She turned to look where his rifle was pointing. A small figure was moving among the trees, slowly working its way toward them.
"Looks like we got a straggler," said Elton, steadying his aim.
"Wait," said Maylee, frowning. She grabbed Elton's barrel and pushed it down. She watched the figure make its slow approach. "It's not moving like a corpse."
Not taking her eyes off the figure, she felt around her chest until she found her binoculars. She lifted them to her eyes and peered through them. At first she just saw a moving blur. She adjusted the knob on the bridge of the binoculars and it came into focus.
A small boy, dirty and bundled in clothes so torn they were practically rags, was slowly picking his way among the trees. He looked cold and not very healthy. But he was alive.
"It's a kid," said Maylee, lowering the binoculars.
Elton sighed and lowered the rifle. "Great. Another one."
Angie Land stepped down her ice-coated porch steps as quickly as she could. Her cane helped more than she liked to admit. The walls and makeshift buildings of World Memorial rose up around her. She currently stood in the square, a large open area including the farmhouse and the town gates. There were two other large open spaces in World Memorial. One was at the center of town and the other was far at the back side of town. Every other area was packed full of trailers, campers and shacks. The twisting gaps between them formed what passed for streets and alleys.
She saw several people and smiled at them. Angie had known them for years. But she saw a few others looking at her and struggled to remember their names. She used to know the names of all in World Memorial. But the new ones were coming too fast. One smiled back, one looked back with indifference and one looked with something close to animosity. The town was slipping away from her.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and stood in the snow. A young woman with brown-red hair stepped up, smiling and holding a clipboard.
“Morning, Carly,” said Angie.
“Morning, Ms. Land,” said Carly. Carly Hayes was eighteen, fresh-faced and eager. She’d announced one day she was Angie’s assistant and Angie had let her be. She was good at organizing and cataloging. Angie certainly liked her better than her grandfather Elton. Elton disliked Angie and she returned the favor. It was made more awkward by the fact that Elton and Carly lived in a camper in the town square, within easy view of the farmhouse.
“Please, call me Angie, Carly.”
“But we’re on town business.”
“I called you by your first name,” said Angie.
“You’re in charge,” said Carly. “You can do that.”
An alarm went off. Clanging and clattering. Angie tensed, her hand going to the handle of her cane. She turned to face the town gates, twisting the handle. She stopped when she saw Maylee rushing toward the opening gates, several other guards right behind her.
She twisted the handle of her cane back into place. “Trouble outside?”
“Some corpses spotted, I think.”
Angie watched Maylee rush outside. “I hate how reckless she is.”
“She’s the best guard we have,” said Carly.
“Still my kid.”
“True,” said Carly.
Angie turned away from the gate. She shifted on her cane and started walking. Carly followed along beside her. A sharp pain called out from her ankle as she walked. She cursed under her breath and leaned on her cane. The cane provided support but also slowed her down. She hadn't expected to need a cane at only thirty-three years old, but she guessed she hadn't expected a lot of things.
“Ankle hurting today?” said Carly.
Angie shook her head. “Nope,” she lied, then changed the subject. “Too bad Old West can't build some traps outside the walls. Maybe then the Guard"—and Angie knew she meant Maylee—"wouldn't have to run outside so often. Maybe we can work something out..."
"Speaking of West," said Carly, looking at her clipboard, "we need some new supplies soon."
Angie nodded. “Got it.”
“I’ve got the list here and—”
“Later.”
“Right,” said Carly. “One more thing, then. There’s been some damage to the house.”
Angie sighed, limping through the snow between two battered structures. “Graffiti again?”
“Yeah.”
Angie was getting angry. “What’s this one say?”
Carly flipped through the papers on her clipboard. She read aloud. “’Must be nice to have walls to write on.’”
Angie turned her head to her. “You wrote it in your notes?” she said, her voice a little harsher than she expected.
Carly looked surprised and hurt. “Someone has to keep a record.”
Angie looked down, remembering what had happened to the rest of Carly’s family. “I’m sorry, Carly. I understand. Tell me, is Dalton with Dr. Graham?”
