Fort Dead Read online

  I flash back to a time before the apocalypse. I sat in the high school bleachers with my parents, watching Tom charge the long jump pit. Of course, Tom was an all-star track athlete, too.

  He charged the sandy pit as if his life depended on it. That was how Tom did everything. Full speed.

  I’d never once cried for my bother since the apocalypse hit. I wonder if I should have. But how can I cry if I don’t even know if he’s alive or dead? If my loser ass is alive, Tom must be alive, too. Hell, he’s probably rallied the survivors of Cal Poly into a functioning feudal society with proper hygiene. That would be the sort of thing Tom would do.

  Has he cried for me? He probably thinks I’m long gone, his loser of a little brother lost in the first wave that devastated most of the country.

  I back away from the gap. I’m not sure if it’s so I can get a running head start, or if it’s so I can run away from the bridge altogether.

  Except the pack of zombies is heading straight for me. Even if I can get around them, fire is eating its way through Braggs. And all my friends are on the other side of the Noya River.

  Quit playing small. Tom’s voice scrolls in my head. Make the leap, little brother.

  I don’t recall Tom ever calling me little brother. Ever. But his voice is clear in my head. So clear it’s like he’s standing next to me. Which isn’t possible, because Tom is kicking ass down at Cal Poly University. While his lame little brother is trying to figure out if he has a better chance against a wildfire and zombies, or whether he can survive a death-defying leap over the water.

  Don’t be a loser, Eric. This time, it’s Lila’s voice I hear. She loved calling me that. She would say it if I brought dinner to her room or if I got mad at the Xbox.

  But she’d say it when I was being a wuss, too. She called me on my shit. Like the week I peed in old water bottles because I was too scared to help anyone haul water from the creek to fill up the toilet bowl.

  Don’t be a loser, Eric.

  Quit playing small, little brother.

  I take one more terrified look over my shoulder at the zombies and the raging fire that storms through the small coastal town of Braggs.

  “Eric!” Kate screams. “Eric, jump!”

  I turn toward the gap, and I run.

  I don’t see the crushed Coke can until it’s too late. My shoe hits it at just the wrong angle as I jump.

  The metal can slips sideways out from under my foot.

  15

  Precipice

  KATE

  When Eric’s foot slips sideways, I know he’s in trouble.

  My heart seizes as he jumps. The fire that chews through Braggs casts a halo around Eric’s form. His arms windmill. His legs churn on empty air, as if an invisible walkway spans the nothingness beneath his feet.

  “Shit, he’s not going to make it.”

  Ben’s words crash over me. As soon as he releases the words, I know it’s true. Eric’s trajectory is too short. He’s going to miss the edge.

  He’s going to fall into the Noya River and die.

  “Eric!” I lunge, arms outstretched, even though there’s no mathematically possible way for me to catch him.

  Ben hurls himself forward, running for the chasm. He slings off the giant backpack of weapons he’s been carrying since we left the pink house. He hurls the pack into the open space, bellowing Eric’s name.

  My first thought is nonsensical. How can a backpack full of weapons save Eric from a two-hundred-foot drop in the river? Does Ben intend for him to use it as a raft? As a cushion to blunt his plummet?

  His intent unfurls before me in slow motion. The pack snaps out, floating in empty air for several seconds. Ben’s fist closes around one strap, knuckles white in the ever-growing firelight.

  “Grab it!” he roars.

  Eric’s body drops, swooshing down through the air. He collides with the large backpack, wrapping his body around it like a monkey.

  The force of his collision yanks Ben to the ground. Eric disappears from sight, eyes wide behind the lenses of his glasses as gravity sucks him downward. The last thing I see are his limbs wrapped around the backpack as he holds on for dear life.

  Ben smacks to the ground with the grunt. His body slides across gravel and debris and he’s pulled toward the edge by Eric’s weight.

  I throw myself on the ground, wrapping myself around one of his legs. “Ben!” Panic surges into my throat. Fear of losing two people I love hammers at me. “Eric!”

