Chapter Three
AS WE SPEED AWAY FROM the Pepsi Parking Lot of Hell, we hit a snag in the road.
The truck jangles, and the five of us jolt off the front seat we’re crammed into.
The boys yell at me to slow down, but I don’t, not even when swerving around a dark bend.
I need to get us back to Egal safely. What if the Macs double back for us?
We’re in no position to fight, but we can’t give anything up. We need this food. It’s ours.
Indy shouts, “Kota, stop the truck!”
But no. I don’t want to hear his complaints about being squished against the door. I told him the pressure would make his finger throb. He chose the spot. He wanted fresh air.
“Stop!” Indy says again. “We lost a crate!”
I slam on the brakes.
I didn’t latch the door.
I peer into the rearview mirror. A dozen cans of chickpeas topple into the middle of the road, right in front of a couple of shamblers, probably drawn to us from all the racket we’re causing.
Milo reaches over Indy and shoves open the door. He rolls over him and runs to the back, latching the truck as the shamblers meander down the winding road. Even if he could take out the two shamblers, the cans have rolled down the street. They’re out of sight. They’re gone.
The blood drains from my face as I turn to Peter. His expression is blank, unreadable. “Peter,” I whisper. “I’m sorry . . .”
His nostrils flare.
It strikes me at once: I could lose my job. I could get kicked out of Egal. All because I broke protocol. The Macs have won again.
THE RUSTING IRON GATES CREAK open at the speed of a slug, raking the ground and leaving brittle blades of grass in their wake. The sun dips below the barbed wire spikes atop the gate, casting a warm glow over our gated valley below.
Ah, shelter. Refuge.
I’ve never wanted to turn around so badly.
Slapped together with concrete scraps and bits of brick—pieces of the blown-apart dam and ruined buildings from local towns—the thick wall exists to keep out the undead.
While we share this particular barrier with our enemies, a second roughly constructed wall—split smack down the middle of the Jocassee Valley—keeps them at arm’s length.
In theory, whatever they do on their side of the valley isn’t our problem, and vice versa.
Same with our invisible borders outside the Split.
Yet those Macs keep hopping over Cherokee Foothills Highway to steal our shit, like our treaty means nothing.
Fucking up my life, like it means nothing!
We’re three years into this whole apocalypse thing, and there’s little food to be found. We haven’t necessarily been successful at securing it, either. Clearly.
Terrance, a guard of Egal’s entrance, waves our truck by. I offer a smile, but he doesn’t return it. He never does. Maybe Terrance is jealous that the doughboys and I get to leave while he’s stuck on the post. I would be. All the excitement happens outside Egal.
I shouldn’t want to leave.
I accelerate slowly and, for a moment, let the rural expanse beyond deceive me.
I pretend the short yellow grass that blankets the valley is healthy; I pretend the bluebirds singing in the dim evening are happy.
But here, zomweeds creep along the grounds, threatening to engulf the grass; the birds sing haunting songs of terror, in an endless flight to escape zombirds.
This is no longer our world. This world belongs to zombies and the zombirds and the two zombees buzzing by my window.
They’re easy to spot: The zombee’s body is an unstriped, awful yellow, and it usually flies around with a bee lodged into its stinger.
When it lands on a surface to feast on its prey, like my driver’s-side window, it leaves a fat splotch of booger-colored pus.
I roll down the window and swat the zombee away. The virus can’t be transmitted cross-species, but these fuckers are the bane of my existence. Nearly impossible to kill. How does one stab the brain of a bee? I don’t know. None of us do. But it’s about time we figured it out.
That’s why I can’t understand why the Macs keep provoking us. We’re the last South Carolinians, maybe Americans, and we can’t even come together as one. We’re literally it. We should be remedying the virus together, not stealing each other’s goods.
And yet antagonism between us rages on. It’s pathetic—I’m pathetic, because I despise them, too. I despise that they’ve made me despise them.
I park the truck in front of the storehouse.
It operated as a rectory up until three years ago, when the local government flooded this valley town to increase water supply.
Z Day happened just two weeks later. The bombs dropped smack down on the lake’s dam, et voila.
The town of Jocassee was made new again.
The buildings here are waterlogged and moldy, but at least we have roofs over our heads.
The old one-story brick rectory stands proudly before me with a whole lot of character.
