The Loss (Zombie Ocean Book 4) Read Free Page B

volunteers to fill them. Do you understand?"
    He nodded. It didn't matter that the suits were a death sentence. This bunker was a death sentence. They had to get out and she would do anything to achieve that.
    "Now," she said.
    He turned and left the control room, his steps growing more confident and regular as he went. On the screen before her more red flowers blossomed through the wintry blue, as though it was finally spring.

 
     
    1. NEW APOCALYPSE
     
     
    Ten years after the zombie apocalypse changed the world forever, a new kind of apocalypse strikes.
    I'm sitting on the pier where I saw Cerulean for the last time two weeks earlier, feeling nothing at all like a mayor. I'm exhausted and emotionally drained. It's after midnight three days after Anna returned, and the waves are lapping on the beach below with that quiet certainty that says with every slap, 'There's not a damn thing you can do'.
    Slap, slap, slap.
    Such is the rhythm of things.
    Anna's gone, Anna's come back, hurrah, but guess what? The infection is a T4 virus embedded in every one of our cells, oh well, no cure, and there are red demons that'll rip your head off whether you're immune or not. Also, Cerulean's gone, taken without a sign, and we haven't made any progress in finding him. Is it any surprise that Anna stared at me in disbelief, in the midst of her welcome home party, and Talia and Vie were weeping again, and what was I doing? What was I, self-appointed Last Mayor of America, doing about it?
    Slap, say the waves, slap. It's never enough.
    I sigh, lean back against the chipped wooden railing and run my hands through my hair. The air's warm still, though we're hard on the heels of winter. This is California in November, with Christmas around the corner. Talia wants a new bike, which is pretty ridiculous since all we have to do to buy her one is ride to the nearest Yangtze and assemble it, but such is the life of children in the apocalypse. She can't drive herself yet, but I'll teach her soon, and then what will I get her for Christmas?
    I rub my temples and look out to sea as if there will be answers, but of course there are not. It's too dark to see much of anything.
    Goddamn Cerulean.
    "You shouldn't be here alone."
    I turn and see my wife, Lara. She looks pretty in denim, with her thick hair tied back in knotted braids. I get annoyed with myself, that me being here has made her come after me, alone, endangering us both and leaving our children in the care of, who, maybe Cynthia?
    "Mayorhood confers certain privileges," I try, but it gets me nothing but a dimpled frown in her caffe latté face. Even at 3am she's still got my number.
    "Bullshit, Amo. Mayorhood's the opposite of privilege. We need you, and it's work only you can do."
    I snort weakly as she sidles nearer over the creaking boards. "That's a play to my ego. Flattery will get you bike-assembling duty."
    She sits down by my side and takes my hand. "Shut up, you," she mutters, so I do, which is a mercy. We sit there side by side, holding hands and watching the ocean until the sun crests over the edge of the world, like a burning ember raised by the gods.
    It helps when she wraps an arm around my shoulders, some slight buffer against the haunting look on Anna's face, when I told her. Until then she'd been so happy and proud, having found her father and circled the world, then the hope just leached away.
    I see that leaching in everyone's faces, now. I see it in my children's' eyes whether it's there or not. Hope has kept this discordant group of crazy, killer survivors afloat for this long, and its loss may at any minute tear us apart.
    The old doubts rise and for a time I allow them. I'm just a zombie comic artist, not a mayor, who made silly book covers and boring worlds in Deepcraft. I wasn't elected to the position; even my self-nomination was a joke. I'm not worthy and I can't deal with this loss, especially now that the world I've always welcomed with open arms is reaching out