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ERIC
Thunder rolls through the clouds, vibrating the air around me. Lightning splits the sky. Rain hammers the top of my head.
I’m cold. Not normal cold, where you just need to throw on a jacket or a thicker pair of socks. This is bone cold, a chill that has seeped through my skin and lodged in my body like a parasite. This is what Ash must have felt like when she got hypothermia.
When Kate leads us up the wooden steps embedded into the face of the cliff, I don’t argue. There might be zombies at the top, but all I can think about is getting warm.
I try to focus on my surroundings, but I keep hearing my brother’s voice. Tom.
Why are you wasting time with those toasters?
Two years older than me, Tom was every parent’s dream child. Varsity athlete. Salutatorian of his graduating class. He was accepted into the competitive engineering department of Cal Poly right out of high school.
He was everything I wasn’t. Hard working. Goal orientated. Good looking.
Despite our differences, we got along. Having Tom as an older brother kept things easy for me. Mom and Dad were always so swept up in his accomplishments they never paid much attention to my lackluster grades. If I wanted to spend the afternoon taking apart toasters from the Salvation Army to see how they worked, they’d been too busy heading off to one of Tom’s baseball games to care.
Tom noticed, though.
Why are you wasting time with those toasters? You should sign up for a robotics class.
That was Tom. He had the long view nailed. He had drive.
I wasn’t a fan of hard work. It didn’t take long for me to locate the smartest kids in my high school. After that, it was only a matter of figuring out what motivated them.
Amy liked shopping at Macy’s. I introduced her to one of Tom’s friends who worked there. Her name had been Darcy. Darcy had a crush on my big brother. She agreed to pass along her employee discount to Amy. For the next two years, Amy wrote all my term papers.
Jim was consumed with Gods of War, but pretty much sucked at video games. He had some sort of disorder that limited his hand-eye coordination. I’d go over to his house and play the game while he watched. In return, he did my math homework.
Stop wasting your time getting everyone to do your work for you, Tom used to say. Spend that time improving yourself instead.
I always figured Tom would grow up to be one of those multi-million dollar motivational speakers.
A shiver travels through my body. I swing my arms, trying to work warmth into the limbs. My fingers are numb. My lips are numb.
I watched hypothermia take Ash down yesterday. I have no doubt this is what’s happening to me now.
Things are going to get worse before they get better. That was Tom’s last text message to me before we lost electricity and my phone died. You can’t rely on someone else to do the work for you this time. If you don’t take care of yourself, you’re going to die.
He’d been right, of course. It had taken Kate to help me see that.
I wish I could talk to Tom. I want him to know I’ve grown up over the last six months. I want him to know I’m not a freeloader anymore.
“Hey.” Ash pokes me in the back. “Keep moving, slow poke.”
I lurch, realizing I’ve been standing in place the last twenty seconds. I force myself to move.
I’m less successful at banishing Tom’s voice.
You need to work hard at your own shit instead of manipulating everyone to do it for you. You’ll get a lot farther in life, Eric.
Overlaying his voice is Lila’s. You’re a fucking con, Eric.
Tom would have liked Lila. He would have told me to listen to her.
I climb the last step as more thunder and lightning rip the sky. We’re in another parking lot. I rub a wet sleeve across my glasses trying to get a better look at our surroundings. There are cars in this lot, but it’s not packed like the one where the Whale Festival had been.
There are zombies. No more than a dozen, but right now that’s way more than I’m comfortable with. But between the thrum of the rain on the metal cars and the roar of the ocean, none detect our entrance into the lot.
“We go around them,” Kate murmurs. “Kill any that get too close.”
Her face is bleached white, fatigue pinching the edges of her eyes while her teeth chatter. I have no doubt she’s twice as exhausted as the rest of us. We only have to worry about ourselves. Kate worries about all of us.
She holds one hand above her eyes, shielding it from the rain. “We’re heading toward that row of houses.” She points to the line of one-story bungalows on the far side of the road. “We’ll find a place to wait out the storm and resupply.”
Kate cuts a wide swath around the parking lot, keeping us away from the zombies that moan and sway in the rainstorm. The wild grass that grows all along the coast is bent low from the deluge. We tromp through it in a long line, wending our way to the road.
Warm blankets. Dry clothes. I don’t even care about food, even though I feel hungry enough to clean out a Las Vegas buffet.
