La La Land: A Zombie Dystopian Novel (The Last City Series Book 2) Read online

  “Out … break?”

  “Is there an echo in here?” I ask, smiling. “By the way, what’s your name? I’ve been wondering for some time, and well … it’s not like I could ask.”

  “It’s … um … it’s …” Like a bully, horror removes her small fear, replacing her tension with outright shock.

  She blinks, then looks close to tears, and after all the empty moments are gone, total panic explodes through her tiny body. “I … I’m … I don’t know.”

  -8-

  Cutters grave isn’t deep. In fact, it’s not deep enough. We’d waited through the period he would have changed had he been prone to. He won’t become a zombie. I’d never truly been afraid of that. His neck hadn’t been jaggedly chewed, it’d been sliced.

  His wife’s still in shock, so much so, she doesn’t even cry. Instead, she’s a shade of bloodless white on the dark bench, and when the Ironwood preacher asks if she’d like to say anything, she quickly shakes her head and goes back to wherever she’s been in her mind. Maybe with her memories of Cutter, back in their bed, driving us all insane with their throes of passion and rapture.

  It’s what I’d do. I’d never leave those thoughts, either.

  My face grows hot imagining it, and Joe and I share a look.

  After they lower Cutter into the grave, I turn to leave, moving alongside with Joe. His face is doing that thing when he’s deep in thought. I don’t blame him.

  “We need to hunt.”

  “We’ve got meat, Joe.”

  “Not enough.”

  It’s never enough for him. Joe always wants to hunt. If he could, he’d be out in the Wilds one hundred percent of the time. Just like me.

  I sigh. “I’ll get my gun.”

  When I head back to the gate, he’s waiting there, watching me like a hawk. My skin prickles as his dark eyes take me in like I’m a tall drink of water, and Joe’s a very thirsty man. We’re hardly outside and he’s tracking me like the hunter he is, his eyes watching my steps, the sway of my hips …

  “Stop it,” I say, and with a curse, he turns and shoves the gate harder than it needs.

  Shuddering and formidable, the barrier between Ironwood and the rest of America slides closed behind us. We have no protection now, aside from ourselves.

  But that’s how we like it.

  We both hurry away from Ironwood as if it’d spat us out like bad brine water and, step for step, our strides match as we quicken pace.

  The high grass doesn’t slow us, and neither do the bogs. We soon find our rhythm. It’s perfect. Swish-swish-swish — our legs are used to the easy stride of quiet walking.

  We can go on for miles.

  And we do.

  Joe stays silent. We take another craggy hill before he begins to slow, aiming for the spot we like best, which is just up ahead.

  He stops at our clearing, and my heartbeat throbs in my temples.

  We’d first watched a sunset together here so long ago, not far from our secret cabin closer to the river. I was so broken, destroyed, even a year after my time in captivity, and Joe had been patiently willing me to feel safe with him. When the darkness had moved across the desert like a living thing, the orange falling away to deep blue, then purple, and last to blackness, I’d realized nothing was prettier in this world than a sun setting behind the sand. Nothing in the way to stop it as it paints the sky every color, and once upon a time, I’ll bet it was just perfect.

  “What is it?” I ask as Joe shades his eyes.

  “I’m not sure.”

  We jog down the hill and into the shady spot at the base.

  He’d seen all of this from up there?

  Blood stains the dirt, the bit of brittle grass, and it’s smeared on one side of this tree.

  “A deer?” I ask.

  “Cutter,” he says, eyes turned down. He touches the trunk near the streak of red, then the ground. “This is the way he came.”

  I try not to think about poor Cutter holding his throat together while rushing through here, hoping like hell he’d make it to Ironwood before he was finished off.

  I point next to a plant. “Is that — ?”

  “A small, bare footprint.”

  “So, it was a zombie,” I say, but neither of us believe it.

  We walk on, trying to find Cutter’s path through the trees, but we quickly lose the trail.

  When we stop for a break, I drink from my canteen and avoid Joe’s eyes. They’ve been on me most of the time.

