After the Ending (46 page)

“You ready for bed?” he asked. As he spoke, I could feel
his stubble brushing my forehead.

I giggled. “Is that an offer?”

“You’re feisty when you’re drunk,” he mused.

I shrugged and snuggled closer against him. “Yeah well,
you bring out the best in me, what can I say?”

He chuckled. “So, shall we do this the easy way…or the
hard way?”

“Do what?” My breath caught as I considered the
possibilities.

“I’m taking you inside.”

“Excuse me?” I pulled away and locked eyes with him.
“What if I’m not ready to go in?” I asked, pretending to be offended.

Jake shook his head. “Fine, have it your way.” Before I
knew what was happening, his arm wrapped around my waist, and he tossed me over
his shoulder.

“Jake, put me down!” I ordered. “I can walk just fine!”

“Yeah, and you’ve got the scrapes to prove it.”

“Is that why you’re out here—to make fun of me?”

He said nothing and continued up the tree-lined path
toward the house.

I began flailing. “Put me down, Jake. This is
ridiculous!” My stomach churned. “Ugh…I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“You better not be,” Jake said.

I wiggled and cussed as he held the backs of my legs down
with his right hand.

I continued to struggle against him. “Jake, seriously,
put me down. I don’t want to puke on you.”

“Then don’t. Stop being so squirrelly.” His voice was
full of amusement.

Jake carried me through the French doors, into the
kitchen, and passed by the living room toward the stairs—everyone else was in
the living room, listening to music and chatting.

Amidst my wiggling, Sarah skipped toward us, laughing.
“Oh wow, this is priceless,” she said.

“Oh shut up,” I snapped.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Sarah said, shaking her
head and waving.

“I’m not going to bed! He’s being absurd.” I smacked
Jake’s butt. “Put me down!” I demanded.

“Say goodnight, Zoe,” he ordered.

“This is pointless, I’m just coming back down here,” I
claimed, but he ignored me. Jake lugged me through the foyer and up the stairs
in silence. “I’m serious, Jake!”

“Okay,” he said
placatingly
,
both of us knowing I definitely wouldn’t be coming back down.

My stomach started churning again. “Oh God…you better
hurry.” Opening my bedroom door, he took me into the bathroom and set me down
on the tile floor. I braced myself against the counter, wishing my head would
stop spinning.

“You okay?”

I glared at him in the darkness. “Dandy. Thanks.”

The rest of the night passed by in a blur. All I
remembered was crawling into bed—Jake’s fully clothed body curled up beside me.

The next morning, I woke to the slamming of the front door
and frantically looked around the room. My palms were sore and rough from
falling on the dock, snagging on the comforter wrapped around me. As I
stretched in bed, my knees felt achy, and I figured giant bruises colored them.

I abruptly sat up, pieces of the previous night flashing
in my mind. Stunned, I touched my fingers to my mouth at the memory of Jake’s
lips on mine, of his body against mine. I glanced over, expecting to see him,
but I was in bed alone.

Hearing the slamming of the door again, I crawled out of
bed. My head was pounding, and I needed some water…immediately. I trudged into
the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and half-heartedly fixed my hair, but I quickly
gave up on making myself look more presentable. I slid my slippers on, headed
out into the hallway, and stood on the landing. Confused, I took in the chaotic
scene below me.

In the front yard, Sarah was screaming at Biggs—I could
hear her through the door—while Sanchez and Harper hustled around in the library,
Cooper following them excitedly. I watched them in confusion, uncertain what
all the fuss was about.

“Is everything okay?” I called down to Harper as he
hurried across the foyer.

“Oh…hey, Baby Girl. We’re leaving.” He smiled and
wriggled his eyebrows, knowing I’d be happy to hear the news.

My mood brightened instantly. “For Colorado?” I asked
hopefully.

He nodded and continued into the piano room—Biggs’s
makeshift communications center.

