WILLA, стр. 19

The majority of us still held out hope that the outbreak was coming to a close. A few of the guards swore they were seeing fewer and fewer zombies each day. Neither of my uncles felt that meant anything. They tried to remind people that just because the creatures’ numbers were thin where we were, didn’t mean that the cities weren’t overflowing. Any day now, the zombies would leave the cities in search of food.

I didn’t know if I believed that. I hoped that the zombies in our area had already fled, but I feared that it was only childish hope. No matter what the situation was really, few people wanted to ration. Because we had very little to do but wait and eat, we sat around and ate.

Mom had mostly gone quiet after that first month or so after the outbreak, especially after she’d got it in her head that my dad was dead. I held on to the belief that he was still alive long after I should’ve, but she’d convinced herself that he was gone and that it was just a matter of time before we followed.

When Mom was still alive six months into the outbreak, I guess that fear went away, and she began to worry we would starve to death instead. She didn’t believe the zombie apocalypse was over or under control. In her head, I think Mom thought the dead surrounded us with no end to the creatures’ in sight.

Mom wasn’t scared enough of starving to take over patrol watches for my uncles so that they could go on scouting missions or to allow them to train me as they had others on how to use the weapons even though I was sixteen. No, she was just scared enough to bitch about our diminishing food all day—every single day.

I think it was her bitching that had distracted our already tired and short-staffed guards from their duties and allowed my cousin Jace to sneak back into the house with a zombie bite. He and his family were gone long enough that we’d assumed they were either dead or had found their parents.

Why his stupid ass was willing to put us at risk by returning, I didn’t know.

I promised myself that if one of those creatures bit me, I would run away. I didn’t care what anyone said. If I could, I was going to find a way to kill myself before I turned.

There wasn’t a lot we knew about the zombies, but we did know that once you were bit, that was it. You turned. Not necessarily right away, but you always became a zombie.

Jace hadn’t been the only person to use Mom’s latest round of complaining to do something stupid. In my case, the “something stupid” that I did ended up saving my life.

“Mom, we have to cut our rations again,” my mother said, carrying a clipboard to my grandmother to show her the numbers she’d tallied.

Mom had tried to get me in on her constant counting of our food, but I’d slunk away as soon as she was distracted. I didn’t have anywhere to go other than to my bunk to read. Our clothes were all clean. With so few of us, people could do most things like that on their own. We still took turns washing dishes, cleaning the cellar and bathrooms, but people could wash their own clothes when they needed.

I knew that, eventually, Mom would figure out that I wasn’t with her and come to get me. Still, I escaped whenever I could for as long as I could.

“Molly, I’ve told you to stop. We’ll be fine. Your brothers are going to survey the fields next week when the rest of you are ready to stand guard. There’s still plenty of deer about,” my grandmother said, pushing the clipboard out of her face and trying to move my mom to a cot.

“The rest of us? I can’t... Willa isn’t...” Mom stammered, trying to formulate an argument.

“The both of you can and will.”

“My daughter isn’t going up there,” my mom said, barely holding back a shout. “I won’t have it.”

“Willa has to learn to fight and hunt sometime. One of these days, we won’t have a choice but to leave this cellar. When that day comes, she’ll need to know how to defend herself against those creatures and whoever else comes along.”

Grandma shouldn’t have said that last line. Thinking of the creatures was one thing, but Mom refused to acknowledge that in the aftermath, a lot of bad people were going to take advantage of the situation. My grandmother’s words sent my mom into an entirely different rant.

While Mom had everyone looking at her, the shelves, and the diminishing food, I snuck upstairs. I hadn’t been up in the main house in weeks. I didn’t dare venture out of the house. The new barrier we’d erected since the first horde was still holding steady, but I didn’t want to see that part of the world. I needed to look at the sky, breathe in the fresh air, and not be around people for five minutes.

Jace didn’t pass me as I wandered through the house, so I assumed that he snuck in shortly after I made my way up to the second floor.

I went to Grandma’s room to watch the world from her one remaining bedroom window for a while. We’d long since stopped keeping guards on the second floor. No one or thing moved in the fields that lay before me. Seeing the emptiness, one could almost believe the worst was over. I wanted to trust my mom over my uncles, but I knew that the two men were thinking realistically and that she was not.

After a while, my eyes grew tired of scanning the area and finding nothing. For a second, I thought about going back downstairs to my cot, but when I looked over to see how inviting Grandma’s king-size bed was, I