They never meet at all, and that is all that happens.
Their lives are short, and their lives are bloody, and they try to pretend that they are not and they tell themselves there is some escape; but Seabrook is a trap and they are the mice and their hearts are the cheese and once they think of Seabrook as home, the trap is already sprung and they are already suffocating, only dimly aware that this is where it ends.
She is a cheer captain, a youth leader, a princess. She hides under a wig and she promises that she treats all of her people equally and she doesn't meet the janitor's eyes when she passes him in the school hallway, because deep down she knows this isn't true.
He is a delinquent, a rebel, a dreamer. He steals from paradise to give to the slums they live upon, and he gets caught often but he gets bolder more often and when a man hands him a switchblade and tells him you can't do this forever, he doesn't argue.
She falls asleep bleeding in the dark, because she doesn't know what else to do.
He wakes up bleeding in the light of the rising sun, because this is the way he has never always been.
His teeth bare and her skin crawls and they step into the day together but apart, always a knife between them, a twisted hand, a plea to god for help. Around them, the rest of their world bleeds too, wounds so deep and festering that they will never heal because two people never met at all and now they never will.
They bleed together until everything that can leave them already has. It doesn't help.
ooo
She finds Bree standing under a tree in the courtyard at lunch, hair twirling self-consciously around one finger as she stares at a group of cheer boys across the way. She jumps when Addison bumps her arm, squeaking loud enough that several people around them turn to see what happened. Addison's skin crawls under the weight of their gaze; they eye her like a cut of meat in the butcher's shop, like if they stare hard enough they'll surely find something rotten about her.
"Addison!" Bree says and tucks back her hair, trying to be casual. "What's up? I was just wondering where you were…"
"And stalking Bonzo again," Addison points out, grinning. "Why don't you just go and talk to him?"
"Um…" Bree shuffles her feet, her face turning red with embarrassment. "I'm going to! I'm just…working up to it."
"Sure," Addison says, totally unconvinced. "He's really nice, you know. You should just go and talk to him."
"Well that's easy for you to say," Bree huffs, turning away towards their usual lunch table. "Maybe if I was on the cheer team like you…but I'm not, so." She shrugs and slumps down on the bench, her backpack hitting the ground next to her.
"That doesn't matter!" Addison insists. "It's not like he's going to bite you or something, Bree. Just go talk to him."
Bree hums unconvincingly. "Okay," she says after a moment, her face all screwed up. "I'll ask Bonzo to Prawn if you go and ask Zed." She points in the opposite direction, towards the table the football boys crowd around every lunchtime. Predictably, Zed is sat on the table itself, right in the middle of the action; too caught up in his friends to notice anyone else around him. Not that he should notice her. Or would have any reason to.
Addison's jaw hangs open in surprise. "I – what-" she stammers. "I told you Bree, I don't have a crush on Zed."
"Yes you do," Bree insists. "He's got total boy-next-door vibes and you know you love it."
Addison scoffs. "Well yeah, he's literally my neighbour. That doesn't mean anything." She glances at Zed again, half-heartedly shoving at one of the other boys while he laughs at whatever joke they're telling now. "He's also like, way more popular than me," Addison argues. "He likes my dad better than he likes me – he barely even knows I exist. And anyway, he's going with Lacey. She was talking about how he's going to ask her the other day."
"Okay, but he hasn't asked her yet." Bree is grinning from ear to ear. "So, you should just get in first."
"And piss off Lacey? No way." Addison almost laughs, even though her cheeks pale at the very thought of being on Lacey's bad side. She may be obtuse and vapid on the best of days, but she has powerful friends…and Addison really likes being in cheer.
Bree sighs loudly, shaking her head. "I guess you're right," she says, resigned.
"Oh, Addison!" a high-pitched voice sings from behind her. Over her head, Addison spots the devil herself – short, blonde, and flanked by Stacey and Brett, a football player that she is all too familiar with.
Addison groans out loud and pretends to be very busy with her phone.
"What's-" Bree begins and turns to see what she was looking at. Her face drops as she turns back around, fear flashing in her eyes. It's not misplaced; Lacey's got that look on her face, the one that means she's on someone's tail and out for blood. Out for Addison's blood, specifically. Bree opens her mouth, more questions hovering on the tip of her tongue, but Addison shakes her head before she can ask any of them. She has no more answers than Bree does.
"There you are!" Lacey says as she reaches them, putting herself between Addison and Bree. She towers over them where they sit, holding herself with the same poise that makes her top girl in the cheer squad. "I've got some good news for you!"
"Good news?" Addison asks, scrambling for answers. What has she done? Or not done? She can't think of anything; she's been good the last few weeks, keeping her head down and out of the limelight. She hasn't slipped in a while now, as far as she knows.
"We found you a date to Prawn!" Stacey announces and pushes Brett forward a step, as if he's a gift for her to unwrap. He waves and gives her a lopsided grin, innocent enough, but the sight of his face alone makes her stomach turn in disgust and fear.
An eye for an eye! It's what he deserves!
She blinks, and in the second of darkness between the light and Brett's kicked-dog stare, she remembers it all; the streetlights and the dark clouds, the rain driving down against the pavement; his shadow falling across her, the gleam of silver on the serrated edge of the knife-
"I-I can't go to the Prawn with him," she says, through teeth that suddenly feel broken all over again, the ghost of copper and iron still sitting heavy on the back of her throat as she swallows down her fears.
