The Girl who Saved the World (Death Fields 6)

I’m sick and tired of the Death Fields.

*

We reach the edge of Raleigh, taking the same path that my mom, Paul, and I took when we left. I see the charred remains of the school bus—the one Paul wasn’t on, but where we thought he’d died. That was the beginning of his long journey as a test subject and eventual Mutt. I avert my eyes from the black smudges I know are bodies, away from the river where the infected drowned, shot on the spot by snipers Erwin placed on the rooftop. I didn’t know then that he was fighting my sister and her unholy plans. I just ran for my life, unaware that two men would follow me out of the city—both intent to keep me safe.

I rest my head on Wyatt’s back, wondering where he was when I traveled through here. He didn’t catch up with us for a bit further down the road. As much as I do remember, other things have faded. The sound of my mother’s voice. The exact way she looked before this all started. For months I couldn’t keep the image of her bitten and dying out of my brain. Now, I’d probably sacrifice the sleep to get it back.

“Can you check the map?” Wyatt asks. He doesn’t know how this place tugs at me. I nod, unsure if I can breathe, much less speak.

Without really looking I point ahead. “Turn right.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

As we get closer to the side of town I grew up in, near the university, the more things trigger memories. Not just of the escape but my life before. The more familiar it seems, the further away I feel from it. I’m not that girl who went to the Taco Hut after final exams or the girl poised to read her valedictorian speech to her senior class. We pass neighborhoods where friends lived, and my old elementary school, all looking like a poster for a horror movie. The roads are blocked, houses in decay. Cars rot and rust in driveways. We pass the occasional abandoned military vehicle with vines and wildlife creeping over the wheels. I feel a pang when I spot my old bus stop and eventually the sign leading into my neighborhood.

Not once in our journey here did we pass a human, dead or alive.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I say quietly. Wyatt had stopped the horse and is waiting for directions.

“Go back?” His eyes hold mine. It’s afternoon. It’s cold. We’re both exhausted with painful backsides from riding this horse for two days. “We don’t have to. We can stop somewhere else. Anywhere. You name it.”

“No, we can’t. We came here for a reason. I can’t let a little sentimentality stop us.”

“I can go in without you.”

The thought of Wyatt in my childhood home without me makes it hurt even more. I think that’s part of my apprehension, letting him see that side of my life. The ‘before’ Alexandra.

“I’m being stupid.”

“No, you’re not, but this street corner is making me nervous. I know it seems quiet around here but it’s unlikely everyone is gone, don’t you think?”

My street had been mostly evacuated by the time my mother and I left, but I agree. He’s not talking about survivors.

“Okay, it’s the third house at the end of the street. Black shutters.”

Wyatt takes the horse all the way up to the house. I’m not particularly surprised it’s left untouched. Further evidence there’s less people left around than we’d like to admit. He dismounts and helps me down, two hands on my hips. My thighs ache and my butt feels bruised from the ride. I can tell he feels the same from the way he grimaces when he walks toward the backyard. “There’s a detached carport in the back. We can block the horse in with some of the stuff out there.”

It’s surprising how quickly it comes back. The tools and equipment that made our lives so easy back then. The hammer I gave my dad for Father’s Day. A wheelbarrow and several heavy cardboard boxes. We tie the horse up to the metal workbench and step into the yard.

“So this is it?” he asks. “Home of the infamous Ramsey sisters.”

“This is where it all started.” I point to a window. “Jane probably spent hours coming up with her diabolical plans up there.”

“And you?”

I point to the opposite room. A tiny bathroom connected the two. “I spent way too long coming up with ways to beat her up there. Grades, approval…that kind of stuff.”

“And in the end it didn’t matter.”

“No,” I say softly. “It didn’t. We had to go through all of this to realize we work better together than against one another. Tough price for civilization to pay.”

“You ready to go inside?”

“I’m ready.”

I fish the spare key out from the empty bird feeder and push it in the lock. Wyatt grabs me before I turn the knob. “I love you, Alexandra Ramsey. Never forget that.”