Age of Z: A Tale of Survival (6 page)

She eyed the roads and the surrounding buildings consulting her mental map for the most direct route to where they needed to get. “Think you can keep that up?”

LS hesitated, but then nodded. “Yes. Which way?”

Alexa pointed towards a chain link fence and the alley behind it. “The bridge. We need to get across and go north. If we can–hey!” Her instructions turned into an indignant yelp as LS crouched and this time scooped her up like a child. “Do I
look
like I'm five?”

“Hard to keep a grip the other way when landing, with the backpack,” he growled back at her, in a surprisingly no-nonsense tone. “You want to keep your stuff, we go this way.” And without waiting further he ran a few steps and launched himself into the air once more.

Alexa complained foully under her breath. It didn't help much–based on his smirk, he could hear everything she said.
Awesome.

But Alexa had to admit, he was able to cushion her from the impact a little easier this way–and more importantly it was
fast.
In ten minutes they'd left the horde behind and after setting Alexa back on her feet, they crossed the bridge. In half an hour they covered a few miles, and had made it far enough into relatively safe no-man's-land that Alexa could give LS the cue to halt.

He dutifully slowed to a stop in a decaying field that had probably once grown crops but had long since gone dead and stony. It gave them enough of a vantage point of the surrounding area that they'd know for sure the moment something tried to attack them.

“Okay,” Alexa said, as she tried to shake a little feeling back into her tired legs, “Not gonna lie, that is going to be really useful in a pinch.”

Of course, they couldn't use it all the time. Alexa didn't want to put too much strain on her friend if she could help it–LS was breathing a little harder from the half-hour non-stop jump and run, and Alexa didn't want to wear him out or make him sick. She didn't know what limits the clone might have, and had a hunch he'd ignore them if left to his own devices.

LS gave her a weak smile, but then his expression turned stony. “Alright,” he said, tone hard, “Explain... what happened to military. And everyone else. What's going on?”

Alexa winced. She'd known this was coming, but even with almost an hour to think about it, she still wasn't really sure how to answer the question. She sighed and settled for wiping her messy crowbar on a few old, dead leaves, trying to organize her thoughts. LS watched, eyes narrowed, but waited without interrupting.

Finally Alexa sat down on a particularly large rock and said, “Look, LS. I'm sorry I have to be the one to tell you this. And like this, too. I didn't want to, but...” She grimaced.

“Okay. When Z-day happened, well, the military... when the outbreaks first started, they were at the center of everything. They were trying hard to figure out how to reverse it, what caused it... they did everything they could to stop it. And... it got them killed. This isn't something you can fight. It's not something you can reverse or fix. You just have to keep running, and survive. It got too big for us too fast.” She shrugged.

LS asked slowly, “They just... all died?”

Alexa grit her teeth. “I just saw news stories, heard rumors. I don't know exactly what happened. All I know is, they thought the same way as you–figured the zoms were weak and slow, so it made them cocky. It took a lot of zoms to bring them down, but from what I heard, they just... overran them.”

And when LS looked disbelieving, Alexa added dully, “They don't stop. You saw'em back there. They aren't scared of you or of pain or of dying. They don't feel anything
.
They just keep coming, forever. But people, they aren't like that. They get scared, or tired, or hurt, or afraid of hurting those things. They try to save them, try to connect with them, and it wears them down until they overrun you, and all it takes is one bite...”

She looked up, gave LS an apologetic look. “The military saved a lot of people, though. They held off a swarm long enough to get half of Philadelphia evacuated.”
Of course most of those people died later,
Alexa thought to herself, but she wasn't going to share that part.

LS was silent for a long time, staring at the ground. Alexa began to wonder if he'd gone into shock again. She hadn't done much to help him so far–just deconstructed every aspect of the world he thought he understood, broken it into bitty pieces and scattered them.

“Sorry,” she muttered, and then added, “I understand. It's–”

“How could you possibly understand?” he snarled at her suddenly, looking angry. “You don't understand anything! To learn everything you've been made for, that you looked up to, is just gone like that and you never even had the chance t–”

“My grandpa was in the army,” Alexa blurted out abruptly, cutting him off. LS was stunned into silence, and Alexa continued, “I didn't want to believe it happened, for a long time. I always wanted to pretend the he was off somewhere fighting zombies and he made it through okay and one day he'd be back to save everyone. I still wanted–
want
–to believe that...”

She didn't have to finish. He got it.

“Surprise,” Alexa finished lamely. She couldn't quite hide the bitter edge in her voice.

More silence. LS looked uncomfortable, like he wasn't quite sure what to do now, but after a moment he said awkwardly, “Sorry. About... yelling.”

“S'okay,” Alexa said. “I'm sorry too. I should've explained better.”

The air was too heavy and depressing by now, and Alexa was starting to hate the tenseness of it all. She wasn't one to wallow in self-pity and misery; the fact that she was still alive now, three years later, and optimistically searching for the rest of her family was proof enough of that.

“Look,” she said, tentatively at first, “We should be celebrating! We got out of there alive. That's big. And we've still got our original plan in front of us, too! Nothing's changed. We just gotta get up to that settlement and talk to my buddy. Hopefully we can figure out all these answers and then you can decide what you want to do with your life, without anybody telling you or ordering you or creating you for things. Right?”

LS fixed her with a dull look, but after a moment the weak smile, a little bitter but at least trying, ghosted onto his face. “Right,” he repeated. “Yeah. I'd like that. A choice... my own life.”

“There you go,” Alexa said encouragingly. “Don't worry. We'll get through this. I promise.”

And she was going to do her best to ensure they did.

