Read The World Without a Future (The World Without End) Online

Authors: Nazarea Andrews

Tags: #Nazarea Andrews, #Post Apocalyptic, #World Without End, #Romance, #Zombies, #New Adult

The World Without a Future (The World Without End) (2 page)

BOOK: The World Without a Future (The World Without End)
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“Nurrin!”

My name ringing through the hallway jerks me from my musings, and I whip around to glare at Dustin. “What the hell did I say about that name?”

He grins at me, wrapping a thick arm around my shoulders and squeezing me into his side. “Sorry, Ren. But you weren’t answering.” He frowns down at me, and I flush. “You okay?”

I pull away, adjusting my bag, and nod. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

Dustin opens his mouth. And closes it again. Smart boy, he is. Then again, he’s been with me long enough that he
should
know when not to push.

I slam out of the Hive, and I’m immediately stopped, a tiny red laser dot painted on my chest. “Slow the fuck down, Ren,” Billy growls. I flip him the bird as Dustin drags me away.

“Biters, girl, what the hell is wrong with you?” he mutters as I amble after him in the street. It’s clogged with workers headed to the orchards, parents to the factory, soldiers coming off shift on the wall. All of us moving at a glacial pace because moving too fast would be
distressing
. “Are you upset about Collin catching us this morning?”

I don’t want to answer him—he’s annoyed enough, and if I do answer, he’ll just think I’m being moody. I chew on my lip and ignore the question. “No. I’m just tired—and hungry. Rations are low.”

Dustin changes the subject. “Do you think we’ll be in the apples today?”

I shake my head. “Cherries. Kelly said they finished the apples last week.”

Everyone in Hellspawn works the orchards or fields, twice a week. It keeps us fed without devoting half the Haven’s population to it. It’s boring work, and I would rather be on the wall, but I have another year before I’m allowed to even apply for training.

Even then, I have to have a secured sponsor. Collin works the wall, but he’d never go for me up there. The only friend he has on it is Finn.

And I’d rather walk naked and unarmed a mile from the wall than ask Finn O’Malley for a damn thing.

Chapter 3
The Bells Toll

I was right. We work the cherry trees, which puts me at the top of a tree, picking fruit from the fragile branches and praying I don’t fall, while Dustin stands on a ladder, filling buckets from the lower, thick branches and laughing with the girls who come to take our crop.

I swallow another curse as I hear Becks Lawson laughing at something Dustin says. I zip my pouch full of cherries closed and swing down, so quick I almost lose my grip a few times, scurrying faster than a squirrel.

“Biters, Ren,” Dustin says, when I’m a few branches above him. “You need to be careful.”

I throw the pouch at him. “Hurry up.”

He unzips the bag, and, even from here, I can see him pale. His head snaps up as he drops it like it’s on fire. Becks screams, a little, and I’m suddenly conscious of the blood on my palms and the speed I’m moving at.

Both signs of infection.

Dustin whips around, clamping a hand over Becks mouth before she can scream it, and I’m so relieved I’m dizzy. I’m not infected—I can’t be, I haven’t been exposed to an infect in over six months. Not since before the last breach. I’m
clean
, dammit.

“She’s clean,” he’s whispering, “There’s not a damn thing wrong. Do you want to spend a week in Q because she scraped her hand on the tree?”

Becks looks at me, her eyes wild above his hand, and I slide down the tree. Dustin glances back at me, and I slow my movements, making them exaggeratedly slow. I hold up my hand—it’s raw, but bark is stuck in it. “I’m clean,” I say, my voice deliberately loud and clear.

At the third sign, Becks sags with relief, and a choked sob breaks from her. As soon as Dustin lets her go, she snatches up the cherries and gets away from us as fast as she can without arousing suspicion.

Three signs—the trinity of infects that we were taught in pre-school. Before the change, kids learned their colors, their letters, and how to draw circles. Now no one gives a damn about color except that it draws the attention of infects. Letters are still important, and so are circles—hitting one dead center. After the change, we learned that infects move fast—almost inhumanly fast. They are constantly bleeding, a byproduct of the infection and the decay of their own bodies. And they can’t speak—not clearly.

It’s why open wounds are taboo, why everyone over-enunciates, and why running in Hellspawn is prohibited anywhere but the three mile track on the east side.

I drop to my knees, suddenly dizzy and weak with relief. Dustin crouches next to me, a hand on my shoulder steadying me. “Change above, Ren, you have to be careful,” he admonishes, his voice low and angry.

I look up, miserable. “It’s almost my birthday, Dustin.”

He rocks back on his heels, and understanding flickers in his eyes for a second. “That’s why you’re so jumpy.”

I look away. Open my mouth to say something—I’m not sure what. And above us, the alarm begins, the screaming bells. All the blood rushes from my face, and I jerk to my feet.

“It’s a breach.”

Chapter 4
The Hive

“You can’t,” Dustin snaps at me as I push through the throng of students headed for the nearby Hatch. I ignore him. Only one thought consumes me—there’s a breach, and Collin is alone.

Nothing else matters—not the infects that will kill me if they catch me, not the rules saying I should be headed to the orchard Hatch, not even Dustin steadily cursing as he follows me. Just my brother.

