Page 4
Renee tiptoed into the city. Her hands shook as she tried to hone in on any sounds, but she only had one good ear because her right cochlear implant was gone, lost to an undead weeks ago. She understood why she had been one of the first sent into the city. Although she’d been traveling for a few months with this group, they didn’t seem to like her. Most people didn’t. Mark wasn’t the only one who tolerated her.
She was annoying and immature, but she didn’t know how to necessarily grow up. Her best guess was that the trauma of the world ending when she was in high school had frozen her into a perpetual teenager, which in an apocalypse wasn’t ideal. Only a few people were okay with her being friendly and perhaps clingy. Even though she herself wasn’t fond of clingy people, she couldn’t help it. When she was sixteen, she had just started to be more independent, but then everything turned into a nightmare and she’d reverted to seeking approval from those around her.
It’s just like you practiced, don’t just listen, Renny - watch what’s around you. Pay attention to the scents you pick up when the wind blows. That’s what will keep you safe.
The corners of her mouth tilted up. Even dead and nothing more than a ghost in her mind, her brother was the absolute best. He always looked out for her. Before getting distracted, she swallowed the lump in her throat and sniffed the air.
The stench of rot wasn’t far away. She took light steps in the opposite direction of the smell. It might not be the zombies. Any time humans came within miles of a city, the awful scent of death wafted out, even if it wasn’t filled with the undead. Decaying bodies and organic matter were never pleasant smells.
She’d been sent in to find medicines again. Oddly, it was one of the few things she excelled at. Not scavenging per se, but when she searched for items, more often than not, she would find over-the-counter or prescription medicines that helped those around her. She figured it was because she had to keep looking for batteries for her cochlear implants, which were stocked in most pharmacies.
I don’t feel good about this, Liam. It hasn’t felt good since we got close to Baltimore. Something’s off, even if the massive zombie group isn’t here, she told him in her mind as the memory of blackness with tiny dots of light surfaced.
I think you’re just worried about Mark, Liam commented.
Renee paused and scanned the empty street in front of her. There were tons of discarded objects and cars, but no signs of life.
He’s a jerk and shouldn’t be in charge. He acts so superior to everyone because he was in the military. Who cares about that anymore? Iris was a police officer and just as capable. She’s smarter too, Renee grumbled.
You can’t keep stirring up trouble when you find a group. It’s too dangerous to travel alone. Liam chastised.
I know. I know. But he’s been shitty to me since I first showed up. He said I was a liability because I lost my right implant. I feel like he’s been trying to get rid of me since I joined the group. Renee kept the whine from her tone.
She crept into an abandoned pharmacy and discovered it was like the others. Anything of value was already picked clean, but… she rounded the open door to the pharmacy area where workers would have been. The door being ajar wasn’t a great sign, but every once in a while, she’d find something. Bingo!
She snatched the two bottles that had rolled under the cart and read the labels. One was hydrocodone, which would thrill her group, and the other was omeprazole. That wouldn’t make as big of an impression. Renee wasn’t even sure what omeprazole was or what it did. She only knew about hydrocodone because they’d told her specifically to look for it as well as antibiotics.
Her spine tingled as she stuffed the bottles into her pockets, eyes darting around to catch any movement in the empty building. She took rapid breaths and flexed her hands to get them to stop shaking.
Everything was fine.
She refused to lose it again and drop into a fetal position. If her group caught her one more time like that, she’d be out and she knew it. Damn it! Why was the world like this now? Inhaling a long breath, she forced it out slowly before repeating the breathing exercise ten times.
“I wish you were here. I hate this,” Renee whispered out loud to Liam. She shuffled to the door and leaned against the wall, tilting her head to stare at the off-white ceiling tiles. Her old high school had those same tiles. She’d stared at them in class the day the zombies rose up.
High school had been hard for her. While she managed to make a few friends, they weren’t in many of her classes, and she got picked on a lot. She’d hidden in her books, like she had been since middle school. Only her books were so much better in high school. She’d discovered a whole genre that seemed like it had been penned only for her. Filled with mystical creatures from another realm, magic, and the most romantic relationships that couldn’t happen in reality.
It was ridiculous how many book boyfriends she mentally cataloged and also quite sad how many actual boyfriends she had during her teenage years. Zero. Right before the beginning of the end, her male friend Blake had given her the third book in the series she’d been reading when the zombies first appeared. She was ecstatic about the series but unsure why he gifted the book to her until Rebecca and Carla, her only other friends, explained it was because Blake had a crush on her. She frowned. If the zombies hadn’t ruined everything, she might have finally had a real boyfriend.
It’s been over seven years. You need to let go of that. Liam reminded her.