Chapter 4

The next month was devoted entirely to trying to figure each other out as they made their way northeast, up the Coast.

Alexa spent most of her time teaching her new surrogate sibling as they traveled on foot. In Alexa's not-so-humble opinion, LS couldn't have had a better teacher; she considered herself to be an apocalyptic expert by this point.

Most people traveling outside of safe zones did so only long enough to reach a settlement and join it, and the truly adventurous ones would venture out for brief periods to go on scavenging trips. Alexa had made a living out of existing outside the settlements, meaning she had a lot more experience than most people staying alive in zombie-infested territories.

She was happy to share her survival tips with LS now. And he was a pretty fast learner, she discovered, once Alexa got it through his head that he was not, in fact, invincible.

He picked up on foraging and hunting quickly, learning how to identify, collect, and properly store edible plants and animals for later. He was also far less squeamish than Alexa about hunting, accepting it as a simple necessity, which was good. Alexa had felt guilty for a week the first time she caught and killed a rabbit, and had to force the meat down her throat. The memory still made her feel ill years later.

When they hit larger towns and city outskirts, he also learned how to scavenge for canned goods, water, and other immediate necessities pretty fast. Alexa taught him how to keep an eye on expiration dates and how to determine if foods and medicine were safe to consume, because food poisoning or bad drugs could be a death sentence out here.

Alexa also taught him how to scavenge for other things, outlining a list of which goods were useful for trade and acted as the best forms of modern currency, and with his enhanced strength the number of things they could safely carry away increased.

Most importantly, she stressed repeatedly the necessity of keeping themselves safe at all times. This was the hardest lesson for her to get across to LS, who was still prone to wanting to fight, and disliked being forced to restrain himself. But gradually Alexa started to get across the dire nature of the situation to him, and when she did he took to these lessons, too, with intelligence and skill.

Alexa taught him the basics of zombie avoidance, how to never approach them if it could be avoided and to always traverse silently in any place where zombies might be likely to congregate. A general rule of thumb, she explained, was that wherever high densities of humans could be found–cities, for example, or fairly populated towns and suburbs–equally high densities of zombies would likely reside now.

Traversing these areas could be particularly dangerous, which was why if they could be circled around it was better to do so–unless, of course, you were desperate for the supplies, or couldn't afford to waste the extra time circumventing the area.

Of course, wilderness travel had its own dangers, which she was careful to outline. There would usually be smaller numbers of zoms, maybe only in groups of one or two, but they could also be hidden almost anywhere without being spotted. Trees and bushes could conceal zombies far too easily, after all.

Alexa had even once seen a legless zombie catch a man by surprise when he came across it in tall grass without seeing it. Worst of all was water–Alexa stressed time and time again to
never
approach open sources of water that didn't have a strong current, like ponds and lakes, without taking extreme caution and having a weapon at the ready. Zombies didn't drown, and the unwary could easily be dragged under and never seen again.

LS took it all in stride, and if the frequently grim lessons disturbed him he didn't show it–just kept the frown that Alexa learned was his permanent default expression on his face. Which was good, she hoped. It meant her friend was taking this seriously. Plenty of people thought they could handle wilderness travel, only to discover after a few days of continually watching their back that they couldn't hack it, and that didn't end well.

In addition to explaining all the dangerous places, Alexa gave him a quick rundown of safe places as well, and told him how to determine if a chosen campsite was good or not. Height was usually the most important factor: zombies couldn't climb, although they could sometimes crawl up stairs depending on how steep they were.

Second and third stories of buildings, preferably with lockable doors, were the best. Roofs were also good if they weren't too sloped, although it was hard to hide from the elements in the event of a storm, and trees could be okay too if you were careful about how you slept in them.

Stores, homes, schools, and business buildings were typically okay, if you were careful, but hospitals were to be avoided at all costs as resting places and were only to be entered
at
all
if you were desperate to find medication. When the outbreak first happened, thousands of infected victims were rushed to the hospitals, only to die and spread the condition even further, making most facilities a hotbed for zoms.

LS listened very carefully to each and every explanation, and recited everything back to Alexa dutifully whenever prompted. Alexa made him recite this particular list often, while they were moving–in the event that they got split up, which Alexa hoped wouldn't happen but could never be guaranteed in this day and age. She wanted to make sure he didn't inadvertently get himself killed by choosing a poor shelter.

Of course, there were the lessons in zombie fighting, when necessary. LS seemed particularly intrigued by these lessons, which didn't surprise Alexa in the least. She stressed the importance of always picking flight over fight if given the chance, until he actually started rolling his eyes and saying the warning right along with her.

She also repeatedly stressed how important it was not to get bitten, because once you were, it was over–you were infected, and soon after you'd be trying to munch on your friend's brains.

“Don't make me have to crowbar you,” Alexa told him grimly, once, when he seemed to not be taking the 'don't fight' warnings seriously. “It'll kill me to have to do it, but if you get turned into a zombie and come after me I won't have a choice. So be careful and don't get bitten. And I'll do the same so
you
won't have to actually punch my face in this time.”

LS was noticeably more subdued during the fighting lectures after that, which was good. Nobody should be excited about fighting zombies, not unless they were crazy or had nothing left to lose. Alexa went into detail on how to fight zombies properly–the only way to beat them was to kill them, and the only way to do that was by destroying the brain. Once the brain was damaged, whatever force was controlling the bodies just stopped.

“Other people think fire is a good idea,” she told him once, “but don't believe them. You can eventually burn a zombie to death by reducing the brain–and everything else–to ash. But remember, they don't feel pain, and it takes a while for a corpse to burn. Until then you have a zombie that's on fire attacking you, which is just all kinds of bad. So don't do it.”