  Caleb throws himself on Ben’s other leg, the two of us wrestling with his limbs like they’re giant anacondas. His body slides another foot, then grinds to a halt.

  “Do you have him?” I cry.

  “I’ve got him.” Ben’s torso is half swallowed by the gap. “Pull us up!”

  I grapple with his leg, winding my fists into the fabric. I struggle into a sitting position, but as soon as I shift his body slides forward another few inches.

  Ash and Reed materialize. Reed takes hold of Ben’s belt. Ash latches onto the back of his shirt. With Reed and Ash anchoring Ben’s body, Caleb and I scramble to our feet and join them. Together, the four of us pull them up.

  Ben’s shoulders and head appear, dragged up from the abyss. His knuckles haven’t slackened on the strap of the backpack.

  A third hand appears, latching onto the side of the broken pavement. I break away and rush toward Eric. I snatch his wrist and pull, leaning back and throwing all my weight into a counterbalance. Reed grabs me around the waist to help.

  Eric’s body rolls across the ground. The backpack tumbles free of his grasp. He flops onto the pavement, sucking in deep, terrified gasps.

  “Eric!” I fling myself at him, attempting to lift him up into a hug. He’s bigger than I am, but I try anyway.

  Reed joins me. Between the two of us, we manage to haul him to his feet. We cluster in a tight embrace. Tears make my cheeks wet.

  “I thought we’d lost you.” I dig my fingers into Eric’s shoulder. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  Breath saws in and out of his throat. The lenses of his glasses are foggy from the smoke, but I can still see the whites of his eyes.

  “Shit,” he whispers. “That was close. Good thing I’m not fat anymore.”

  Reed squeezes both of us. “For a few seconds there, I thought I was going to lose a brother. You scared the shit out of me, dude. Johnny and Carter would kick my ass if I came home without you.”

  We all laugh, the sound tinged with the residual panic that clings to us.

  “I’m getting too old for this shit,” someone grumbles behind me. “Next time, some other shithead gets to risk his ribcage with my dumb-shit maneuver.”

  I break away from Eric and Reed, whirling around to face Ben. The front of his shirt is ripped. The side of his cheek is abraded from the concrete. But he, too, is gloriously intact and alive.

  This should make me happy. Ecstatic. Overwhelmed with joy.

  I feel none of those things.

  I am overtaken by a surge of anger as my mind flashes through the last sixty seconds. I could have lost Ben. He could have been stolen away from me, just like Kyle had been stolen.

  Thinking about this is like stepping through a time machine back to the day Kyle died. To the day Carter and I came home and found him dead on the front walkway of our house.

  I haven’t thought about that day since I said goodbye to Kyle on the Avenue of the Giants. It all comes rushing back to me now. I recall the way the world fell out from beneath my feet. I recall the way I had lived, directionless, for the next two years. I’d been a shell of myself.

  I stalk toward Ben and shove him. Hard. “What the fuck?” I yell. “You almost died!”

  He blinks at me, absorbing my anger with a wrinkled brow. “The kid would have died.”

  I smack him on the shoulder. When he just stares at me, I hit him again. Then I hit him a third time, just because I don’t know what else to do.

  My anger is irrational. I know this.
But I can’t turn the giant tidal wave of fear and anger crashing all around me.

  “Kate.” He tries to reach for me.

  I sidestep, turning my back on him. I can’t even look at him right now. My tumbling emotions threaten to unravel me right here on this broken bridge.

  Tears blur the edges of my vision. I swipe them away with an angry hand.

  As I do, the world south of the bridge leaps into focus for the first time. I’d been so intent on seeing everyone safely over the Noya River, I hadn’t paid any attention to what was beyond it.

  We’ve all done our share of shouting in the commotion of the last five minutes. It has not gone unnoticed. Stumbling toward us in a mass of rot are a dozen zombies. They raise their arms, moans piercing the smoky air. The light of the growing fire paints their bodies a lurid orange.

  “Get your weapons out,” I snarl, fists closing on my knives. “These fuckers are going down.” I turn a glare on my people, letting it linger on Ben longer than necessary. “And if any of you even thinks about getting bitten, I’m going to kick your ass.”

