All Our Tomorrows (3 page)

“HAZZZZEEEE!” David yells from the roof.

For a moment, I’m stunned. I lie there on the door as hands grab at me. A mass of zombies beneath me push and pull on the flat wooden door, somehow keeping me afloat on a sea of arms.

Blood drips from my lip. I’m dazed. My head took a sharp knock and it takes me a second to recover.

Dark, ragged hands reach for me, clawing at my arms and legs. Zombies fight to pull me under, but they’re fighting each other. The zombies beneath the door push up, while those around the edges pull down and, for lack of a better word, I drift on an ocean of hands.

Zee howls at the night.

“Get up!” Dad yells.

Fingers grab at my ankle. I scramble forward as a zombie rips off my boot. Hands tear at my clothes, ripping my sleeves from my shoulders.

I’m still four or five feet from the barn, but I’m close. I get to my knees as the door sways beneath me like a boat in a storm, threatening to capsize with the fury of the waves. There’s never going to be a good time. I have to jump.

I spring out, leaping off the door and aiming for a second floor window. My fingers catch the window ledge.

Zee grabs at my legs, pulling me down.

I can feel my fingers slipping.

My nails drag against the aging paint on the windowsill.

I lash out with my feet, desperate to shake Zee loose, but he has an iron grip.

Hands grab at my pants, ripping the fabric. I can’t hold on. I’m going to fall backwards into the swarm of zombies, but they’re fighting with each other. They’re so driven, they claw at each other to reach me and pull the closest zombies away from me.

“HAZEL!” Jane yells.

Yelling isn’t helping.

My other boot is wrenched free, and that gives me an opening. I scramble with my socks, kicking off the wooden boards on the side of the barn and pulling myself up on the windowsill, but there’s no room, there’s nowhere to go. The window’s shut. I’m stuck, pushing against the side of the barn with my toes and performing a chin-up on the window ledge.

“Duck,” comes the cry from behind me, and I hear David calling out. “Keep your head down.”

Instinctively, I hunch.

A roof tile smashes through the window, breaking the glass.

I pull myself up, but I can’t let go of the ledge. The muscles in my arms are burning. I inch higher, working my way up with my toes. Finally, I collapse rather than climb through the window, breaking the last of the glass.

Shards of glass stick into my right shoulder, but I’m half inside. I clamber over the window frame, pulling myself over the broken glass. My shirt tears as I roll on the floor in agony.

“Get some rope,” David calls out.

I’d like to catch my breath, but I turn and see flames licking at the sky behind him. There’s no time. I can hear zombies crashing around beneath me in the barn, but there’s no stairs. They can’t climb ladders. I hope.

The barn is dark.

“Two ropes,” David yells over the zombies screaming in the alleyway. “One high. One low.”

“Quick!” Jane yells.

Blood runs from my shoulder. I’m in pain, but there will be time to hurt later. I feel around in the dark and find some thick rope coiled in the corner.

There’s a side door used for loading boxes into the loft. I slide it open and see dozens of people standing on the roof calling to me as the house burns around them.

I’m only going to get one shot at this. I tie off one end of the rope using a double clove hitch, wishing I’d paid more attention to the various types of knots in school.

I grab the coil of rope and stand by the edge of the floor, swinging from the hip and heaving the heavy rope with all of my might.

David reaches for the rope. He’s leaning out over the alleyway. Jane anchors him, holding one arm and leaning backwards as he stretches out to grab the rope. They’re both in danger of tumbling into the zombie infested alley. The rope sails through the air but it looks as though it’s going to fall short. David pushes out further as Marge and Ferguson grab Jane to stop the two of them from falling. Somehow, David’s fingers get a hold of the rope and in seconds it’s pulled taut.

One of the marauders rips up a few roof tiles, giving them an anchor point so they can tie the rope around the wooden roof frame. He’s barely got the rope tied off before David is shimmying across, hanging upside down above the raging horde. I need to find more rope, but I’m exhausted.

I collapse against the railing overlooking the barn floor. I expect to see a mass of zombies below, baying for blood, but the barn is empty. The zombies I heard must have been outside.

David climbs into the barn and grabs another rope.

