On the day that the world ends, they sit on the roof of a burning building and watch it all fall down.
"Do you think there's a world where this all works out?" Addison asks. The smoke is so thick in her throat that she almost chokes on the words. The screams from below are almost loud enough to drown her out anyway.
"The uprising?" Zed questions. His hand holds hers, tense but warm, comforting. He's not usually this warm. It reminds her of an echo of someone she's never known.
"Everything," she says, and she turns her attention to the ruins of Seabrook instead. "Humans and zombies, the towns. You and me."
"I think we worked out, didn't we?" he says cheekily, and squeezes her hand. She wonders if he can even see the fire through all the stars in his eyes, or if he is still blinded by his dreams of a better tomorrow.
(Tomorrow is nothing but ash and heavy rain. She can taste it like sugar dissolving on her tongue, sweet and thick and rich enough to make her feel sick.)
"Did we? Is this-" she stops, waving a hand towards the broken shadows, the red haze in the sky and crackling, hot air of the night, "-is this the best ending there is? This is the rest of our lives?"
The house is on fire and we're watching it burn.
She doesn't move.
"We tried our best," Zed insists. "We're together. Maybe that's enough."
It's not.
"Is this all we were ever supposed to be?" she asks him, urgent, desperate. It's coming to an end, and she can't breathe. She has to know. She has to make her peace with it.
"I don't know what you mean." He says it like a confession, gripping her hand tighter with every word that slips off his tongue. It cuts her to her core; they are here, together, in peace, and yet she can't stop thinking and asking and pushing and pushing and pushing for answers to a question so philosophical there might not be an answer at all.
"I just…" she starts and then stops again, scrambling for the words to explain what she means, the puzzle piece that she's missing. "Is this the way it was always supposed to be? Three years together, and then everything falls apart? There was nothing we could have done to stop it? No happy ending?"
He's still frowning at her, helpless. Hopeless. She grits her teeth and asks, "If we did it all again, would it turn out differently?"
Zed's face twists, his mouth turning downwards. The red light of their dying world casts a peculiar shadow across his skin, accentuating the fevered red that rims his eyes. "I don't think it works like that, Addison," he says softly. "I don't think there's a right way or a wrong way, just what we've done and what happens next. You can't just…see the future, or…or try and change it with the way that you're living now."
Addison tries to sigh, but she only comes up with a lungful of smoke. It tastes like pine, and metal so hot it melts into the ground, and it sticks to her teeth and her nose, thick and cloying.
"That's not very hopeful," she says.
Inexplicably, Zed smiles.
"Maybe not," he says. "But if I had to pick between this and a world where I didn't have you…I'd always pick this one."
"You're sweet, Zed," she sighs and rest her head against his shoulder. His coat is warm from the heat in the air and still soft, freshly laundered this morning. For a moment, she almost thinks she could fall asleep like this.
"What would you choose?" he prompts.
"You," she says in return, without hesitation, or any kind of lie. "I just wish there were more choices."
"And if there were? What would you choose?"
She hums thoughtfully, staring into the haze of smoke and flickering lights. Her eyes sting and her mouth is dry and she is tired suddenly – so, so tired. Around them, the sounds of battle are muted and yet so loud they make it hard to think around the noise.
She closes her eyes, pushing back tears. She's not sure if they're for the things she's lost, or just the smoke that presses in from every side. What would you choose? his voice asks over and over in her ear.
Not this life, she decides. Anything but this life. This one is all wrong.
"I would choose one where we met at school, like we always did," she begins. "And you're you, and I'm me, and our people learn to get along."
He whistles appreciatively. "Even Bucky? That's a tall order."
Addison shrugs. "I used to think it wasn't such an impossible dream. Seems pretty stupid now."
Zed falls silent, uncharacteristically for him, who wouldn't usually let her get away with calling any of her ideas stupid. His mouth twists downward, his brow furrowed in deep thought. The crackling of the air burning and the wind whipping past her face fills her ears in the interim, and she finds that even though his answers have been frustratingly inconclusive, she desperately misses having the sound of his voice to drown them out.
