Until the End of the World (Book 2): And After (29 page)

I spin around. Nelly stands behind us, arms crossed and mouth curved. I scream in joy and run to him. “What are you doing here?”

For once, Nelly doesn’t act blasé. He lifts me in the air and spins me around. “I missed you, Half-pint.”

My scream has caused our trench zombies to lose their minds. It’s impossible to hear over the din. Ana and Peter unload their crossbows into the Lexers and hug Nelly when they’re done, but they don’t seem surprised. We walk back to the side gate and lock it behind us. The newly formed Body Removal duty will clear the bodies and clean the bolts. I’m not looking forward to my next shift on that crew.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me you were coming?” I ask.

“I wanted to surprise you,” Nelly says. “We need fuel at Whitefield, and when we heard y’all were going on a run we thought we’d join. We brought the tank truck to load up and fill your tanks before going out again.”

I hop up and down in excitement. Peter and Ana look as happy as I do. We’re all back together again, which is the way it should be.

“You’ll stay at our cabin, right?” I ask. “We can squish in my bed. Or Bits can sleep with me, or Ana and Peter.”

“I thought I’d have your bed all to myself, since I hear you’re sleeping elsewhere these days,” Nelly says with a smirk. “And here I thought you were immune to his charms.”

I cover my face with my hands. I know he’s so been looking forward to this conversation. He probably spent the past hour working on his opening line. “Please,” I beg. “Please don’t torture me. I can’t take it.”

“I can’t pass up this opportunity, Cass,” he says sadly. “I wish I cou—”

“I saved your life! You owe me. This is all I want in return.”

He turns his face to the clouds and shakes his head slowly. “No. I’d rather die than not be able to bother you about this.”

“I can’t believe you!”

He wraps his arm around my shoulders and drags me toward the cabin. “Now, come and tell me all about it. I suppose I know what base you’ve gotten to—” I kick him, hard, and he laughs, “but I’m gonna need more than that.”

I look to Peter and Ana for help. Ana looks at her watch and says, “I’m late for the garden.” She flashes Nelly a grin tinged with evil. “Every detail. Later. She doesn’t talk to anyone.”

Peter edges away, but I grab his arm. “You have nothing to do. I know you don’t. You aren’t leaving me alone with him.”

Peter stops struggling. “Okay, but I reserve the right to cover my ears.”

“You won’t have to,” I say, and stick my tongue out at Nelly.

***

Nelly’s been grilling me, in between my annoying him about Adam, but all I’ll say is that I sleep in Dan’s tent. Nelly sits beside me on the loveseat, my feet in his lap, and curls his lip.

“That’s it?” he asks. “That’s all you’re giving me?”

“It’s nothing, I swear. We’re just hanging out. It’s been a few weeks, so it’ll end soon. It’s almost over. Of course, I was hoping that would happen before the rest of the world knew.”

“So you don’t
like
like him? To use your first-grade terminology.”

I shake my head. “He asked me how I felt about us, and I said we were friends and I was cool with it. The end.”

Peter’s been leaning back in a table chair, head against the wall. But now the chair legs hit the floor, and he and Nelly exchange a glance. “Darlin’,” Nelly says. “
Dan
asked
you
how you felt about things?”

I roll my eyes, but I remember the way Dan seemed different last night and take a sip of water to moisten my mouth. “Stop. You’re making it out to be a bigger deal than it was.”

Nelly looks unconvinced. I turn to Peter. “Did you put this in his head? Dan likes everyone. You both know that.”

“I didn’t say a word,” Peter replies. “Not a syllable.”

“You need to—” Nelly begins. He drops the subject and holds out his arms when Bits runs through the door with Penny. “There’s my most favorite kid in the world.”

“Nelly!” Bits throws herself on the couch and kisses him all over.

“Did you know that none of the kids at Whitefield are as smart as you?” Nelly asks. He puts a hand up to his mouth and whispers, “They’re all pretty dumb, actually.”

“They are not!” Bits giggles. “Want to see my comic book so far? I’m a zombie hunter. Come!”

She drags him to our room. Penny gives him a big kiss and parks herself next to me with her hands on her belly.

