I walk more smoothly every day, in and out of dark kitchens as big as my whole apartment used to be. I brew us green tea.
"No art," I say, shrugging apologetically as I hand her a cup. "No foam."
Lara punches me in the shoulder.
"Argh, indicator hole," I wince.
She laughs.
I make 'fresh' bolognese with dried pasta, vine-ripe tomatoes from a sheltered part of the yard, using salt, pepper and wild-growing basil, with chips of dehydrated soy in place of meat. It tastes better than anything I've ever tasted.
"We can have whole fields of tomatoes," Lara muses, while we lie back on a massive balcony and watch the sun come up over the country. "Grapes too, there's plenty in California. Wine. We'll start up agriculture again."
"Fields of bolognese plants," I say. "I hear the soil is perfect for them."
She snorts. "That would be cows."
I lean back and savor the moment. "Fields of cow plants then. They'll be so cute when they bud."
She doesn't even snort. "There must be some we can round up. Fence them in again."
"Yeah. If the ocean haven't eaten them all."
"True. They ate their way through all my neighborhood's dogs."
"I'd like a dog," I say. "I'll call it Buddy."
"I'll have a cat," she muses. "And a horse."
We cuddle closer and nap. We drive on.
* * *
Los Angeles is a low gray sprawl. We come upon its suburbs gathered in the base of a low valley like receding ice at the pole, spreading out into a steady gray plateau of malls, condominiums, office parks, warehouses, and windowless buildings that could be CIA black sites or storage lockers or film studios.
We push through, down the same snake of road that has carried us like a river from New York, expanded now to eight lanes. We go under and over numerous other highways, each of them jetting off to other cities, spread across the country.
We hit downtown and stop in a tourist shop for maps, accompanied by the usual herd of floaters; maps to the stars in the Hollywood hills, maps to the various beaches, maps that show the Walk of Fame outside the Chinese theater.
We pull off I-15 and turn north along the coast. Everywhere there are dribs and drabs of the ocean, skinny and shriveled and gray, stumbling along the boardwalk and down to the beach. There they walk steadily to the water, and in.
"Jesus," Lara says. "They're really doing it."
She stops the convoy and we get out. We walk down to stand amongst them on the shore. They pass by us like falling snowflakes, oblivious, driven by some strange internal drive.
"Do you think they're going to drown?" Lara asks. "Was Don right?"
"No," I say. "I don't know, but I don't think so."
We watch them file one by one, like shooting stars across the beach, flaming out in the surf. They don't try to swim, and they don't carry on the waves. They walk until they go under.
"Maybe they fill with water," Lara says. "Then they walk along the ocean floor."
"So they don't need to breathe?"
"Maybe not. They always have breathed, I know. But maybe they don't need to."
I squeeze her hand. "I hope so."
I really do. I don't like to think of all these people, drowning themselves a few hundred yards away from where we stand. Surely the beach would be scattered with their washed-up bodies, if they were just dying.
"They're going somewhere," I say. "Maybe a better place."
We drive on. The Hollywood sign appears on the hills. We go past the Chinese theater the first time round without really noticing it. I only notice the stars on the sidewalk, glinting in the sun.
We pull back and park. We get out and stand before it.
"This is it," Lara says.
I nod. I root around inside myself, wondering what to feel. There's nothing strong, though. I half-expect to see a line of people swinging by the necks from the entranceway, an image Lara shared with me, but there are none.
We are the first. I feel pride at completing this mission. I have come across the whole country. I have fought, and learned, and survived, and now we stand on the precipice of something wondrous, the end of the yellow brick road.
People may come.
* * *
It takes one generator to fire up the projector in the largest premier screen, and one to run the sound, and one to run the coordinating computer system in the central office. We perform a rude hack to get it all working, but it works.
It's all digital now. In the storage room by flashlight we sift through the solid-state black bricks that contain movies.
"Gone with the Wind?" Lara suggests.
"Put it on the pile."
"Ghostbusters?"
"Pile."
We heap them up. Already there's an audience of the ocean gathering in the theater, drawn by the sound and light. I guess these ones aren't quite ready to move on yet.
I keep hunting for the movie I've been waiting to see for years, one that was never screened, but must surely be ready. We don't find it in the theater, so we go on.
We find the studio that owned it, and dig through its campus. Every door we open releases floaters into the wild. We pass through cavernous dark studios, editing bays and offices, grand lobbies and storage rooms filled with old memorabilia, corridors lined with signed posters, busts of famous, long-dead actors, until in a central vault deep in the belly of the central building, I find it.
Ragnarok III. It comes on two bricks, and we carry one each.
"I don't even like these superhero movies that much," Lara says.
"It's not about liking," I say. "It's an event movie. We watch it like people used to go to church, to be together and listen to a sermon."
"That is dour."
"I do quite like them too," I add. "There's more spectacle than church."
We slot the first half of the movie into place in the Chinese theater's control room with a satisfying clunk, on August 23rd, 2018, at 1:15pm. It kicks into life with a pre-roll of ads and trailers. We pause it.
