“I don’t know.”
“The Baggers must have been here. They came in and cleaned up the mess.”
“Maybe.”
“Where do you think they’re taking the bodies?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re burning them. Or burying them, but I think that would take too much time.”
“Yeah, probably.”
They waited in silence for a bit. Aries finally got up and opened the window. Fresh air immediately hit his nose, but it wasn’t enough to get rid of the scent of decay. If anything it made the stench worse. She walked back into the middle of the room, where the gym bag sat on the floor. She kicked it. Picking the brush up off the ground, she came back and joined Mason again. Turning it around in her hands, she plucked some of the dead hairs from the bristles.
“I can’t do this,” she said. “Everyone thinks I’m strong, but I’m not. They want me to lead them, but there’s nowhere to go. What am I going to do? I’m going to get them all killed.”
Mason didn’t say anything. How could he when he was constantly thinking the exact same thing?
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“What for?”
“For freaking out like that. I guess everything just got to me. You were right. I shouldn’t have come back. I should have known it would mess me up like this. Those days are over. The big question is: Where do we go from here?”
“We survive, I guess.”
“Yeah, I guess we do.” She got up off the floor and offered him her hand. “We should get out of here. We’ve been long enough. They’re probably waiting in the bushes to jump us as it is.”
Mason climbed to his feet and she threw her arms around him, hugging him hard. He almost pulled back at first, feeling his muscles tensing as her hands touched his back. He breathed deeply, trying to relax, forcing himself to bring his arms around her and complete the hug. Bits of hair pressed against his cheek, and the warmth of her body burned into his. She pressed harder.
She smelled good in spite of the lack of hygiene these past few months.
And then it was over and she untangled herself from his grasp, lowering her chin as if she was embarrassed she’d actually touched him. Moving past him, she returned to the window and closed and locked it. She pulled down the blinds and the room instantly grew darker.
“Do you ever think about it? Going back? Don’t you wonder what happened to your family? You’ve traveled a long ways.”
His mother was probably still rotting away in her deathbed at the hospital. His home was burned to the ground. His friends were dead and buried beneath the remains of his exploded high school.
“There’s no going back,” he said. “I’ve got nothing there.”
She nodded in agreement. “We should go.”
He started to tell her they should search the rest of the house first and maybe take whatever supplies they could find. But she raced down the stairs so quickly, he changed his mind. They were okay; the local stores still had stuff on their shelves, even if the stocks were dwindling. Aries made it clear she wanted nothing more to do with the place. He decided to honor her wishes. Besides, when the time came for them to start scavenging houses, he could always come back.
When they walked out into what remained of the afternoon light, she didn’t look back. Mason completely understood. There was no point in going back. He’d tried to tell her that earlier, before they’d even left the safe house. She didn’t want to listen. But she’d learned.
It wasn’t a good lesson.
CLEMENTINE
“WARNING. WARNING. THE CITY IS CLOSED. . . .”
“Yes, yes, we hear you,” she muttered. “We heard you the first five hundred times, so will you please shut up.”
The white van crawled down the street, the driver hidden behind the tinted glass. From twenty feet away, Clementine and Michael watched, hidden between an overgrown hydrangea bush and someone’s front porch. The van was moving slowly, barely more than a few miles per hour; obviously whoever was inside was scanning the area for signs of life. Clementine didn’t want to imagine what might happen if they were spotted. Being shot on sight was one thing; who knew what might be lurking inside the van and where it might take them if they got caught.
“Dare you to run out there and flash the driver.”
Clementine punched Michael in the shoulder. Hard.
He chuckled and winked at her.
They both grew quieter as the mystery van passed within twenty feet of their hiding spot. Clementine held her breath as it cruised, wondering what kind of heart attack she might have if it actually stopped.
But it didn’t. A few minutes later it came to the end of the block and turned off toward Broadway. They both watched until the bumper and taillights disappeared.
“How many of those things are there?” she asked, even though Michael didn’t know the answer. “That’s the third one we’ve seen.”
“How can you tell?” Michael said. “They’re all white.”
“The first one had a scuffed bumper,” she said. “The second one was a Ford. That one’s a GM. I may be a girl, Michael, but I know my cars. Or vans, as the case may be.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a boy and they’re all white to me,” he said. “Quit stereotyping. You’re looking rather sexist. It’s not very becoming on you.”
She rolled her eyes at him.
“Now, I suggest we get out of here before they come back.”
“Still,” she said as she climbed to her feet and brushed off some of the dirt from her jeans. “There are a lot of those cruising around. If they’re here, they’re probably all over the place. I sure hope Aries and Mason are okay. Didn’t they say they were going out today?”
“Aries can take care of herself.” Michael reached forward and picked a leaf out of her hair. “And Mason strikes me as someone good to have on your side. I’m sure they’re fine.”
Clementine looked at him with both amazement and sarcasm. “You got all that from him? Really? All I get is that he’s some sort of silent brooding dude that always acts like he wants to be anywhere else but here.”