  Normally, seven against twelve isn’t great odds. Normally, I wouldn’t think of pitting us against so many.

  But today is different. Our determination is electric. I feel it gathering around our tight-knit group.

  Braggs has not been kind of us. We may have left the main part of the city, but we still have several miles of outskirts to make it through. We didn’t survive two bridges, a horde of zombies, and a fire just to die now. No fucking way.

  “She’s scary when she’s mad.”

  It takes me a second to register Ash’s voice. I ignore her, focusing on the horde that lurches in our direction. They’re thirty feet away and closing. We’re killing these assholes and getting the hell out of Braggs.

  I sense Ben’s presence just behind my left shoulder, hovering at my back. I’m so angry I can’t look at him or acknowledge his presence.

  I break into a run, charging at the undead.

  The first of them dies with my knife buried in its forehead. I yank it free, spinning around to kill the next monster that reaches for me. This one gets a zom bat to the nose.

  More of them edge in, closing around me like the petals of a carnivorous plant. I bare my teeth and slash at the next closest one.

  “Dammit, Kate.” Ben stabs one in the back of the head, flinging it aside. “Watch yourself!”

  Eric steps up on his other side, smashing the skull of a zombie in his path.

  All my people are there. Smoke from the fire swirls around us as we fight, cutting a bloody path through the undead. Within minutes, we’re surrounded by a pile of dead bodies.

  We pause, all of us panting from the small battle. I take in the scattering of small shops, restaurants, motels, and low-roofed homes that stretch before us. The road, still four lanes wide, is cluttered with abandoned cars and zombies.

  Many of the zombies make their way toward us. I don’t know if they’re drawn by the fire or if they’re attracted to the commotion we made.

  It doesn’t matter. They’re nothing but an obstacle course to overcome.

  “We move fast,” I say. “We avoid the zombies when possible. If we have to fight our way through, we fight in pairs. Eric and Ben. Ash and Caleb. Me and Reed.” I ignore the exasperated scowl Ben throws my way. “We watch one another’s back. We all get out of here alive. Understand?”

  I wait until I see everyone nod in understanding. I turn and break into a run.

  A boom rips through the air.

  Another ball of fire leaps into the sky, blooming over the south side of Braggs like a blazing mushroom.

  Shit-shit-shit. I’d been so worried about the fire on the north side of Braggs that I hadn’t paused to consider there might be fire on the south side, too.

  “Gas line?” Caleb asks.

  “More likely a gas station,” Eric replies. “This town is going to burn to the ground.”

  “Come on,” I snarl. “We have to run.”

  16

  Tennis Racket

  JESSICA

  I lay on my stomach on the bed, my mind drifting as the asshole on top of me grunts and groans.

  Instead of focusing on what’s happening to my body, I focus on my surroundings. This very bed—this twin-sized piece of foam—is the bed I shared with Shaun. We lived in this tiny trailer together for months, like we were still husband and wife; there wasn’t enough room in the fort for people not to double up, and we preferred rooming with each other rather than strangers.

  I didn’t mind. Not really. Even if we weren’t married anymore, Shaun was all I had left. I still loved him. There was something nice about laying down on the mattress with him at the end of a long day. After he left me for Richard, it was something I never thought I’d do again.

  In those rare moments of darkness, I liked to pretend we were still married. I’d take the apocalypse any day of the week if it meant I could keep Shaun.

  Pieces of Shaun remain in the room. His jacket is wadded up on the far corner of the mattress. A small Girl Scout patch he found on a scavenging run is tacked to the wooden wall. It’s a tribute to our lost daughters, who’d been on a Girl Scout camping trip when they died.

  Around the Girl Scout patch are over a dozen one-hundred-dollar bills. Shaun collected those, too. He joked that one day, when toilet paper ran out, he was going to use them to wipe his ass.

  My eyes travel to the dented tennis racket on my side of the bed. Besides my crushed soul, it’s the only thing I brought out of that Girl Scout camping trip.

