Until the End of the World (Book 3): All the Stars in the Sky (6 page)

Thomas turns at the opening of the house’s door. A woman who looks to be his age—forty or so—with shoulder-length brown hair and a round, pleasant face stops on the top step and watches us with her hand on her collarbone. When she sees Bits, Hank and Nicki, she perks up and makes her way down the stairs to join Thomas, who says, “This is my wife, Jessica.”

“We appreciate the offer of a place to sleep, ma’am,” Zeke says. “We’ll stay in the RV and be out of your way in the morning. Name’s Zeke.”

“We have room in the house,” she says. “It’s the floor, but it’s warm.”

“Don’t want to be any trouble, ma’am.” Zeke’s Southern manners are so gracious that he could be giving a courtly bow wearing a seersucker suit instead of boots and a motorcycle jacket.

“Don’t call me ma’am again, Zeke,” Jessica says, and her wide, friendly smile erases my final bit of uncertainty about their motives.

An elderly man with wispy white hair that has lifted from its comb-over comes to the doorway. “Why don’t you come inside? It’s cold out here,” he says in a gravelly voice.

Just inside the foyer, stairs rise to the second floor. To the left is a dining room with a large table, the kitchen off it to the rear. The scent of food loaded with spices makes my mouth water. I’ve been able to ignore my hunger much of the day—we’re going without lunch now that our travel time has increased—but now I’m famished.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” Thomas says. “I have to check on the chickens and then we’ll talk.”

He gestures toward the living room that takes up the right side of the first floor. The flickering lamps give off warm light, and a woodstove by the far wall throws off gloriously abundant heat. A piano sits in the corner. I wonder if they ever play it or if it sits silent now. My dad used to say that there was always music playing somewhere—maybe this is one of those places.

When we enter, a dozen people rise from the various couches. One, a blond teenage boy, checks out Ashley before examining his own feet. A man holds a pregnant woman’s arm protectively. Most are somewhere in their twenties through forties, a mix of men and women. They introduce themselves and we say our names before standing in silence. Maybe they feel as uncomfortable as I do, having invaded their space.

“Well, let them sit. Were you all raised in a barn?” the old man, Gerry, says after he’s lowered himself into an easy chair. He waves us in. “Sit down.”

I guide Bits and Hank to the wall near the stove. Penny sinks onto a couch cushion. The pregnant woman, Robin, perches beside her and tucks her dark hair behind her ears.

“When are you due?” Robin asks. “I’m due in a few weeks.”

“Mid-December.” Penny compares their stomachs and groans. “Oh God, I’m already as big as you! Are you positive you don’t have another three months?”

The tension in the room dissolves at Robin’s laugh. Quiet conversations begin, and I listen to the pregnant ladies commiserate about morning sickness and impending labor. I can only comprehend so many of the joys of pregnancy. The baby part is cool, but the getting there seems like a pain in the ass. Literally, according to Penny. I’ll have to take her word for it.

I shove the thought of Adrian and our never-to-be-born children out of my mind. I have Bits and now Hank. It’s enough. It’ll have to be enough. After Dan, I feel like anyone I touch is doomed to die; I’d rather be alone than wait for the next victim. And I certainly won’t have any more children if I can help it. Not in this world.

Peter kisses the top of Bits’s head after she scoots into his lap. I have my little family. The fact that it’s an adoptive, platonic co-parenting family doesn’t make it any less than the conventional kind. For the first time in days I feel safe. Content, even, if I don’t think about what’s ahead of us or what we left behind. Just for tonight, I’ll try to stop worrying. But I can’t stop my hunger. Whatever they’re cooking in the kitchen is pure torture.

“I’m hungry,” Bits says, more fact than complaint. “When are we eating? What are we eating?”

“What do you say we talk after supper?” Zeke asks Thomas, who’s just returned. “We’ll go and fix our meal while you have yours.”

“Don’t waste your fuel,” Thomas says. “You’re welcome to use the stove. One thing we do have is plenty of LP and wood.”

“Thank you,” Maureen says, and turns to me. “Cassie, want to help?”

Maureen and I search the RV’s pantry for something quick and easy. We save the cold stuff like MREs and canned goods for times when we won’t be able to cook. There are boxes of pasta, packages of ramen noodles and bags of rice, flour, sugar and oats. The amounts are depressingly small. I place five packages of noodles, a few vegetables from our meager stock and all of our containers in a cloth bag to bring inside.

