Chapter One
~Now~
I creep through the woods as though I know what I am doing. I don’t, but I am a fast learner. “Adaptable” my teacher inked at the bottom of my report card in the fourth grade. I didn’t know what that meant at the time. How could I? Everything in my life at that point had been entirely predictable. What would have made me adapt? Sharing my PB&J with Pete Moore at the lunch table when I knew he never washed his hands? These are the inane questions that I consider as I tiptoe through the shady afternoon, gun at my hip, hatchet in my hands. My eyes scan the ground for any sign of disturbance.
“I wonder what happened to Mrs. Crane?” I whisper breaking the oppressive silence.
“Who?” my mother asks. She walks so close to me she may as well have been my shadow. A clingy shadow with a limpy foot and a makeshift cane that makes too much noise.
My mother would not have been given the notation of “adaptable” on her report card. We’ve learned this the hard way.
“Mrs. Crane. My fourth grade teacher?”
My mother grunted a small acknowledgement followed by a heavy sigh. I know, I wanted to say. She’s dead. They’re all dead. But can’t we just pretend, just for a minute?
A branch snapped to our left, cracking like a shot in the late afternoon sky. We froze, heartbeats pounding in our ears and waited. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty…
There’s the answer to my question.
You can’t ever pretend. Not even for a minute.
Chapter Two
~Before~
8 Months Earlier
The second hand on the big, round clock moves slow and steady. It’s old-fashioned. The kind found in schools before most were replaced with digital, glowing red numbers. They must have kept it here to increase the pressure.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The sound reminds me of each passing second before I have to turn in my final exam. The room is so quiet, except for the occasional rubbing eraser or strangled sigh.
Tick, tick, tick.
I never want to hear silence like this again.
“Time,” the woman up front announces. Booklets flip shut and the entire room breathes for the first time in an hour. I turn my paperwork in and try, for the gazmillionth time, to pretend that I don’t care if I make valedictorian or not. Denial is a trait I learned from my mother.
I spot Liza in the hallway. She looks distressed but manages a smile. “How’d you do?” she asks.
“Okay, I guess. I’ve done pretty well in calculus all year.”
“Please, Alex, let’s not pretend this isn’t you getting one step closer to valedictorian. I’m sure you did fine.”
Fine isn’t good enough. Not when you’re expected to be the best. “How about you?” I ask, already knowing. Liza isn’t the best test taker—she’s been in tutoring for months trying to raise her GPA, and even then it’s a long shot for her standardized tests being high enough for college acceptance. She and I both know the odds aren’t in her favor.
“Eh. I don’t want to think or talk about it anymore, okay?”
“Fine by me,” I agree. We push through the front doors of the school and walk into the bright, spring afternoon. I look at my best friend and try to think of something to lift her spirits. Today is just another reminder we wouldn’t be together forever. We’d always be friends but Duke was in my future. Liza would be lucky to get into a two year school. Her stomach rumbles loudly and I laugh. “I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Tacos?” I ask.
“Obviously.”
I link my arm with hers and say, “Let’s go.”
Over tacos and a vat of cheese dip I think about the differences between Liza and me. She’s beautiful, in that classic southern way. Long golden hair, big blue eyes, her skin carries a sun-kissed glow even when it’s not summer. I’m definitely the geekier of the two—including the grades. My dark hair is short with no definitive style. My skin is pale from too much time indoors and the last time I attempted a sport…well, the good news is that I didn’t break any bones. The bad news is that I managed to break someone else’s.
Okay that’s not completely true. Running. I run. In the seventh grade my mother made me pick a sport. I’d spent years in and out of various activities, hoping my ineptness would convince my mother it was useless to pursue it further. But no, she claimed “hormones” and a “well-rounded college application” required I get an hour of exercise a day. So I picked cross-country. My claim to fame was having my photograph in the Cary Neighbor paper congratulating me, post-race, on an amazing run. Unfortunately, I had come in last, something the photographer didn’t realize as there was a second heat that had already lapped me.
Besides that my only other hobby is a nasty internet and gaming addiction. Liza actually socializes with people off screen. Despite all this we’re friends.
My phone buzzes and I shove the remainder of my taco in my mouth. It’s a text from Nerdgasam, a blog I follow on twitter. I read the first line. “Oh gross,” I say, the lump of gooey cheese and beans turning into mush in the back of my throat.
“What?” Liza asks.
“Some guy in Florida was arrested for going all cannibal on a homeless guy.”
She made a face. “Like he ate him? That kind of cannibal?”
I click on the link and scan the article. “Yeah, they say it’s drugs or something. There’s some sort of bad stuff floating around and it’s popular with the homeless?” I side-eye this story a little bit. What kind of drug makes you eat people? “Apparently he just went batshit and started chowing down on the guy. Like for real eating him. Look, there’s a video.”
“No thanks,” Liza says pushing away my phone and the remains of her meal. “That’s crazy.”
“Crack is whack.” I joke knowing the online communit
y must be going crazy about this. Zombies are all the rage right now. Survivalists. Preppers. Sure, it’s fun to read about and even joke about how long you’d last during the end of times but people actually eating other people? Nope.
“Promise me that we’ll never eat one another okay? Even if we’re in an end of the world situation. No people eating. Ever,” Liza begs.
I smile at my best friend who is being more serious than she’d ever admit. “I promise.”
Chapter Three
~Now~
After the branch scare (it was just a deer) we find a well-worn path in the forest. According to my map and compass, we’re close to a small town. At the moment we have a week’s rations of food but only enough water to get through the rest of the day. After the last couple of days, we’ve been avoiding main roads. They’re just too dangerous.