Until the End of the World (Book 3): All the Stars in the Sky (22 page)

We decide to try the hotel across the street whose sign touts a deluxe continental breakfast, as it’s the first hotel we’ve seen with undamaged doors and windows. Peering through our cupped hands on the glass reveals a lobby that’s untouched except for the ten Lexers that wander around the check-in counter and couches. The day’s newspapers sit on a table with a sign that says they’re free for the taking. Carafes of coffee also advertise themselves as complimentary.

A Lexer moves to the door, stumbling over the body of one who didn’t make it past thawing. The others follow suit until the doors rattle with their fists and faces. More enter from the hall, but we can take them if we let them out slowly.

“I’ll pry the doors,” Zeke says over the pounding. “Y’all want to get them?”

He leaves and returns with a crowbar. I’ll take zombies over living people any day. They have no interest in our flesh besides eating it.

Three come out at Zeke’s first heave. Peter jumps in front of me and takes out mine so quickly that I almost hack him in the back. I move near Mark, but Peter does it again with the next few that emerge.

“You’re in my way,” I say to him after Zeke lets the doors shut.

He ignores me. I change position and get close to the entrance when he tries to follow. If he wants to block me, he’s going to get eaten. He steps to the side with a scowl. I want to kill something, and God help me, it will be Peter if he tries that again. I can’t tell if he’s trying to protect me or infuriate me, but I can protect myself just fine.

The doors stick open with Zeke’s next grunt, and then there are too many for Peter to concern himself with my whereabouts. I drive my spiked end into the eye of a hotel employee still wearing a nametag that says
Jackie
. I turn to the next one, grab the back of its hair and dig into the base of its skull, like I tried to do to Whit. A man with a bathrobe still knotted around his waist gets the blade in his forehead. I push him to the side and look for another, but they’re all down.

My breath is easy. I feel like I’ve barely moved a muscle and almost wish there were more, but I’m not crazy enough to really want it to be so. I grin at Zeke, who crinkles his eyes like a biker Santa Claus and says, “Normally I’d say ladies first, but you’ll pardon my manners this time.”

There have to be others in the building, but so far the coast is clear. The breakfast area has a wall of windows and counters that hold cereal dispensers and drink machines. Margaret throws open the door to the storage room.

The packaged pastries are green fuzz, but there are five-pound bags of waffle mix in the low cabinets. Small containers of syrup. Mini boxes of cereals full of sugar and loaded with vitamins to make up for it. Hot chocolate mix, tea bags and coffee. Packets of oatmeal and sugar and even powdered creamer. I jump up and down silently at the treasure trove.

“I’ll go get the bins,” Peter says. “Cassie, you want to help?”

I startle at the sound of him addressing me. He follows me past Mark, who’s keeping an eye out in the hall. I give Penny and the kids a thumbs up as I jump in the truck’s bed and hand empty bins down to Peter.

“We have it,” he says. “Stay out here.”

I lean on the edge of the pickup and narrow my eyes. “Why are you trying to get rid of me?”

“I’m not trying to
get rid of you
, Cassandra. You’re not needed in there, so why go?”

I’m not arguing in the middle of zombie-infested territory, so I take a page from his book and ignore him. “Do you want me to take a bin?”

“No.”

I stride ahead into the lobby and stop short at Mark’s holler and the clatter of plastic bins hitting the floor behind me. Two Lexers have come from the manager’s office, although everything in there looked dead when we checked it. One knocks Peter to his back and the other drops to its knees. I run and kick one so hard that it slides along the slick tile. I puncture the other in its forehead and turn to the first, but Peter’s already up, machete smashing its skull. We stare at each other, wheezing, and I think this is where he’ll stop being angry at me or the world or whatever it is he’s pissed at, but his shoulders harden. “You could have died.”

The tears come, but I turn away before he can see. “You’re welcome,” I say, glad he can’t hear them in my voice.

I watch a small factory milling with Lexers until it’s out of sight of our vehicles. Even up here, with nothing for miles around, they’ve taken over. We won’t make it past Fort St. John today, so, well before the city, we stop at a house hidden from the road by shrubbery. It has a
For Sale
sign and is furnished just enough to give potential buyers an impression of the rooms’ purposes. The fridge is clean and kitchen spotless.