A willow-less willow tree weeps in front of the building’s entrance.
A small arch curves around a door that looks like it was hand-plucked from the Georgian era.
The entire exterior is wrapped in dead ivy—none of us can muster up the courage to peel it off.
There’s a cross in each window pane, though Mrs. Patty is the only one who still prays.
And pray, she does. Three times a day in front of the church.
Kneeling. With holy water. And a rosary.
There she is, right now, screaming at my sister and Grandma walking hand-in-hand to the church. “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, YOU PAGANS! Look at what you’ve done!”
If it were anyone but them, I’d roll down my window and give it right back to her.
It’s not us that you should be hollering at, Mrs. Patty. It’s whatever higher power that abandoned us to this.
But Grandma can handle her own. I can’t hear what she says, but her words cause Mrs. Patty to keel over, hand to heart, and then fall backward on her ass.
Hell yeah, Grandma.
Next door, the rectory doesn’t hold a mere ounce of holiness, but it does hold all of our goods. Food, medical supplies, weapons, and gear. The other citizens and I take our meals at the church next door.
The stench of rotting flesh burns my nose as I tug my hoodie up and over my head. I forgot it’s Burn Day. My favorite time of the month.
I wrap the hoodie around my waist and take Peter’s hand as we enter the storehouse, passing by the medical supply room. If only I could get my hands on some extra meds for Grandma and Bunny . . .
My stomach flops as we reach Chandler’s office.
A plaque is nailed to the door, the words Executive Officer hand-chiseled into the wood.
As our leader, I understand her need to be ostentatious.
Without a flair for the dramatics, the citizens may not respect her as much. At least, that’s what she told me.
Peter gives my hand a squeeze before releasing it to ease the door open. It’s just a squeeze, but I’ll think about it all night. What does he mean by it? Is it a warning or a caress?
Chandler’s office smells faintly of evergreens, of Christmas, of a time far gone. She keeps a fat stack of worn car fresheners on her desk, next to wrinkled papers and maps. I’m flooded with childhood memories of decorating the Christmas tree with Bunny and West.
I suck in the evergreen scent with greed.
The office is dark, the only light emitting from a single window looking out over Egal: brick row houses, dry, yellowing fields, and in the distance, the wall.
Chandler stands behind her desk, her back taut and fingers gripped on the metal seat tucked beneath. She’s in her early thirties, but she’s got the presence of an old, pissed-off politician.
I press my thumb into the soft part of my palm, a nervous habit. Watch the rough edge of my nail form a dimple in my flesh. Press and release. Wait, one, two, three, as the white spot fades away.
I’ve just got to keep myself, and my family, alive. I’ve just got to remember that good things did once exist. And that maybe they will again.
“You made it back.” Chandler’s firm voice snaps me out of my haze. Her foxlike eyes find me first, her red hair twisted into a sleek bun so tight that her eyebrows nearly meet her hairline.
I glance down at the long, ratty ponytail draped over my chest and flip it over my shoulder, then scratch the back of my head.
How does Chandler not have a headache?
“Sure did,” I say, my fists balled in my lap. I press down harder with my middle finger.
Find your center, Mom would say. Breathe.
Phony sentiment from a chain-smoking yogi.
A ball of blood beads on my palm.
“Productive run?” Chandler says, flipping her eyes to Peter and crossing her bony arms.
“We got what we needed,” he answers.
“Show me.” Chandler clears her throat and walks past us, the smell of evergreens trailing her shadow.
With shaky legs, I follow Peter out of the office into the food supply room.
Chandler holds out a hand, and I pull my written log out of my pocket. I’m in deep shit. The log says 132. She’ll notice the missing 12. What story will Peter weave about the error? Will he throw me under the bus?
Zara leans over the long rectangular table in the center of the room, her doll-like mouth pinched like the time Bunny gulped down Grandma’s not-yet-sweetened lemonade. She didn’t drink lemonade again for months.
Blond curls bouncing around her chin like an old Hollywood movie star, Zara smacks her red-painted lips and offers me a sour smile.
I don’t think I miss lemons all that much.
And where’d she find lipstick?
“Zara. Pleasure,” Chandler says, the only acknowledgment Zara will get. Chandler’s eyes are busy scanning the details of the room, gauging the success of our job.