Lacey frowns, rocking back on her heels like Addison is causing her more trouble than is worth dealing with. "Why not?" she asks – demands. Behind her, Bree peeks out from around the folds of her skirt, shaking like a frightened rabbit.
"I-I-" Addison stammers, gritting her teeth against an invisible pain. "I'm not going to Prawn. I'm – busy, that night."
You can't do this! she'd screamed, and he'd laughed, leering down at her.
What, because your daddy is a police officer? Do you know where my dad is, after yours came to visit us?
"Addison," Lacey snaps, her patience wearing thin. "We talked about this at our last practise, remember? The cheer team have to go to Prawn. All of us."
"With a partner," Stacey adds pointedly. "And since you've had weeks to find someone, and you still don't have a date yet…"
"We picked one for you!" Lacey pats Brett on the shoulder, staring at Addison like she's done her a great favour.
Brett waves. There's still a long scar running down the side of his thumb. She hates that she knows how he cut himself so badly. She hates that when she looks at that hand, all she can see is sharpened steel and bloody knuckles, and all she can feel is the pit in her stomach turning into an abyss, its depths unknown.
He didn't mean for it to happen!
"I can't, Lacey," she gasps, rising to her feet. She backpedals several steps on impulse, trying to put some space between them. Lacey drags Brett after her, unflinching. "I-I can't."
"What's the big deal?" Lacey asks, rolling her eyes. "Brett's not that bad. He doesn't even smell anymore." Brett looks at her, brow pinched (she knows that face, she knows that anger, she knows, she knows, she knows). Lacey waves him away. "It's just one night, Addison. You want to be on cheer, don't you?"
"What? I-" Addison stops dead in her tracks, her breath caught in her throat. "Of course I do. I always want to be on cheer."
"Well if you don't go to Prawn, you can't be on cheer," Lacey says slowly, like she's dumb. "So? What's it going to be?"
"I-I-"
"What's going on?"
She can barely see Zed, standing next to Lacey with a football in his hands, squinting against the sun in his eyes as he looks between them expectantly, waiting for an explanation. She sees instead, a tall shadow sprinting across the street, ripping at the heavy weight pinning her to the ground, the silver blade catching the light as it spins between them.
What are you doing? he'd shouted. Get off of her!
Lacey rolls her eyes again.
"Addison wants to be on cheer, but she doesn't want to take part in any of our team bonding," she spits vehemently. Zed blinks at the aggression in her voice and turns to Stacey, who just shakes her head.
"We found a Prawn date for her because, y'know, everyone from cheer goes to Prawn, but she says she doesn't want to go," she explains, calmer.
Zed's eyes stray to Brett, holding his gaze for far longer than normal. Addison breathes a little lighter as Zed frowns; Zed will remember, Zed will say something, Zed will help. If Lacey will listen to anyone, it would be Zed.
She deserves this! Her pig father should know what it's like!
Black streets, pouring rain, boys grunting as they wrestle on the ground. The knife skittering across the concrete and into someone's hedge, and the wet smack of fists against flesh. Zed, yelling stop! Stop! Her legs, shaking under her as she stands and tries to staunch the blood that's flowing freely from her nose, thick and red and dripping down her chin and soaking into her clothes. She's never seen so much blood. She never wants to again.
Brett sobs against the pavement. He's dead, Zed. He's dead, gone, dead-
That's not her fault! What are you doing?
Black eyes stare at her, lost and angry and mournful all at once. Revenge. She reels backwards in fear.
Lacey clears her throat. "Zed, babe, please tell her Brett's a perfectly fine date to the Prawn."
Zed's eyes flick up, meeting Addison's. She stares at him, desperate, hopeful, begging. But he'll help her, won't he? He's not like Lacey and the others; he can see she's scared, he knows what happened that night-
Zed shrugs. "Sounds like you should just go with him," he says, and glances at Lacey like her approval is all that matters. She smiles at him, sweet as sugar, and squeezes his arm, and he smiles back, a lazy grin that Addison used to think kind of looked like the sun.
She thinks it might just be full of sharp teeth now.
ooo
First watch is the worst of all.
They start to howl at the first light of the sun, breaking the deathly silence of the night when nothing behind the wall moves, not even the rats. The sound splits the air like a carving knife splits flesh, and sends a shiver through the cold ground and the barbs of the wall, and it doesn't cease for an hour or more.
She's always found it fascinating, this morbid ritual of screaming to the high heavens, even if it sends a shiver down her spine each time it begins and haunts her dreams when she goes home to sleep the sunlight away. It seems like such an unusual thing for a pack of mindless beasts to do, when they can just as often be seen standing dead-eyed in the rain or stumbling in mindless, broken circles for hours.
It's so…human. Or animalistic, at the very least. She thinks it only seems human because, from a distance, they look and sound just like humans, right down to their screams.
They're not people, her father would reprimand her for such a thought. They're not pets. Don't ever let yourself think otherwise.
The radio crackles, stirring her from the horrified wonder of their voices (are they singing? Are they baying for Seabrook's blood?). She sits upright, yawning, and slides the volume a little higher with one hand.
"…zombie sighted, central gate. Stumbler."
Central gate. Her eyes turn outward from her post to the cast iron bars that stand between her and the screaming mob. They stand like the gates to heaven, or maybe to hell, shining under the first light of the sun. Beyond them lies nothing but dark streets turned grey with ash and time, the shells of crumbling houses just dark shadows hiding even more hideous monsters before the sun comes to light their way.