Michael laughed. “Yeah, he’s quiet. I’d say something bad happened to him like something bad happened to all of us. But he does seem a little more haunted.”
“That would be an understatement.”
They started walking back to where they’d abandoned their bicycles beside a parked car. They were good quality, real fancy Rocky Mountains borrowed from a shop down on Broadway. Clementine didn’t consider it stealing when the store windows were smashed in and most of the place had been looted.
“Let’s get out of here,” Michael said as he picked up the closest bike and wheeled it over toward her. He was always doing little things like that. Michael was quite the gentleman. Not like Colin, who’d pushed past her this morning to snag the last packet of instant mocha-flavored coffee.
She climbed on the bike and they headed off along the empty street.
It didn’t take long for them to reach the university. This would be their third trip out to the campus.
A few days ago they’d only explored around the outskirts. The University of British Columbia was huge. Built on a point, the campus was surrounded on three sides by ocean. There were only a few roads by which to enter, and they had to travel miles through a very large national park before they began to see buildings through the woods. The second day they began to explore the roads, leaving the bikes behind and sneaking across the campus on foot. Although the place was isolated, Michael and Clementine realized immediately they weren’t alone. The white vans were out and they’d watched some Baggers going through the Student Union Building. They were carrying out bodies and loading them into the back of a flatbed truck. Many of the bodies were in the early stages of decomposition. Even the Baggers wouldn’t get too close to them without wearing face masks and protective clothing.
They’d also seen some regular people too. At least she assumed they were normal. Michael had his b
inoculars out and they’d watched the two girls sneaking from one building to another. They too were taking great care to hide from the Baggers. But they’d disappeared before Michael and she could actually cut across to talk to them.
Clementine realized that it would probably take several weeks to properly explore the campus. But she was determined. If her brother, Heath, was there, she’d find him. She’d search each and every building before she gave up.
She still had the letter he’d written to her that she found back in his dorm room in Seattle. She kept it safe in the pocket of her jeans.
Dear Heath, I know you’re there. I can feel it. You said you were coming here because you’d heard Vancouver was safe. I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that it wasn’t true, but I hope you didn’t go anywhere else. The university’s large enough; I can’t imagine how long it’ll take me if I have to search all of Vancouver and Canada too. But if you left a message, I’ll find it. And I’ll come for you. I’m not giving up, no matter how difficult it seems.
If only he’d make it easier for her. Maybe he could set off fireworks or set up a big neon sign with her name on it.
Until then she’d continue to talk to him inside her head, as she’d been doing since this whole thing started. Before she met Michael and the others, Heath had been the only person she felt she could communicate with. For some reason it made her feel safer and less alone. When she chatted with Heath in her thoughts, he was still alive.
When they arrived on campus, they immediately ditched their bicycles again in some bushes just off of West Mall, by the parking lot. Their goal that day was to search some of the buildings down the road. The girls they’d seen yesterday had headed off in that direction. If there were people holed up there, maybe they could find them.
Clementine looked up at the hundreds of windows as they passed the psychology building. Yesterday they’d tried going in, but the doors were all locked. She made sure to mark that off on the tiny map they had. Each day they hoped to block off another section, making notes on the places they’d gone and which ones they’d have to come back to.
“Do you think anyone’s watching us right now?” she whispered.
“Maybe,” Michael said. “Maybe there’s some mutated psychology experiment gone bad checking us out with his dozen eyes.”
“Rage-infected monkeys,” she said, bringing a hand up to cover the giggle trying to escape.
“But you’re right. It’s like a ghost town within a ghost town,” Michael said. “I can’t imagine anyone hiding out there. What would they eat? Also look at all the garbage that’s been blown up against the doors. No one’s been in or out of there in a while.” He paused to study the windows for a few seconds, and then looked back down at the map. “Didn’t Aries say there’s a clothing-optional beach here? Maybe that’s where everyone’s hiding.”
“End of the world,” Clementine said. “Might as well show it off.”
“Exactly.”
Joking aside, it still didn’t change the feeling of eyes on the back of her neck as they walked along. She decided to take it as a good sign. The Baggers wouldn’t just watch. They’d swoop in for the kill. If there were people inside, they were hiding, too. That put them on the same team.
They cut across the park and onto Main Mall, where, according to the map, was the Koerner Library. They’d decided earlier that morning that it would be the building they wanted to search. It was a large place with several floors and plenty of places to hide. And it was close to a food court area. It made sense that people might be staying there.
Tomorrow they planned to search the bookstore and the Student Union Building, as long as it looked like the Baggers were no longer ransacking it.
“Maybe we can find a store,” she said as she noticed a paper cup in the gutter. “We’re out of coffee and that just makes me cranky.”
“I’ll buy you some more for Christmas,” he said. “And one of those really fancy mugs that keeps your coffee nice and hot.”