Maureen stares into the cabinet. “We’ll make it work.”

With doubling the travel time to account for stopping at night and any difficulties that may arise, we’re limiting ourselves to far fewer calories than we need. We’re on a strict diet, and none of us needs to be on a diet.

“I know,” I say, although I don’t.

Maureen’s hand tightens into a fist on a box of pasta before her head drops. Her sob is raw, the kind that’s impossible to hold back. I wrap my arms around her shoulders. I know how much she cared for John, and he for her. She’d found love again, only to have it taken—again.

“I’m okay,” she says.

“You don’t have to be. I’m not.”

“You are.” She swipes at her cheeks. “John knew you would be.”

“I don’t want you to think I don’t care that he’s—” I say, and realize I don’t know what he is. He’s very likely roaming the woods of Vermont, looking for something to eat. John deserves better than that. We all do, but he was so kind and loving that it breaks my heart to think he may have become something to fear.

Maureen takes my hands. “Don’t ever think I don’t know how much you loved him. We just go on the best we can. We have to.”

I blink to stave off tears. That’s what she said to me the day we first arrived at Kingdom Come. And here we are, searching for a home again. “He loved you so much,” I say. “Enough to admit it to me, even.”

John’s love was huge, just like his heart, but he wasn’t known for his willingness to discuss it. The fine lines around Maureen’s eyes turn up. “And I loved him. John used to say, ‘The Lord is near to the broken-hearted.’ It’s from Psalms. I remind myself of that every day. And when I do, I can feel God. And John and my husband and daughter.”

I look for signs from those I’ve lost—there aren’t ever any. It doesn’t mean I think they’ve ceased to exist, just that I can’t be certain they’re somewhere better.

She takes a shaky breath. “And I am okay. Don’t you worry about me. It’s my job to worry about you.”

“How about we worry about each other?”

“Deal. Let’s get dinner on.”

“You relax,” I say. “Enjoy the couch and fire. You’re always bustling around, it drives me crazy. I look lazy in comparison.”

For the first time in days, I hear Maureen’s throaty laugh. “You’re such a stinker. But I think I will. Thank you, sweetheart.”

Jessica offers a broad smile when I enter the kitchen. “What do you need? Thomas said you’d be cooking in here.”

“Just a large pot,” I say. “Thank you. Oh, I’ll be right back, I forgot water.”

“Help yourself, we have no shortage of water. There’s a well behind the house.”

She points me to a large container with a spigot and then dishes their meal into bowls. It’s some sort of grain with beans and what look to be chunks of squash and tomato. It smells of cumin, onions and garlic, which is to say it smells delicious.

I fill the pot with more water than needed. It won’t have caloric value, but warm, weakened broth feels more filling than plain water. Jessica leaves to bring food to the rest of her household. I chop carrots and zucchini and ignore the mushrooms that practically scream my name from a basket on the counter.

Nelly enters and watches me chop. “Need help?”

“Yeah, run out to the store and get us some steaks.” I dump the veggies in the pot to wait for them to come to a boil.

Nelly groans. He could easily quadruple the calories he’s getting on our new diet. He must be starving. “I’m killing and eating the next animal I see. I don’t care what it is.”

“Well, while we’re waiting for that to happen, you can set out bowls. It’d better not be Sparky. Bits would never forgive you.”

“How about Barnaby?”

“Maybe we’ll get so hungry that he’ll start to look like a turkey, with delicious turkey vapors rising off his golden drumsticks. You know, like in cartoons.”

Nelly laughs. “Or a roast with those little white hats on the bones.”

“Paper frills,” Peter says from the kitchen doorway.

“Of course you know what they’re called, Pete,” Nelly says.

Barnaby trails Peter into the kitchen. “You have a new shadow,” I say. “Maybe he knows you’re the only thing standing between him and his demise.”

Nelly trains his eyes on Barn and licks his lips. “Mm…steak.” Barn wags his tail, oblivious to our plot to eat him.

“Maybe we should rename him Steak,” I say, “so if the kids ask what we’re eating, we can just say, ‘Steak.’ ”

Peter levels a finger at us. “You are not eating my dog. I came to see if you needed help.”

“Unless you can do something miraculous like change rocks to bread, I’m good.”

