Thirty-One
theo
The morning light bounced off the car windshields parked behind the building, blinding me after the dim foyer. I blinked as my eyes adjusted, breathing in the cold air and scanning the area for movement. The faint smell of death lingered from the bodies we’d piled up at the back.
We were almost done.
Just about ready to leave this place for the last time.
Sadie’s hand was still in mine. A dog barked somewhere nearby, and the distant whop-whop of a helicopter hovered over the rooftops.
Tim’s gaze narrowed as he examined her. Probably searching for signs she’d changed her mind about leaving. I’d been thinking the same thing myself, and the worry wouldn’t fade until we were halfway down the highway.
“All good, Sadie girl?” He lifted his brows, switching to a lighter tone.
Her eyes were still rimmed in red, her composure one understanding smile away from falling apart. She nodded and released my hand. “It just feels like a big deal to be leaving here.”
“Because you know what to expect at home.” Varesh shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, taking in Sadie, then me.
She gathered her hair into a bundle and smoothed it with her hands, securing it with the hair tie from her wrist. “We don’t have a single clue what’s going on out there or how bad it’s gotten.”
We’d been in the dark—literally—since the power went off. No news. No radio.
But my Ranger had a bullbar to shield us from the infected, and we had food, water, and fuel. Weapons, too.
I was as confident as I could be under the circumstances.
“Come here, then. Let’s get this over with.” Tim held out his arms, and Sadie went straight to him. He wrapped her up in a proper, all-encompassing hug, his chin tucked over her shoulder, his eyes closing as he tightened his hold. “We’ll see you soon. All three of us.”
Her breath hitched at the reminder that they were waiting behind for her sister. For a second, I nearly lost my mind and told her to stay with them. It felt wrong tearing her away from the one place where she felt secure—but she could make her own decisions, and she’d chosen to come with me.
Varesh waited nearby, his composure softening as his gaze flicked between the two of them.
When Tim pulled back, he grabbed Sadie’s face and planted a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Please don’t die.”
Laughter erupted from her, just as he’d intended, and she patted his head. “I think I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow.”
He snorted and shoved her toward Varesh. “Shut up. Go say goodbye to my husband.”
I was still smiling at their exchange when Tim approached me, pushing my offered hand aside and dragging me in for a hug.
I’d held it together pretty well up to this point, but the thought of taking Sadie away from him, of potentially not seeing him and Varesh again, almost tipped me over the edge.
My throat ached, and I blinked a couple of times as I hugged him back.
“Keep her safe,” he said. “Never let her out of your sight.”
“You know I will.” I clasped the back of his head and gave his buzz cut an affectionate rub.
Tim exhaled, the sound half sigh, half laugh as he pulled away. “I hate goodbyes with a passion.”
When Varesh approached, I grabbed his hand, keeping our clasped fists between us as I drew him in for a half hug. “Do whatever you need to do with Dustin,” I said, keeping my voice low so Sadie wouldn’t hear me, “and don’t feel bad about it. If he needs to go, he needs to go.”
Varesh nodded as he stepped back, his dark eyes glinting. We’d had this discussion on the day we rescued Sadie and Tim, so nothing more needed to be said.
The four of us gathered around, seconds away from leaving.
“Five days, per our agreement,” Tim said. “If Ava doesn’t show by then, we’ll leave a note in Sadie’s apartment, keys to a car in case she needs one, then make our way to you.”
That was all we could have asked for. Just some breathing space. A chance for Ava, a lifeline for Sadie.
She threw her arms around Varesh and Tim one last time, then blew out a quick breath and smiled at me. “We’d better go. I can hear the dead coming.”
Sure enough, a low groan and staggering footsteps drifted in from the street.
I’d already showered and changed once after our last encounter, and I wouldn’t delay our departure for another minute. “All right.” I clapped Varesh on the back. “See you two soon.”
As I slid in behind the wheel, the guys stood side by side watching us, and I gave them a salute before I shut the door.
In the sudden silence, Sadie pulled on her seatbelt and closed her eyes, summoning her courage.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Nope.” She sent me a flat look. “But let’s go.”
I pulled out of the car park, keeping watch on our surroundings as the engine rumbled.
We'd made it halfway down the block when I braced myself and shot a look in Sadie’s direction.