  “You can’t, Joe. We can’t. Not anymore.”

  He hands back my canteen and wipes his grimacing mouth. “I know.”

  Joe married when he thought he and Sara were the only two in Ironwood who could. A year had gone by after I arrived, and I’d grown up — grown back together since being abused — and I hated that he couldn’t be mine.

  Temptation said we could make it work. But dark promises rot a person to the core, and for Joseph Windsor, I was sorely rotten.

  Joe nods to himself, then walks on.

  They thought perhaps the baby would make it better. But really, it’s worse. Sara’s not interested in Joe as it is, and giving her a baby, keeping her busy as a new mother (one of the few here who dared to bring a child along), she’d pulled away even more. She had what she wanted — a child — and she merely held on to Joe so no one else could have him. Although she hadn’t “had” him since they’d made their son, Kent.

  I think Sara despises every part of Joe that made him, him.

  And I think Joe despises himself for not being able to make her happy.

  I know I despise them both for pulling me into it.

  I peek over as we search for more clues. With dark hair swept to the side under his hat, Joe’s form and good looks are wasted in a loveless marriage. He’s a brave and good man. But he’s someone else’s man.

  “Kiss me, Dallas.”

  “What?”

  “Come see this,” he says, frowning at me.

  I shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts, and crouch alongside him.

  It’s the spot Cutter had fought for his life.

  -9-

  A man sits across from me, face dripping, smock tight to his large frame. His features are moving too fast to keep up. Thomas, he’d said. Tommy to some, he’d amended. From the moment I woke up, he’d gone from shock, to laughter, to pity. Pity’s the most reasonable, because I’m not sure who I am.

  Where there should be recollection, nothing but emptiness greets me — a black, glassy lake of dark ink where memories should be. Some things are hazy. Others? … gone.

  “I don’t know who I am.”

  I keep saying this, and Thomas has grown quiet. Repeating the words makes everything sort of swirl, when something slices through me — panic, and another, worse feeling: loss.

  I’ve lost something, though I’m not sure what it is. Maybe it’s not even an “it,” but a who.

  “That happens with trauma sometimes,” Thomas offers, rubbing his neck in discomfort. “It’ll come back.”

  He doesn’t sound sure at all.

  “Do I know you?”

  Of course not. He’d asked me my name.

  Thomas cuts me side glances like I’ve suddenly sprouted another head. “No. But … well, no. You’ve, um …” He looks confused by what he should say. “You’ve been asleep for a year.”

  “Whuh — what?”

  “In a coma. Nearly a year. Unless you were asleep before you came. But as far as I know, almost a year.”

  My breath wheezes in and out, before my vision starts to shrink.

  “Don’t faint,” he says.

  Yeah, that’s helpful. The world spins, tilts, and I lean with it, trying to compensate, hands cupped to my face as if to keep rooted to my thoughts.

  His worried brown eyes are the last thing I see as my particles scatter into darkness.

  “Hey!” the warm voice calls. “Wake up.”

  Water splashes my face, and I spit it back out, sputtering.
“I’m awake! Get back, damn you!”

  A choked laugh comes in reply while I wipe my eyes.

  My breath grows ragged, and whenever my brain cracks off in a direction, it trots back empty handed, like a dog without a ball.

  “I don’t … remember… anything. How can that be?”

  Thomas grunts, moving to sit beside me. “It can’t all be gone. The end of the world?”

  Visions of chaos. “Okay, yes. Vaguely.”

  “Do you remember where you were before now? Anything come to mind?”

  My spirits lift. “A city, everything in grey.”

  “Anthem.”

  The name means nothing.

  “It’s the last standing city. Remember I mentioned the Authority? They control it, and up until recently, us too. Do you remember the zombies?” he asks.

  “Zombies …?”

  “Yeesh. That’s going to make things tough.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Texas. Galveston. Actually, we’ve been pushed back into Houston with the new shoreline. Do you remember Texas?”

