FIVE
DAKOTA
I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a very fine but distinct line between being followed and being haunted. As someone with a deeply concerning amount of experience in both, I like to think I’m skilled enough to tell the difference between the two.
Haunting is quiet. It lingers under your skin when the world grows still, when night pushes down on whatever roof you’re trying to hide under, when the memories you’ve spent all day trying to run away from decide they have all the stamina of an Olympic athlete.
When they have very little respect for personal boundaries and push the limit of your patience.
Haunting is Maine’s voice in the back of my head, Mom’s eyes when they turned white and empty, Dad’s endless stacks of research notes spread over every available surface in the house that still smelled like dust, blood, and things I refuse to acknowledge.
Being followed, however, is the sound of boots three streets back.
A pause when I pause. A breath held a little too carefully behind a toppled-over mail truck.
It’s the faintest curl of Alpha scent that floats through the smoke, rot, and rainwater, breaking through the ugly without a care in the world.
I don’t stop walking, though. That would be too obvious.
Instead, I keep my shoulders rounded, head bent down, and my pace uneven enough that it looks like exhaustion rather than calculation.
The school disappears behind me one dilapidated and broken building at a time, drowned out by overgrown foliage and the harsh afternoon light that spills between the light flurry of clouds.
Somewhere behind me, Kaito thinks he’s moving like a ninja.
Like he thinks if he’s quiet enough, I won’t notice him.
Surprisingly, he is actually quiet. Annoyingly so, however, it’s not quite quiet enough.
Maybe that’s a little uncalled for, slightly unfair, given that I’ve spent the past six years learning how to vanish like a ghost into the streets of dead towns.
However, I’m bleeding, I’m hungry, I’m down a broken backpack strap, and I’m lethally low on patience.
So fairness can fall off the nearest building into a pit of Zeds.
The Alpha is definitely following me, because of course he is. Apparently rescuing one strange man from a hungry cluster of Zeds means he now believes we’ve formed some weird emotional support apocalypse friendship. Save one life and suddenly I’m collecting Alphas like sad little Pokémon cards.
Yeah, no. I think not.
Cutting left around an old laundromat with shattered windows and a sun-bleached sign that still brags about their same-day service in peeling red letters, I peer inside the building.
Clothes still sit abandoned in machines, likely stale after sitting idle and forgotten for six years, and probably haunted by the spirit of detergent.
I glance at the warped glass as I pass, and I sigh deeply when I catch the faintest reflection of movement from behind me.
Tall. Dark hair. Fucking stubborn and still following me like my shadow that begs to reattach itself to my feet like Peter Pan.
Jaw tightening, I tell myself not for the first time that I should have simply left him in the alley despite what Maine would have done.
And it angers me like nothing else to know that it’s a lie.
Hell, I know it’s a lie the moment the thought even crosses my mind, but I let it ferment in my brain anyway, because being honest with myself is overrated and never actually helps when survival counts on it.
If anything, I should have abandoned him at the school. At least that one feels a little more reasonable.
Yet, despite me leaving, the guy seems to have decided to interpret me leaving as an invitation to play the apocalypse version of hide-and-seek with someone who owns knives and a gun and has a deeply personal relationship with paranoia. The audacity, am I right?
A Zed shuffles from behind a rusted convertible halfway down the street, its head turning toward the faint sound of my footsteps.
I slow down, allowing my weight to settle evenly through the soles of my boots.
That Zed used to be a man, broad in the shoulders with one arm missing from the elbow.
Its jaw hangs unnaturally crooked, broken at some point and never set right.
Dried blood and gore stains the front of its shirt in layers upon layers, so thick and old they’ve almost become black.
It sniffs once. And then again.
I remain still, letting the wind do whatever work it can manage.
Smoke from the burning house still lingers in the air, not as thick as it was, but hopefully enough to cover my trail.
