Chapter Twenty
TWO HOURS OF DRIVING DRAG on.
“Oh my god, I love this song,” Greeley says, playing an old CD on the stereo.
“No shocker there,” Jasper says.
Greeley turns up the music, and for the next stretch of highway, Nirvana drowns in my ears. Greeley plays “Smells Like Teen Spirit” three times in a row, and I stare blankly out the window, trying not to cry.
“Almost there,” she says as we circle up a mountain. “You ready to hunt?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I say, even though I’m not. Nausea builds as around and around and around we go. I can’t help but picture Milo’s bloody face at every curve of the mountain. Why do I expect to see him standing on the other side of the bend? Why can’t I have a moment to mourn my friend?
I hear Mom’s strained whispers in my ear. I won’t be here much longer, sweet girl, but don’t stop living. No matter what hardships you face, you must move forward. Breathe for me. Live for me. Keep going.
I inhale, swelling with resolve.
Okay, Mom. I’ll keep going. For you, for West, for Milo.
When we near the top of the mountain, my ears pop. Greeley turns into a gravel parking lot. Skytop Orchard is hand-drawn on an old wooden plank piked into cold mud. Brittle yellow leaves float down from tall trees, but the trees themselves bear no fruit.
A tinge of foolish disappointment settles in my belly.
I pull my gaze from the window and catch Jasper’s wary eyes in the side-view mirror. He says, “Ever thought you’d see an apple-less apple orchard?”
“It’s as beautiful as I imagined,” I say flatly.
And while this sad excuse for an orchard is less surprising than, say, zombies, it’s another sour reminder of something we’ll never get back. An experience I’ll never share with my sister, or my dead brother.
“Snap out of it, Blondie.” Greeley waves a hand in my face. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, move on.”
“I’m thinking that you keep calling me Blondie, but you’re blond, too.”
“Only half,” she reminds me, flipping down the car visor to check out her jet black roots.
“And less every day.” Greeley huffs and cranes her neck forward, peering scornfully at the bright sky over the dashboard.
“You happy, Pops? You never understood why I hid my heritage, but do you get it now, old man? Do you get it?”
“Brakes, Greeley, brakes!” Jasper braces himself as we nearly plow into a twenty-foot-tall zombie tree. Its limbs jut out in every direction, reaching for the brittle branches of its neighbors. The Jeep screeches as Greeley hits the brakes, and a slim branch skims over the hood.
“Close one,” Greeley says. “Anyone want to do it again?”
“This is our only vehicle. Wreck it, and we have no means to hunt or trade.”
Greeley finds my eyes again. “Blondie, have you ever met such a buzzkill?”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say, unlatching the door and rolling out of the car.
I land on my back, let my head sink into the soft dirt. Cold air bites my cheeks, the sun hiding behind looming gray clouds. The sky will not fall. Humans, animals, plants . . . we will change and we will die. But the sky will linger. The sun and the moon. We are different, but the sky is the same.
A fleshy, bloodstained palm obstructs my view. “Up you go, then,” Jasper says, offering his hand. I take it. “Your other one, too.”
And then he pulls me up.
I shake mulch out of my hair and look around. We’re at the border of the snarled orchard and an open field that leads to an old podunk store. Apple cider donuts, pastries, and more!
We’re too high up for the bombs and floods to have battered this land, but time and weather weigh on the small storefront.
Coppery rust tinges the metal awning, and two cedar pillars sag under its weight.
Wind-bruised wood siding peels off in thick olive-green strips.
The invisible virus spread to the mountains, though. Water connects us all.
But are there any survivors up here? If so, I can’t imagine there are many. The mountains hold their own dangers.
Zombie animals are the darndest things.
It was Milo, actually, who told me why we stay clear of the wild.
Three years ago, when Chandler first formed the group that we now refer to as the doughboys, she’d selected the strongest in the community.
Young, brazen men with strong muscles and good cardio.
They went out on their first supply run into nearby woods, thinking it the perfect place to find meat—the lean, dense protein that our people so desperately needed.
Only our community didn’t then realize that animals were also affected by the virus.
So while the men planned to hunt wild boars, deer, and foxes, they didn’t expect to be hunted by the zombie versions of those species.
They certainly didn’t expect to be hunted by a zombie black bear.
Egal lost three men that day.
The last two men—Peter and Milo—wrangled the bear, killed it, and brought it home.
Only when they got there, the stench was so great they couldn’t bring it inside.
Chandler ordered them to skin it, but when they did, they discovered meat so gray it was practically black.
They couldn’t eat it. Who knows what would happen if they did?
After that, Chandler brought on Indy and Fred—and later me—and banned the doughboys from hunting animals. Zombie animals pose too big a threat.
As for the living, breathing animals, just like humans, if death is a result of a direct impact to the brain, then the zombie virus isn’t activated.
It’s death, plain and simple. But if you miss the animal’s temple, you risk a newly born zombie animal attacking you.
And you end up with spoiled zombie meat.
Yet here I am, at the edge of the woods, hours after watching my friend get killed, hunting.
“I’m thinking deer’s on the menu tonight, ladies and gents,” Greeley says, rubbing her palms together.
“I’ll stick to the edge of the woods,” I mutter. “Look for a squirrel . . .”
Greeley rolls her eyes. “Where’d your balls go?”
“Are you serious?”
“It’s how she shows she cares,” Jasper says, moving to place a hand on my back before thinking better of it. Only, I wish he didn’t. I’ve never needed human touch more than I do right now.
“False,” Greeley says. She twirls her knife around, then tromps into the forest without a backward glance.
I turn to Jasper. “If I had an ounce of her confidence . . .”
“You’d be as deadly as a bomb.” The corner of his mouth ticks up, and his brown eyes widen. They have threads of amber, like a warm pot of honey. “Come on. I’ll show you how it’s done.”
“What, detonating?”
“I think we’ve witnessed enough bombs to last us a lifetime. You ready to hunt, or not?”
“Not ready.”
He sighs. “You’ll be fine. I’ve got your back.” He looks at my hip. “And you’ve got a gun. Load it.”