She tries to focus on something else; the heavy thump of her heart banging its fists against her ribcage, or the slow rasp of her breath pulling itself in and out of her raw throat. The way her skin prickles and burns at the oppressive heat of the air, so dry that even her tears disappear before they can fall. She tries very hard not to think of anyone that isn't here on the roof with her, and what the world might look like in the light of tomorrow's dawn.
She does not think about dying. She does not wonder if that's what Zed is thinking about too.
The house is on fire and you are watching it burn.
"Maybe it's like my dad used to say when we were kids," Zed says softly. "Sometimes, when something seems impossible and there's nothing else you can do, you just have to close your eyes and wish for it and hope that someone hears you."
It's a terribly naïve sentiment. It's childish and faithless and so hopeless compared to the thousands of rituals out there for summoning luck or wealth or power, and yet…her eyes slide closed as he finishes speaking, and her breath wells in her chest, and it feels like her heart is reaching for the sky, for any god that might be there to take her hand.
Not this, she begs, to the entire world and to nothing at all. Anything but this.
Maybe you should start again, the crack of the roof caving inward prays in return, and the sparks that fly into the air above it whisper a thousand new beginnings at once, fizzling away before they can finish the story.
ooo
The shots ring out; one, two, three, bullets flying just shy of their heads as they duck for cover amidst the crowd.
"Run!" Eliza screams.
Zed takes her hand as she turns and flees, the only thing that keeps them together as the crowd surges, a thousand bodies trying to go in every direction at once. Addison clings to him like a lifeline, her other arm covering her face as the people around them push and pull and punch their way through. Eliza is gone, lost in the sea of bodies and the confusion, the fear that crackles in the air stirring a desperate kind of fever in the crowd.
Don't lose Zed, she tells herself, don't lose Zed, but she can't see anything, can't hear what he's saying over all the voices around her, screaming for their loved ones too. Only his hand guides her, their tenuous grip on each other, his fingers slipping a little more with ever person she bumps into as she follows him.
(You shouldn't come, he says, his fingers cold as they trail across her cheek. His eyes are warm, concerned, afraid, looking at her like he might never see her again.
I'm not letting you go alone, she replies, her lips soft and convincing when they press against his, wiping any argument from his mind.)
Someone slams into her and stumbles away; tall, heavy, and wearing some kind of homemade armour. She stumbles too, the jerk of Zed pulling her forward the only thing that keeps her upright, even as his hand slips from her grasp.
She looks up, blinking against the sun, and tries to spot him, but the crowd is dense and is pushing her backwards, and she's pretty sure he is caught in a slipstream going the other way. "Zed!" she shouts, trying to be heard over the roar of the crowd. "Zed!" No one answers – no one even notices her, caught between several bodies, the constant milling of the crowd pushing her in every direction except forwards.
(Stay close to me, he instructs, like he doesn't already have her hand held in a death grip, like she isn't sandwiched between him and Eliza.
Around them, the crowd grows and grows in number, the noise growing with them. Eliza is ecstatic; there has never been this many zombies turn out to one of the rallies before. Addison stands in awe at the sheer number of people. She hadn't known there were this many zombies in Zombietown.
She squeezes Zed's fingers, smiling up at him despite the seed of fear that grows slowly in her stomach at the sight of the Z-Patrol's numbers growing too. Her father stands behind their line, wearing the face that says he's not having a good day.
I'm not going anywhere, she promises, and ignores the part of her that says it might not be a promise she can keep.)
Smoke fills the air, cannisters of bottled pain rolling between their feet, hissing as they spew poison into the street. It makes her eyes water and her throat burn when she breathes it in; coughing, she pushes through the crowd, trying to find an end to the people. Only a wall greets her, a corner to get trapped in – a cage for a mouse that's become far too brave.
She turns around, trying to fight her way back into the crowd, but every attempt finds her battered back towards the buildings. People are frantic, shoving blindly at each other, gasping for breath or clutching at their eyes or dragging others out of the path of the Z-Patrol.
She shoves back, takes step after step, jumps over a wasted canister of gas that rolls underfoot; and then someone shoves her backwards without looking, their hands covering their eyes, and another foot steps down in the wrong place at the wrong time, and her ankle twists underneath her, sending her tumbling backwards onto the pavement.
(They're calling it a riot, Eliza cries, waving a crumpled newspaper in Addison's face. A riot! All we did was march down Main Street! Nothing even happened!