Carly flipped through her notes. “Um, yes. He’s there all morning.”
“Okay. I’ve got something to take care of there. We’ll go over the supply list later, okay?”
“Okay, Ms. Land.”
“Thank you for all your help, Carly.”
Carly headed off to Angie’s right. Angie watched her go as she limped on. She hadn’t expected to have an assistant. Just another unexpected thing to add to the long list. She walked on.
She hadn't expected the night she reported to work at Lakewood Memorial Hospital so long ago to be the last night of the world. She hadn't expected corpses to dig themselves out of the ground and consume anyone left alive. She hadn't expected to end up homeless and on the run with her two children. She hadn't expected to be part of a crazy war to take over Ashton Memorial Zoo. A war neither side won and which had cost dozens, maybe hundreds, of lives.
She felt a pang of guilt when she thought back to the zoo. People had followed her to their deaths. She'd told herself it wasn't her fault. She hadn't asked to be a leader. But she'd become one then and, fuck help her, she was one now.
Again, she hadn't intended it. She and her two children had fled the chaos of Ashton back to the small town of Lakewood. They took shelter wherever they could find it, moving further and further out of town each time. Finally they found an isolated farmhouse along a seldom-used road. It was intact and reasonably defensible, so they had moved in.
They were alone for almost a year before another person showed up. Then another, then another. Angie took in as many as she could before the house was full. But people kept coming. At first they lived in tents while others stood guard. Then enough people collected to make supply expeditions to Lakewood. They would use whatever they found to construct new dwellings and built a makeshift wall around the whole thing.
In a little over a year, they had something like a town. And everyone treated Angie as being in charge, which made her something like a mayor. She hadn't been thrilled about it, but she had accepted it.
But the town had grown too quickly. There were people living in the outer areas she barely knew, and they barely knew her. To them, she was the lady with the cane who got to live in the house. She saw the way they looked at her. She didn't like it, but she didn't know what to do. It was something else she accepted.
She wished she hadn't accepted how far the medical shed was from the farmhouse. She reached the shed and grabbed the door handle. She pulled, ignoring the dull pain in her ankle as she shifted her weight, and stepped inside, sighing as she shut the door behind her.
"What is it, Mom?" said her son Dalton. Dalton had given the town its name. Years before, a wealthy resident of Lakewood had built a cultural center in honor of his father. The goal had been to bring fine art and exotic culture to the rural area. Dalton had liked to go when he was small and liked new things. The building had been destroyed in the years following the corpses. The sign out front had once read "The D.W. Mitchell Memorial World Culture Center." Dalton had found pieces of the sign and hung them outside the makeshift gate to their town. He arranged them to read "World Memorial." Dalton thought it was darkly funny, and Angie had agreed. So the name stuck.
Dalton appeared to be alone in the shed. He was fifteen now and far too pale for Angie's liking. "Is your ankle hurting?"
"Nope," said Angie, lying again. She took a few steps across the small metal building that had been converted into a very rough laboratory. "I'm thinking we might have to call this crap off for a while."
Dalton rolled his eyes. He sat on a wooden table that might have been a workbench at one time. Bright lights sat around the room, powered by a gasoline generator outside. They had several generators around the town. Angie wasn't sure what they'd all do when they ran out of gas. "I'm fine, Mom," he said.
"You don't look fine," said Angie. "You a look a little too pale for me. I think he's taking too much blood."
"I could save people, Mom."
"You haven't saved crap, Dalton," said Angie.
A small man with dark hair and round glasses stepped in from outside. Bitter cold air blew in before he shut the door. Two small electric heaters, also powered by the generators, strained to keep the room warm.
"Whew," said the man, "the winters here really are miserable." The man was Dr. Jonas Graham. He had once been a biology professor at some university somewhere. Then he and his wife had retired to a farm outside Lakewood. Then his wife had been torn to shreds by two men they had thought were lost and had stopped to help. He'd found his way to World Memorial about a year ago. After learning his background, Angie had revealed Dalton's secret.