“Wait, what can I do to help?” I asked, running down the stairs,
completely forgetting my headache and sore body.

“You can start by getting properly dressed. You look like
you just rolled out of bed,” he called from out of sight.

I stood at the foot of the stairs, evaluating my attire.
“I did.” Before I could head back upstairs to dress and pack, Jake walked in
through the front door, his face drawn. Sarah and Biggs were still shouting at
each other in the front yard, and I could tell not everyone was happy to be
leaving.

Jake seemed like a different person than he’d been the
night before. He had dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept at all,
and his shoulders hung under the weight of his anxiety. I could feel it
emanating from him and knew he was dreading returning home.

Timidly, I approached him, unsure what to say. I wanted
to console him—to tell him everything would be fine—but I knew I couldn’t
promise such a thing.

“Hey,” I said dumbly.

“Morning.” He managed a weak smile, but he was clearly
distracted. He looked at his nonexistent watch. “You slept in.”

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

Jake was more intimidating without the liquid courage
flowing through me. I recalled his concern from the night before—that I
wouldn’t remember the kiss—and hoped the heat in my cheeks and my shy grin told
him otherwise.

I met his eyes. “So, H told me we’re leaving,” I said to
break our silence.

Jake only nodded.

“I’m assuming you’re coming too?”

He smirked, finally showing some of the playfulness from
the night before. “I told you I can’t let you get yourself into more trouble
without me being there. You’re a magnet for it, you know?”

Although he was teasing me, there was truth in his words,
and I was grateful to him for skirting around wounding my pride.

The door flung open, and Sarah stomped into the foyer,
Biggs trailing behind her. “It’s a horrible idea, Riley, and you know it!” she
yelled.

Biggs stopped in his tracks and looked down at the marble
floor.

When Sarah heard his footsteps come to a halt, she took a
deep breath and turned around. “Look, I understand you want to leave with your
team. I don’t want them to leave us any more than you do, but we have a baby to
think about now. We have a pretty good idea of what we’ll come up against out
there, and I don’t want to chance anything. Do you?”

As the scene unfolded, I felt completely out of place.
But I stayed anyway.

“And what’ll we do here?” Biggs argued. “We’ll be alone,
Sarah. Is that what you want? To sit here and die alone? Eventually that could
happen you know? We haven’t even been to the city yet, who knows what condition
it’s in. We’re living in a bubble. We can’t stay here forever.”

Biggs walked to Sarah as some small semblance of
understanding registered on her face. “I’m only one person, and we have our
whole lives ahead of us. We have a baby that’s going to need to be delivered by
someone who knows what the hell they’re doing. We can’t stay here out of fear.
What if something happened to me? What would you do, alone…with a baby?”

Wiping away her sudden tears, Sarah cleared her throat.
“Nothing will happen to you, and we have plenty of food here,” she said,
grasping for anything that might change his mind. I could tell that the thought
of never seeing her home again was heartbreaking to her. She was worried, and I
assumed she feared she’d never feel comfortable like she did in her home.

“Yeah, maybe for a while. But do you really want it to be
just you and me for the rest of our lives? I love you, Babe. I really do, but
it’d be nice to have someone else to talk to, a family to share our memories
with, and friends to laugh with and help us when we need it.”

The tears continued to run freely down Sarah’s face, and
Biggs wiped them away with his thumbs. “I don’t
want
to go.” Her voice
was weak as she gasped for air.

“I know, Babe.” He pulled her into a hug, gently rubbing
her back and whispering reassurances in her ear. He bent down, gathered her up
into his arms, and scaled the stairs toward her bedroom.

I looked back at Jake as he walked out the front door,
rubbing the back of his neck as memories of Gabe and
Becca
flashed in his mind. Cooper whined, his tail hanging low as he trailed behind
him.