Collin sleeps to music—he always has. And that will drown out the bells tolling through Hellspawn. Terror grips me as I think about that, about Collin alone and unaware of the threat. I break into a sprint, and around me, my peers scatter, screaming. I almost expect to be shot, but someone appears at my side, keeping pace with alarming ease.

I want to tell him to go away, but I don’t have the breath to bother, and I’m more interested in getting to Collin. Besides, Finn never does what I tell him to. And no one will shoot at me, not with a Wall Walker racing along at my side, in full uniform and heavily armed.

“How many rounds do you have?” he demands.

“Four. Two guns. A knife,” I snap out and push on more speed as the bells scream out their warning. Where the hell are they?

From the corner of my eye, I see one. It’s racing through the orchard, skin flapping behind it. Its mouth is gaping open, teeth bloody. A girl—a little blonde—darts from behind a tree, and the zombie screeches, tackling her. I gag, forcing myself to move faster. Finn is cursing, and I’m suddenly aware that I’ve lost Dustin, and then the Hive appears, and there’s no one near it. No infects, no guards, nothing. It’s a massive, steel and stone structure that seems impossibly untouched. I sob, staggering, and Finn catches me, jerking me through the stairs door.

I’m up the stairs and fumbling for my keys, my ears ringing from the continuous noise. Finn almost vibrates with impatience. He snatches the keys from me, quickly unlocking the door, and we tumble into the apartment.

“Get whatever you need. We won’t be back,” Finn orders as he strides to Collin’s bedroom, yanking the curtain open. I look away quickly—Collin sleeps naked, and that’s more brother than I have any desire to see.

“Get up,” Finn orders, yanking the ear buds from Collin’s ear. He jerks awake with a suddenness that makes me nervous, a gun appearing in his hand. Finn knocks it aside. “There’s been a breach.”

“How many?” Collin demands, reaching for a pair of pants. I relax when I hear the button snap.

“A horde. I’ve never seen that many infects in one place,” Finn says, his voice low and grim.

“Ren!” Collin shouts, and I jerk, wondering how he knew I’d be here. Finn is in the kitchen, shoving what little food we have left into a bag when I emerge.

“What?” I snap, and the sirens go silent. As scared as I was before, it’s nothing compared to the silence. I look nervously at my brother and his best friend. “What happened?”

“You ready to go?” Collin asks instead, and I shake my head. “Where are we going?”

Finn is suddenly in front of me, his eyes hard, and I flinch away from them, and his words. “Hellspawn is falling, Ren. A horde of roughly five hundred zombies just overwhelmed the east wall. If the siren is off, there’s no one left alive over there. We’re about to be overrun. We need to get out. Now.”

I send a terrified glance to Collin, but he doesn’t say anything to dispute it. His expression is resigned. I close my eyes and nod. “Five minutes.”

“One.” Finn answers, and I move.

Chapter 5
The Horde

It hits me when we’re on the stairs, and I come to a complete stop. “I can’t leave Dustin,” I say, my voice a whisper, but my words vehement.

Finn glances up at me then shakes his head, letting Collin handle this. My grip tightens a little on my gun, and I want to point it at Finn’s head and pull the trigger. Stupid ass.

“Where did you last see him?”

“He was following me. I was in the orchard, and I had to get back here. Finn found me, and I lost him.”

For the first time, I wonder what the hell Finn had been doing—he walks the south wall, the most dangerous perimeter. What was he doing in the orchards?

“If we see him, we’ll take him with us,” Collin says, and I hear Finn’s soft snort of disgust ahead of us in the darkness. I aim a kick at his leg, and he moves lithely away. “Stop it, both of you.” Collin’s voice is tight and angry, laced with worry.

It makes both of us stop immediately. “The horde was on the east wall,” Finn says.

“So we head west.” I say, reasonably, and Finn gives me a look I can’t decipher.

“I have two vehicles on the west side.”

Something in his voice makes me look at him. “You won’t like them,” he says, quietly, to my brother.

I mutter a curse, and Collin snaps his fingers in front of my face. We’re at the exit to the Hive. There’s no noise outside, nothing that hints at any horde—nothing that hints at life. “You ready?” my brother asks, and I nod. There’s not really a choice. “Stay between us. We’ll cover you.,” he says, and Finn steps up to flank me. I don’t trust him, but Collin does, and that counts for something.

Then Collin eases the door open, and Finn bursts through it. In the distance, I can hear screams. For a heartbeat, they root me in place. Then Collin shoves me, and I break into a sprint, chasing Finn.

We’re two blocks from the Hive when I hear the first footsteps behind us, and I dart a glance over my shoulder. Three infects, racing after us. Before the change, people assumed zombies were slow. I’ve seen the videos, the movies about the shambling dead. But something about ERI-Milan gave them a surplus of adrenaline and speed that a human can’t match. We can beat them at a sprint, but an uninfected human gets tired. The adrenaline wears off. Now the zombies race through Hellspawn, and evidence of the breach is everywhere. The screams, the scent of blood and decay thick in the air, the blood beginning to spread on the stone pathway.

“Collin!” I shout. He nods, and Finn flips around, running backward as he pulls his small crossbow. I hear a soft whir and a body falling. The snarls are louder, closer, and Finn fires again, quickly.

Then he’s turned back and catches my arm—when did I slow down?—pulling me up alongside Collin.

BOOK: The World Without a Future (The World Without End)
10.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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