"Acknowledged," she sighs into the radio and rises from her seat slowly, working the kinks out of her limbs one by one. Perhaps she should have taken a patrol away from the gate at some point during the night, to keep the stiffness out of her bones; if only she'd thought about it before the night escaped her. She'd be stuck sitting here until first shift comes now.
"That's an ugly one," the radio says as she approaches the gate – high above the wall, a torchlight angles down into a nearby street, pointing towards her quarry. She touches her belt, checking her tools. Baton. Taser. Knife. Gun. Gate ahead, bolted and chained and welded shut. Seabrook behind, glittering from the wall all the way to the sea.
"At least it's not fucking screaming," another voice says, lips smacking as it speaks. "Like the world's worst fucking alarm clock, every fucking morning."
"Stop fucking swearing, Declan," the first voice snaps. She could swear she hears sniggering from the crow's nest above her.
"Using local channels for idle chat is a ticket to probation," their commander puts in, her voice icy. "Just in case anyone has forgotten."
Addison stops at the gate, fingers resting against the cold metal, dewy in the morning air. She shivers as the cold bites at her fingers but doesn't move her hand, straining to see any movement in the darkness ahead.
"Hundred fifty up," the radio crackles. "Corner."
Her eyes rove further into the darkness – and then she spots it, a tall, thin shadow ambling awkwardly down the road, like it's on its way to the shops or something.
"How are you feelin', Wells?" Declan asks around what she suspects is a large piece of chewing gum.
She eyes the zombie again. It is just a silhouette in the darkness, but already she can see there isn't much of him (her, it). He's too skinny, and he walks with a funny gait, like his legs don't work properly. Not fast, like some of them are, nor frothing at the mouth and screeching in pain, mad as anything that's been locked in a cage for fifty years.
"Lights out," she says in return, and the thin torch in the crow's nest turns away from the zombie, scanning the surrounding streets for other intruders instead.
The zombie comes all the way up to the gate, staring into the lights of the hut behind her like a moth does to a flame. She wonders, as she takes a careful step backwards, what he would do if he could reach them. Would he try to climb into them? Would he just sit there and stare at them through the dark, cold nights? Would others be drawn closer too?
So much we don't know, she thinks, and his eyes turn to stare at her instead.
Her breath catches in her throat at the tiny movement and the intensity of his gaze, but he doesn't do anything else; just stands there, arms limp and body trembling and stares unerringly at her face, like it holds the key to a puzzle he needs to unravel.
"All good, Wells?" the radio asks, louder and clearer than it has been all night. The zombie flinches. Cursing, she turns the volume down.
"No threat," she replies, mumbling into the receiver to avoid raising her voice too high. They're sensitive to noise, despite the noise that they torture themselves with every morning.
"What's the matter with you?" she asks the zombie softly, like she would a dog.
He stares at her, face twitching. His mouth opens, the muscles of his jaw fighting against each other, but no sound comes out. She does get a clear view of his teeth, white as bone in his red mouth. White as bone, because that is all that is left of them, she realises with a jolt of revulsion; but of course, he's been here fifty years, grinding his teeth against an unknown and immeasurable pain, and she has been…
She has been standing by the gates, keeping watch. She has been a child, ignorant of his plight. She has been nothing at all, because he has been dead and yet eternally youthful for longer than she has been alive, hiding in the streets of a town lost to time.
As if he knows what she is thinking, his hand paws at his mouth, his fingers trailing over the stubs of his teeth with no regard for the pain it must cause. She rocks back on her heels, watching blankly as he waits for a response and then repeats the motion, pawing at his mouth insistently. He reaches through the bars, inches from her, palm up and fingers stretched wide. She withdraws sharply, but he isn't reaching for her – just waiting for something, almost expectant of her.
The radio blares another message – another one sighted, all attention drawn away to the streets behind him. Addison's eyes stay on the boy. He's so young; teenaged, maybe a little older, and yet still so young to be so…lost, to be wandering these streets for so many years, while she sits here with a whole empty life of watching him ahead of her.
He waits, so patient, while she tries to puzzle it out. She's drawn back again to his mouth, his cracked teeth and bloody gums. There's mud crusted over his lips and streaked down his shirt – they eat dirt sometimes, she recalls, now that there is nothing else to eat in town (except each other and the rats, but she doesn't like to think about that). They are always hungry, so desperate they will scoop up handfuls of ash and dust and rotten wood to quench the empty craving of their stomachs, unable to simply lie down and die of it like Seabrook wishes they would.
She wonders what it feels like, that empty gnawing hunger that would never cease. The dry nothing of the dirt coating your throat as you swallowed, the taste of loam and blood heavy on your tongue with nothing to wash it away. The slough away of everything in your body that isn't skin and bone and organs that refuse to shut down because there is nothing to sustain-
He's hungry.
It comes to her like a light flicking on inside her head, a sudden realisation that almost makes her jump out of her skin. He wants food. Her hand makes it all the way to her pocket, closing around the half-eaten granola bar she has stored there, before she second-guesses herself, all her forgotten troubles returning at once.
Can she really feed a zombie? Should she? Is he like a stray cat, that will keep coming back for more? She hates to see him here, begging at the gate (since when do zombies beg? Have they always known how to beg?), but she would hate more to see him dead on the floor with a bullet in his brain because he came back one too many times.