Zoe

After a day of planning and packing, we loaded our clothes,
food, medical supplies, and everything else into the two vehicles. Once Sarah
had taken a moment to say goodbye to her childhood home, she locked the doors
for the final time and joined Biggs in Dave’s truck. Finally, we were headed to
Colorado…unsure if we had enough fuel to make it.

Riding in Dave’s truck proved to be too difficult for me
because of the memories it provoked. The scratch on the center console reminded
me of the many times Sammy had scampered between the front and back seats, and
the miniature stuffed Wally—the mascot for the Red Sox—swinging  from the
rearview mirror made me think of Dave winning it at the Suffolk County Fair.
Although I remembered the happier times we’d shared, my thoughts continuously
circled back to our rocky relationship near the end…before his death.
Did he
suffer? For how long? Was he with Stacey?
An hour into the journey, I opted
to switch vehicles and ride in the van with Sanchez and Harper.

“I never asked you what led to the sudden decision to
leave,” I said to Harper as we drove through the middle of nowhere, otherwise
known as Kansas. “Did something happen?”

   Harper considered my question too carefully
before answering. “I had an unsettling vision.”

“About…?” I prompted.
   

“About Clara, so…Sanchez and I thought it’d be best to
leave.” For what seemed like the hundredth time in only a few minutes, Harper
glanced into the rearview mirror

The mere mention of Clara’s name made me feel like a
million invisible spiders were scurrying over my skin, and I rubbed my arms.
“What was in the vision? I mean, what happened?”

Harper’s eyebrows drew together as he tried to make sense
of what he’d seen. “She was in a dark room, smiling evilly. She was leaning
over someone I couldn’t see, and she said something like, ‘When I’m done with
you, you won’t remember anyone…you won’t even know who you are.’” His grip tightened
on the steering wheel. “I knew she was going to hurt whoever it was, and the
hatred in her eyes worried me…I thought it might be you. When I told Sanchez
about it, we decided we should keep moving.” Harper’s frequent glances in the
rearview mirror were starting to make more sense. “There’s strength in
numbers,” he said and then shook his head. “…at least there used to be.” I
thought of Cece and all the trouble she’d caused.
It didn’t work out so well
for Dani and Jason.

By the time we’d reached Garden City to look for Harper’s
uncle, Curtis—who was nowhere to be found—the van had run out of fuel. Unable
to find more, we shuffled all of our belongings from the van to the truck.
Wanting to get off the main road and set up camp, we all piled into the truck—Jake,
Cooper, and Harper riding in the bed—and drove along Highway 50, following the
Arkansas River over the Colorado border.

We thought our fuel would last the rest of the way, but
we ran out about a hundred miles from our destination and were forced to
continue on foot. We sorted through all of our things, separating what we were
taking from what we would leave behind. We eventually distributed the food,
medical supplies, and camping gear among us, adding whatever personal items we
could fit in our packs. Because we’d lost most of our belongings in the fire,
we didn’t leave much behind.

After a week of walking in the cold, we arrived in
Pueblo, a city south of Colorado Springs filled with ample food, medical, and
hygiene supplies, plus weapons. It didn’t escape our attention that Pueblo was
completely abandoned. Although we thought it strange that there were no
survivors to speak of, not even Crazies, I wasn’t complaining. Jake, however,
became increasingly wary—I could feel his apprehension grow the closer we drew
to the Colony. Thankfully, he knew the surrounding area well, and after a long
discussion, we agreed to wait for Dani’s group south of Colorado Springs, in a
valley near an old mining town called Cañon City. I was too busy worrying about
how Dani would find us to pay much attention to the conversation.

It was on our third day of trekking through the valley,
looking for the perfect place to set up camp, that we stumbled upon a
ramshackle ranch. We knew my brother and Dani would not only bring more people
to our group, but horses as well. Knowing my crimson-haired friend, I assumed
she had probably collected a few other critters along the way too. We all
agreed the abandoned ranch would be sufficient in serving as our new, temporary
home. Although the rusted tack and rustic farm tools made it seem like the
place hadn’t been used in years, the new, nearly finished roof and an
unfinished foundation a few hundred feet away indicated otherwise. Inside, the
weathered, red barn provided enough stalls that each of us could convert one
into our own sleeping quarters—hay bales for seating, sleeping bags, and our
few belongings were all that filled them.

