Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
Charleston’s barrier islands had always been irritatingly isolated from the rest of the state. But that year, it was a cause for celebration.
It was a cause for celebration when the virus swept through the country, and suddenly everyone was a monster. It was a cause for celebration when the creatures couldn’t swim, and Morris’s forty inhabitants piled together what guns they had to set up a constant guard at the bridge.
It was a cause for celebration when four kids, home from college for the summer, were spared the invasion just because they were there.
“I’ve got a theory.” Camped in the bunker, Hiram Stolowitski’s eyes flashed a muddy blue as he glanced around at his companions. “I bet we can’t even get the virus. We’ve already got a virus. They’ll just cancel each other out. It’s PEMDAS.”
Benjamin Blue, ever skeptical, tipped his chair back. “That’s not how viruses work, moron. They’re not mutually exclusive conditions.”
“How do you know?” Hi shot back. “Ever caught a zombie plague?”
“No. But almost everyone we know has.”
“It’s nuts.” Shelton Devers was slumped in a chair in the far corner, tugging his ear. “Y’all remember my cousin, Stacie? Well, she doesn’t remember us.”
“I doubt she would remember us anyway.” Ben flicked a piece of lint from his jeans. “We met her once when we were ten. She’s never even met Tory.”
Which made all three of them glance at their fourth companion: Victoria Brennan, perched in the cannon slit, glancing at her phone and chewing on her lip.
“News?” Shelton asked.
She shook her head, uncharacteristically quiet.
They weren’t panicking. They weren’t scared, or horrified, or inconsolable. They were just tired, and beaten, and a little bit heartbroken. Because they’d tried to fight when they’d first caught wind of the virus spreading in Charleston.
They had tried to fight. And it had overwhelmed the city. There was nothing they could do except watch the human race die off, one by one.
And so they hid in the bunker, and they waited for it to pass.
…
TORY
It’s day fifty when they blow the bridge.
“We’re not self-sufficient!” I yell at Kit. My father looks like a man who’s been to hell and back. “How are we supposed to get food? We’ll run out eventually!”
“It’s not safe to keep the bridge up.”
“It’s not safe to exist on this planet at the moment,” I spit. “But the alternative is much worse.”
Kit doesn’t answer. I eventually leave to go stew in my own thoughts on the beach.
Across the water, Charleston is dark. Lights are few and far between, and the ones that are still on will burn out eventually. Radio is filled with static. People who are still alive are hiding. Social media, the only safe way to communicate, is thriving, even as servers go down one by one. It’s a lot easier to capture a signal on a remote island now that no one on the mainland is using the cell towers.
A shape emerges out of the darkness, taking a seat beside me on the sand.
“No bridge, huh?”
“Guess not.” I swallow down the lump in my throat.
Shelton’s silent beside me for a while.
“What were you looking at today?” he asks. “You looked like you were waiting for something.”
“I was checking Twitter.” We stare out at the waves, black water lapping gently at the sand. The tide is coming in—some things never change, even after humanity is ravaged by a plague that converts innocent people to mutants—and I take off my flip-flops, setting them behind me. “I, uh…wanted to see if anyone we know is…alive.”
“Anything from Jason?”
I shake my head. “His family will be hiding somewhere if they made it. They’re paranoid enough not to let Jason and his sister use the internet.”
“So what were you really looking for?” Shelton nudges me with an elbow.
“Chance hasn’t been online in thirty days.” I haven’t told anyone I’ve been checking on his platforms—I didn’t feel the need to have that conversation with Ben. As long as I was sure Chance was alive, it would be fine. But there hasn’t been a single peep since he tweeted about his “good friend” Elon Musk shuttling survivors into space.
I tell Shelton this, and he absorbs it, staring up at the moon. He doesn't even bother to laugh at the absurdity of the concept.
“That’s bullshit,” he finally says. “The Elon Musk thing. We all know there’s no way that panned out.”
“Forget that,” I mutter. “Chance would have said something if he made it there anyway.”
“Tor.” Shelton’s hand lands on my shoulder. “I hate that we have to operate under the assumption that everyone we know is gone. But…”
I know.
He’s right.
“Yeah,” I say quietly.
“Blowing the bridge was so stupid,” Shelton says bitterly, leaning back on his elbows. “Now the only way off is by boat, which is potentially infinitely more dangerous. You can’t sneak ashore with a boat. Getting back to the boat is a nightmare. If we leave the island, there’s no way of getting back.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
He stares at me. “Are you insane?”
Maybe. “We can’t stay here forever.”
“We can sure as hell stay here until it blows over!” he hisses.
I fix him with a sharp look. “We’re almost out of food. Running water isn’t going to last long, at this rate, and it never rains here. Plus, at some point, they’re going to have us so surrounded that we’ll never escape. Better to get out of the city now, while we still have a chance.”
