Hollowland (17 page)

“Yeah, I guess I do.” I turned back to the room.

Harlow was wide awake, hiding behind a bunk, and Blue stood in front of her bed, shielding her.

“What happened?” Harlow asked.

“The zombie must’ve gotten her today when it attacked her.” I wiped blood off my brow with the back of my arm.

“That was really fast,” Lazlo commented, coming up behind me.

“Sometimes it happens that way.” I shrugged. “You never can tell.”

London and Sam came in a few moments later to make sure we were okay. They’d heard the commotion down the hall. Sam took Vega’s body out, and London explained that they burned all the infected bodies they found.

Hope came in a little after they left to wipe everything down with bleach and clean up the mess we’d made. She sent Lazlo and me down to the tub room to clean up. They had no showers, but they had a claw foot tub they filled with water from a hose. It was too cold to climb in, so Lazlo and I stood next to it, washing ourselves with rags.

When we went back to the room, Hope had already gone, and the room had been set right. Harlow lay in her bed with her covers pulled up to her chin, but she was wide awake. I got in my own bed without saying anything and tried to get comfortable.

“Do you think Vega’s in heaven?” Harlow asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said and rolled over, so my back was to her.

I slept horribly all night, even though I was exhausted. I tossed and turned, and I had horrible nightmares about Vega, Lia, and Beck. I had been trying not to think about Beck at all, since that was my policy when people died, but Lazlo had brought up all sorts of feelings about him.

When I woke, Harlow was still asleep. I went out to get some breakfast, figuring that stale toast with squirrel meat sounded better than nothing.

Still munching on the horrible dry toast, I made my way back to the room, almost getting lost in the process. Harlow was awake and ready for the day. She changed into a clean skirt with a sweater, and her hair was up.

 
I would’ve taken this all as a good sign if she weren’t hurriedly packing her bag. Lazlo sat on my bed across from her, looking sheepish.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I gulped down the rest of my toast.

“I’m going with you,” Harlow said without looking up.

“Sorry,” Lazlo smiled meekly at me.

“Why did you tell her?” I snapped, and he shrunk back a little.

“She heard me talking to Blue.”

“It doesn’t matter how you know,” I decided. “Harlow, you can’t come with.”

“It’s not open for discussion,” she said.

“Um… yeah. Exactly.” I was thrown off by her reaction. “You’re not coming with. End of story.”

“No, I am coming with. End of story.” She finally looked up at me.

Her blue eyes were almost too big for her face, but not in a bad way. It just made her look younger and more innocent, although, right now, her resolution made her look older.

“There’s no way I’m letting you come with.” I brushed past her to get to my bed. With my back to her, I packed up my own stuff.

“This isn’t a jail. They won’t keep me prisoner here. If you leave, there’s nothing to stop me from leaving right after you. And I will,” she threatened. “Whether you take me with you or not, I am not staying here. If I have to go out on my own, so be it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s suicide.” I shoved my clothes into my bag.

“Maybe,” she replied simply.

“Really?” I turned back to her. “You’d get yourself killed just to spite me?”

“Not to spite you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not getting left behind. If anyone can survive the end of the world, it’s you, so I’m safer with you than anywhere else.”

“That’s not even true,” I shook my head. “Everyone around me dies! Sommer, and then Lia yesterday. And my brother…” I swallowed and busied myself with my bag so she couldn’t see my reaction. “No. It’s dangerous and stupid. Here is the safest place.”

“If it’s so great here, then why don’t you stay?” Harlow countered.

“You know why I can’t stay.” I zipped my bag shut and turned back to her. “I have to find-”

“Your little brother, yeah, yeah,” she cut me off. “You do realize he’s with the army, right? I mean, that’s why you’re running across the country, fighting zombies and cult leaders. So you can get to a government run facility surrounded by armed soldiers. To rescue your brother.”

“I’m not rescuing him,” I rolled my eyes. “He’s just a little kid, and I need to be with him.”

“Why?” Harlow asked. I slung my messenger bag over my shoulder, preparing to storm out, but she blocked my path. “Remy, you know it doesn’t make sense. Either he is safe, and you can’t protect him any better than he already is, or he never made it to the quarantine, and there’s nothing you can do.”

“It doesn’t matter! I need to know he’s safe! I can’t just hope for the best and forget about him!” I threw my hands up on the air, exasperated. Fighting about this would only waste more time. “Fine. Whatever. You wanna come with and get yourself killed, that’s your problem.”

“Wait. So, we’re leaving right now?” Lazlo asked when I started walking away, and in reply, I kept walking. “But I’m not ready! Hold on!”

I heard him scrambling behind me, but I didn’t stop. I shouldn’t even be letting them go with me. They would only slow me down, and they’d probably just end up dead or infected.

I couldn’t even figure out why they wanted to leave the safety of the compound. I wouldn’t. But some things mattered more than safety, and for me that was Max.

“I’m not gonna get myself killed,” Harlow said as she caught up to me. Her thin legs carried her surprisingly fast, especially considering the clunky footwear she insisted on. “I just won’t be left behind.”

“I don’t know what you think you’re being left behind from, but trust me, it’s way better than what I’m doing.”

Lazlo ran up behind us, already out of breath, and we hadn’t even left yet. Before leaving, I found Blue talking with London. He once again reminded us that we were free to stay on, and I encouraged both Lazlo and Harlow to take him up on that.

London offered to help us out. He gave us another shotgun and some ammunition, and then he gave us the best gift ever: a vehicle. They had stockpiled several cars and trucks, and he figured they could spare one. Admittedly, it was a beaten up old station wagon with brown paneling, but it was much better than walking.

The car was hidden in an old carriage house in the woods behind the compound. The marauders had a tendency to damage or take anything they wanted, so London and Sam stored and hid anything of value. They rarely used vehicles anyway, since it made them more conspicuous to marauder attacks.