Her brother sounded as though he was right next to her. Tempted to turn her head and give him the stink eye, she refrained, knowing if she tried to look at him, he would not be there. Being alone was scarier than having your ghost brother haunting your mind.
Sorry I’m not wise and mature like you are, she snapped.
That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it. You can’t be a good queen, a good ruler, if you’re always looking backwards, Renny.
She pressed her lips into a line. For a moment, she considered bickering with him, but the nagging sensation that someone was watching her made the hair on her arms stand up.
I like to think about my books, the stories, the happily ever afters of the characters. It’s better than this crap.
She crept out of the back and into the main area of the store, checking the shelves for any first aid supplies, food, batteries, and any other useful items. What she really wanted to do was find a bookstore to see if she could find the series, she left off reading when the apocalypse began. Books were easy, yet simultaneously difficult to come by. The ones found with little effort were ruined because they were in the outside elements too long. The rain or sun would destroy them over time. The pristine copies tended to be behind locked doors, often with their former owners, now zombies.
Renee had found a couple books in series she thought she would enjoy, never the first one. It was always the second or third in a series, but she considered them precious cargo. Her expression soured. Precious cargo that she no longer had.
Never sure why her peers didn’t like her, the trend continued, even when the world ended. Maybe she had a resting bitch face like her mother. Something scraped against the front windows. Renee ducked behind one of the shelves. Her lips and knees trembled. She reminded herself it could have just been the wind blowing garbage around. No stench floated in from the broken glass door.
Still, she couldn’t be too careful as she tiptoed to the back door and put her good ear against it. Nothing. he wouldn’t be able to hear anything through the steel door, but she pressed herself against it as if the door would give her some measure of safety. Feeling deflated, Renee had found items her group wanted, but there wasn’t anything she wanted or needed, like her cochlear implant batteries.
With a deep breath, she turned the handle of the steel door and eased it open to the back alleyway and peeked out. Relief made her stiff shoulders drop. She wiggled through the opening and pressed herself against the brick wall behind the building. A crease formed between her brows as her eyes darted around. She rested her palms against her filthy jeans and took a shallow breath. Renee was always filled with nerve-racking anxiety in a city, even more so if she was alone.
In between groups, there were times when she traveled alone and it was terrible. As much as she might not like how most people behaved, it was always smarter to be with a group since they were almost as violent as the zombies. Being in a group meant more people to attack the undead, or other human groups bent on taking their supplies. She could barely sleep if she was by herself. Over the years people talked about going into the countryside as it had fewer zombies, but she’d always lived on a golf course in Timonium and didn’t have a clue how to make it in a rural area. And unlike most of the people in her high school who had life skills, she had none.
Renee’s mother always treated her like she was stupid and could never manage on
her own as an adult due to her lack of hearing. Each time Renee attempted to learn a skill, her mother would sweep in and tell her she wouldn’t need to know it. Then her mother would complain about what a burden Renee had been since she was born. She’d been deaf before her implants, not incapable of learning.
Renny… you need to get moving . Her brother’s voice said next to her good ear.
Do you feel it too? Like something’s out there. Over the years, all humans had adopted an almost sixth sense for danger because if they didn’t, they were killed. A gentle breeze carried a light citrus scent down the alleyway. It was the most pleasant scent she’d encountered since entering the city. It was like a siren’s call, because what could smell so good?
Her feet carried her in the direction of the smell as she kept her eyes peeled for any movement. As she rounded the corner, she stopped dead in her tracks. Across the street, in another alley beside a four-story building, obscured by the shadow of it, was a man clad in black. He had long, dark hair and a proud stance that suggested he was someone who held some sort of authority.
Perhaps there was another group of humans in the city besides the one she was with given she did not recognize the man in the alley? Her stomach twisted. Most times when she met another human group, it was tense with an air of violence threatening to combust with the smallest spark of discord. Everyone always wanted what someone else had, and no one wanted to share.
Still, she gravitated toward the man in the shadows. He reminded her of someone… she couldn’t put her finger on what was niggling at her, why he felt familiar. He couldn’t be someone she met since the world had gone to hell, but maybe he was from before. Perhaps she’d gone to school with him? Passed him in a store?
As if he sensed her, he turned his head almost pulling his face from the obscurity of the darkness. His face was still shadowed but she couldn’t help but spot his sharp cheekbones. She froze at the intersection between the buildings, almost outside of the alley. Her heart raced as the heat left her face. Her sense of danger was setting off alarm bells in her mind. She didn’t know why, but the unfamiliar, familiar man was a threat. Renee turned on her heel and took off, racing back in the direction she’d come.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4 (Reading here)
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40