Page 67

I kept digging, right up until Eden returned with the sticks for the fire. Nova tied down the mule close by, under the branches, and she covered him with a blanket.

The snow came down fast and heavy, and I couldn’t believe how quickly it was accumulating on the ground. Eden got the fire started, and the wolves began howling and barking nearby.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“They found something.” Nova hurriedly made a torch with a stick, a rag, and fire, and she grabbed her bow and arrows. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Eden was crouched in the shelter, feeding the fire, but I stood outside, watching Nova disappear into the swirling snow.

The wolves suddenly stopped barking, but I couldn’t see the light from Nova’s torch. For a moment, there was nothing but the wind howling through the trees, and then there was a loud cracking of branches.

“Remy!” Nova called. “Bring me my knife.”

I grabbed her hunting knife from her bag, and I made my own torch and raced into the dark forest, following her footsteps that were already disappearing in the fresh snow.

Finally, I saw her light, and I found her crouched by the body of a black bear.

“The wolfdogs treed him, so I shot him,” Nova said as I handed her the knife.

“I thought you said that the hunt didn’t matter,” I said.

“We can really use the hide,” she explained as she stabbed into the bear’s chest to start slicing him down the middle. “We’re caught up in a freak snowstorm, and we need all the shelter we can get because we’re ten miles from home.”

The wolves started growling, staring out in the forest and the blinding snow. I worried there might be another bear until I heard the familiar death groan of a zombie, and it was alarmingly close.

I held my torch out and stood behind the wolves, blinking back the snowflakes, when something finally came into the light.

It was a young boy, no older than six or seven. He was looking right at me, like he could actually see me, but he had the ashy green skin of a zombie.

39

Stella

The baby had been content and sleeping because the baby was full. For almost a full week now, since Minnie arrived, the house had been quiet, and everyone had seemed happier. Except for Remy and Ripley, but neither of them had been happy since we got to Emberwood. They didn’t like being leashed or caged.

Sometimes I was happy, and sometimes I was numb, but always, always,always, I was hungry.

I had been hoping that now that my body wasn’t the sole source of food for Rafaella that my appetite would go down as demand decreased. But that wasn’t the case. If anything, I felt hungrier than ever before.

Every day, I ate as much as I could. Every person was rationed in communal living. But at night, when everyone in the house was asleep, I’d started sneaking into the pantry to eat anything could get my hands on.

At first, it had only been half a jar of cloudberry preserves or leftover dinner rolls Serg brought home from the cafeteria. But as my options decreased, my desperation only grew. Raw potatoes, a yellow onion, breadcrumbs, and a full mason jar’s worth of tomato sauce were all things I consumed as frantic midnight snacks.

The morning after I had eaten the whole onion, I had heard the others whispering in the loft about it. Remy, Boden, and Serg had a secret discussion abouthow I was eating anything I could get my hands on. The solution seemed obvious to Remy, who told Serg to bring home more food from the cafeteria. Boden recommended everyone stop keeping anything in the house that they didn’t want me to eat or that might not be healthy for humans to consume in large quantities.

None of them talked to me about it directly, and I pretended that I never heard them. It was not a conversation I wanted to have, especially because there was nothing to be done. I couldn’t stop the hunger, and the scraps of food I did manage to find never satiated it.

I craved meat, thick hunks of elk or deer. Something red and juicy, as close to fresh as I could get it. Serg refused to serve me rare meat the way I wanted, because he insisted that wild game was too full of parasites to risk undercooking.

Last night, when Remy told us that she was leaving on another hunt, my first feeling had been jealousy, because she’d be eating her fresh kills around the campfire.

But I had to stay back with the baby, in a house where everyone was content and full except for me.

Sleep had been plentiful as of late, but it wasn’t very restful. Every time I closed my eyes and let sleep overtake me, I dreamed of the voices.

Nightmares about zombies were nothing new. I had been having them for as long as I could remember. Gnashing teeth, hungry hands, and the scent of death and decay.

These recent dreams were different. There were no images, only sounds. Clear and vivid, even if they were only death groans and other zombie noises. Garbled breathing, grunts, moans, and their haunting howls.