“I keep forgetting,” she said. “Christmas is right around the corner. My dad used to love saying that. Even in July. It seems so weird to me. It doesn’t feel like December.”
“It’s the lack of snow,” Michael said. “I used to believe that all of Canada was snow covered all year round. And then I came here. All this rain. It’s changed my perspective on reality.”
She laughed. “I miss the snow. And I miss the colored lights. Christmas is supposed to be pretty and warm inside. Maybe that’s why it’s so surreal now.”
The doors to Koerner Library were wide open. Someone had started to spray paint some sort of message. They didn’t get to finish. The few words they might have written had obviously been painted over, so the whole thing was an undistinguishable mess. On the ground were several cans of spray paint, and Clementine bent down and picked one up. Shaking it, she discovered it was still at least half full. She walked back to the main road and shook the can several times to mix it up. Kneeling down on the ground, she began to write her own message. She sprayed the words carefully in big, jerky letters.
HEATH. I’M HERE.
CLEMENTINE
When she was finished, she put the spray paint can into her jacket pocket and walked back to the front of the library, where Michael waited, leaning against the security rails.
“Not going to leave a number?” he asked.
“You’re not funny.”
“Yeah, and that’s not paint,” Michael said, pointing to a rusty Rorschach splotch on the ground. He looked back at the painted mess on the library doors. “Wonder what they were trying to write? It must have been good for the Baggers to block it like that.”
“Maybe it was some sort of warning?”
They both stared into the blackness that was the library. The afternoon light only went so far, and Clementine couldn’t see anything beyond the information desk. The shadows swallowed everything up.
Clementine reached into her backpack and pulled out their flashlights, handing one over to Michael. Keeping their baseball bats raised and ready, they entered the building. The smell was bad and instantly assaulted her nostrils. There were bodies here. Coughing, she pulled her bandanna up to cover her face.
A building with the dead inside? How odd that she was prepared for such a thing. Even weirder was the fact that it was normal.
They moved past the main desks and toward the wooden doors that led into the actual library. Now that they were inside, neither would talk to the other unless it was absolutely necessary. Voices carried, especially in large places like this. A whisper could echo off the walls, and who knew who might be listening.
Michael pointed to the stairs and made a walking motion with his fingers. Clementine nodded. They should start at the top and work their way down.
The top levels were empty. Nothing but books and study rooms. Many of the books had been pulled off the shelves, and journals littered the aisles. They found fresh blood in the bathroom on the top floor but no bodies. They wandered around carefully but turned up empty-handed.
It was on level three that they saw the light. Someone else was wandering around. Quickly they turned off their own flashlights and ducked into one of the study rooms. The stench of decay was stronger; Clementine had to slowly breathe through her mouth to try and keep from gagging. Small gasps.
Dear Heath, I read somewhere that when you smell something, you’re actually inhaling the particles. So that means I’m not just sniffing the dead; those itty-bitty tiny specks are going down my throat and into my stomach. I’m eating them. And if that’s not enough to make me want to barf up my morning protein bar, I can’t help but wonder if I’d recognize your decay if I smelled it. You’d better not be here, brother dearest. I don’t want to think that I might have tasted you. That’s just too creepy for words.
The light was coming from the back of the library. They couldn’t see who was there, but it didn’t seem to be more than one person. Clementine watched the shadow moving around from behind
the bookshelves. Too far away to tell what side they might be on. But he or she was making a lot of noise and that made Clementine wonder suspiciously just how careful this person felt they needed to be. She nodded at Michael and the two of them left the study room and slowly took the long way around toward the mystery person.
She tripped over the first body. One second she was moving carefully with one hand out against the wall to help her through the darkness, and the next second she stumbled, knees collapsing. She couldn’t really put her hands out to block her fall either; she didn’t want to risk the noise the bat would make when it hit the floor. Twisting her body sideways, she managed to land on her hip, keeping the metal weapon up in the air instead of having it bang into the tiling.
She came face-to-face with a blackened corpse. Opened her mouth to scream, but Michael was there, pulling her up and into his arms.
The noisy mystery person stopped making noise. The shadow stopped moving. Several terrifyingly long seconds went by before a scuffling noise ensued and the guy or girl went back to their job in progress.
Michael held her tightly until her heart slipped back down from her throat and into its rightful position. Finally she nodded and waved with her hand to let him know she’d regained her composure and he helped her to her feet.
He mouthed “Are you okay?” at her and she nodded.
Together they moved deeper into the building. When they rounded the last bookshelf, they could make out the mystery person from fifty feet away. He had his back to them but it didn’t take long before he turned around and let them see his face.
He wasn’t very old. Midtwenties maybe, he’d probably been just another student at the university. His hair was short and curly, his jeans and shirt clean. He didn’t look like a Bagger; he was too jumpy and his eyes kept nervously darting between his job at hand and the empty darkness surrounding him. Like them, this guy was watching for what else lurked in the shadows.
He had good reason to be scared. Not just because of the Baggers. What he was doing wasn’t exactly honest.