  I frown at him in consternation.

  “Hey, I’m just asking.”

  “Of course, I remember Texas.” And I flip a hand like it’s perfectly normal to remember a state but not your name.

  He gives me that sidelong look again. Must be his go-to for all things peculiar, and I am peculiar to him, indeed.

  “Oh, sure,” he says, overdoing the sarcasm, like all westerners do, “you remember Texas, but the end of the world …”

  “Don’t be rude.”

  That makes him smile brilliantly.

  “Definitely British or your parents were … are. All so uptight.”

  “My parents …”

  Darkness grows.

  “Hey, look,” he says, “I’ve got to go back for some things.”

  “Things?”

  “Weapons, food …”

  “Weapons?”

  Thomas curses, shakes his head. “Just wait here, okay?”

  He wades in, and only then does it strike me: if something happens to him, I’ll be completely alone. I won’t have anyone to help me fight the zombies.

  “Be careful!” I call out.

  He waves at me from the breakers, then glides off.

  His strokes are sure, neat, without splash. For a big guy, he’s quite graceful.

  Thomas makes it to the boat in record time and disappears alongside it.

  Seems like forever before he swims back out, tugging a case behind him.

  But it’s slow-going, and he only makes it halfway back before I spot a huge fin in the distance, slicing through the water in a beeline for Thomas.

  Cupping my hands around my mouth, I yell, “Behind you!”

  He can’t hear me. His heads just below the surface to put the brunt of his strength behind towing the floating case.

  The fin picks up speed, still headed in his direction.

  I sprint for the water. After a few long strides, I dive in headfirst, and my arms begin their motion.

  I’m stroking perfectly, almost as Thomas had seemed to … at first.

  Then a wave catches me just right, and in an instant, the strength I need to keep swimming is beyond me — my body, that’s been asleep for so long, turns into a noodle.

  A wave curls and breaks early, landing atop my head, pushing me under, and I don’t come up for a good while, but when I do, I’m sputtering and panic-stricken, having swallowed water.

  Suction drags me down, and in the depths, I see my fate: drowning, and not even knowing what I should fight for.

  Something seizes hold of my arm.

  “Here!” a deep voice yells when my head breaks the surface.

  I grab the side of Thomas’s case.

  “You all right?” he asks, blinking at me in surprise.

  I cough. “There’s … something … in … the water.”

  Thomas shakes the wet hair back out of his eyes. “Then let’s swim faster, yeah? Try not to drown.”

  I nod, and we both work together to pull the case toward the shore, with me mostly being towed.

  When we get there, he yanks up the box like it weighs nothing. “Food,” he says, “but no weapons that I could see. Found their map, though. You okay?”

  I nod, still coughing. “What happened to them?”

  He doesn’t look convinced. “My guess is zombies. They were bit or something, and then walked off the boat by accident, probably through that loading area with no railing. We missed that party, being down below, then the ship wound up here. Wasn’t their goal. They were set for Anthem.”

  “The city. Where I’m from. Where you think I’m from.”

  “You said everything was grey, and that’s all we heard about back with the Underground while I was in training, that the Authority doesn’t allow color. But you’re not exactly ‘from’ there I don’t think.” Thomas looks away. “Anyway, it’s over in Florida — well, where Florida used to be.” He motions in a direction. “A day’s drive that way, and you’ll find millions of people, all walled in.” He pops the top off the case, and inside are packages. “MREs.”

  Little pouches of food, with labels for each. Spaghetti. Meatloaf.

  Once I’m sitting down, dumbfounded, he adds, “It’s food that’s been sealed air tight. Lasts longer, and we can travel more easily with them.”

  I’d deduced that part, myself. What’s overcome me has nothing to do with how they’ve managed to cram a meal into a tiny pouch. It’s a gripping, insane hunger that leaps forward at the thought of a meal. He’d pulled out the pouches, and when I pictured eating — something, anything — an intense rush struck me. I snatch up the one marked “meatloaf,” rip it open, and tear out its contents with my teeth, while Thomas pauses from stuffing them into his backpack to watch.