We stop discussing food when Jessica reenters. I must not be the only one who doesn’t want her to see how little we have and feel obligated to help us.

“You have a nice place,” Peter says.

“Thanks. I like it, especially now that we don’t have to pay a mortgage,” she says with a laugh.

“That’s one good thing,” I say. “No bills to pay.”

Jessica holds out a hand made raw by all the work one has to do these days. “Tell you what I’d love—lotion. It’s so dry in the winter.”

“I want an endless amount of lip balm,” I say. Jessica nods vigorously. “How cold does it get here?”

“In
Winter
peg?” she asks. Peter, Nelly and I laugh. “Really freaking cold. You don’t want to know.”

I whimper. “Alaska’s going to suck.” She pats my shoulder and grins before she leaves.

I break the noodles and dump them into the water. Three minutes later, Peter ladles equal portions into our receptacles and Nelly brings out the first round. I take a few noodles and all of the vegetables from my mug and drop them into Penny’s, then scoop some of her broth into mine so it looks even. She needs it more than I do. I point James to Penny’s mug and watch him do the same with his soup. I’m sure he’d give her his whole meal if he could, but Penny would flip if he tried.

Jessica stops on her way past the table, brow furrowed. “That doesn’t look like enough. Are you low on food?”

Peter and I stare at each other instead of meeting her eyes. He speaks first. “We have more people than we thought we would, but we’re going into the city for fuel and food tomorrow.”

I nod like it’s going to be the best time ever to head into a place with hundreds of thousands of zombies. Jessica’s mouth moves, but she nods instead of speaking. I wait for her to disappear and gulp down my broth and noodles without a spoon.

“I’m ready for breakfast,” I say to Peter, who studies his plastic bowl and nods.

Bits eats delicately while Hank inhales his. He’s too well-mannered to complain, but by the way he licks his bowl clean I know he’d like to beg for more. I wish I hadn’t eaten what I didn’t give to Penny so I could give it to him. I’d be ravenous, but that doesn’t seem as bad as watching Hank scrape his bowl. I wash the pot and leave it to dry. When I turn, Peter’s dumping the remainder of his soup into the kids’ bowls. It’s a gesture that makes me want to simultaneously hug and yell at him. He walks his empty bowl over to the sink.

“You need to eat,” I say. “A big, strapping lad like yourself.”

“So do you. I saw what you did with Penny’s soup.”

He must think I’m gearing up for an argument by the way his shoulders tense, so I say, “Well, obviously we’re both idiots.”

“I’ve always known that. I’m just glad you can finally admit it.”

I kick his boot before I turn to wash the dishes. I’m surrounded by freaking comedians.

We’ve told Thomas and the others about the pods coming this way, unless they all veered for the Northeast. We answer their questions as best we can, but we lack a vast amount of information. Once they’ve exhausted our store of knowledge, James asks him about the farm.

“We bought the land to start an organic farm,” Thomas says. “Then we found out we would have to wait longer than usual for certification. We were going to lose too much money, so I decided to return to work as an engineer. We’d just listed the farm for sale last spring.”

He speaks in a measured voice, the engineer in him evaluating every word before it leaves his mouth. “We shored up the fence and waited it out. As long as we were quiet, we didn’t have many visitors. Most people who left the city didn’t stop. The few who did stop,” he smiles at his housemates, “stayed on. So far, we’ve been able to find enough food and fuel. We’ve only seen a few people so far this summer—Robin and Ryan—and some who drove past without stopping.”

Thomas thinks for a moment. “If the giant group—pod—was in Iowa over a month ago, they should’ve been here by now.”

James spreads a map of the United States on the coffee table. “If they’re walking straight and slow at one mile per hour, then, yeah. But they could be twenty or thirty miles east or west, coming this way. I don’t think that pod in Iowa moved east, or they would’ve hit the Safe Zones in Pennsylvania and New York before us. I think there’s more than one pod. Between the Southern U.S. and South America, there are a lot of zombies that didn’t freeze this winter.”

We had the winter in which to plan, recuperate and regain a sense of security. Down south, where the Lexers ate through the winter, there must be nothing left. If there were, maybe they wouldn’t be eating their way north.

“There are some places to get a decent view. A few buildings, I mean, but getting inside won’t be easy.” Thomas shrugs, but the lines around his eyes have begun to descend.