“Where do you suggest we go, exactly?” Shelton says acidly. “Go live out somewhere in the west, grow our own food and pump water from a well, raise fucking chickens or something? This is ridiculous.” He gestures to the ocean. “I say we go hide out on Loggerhead. No one could find us there.”
“We’ll be eaten by monkeys!”
“Not before we eat them.” We’re both half-joking, I know, because the thought of actually getting off Morris Island is scary as hell.
But not quite as scary as staying here.
“Congregating without me?” Hi strolls up the beach, hands in pockets, worry flickering in his hazel eyes. “Discussing how to avoid becoming zombie chow?”
“This isn’t a video game, man!” Shelton’s hand drifts to his ear. “Brennan here thinks we should bail and hit the mainland before it’s too late.”
I catch Hi’s eye, hear a flash of his thought: fucking insane. “I mean…it’s an idea.”
“It’s a stupid idea,” Shelton grumbles. “Where would we go?”
“Somewhere deserted,” Hi says immediately. “I vote North Carolina.”
“Why is your go-to always North Carolina? You went there with your parents one time.”
“Enough,” I interrupt, not wanting this to get ugly. “What’s in North Carolina, Hi?”
“Blue Ridge Mountains.” He glances at Shelton. “Isolated, but not on an island. Those people keep to themselves. There will be survivors up there.”
“You hope,” Shelton mutters.
“Thought you guys might be out here.”
We glance up as Ben joins us, settling himself next to me. He looks apprehensive, and I can feel a wall blocking his head, projecting into our shared headspace enough that our flares all bloom to life.
“What’s with the mind games, Blue?” Hi asks. “No secrets at the end of the world.”
He grimaces. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“Clearly we do.” Shelton looks like he’s trying to do complex math in his head, and I sense he’s chipping away at Ben’s mental block. “What’s happening?”
He doesn’t answer for a moment, staring at the dock, his boat parked next to his father’s.
“We’ve had an issue with the power,” he finally says. “All the stuff in your freezer, Hi, the last-resort supplies…it’s gone. We have zero backup plan right now. So far, Shelton and Tory’s power is still on, but our places are toast.”
“Gone?” I whisper.
“Fucking great.” Shelton looks up towards the houses. “What happens now? We take Tory’s suggestion and get the hell out?”
I watch Coop rustle through the bushes. “How would we convince our families to do that?”
“We’re not,” Ben says. “Everyone’s staying here. We’re going to get supplies tonight, and be back by morning.”
“Thank God.” Shelton drops his head onto the sand. “Leave the world-saving up to the adults for once.”
“Hold on,” Hi says sharply. “Who is we?”
Ben looks uncomfortable. “Um, my dad. And…me.”
Three disbelieving stares.
“You cannot do this,” Hi says. “You can’t.”
“I’ll be fine,” he says tightly.
A shrill voice rings across the sand.
“HIRAM!”
Hi winces. “This conversation is not over,” he warns, scrambling to his feet and walking up the incline.
Shelton’s phone buzzes directly afterward. “That’ll be my mom,” he says glumly. “We’ll talk this over later. I can’t be chatting in my head during dinner.”
It doesn’t feel right to break the silence after they leave. Ben takes my hand, and I’m shivering slightly, despite the August heat.
I should be getting ready to go back to school.
I don’t even realize I’ve sent the thought until Ben’s hand squeezes mine. I know.
Why is your dad making you go with him? I ask. You don’t know how bad it is out there.
He isn’t making me. I volunteered. Ben stretches out his legs, heedless of the creeping tide. The alternative is hiding here until we all die.
Let me go with you, I say. You could use an extra watchdog.
Not a chance. And Kit would never let you.
Yeah, because I’ve spent my whole life abiding by Kit’s rules.
He cracks a slight smile. Please. Just…don’t put yourself in any unnecessary danger.
“Um, excuse me?” I say aloud. “You’re one to talk about unnecessary danger.”
Maybe I should fight harder.
But fighting is useless. As angry as I am at Tom Blue for agreeing to bring Ben with him, there’s no one I trust more to get home safely. If Ben can’t make it, no one can.
“I need you to promise me something,” he says, and his hand tightens around mine. “Whatever happens, if I don’t come back…” He trails off, but I hear the rest of the words echo in my head. Don’t come after me.
“You can’t ask that of me.”
“Just promise me that,” he says. “Because I can’t leave you here and worry that you’re going to go out there and get yourself infected.”
I hold his gaze. “Come back alive, and then we’ll talk.”
He leans over to kiss me, and I run my hand through his long black hair, the thought that this might be the last time I ever get to do that whispering annoyingly in my head.
I have to go at some point, he says, not even pausing in kissing me to send the thought. Like, now.
Or not.
He finally pulls away and stands, brushing the sand from his jeans.
And I watch him leave, walking to meet his father in the driveway, and he keeps walking until I can’t feel him in my head anymore.