Zed looks over from the other side of the garden, football spinning through the air over his head and back into his hands in a steady rhythm. Gently, Addison pulls the newspaper from Eliza's grip and smooths it out on her knees, swallowing the lump in her throat. The crowds are getting bigger, she reasons softly, careful not to stir Eliza's ire. They're making Z-Patrol nervous.
Well, of course more people came. Eliza slumps down on the bench next to her, huffing an annoyed sigh. The whole of Zombietown will come, if they don't start treating us like real, living people.
They're just scared someone might decide that violence is a better solution than protesting, Addison says, staring down at the article. Just like you're scared of what they might do because they don't like zombies.
I'm not scared of anything, Eliza claims, but her eyes are fixed on the dirt at their feet, as dead as everything else that has been lain to rest in Zombietown.)
"Don't shoot!" someone shouts above her. "Don't shoot!" The guns fire anyway, one after another, earsplitting as the sound of the shots cracks and echoes against the buildings.
Feet pound the pavement, so hard that the bricks she's lying on rattle beneath the weight of her body. The air fills with noise, of guns firing and people shouting and screaming and moaning in pain, their throats hoarse. She drags in a ragged breath and coughs it back out of battered ribs, cringing at the taste of smoke and bitter chemicals as it settles on the back of her dry tongue.
Everything hurts, from the ringing in her head to the blisters on her feet and every bone in between. She feels like she's been trampled into the ground, kicked and stepped on and pummelled into soft pulp with no bones left to lift off of the ground. Maybe she has; she can't remember if that bit was real or not. She can't remember much at all.
"Careful," someone says over her, a warm hand resting on her shoulder. "Breathe slowly. Stay with me."
That's the last thing she remembers before the world goes dark.
(The police chief stands in the centre of the street, the line of bodies and their riot shields standing strong between him and the bitter, grisly truth of the real world. His eyes scan the sea of people, searching for a glimmer of silver amidst the green.
She isn't there; she is at home with her mother, or out with her cheer friends, far away from here. Or at least, that is what he tells himself, to assuage the pit that opens up in the bottom of his stomach at the other possibility.
Orders, sir? a man says, standing at his right hand. He grimaces, like he cares about the consequences of his actions, like he will lie awake tonight and regret the choices that led him here.
Shoot to kill, officer, he answers, and the men hoist their guns, their sights set outwards.)
ooo
"You shouldn't be here," Eliza says before she can even catch Zed's eye, grabbing her arm and dragging her out of the room and around a corner, where no one will see them.
Addison frowns. "Why not?" she asks. "I told you Eliza, I want to help, I can-"
"Things have changed," Eliza snaps before she can even start to make her case. "It's not just a – a demonstration anymore. We're going to march into Seabrook, as zombies, and we're not going to leave until they rip down the wall and change their stupid laws."
Her heart jumps in surprise; in fear, when she remembers the things her father had been saying just that morning when he thought she wasn't listening; we need to crack down on these protests, we can't have them threatening an outbreak, we need permission to use more force.
"They'll kill you, Eliza," she says, like there is any chance at all that she will be able to talk some sense into the zombie after she's made a decision.
Eliza shrugs, defiant and defeated all at once. "We know. We don't care. They're going to do it eventually anyway – they should have done it a long time ago."
Addison's eyes widen – but deep down, she knows she's right. They've talked about it more than once; the rise of attacks on zombies, the restrictions that tighten and tighten and tighten like a noose around Zombietown's neck, the way Seabrook cares less and less about what happens on this side of the wall with every passing year.
It's been fifty years since the power plant exploded, too long for most of Seabrook's residents to remember now. Too long for Addison's generation by far, and even for their parents, just babies in their cradles when the monsters ran rampant through the streets. No one remembers the zombies as the humans they used to be anymore, and with every passing generation, the canyon between them only yawns wider, with no bridge to cross the gap.
"Humans don't care about zombies anymore," Eliza presses, aware that she is right and that Addison knows it. "They never really did – they just couldn't bring themselves to finish off their dead brothers and sisters and cousins when they saw them walking the streets after the power plant explosion, so they built a wall and waited for us to die on our own. Or maybe they thought they could cure us."