(Or maybe it would be a mercy. Maybe that's what he really wants, somewhere deep down.)
He grunts at her, fingers stretching a little flatter, a little less of a threat. She can see every tendon in his palm straining to hold them straight, too stiff for the exercise. Behind him, the light flicks on again, following the twisted, shuddering form of another one that's almost too small to believe, one leg dragging behind it as it approaches the gate.
"Here," she whispers, like a zombie can keep a secret, and pulls the granola out of its wrapper, dropping it into his palm before she can regret her decision.
His fingers snap closed around the food, his arm retracting back through the gate. He brings it to his nose, sniffs at it – but he doesn't eat it like she thinks he will. Instead, he looks at her again, groans a goodbye, and shuffles back down the street.
"Don't come back," she says softly behind him, watching him go. If he hears her, he doesn't react; he's single-minded now, trudging back into the darkness with his prize clutched in his fist. She desperately hopes he won't, almost as much as she secretly hopes he will. It will only mean trouble if he becomes familiar to the guards on the wall, and if he tries reaching for anyone else at the gate…
At the other end of the street, the little one trips and falls, rolling through the dirt. It's a little girl, Addison realises as she picks herself up off the ground, a pair of ratty pigtails swinging from her head. A child, maybe five years old, her clothes hanging from her skinny frame and her toes poking out of her shoes as she drags her feet down the street. They meet in the middle, the boy and the little girl, and with great effort he crouches down, his body shaking, and holds his hand out to her, fingers outstretched.
The granola disappears in one bite, so fast that Addison doesn't even see her take it from him.
On her hip, the radio crackles again. She turns it up, just in time to hear Declan's gritty voice asking, "Permission to shoot?"
"Granted," the commander replies as she scrambles for the radio, her eyes fixed on the retreating forms of the two zombies.
"There's no threat!" Addison snaps into the receiver, willing them to move faster. Turn. Get out of sight. Run away, don't come back, get out of here before it's too late. "They're just following the light, there's no need to-"
"Fuck, it's just a warning shot, Wells," Declan says over the top of her, loud enough that she can just about hear him from the crow's nest high above her. "Turn your damn radio on instead of cuddling zombies through the gate and you'd know what we're fucking talking about."
"Swearing, Declan," someone else sighs, exasperation in their voice.
"Fuck off," Declan growls. From the wall above her, a gun cracks twice, bullets flying through open air and burying themselves in the pavement at the zombies' feet. "Why am I getting all the shit when Wells is breaking rule fucking one of zombie patrol?"
She turns the radio down again as the argument picks up steam, returning to her post with a pit in her stomach. She'll be in the commander's office by the end of her shift, she knows already, trying to explain what Declan had seen without admitting that she had given the zombie the food. She'd probably lose her job for this. It's going to be a very long morning now, whether she likes it or not.
She finds, as she sits down, that she doesn't really regret it at all.
ooo
"We're sabotaging the football finals."
"What?" She stares at Eliza in surprise. "No, we're not."
"Yes, we are." Eliza is firm, arms crossed and her gaze locked on Addison, like she can beat her down just by staring at her. "I've already talked to Bea, we've got a whole plan. We just need one more person."
"I can't, Eliza," Addison insists. "Zed needs that game, if they don't do well-"
"Zed? Football star Zed?" Eliza scoffs loudly, her eyes rolling towards the ceiling. "The one that didn't even defend you when the cheer championships went sideways?"
Addison looks down at her wrist, the green light of the Z-band surrounded by blistered, half-healed skin. "He tried," she argues weakly. "It's not his fault."
"He deserves this just as much as the rest of them," Eliza insists, unflinching. "He won't even miss out on anything but a trophy. We're missing out on our whole lives because of his stupid cousin – doesn't that make you angry? Don't you want to do something about it?"
Doesn't that make you angry?
Doesn't it?
Her whole life plays out before her, each day she should have spent out in the sun crushed like the soft grass of the football field beneath her feet. She can see them blinking out one by one, replaced with grey, empty hours sat wasting away behind the locked gates of Zombietown.
She's always thought Eliza was a bit dramatic. Always thought that the world couldn't be as dark as her pessimistic ramblings painted it to be. She'd met the human boy in the school halls by chance, and despite being the town's golden child, the heir to Seabrook's metaphorical throne, the son of the mayor and the man that kept the zombies locked away…he hadn't seemed so bad. He'd been nice. He'd been willing to listen to her.
But they'd been hiding for months now, and the zombies had barely left the basement, and no matter what kind of flips she threw, the cheer team wasn't open to zombies or to change. And the cheer championships were a disaster that the zombies should never have even attended, and now here they were. Confined to Zombietown again. No school, no dreams, no future.
"They can't do anything worse than what they've already done," Eliza says somewhere in the past to make her agree. "If there's no punishment, why shouldn't we do it?"
"Addison," a new voice speaks in the future, and she looks up into Zed's face, mud-spattered and pale with fear.
It's a stormy afternoon, the grass damp and the sky heavy with grey clouds that threaten to pour down the heavens upon them. Around the field, the players have halted their slog through the mud, to stare at the slight forms of the pale girls that stand at each corner. Zed has stopped right in front of her, staring at her through the visor of his helmet, his chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath.
Behind him, the crowd begins to scream.