Uncertain of what to expect over the next few weeks, we
preserved our nonperishables by living off the land as much as possible. Jake
and Cooper continued their hunting efforts as needed, and I fished for trout in
the creek’s brisk waters.

Most nights, the six of us sat around the campfire,
feasting on a freshly caught dinner with beans or boiled vegetables. We’d found
an untended winter garden behind an old farmhouse outside of Cañon City,
providing us with an assortment of roots—carrots, potatoes, and turnips—to cook
with.

I had an inkling of what the average day for a settler on
the Frontier might have been like—hunting, gathering berries and firewood,
washing clothes in frigid water, and roasting game over a fire. The Zoe who’d
worked at the gallery wouldn’t have recognized me at all.

As the days went on, we settled into a daily routine of
hunting, training, scavenging when needed, and practicing our Abilities. And,
we watched Sarah’s belly grow at an unnatural pace—after two weeks it was
noticeably larger, after three weeks she could no longer wear her jeans, and
after five weeks her belly was as big as a basketball. Biggs acted like she
might burst at any moment, insisting Harper examine her every time she yawned,
burped or frowned.

Although Harper didn’t know what to make of the
unprecedented progress of her pregnancy, he’d had enough nieces and nephews to
know her symptoms were more or less normal. When Biggs wasn’t coddling her, she
spent her time eating obscene amounts of food, napping, and watching from the
sidelines as I got my butt kicked during training.

I was learning to embrace my Ability—it felt more natural
and fluid every day. I no longer struggled to tune out people’s feelings and
memories, and if I wanted information about someone, it was there. Anything and
everything about that person was scattered in my mind like a broken stained
glass window, only I couldn’t figure out how to piece it together to get the
answers I was seeking.

Early one morning, I was sitting by the fire with Harper,
half asleep and trying to focus.

“There’s just too much to sort through,” I explained.

“Try to control what you’re seeking, Baby Girl,” Harper
said. “Are you thinking of something in particular, or are you just jumping in
to see what you can find? Maybe it’s overwhelming because you’re not searching
for something specific. For instance, you think about the ocean and hundreds of
memories and feelings will pop up, but if you think of the East Coast, there
will be fewer to wade through because it’s a smaller part of your life. Try
it.”

“Yeah, but that’s me,
my
memories. If I don’t know
someone, how will I know what to look for?” I whined, tired of practicing so
early every morning. I could feel Harper’s patience growing thin, and I flashed
him a “please forgive me” smile.

“Really, Zoe? I know you’re not a morning person, but
you’re not even trying. I thought you were sleeping better…doesn’t that help?”

“Meh,” I said. I was still having the recurring nightmare
about my mom and her car accident.

Harper shook his head. “Deciding what to look for in a
stranger is probably the easiest part. Think about it. You’re walking out by
the river and you come across someone. What’s the first thing you want to
know?”

“If they’re a Crazy,” I muttered.

“Exactly. If you ask Sanchez what she
really
thinks of your chili and she brushes you off again, what do you look for?”

Sanchez passed at that moment, eyeing us with a wry smile
on her face.

“The truth.” The answer seemed like a no-brainer.

“Precisely. So…be specific when you’re searching
someone’s mind. Now try it on me,” he prompted, looking out at the woods
encircling the ranch.

It was easy to think of something I wanted to know about
Harper. Ever since I’d seen Sanchez’s memory of the two of them in bed
together, I’d wanted to learn more about their relationship. So, as Harper and
I sat by the fire, I decided to find out for myself.