She shrugs, her face hard. "Either way, they didn't really want to help us or accept us, and none of us are their family and friends anymore. All they want from us now is to die."
"How do you know that?" Addison asks.
"Why else would they have gone to all the effort of keeping us alive when they thought we were monsters?" Eliza replies. "They were just too cowardly to finish the job. And anyway, you can ask any of the older zombies that were around when the explosion happened. They can remember their human families sometimes. Not all of them lived on the west side of town."
Addison swallows, but the lump in her throat only grows. She wants desperately to turn and run, to find Zed and beg him not to let Eliza think like this, or to go to her father and warn him, before the ever-growing tension between the humans and the zombies snaps into an all-out war. She can't do either though; Eliza stands between her and Zed, determined not to let her go until she's sure they're on the same page, and the zombies would never speak to her again if she ran home and spilled all their secrets – not even Zed, no matter how much she professed to love him.
And yet…Eliza, standing here, telling her we are going to Seabrook to die…she can't just do nothing about that. She can't just stand by and let them go – can she?
"So?" Eliza says, arms crossed and foot tapping in impatience.
"I-" she starts and then stops again, stymied. "I don't know, Eliza."
"Yes, you do," Eliza huffs. Her gaze bores into Addison, like if she glares hard enough she can see right into her soul. "You know I'm right. And you know Zed agrees with me too. We can't live like this forever, and it would be wrong for a human like you to just…decide that you know better than us what it's like here and what we should do."
Addison breathes deep, her eyes closed. Argue, her heart tells her, hammering against her ribcage. Fight. You can't pretend this isn't wrong. But she knows already, from years of experience, that she can't win an argument against Eliza – let alone the zombies that follow her lead, all thinking they're doing the right thing.
Maybe they are, and she just can't see it. Maybe she's right, and she's going to let them march off their deaths.
Maybe it's their choice to make, and she shouldn't have any sort of say at all.
"Go home, Addison," Eliza says, firm still, but softer than before. "This isn't your fight."
"Will you tell Zed I was here?" Addison asks in response, as if she's not already sure that she is going to do what Eliza says.
Eliza smiles, a wry twist of her mouth that doesn't reach her eyes. "Of course," she promises, and takes Addison by the arm, leading her towards the exit. "You'll see us before this is over. I promise."
We are going to Seabrook to die, Addison repeats in her mind, but she's already walking away, too far from Zed to change her mind.
ooo
A single shaft of light filters down into the crawlspace under the stairs. It's soft, and it's yellow, and it comes from the swinging globe that lights the hallway, slipping through a crack between two floorboards to illuminate a space that by all rights shouldn't exist.
Addison stares at it, watching the dust swirl in and out of its light with the rhythm of their breathing. It's almost calming, if she can force herself to forget about the ache in her coiled limbs, or the heavy footsteps that shake the stairs as they climb up and down, up and down.
It's the middle of winter but it's hot in the little space, three bodies pressed together in a box meant for one or two. None of them dare to move, scared to attract attention; Addison sits against the back wall, her head brushing the underside of a stair, and Zoey is crouched in front of her with her face buried in Zed's shoulder, fifteen and fearless and yet, when it comes down to it, still terrified of the things that the future promise her.
Zed's hand grips Addison's tight, like a lifeline. Neither is sure which of them it is most for.
She wonders, folded into that little corner of the house like a mouse hiding in the walls, where her father is right now. Would he call off the manhunt if he knew that she was here and not in Seabrook, where she belonged? Or would the manhunt double, would he drag Zed away and make him pay for taking her away, would he send Zoey to the containment centre to-
She squeezes her eyes shut, pushing the thought out of her mind. Nothing would happen to Zoey. Nothing would happen to any of them.
"What do you think they're looking for?" Zoey whispers, only audible because of how close they are. Another set of boots rattle up the staircase, so heavy that for a moment it sounds like the stairs might give way underneath them.
"Rebels," Zed whispers back. His eyes meet Addison's gaze over her head. Any excuse they can find, Addison thinks but she keeps it to herself, lips pressed together so that the thought won't spill from her mouth. There's no need to scare Zoey. There's no need to scare herself.
You're already scared, her heart informs her smugly, beating so hard in her chest that she fears it might give them away.
