Chapter Fifteen
I SHOULD HAVE PLANNED BETTER.
Not that I had the luxury of time. My plan to escape via Costco only became real an hour ago. And how am I supposed to work out the details with Jasper and Greeley bickering in the front seat of Greeley’s turbulent Jeep?
“Watch this,” Greeley says.
We’re taking a side route through an old school zone, and Greeley accelerates as we approach a speed bump. Please slow: kids crossing. My head smashes into the roof of the Jeep.
“Ow!” I screech, clutching the top of my head, now a bruised cantaloupe.
As I steady myself, I catch Greeley’s satisfied stare in the rearview mirror. “Toughen up,” she tells me. Greeley turns to Jasper and says, “Bunch of softies, those Egals. Too reliant on each other. Bet you this one won’t survive the supply run.”
“She needs to survive,” Jasper says. He swivels around and faces me. “You won’t die.”
“Gee, thanks,” I mutter.
“Tell you what, if you survive this, I’ll retract my statement.
Probably.” As we exit the school zone, Greeley races over another speed bump, but this time I’m prepared.
I clutch on to Jasper’s headrest as she adds, “But if you die, my beliefs remain unchanged. You Egals are a bunch of communist losers following a psychotic leader who’s brainwashing you into thinking ‘Guns Bad, Weakness Good.’ ”
Fine. If she wants to hate me because I’m me—an Egal—then I can play.
I tear off a yellowing hangnail and let the blood spurt from my finger like a fire hose. Instead of sucking my finger to stop the flow, I squeeze the wound so big, fat drops tatter the back seat of Greeley’s Jeep.
Let it stain, I think, swirling the blood around on the fabric like the post-apocalyptic van Gogh I am. Let my blood leave its mark, even when I’m gone.
Today, I will escape with the doughboys. I will go back home. Back to Bunny and Grandma.
Greeley’s hatred of me isn’t even about me, and that’s what pisses me off the most. We’re barely three years post-America, and we’ve already fallen back into the divisiveness that ruined our country.
I was too young, maybe, or too ignorant to realize what was happening. It was easier to believe Grandma when she said nothing was wrong. It was easier to zone out and idly pick at the threads of her pastel floral couch while President Burns addressed the public on Grandma’s staticky box TV.
From Burns: The country is taking proactive measures to eradicate thirst.
From Grandma: Proactive? The Colorado River’s been drying up for fifteen years! No, no, not to fear, though, sweetheart. Plenty of other rivers to drink from. Those kids in California will be just fine. Now, dear, how about some lemonade?
But with a population boom, the government couldn’t provide enough water for everyone.
When Jenkins, California’s governor, got elected as president in 2016, shit went downhill fast. The moment he started blaming Burns was the beginning of the end.
President Burns was Native American, and Jenkins’s party took that thread and ran with it.
Kill them, his followers said, and there will be enough water for us.
Jenkins was enigmatic. Governors loved him. Soon, states began to strip Native Americans of their land, turning reservations into reservoirs.
Stolen. Sunk. Salvaged.
But that wasn’t enough. Still, there were too many mouths to wet.
Native Americans were moved to urban developments near their old homes, forced into lives so close yet so far from what they knew. Jenkins’s most extremist followers—his Californian state cabinet—took matters into their own hands.
It’s those damn Natives! Drinking all our water, taking all our resources! If we can’t have water, they can’t either!
In 2017, extremists bombed dams across the United States, flooding areas with the largest populations of Native Americans.
Did they know their bombs would release a toxin that would turn the dead into zombies? Was their intention to destroy humanity, or were they blinded by unfounded hatred?
It was easier to believe Grandma when she said everything would be okay, that the news would simmer down. Grandma forgot to put simple syrup in her lemonade the day Jenkins was elected. I think she was afraid the sugar water would boil over.
I glance up at the rising sun, hoping it’ll give me answers and also maybe photosynthesis.
Give me energy, please! Give me life!
“Pit stop for seeds at the Home Depot?” Jasper asks, pointing to a large building with a bright orange roof.
“So you can waste more time planting shit that won’t grow because uh, hello, pollinators are now zombinators?”
“Greeley.”
“What?” She slams her hands on the wheel, jerking the Jeep to the right. “Better off drinking water than gambling it away on seeds.”
“You of all people know that’s not true.”
Greeley gives Jasper a scathing look. She chomps her teeth at Jasper, her molars clinking together like a champagne toast. I can’t help but wonder who Greeley really is. She’s been nothing but a total shit, so there must be a reason Chief and Jasper keep her around.
I blurt out the question. “Why?”
Greeley spins around, jerking us onto a cracked sidewalk. Jasper adeptly grabs the steering wheel with his left hand and brings us back onto the main road. She says, “Nothing you need to know, Blondie.”
I narrow my eyes, but let it go because I don’t want her to throw me out of the car. I’ve never been this close to the city before.
I drag my attention to the I-85 on-ramp, the Greenville city skyline coming into view.
The once-tall buildings are now in ruins, nothing but crumbling heaps on the ground.
The roads are overrun with totaled vehicles.
Motorcycles, cars, army tanks, trucks, vans .
. . even the sky looks different here. Thick, dark gray clouds roll in, and heavy, polluted air slithers into the Jeep—a gentle reminder that the atmosphere is also totally fucked.
As we hop off the highway and onto Woodruff Road, a few shamblers roam the streets, but not as many as I expected.
Since practically everyone in the state is dead, there’s nothing left for the zombies to feed on, so they’ve gone dormant.
With no stimuli, zombies go into a trance.
They don’t die; they hibernate. But to them, loud noise brings with it the promise of food .
. . Those that remain are slow and meander through the streets without a purpose.
Before Z Day, I think that’s how I felt. But now I have a purpose: to survive. I don’t know which is better or worse.
Anxiety erupts in my stomach as Costco comes into view. The parking lot is littered with broken cars, loose wires, and burnt hunks of concrete. A chill rattles my bones as it dawns on me that this lot may be so full of trash and destruction that we won’t be able to pull in.
Greeley slowly brings the Jeep to a halt. “We’ll go on foot from here.”
“Oh, god,” I splutter. I clamp, clamping a hand over my mouth, angry I’ve let the words escape. I can’t let Greeley see me as weak.
I crane my head around to the back window of the Jeep, squinting into the distance at the road. Exactly how far back were those shamblers we passed? Would we make it from here to the doors of Costco before the sound of our breath and footsteps attract their attention?
Greeley and Jasper turn around in their seats, watching me watch the outside. I turn back to them in time to catch the glance they share with each other. They’re regretting bringing me along.
This is a test to see if I can actually survive on my own.
As I look across the tattered lot, I don’t know who I’m going to prove wrong: Greeley or Jasper.
Greeley pushes open her door, and the cold air slaps me in the face like a whip. She slings a black backpack over her shoulders and tosses Jasper the car keys. “Better not waste anyone’s last words with chitchat. On we go, folks.”
She tugs a tattered baseball cap onto her head, shielding her blue eyes from the bright morning sun. Her half-blond hair glints in the light like a sun ray, which is deceiving, because Greeley is what I’d describe as the opposite of a ray of sunshine.
Greeley slams her door, tells Jasper to lock up, and strides forward without a backward glance. Jasper roots around the glove compartment, and once he’s found what he’s looking for, he turns to hand me—no. There’s no way.
Jasper is handing me a gun.