“Nice work,” he says, catching his breath. “Zombie surfing. Even better than zombie bowling.”

I laugh.

“Steve would be proud,” he says.

Yes, he would, I think, although I’m not sure I would have been quite so suicidal if Steve was still alive.

Another two men shimmy across to help. David ties the second rope above head-height and tosses it across the alley. Once the other men are across, he tightens the original rope, using some kind of pulley to pull it taut.

Someone over on the roof ties the second rope around the chimney. Survivors begin working their way across the rope bridge. They’re not as quick as the marauders, but they work hand over hand as they walk along the rope.

Parts of the house collapse. Smoke billows into the darkness. I can feel the heat of the flames on my face.

My dad crosses, moving slowly with only one arm reaching up for the rope. One of the women leads him on, encouraging him, telling him he can make it. Beneath him, zombies snap and cry out, consumed by rage.

I’m trying to figure out who the final two people are to leave the burning roof. It shouldn’t be a surprise, but it is—Marge comes across, and finally, Ferguson. For all our differences, I’m impressed by Ferguson. He wasn’t going to leave anyone behind. And Marge, her heart may be as soft as a marshmallow, but she’s courageous, she’s always thinking about others first. I bet Ferguson had a hard time convincing her to go across before him.

Jane helps one of the older women tend to my cuts. Daubs of alcohol seethe and bubble in the wound as the woman cleans the cut on my shoulder.

“I was a nurse, you know.”

I try to smile at the lady, but it hurts.

“Olivia,” she says, trying to distract me from the pain.

“Haze. Hazel.”

“Abraham’s girl, right?”

“Yeah,” I reply, realizing she’s one of the new intake, a survivor from the farms to the east.

“Don’t you worry about a thing. You’re going to be okay. We’ll get out of this.”

Her voice quivers. I’m not sure if she’s trying to convince me or if she’s trying to talk herself into believing we’ll escape. Zombies pound on the wooden walls of the barn below us, shaking the floor.

A needle is sterilized over a burning candle. The cut in my shoulder needs stitches and I grimace as the needle and thread punch through my skin time and again.

“That was a brave thing you did,” Olivia says.

“Only because it worked,” I say, trying to smile. “In any other context, it was stupid.”

“Brave and stupid,” she concedes as the needle works its way painfully through my arm.

I can hear boots on the roof of the barn above us. I glance up and Jane says, “Putting out spot fires.”

I nod.

The roar of the fire consuming the homestead is astonishingly loud. Embers drift in through the open side door. I’m surprised they haven’t closed the door as the radiant heat is intense, but I can see a couple of the marauders peering out through the opening, directing the efforts to stop the fire from spreading to the barn. They need to be able to see where the embers land.

People run around with buckets of water sloshing by their sides.

“Do you know who the boy was?” Olivia asks.

I’m silent.

Jane looks at her, and she seems to realize we don’t know.

“The one they carried off? Strangest thing I’ve ever seen. He was yelling and screaming as they dragged him into the woods. Why would they do that? I thought they just killed you outright?”

Jane looks at me. Her eyes are as wild as the flames reaching up into the dark sky.

Steve’s alive.

Chapter 02: Trapped

I lean my head against the wall. A constant, rhythmic pounding resonates through the wood. Zee is relentless, fighting to get into the barn. The floor is hard and uncomfortable. Part of me would like to lie down and go to sleep, but I doubt sleep will bring any rest. Yelling resounds through the loft. The animals below are restless. Like all of us, they’re scared.

Smoke hangs in the air. From where I am, I can see out through the open loft door on the side of the barn. Normally, it’s used to store hay on the upper floor, but now it affords us a view of Zee from above.

Burning zombies scream into the night. I see them on the far side of the collapsed house. I’d like to think they’re screaming in agony, but it sounds more like a war cry.

A brick wall falls in the burnt out ruins of the homestead. Sparks burst into the sky, scattering like a million stars exploding into life. The fire is all but out, having consumed the building.

Everything we had is gone. A tear runs down my cheek. It seems silly to cry about stuff rather than people, and yet I feel like part of me died with the old house. Three dresses, a couple of pairs of jeans, my underwear, a handful of jewelry, a faded photo of mom that Dad knew nothing about—all of them ravaged by a fire every bit as savage as Zee.