Something creaks behind them, a foot pressing down slowly on a loose floorboard. Voices rise into the air, too muffled to make out the word. Zed's face turns grim, his grip on Addison's hand tightening. Zoey covers her mouth, as if they can hear her breathing. The hallway light blinks out, and with it so too does their light, throwing them into a darkness that is deeper than anything the night could hope to bring.
Addison blinks against the sudden darkness, resisting the urge to move and find Zed. His hand still clutches hers, so tight her fingers are numb and yet she holds onto him with the same kind of strength, desperate not to lose him. The house falls into silence; have they gone? Was that it?
There's a bang, and the hidden door splinters into a thousand pieces.
Zoey screams, curling away from the explosion of wood and metal. Torchlight fills the opening that's left in flashes, silhouetting the hands that reach inside and rip Zoey from Zed's grip, taking handfuls of clothes and hair and skin and dragging her out of their hiding place. "No!" Addison screams and lunges, butting heads with Zed as she grabs at the girl's shirt.
They tug her back towards them, kicking and screaming, desperate not to lose her. What will you do next? something inside her asks amidst the chaos, the churning of her stomach and the rush of adrenaline that bursts through her veins. Trapped in the corner like a rat in a cage. She doesn't have time to answer; Zoey screams and screams, the men shout, and more hands reach in and clutch at her arms, at Zed, needling at the soft parts of their skin until their grips slip and then dragging them out too, one by one.
"Stand still!" someone yells and grabs her collar, shaking her. "Stand still! Stop fighting!" Spittle sprays in her face, his face close enough that she can smell the stench of tobacco on his breath. It almost covers the stale scent of sweat and dried blood from his clothes. She stops to gag, sure she is going to throw up; where had the blood come from? How had their world turned this far upside down?
"What do we do with them?" another voice asks. She blinks against the spots that dance in her vision, coughing, and looks up into the face of her father's friend Gus. He doesn't look at her in return; his eyes are fixed on Zed, on his knees in front of him. A gun rests cold and black in his right hand.
"Rebels? Hiding from the law?" The one still gripping her collar laughs in Gus' face. "We shoot them."
"But they're just kids."
"So was the one that killed John."
Gus shuffles his feet, and then shrugs in reluctant agreement. The gun points itself at Zed's head.
"No!" Addison shouts and rips herself out of the other man's grip with a strength she didn't know she had, reaching for Zed.
Several voices call out after her, guns and eyes turning towards her. Gus fires as he looks up, his finger twitchy on the trigger. He's always been a jumpy, nervous sort of man.
Knowing this doesn't help.
Zed shouts as she knocks him to the ground, but she can't hear what he says; her name, maybe, or Zoey's, or maybe nothing at all. It's all a blur, the living room, and the torches shining in her eyes, and the barrel of the gun as it drops back towards the floor. She breathes out, thinking that it missed them.
Her chest explodes like her ribs have caved in, like her heart was a time bomb and the clock has just stopped ticking.
"Addison!" she thinks Zed shouts, but she can't hear him. There's too much noise; men shouting, Zed leaning over her, calling her name (and then being ripped away out of her sight and where did he go where did he go where did he go), lights flashing and guns firing. Gus hovers over her, gun on the floor, hands on her chest, screaming at her to look at him, don't look away, but her head is spinning and she's so tired of all the fighting – and where is Zed?
A hand finds hers in the darkness, pale fingers stone cold and slippery with blood. She turns, but she can't find his eyes, and then she can't see anything at all and then all the noise and the colours and the blood that pours from her chest combine into an eternity of nothing.
She can't remember if she squeezes his fingers one more time. She's not entirely sure that it matters.
ooo
"It'll only be for a little while," he promises when they part, clutching her hands so tight that it hurts. His fingers are cold (cold as ice, cold as death, cold as the sky when she stands alone underneath it) and so hers are cold too, the warmth sucked from her veins by his hungry skin, even as her body tries to compensate for it. She can't pull away though; it isn't his fault for being what he is, and there is no telling when she will hold his hands again.
"How can you know that?" she whispers in return. "They said this one is for good, Zed. What if you never leave Zombietown again?"
The image of the notices flashes through her mind again, big, bold text printed on sheets of crimson paper. They plaster the streets of Seabrook and Zombietown alike, painting the streets red as they cry ORDER 662, ANTI-MONSTER LAWS, REVISIONS.