I couldn’t help but smile at what I saw. His mind held
tons of memories of them—working together
and
sleeping together.
Sometimes his arm was around her, and she’d fling it away. Other times, she was
nipping at him and batting her eyelashes, trying to get his attention. They
laughed and argued like friends always do. I also saw them having enough sex to
fully awaken my body from its morning stupor.

“How long have you and Sanchez been sleeping together?” I
asked Harper.

His eyes widened, and he burst out laughing. “I knew you
stumbled onto something good with that giant-ass grin on your face.” Whistling
and slapping his thigh, he said, “A while.”

“As in…years?”

“Yeah. We’ve known each other for a long time, but don’t
tell her I told you…or I’ll say you were snooping.”

“But what about your
very
public proposition to me
at the cabin?” I asked, recalling the constant, severe expression Sanchez had
worn the first few weeks I’d known her.

Harper waved away my question. “It’s nothing serious.”

I just snickered and buried the knowledge with all the
other information I was never meant to know.

Like the days, most nights passed rather routinely, with
all of us playing cards or telling stories. I spent most of my free time
sketching and documenting what we saw and experienced. I mapped out the paths
we took and the landmarks around the valley. I hoped that if I was able to
contact Dani at any point, I’d have enough information to make sure she could
find us.

I also documented the different types of Crazies we ran
into: the slow movers we deemed the “AW’s” or the “Aimless Wanderers”, and the
violent “Grunts” who mostly dwelled in more populated areas, among others.
Everything I was learning about myself and my surroundings went into my
sketchbook, and when I ran out of pages, I started a new one.

“How many of those things did you bring?” Jake asked me
one night, cleaning his rifle while I was sketching the campfire’s jumping
flames.

“Enough.” I smiled and leaned back against his chest.
“I’ve been gathering them up wherever I can.” I flipped through the pages of
the sketchpad, showing him my own personal post-apocalypse field guide.

Curiosity piqued, Jake read through my entries. I
immediately felt his mood change when he saw Clara’s name:

Classification
:
Manipulator (Clara, probably Cece)

Species
:
Homo
Sapien

Region:
All

Origin
:
Infected by Virus; Survived

Symptoms
:
Easily agitated; Conceals aggressive intentions and behaviors; Uses victim’s
psychological vulnerabilities to determine effective tactics; Willing to use
sufficient level of ruthlessness and cause harm to the victim; Generally covert
and sneaky.

Dwelling
: Groups of survivors (more targets to choose from)

Weakness
:
Entitlement—greedy and moody leading to irrationality and unexpected outbursts
that expose them for who they really are, oftentimes giving them away and
turning their followers against them.

I tried to ignore the negative emotions that cycled
through him as he read, still blaming himself for what Clara had done to all of
us.

“Who’s Cece?” he asked quietly.

“A psychotic bitch who harassed Dani on more than one
occasion. You know, the usual.” I smiled briefly. “I hope she’s dead.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” he jested. Thankful that his
thoughts were no longer on Clara, I smiled. His arms wrapped around me, and I
happily abandoned my sketchbook and snuggled closer to him. Being in Jake’s
arms was as surreal as everything else we were going through.

“I want you to have something,” he said. He held his
knife out in front of me.

“I can’t take that, Jake.” Although I didn’t know the
story behind it, I knew it was probably the most meaningful thing he owned.

“I want you to have it. You’ve been training hard, and I
think it’s time you had a weapon of your own—something small enough to hide,
but sharp enough that you can do a lot of damage.” He gave me a wry, crooked
smile. “I’m sure you’ll need it.”

“But what will you use?” I asked, eyeing it carefully.

“I have others; this one’s just the best.”

I looked back at him, not sure what to say because “thank
you” seemed inadequate. “That means a lot to me,” I told him. “I promise I’ll
take care of it.”

He nodded.

“Will you tell me the story behind it sometime?”

He nodded again and returned his eyes to my sketchbook,
to Clara’s name.

Feeling him retreat back into his dark thoughts, I
elbowed his leg and whispered, “Hey.”