Sam led us through the intricately linked hallways, so we exited through an entirely different set of doors than the ones we came in. Like the cellar doors, a few strategically placed bushes all but blocked the doorway.

When I slid by, the branches stung at my skin, making me acutely aware of the ramifications of having an open wound. I had gone out first, after Sam, and I pushed the branches back with my arm, waiting until everyone else made their way out.

A startling chill nipped at the air, the first real chill I’d felt in our travels. Time moved differently than it had before, but fall had to be arriving. Dense fog settled around us, making it hard to see, and everything I heard sounded muffled and far away. The circumstances weren’t ideal for an escape plan, but I didn’t want to wait any longer.

“It’s over that way,” Sam pointed to an area to the east of us. With the fog, the trees looked like shadows, since I could only see the silhouettes. “In those trees.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Harlow asked.

“I’ve got things to do,” Sam replied noncommittally. Maybe that was true, but based on his quick exit back into the compound, I bet he felt it too. Something just felt…
off.
Like an electricity in the air. Uneasiness seemed to set in, and even Blue didn’t look right.

We walked towards the car, and I tried to pretend like nothing felt strange to me. But we moved in a huddled mass, and at a much slower pace. Part of that was because we were unfamiliar with the unstable terrain. Broken bottles, car parts, random garbage, even a dead zombie or two littered our path to the carriage house.

“How far away is this thing? I’m getting cold,” Harlow said. I glanced down at her and saw her bony knees were covered in goose bumps.

“Almost there,” I said as if I really knew. The closer we got to the trees, the farther away they seemed to be. The fog created an unnerving optical illusion. “It wouldn’t kill you to wear pants.”

“Just because the world is full of zombies doesn’t mean I need to dress like one,” she shot back, and Lazlo laughed under his breath.

“She has a point,” Lazlo agreed. I would’ve glared at him, but I heard something and stopped short. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Shh,” Blue held up his hand and cocked his head, listening.

I held my breath as the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Harlow’s breath came out in shallow rasps, and from the corner of my eye, I saw her slide her small hand into Lazlo’s. For his part, he scanned the area around us.

Then I heard it. A low, hollow rumbling, but the blanketing effect of the fog and the echoing from the trees made it impossible to tell where it was coming from or how far away. It came again, this time louder, and another one joined in. They were death groans, and they were increasing in decibel and number.

“Here.” I pulled my gun out. I flicked off the safety and handed Lazlo the ammunition clip, praying he knew how to use it.

“What?” Lazlo’s eyes widened, but I didn’t have time to explain.

Blue had a shotgun London had given us, and Harlow had the handgun. That left me the only one unarmed, but the branch on the bush had left a nasty scratch down my arm, a thin line of blood on my tanned skin. Chances were I wouldn’t make it out of a zombie fight uninfected, so I didn’t want to waste a gun on a lost cause.

I grabbed a long, bent pipe from the ground. It had belonged to a car, but right now, it looked strong and heavy enough to ward off a few zombies. I took another step forward, with Blue and Lazlo flanked close behind me.

As if materializing in front of us, the dark, lurching shadows appeared in the gray fog.

One of them came into view where I could actually see its eyes, all swollen and yellow. But once I could see it, it could see me. It gave a long, low howl, and then charged toward me, moving at the crazy speed that only a newly turned zombie was capable of. Lazlo fired his gun, and astonishingly, it hit the zombie right in the chest.

Lazlo may have killed one zombie, but we had been spotted.

– 13 –

Harlow couldn’t aim at all, so I positioned myself directly in front of her. When a zombie ran at me, I swung the pipe like a baseball bat. Its head, which should’ve been cracking bone, squished more like a rotting pumpkin two weeks after Halloween. An eyeball shot out, flying into Lazlo’s chest, where it landed with a sickening splat.

Harlow started screaming, and I’d only killed one zombie.

“Get to the car!” I shouted at her.

Lazlo and Blue shot at anything that came our way, but the zombies just kept on coming. I remembered what it had been like at the army quarantine, when there had been an endless supply of zombies that had managed to take out a whole troop of soldiers.

Another zombie lurched towards me, and I jabbed the pipe straight through its chest, slamming it down onto the ground. Its swollen tongue lulled out of its mouth, and it spit foamy saliva at me.

I stood on its stomach to leverage myself when I yanked the pipe out, and its belly squished under my foot. When I did pull the pipe out, an enlarged, greenish heart came attached at the end.

I would’ve taken the time to marvel at how disgusting that was but I heard Lazlo cursing behind me. More importantly, I heard him but not the gun. I whirled around to see Lazlo, trying desperately to reload the gun, as two zombies made their way towards him.

The first of the zombies only had one leg, and the other zombie looked like it was dying, so he had a small window of time. Blue and Harlow had backed off, heading towards the carriage house, and didn’t see how close Lazlo was to being eaten.

I raced over to him with a fat zombie at my heels. I stopped abruptly, shoving the pipe out behind me. The zombie couldn’t think to stop and impaled himself on it. Unfortunately, it only stabbed into his enormous gut, slowing him down but not killing him.

The thing about zombies, and this one in particular, is that they didn’t look fat so much as swollen. Like someone had taken a normal sized person, and then pumped them full of water so their skin stretched like a bloated animal carcass.

From the wound around the pipe, the zombie’s belly drained that weird greenish, sludgy blood, along with some other liquid that reminded me of runny pus. Without thinking about how disgusting the mess would be, I slashed the pipe along his stomach, slicing him open.

It was like popping an overgrown zit. Liquid sloshed out of him, and I jumped back to keep from getting it on me. I’m not sure if the zombie was dead, but he fell to the ground, and for now, that was good enough for me.