  “I’m … just so hungry.”

  He nods slowly as I tear through another and suck the contents out in record time.

  “Hey,” he says, laying a giant hand over mine, only to snatch it back.

  The urge to push him away and keep on eating is so intense, but I snap out of it, surprised by my reaction.

  Finally content I’ve stopped gorging through our entire food supply, Thomas lays out the map in the wet sand, with one eye on me in the process.

  After scrutinizing it for several minutes, he frowns. “Look right here. LA’s circled. And here, it’s the UG’s insignia. They … wow, that’s crazy.” He rubs a crease in his forehead. “They must have set up camp there, after we lost. It was a while ago so maybe they won it back and they’ve been sitting right there on the West Coast.”

  “Who’s in Los Angeles? And what’s the UG?”

  His sidelong glance is thoughtful, then he tells me what seems like the short version, which also feels as though it’s the one he wants me to hear. “Scientists and the Army joined up to create special soldiers. They tried taking back Anthem, but failed. I was with them a year ago, in a battle, that’s when I became a prisoner same as you were, and the mission hadn’t even gotten so much as a foothold on the West Coast. There was nothing there, but it’s circled on this map, as if that’s changed.”

  “Is this where we’ll go?”

  “Yes. It’s as good a plan as any. Anthem means imprisonment again. We go west and as far away from the Authority as possible. Do you remember the area?”

  “Hollywood. Yes.”

  “That’s pretty good.”

  “I’m not completely disabled.”

  “Hey” — he points at me — “don’t get snippy. How am I supposed to know how far the damage is?”

  I cross my arms, and he shrugs.

  We pack as much food as we can muster into the backpacks he found, and I hesitate when I get ahold of more MREs. Anything with meat in it makes my stomach growl. Behind me, he puts on other clothes while I watch the waves, where I see the fin once again before it disappears beneath the green.

  The sight of it makes me sigh. Zombies, sharks — it a
ll sends my head into a spin. I’ve woken up into a world full of teeth.

  Thomas shoulders his pack, and I do the same before we set off.

  “Are we going to walk the entire way?” I ask.

  “If we have to,” Thomas says. “We’d better get off this beach, though.” His demeanor’s changed in an instant. “Out of sight.”

  His head’s on a swivel, as if he’s realized he should have been on guard all along.

  “Why?” I ask.

  He rises, eyes panning. “I’ll have to update you on the war later.”

  “War?”

  When standing, Thomas towers at an impressive height, enough to block out the orange sky above me. I blink up at him, then at the sky behind, and frown. It’s not supposed to look that way. Framing my escort — giant — are the heavens afire.

  “War …” I say again.

  “Gods almighty, girl,” he says, not realizing my shock, “you’re like a parrot. And if you ask what that is, I’ll lose my mind. We need to get inside before it rains.”

  He walks off, leaving me.

  I know what parrots are. Idiot.

  I’m stranded with an idiot. Then it dawns on me: he must feel the same.

  -10-

  Thomas finds a dilapidated trailer on stilts sitting in knee-deep water not far from my last, and longest, resting point. A poor choice, he seems to think, but he reluctantly works his way toward it, because with my wobbly gait, I’m too much of a burden.

  We slosh through the algae-filled water, then climb the stairs. This time he holds my hand because the wood’s barely there and it gives under his weight, splintering, but miraculously holds.

  On the last step, we both let go.

  Thomas checks out the place, then comes back and nods that it’s safe to follow. Rain begins as we enter the rickety house. “How did you know it was going to rain?” I ask.

  He shrugs. In here, he has to hunch slightly. “I lived on a farm and we watched the sky to see the signs. Ripped up like it is, the orange tends to darken when it’s turning, and the air takes on a smell.”

  The rain picks up with a suddenness, beating at the metal sides and rendering conversation pointless. While Thomas searches through the rooms, I sit down to rub my legs, which tingle with a painful needling.