Chapter 10
Ghosts
Allie
She and Cam fell into a comfortable routine over the following days. It felt almost like what would have passed for normal life in what they were calling “Before.”
They woke up and worked out. Then they ate breakfast, had sex, read, ate lunch, had sex, and so on. In the afternoons, they played card games, which soon became dominated by an ongoing game of rummy that Cam turned into a quest to become the Ruler of the Rummyverse.
“Whoever’s got the highest score by the time we leave wins all,” he declared.
That made Allie giggle like a teenager. She wasn’t sure she’d ever done that, even when she had been a teenager.
Meanwhile, the zombies kept passing overhead, as evidenced by daily checks of the security cameras.
On the fourth day after their first talk with Key, Allie told Cam that she had heard nothing new from Morrigan. “I guess that means we’re still on track.”
Cam nodded, looking thoughtful. “Do you think you could ask Morrigan some questions? Like, reach out to Her instead of Her reaching out to you?”
She couldn’t fault him for his curiosity.
He had seemed a little sad that she hadn’t told him about Morrigan before, but he was being respectful of her privacy.
She was grateful that he hadn’t asked her why she’d told Key about the goddess first, but she figured it was only fair, considering there was a Laurel he’d failed to help in his recent past.
“I’ve thought about Her, or at Her, I guess, but I don’t think I’ve ever initiated a conversation.”
“Since hearing you and Key talk about it, I’ve been curious about how it all works. Like, is it a two-way thing?” He gestured toward the communication station. “Can you just receive, or can you broadcast too?”
Allie thought about that, wondering how best to describe it. Talking about Morrigan was still new to her. “I mean, it’s kind of like She’s with me but not. She’s definitely not at my beck and call, but I’ve never actively tried to... summon Her, I guess? Is that how we’d refer to that?”
“That’s probably close enough.” Cam cocked his head. “It’s weird to think that a goddess is hanging out in your head. I mean, is She there when we’re doing it?”
Allie laughed because he’d obviously intended her to, but she couldn’t help feeling ill at ease.
Cam had plenty of questions about how her connection to Morrigan worked, and they’d contacted Key again the day before, so there had been plenty of goddess talk.
However, Allie still hadn’t told him about her ability to find things.
She didn’t know whether she was waiting for Morrigan to tell her to do it or simply avoiding it until absolutely necessary.
She knew Cam well enough by now to know that he cared about her.
They were friends and lovers. But she didn’t know what telling him about her ability would do to their relationship.
He fully adjusted to the idea of Morrigan, part of her argued.
But he already believed in the dreams, she shot back. He’s also already wondering how much control I have.
Did she want to become a weaponized finder of things? Would she have a choice if everyone knew what she could do? Was it fair to exclude Cam from this—and to not tell him that he, too, had some sort of gift?
The arguments kept circling around in her head, exhausting her, so she did her best to shove them aside and enjoy life in the bunker with Cam. This week felt like a vacation. Or a honeymoon. She was loath to ruin her enjoyment of it with ethical debates.
Besides, it wasn’t like she could demonstrate her gift in the bunker. She needed direct contact with the earth through her feet. It’s not like Morrigan is piping up to give me Her two cents. Although I’d appreciate that.
Without guidance and without a feeling for what would be a good time to say something, Allie simply avoided the issue and let herself enjoy Cam while she had him, trying not to think about what life would be like if she didn’t.
The night before they planned to leave the bunker, as long as there were no zombies still outside, Allie figured it was time to unburden herself about her past, if not her gift. After dinner, while they sat together on the couch, she finally told Cam about Brandon.
After they’d escaped their shelter together by sheer chance, she and Brandon had met up with a group.
She clung to him as the only person she’d known from anything like Before.
She’d begun having the dreams shortly afterward and been nearly paralyzed with fear when the things she dreamed actually came to pass.
“I didn’t say anything until I’d had a few of them that came true.
But even then, Brandon didn’t believe me.
” She shook her head. “The group leader, Patrice, was convinced the zombies were evidence that the Bible was right and we were in the end times. When I tried to tell her about the dreams, she didn’t believe me either. ”
Patrice, a devout Catholic, had been a kind woman for the most part but implacable in her belief that they weren’t just in an apocalypse but in the one described in the Book of Revelation.