Nothing but ash remains.

The headboard of my bunk held an omnibus of Jane Austen’s best known works, containing
Pride and Prejudice,
Sense and Sensibility
, and
Mansfield Park
in one hefty tome. There was a hardback copy of
War of the Worlds
and a high school biology textbook that I never got around to reading. Not the most comprehensive of book collections, but it was mine and now it’s gone. That’s the worst part of the zombie apocalypse—being stripped of everything you hold dear.

Gone.

Just like the swirling embers fading into the darkness. Tomorrow is all I have, and even that could be stolen from me.

I had some other stuff squirreled away in lockers and drawers downstairs, but my mind is blank, which is frustrating. I want to remember everything, every little detail. It’s important, if to no one else but me. It’s important because life is important. Death steals. Like fire, death feeds off the living. I hate the implication of those smoldering ruins—that nothing lasts, that nothing really matters in the long run. I feel hollow. Empty.

I’ve seen a lot of people die before their time in the apocalypse. We teens call them blanks. Not to their face, of course, but we know who they are. Blanks survive for survival’s sake, but they’re not really alive. They’re waiting for their turn in the soil.

There has to be more to life than fighting to draw one more breath.

I wish I’d been able to save that photo of mom. She looked so happy. She was standing in front of a railing overlooking some national park somewhere. Her back was to the dense forest with large rocky cliffs rising in a majestic butte beyond. Her smile caught something not on camera, her love for the man behind the lens—my dad. She had one hand resting on her swollen stomach, tenderly touching a bump that gave rise to me. Now, all that’s left of her is a hazy memory, one that is doomed to fade.

Someone slumps beside me. His head hangs low. He’s distraught, cradling his head in his hands and crying. I haven’t seen too many men cry. I’m sure they shed tears like the rest of us, but they try not to cry in front of us kids and teens. Too disheartening. I guess all pretenses are gone now.

“Hey,” I say, resting my hand lightly on his shoulder. Life demands compassion. All we have is each other. And if Zee has his way, we won’t have each other for long. Caring is all that remains of our humanity.

Bloodshot eyes stare back at me.

Ferguson?

Soot blackens his face. He’s shaking. Instinctively, I withdraw my hand. I’m not sure why, but I feel as though I shouldn’t touch him, and yet with the next beat of my heart, my fingers return, resting gently on his shoulder. He’s in shock. We need each other like never before.

Olivia rushes over. She’s got a bucket of water. Blood soaked rags hang from the belt around her waist. She tears strips of clean cloth from an old dress and starts daubing at his bloody palms. We’re fighting both fires and zombies in our desperation to survive this one long dark night.

“Let me look at you,” she says, but Ferguson doesn’t take his eyes off me. It’s as though he wants to say something but cannot find the words. His lips tremble.

Blisters have formed on his palms. Dark burns on his forearm speak louder than any words ever could. He’s fought with all his might to prevent the barn from falling to either flames or monsters.

Olivia is gentle but thorough, checking his injuries.

David kneels down in front of Ferguson, appearing from nowhere out of the smoky haze. Jane stands quietly behind him.

“We lost the northwest corner of the roof, but the fire is out. I’ve got men looking for spot fires in the upper loft, but I think we’re good. Mark has braced the main door. We lost the forge, but managed to keep them from breaking out onto the barn floor. I’ve got Jonathan scouting for fires on the roof, but the wind has shifted to the south. We’re past the worst of it.”

Ferguson doesn’t say anything. He looks through David rather than at him.

“Dad?” David says, resting his hand on Ferguson’s knee as Olivia continues bathing the old man’s hands. In the soft light, she cleans grit out of his burns with a pair of tweezers.

David glances at me as though he expects me to be able to get through to his dad, but I don’t know what he thinks I can do. I’m shattered. Every muscle aches. If Zee were to burst into the barn right now, I wouldn’t move. I couldn’t. I think I know what Ferguson feels. Like Marge, he’s carried the commune on his shoulders for almost a decade. He’s fought for all we have, and everything he worked for has been swept away in a single night. Everyone’s looking for him to lead, but he’s as human as the rest of us. He’s hurt. We all have our limits.