IMPASSABLE
Jen Ponce
Copyright © 2020 Jen Ponce
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living, dead, or zombie, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: Jen Ponce
Printed in the United States of America
Thanks for your support, your feedback, and the sprints, Stephanie! You rock.
(Stephanie writes too, though her books have fluffy, intelligent cats, scaly, intelligent dragons, and kickass, intelligent women.
Check out her books here! http://stephanieebarr.us/)
Thanks, Lorri, for your eyeballs and editing prowess! I love you! (Best sis ever!)
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
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17
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19
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21
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Books By This Author
About The Author
1
Now
She crouches behind the counter of a gas station holding her nose to keep the sneeze inside. An inch of dust coats every surface and it smells faintly of mildew and death. Something died in the back room. As long as she doesn’t look, she can believe it is an animal and nothing more.
Doesn’t matter anyway. She came in to grab a gas can and see if there is food. She didn’t see the boy standing on the corner until he shouts at her.
“Help me!”
She shuts her eyes and concentrates on not sneezing, on the nubby red plastic under her fingers, on the utter silence all around her. A silence cut through with the boy’s faint screams. “Not real,” she whispers to herself, the shrieks rising as if someone is torturing the boy.
For all she knows, he is being tortured, but she knows better than to go out there and see. She knows better than to believe the story of pain and need in his voice.
She knows better and hates herself for it.
She counts to ten, the only way she’s found to combat the fear that constantly rides her, has constantly ridden her since October. At ten, she makes herself open her eyes and search the station for another exit, one that won’t dump her out where the boy is sure to see.
The door to the back room stands ajar as if daring her to push it open. She doesn’t want to look but she has already counted to ten and she can’t stay frozen. She’ll die if she lets the fear win.
She does an awkward duck-walk to that door and pushes it open, the hinges squeaking loud enough to make her cringe.
“Help! Please!”
“Not real,” she whispers again. She duck-walks into the dark room where the smell worsens and the door bumps against something soft. Fleshy, even.
The electricity has long since failed but she has a flashlight she shines around the room, the small beam reflecting off the exit sign at the far back. She risks rising and heads for the exit, not letting her eyes drift anywhere but the door. Seeing what happened in this room would only bring more fear and heartache and she’s had enough of both for a lifetime or three.
The door, nothing but the door.
She reaches it, twists the lock and then the knob, giving it a push with her shoulder when it sticks. Sunlight streams in, making her blink back tears as she slips out onto concrete covered with litter, cans, and discarded butts. There’s still snow on the ground in the shade of the blue trashcans and in the bed of a rusted pickup that sits on blocks near the alley.
This town, like every other place she’s passed through, is dead. The windows of a King Fresh grocery store glint vacantly across the street as she scoots along the building to peer around the corner. Nothing.
“Please!”
No movement. The windows of the gas station wrap around to the front, so she’s forced to duck-walk again to the next corner. Her truck is there, and it still holds gas. She stopped to see if she could get another can to fill. She stopped for food and water and to rest.
She should have known better. The truck gave her away, its noise and movement.
She is just tired. So tired.
A shrill cry rips the air and then there are loud, hysterical sobs. “Hungry!”
What if he’s real?
“Not real,” she whispers to herself, to the part of her that always wants to go to them, to help. Always wants to comfort and hug and care for them. A thirsty little girl alone in a house. She just wanted to help. She just wanted to—
“He’s not real,” she insists, trying to drown out the intrusive thoughts. It’s hard, so hard. She can’t get enough downtime to practice what she preached. Hadn’t she told Isaac how to deal with his intrusive thoughts?
And how did that end? Hmm?
No. She won’t think of him.
Had Tina been real?
Not her, either. She can’t go there, can’t think of anything that might distract her, that might cause her to go away in her head.
“Hungry!” The word is drawn out with the boy’s desperation.
What if he’s real? she asks herself again. What if he isn’t one of them? What if he’s alive like she is, abandoned by parents who loved him and worked so hard to keep him safe, only to die and leave him alone?
What if he was bit and they left him to turn because they couldn’t bear to kill him themselves?
She’s been down that road before.
“Stop it,” she hisses. “Get your shit together so you don’t end up dead.”
She’s been alone so long, she’s resorted to having conversations with herself. It keeps thoughts of her own kids at bay, her kids who are three hundred and seventy odd miles away. Her kids who may very well be dead.
“No. Not dead,” she whispers and not for the first time, either. “They can’t be.”
Where is the boy? Has he attracted others? Is he standing