"Don't do this," he begs, without looking back at the snarling beasts that hunt the fleeing crowd. "You're better than this. Don't do it."
Her fingers are already curled around her Z-band, nails pressed against the cracked latches, pummelled against a rock until they broke just minutes before she stepped on the field. "I have to, Zed," she replies, and she wishes she could sit down and explain, but she can't. "It's the only way to get revenge. It's the only way to make them understand."
"Revenge isn't worth it," he tells her. Blood splatters across the grass, thick and hot and running bright, bright red. The sky cracks and rumbles with the promise of a storm. "This won't fix anything. I thought you knew that."
She offers him a rueful smile, a cruel thing that cuts at her pretty face like a knife, leaving her teeth chipped and jagged. "It's too late to change anything now," she answers. "I'm sorry. I have to do this. For my people."
He stares at her, uncomprehending; but he never had a hope of understanding, he who stands in the centre of paradise with gifts showered upon him and says I don't know if I belong. He's never known a locked door, the cold iron of a cage. Never gone hungry a day in his life, never craved something he's never even tasted and spent years trying to unravel the feeling, unsure if he is a person or a monster.
The screen of her Z-band flickers off and on again, switching frantically between orange and green, stable and unstable, life and undeath. She can feel it creeping through her veins, the twisting, uncontrollable strength she's always had but never known, the power the humans keep tamped down out of fear for what she could do if left unchained. The hunger follows in its wake, curling in her stomach like she's never known a meal in all her life, like it will not be sated until she's crushed the skulls of the whole town.
It should frighten her. Like Eliza should frighten her, at the far end of the field, dragging one foot as she stumbles after a group of fleeing cheerleaders. Like Beatriz should, something red dripping down her chin, her eyes black and veins bulging. Like Zeke, or Ezra, or Kizzie, dotted around the field, their teeth sharp and their voices loud.
Her eyes return to Zed, tracing the lines of his face, trying to memorise it one last time. She probably won't remember this, if she comes back to herself later. She might never know that he came to speak to her one last time. It hurts more than she thinks it will; but she loves him, she does, even if she has chosen to throw him aside now, in favour of revenge. It's just impossible for him to ever understand, for him to stand with them in a way that truly matters, and that is a wall they will never break down even if she chooses him over everything else.
"I'm sorry," she tells him, one last time, and then her fingers dig into the broken locks of the Z-band and she casts it away into the grass, embracing the cold, angry beast it shackles.
For the first time in her life, she feels free. Alive. Real.
ooo
In the dead of the winter, the stars don't shine like they're supposed to.
There's a blizzard brewing in the night, the sky black and heavy with clouds and the snow soft falling down around her like so many other things in her life, drifting between the twisted boughs of the trees. There's not a breath of wind to stir their branches, or to cause the snow to eddy and swirl around her, no sound except for the crunch of her footsteps against the frozen ground. Even the baby doesn't cry, swaddled in a blanket too think to protect her from the cold and held to tightly in her mother's arms as she stumbles deeper into the woods.
The baby never cries though. It's just one more thing about her that is unusual; one more reason for the town to whisper as she passes in the street. In the months since she was born, she has never once squalled or cooed or cried for anything. What I wouldn't give for mine to be so perfectly behaved, the other mothers tell her as they gaze upon the babe in her cradle, but she can see that they are horrified.
Take the babe to the woods, if you are so worried about it, her own mother whispers in the dead of night, again and again and again. No one would blame you. And they would all forget, eventually.
She wants to love the child, she really does. She wanted to be the perfect family, the way they were always meant to be – but the babe's hair keeps growing, white as the snow that hides the rocks beneath her feet, and she never makes a sound, and the rumours had spiralled into a tornado and the tornado ripped through the town and all anyone talks about now is the Wells and their cursed child and the things they must have done wrong in order to deserve this.
She wants to love the child, but there is only one way to love her, and that is to let her go.
The centre of the valley is hard to find, unrecognisable in the snow except for the tall, twisted oak that stands in the middle of the glade, branches naked and reaching for the rocky walls that tower around it like it might be the only thing holding the mountains apart. The baby fits perfectly between its roots, nestled in the snow drift like a cradle left by god – which god, Missy doesn't know, nor does she want to find out.
"You're going to like it here," she tells the child, tucking her blanket around her one last time. The fabric is crimson red, threadbare and faded in Seabrook's harsh lights but vibrant out here, placed against the silver of the snow. The baby stares back at her with wide eyes, uncomprehending. "You'll be happy," she promises. "You're going to like it out here."
She doesn't know if she's talking to the baby or herself.
The mountains loom over her as she stands and steps back, frowning through the mist. Overhead, the sky rumbles, the clouds growing darker, the snow falling a little bit faster. The tree is silent, sleeping, like the bones that litter the ground at its feet. Maybe it is dead too, and in the spring no leaves will come to soften its twisted boughs and in the summer the bones will bleach and dry and crack in the sun, with no shade for them to rest under. Maybe by next winter there will be nothing left for the snow to hide but wood and dust and lost spirits left without their protector to stand over them.
She doesn't like these thoughts. She turns and leaves before she can think anymore, pulling her coat tight around her and burying her face in her hood, only looking up to weave her way through the trees as fast as she can. She wants to be home before sunrise, so that no one will see her return and think to ask where have you been, so early in the morning, so that her husband will wake up to a warm breakfast and a welcoming wife and won't think to stop by the nursery on his way out the door. So that she can sit by the fire and listen to her mother tell her that she's done the right thing until she believes it.