We make popcorn in a microwave. We decant soda from the machines. We alter the strip line boards at the theater's front, sliding in the letters of our message.
LMA/LBA PRODUCTIONS PROUDLY PRESENTS:
RAGANAROK I, II & III TRIPLE BILL
WELCOME TO THE WEST COAST, SURVIVORS!
We settle down amidst the ocean, in the premium loveseats at the back, and watch the movie. It is great fun. The world is nearly destroyed, our heroes battle each other then unite, and all is relatively well in the end, with just enough mystery and threat left to hint at bigger and darker stories to come.
Afterward we stand at the entrance at sunset and look out over the actual ocean. It laps at the beach only yards away. Floaters flow out around us, heading down to the orange-dappled water like a tide of gray gazelle. We hold hands.
"They'll come," I say. "Cerulean will come."
Lara squeezes my hand. "Of course he will. The Last Mayor of America is handing out free coffee, who can resist that?"
I squeeze back.
We stand and watch the burning eye of the sun sink into the Pacific. I wonder if this is what the ocean are following, like devotees of the sun god Ra. Round and round the world they'll go, like a tidal flow, endlessly chasing the great bright light in the sky.
It makes me smile. It's no different than wildebeest roaming the plains or salmon swimming upstream. It's just another natural cycle, turning with the world.
We stand there a time longer, sipping bottled beer and thinking our own thoughts while the burnt sienna sunset fades atop the ocean, when a noise comes from down the coastal road. It is unmistakably an engine, drawing near.
Lara turns to me with wide eyes. I smile.
We fire up the front generators that power up fairy lights all round the Chinese theater's façade. We watch the headlights meander up the coast, always growing closer. My heart hammers with hope.
One of my RVs from New York pulls up, followed closely by a classic red Mustang. A young man gets out of the RV. He's pale, his hair is dark and feathery, and he stands at the door looking up at us with a broad grin on his face.
I spread my arms. "Welcome!" I say.
There are tears in his eyes. "We didn't know if you'd be here," he says. He looks at us in turn. "Amo. Lara. Look at this."
The door to the side of the RV opens, and someone else gets out. It's a little girl with frizzy dark hair, wearing a cute blue and white outfit. She's followed by an older but hardy-looking woman and an Asian woman in camouflage gear. From the Mustang comes a somber Hispanic man. A floater washes past them and not a one of them draws a weapon or shows any sign of fear. I feel such pride.
Then someone else comes. The RV back doors open and my heart leaps in my chest. A wheelchair edges into view, then comes round the side.
In it is my friend, grinning like a madman, crying like all of us.
Cerulean. Robert.
I run down and hug him, shouting out his name with words of welcome spilling off my lips.
"Good job, Amo," he says in my ear, thumping my back.
"You too," I answer, barely able to breathe.
He introduces us to the others, each of them a survivor gathered along the way, on the road or in my cairns. We all hug and shake hands, we tell them our names though of course they already know, and we all cry together and laugh together and grin like idiots together.
"Welcome," I say. "We've got movies. We've got popcorn and soda. Welcome home!
Want to see
the cover of Amo's comic,
Zombies of America?
Get a poster-sized copy,
free, by joining
Michael John Grist's
newsletter.
Also
Get the sci-fi thriller
Mr. Ruins
for free too!
Just click and sign-up!
Author's Note
Thank you for reading The Last! I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. As an indie author I'm keenly aware of how many great books there are out there, and I appreciate you taking the time to try this one. Would you consider reviewing it on the shop site and/or Goodreads?
It doesn't matter how many stars you give or how long/short your review is, as long as the review is honest. Honest reviews from readers like you are the lifeblood of indie authors, affording us visibility and social proof in a highly competitive market.
Thank you!
Shop links
Goodreads
As a token of my gratitude for sampling my work, I'd like to offer you my free Starter Library of 2 post-apocalypse books- one of them is The Last, the other is titled Mr. Ruins, an SF cyberpunk thriller that tells the story of an ex-marine after an apocalyptic global resource war, and his battles with a monstrous figure who wants to swallow his soul- Mr. Ruins.
You only need to enter your email to get Mr. Ruins:
Newsletter
In addition, I'm always looking for advance readers to join my ARC (Advance Review Copy) Squad, who get free copies of all my books, a month before anyone else, forever, in exchange for reviews on launch day.
If you'd like to join the ARC Squad, please send me an email at
[email protected] and I'll happily make you a member.
Now, read on for the first chapter of The Lost, Book 2 of the Zombie Ocean!
- Michael Grist
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I'd like to thank all my early reviewers and beta-readers on the ARC Squad, whose advice and suggestions have proved invaluable in fine-tuning this and my other books, in particular Bethany, Katy, Christina, and Lunara. Matt offered great advice and encouragement as ever, Ray made a number of very helpful suggestions about weaponry, and Elaine spotted an ample handful of missed Britishisms I wasn't aware of, like 'dressing gown' instead of 'bathrobe'. Rob dived in with some excellent saves, in particular the bit where Cerulean's avatar stopped being a parrot with a pirate on its shoulder and became a pirate with a parrot on his shoulder. Thank you all!
