Chapter 9
My eyes snap open, and I jolt up in bed, panting, my body drenched in a cold sweat as I try to ground myself in reality.
Where am I? I scan my surroundings, my heart hammering in my chest. There’s my bedroom door.
My dresser. My desk. Home. I’m home. I inhale and stop short of exhaling when I remember I’m here because the world ended, and if that wasn’t bad enough, I somehow got bunked up with my archnemesis . . . Blake Morrison.
My gaze goes to his bed, pushed up against the far wall under the large window. It’s empty and perfectly made, military-style, with the corners tucked in, not a wrinkle to be seen.
“Loser,” I scoff.
I hop out of my bed and pad across the room to Blake’s, grabbing a fistful of his comforter and tossing it on the floor. I tug his sheets loose, even the fitted one, and roll them into a ball.
“Welcome to your nightmare, bitch.” I grin, and yes, I am well aware that I’m being petty, but Blake made . . . well, unmade his bed years ago, when he got his kicks from tormenting me. Now I get to return the favor.
I draw open the curtains above his bed, and the sunshine seeps in, bathing the room in a pinkish-orange light.
In the city, I could never open the shades.
It was too dangerous, so we kept them shuttered at all times, only peeking out when there was a commotion on the street. But this . . . this is nice.
A knock startles me, and I whip around, staring cautiously at my bedroom door. With a deep exhale, I calm my nerves, reminding myself that I’m not holed up in an apartment in Chicago anymore, where a knock from a stranger could be a death sentence. It almost was yesterday.
“Come in,” I yell.
The door creaks open, and a voice enters before a person. “Casey? Your dad told me you were here.”
“Tessa!” I cross the room in two quick steps, throwing my arms around her. “I’m so happy to see you,” I say, my face still pressed into the side of hers.
“Me too.” Her voice is warm with that special type of sadness that accompanies joy, a reminder of moments missed. “It’s been far too long,” she adds.
Tessa’s right about that. We’ve barely kept in touch since I started medical school, just texts here and there, and I haven’t seen her in years.
“You know, you could have warned me about Blake,” I tease.
“I sent a message by carrier goose. Did it not get to you?”
We laugh and let go of one another. I take a step back, examining her from head to toe—my doctor instincts kicking in.
She sports a head of hay-colored hair, straight and flowing down past her shoulders.
Her face is soft, giving off a girl-next-door look, thanks to her light-hazel eyes and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks.
She’s lost weight like everyone else; however, she didn’t have much to lose in the first place.
“You look good, healthy.”
“Thanks, Doc. And you look like you’ve seen better days,” Tessa says, giving me a once-over. I’m dressed in an oversized T-shirt that stops midthigh, so the bruises and cuts on my legs are visible along with the ones on my neck and face.
“Yeah, well, getting out of the city was no walk in the park, but you should see the other guys,” I say with a small smile, hiding the pain and trauma of what happened behind a thin veil of humor.
She squints, clearly determining whether to question me any more, but instead tosses me a grin, deciding against forcing me to relive the details. “I can only imagine,” Tessa says, plopping down on my bed and folding her legs into a pretzel. “So, what’s new?” She tilts her head to the side.
I fish out a pair of black leggings from my bag, thread my legs into them, and pull them up. “You mean, like, before the world ended, or recently?”
“Obviously before. I know what you’ve been up to since everything went to shit.
Terror, blood, fear, running, starving, filth, and worst of all .
. . bunking with Blake Morrison.” She smirks, fanning her arm across the room to showcase all Blake’s belongings.
He has more than I would expect for someone who fled during an apocalypse.
There’s a locked chest the width of his bed pushed up against a wall.
I only know it’s his because Morrison is written in Sharpie along the side of it.
The windowsill is lined with items that aren’t mine, so they must be his.
“I won’t argue with you on that.” I pull open the top drawer of my dresser, where I find a brush and a ponytail holder.
I run the bristles through the length of my hair.
“Before this, my whole life was working at the hospital, sunup to sundown, but I love it . . . or loved it,” I say, tying my hair up.
“So, this is basically a vacation for you?” She chuckles.