Behind her, buried in the snow, the baby never cries.
ooo
Bucky has a knife.
She'd seen it in his hand when the night first started, gleaming silver in the streetlights as he showed it to Jacey, smiling with all of his teeth. They'd laughed about it quietly, their heads bent together like they were gossiping about something, and then he'd slid it into his pocket and they'd carried on their way.
She's never wanted to be ignorant before. She thinks she wants to be now.
They huddle behind a tower of old junk, unrecognisable bits and pieces of things that have been stripped for parts piled high in the back of a dark alley, junk so old and useless that even Zombietown couldn't find a purpose for it. It smells strongly of mould and rotten fruit, and the higher it goes, the more precariously the items sit, as if at any moment it could all come toppling down. It's the most horrible place they've ever been.
It's the only dark corner they've seen in a place that she'd been surprised to find was full of light – the streets are gaudy with every kind of bulb you could imagine, barren gardens planted with strings of fairy lights instead of flowers and houses glowing from the inside in every colour imaginable. It's wonderous, beautiful even. She wishes she could go back and look again, instead of hiding in this alley, almost more than she's afraid of what might happen if she tried to leave.
"Agz garzedd-zig ru garzrea," a voice calls, loud and taunting. The monsters that chase them gather at the end of the alley, their shadows falling long across the ground. Addison peeks out between the junk that hides her from their view, but she can't make out anything of them except their silhouettes, tall and thin and almost-human.
"Zedika, Engraz," another voice laughs, and shoves at the figure on the far left. "Gra'zon grazalk Zravegrall."
They laugh, raucous shouts that rattle in their hoarse throats and hungry mouths. Their teeth flash in the light from the street, pearly white against the red of their mouths. It feels threatening, even though they don't bare them or let out anything close to a growl or a snarl or a screech; it's because of what they are, she thinks, and what those teeth were born to do, rather than anything the boys actually do.
"You can come out now," the first boy says when he catches his breath, a thick accent dragging the words past his tongue like rocks. "We don't bite."
"Not skinny greeska, anyway," the other snarls, and then spits at the ground.
"Egrall zuru," the third pipes up. He's smaller than the other two, and speaks clearer, bouncing on his toes as he speaks with his eyes wide in excitement. "I'm hungry."
The zombies laugh again. Behind Addison, someone shifts uncertainly, their boots scuffing against the concrete. She turns just in time to see Bucky and Jacey exchange a look, something dark and dangerous in their eyes. The girls are huddled against the wall in each other's arms, terrified and waiting for Bucky to save them.
"Let us go!" Bucky shouts, and if Addison ignores the waver in his voice it almost sounds like he isn't afraid.
"Come out of the corner then!" the little one shouts back and laughs, his voice high and clear as a bell.
"Shh, Fritz," the first one says, a finger pressed to his lips, and the little one retreats into his collar like he's been slapped in the face. He takes one step into the alley, and then another. "Are you sure you don't want to come out and play?"
"Play?" Bucky scoffs. "Play what, eat-your-face-off?"
"Well, I was going to say football," the boy says, circling carefully around a small pile of junk. Fritz creeps after him, one hand twisted in the hem of his shirt as if he might get lost if he lets go. They stop on the other side of the junk, so close that Addison's view is blocked by his torso, the scowling boy left at the end of the alley out of her view.
Her breath catches in her throat as he stops and leans down, peering through the same gap she is using to spy on them. She rears back, her foot kicking something metal that rattles loudly across the ground, but he doesn't move; just stands there, staring her right in the eye and yet seeing nothing at all. She creeps forward again, staring back at him, but he is oblivious, his eyes searching some middle distance that doesn't quite reach hers.
Zombies can't see in the dark, she remembers with a start. She'd read it once, somewhere in between all the zombie outbreak protocols they had to sit through every year at school, and thought that it couldn't possibly be true – but maybe it was. Maybe that's why the other one hesitates at the edge of the shadows, why Fritz clings to this boy like a lifeline. Why their town is strung with lights that burn so bright that they often make Seabrook's power flicker, why the glow at night is so bright that sometimes the stars can't be seen from either side of the wall.
"Leave them, Zed," the one that still lingers in the light snaps. "They're just going to sit back there and tell us what horrible monsters we are until the sun comes up, and I've got shit to do."
"You are monsters!" Bucky shouts, unbidden. Addison shoots him a look, wide-eyed and questioning, but he's staring right past her, at the boy's shadow, cast in long, elongated lines across the wall.
"Come and say it to my face, drakska," the boy shouts back twice as fast. Bucky's face twists in displeasure.
"Bucky," Jacey hisses, grabbing his wrist. "Don't go out there."
Bucky shakes off his grip, his hand slipping into his pocket. "We can't stay here all night," he replies in a low voice.
"You're going to go out there?" Lacey squeaks. Bucky shushes her.
"They're just zombies," he says casually, like he's not afraid, and turns his back on her before she can see his face turn pale, his hands clenching into fists. To his left, Jacey bites his lip but doesn't say anything; his eyes are on Bucky's pocket, and the silver blade that he knows hides there.
Addison catches him before he can step into the light, her fingers tugging at his sleeve like a little child. "Don't get hurt," she whispers – begs, even, afraid of all the things that might happen next. "Don't hurt them."
