Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Jack
“Yeah, walk in the middle of the street, why don’t you asshole?”
I kicked at an empty dog food can that was on the road, the grating scrape against the asphalt just the kind of dissonance I needed.
I was here, but I wasn’t.
The wind gusted against my chest and I thought of her.
Of course I thought of her.
What was she if not the wind coming to blow a soft breeze my way?
More like a hurricane ready to rip me into a thousand pieces.
I squeezed the straps on the ridiculous fucking backpack and walked double time.
Still had a lot of road between here and Nebraska, and hoped to find a vehicle.
That way I’d get to Evan, and things would be how they should have been.
How they would have been if I didn’t let myself get soft.
Hadn’t let them make me soft.
The wind blew again, but this time it didn’t bring memories of Asia.
Instead, it brought that ever-present scent.
Death.
I unsheathed my knife, then looked around.
Saw a man shamble off the shoulder.
He wore gray and green flannel pajamas and brown suede slippers with fuzzy insides.
I was sure Levi had a pair just like them.
I buried my knife in its temple, then pulled it out, ignoring the squelch of coagulated blood or the disgusting sounding thump as the zombie crumbled to the asphalt.
“Get it together, Thorne,” I said.
I kept walking, like the hounds of hell were at my back.
And in some ways they were.
Still, I made it a good distance that day.
Ten miles, and tomorrow I’d make it farther.
I tried to find a place to hole up but heard something rustle in the woods.
Pulled out the knife again and listened.
It wasn’t them.
It was people.
Best to keep moving, but something held me in place.
I heard a sharp sigh, then more rustling.
“Goddamn it, you dumb bitch. Why did you drop that?”
“Ian. She’s nine. It was hot.”
I heard the trepidation in the woman’s voice. Heard every waver as she spoke.
Told myself to turn and walk away, even as my feet pulled me closer.
In addition to being an asshole, Ian was a moron.
He had set up in a clearing, started a fire big enough to help a plane land.
And he was currently towering over a small girl with blonde pigtails.
A woman, maybe twenty-five, thin, dirty, and terrified, put herself in front of the girl.
She was no impediment for Ian.
He pushed the woman aside, then grabbed the child.
And again, I moved without thought.
Ian, subhuman piece of garbage that he was, was too distracted to notice me.
I wrenched his hands off the girl, then pushed him back into the fire.
The sear of burning flesh sizzled in my ear. The nauseatingly sweet smell turned my stomach.
He screamed, loud. Almost inhuman.
Familiar now.
I looked at the woman.
“You think he learned his lesson?”
“No. And he never will,” the woman said.
She wrapped her arms around the girl and led her away.
I jammed my knife into Ian’s ear, showing him more mercy than he had probably ever shown anyone. Then doused the fire, the smoke billowing up.
“You might want to make your way out of here,” I said to the woman. “Don’t know what that smoke’s gonna attract.”
“Where will we go?” she said. For the first time since I encountered her, worry marred her features.
I shrugged. “About fifteen miles that way there’s a town. Might not be better than this.”
“It won’t be worse.” She looked at me. “Thank you.”
I turned and left, and even though it was dark, I continued to walk. Suddenly, I was tired.
At sunrise, I finally grabbed a car later that afternoon. Caught a break with a group that had left their stash unlocked.
Something—anticipation, something else—built with every rotation of the tires and every day that passed.
They all brought me closer.
I would see Evan soon.
Tried to ignore the sadness underneath the relief.
I made my choice.
She made hers.
That was all there was to it.
I drove the perimeter of the ranch, smiling as I saw that the fences were repaired.
I’d shown Evan how to work on them, and even though it was always a chore to pull him away from his video games, I could hear him now, listening intently, proud in that boyish way that told me how close he was to being a man.
The house was dark. But that was good.
I didn’t smell anything but forest. Familiar. Welcome.
And then I approached, knowing that walking up the front steps would be a mistake.
Instead, I approached from the back.
Evan had shown me these electric locks he wanted to get. Said they were cool, and that I should join everyone else in the twenty-first century.
I was glad I ignored him.
I worked at the lock for fifteen minutes, alarm growing with every second.
Evan should have watched that. Been on me if I or anyone else tried to come in this way.
But he was probably playing it safe.
“Fuck yeah,” I muttered when the lock finally gave.
The door pushed open, cool, slightly damp air rushing out.
I stepped inside my house, struck by the feeling that it was no longer my home.
“Evan?”