The blocker I took in the classroom sits heavy in my system, not fully working yet, but providing the kind of comfort that makes me want to be dramatically grateful without thinking too hard about what could happen when the rest of my stash runs out.
Suddenly, the Zed takes a step toward me, and behind me, Kaito stops.
I don’t turn to look. In fact, I don’t acknowledge him at all, instead keeping my eye on the Zed.
I wait until it takes another step, until its wet breath rattles in its throat, until its fingers twitch restlessly at its sides with hungry little spasms.
Then I click my tongue softly against my teeth.
As expected, the Zed jerks toward the sound, and I slip behind the convertible, crouching down low as I wait for it to stumble past the hood.
As soon as it does, I move behind it and drive my knife into the base of its skull, quick and clean.
I catch the body before it can collapse loudly to the ground, ensuring it doesn’t draw any other Zeds in the street toward me.
The fucker is heavier than I expected for something akin to skin and bones, and a grunt slips past my lips the moment the body collides with mine.
I lower it to the concrete, wiping my blade on its shirt before moving on quickly but silently.
Three streets back, Kaito remains exactly where he froze, unmoving as he watches.
I can feel his eyes on the back of my neck, like a wash of heat I can’t get rid of.
“Hope you’re enjoying the show,” I mutter under my breath.
I don’t receive a reply, obviously, because he’s too far away.
That, or he’s simply trying to pretend he isn’t actually there, tailing me through the streets like a stage-five clinger.
Who knew saving someone’s life would earn them a stalker?
Not me, that’s for fucking sure. Not when I pointed a gun at him and threatened to shoot. What is this guy’s defect?
Whatever the reason, I decide here and now that I hate him a little bit.
Because the problem with Kaito is that he’s not following like a raider.
Raiders are full to the brim with arrogance.
They close the distance too quickly because they think fear does most of the work for them.
They’ll talk, laugh, make noise. They’ll put on this bravado that makes them look scarier than the Zeds that have overrun the world.
They assume anyone smaller than them is prey and easy to hunt.
Kaito doesn’t do any of that. Nope. He gives me space. Too much to actually justify shooting him or throwing a knife in his direction, but not quite enough space to forget that he even exists. It’s infuriating.
By the time I reach the old residential street on the north side of town, the sun has started slipping behind the houses, spilling long shadows across cracked sidewalks and overgrown lawns that have turned wild enough to swallow cars whole.
Vines wrap wildly around porches, trees have grown through fences, and mailboxes resemble drunks leaning enough that only a small breeze would surely topple them.
A bike still with the training wheels attached lies sideways in the middle of a driveway, one wheel missing, the frame now a faded pink under the grime and dirt.
I keep my eyes moving, running my gaze over the street.
Houses are tricky, you see. People think they’re safer than the open streets because walls offer a false sense of protection.
What most fail to realize is that walls only help if you know what’s inside them.
Houses hold Zeds in bathrooms. Dead people locked in bedrooms. Traps in kitchens.
Memories in places they have no right to linger.
But this house, I know.
Two stories. Blue siding long since turned gray with the weather.
White trim peeling from the windows. A porch with a broken step and a wind chime made of shells that jingle softly whenever the breeze whooshes by.
I found this house three days ago while I was scouting, cleared it yesterday morning, and know the layout like the back of my hand already.
I know the back door sticks, the upstairs bathroom window opens onto the porch roof, and there’s a crawl space under the kitchen big enough for me to fit into if I need to disappear quickly.
There’s a pantry with two cans of corn I didn’t take since I was planning on returning, and a bedroom closet that holds a false panel where someone once hid jewelry, cash, and a handgun with no bullets.
Not perfect, no, but it’s better than most.
I pass the house without slowing, and Kaito follows.
I make it to the end of the street, double back through the overgrown yard next door, cut through a gap in the fence, and circle around behind the blue house.
The backyard is a mess of knee-high weeds and brambles, fallen branches, and a rusted grill that has miraculously remained upright.