Inside the RV, Nelly sits on the couch and smiles through the worry evident in every line on his face. “Adam’s sleeping, but he’s okay. I made him drink some syrup and oatmeal soup,” he says before I can ask.

I smooch him on the lips. He rubs it off, but his eyes sparkle. “You look a damn sight better than last night. You okay, darlin’?”

I wave away his question. It’s embarrassing to think about what I must’ve looked like, barely dressed and bloody, which makes me angry that I feel any shame at all. The only people who should feel ashamed are lying on the side of the road with their throats sliced. “How’s Kyle?” I ask.

“He woke up for a few minutes. He was babbling and didn’t make any sense. Nicki’s sleeping next to him.”

The only thing we know to do with head trauma is leave it alone and hope it sorts itself out. Jamie sits at the dinette with her head in her hands. It’s a different kind of head trauma for her, but the treatment is the same. I touch her shoulder. “I’m going to make dinner. The house is all clear if you want to lie down.”

“I’ll sleep in here so I’m close to Kyle and Adam,” she says, head down. “They need heat.”

I hug her even though she might want to be left alone. She squeezes my arm before she nods and lets go. The kitchen in the RV is different, but I get a vision of Maureen’s dull eyes and pale skin, the kids in a terrified pile on the couch, Boss’s brains scattering across where Jamie sits. My hand shakes when I dump waffle mix into a bowl.

“Maybe I should use the camping stove,” I say. “Since you need the heat tonight.” I rush out the door and drop onto the RV’s steps. I’ll go back once I’ve collected myself.

“Want help?” Margaret asks. She never helps with the cooking, preferring to sharpen blades or clean guns.

“I’m going to cook outside. I just have to get the pans and waffle mix.”

“I’ll get it.” She puts her hand on my shoulder as she steps past.

I set up the stove on the house’s front porch and add filtered water to the mix. My breathing has returned to normal by the time Bits and Hank hover over me. “We’re having wafflecakes,” I say. “These are gonna be the best wafflecakes you’ve ever tasted right here.”

“And the only,” Hank says, but he laughs along with Bits.

“Will we get a big one?” Bits asks. “With syrup?”

“Not one,” I say. “You’re going to eat as many wafflecakes as your little hearts desire. And you can drown them in syrup. We’ll fill up a tub with syrup and you can get in and eat your wafflecakes while you swim in it.”

Peter is in the pickup’s bed arranging things, head cocked as if listening. I pour batter into the pan. The smell of browning flour and sugar is so wonderful that I want to cry.

Hank hesitates and then asks, “Shouldn’t we save it?”

I can see how badly he doesn’t want to, and I want to do anything that might bring an ounce of pleasure into these kids’ lives. “Not today. There’s plenty and we all need a big meal. I’m tired of saving things for later.”

“Me, too,” Bits says, and swings on the porch rail. “I’m going to eat five.”

“Ten,” Hank says.

“Well, I’m going to eat twenty-seven,” I say. “How many are you going to eat, Peter?”

Peter glances over. “I’m not very hungry.”

I flip the wafflecake and consider throwing my pan at him, but instead I say to the kids, “More for us, right?”

***

Penny is my partner for the first cold watch shift of the night. But we had the presence of mind to take a couple of carafes from the hotel and now we have copious amounts of hot coffee and hot water in which to brew tea. I’ve only allowed myself creamer and sugar in one cup, but as long as it’s warm, I’m happy.

Penny pours herself coffee number two and pats her stomach before she gets back under our blankets. “Sorry, kid, but you’ll have to deal.”

“She’ll be fine,” I say. “Maybe a little hyper, but fine.”

“Maybe it’ll make her run fast. That’s what you want with zombies, right?” Penny’s joking about zombies. Penny never jokes about zombies. I watch her carefully, but she takes another sip of coffee and leans back, eyes closed. “You’ll teach her what she needs to know.”

“Of course.”

Penny’s eyes open. “And you’ll teach
me
this winter. Maybe I didn’t have to learn on the farm, but I don’t ever want to be caught out again. You’ve seen how terrible I am at this stuff.”

“I saw you last night. That wasn’t terrible. He might’ve shot me if it weren’t for you.”

Penny’s cup trembles in her hand, but she looks pleased to have had a part in bringing them down. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t even think—I just jumped him. It was really stupid.”

