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I don’t have to wait long for the silent, silver electric car to come rolling by at a ridiculously slow speed. Most roads are cracked, sprouting weeds and grass or filled with stripped out cars and debris, but there’s a trail cleared that winds through the area. It’s something some of the gangs have done or maybe the Colonists did it? I’m not sure. Either way, areas on this trail are the marketplace for the crews who are willing to barter with one another. The morning after a new moon you can find them gathering at random locations along this road to trade goods and act like morons together. I’ve obviously never attended but I’ve watched from the roof before and, if I’m being honest, I’ve watched with a little envy. Most of the Lost Boys get along, laughing and shouting together. Like friends.
But now the roads are empty and silent, barely a sound coming from the ridiculously small, shiny car gliding through this derelict world. It doesn’t belong here. They don’t belong here. The sight of a car, something that was once so common place and now so nauseatingly strange, sends chills down my spine. I feel cold sweat break out over my clammy skin and I remind myself to breath evenly.
They can’t hear me. They can’t see me. They don’t know I’m here. They will not take me.
I try to tell myself to calm down. I doubt they’re doing a roundup right now, not without their vans with the doors that lock from the outside. It’s not really a good time anyway, not for anybody. All of us in the wild, those with any sense at least, are holed up in our homes waiting to see just how bad this latest outbreak is going to get. If any sense of responsibility still existed in the world, the Colonists would be out here to kill these things off once and for all. Clean up their mess. But there isn’t and that’s not why they’re here. They’re here to make a point. To let us know that not all of them have fallen, not everyone in their golden city is infected. To warn us not to come looting.
You better believe that if they ever did fail entirely those of us in the wild would descend upon their stocks like vultures. I dream about it at night when I’m not having nightmares about crawlers eating my legs. I don’t wish them ill, I’m not hoping they all die, I just want to take their stuff. Is that bad? I don’t even know anymore. This type of moral questioning wasn’t covered in The Breakfast Club. I fear the structure of my upbringing is noticeably lacking.
***
The next week is a bear. My life, already more than a little stressful, gets way worse. The biggest, most notable source of my anxiety is the fact that I haven’t moved. I can’t. The zombie threat is back and bigger than it has been in years leaving me thinking that the numbers Ryan’s friend quoted were conservative. There are definitely more than fifty dead bloating the ranks out there. In the middle of the night I can hear the groaning outside breaking the silence I hadn’t realized I’d grown accustomed to. This is the old days, the early days. The bad days.
My other problem is the Colonists. They’re everywhere. The trucks and vans are out patrolling the streets and blaring over the loudspeakers again, something they haven’t done in a long time. They play up the threat of the dead, telling us the only place to be safe from this latest outbreak is in their compounds. Are we idiots out here? They must think so, because we all know where the fresh dead came from and the idea that we’d be safer where the infection found footing again is laughable. It’s also infuriating.
“Fuck you!”
I freeze, shocked by the unfamiliar sound of human life outside my windows. I can feel pins and needles prickling under my skin as I run to the window, sticking to the shadows cast by the late afternoon sun. From this height I can see the street a block over, looking down over the lower buildings to the east. The Colonist trucks are there. Three of them.
I watch as Lost Boys run at the vehicles, weapons raised. There are at least ten of them, a decent gathering, but I worry. Word is, if Crenshaw’s sources are good, that the Colonists still have guns, though I’ve never seen or heard them used. The Lost Boys attack, swinging weapons that look long, dark and deadly. I hear indiscernible shouts, words lost in the wind or the distance. Or in rage. Maybe they never meant anything other than anger.
The Colonists are spilling out of the vehicles to defend themselves and I wonder if they have anyone locked inside. They collide with the gang and the shouts intensify. The clang of metal against metal, screams of pain and more curses carry over otherwise silent streets and up to my fractured window. I watch carefully, trying to make out the shape of the men. The color of their hair. I’m holding the softened, rotted wood of the window frame with white knuckles and I’m wondering, worrying, if Ryan is with them.
There’s a flash of orange light. Fire. The Lost Boys have lit a torch. Or I think it’s a torch until it flies through the air and lands at the rear tire of the trail vehicle. It explodes into an inferno, crawling up the side of the van like a spider, spi
The fire is coming for it. It consumes everything, devouring the van and burning brightly over nearly the entire surface. The Colonists pile into their remaining two vehicles and quickly pull away, leaving the fallen van to burn itself out. Within the space of three minutes the confrontation is over. The only signs it ever took place are fire and red grass, both of which are burning away, flaming out. They leave behind only a pillar of dark smoke in the sky and a black stain on the ground. And I wonder again, as I watch it all burn, if they had anyone locked inside.
Chapter Eight
The fight has me freaked. I wait it out another two days after that but eventually I absolutely have to leave the building for more food and water. It hasn’t rained in days and my emergency bucket is dry. I’m also a little worried about Crenshaw being down at ground level with all of this going on. He’s much more at risk than I am and I know I need to make a kill or go fishing in the bay and bring him some meat soon because he won’t do it himself.
Gathering an empty jug for water, my knife and ASP, I curse myself for never learning to use a bow and arrow. It’d be nice to shoot a meal instead of chasing it down, tackling it and slitting its throat. Have you ever chased a wild rabbit? How ‘bout a squirrel? No, you haven’t because it’s exhausting and nearly futile. But it’s also necessary. I’ve been trapped in this apartment with nothing but carrots, potatoes and tomatoes for over a week and I’m not a vegetarian. Not at heart.
When I step outside into the unseasonably warm winter sun, my hands are slick with sweat. I’m nervous. This is dangerous, more so than it has been for years and I wonder if I’ve still got the skills to survive this world. What if I’ve gone soft? What if I can’t handle as many dead as I used to? How fast can I run these days?
My thoughts and doubts are stopped in their tracks along with my feet when I round the corner. I’m shocked. Stu
There across the street on the side of a building just a block and a half from my home is writing on a wall.
Welcome to the new age.
My shoulders fall, relief coursing through me. Surprising me. It’s Ryan, it has to be. Who else would know those lyrics? I wonder if he knows I didn’t move or if it was wishful thinking. A shot in the dark to see if he gets a reaction. To see if I forgive him and trust him enough to stay. I didn’t think I knew the answer to either of those questions, but the fact that I’m still here is answer enough. It’d be dangerous for me to move right now with the rise in the number of dead and the Colonists out going door to door like they’re selling religion, but it’d still be possible. It’d suck, but if I really felt threatened, I’d have done it. But I haven’t.