days are getting shorter, and winter is just around the bend. I need to find Chosen sooner rather than later.

I pack what I can, and I set all the remaining livestock free since I can’t care for them. The house smells like death, and it’s clear there isn’t any life here anymore.

When I leave, riding on my father’s horse Lazarus with Valorous, I don’t bother closing the gate behind us. The wooden horse that Toby made is in my pocket, and I loaded my bags with as much food and ammo as I can carry. We won’t be returning, and there isn’t anything there that I want to protect. I could never run the ranch on my own, especially when there’s so much that Mercy had never let me learn.

My plan is to let Valorous lead me to Chosen. I am nearly certain that she can sense him and she will find him. Once we have, we’ll keep going north until we find Dmitry in Glacier Valley. If we’re lucky, we can reach him by spring.

About the Author

Amanda Hocking is the author of over thirty novels, including the New York Times Bestselling Trylle Saga. Her love of pop culture and all things paranormal influence her writing. She spends her time in Minnesota, taking care of her menagerie of pets and working on her next book.

For more info, please visit www.HockingBooks.com