  It had been covered in blood and bits of hair. Wispy, light brown hair with a hint of curls at the end. Claire and May had the perfect combination of my dark brown hair and Shaun’s curly blond.

  I feel like that tennis racket most days. I’d taken it to the campground with the intention of hitting some balls in the morning while people still slept. We’d been at one of those over-accessorized campgrounds with a swimming pool, miniature golf course, playground, bocce ball courts, and various other activities to entertain kids.

  Instead, I used it to put down my own children. To save my ex-husband who had left me for another man. I may have smashed in little Claire’s head with the racket, but it may as well have been a knife through my heart.

  I don’t know why I kept it. It’s a memento of my worst nightmare.

  It’s easy to ignore the sweating monster pounding into me when I see the tennis racket. My mind fogs over, drowning in memories that are so much worse than the ones being made today.

  My dead kids don’t know it, but in a really fucked up way, they’re saving me right now.

  I LET MY HEAD ROLL to one side as the next asshole pounds into me. In the end, it’s all simple mechanics. The only thing I have to do is not resist. Biology takes care of the rest.

  My eyes settle again on the tennis racket. It had been a gift from Shaun on our eighth wedding anniversary. A Babolat Pure Strike. I’d cherished that racket more than any other gift he’d given me.

  Three days after Shaun gave me the tennis racquet, I’d found the second cell phone he carried to stay in touch with Richard. It had been dumb misfortune to find that phone.

  Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I’d never found it. Would I have hummed along in blissful ignorance? Or would Shaun still have left me?

  Resentment surges inside me. Even after a year and a half of therapy, I hadn’t been able to find peace with my new Shaun-less reality. He’d taken away the simple joy I found in making ham and cheese sandwiches and cutting out paper gingerbread men.

  Before the apocalypse, I took out my rage on my tennis partners. Bitchy stay-at-home moms from the private school our daughters attended. Their life purpose seemed to be hunting down all the latest small-town gossip and spreading it around like smallpox.

  To be honest, I detested them. But I loved tennis more than I loathed them, so I put up with their petty shit.

  Still, their friendship wasn’t
free. I fed them just enough gossip about my divorce to keep them on the tennis court with me. Then I pounded the hell out them with my backspins and drop shots.

  So ironic that I used that same tennis racket to save Shaun.

  So terrible that I also used it to put down my zombie children.

  I close my eyes, letting the pain wash over me.

  The asshole on top of me is nothing compared to the things I’ve suffered with my tennis racket.

  17

  Truck

  KATE

  In front of us, the fire rages. The flames whoosh back and forth like banners, the crackling fabric rippling as it moves. Buildings snap, pop, and collapse as the fire devours them.

  The noise acts as zombie magnets. All around, the undead moan and make their way toward the noise. It’s so loud most of them don’t notice the desperate humans plunging down the road. Our rubber-soled shoes are mere whispers on the ground. Only our breathing is heavy and harsh, but it’s swallowed up by the destructive inferno behind us.

  The highway through the outskirts of Braggs is still four lanes wide. Despite this, our path is far from clear. Every time a zombie stumbles in front of us or draws too close, we’re forced to take it out.

  Ben jumps in front of me as two zombies step in my direction with outstretched arms. He moves fast, the knife a blur as it punches first one zombie in the head, then another. Even after how I treated him, he’s still looking out for me.

  He’s barely dispatched them when Caleb confronts another, this one a rotund man with pants that sag around his rotting middle. Caleb swings his zom bat, clocking the fat zombie in the side of the face.

  My eyes flick left, right, then left again, scanning our surroundings as we run. The highway is like a giant obstacle course. We swerve around cars and bodies. Anytime a large group of zombies appears, I lead my people in the other direction. We zigzag down the road of death, killing when we have to.

  I wish we could use the alpha zom recording. But after the near-miss in Braggs, we can’t risk it. I’ve already seen two alphas in the surrounding chaos, both of them leading large packs away from the fire. I can’t risk drawing the attention of one.