Also, as ever, thanks to my wife for her stalwart support of my writing career, as well as to my mom and dad, my brother Joe and sister Alice too, for all their encouragement and interest. Thank you all very much.
- Michael
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael John Grist is a British writer who lived in Tokyo, Japan for 11 years and now lives in London, England.
He writes science fiction and fantasy thrillers, and used to explore and photograph abandoned places in Japan, such as ruined theme parks, military bases and underground bunkers. These explorations have drawn millions of visitors to his website michaeljohngrist.com, and often provide inspiration for his fiction.
OTHER WORKS
Zombie Ocean (zombie apocalypse)
1. The Last
2. The Lost
3. The Least
1-3 Box Set
4. The Loss
5. The List
6. The Laws
4-6 Box Set 2
7. The Lash
Ruins War (science fiction thriller)
1. Mr. Ruins
2. King Ruin
3. God of Ruin
Ignifer Cycle (epic fantasy)
1. Ignifer's Rise
2. Ignifer's War
0. Ignifer's Tales - short stories
Short fiction
The Bells of Subsidence - 9 science fiction stories
Bone Diamond - 9 weird fiction stories
Non-fiction
Into The Ruins - Adventures in Abandoned Japan
THE LOST - Zombie Ocean 2
Where would you go, when everyone is dead?
THE LEAST - Zombie Ocean 3
How much suffering could you survive?
THE LOSS - Zombie Ocean 4
How much could you lose, and still survive?
THE LIST - Zombie Ocean 5
How many would you to kill for revenge?
THE LAWS - Zombie Ocean 6
How many lives would you crush to rule?
THE LOST (Excerpt)
1. DADDY
Seven hours before the zombie apocalypse took away everything she ever knew, five-year old Anna lay in bed listening to her father read Alice through the Looking Glass.
"When I was your age," he said in the high voice he used for the Red Queen, "I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Wrapped up in the tight covers, Anna listened to the words intently. Her Daddy had a cozy brown voice that always kept her calm, and this was one of the few stories she could hear without the hurt becoming too much. It helped that her small bedroom was dark, and the covers were dark, and her Daddy's pajamas were dark; all except the yellow lightning bolt on his back, but she was used to that.
Darkness helped. Quiet helped. Impossible things didn't, but if she couldn't even enjoy imagining those, what did she have left?
"Tell me an impossible thing, Daddy," she said.
He smiled down at her. He had a dark and stubbly face, lit by the low orange light from the side-table lamp. She knew he wasn't all that old, but there was gray in his dark beard, twinkling like Christmas snowflakes. His brown eyes were warm and full.
"I could quote just about anything in this book, I should think," he said. "Card-men? Bread and butterflies? The Jabberwock?"
Anna smiled and closed her eyes. Her Daddy was another thing that didn't hurt her head at all. After the coma the doctors said that anything she already knew would be all right, and wouldn't make her head hurt. But the only things she could really remember from that time were Alice, her Daddy, and a vague sense of her mother.
Her mother had gone though. Only her Daddy had stayed.
"What about ham-fly?" she asked. "Or potato-bird?"
The hurt kicked in, a persistent throb that quickly spread through h
er head.
"Alright button," her father said softly. "I think that's enough."
She opened her eyes. "Tell me one. Just one then I'll go to sleep."
He sighed. "You'll be up all night, Anna."
"I won't I promise, just one."
Her father frowned, and tapped her nose gently. "One, all right. Let's make it good." He leaned back and thought for a little while.
This wait was delicious. Most nights it was one of their routines: to make up something new, something to dream about, something to chew and digest and make herself stronger.
"OK," he said at last, "I've got it. In the rainforests of Peru, some of the women wear birds instead of clothes. Did you know that?" His eyes twinkled. "They pleat the feathers together into beautiful patterns. Why?"
Anna screwed up her nose. That idea hurt her head sharply, like a lump of freezing snow behind her face. It was new and vivid. "Not just for fashion?"
Her Daddy chuckled. "Probably for fashion, ladies do like fashion don't they, but what else?"
The hurt thumped. She screwed her tongue up in her mouth. "So they can fly into the trees and get coconuts?"
"Good guess. Yes. They fly up for coconuts, then fly up higher and plant the coconut seeds in the tops of the other trees. Why?"
Her head banged and her eyes throbbed. "To make an arch? A rainbow out of trees. So they hang down on vines like a canary in a cage? So they become birds."
"They become birds by dressing up in birds, exactly. Like the caterpillar in his chrysalis. It's what makes them happy."
Anna sighed, part in satisfaction, part with the hurt. Her father stroked her forehead.
"You're getting hot Anna. That's enough now."
It was enough. Too much, probably. She'd have to lie silently and still for hours now before sleep would come, thinking through Alice's familiar adventures to clear these new images from her head. But that was OK. She'd be able to add them in to her collection soon, as their newness faded.