Having grown up Catholic, Allie had tried using the biblical examples of prophetic dreams—like the Old Testament stories of Joseph and Daniel—to make her case, hoping Patrice would give her a chance to prove herself.
In many respects, Patrice had reminded Allie of her mother.
At least until she accused Allie of pretending to be a prophet as a way to get attention and seize control of the group.
Allie wanted to believe that her mother wouldn’t have been such a zealot as to condemn her to the fate Patrice had eventually ordered for Allie.
“Brandon tried to protect me at first. He stuck up for me, insisting that I was going through a lot and would get past it. Then he started begging me to get over it and to stop talking about the dreams.” She rubbed her palms on her leggings.
“They wouldn’t let me have a weapon because they thought I was crazy and might turn on them.
It was... frightening and demeaning to not have a way to defend myself after spending every day with a weapon within easy reach.
Then there was talk about how I was slowing them down, how I was useless for anything but making trouble. ”
In hindsight, it was amazing that they had kept her as long as they had.
“Brandon and I began arguing pretty much every night.” She entwined her fingers in her lap. “I didn’t handle it well. I cried a lot. And then I got mad.”
Cam’s fists were clenched, but he nodded.
“One night, I had a dream about a group of zombies in some tall grass beside the road. Ankle-biters, mostly. The scouts wouldn’t see them, and we wouldn’t know the zombies were there until they attacked the main group.
” She lowered her head. “I saw what was going to happen. But I didn’t tell anybody. ”
She shuddered. “Four people died, including Patrice’s husband. She got up in my face, asking me why I hadn’t seen it coming if I was such a prophet.” She sighed. “All that anger boiled up in me. I shouldn’t have lost my temper on her, but I did.”
Cam’s eyebrows rose. “You told them you’d dreamed it but didn’t tell them, didn’t you?”
“Yup. Because they wouldn’t have believed me anyway.”
She’d taken vicious pleasure in the way Patrice’s face had gone stark white. For once, the woman had been speechless. Then Patrice had turned and walked away. After giving Allie a stricken, venomous look that had stolen the breath from her lungs, Brandon had followed the older woman.
Cam’s eyes were a stormy gray. “What happened then?”
She closed her eyes. “I went to our tent.” She realized in hindsight that she’d been incredibly na?ve not to have suspected that something bad would happen.
“But Brandon didn’t come back, and I couldn’t sleep.
I could barely focus on reading or anything else.
Maybe if I’d been able to sleep, I would have dreamed a warning for myself.
” She shrugged. “Maybe not. Morrigan probably wanted to make sure I got clear of that group. She definitely did not like Brandon.”
At Cam’s look of surprise, she shook her head and gave him a wan smile. “Morrigan wasn’t talking to me then, only sending dreams. I found out Her opinion later.”
She sucked in a deep breath then let it out. “Around dawn, a bunch of them dragged me out of my tent. I kicked and fought, but they got my legs and hands tied before I could do any damage. Then they blindfolded me.”
Nothing, not even the overwhelming terror of the zombies overtaking the army shelter, had been as terrifying as being so completely helpless, so completely robbed of all agency, as she’d been in that horrific moment.
She couldn’t even scream out for Brandon, for anyone, to help.
Even as frightened as she was of the people who’d taken her, she was more frightened of drawing zombies to their location.
But she’d begged in whispers, tears flowing, and they ended up gagging her.
“They didn’t hurt me,” Allie said, marveling at how detached her voice sounded.
“I mean, they didn’t take the opportunity to beat on me or kick me or anything like that.
They just... carried me away, awake and blind and bound.
Crying. I had no idea who they were or where they were taking me, and I couldn’t make much noise around the gag.
Still, I thought for sure Brandon would show up and stop them.
I thought that we... that I still meant something to him. ”
Looking down, Allie saw a loose thread on the seam of her pants and began to pick at it.
“All of a sudden, they stopped walking, and I heard the creak of a car trunk opening. They picked me up and dropped me onto something that felt like slippery paper on a bumpy surface. It was a bunch of old magazines someone had in that trunk, but I didn’t know it then. ” She stopped worrying the thread.