As of midnight, zombies will not be permitted outside of Zombietown for any reason.
She'd only seen them six hours ago, too short a time to spend her last day with Zed, too short a time to run home and ask her parents if this is real, if they have condemned a thousand or more people to a life behind walls – if they have condemned Zed to that life, never to see her again.
"It won't last, Addison," he says, like he can read her mind (and maybe it is just clear in her face, the horror and the bitter taste of the fear that squeezes at her chest with every breath). "It never does. They can't lock us up forever."
His hands squeeze hers, confident, comforting. She looks into his face, searching for the same comfort, but she only finds despair, hiding quietly in the corners of his eyes and the crease of his brow. It scares her, that he is lying to her, that he thinks this could be the end too, even if he won't tell her. Zed is always the one that believe they will meet again, no matter how many times he is dragged away from her…but this time is different. This time, the town is plastered in red, and the town council are sure that they will no rescind their decision.
Outside the alley where they hide, the crowd grows, noisy and yet silent at the same time as they shuffle towards the gates. Towards prison, towards home, and she wishes she could understand but she's always been free and she's never felt like she's going home.
His sister darts through the shadows, pale-faced and stark against the grey walls that shelter them. She's little and scared, though not half as little as she was when they'd first met. The innocence is fading from her eyes now, replaced by the horrors she won't tell anyone she's seen.
"It's time to go," she says, and though her gaze is like steel, she can't meet Addison's eyes. "Dad doesn't know where we are. They sent him straight home."
Zed pulls a face. He isn't afraid to look her in the eye, although the things that echo in his face aren't for her anyway. He's already left the alley, in a way. She's the only one still lingering here.
"Go," she tells him, like she's giving him permission, or releasing him from a debt. She forces their hands to part, even if it feels like she's ripping her own skin off with it. It can't be forever, but nothing can be, least of all something so fragile as peace, or so volatile as a group of people, discontent.
"I'll see you around," he promises, and he really means it. Her chest aches. She wonders if she's going to throw up.
There's something else she should say. An argument they should have, a love letter unwritten, turning sour in her throat. She should kiss him one more time, but he steps away from her like she's held out her hand thinking she could capture the wind and when she spots him again, he's in the lines of people marching towards the gate, and his hand is held by his sister.
It shouldn't be like this, him walking away from her again and again and again, bold confidence and crippling pain and uncertainty, constant and aggressive and pressing down like a storm that only gathers over Seabrook. It should be better, it should be worse, it should be broken and fixed and lost and waiting to be found, and they should be in love or they should be torn apart, or they should never meet at all.
It shouldn't be this standing here, lost in the grey, the middle ground of a war she can't see coming or going.
ooo
The snow falls, and falls, and falls.
Under the cover of night, stumbling through the blizzard, Seabrook turns into a maze of identical and empty, nameless fields of white where parks should be. Their borders are hidden in the ice, the streetlights casting their soft glow across unfamiliar stretches of snow. Even the moonlight that might light her way on a better night is smothered by the heavy clouds that hang low in the sky.
The wind whips through the trees that line the nameless avenue, whistling sharply as it blows ice and snow into her face and laughing as it spirals away, snowflakes spinning and twisting in its wake. She shivers against it, but she has no jacket to pull tight against the cold, no phone to call for help, no one's warm arms to hold her tight in the storm.
The tree at her back is slick with ice, the ground beneath her frozen, offering no warmth or even a soft place to rest her head. Inside her gloves, her hands are slowly turning blue – but it is better than them being painted in red, better cold than the hot drip of fresh blood sliding down her fingers…
You are so tired, the wind says in her ear, dancing around her with the sort of wild joy it usually reserves for the empty heights of the mountains. Why don't you go home?
Home, she echoes, but she can't remember where home is, or who is waiting for her there, or why she came out here in the first place. She only remembers dreaming of fires and fighting and monsters shifting slowly in the dark, and everything being wrong, wrong, wrong.
Nothing ever works out for you, the storm muses as her eyes slide shut. Maybe nothing ever will if you do it this way. Maybe it was all wrong right from the start.
What other beginning is there? her last breath replies, no more than mist stolen from her lips the moment it begins to rise.