No humans were walking the street anymore.
Just the dead—everywhere—and the sinking realisation this was our life now.
The road stretched ahead, unnervingly quiet save for the wandering bodies that always seemed to turn seconds too late to follow our movements—a big, burly guy with his guts exposed to the air, a woman in a blood-soaked nightgown.
I dodged a man in head-to-toe camo, as if he’d hoped to make himself invisible to the dead. Now he’d become one of them.
My hands tightened around the wheel as I waited for something to lunge at us. Nothing did, and somehow that made the anticipation worse.
“See how slow they are to react?” I kept my eyes on the street.
“That’s one thing in our favour,” Sadie said. “We can outrun them as long as we’re not surrounded.”
The world hadn’t collapsed yet, not entirely. It had just… stopped. If the infected hadn’t been loitering, it would have looked like a slightly untidier version of what we knew before.
Cars sat abandoned where the owners had panicked and fled, a few with windows smeared in rust-coloured handprints, others with doors hanging open.
Shopping bags and belongings were scattered across the road.
If we didn’t have enough supplies to get us to Dad’s farm, I would have considered stopping and seeing what we could salvage.
Sadie took it all in with a distant look on her face, as if her brain was trying to accept details that were almost too big to comprehend. Her axe rested beside her in the footwell, the handle pressed against her knee.
I’d tucked my sword down the side of my seat, keeping the handle next to my shoulder within easy reach.
“What do you think? Is it what you expected?” I asked, pulling up at the end of Sanderson Street. We’d finally hit some traffic. Three cars and a couple of vans passed by before I could make a turn, and I eyed each one of them, wondering where they were headed.
Owen, Laura, and the girls would be diving into this mess soon.
“I don’t even know what I was picturing,” she said, pointing at the service station up ahead showing signs of life.
A guy in a four-wheel drive had parked at a pump with an out of service sign taped to the display. The shop windows were smashed, the automatic doors left permanently open. No doubt the inside would be looted, too. There was no chance of getting fuel, but desperation had pushed him to at least try.
When he caught on to the rumbling of our motor, his hopeful expression shifted seamlessly into a calculating one, and the first alarm bells started ringing.
We weren’t safe out here, and it wasn’t just the dead we needed to worry about.
“I’m assuming we’re not stopping for anyone?” Sadie faced the front and avoided eye contact with the man, her voice strained. “We haven’t talked about that yet.”
“We can’t. Did you see the look on his face?” I monitored the rearview as I continued driving. I’d kept a full tank of diesel throughout the pandemic, never knowing when fuel supplies would run out. Now, we were a target.
“I wish I hadn’t,” she said.
A motorbike sped by in the opposite direction, the rider barely sparing us a glance.
Tension ran between my shoulder blades. We were like domesticated animals experiencing the outdoors for the first time.
I drove past the parklands where infected roamed in larger groups, weaving between trees and tripping through the grass, overgrown now with no one around to maintain it.
Two men walked faster than the rest, heavy backpacks on their shoulders, movements too agile and aware to be the dead.
One of them waved his hands above his head and shouted.
I kept driving.
“I heard what you said to Varesh before we left.” Sadie tapped a silent beat on her thigh, leaning forward and taking a longer look at an infected man. His body had been torn apart so badly, it was tough to see how he could still be standing, let alone walking.
I swerved around a shopping trolley that had been tipped on its side, its wheels turning uselessly in the breeze.
“I know why you said it,” she went on, her voice soft, “and I agree. I’m just—”
“Struggling with the agreeing part?”
She forced a smile. “Yep.”
An SUV approached, packed to the roof with belongings, the occupants staring at Sadie and me as our paths crossed. “Like it or not, we need to get on board fast with the idea. There’s nothing keeping people in line anymore.”
“If he touches Ava, if he does anything that makes her think she’s in danger, she’ll kill him, Theo. She will.”
Sadie sounded so sure, so final. “I hope he doesn’t put his hands on her,” I said, “but if it happens, and she ends him, he's earned it.”
“The world’s scary enough with the dead roaming. The thought of coming across people like him makes me sick.”
“We’ll do our best to avoid talking to anyone. Stay out of trouble.”
Sometimes, though, the choice was out of our hands.