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“You two are wasting your time.” John crossed his arms over his wide chest. “Why do you wanna live down here in this part of the city all by yourself, scrounging for food and the means to get by? It don’t make no sense.” Turning to Bloom, he pleaded his case. “With the skills the two of you’ve got, you know Moll would give you a job and plenty to eat.”
“We’re not working for Moll.” My tone was firm, unequivocal. We had this argument every time John visited. “Bloom and I will make it on our own, thank you very much.”
“Eating pigeons and scavenging for whatever you can find that ain’t rotted or spoilt?” He wrinkled his crooked nose. “That’s not making it, if you ask me.”
“We’re not asking you,” Bloom said.
Moll Grimes was the boss in the central part of the city. She had once been the girlfriend of a notorious gangster who ran “private security” for politicians and union bosses before the Dead Wars. She had caught on early to what was happening and encouraged her beau to use his considerable influence, strong arm, and general lack of morals to make preparations. That meant stealing, looting, and storing anything he thought might have a use. Then Moll killed him and took his place.
“So maybe we have to eat stale crackers,” I said, shrugging. “At least we don’t have anyone telling us what to do all the time.”
“You got your stomach telling you what to do. And your fear of the dead. You live with Moll, you ain’t got none of that.”
Moll might’ve provided her people with fresh food on a regular basis, but she took payment for it in blood, sweat, and tears. Mostly blood.
In the years following the Dead Wars, Moll had built a compound centered around a high-rise building Bloom and I liked to call Grimy Towers. The high-rise sat on the corner of the city’s largest park. Moll Grimes named the area Mini City, and her goons erected razor-wire fences around the park so she could turn it into a farm. A big herd of cattle grazed there alongside well-stocked chicken coops and a pigsty. She set up booby traps all over the place, and guards patrolled at all hours. No one got close to Moll’s part of town without an invitation. Even the dead didn’t like going there.
“You sound like a campaigner, John.” Bloom snickered. “Is Moll running for office?”
Glowering, John spat a wad of phlegm on the roof. “I’m just looking out for my friends is all.”
“Come on, Johnny.” Honey scooted to his side and slipped her fingers around his massive biceps. “Have a drink with me.”
John’s thick red eyebrows—the left one was bisected by a scar—knitted together, and he glared at her down his flat, twisted nose. In the Time Before, John was supposed to have been a wunderkind, training to join the professional boxing circuit. Moll’s boyfriend had dipped his fingers in a bit of everything back then—government, business, gambling—and John Brown was going to be his next big thing. Turned out the next big thing was actually the Dead Disease.
Honey unearthed a flask from a pocket in her skirt and held it out. John’s glower slid into something more amiable as he wrenched the cap free. He tipped back his head, and his thick throat worked, swallowing the flask’s contents. I smelled it from where I sat, and it reminded me of the spirits I used to clean my guns.
“Here, Bloom, take a swig of that.” John pushed the flask to her chest. She tried to hide her displeasure, but her eyes went hard in a way only I seemed to notice. Putting the flask to her lips, she gave it a quick sip. She tried not to cough, but her eyes watered until she gave in and cleared her throat.
“Sera?” John offered the flask to me.
“No thanks.” I stood and moved closer to the cookstove. The sky had gone fully dark, and the chill of a spring evening sifted over us. Honey tightened her coat around her shoulders while John rambled about one of his latest escapades. Timber, on the other hand, sat as silently as a stone statue at the edge of the roof, watching the affairs of the remaining dead below.
“You wanna take a shot?” I asked, lowering into a crouch beside him. His thick, dark eyebrows flexed upward, and I nodded toward where my rifle lay nearby.
A slow grin unfurled across his long face. I didn’t know how old Timber was—probably somewhere around Bloom’s age if I had to guess, but sometimes he seemed a lot older. Maybe because of how solemn and serious he always seemed to be.
“No.” His words rumbled from deep in his chest. “But have you got any more tea?”
I smiled at him. “Sure, I do.”
He opened the parcel he had brought with him, and it turned out to be a loaf of sweet nut bread. I nearly cried at the sight of it. After dividing the cake five ways, he passed it among our group. Then he and I took our tea and cake back to our seats at the edge of the roof, leaving John Brown’s sensitive ego in my sister’s capable hands. She was naturally a better diplomat than me, always trying to make nice. Bloom and I had no love for Moll Grimes, but we weren’t interested in making enemies either, so we had to take care not to offend when her emissaries came to visit.
“It’s nice to have guests,” I said to Timber, trying to think of something polite.
Timber chuckled. “There’s not much nice about John or Honey, but I appreciate you saying so.”
“Well, it’s nice to see you, anyway. What have you been up to?”
“Moll has a bunch of us working down at the river. She’s got plans for a steam turbine she wants to build. Says she can make electric current.” Timber shook his head as though he couldn’t quite believe or understand what he was saying.
“What does she want that for?”
“Says she can do all kinds of things with it. Run lights, run machines.”
“Wow.” I blinked slowly, trying to comprehend the possibilities.
“Yeah... wow.”
The best thing about Timber was his knack for idle chatter, but if you just wanted to sit quiet with him, he was good at that too. Our tea had finished steeping, so we sipped it under the stars in the comfort of each other’s quiet company. And in case you were wondering, the nut cake tasted like a little slice of heaven.
***
I WOKE AT FIRST LIGHT, still wrapped in Timber’s massive coat that covered me like a blanket. A few feet away, Bloom was curled around the cookstove that had almost burned out. At some point in the night, our visitors had left, but I didn’t remember their departure or when Timber had tucked me into his rough wool coat. It smelled of mechanical grease and something distinctly masculine. Most likely sweat, if I had to guess. I rose, shrugging Timber’s coat tighter around my shoulders, and stoked the stove’s fire, throwing on more fuel.
My scrounging must have awoken my sister because she sat up and rubbed her eyes. “G’morning,” she said, her voice roughened by sleep.
“Morning, love.” I pointed at the pot on top of the stove. “Want tea?”
Nodding, Bloom shifted into a crouch at my side. Before long, we were warming our hands at the fire and watching the rising sun illuminate the city. When it reflected off the windows of taller buildings downtown, the light momentarily brought the city back to life. I closed my eyes and imagined the rumble of carriages, wagons, foot traffic, and voices on the streets below.
“What’s on the agenda today?” Bloom asked, breaking into my reminiscing.
I grunted. “More of the same, I guess. Foraging.”
“Want to go fishing?”
Her suggestion perked me up, and I glanced at the patchy clouds in the sky. “Will we have enough daylight?”
It would take us most of the morning to hike to the river, but it would be worth it if we caught anything. Rumors said Moll Grimes stocked the ponds in her park with all kinds of fancy fish, even a few pink salmon. In the Time Before, a deli near our townhouse would pile thinly sliced lox on a bagel smeared thick with cream cheese. And what I wouldn’t have given for a basket of fish and chips from the stand near my father’s office. You’d think after all these years, the cravings would have subsided. Bloom and I had accepted things would never again be the same as they used to be, but that didn’t stop us from wanting it anyway.
“If we get moving,” Bloom said. “We can stay for an hour or two. We ought to be able to catch something.”
At the thought of catching something, I shivered. If we were lucky, the undead would stay in the shadows, and the fish would be the only things getting caught. But this world had stopped being lucky for me a long time ago.