Bucky smiles, his other hand patting the top of her head; careful as ever not to disturb the wig, even here and now. "You worry too much, little cousin," he tells her, and then he is gone, breezing past her with only the sound of his lungs sucking in a deep, steadying breath to mark his passing.
The scene plays out like something from a movie, perfectly framed in the lens of her peephole in the rubble. Bucky stops two steps from the zombies, his hand in his pocket. Fritz bounces on his toes, head swinging from side to side as he stares blindly into the half-light of the alley. Zed pulls him forward a step, close enough that he can see Bucky, and a feral grin splits his face in half, showing a mouthful of chipped, crooked teeth.
"There really are humans," he crows excitedly, his arms thrown wide enough that he bumps into the pile of rubble that hides the rest of them. The pile shifts slightly and rights itself again, groaning ominously. "Cruz, come here. There are humans."
"Leave us alone," Bucky says, his eyes fixed on the taller boy. Addison isn't sure if he is more or less of a threat than the little one. "Or I'll make you leave us alone."
The one at the head of the alley, Cruz, laughs, daring a step into the shadows. "How are you going to do that, greeska?" he taunts.
Bucky pulls his hand out of his pocket, the blade of the knife catching the light as he brandishes it like it is a sword, rather than a kitchen knife. Cruz flinches at the reflection of light, squinting against the sudden brightness, and then laughs again.
"A knife?" he asks, undaunted. "Zedika. He has a knife. What are you going to do with a knife, drakska?"
Bucky's face pinches in displeasure, his brows drawing together over angry eyes and lips pursed. "This," he snaps, and lunges forward, grabbing at Fritz. The smaller boy stumbles backwards, away from the knife, and falls into the pile of garbage.
The pile shudders under his weight, groaning loudly.
It slides out of Addison's reach.
With a loud crash, everything in the alley comes falling down on top of them.
Addison stands rooted to the ground, shocked, as the pile slides across the ground away from her, a wave of splintered wood and rusted metal, twisted pipes and old rebar cut to pieces, roof shingles and musical instruments and the remains of furniture that has been picked so clean it's unclear what it was ever supposed to be. Behind her, the girls and Jacey scream, backing up into the dead end of the alley.
She should follow them, should try to hide in the darkness where the zombies won't be able to see them – but her eyes lock with Cruz's, standing just as still at the other end of the alley, and she finds she can't look away. He is just as scared as her, just as worried for his friends. In this light, she can't even see the pallor of his skin, or the green of his hair. He looks like another human, young and scared.
She thinks, for a moment, that they will have to work together to dig the other boys out of the rubble and pull them to safety. She's surprised to find that the prospect doesn't scare her like it would the others – but then Bucky rises from the ground, the pink and white of his jacket distinctive even in the dark and the knife still clutched in his hand.
On the other side of the alley, there is no movement. For a moment, everything is still; the only sound Lacey sobbing, somewhere behind her. And then, the rubble starts to shift, rolling away in every direction as a monster rises from the ground.
Fritz stands too, rubbing at his head even as he turns towards the twisted, snarling form of Zed behind him, one hand outstretched. "Zedika," he says, his tongue tripping over the guttural syllables of their native tongue. "Zedika, driza-" The zombie shoves past him like he doesn't hear him, the metal band on his wrist blinking a bright, angry red.
Offline, she thinks, and this time, her heart leaps in fear at the thought.
It happens in slow motion; the zombie lunges, teeth bared, black veins bulging. The knife slips from Bucky's hand, glittering as it spins through the air and clatters to the ground amidst scattered pieces of twisted rebar and rusted pipes. Bucky hits the wall, a hand wrapped around his throat and teeth snapping inches from his face.
Somewhere in the distance, Fritz yells, his words indistinguishable.
Addison lunges from her hiding place.
The knife is in her hand before she knows what she is doing, her feet dancing through the minefield of debris that covers the alley like they dance across the cheer mat, light and agile. Her breath catches in her throat when she sees the zombie with nothing in between them, the lines of his body twisted and hunched beneath his threadbare shirt. His veins run black like they're filled with poison, fingers clenched so tight around Bucky's neck they break the skin – so tight, that they could crush bone, could take life with just a twitch of a finger, if she isn't quick.
"No!" Cruz shouts and leaps towards her, hands outstretched, but she is faster, and closer to her quarry, and filled with enough cold adrenaline that strength doesn't matter. The knife sinks into the zombie's back, right between his ribs. Flesh and sinew split apart like butter beneath her hands; the zombie arches backwards, screeching in horror. She rips the knife out and stabs again, panicking at the thought of it turning around and coming for her next.
"They're hard to kill, Addison." Her father had warned her once, she remembers, ripping the knife out and stabbing again; again, and again, and again. "You have to hit them in the head, or the heart. Remember that, if anything ever happens. If you ever have to-"
If I ever have to face one; and he hadn't been able to finish the thought, couldn't bring himself to imagine her living the mistakes of their ancestors, but here she is, trapped in a dark corner, and there is the zombie, lying motionless at her feet, blood running black over the toes of her boots.
"Stupid girl!" the other boy screams and grabs the blade of the knife, ignoring the way it slices his palm as he rips it from her grip and tosses it away, out of reach of anyone. His eyes are wide, his face pale, but not bloodshot, not angry or hungry or twisted by a phantom pain – just scared, of what he has done and what she has done, and what happens now that it is over.
