Until the End of the World (Book 2): And After Read Free Page A

up.”
    Everyone sighs in relief. Toby drops his head to the snow and stares up at the trees. “Holy fucking shit. Holy shit. Douse me in bleach, man, I don’t care.”
    I wipe it down with cleaner and ointment while the others finish off the remaining bodies. They’re careful in case more Lexers are thawed through, but there’s only the one which Toby had the misfortune of stepping past with his guard down.
    “You are officially alive,” I tell Toby when I’m done. “So live it up.”
    He gives me a quick patchouli-scented hug. “You bet your ass I will. Jeff’s gonna be glad he left the tent tonight.”

CHAPTER 3
    I can still smell the bodies when we get back to the farm. It sticks on your clothes and in your sinuses. The frozen Lexers don’t splatter the way thawed ones can, but they still stink. We park the snow machines quietly, well aware of how close a call that was. Toby dashes off to begin his celebration of life, quite possibly the least solemn of us all. Now that the Lexers are thawing, it’s only a matter of time until the pods come. They’ll find us eventually. They may not communicate, but they follow each other looking for food. Looking for us.
    I haven’t forgotten what the ever-present terror of millions of zombies feels like, but it’s had a chance to fade since the autumn. The winter gave us time to heal from shell-shocked survivors back into the people we once were, barring the visible and invisible scars we all carry. We’ve grown used to not worrying. The rustle of the trees really has been the wind, every snap of a branch heavy snow or ice. We haven’t become complacent, but it’s time to get back into that old mentality—the world has never been more of an eat-or-be-eaten place than it is now.
    Adrian kisses me and heads out to whatever’s on his to-do list. Ana and I wash our blades in bleach water, dip our boots in the foot bath and mist each other with a virus-killing spray. I’m not the neatest person, much to Adrian’s chagrin, but when it comes to the virus, I’m all for sterility.
    “Let’s go find my sister and see if she’s knocked up,” Ana says when the others are gone.
    “That’s my first stop,” I say. “I can’t believe she might be pregnant.”
    “I think she is. I would die if it were me. Imagine?”
    Ana gives a dramatic shiver as we leave the shed. I bring her to a halt by her arm. “Ana, don’t say that to Penny. Believe me, you won’t be telling her anything she doesn’t already know.”
    “Cass, I wouldn’t say that!”
    I stare at her until she drops the innocent, doe-eyed expression. “I’ll only say how happy I am,” Ana says. “Promise. I am happy, you know. I’ve always wanted a niece to spoil. It’s a girl, I know it.”
    Cows low from the barns on our left, and the goats rest their front legs on the barnyard fence, looking for a handout. We turn right and weave through the large outfitter tents to the grouping of small cabins, where Ana and Peter share a cabin with Penny and James.
    “I’m happy for her, too,” I say. I don’t tell Ana I agree with her on the other stuff. Like I said, we all know.
    We burst into the cabin’s tiny main room. The golden glow of the wood walls, the woodstove and the shelves stocked with books make the room cozy. Penny looks up from the loveseat that sits under my painting of our old neighborhood in Brooklyn. I try to imagine what it must look like now and wonder if Penny and Ana’s mother, Maria, is still alive. She would love to be a grandma.
    Ana raises her hands and shouts, “Well?”
    Penny holds up the little plastic stick. “Two lines. Positive.”
    Ana and I shriek. After I’ve hugged Penny, I notice James staring into the distance, light brown hair tucked behind his ears and thin face paler than usual. James is nothing if not pragmatic, and I know his mind is traveling down some seriously dark baby-zombie roads right now.
    “We’re still trying to wrap our heads around it,” James