We reach the road unmolested. Nearby are two abandoned cars, both empty.
“That one.” Ben points to a pink house with a sagging porch and weeds that grow up to the windows. “That one looks deserted.”
They all look deserted to me, but I don’t argue with Ben. The guy’s sixth sense is freaky good. We hurry toward the house, dashing across the street in a tight huddle.
Something moves in my periphery. I freeze, turning to look. Water sheets across my glasses, making it difficult to see.
“What is it?” Reed slows next to me.
“I saw something move.” I squint into the carport of the pink house. There are piles of crap everywhere. “I can’t see very well, but I saw something move.”
Ben shoulders up beside me. “Zom?” He squints into the gloom.
“It didn’t move like a zom.” Besides, if it had been a zombie, it would still be bumping around.
“You three check it out,” Kate tells us. “Make sure the yard is clear. The rest of us will clear the inside of the house.”
Ben scowls, clearly not wanting to be separated from Kate. Ash, catching the look, steps forward.
“You go with Kate,” she says. “I’ll go with the niños.”
“Who you calling niño?” Reed asks.
“You, pequito niño. Come on.”
She pushes past us with her weapons drawn, moving into the carport in a crouch.
Ash is hot. Like, Lara Croft hot. The hotness is only accentuated with the rain plastering clothing to her body. Will Caleb will ever make a move on her? I can’t tell if they’re into each other or just good friends.
Tom would like Ash. He liked tough girls. In high school, he dated a voluptuous hot chick who got it into her head that she wanted to play varsity football. She’d been meaner and tougher than all the guys combined. Tom said it was her way of asserting gender equality.
Maybe I should run to Cal Poly and find Tom. The idea flits through my mind.
“Dude.” Reed elbows me. “Stop zoning out. Pay attention, man.”
I shake myself. Why can’t I get Tom out of my head?
“Sorry,” I mutter. “I keep thinking about my brother.”
“I get it. I think about my family a lot, too. But we need your A-game, brother.”
The three of us sweep through the carport, picking our way around piles of crap. A rotting sofa. A rusty treadmill. Several plastic tubs stacked high with faded plastic flower pots. An old tricycle with a missing wheel. It’s easy for me to take it all in without rain sheeting across my glasses.
“These people were hoarders,” Ash says.
“That bodes well for us if they stocked up on food,” Reed replies.
“I hope they have Kraft mac n’ cheese,” I say. That particular dish always makes me think of Lila. “I—” Something scurries over my foot. I jump, my knife clattering to the ground.
“Raccoon.” Ash raises her brow at me as the animal disappears under a tarp at the far end of the carport. “Good thing that wasn’t a zombie or you’d be dead.”
Shit. I need to focus and make sure this carport is clear.
I let out a shaky breath and retrieve my knife. At least now we know what I saw moving around in here. “Any of you guys ever eat raccoon before?”
“Don’t even think about it,” Ash replies. “You’d have to shoot it to catch it, and that would just bring zombies.”
Reed stares at the tarp concealing the raccoon. “Fresh meat sounds good though, doesn’t it?”
“No way, dude.” I give his shoulder a shove. “Be content with the bear meat in your pack.”
Hunting was yet another thing Tom excelled at. I went along on the trips with our dad because I didn’t have a choice, but I never had a lot of interest in creeping around in the forest before dawn. I preferred being in the tent with a thermos of hot chocolate.
What would Tom do, if he were here? Would he try to catch the raccoon? I can just see him sauntering into the pink house with a brace of dead raccoons over one shoulder. Everyone would fawn over him and thank him for the fresh meat.
That was Tom. Always the star without even trying. He never knew how to be anything else.
“Come on.” Ash slaps me on the arm. “It’s clear in here. There’s nothing in the backyard but dead plants and a rusted swing set. And that raccoon. Let’s get the hell out of this storm.”
As we head back to the pink house, another peel of thunder rolls through the sky. The concussive boom vibrates the hair on my arms. Lightning forks the sky.
And just for a second, I swear I see Tom’s silhouette in the gloom.
I blink, staring through the rain, realizing just how wiped out and exhausted I am. My brother isn’t here. I’m seeing things. I need to get out of the cold and warm up.
Hunching my shoulder against the downpour, I hurry after Ash and Reed.