“First one in, like, ten years. I wish I would have picked someplace more tropical, though.” I shrug and let out a laugh.
“There is a little creek that runs through this compound, and I’m sure I could find a margarita glass around here somewhere,” she teases.
“All we’re missing is a cute cabana boy.”
“Speaking of boys, where’s yours?” Tessa glances around the room as though she’s searching for him.
I practically flinch at the question. Tessa never met Nate, but she knew I was dating a doctor in the city from the little bit we did keep in touch.
Thankfully, I wasn’t into social media, and I hadn’t gotten around to telling her Nate and I were engaged, so there’s even less I have to explain.
I rummage around in another dresser drawer, giving myself time to think of what to say.
I select a sports bra and a T-shirt before slowly closing it.
Honestly, I’m embarrassed to admit that Nate ditched me—far too embarrassed to even tell Tessa.
I still can’t believe it myself. We were together for more than two years, and he asked me to marry him.
How could you just leave the person you’d planned to spend your life with?
“We went our separate ways,” I finally land on without looking at her. It’s not a complete lie. We did. I just didn’t know “our separate ways” would be him abandoning me in the middle of being attacked by a trio of burners.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Casey. Going through a breakup and then the world ending . . . that couldn’t have been easy.”
I don’t correct her timeline. Instead, I nod and make an mm-hmm sound. “What about you? Weren’t you dating someone?”
“Yeah, I was,” she says, shaking her head. “But I had to kill him.”
My mouth forms a muted O as I search her face for any signs of humor, waiting for a just kidding. But she stares back at me with a stoic look, shrugging off her statement with a quick lift of her shoulders.
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah, he turned into one of those zombie things, so I . . .” She falls silent and finishes her sentence by dragging her pointer finger across her neck.
“Jesus, Tessa! I’m so sorry.” I step closer to her, kneeling on the ground and placing my hand over the one she has resting on her knee.
“Don’t be.” She flicks our hands up together, rejecting any need for sympathy.
“I found out he was cheating a few days before the outbreak, and I was going to confront him and dump him, but I put it off, and then he turned into a zombie, so I had to kill him,” Tessa says matter-of-factly, like she’s sharing a recipe or giving me directions.
“I’m actually glad it worked out that way, though.
Otherwise, he would have denied it, then gaslit me, then tried to convince me to stay with him, and I probably would have.
Then he’d be faithful for a while, and once he got comfortable, he’d cheat again.
That cycle would continue until I got fed up and realized my worth.
Then I’d have to go to therapy to rebuild my confidence and deal with the trust issues he infected me with.
So I think it’s better that our relationship ended the way it did, and by that, I mean me decapitating him,” Tessa says, picking at her fingernails.
“And you’re sure he was a zombie?” I get to my feet and squint, frowning as I tuck my chin in.
She nods. “Pretty sure.”
We both erupt in laughter at a situation that a mere two months ago would have been entirely psychotic, but now is seemingly normal.
The door flies open, bouncing against the wall with a thud and putting an end to our amusement.
I grimace at the sight of Blake strolling into my bedroom.
He’s dressed in a dirty pair of jeans and a white T-shirt that clings to his sculpted chest and abs.
A gun is nestled in a shoulder holster below his left armpit like a detective would wear beneath a suit jacket.
Another pistol is tucked in a hip holster.
Blake eyes me, then Tessa, and then his bed.
“Thanks for that,” he says, gesturing to the mess I made of it.
“You’re welcome. Didn’t look up to regulation standards to me, so I figured it was best to start from scratch,” I say. Tessa and I share a look of contempt toward him.
His lip snarls, and he begins remaking his bed.
“There’s a ton to be done around here, so I don’t appreciate you creating extra work for me.”
“And I don’t appreciate you at all,” I say, throwing my hands on my hips.
“That sounds like a you problem.” He briefly looks at me with squinty eyes as he moves to the other end of the bed, folding and tucking his sheets.
I hold my chin high as I walk toward him, stopping right in front of his bed. “No, it’s your problem,” I say, ruffling the tucked sheet and messing it up again.
“Should I leave you two alone?” Tessa teases.
Blake and I snap our heads in her direction and say, “No,” in unison.