He drops to his knees and turns his friend over. "Zed?" he gasps, shaking him as though that will be enough to convince the dead to rise. "Zedika? Zedika, zo regur. Come back, Zed. Ru grodge, zo regur, ru zrayn garzrea zu ag…"
She reaches out towards him, as if she can help him, as if there is anything she can say to make it okay, but nothing comes to mind. Zombies that attack people should be put down, most of the kids at school would say, and she's never thought she would agree with them, but-
Bucky grabs her hand, pulling her away from the zombies and towards their escape, towards the lights that she had thought so pretty when they'd first crept into Zombietown. "Come on Addison," her cousin gasps and shoves her towards the light, even though her eyes are still fixed on the zombies, on the boy, dead on the ground and the blood that pools in the cracks in the pavement, gleaming softly where the light hits it. "Come on, we have to go. We have to get out of here now."
"But-" she starts but the words die on her throat as Jacey grabs her other arm and drags her around the corner and out of sight. The zombies don't look up or give chase to them even as they stumble into a run, weaving blindly through the streets that lead to home – only the sound of their grief follows them, echoing in Addison's mind even when she is back in the soft pastels and trim gardens of Seabrook, the gates of Zombietown locked and guarded behind them.
She looks down at the blood on her hands, deaf to whatever Bucky is trying to say to her as he scrubs at her fingers. She doesn't think she'll ever be able to wash it off, no matter how hard she tries.
ooo
She sees the future. She doesn't like it.
The ocean cliffs are cold and sharp, a long and dizzying drop from the height of the forest onto the jagged rocks that break through the water like a set of ancient teeth, like someone had taken half a mountain and placed it at the edge of the world when time began, just for her. She doesn't know if that's true or not. She doesn't see the past.
She sees the future. All of it. Every single one, wound together in a knot of string and yarn and bloody endings she can't seem to change.
The rocks crumble under the toes of her shoes, rattling down the cliff into the heaving, howling surface of the ocean below. The salt stings her eyes and her lips, dry on her tongue and the back of her throat. She swallows the taste and spits out blood in return. Her head spins.
She sees the future. It's down there at the bottom of the ocean. She doesn't know how she knows.
Why do they always end in darkness? Why is this one wrong, when it is just her and the ocean and the rocks? She can't remember. There's no beginning, only the endings dancing around in her skull every time she closes her eyes. Only the numb of her fingers, devoid of something to hold. There should be something for her to hold. Another hand, a torch, a blood-stained knife.
Again, again, again, the ocean roars, and the rocks tremble beneath her feet and the wind tugs at her skin and for a moment she is weightless, lifted, flying.
Get it right this time, her bones say to the rocks as they meet, embracing them like old lovers long parted.
ooo
She thinks the moment her fist connects with his face that there's something different about him.
When she stops and looks into his eyes (when she stops and gets lost in his face for the first time, unable to pull herself away), she knows.
She's just never seen a zombie before; not like this, up close and watching her with curiousity and wariness in equal measure. She's only ever seen them in passing, hunched into their collars or staring straight at the ground, limping or shuffling with stiff limbs, grunting a polite word in voices that sound like gravel. The photos her dad has made sure are burned into her brain; dead-eyed, hungry monsters snarling and chasing after people.
But Zed is just…normal, even if his hair is the richest shade of green she's ever seen and his eyes are rimmed with red. He's funny (now we'll just talk your ear off, and she doesn't want to laugh but she does anyway, even as Bucky bursts through the door), and he plays sports, and he's endearing, breaking rules he barely understands, earnestly inviting her to lunch when she punched him in the face last time they met.
"Hanging with zombies can be hazardous," Lacey warns her, the sharp edge of her silver tongue barely hidden by the soft pink she clothes herself in, and she feels so tired suddenly at the unfairness of it all. Why does it always have to be a choice, between cheer and being a little bit of herself? Why does there always have to be scrutiny, over her hair (is the wig slipping? Will someone find out her truth? Can she survive, if Seabrook pushes her to the side?), over her actions, over every little thought that might not align with what Seabrook thinks it should be?
Her eyes meet Zed's across the room. He looks resigned, defeated, his mouth hanging half-open like he wants to say something but just can't bring himself to do it. This is never going to change, she thinks as she turns and walks away, and for a moment it feels like she is talking about something other than Seabrook.
The hallway is empty and silent, the trophies sparkling in their cabinet like stars torn from the night sky, polished down and set behind glass. A nice place to be alone, she thinks; but no, Zed is there, and then Zed is following her upstairs, and then they are running, running, running, even though the hallway is empty and no one is around to see them. She's breathless by the time he pulls her into the zombie safe room, her heart leaping as the sounds of the school cut off behind them.
"This is where we first met," she remembers as he turns on a lamp, bathing the grey room in soft light.
"This is where we had our first punch," he corrects her, miming her fist swinging past his face. This is where I fell in love, she thinks as he drops his bag and crosses the room, grinning like an idiot, but stops herself well short of blurting it out; she can't say things like that to someone like him, not even here. Not even if he is the most interesting, exciting person she has ever met in her previously dull life.
"Hey Addison," he says, his eyes sparkling with mischief and the beginning of a joke. "Did you ever hear the one about a girl and a zombie?"
Her smile widens without her even noticing, her heart pushing her across the room to join him. "No," she answers, in the way she's only ever let herself talk to him. "What could go wrong with a girl and a zombie?"