"Or I guess I should say
you
haven't saved crap," said Angie, turning to Dr. Graham.
"What?" said Dr. Graham, looking around before seeing Angie. "Oh, hello, Ms. Land. What were you saying?"
"I was asking if you'd taken enough blood from my son, or if I should bring you a bucket."
"What?" said Dr. Graham absently, like he'd only half-heard her. He whipped off his coat then felt his pants pockets. He felt around the coat he'd just taken off. He pulled out a few small vials and set them on the table next to Dalton. "I don't see why extra supplies have to be all the way across—"
Angie leaned in next to him. "I told you to only take a little at a time. To use that little bit for as long as you possibly could."
"Hmmm?" said Dr. Graham, moving to a battered microscope set on a shelf along the wall. It had been scavenged from the abandoned high school. He picked it up and brought it back to the table.
Angie slammed her cane down inches from his right foot. So hard he almost dropped the microscope. "So how's that been going, doctor?"
Dr. Graham blinked. He looked at Angie, then Dalton, then back at Angie. "I…um, well..." He swallowed. "What were we talking about?"
"My son," said Angie, quiet but firm, "right over there. See him? Good. That's Dalton, who's been in this shed way too much lately, and looking way too pale afterwards."
Dr. Graham frowned. He looked between Dalton and Angie again. "I thought we agreed to increase the testing."
"I agreed to no such thing," said Angie.
"I asked, Mom," said Dalton.
"You what?" said Angie, turning to face him.
"I told him to test more," said Dalton, looking sheepish but sitting up straight. "I told him you said it was okay."
"What in the world possessed you to—"
"Again with the saving people, Mom," said Dalton, crossing his arms.
Angie stared at him for a second, then shook her head. He was getting headstrong as he raced into his teen years. Just like Maylee had. Just like Maylee was now.
Just like you are
, Angie thought, but kept it to herself.
"He does have a point, Ms. Land," said Dr. Graham. "If we could isolate your son's immunity, replicate it..."
Angie was impatient, but felt the tightness in her shoulders relax a little. He was right and she knew it. Three years ago, they had discovered Dalton was immune to whatever it was that made the dead walk and eat. Anyone else bitten by a corpse died and got back up. Dalton was the only one Angie had seen survive. The only one
anyone
had seen survive, as far as she knew.
At first, she'd resolved to keep it to herself. Her first priority was protecting her children. Dalton's immunity would only bring him attention, and attention could be bad. The corpses were dangerous, but so were other people. People who thought they could get something from you were the most dangerous of all. So despite Dalton's protests, she made him swear to keep it a secret.
But as time wore on, Angie began to relent. If there was a way to find out why Dalton had survived, safely and with minimal risk to him, then maybe the tide of dead could be stemmed. Which would ultimately make her children safer. This was her reasoning when she told Dr. Graham the truth. From there, it became clear to the others that Dalton was of great interest to the only doctor in town. There were whispers and rumors. Angie finally told everyone in an impromptu town meeting one afternoon. Everyone seemed satisfied with the explanation. A few looked hopeful that Dalton could lead to a vaccine, but none of them ever looked at Dalton—or her—the same way again.
Howling wind outside rattled the building, loud and forceful. Another storm.
She looked at Dr. Graham and sighed. "Fine, but how long has it been? How many months now? And what exactly have you learned?"
Dr. Graham thought. "Well, we know your son's blood reacts differently to the saliva of the corpses."
"The saliva my daughter got for you," Angie reminded him. "And I don't want to know how she managed that."
"She probably collected it after killing the thing," said Dr. Graham, thinking. "You see, once the thing was down and its head crushed—"
"Back to the point, doctor."
"Right. When we mix the saliva with anyone else's blood, say yours or mine, it quickly begins to take on the state of the corpses’ blood. It turns almost black in the advanced stages."
Angie understood. She'd seen many a corpse puke or ooze black blood.
"But not Dalton’s blood," said Dr. Graham. " Dalton's blood starts to turn, then somehow reverts to its original state. Almost as if it's rejecting the infection."