It annoyed me, him using her that way, but if I had a willing ear, would I be talking non-stop about Lana? Maybe. Her absence was a hollow ache in my chest that never went away, even when I felt okay. I was sure Dan had the same feeling about his kid.
We were all amputees, having lost vital pieces of ourselves, and were now trying to deal with their phantom remains.
It sucked balls.
We drove about twenty miles, passing farmland and hills covered in snow. Farmland gave way to pine trees, their green tops dusted with snow and looking like something out of a fairy tale. On our right, a wind turbine still spun, presumably suppling power to the buildings that sprawled beneath. A sign proclaimed the sight to be the Pine Ridge Job Corps. In front of the turn off there was a car in the road. I clutched Dan’s arm as he slowed. “Is that—”
I felt him tremble under my hand. He slowed even more and then pulled into the parking lot, which was full of cars, two white vans with the Pine Ridge Job Corps logo on the side, and an abandoned UPS truck. A long building on our right looked to be administrative offices of some kind and more buildings sat further into the area, down a steep, winding road.
The car in the road had a big red D spray painted on its side.
“Where are they?” I asked, aware my voice shook as I spoke.
Dan didn’t answer. It wasn’t like he knew the answer, after all.
“Come on, Lana. Give us another sign.” And then there it was. Another D painted on a building to our left that sat on a small rise.
We sat in the truck, engine idling, and waited for them. This many cars here, there had to be quite a few of the dead things wandering about, but despite waiting, we saw no movement.
Maybe the zombies had frozen to death … to permanent death.
Dan took the truck over the curb and onto the wide sidewalk, driving us right up to the steps. He killed the engine and again we waited, watching.
Nothing.
If Lana and Owen and Ivy and the girls were in there, surely they would have heard the engine. If they were alive …
My stomach clenched and I was pretty sure I was going to toss my breakfast. I opened the truck door, ignoring Dan’s hiss of warning, and puked into a snow drift. When my stomach was done expelling its contents, I wiped my mouth and went up to the door, hand shaking as I raised it to knock.
Knocked again.
Again.
Just as despair clawed its ugly way into my brain, I saw movement from one of the hallways. I knocked again and called, “Lana?” More movement and then a figure appeared. For one heart-stopping moment, I saw my wife, and then she walked into the light. Ivy.
She shuffled to the door looking almost as bad as the dead things and I reeled back, wondering if maybe she was one of them. She stared at me through the glass of the door as if she didn’t recognize me. Then she spoke. “Dee? Is that you?”
I sagged in relief. No inane, creepy children’s song. No cracked cry for help.
Ivy unlocked the door and swung it open. The smell was awful. Sweat, dirt, body odor. I wrinkled my nose before I could stop myself. “Where’s Lana? Owen? Lizbeth and Olivia?”
Ivy nodded.
I frowned, not understanding. “Ivy, where are they?” Please don’t tell me they’re dead. Please don’t tell me that. Please.
“We … uh … got separated. Your wife, she was mad at me for wrecking the van. I thought I saw …” She wiped a hand down her face, smearing the dirt there. “Thought I saw my daughter. I know it’s crazy. I was the one who shot her, but I thought I saw her there in the road and I swerved. Did something to the van. I don’t know what but it wouldn’t move forward, wouldn’t go back. She got the kids out and …”
I wanted to slap her and when I heard the grunt behind me, I knew Dan was there, was hearing this, was angry too. “Where did they go?” I asked in as sane a voice as I could manage.
“They … there was a family in a farmhouse nearby. They got in with them. She told me to come. Swore at me to come but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I fucked things up and I didn’t want to go on.” She sniffed and looked over her shoulder. Another person had filled the doorway while we talked, a hulking body with a child’s face. “I walked a while, then Richie here picked me up. The spray-painted ‘D’ was already there when I got here. She stopped here. Left a note.”
“She did?” Hope swelled again in my chest, not unlike water as it freezes. Just like water when it freezes, hope widens the cracks. It means well, but when it recedes, it leaves space for the pain to flow in. “Can I see it?”
She nodded and shuffled away, looking more like a Romero zombie than any of the dead things we’d seen so far. She brought back a grubby, battered envelope and handed it to me. I ripped it open and held it for Dan to see because I hoped Lana would mention the kids too.
“Dee, if you’re reading this, thank the goddess. I didn’t want to leave you behind—that wasn’t our intention—but the van died and a pack of those things were after us. I hitched a ride with a family getting out of town, me and the kids. Dan, Owen is with me. He’s freaked but he’s okay. Olivia is too but … I hate even putting this in writing, but Lizbeth is gone. She wandered off and got … I can’t. We tried saving her but …
“Dee, my love, I’m going to
