Deadline

“That’s what’s going on,” Alaric said. His voice was toneless, and I remembered with a start that his family lived mostly in Florida. “The second Rising. You drove right through the middle of it, and you didn’t notice.”

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, echoing George’s earlier statement. The picture on the TV jumped, the label at the bottom changing to “Huntsville.” The newscaster didn’t return. “Is this for real?”

“It’s real,” said Maggie.

It’s the end of the world, said George, and I silently agreed.

Maggie was crying without any sign of shame, tears running down her cheeks. Her nose was chapped; she’d been crying off and on for a while. She reached for my hand, and I didn’t pull away, letting her lace her fingers through mine. Becks moved to stand next to Alaric, and he took her in his arms again, holding her against his chest. All five of us stood transfixed, staring at the television.

Staring at the end of the world.

BOOK V

The Rising

The one thing I have absolute faith in is mankind’s capacity to make things worse. No matter how bad it gets, we’re all happy to screw each other over. It’s enough to make me wonder if we should have let the zombies win.

—SHAUN MASON

I believe in the truth. I believe in the news. And I believe in Shaun. Everything else is extra.

—GEORGIA MASON

Shaun had a close call today.

He won’t tell me exactly what happened; I wouldn’t even know anything had happened if it weren’t for the glitches in his video feed, the places where the picture cut out and picked back up again a few hundred seconds later. The footage he posts from the field is usually seamless, smooth and easy and effortless looking. Not this. This is amateur-hour stuff, and that tells me more clearly than anything else possibly could that whatever happened out there, it was bad.

He came home stinking like bleach and rank terror-sweat, the kind that comes after the adrenaline fades, and he didn’t stop hugging me for almost ten minutes. I stopped laughing and trying to get away when I felt his shoulders shaking. My own shoulders started shaking when I realized what that sort of fear from Shaun—Shaun! Who once called a zombie in our backyahe best present I’d ever given him—actually meant.

Maybe life was always fragile and easy to lose, and maybe all those people who talk about how good things were before the Rising are full of crap, but we don’t live in that world; we live in this one. And in this world, it takes only one slip, one unguarded moment, to lose everything. I don’t know how close I came to losing him today. He won’t tell me, and maybe this makes me a coward, but I’m not going to ask. This is one truth I have no interest in knowing. There are some truths we’re better off without.

I don’t know what I’d do without him. I really don’t. I’d never tell him to stay out of the field—I know how much it means to him—but one day, the close call is going to cross the line into “too close,” and after that… I don’t know.

I just don’t know.

—From Postcards from the Wall, the unpublished files of Georgia Mason, originally posted June 24, 2041

My parents, Yu and Jun Kwong, are dead.

My brother, Dorian Kwong, is dead.

My colleague, Dr. Barbara Tinney, is dead.

While reports are currently sketchy, it is entirely possible that the state of Florida, and much of the surrounding region, is dead.

Welcome to the end of the world.

—From The Kwong Way of Things, the blog of Alaric Kwong, June 24, 2041

Twenty-three

Yes, I’ll hold,” snarled Mahir, and continued pacing. I barely noticed. I couldn’t take my eyes away from the television, where CNN continued to faithfully record the worst disaster to strike the human race since the summer of 2014, when the dead first decided to get up and nosh on the living.

Maggie sat next to me on the couch, even more fixated on the news than I was. Her interest in the situation was a little more proprietary than mine; Garcia Pharmaceuticals owned three factories and a research center in the affected area, and with the fatality reports updating every few seconds, a moment’s inattention could mean missing the deaths of people she’d known her entire life.

Alaric and Becks had retired to the kitchen after the first hour. Alaric was trying to get the wireless up and running, while Becks was cleaning her guns and checking the catches on the windows—just in case. It was a sentiment I could appreciate, even if I couldn’t find it in myself to move.

That’s enough, said George abruptly. The television was showing a school bus packed refugees being besieged by the living dead. The people inside were screaming; I could see their faces through the windows. As long as they were screaming, they were still essentially human. They were past saving. I hoped that infection took them quickly, or that someone had enough bullets to—

Shaun! George’s shout was enough to shock me out of my stupor. It’s amazing how loud something like that can seem when it’s coming from inside your head.

I turned to glare at the air to my left. Maggie, sunk deep in her own fugue state, didn’t appear to notice. “What?” I demanded.

George folded her arms and glared back. “You’re not doing anyone any good sitting there like a media consumer, you know. You need to be finding out what the hell is going on.”

“And how do you suggest I do that, huh?” I spread my arms, indicating the television and Mahir—still pacing and snarling into his phone—with the same gesture. “Things are sort of shitty right now, George, in case you failed to notice.”

“Oh, trust me, I noticed, I just don’t see where I need to care.” George grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. “Come on. You’ve got work to do.” Giving me a slow look, she added, “And some clothes to put on. God, Shaun, are you really sitting around watching television in your boxers? That’s just sad.”

“If there’s all this work, why don’t you do it?”

“Because I’m dead, remember?” She kept hold of my wrist as she spoke, pulling me toward the kitchen. “You need to ask Alaric whether Maggie moved our van into the garage before things locked down.” Catching my blank expression, she sighed. “Come on, Shaun, try to keep up for, like, thirty seconds while you’re losing your mind, okay? If we can get to the van without going outside, we can get to our emergency wireless booster.”