“It’s only stupid if it doesn’t work,” I say with a grin. “Otherwise, it’s genius.”

“You sound like my sister.” Penny takes an extra long sip of coffee after the words slip out.

“That’s not so bad, is it?”

“No, it’s not. I do know what I was thinking last night,” Penny says slowly. “It was
what would Ana do
? And then I did it.”

“W.W.A.D?”

“She’d love that, wouldn’t she? Me asking myself that and then actually following the advice?” She’d looked on the verge of tears a moment ago, but now she rolls her eyes in a loving sort of way.

“Except the acronym is
wad
. I don’t think she’d be into that.”

Penny’s laugh has changed—another weird pregnancy side effect—to a throatier, louder belly laugh that might attract Lexers but is so contagious I join in. James lifts his head from where he’s camped out on the house’s living room floor. “Trying to sleep here. What’s so funny?”

There’s no way to explain, and, anyway, we can’t stop. Penny grabs her stomach. “Ow!” James leaps up, but she waves him away, tears running down her cheeks. “It’s just round ligament pain.”

One side of James’s hair sticks straight out as he dances around her like a frantic daddy long legs. I point at him and say, “That’s the father of your child right there.”

Penny and I lose it. My bruises throb less than they did a minute ago. They’ve spent all day reminding me of where I was held down, trapped and defeated, but now, if only for a little while, I revel in the fact that I’m free.

Kyle woke again and was able to carry on a conversation before he lapsed back into sleep. After my shift, I get into bed next to Hank instead of the space by Peter, who ate plenty of wafflecakes but didn’t say another word the entire night. It takes me forty minutes of shivering to fall asleep, even with Barnaby stretched along my legs. He couldn’t believe his luck when I invited him up, but as far as I’m concerned he’s earned a place in my bed and our group even if he never learns to shut up. If Auburn hadn’t gone down from my arrow, Barnaby’s attack would’ve given me and the others time to get to Auburn before he killed me.

My sleep is fitful and loaded with dreams that wake me up in a panic, until I wake to a hand on my shoulder where Whit pinned me down. I know it can’t be him, but my brain neglects to tell my arm that fact before my fist connects with Peter’s face.

“Jesus!” he says, and holds a hand over his cheek.

I sit up in the morning light and reach for him. “Oh my God, sorry! Peter, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says, and backs out of the bedroom.

He has to know I didn’t want to punch him. Or maybe that I didn’t
mean
to, because with the way he’s been acting I’m kind of glad I got one in. I help Penny with breakfast in the RV’s kitchen without losing my mental faculties, which I take as a good sign, although Maureen’s absence looms large. She might be whispering directly into God’s ear at this very moment, but I’d take her comfort over any special favors. We have enough people up there to look out for us.

Ash reads at the table. Instead of her usual chattiness about vampire relationships, she lifts her head to stare into space every few minutes. I remember the hope on her face as we stood in Aubrey’s bedroom. I’d told her that she could have all the trappings of a normal life, or as normal as it gets nowadays. I’m as bad as Peter, promising things I’m not sure I can deliver. My hand tightens around the flimsy spatula so hard that it bends.

I take breakfast to our patients in the back of the RV. Nicki perches alongside her dad on his twin bed, face still sticky with last night’s syrup. Kyle dives into his food and I head back to the kitchen for more. He didn’t eat yesterday, so they’ll be gone in seconds. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of wafflecakes with syrup, although we did put a cap on our intake this morning.

“How are the folks in the sick bay?” I ask after I’ve deposited three more on Kyle’s plate.

“Fine,” Kyle says. “I’ll be up later today and I’ll get—”

“You’re not getting anywhere,” Jamie says, wagging a finger. “Except to the bathroom and back into bed. And you should thank me for not giving you a bedpan. The last time you stood up, you fell down. Nicki, you’re in charge of keeping your dad in bed.”

Kyle mutters, face dark and lips pursed. Nicki wags her finger in imitation of Jamie. “Daddy, I’ll bring you stuff. Like Mama did when I was sick. Don’t yell at Jamie.”

“You’re right, baby,” Kyle says. He turns to Jamie. “Thanks for taking care of her while I was out. And me.”

“You’re the absolute worst patient I’ve ever had. You were much better unconscious,” Jamie says, to which Kyle grunts. She turns to Adam in the other bed. “And how’s my best patient?”