“So, when were you going to tell me?” she asks. I throw my head back and sigh. “I’ll forgive you this once. But don’t ever think you can not tell me something like this again.”

“This is ridiculous. I’ll just sleep in Peter and Ana’s bed. You’ll rub my eyebrows until I’m asleep, right?” Peter chuckles. “You think I’m kidding.”

“Are you mad?” I ask Penny. I have my best friend back, and I don’t want to lose her again.

“For what?”

“For not telling you about Dan. For anything. I don’t know, pick something.”

“No, I’m not mad. And don’t break it off unless you want to.” She sticks a finger in my face. “But, either way, you have to tell me.”

“I will.” I lean on her shoulder and rub her bump. “How’s little Cass doing?”

She lets out a snort. “
Cass
?”

“It was worth a shot.”

“If it’s a girl, we were thinking of naming her Maria.”

“I think that’s perfect. Your mom would love that.”

Penny sniffs. “I know.”

“I missed you last night,” Dan says. The words are serious, but the creases by his mouth aren’t. He tosses his backpack into a pickup.

“Nelly’s here,” I say.

The creases disappear. “Right. Got it.”

“That’s not what I meant. He’s staying with me, and I want to spend time with him.”

I don’t owe him an explanation, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings. “He knows about—” I wave my hand between us. “It’s not that.”

I shiver when Dan runs his fingers up my bare arm and says, “I missed your cold feet.”

“Well, maybe they’ll be back on you soon.”

“Can’t wait, Dingbat.” The day grows ten degrees warmer when he lifts his hand to my cheek and stares at me without blinking.

“Is that my new nickname or something?” I ask.

“Yep. It fits you, in the best possible way.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not, but okay.”

“It is. At least the way I mean it.”

I walk past the small tanker truck. It holds about a thousand gallons and if we get that, we’ll be set. Nelly stands beside our pickup and shakes his head. “That doesn’t look like it’s over.”

“Stuff it,” I say.

***

We make quite a caravan on the way to the outskirts of Burlington. We have the small tank truck, the trailer with fuel drums, and another two pickups with in-bed tanks that hold a hundred gallons of fuel each. We don’t know what to expect. Burlington had a population of 40,000, plus college students, at the time of infection. Even with the winter, that’s a lot of zombies.

I’ve come to regret my decision to ride in one of the pickups with Nelly, who’s been hounding me ever since he put the truck in drive, much to Ana and Peter’s amusement. John drives the tanker with Zeke. Dan, Caleb and Toby are in the trailer truck, and Kyle, Tony and Margaret follow in the last pickup.

“I saw you!” Nelly bangs a hand on the steering wheel for emphasis. “He was not looking at you like he was ‘having fun.’ And you weren’t much better.”

Heat rises in my cheeks. “What do you want from me?”

“Admit you like him.”

I look out the window at the two-lane road. “I don’t like him that way. I really don’t.”

It’s not entirely true. I do like Dan—he makes me laugh, he’s smart and a nice guy—and that’s as far as it goes or will go during this little escapade. I don’t plan on falling in love with him. With anyone. Dan said he felt the same, but if Nelly and Peter are right I’ll have to end it. I hope they’re wrong because I don’t want it to end just yet. I don’t want it to intensify, either. I’m happy with the status quo.

“Well, what was that look on your face? You should have seen her, y’all. She was all—” He turns and makes his eyes big and melty. Ana giggles. “So what was that?”

If I could throw Nelly out the door without killing him, I would. “It’s…He’s…”

Ana screams. “I knew it! He
is
good in bed!”

It may be true, but that’s not what I was going to say. I don’t even know what I was going to say, but it definitely wasn’t that, especially with Nelly and Peter in the truck. She wiggles one of my buns and jumps back before my seat belt stops me from smacking her. I always wear my seatbelt. It’s not like they can rush me to the nearest hospital if we crash.

Nelly sobs with laughter. Peter covers his ears jokingly. Maybe I should throw
myself
out the door.

“So how does he compare to Peter?” Ana asks. “It’s the only way I’ll ever know.”

“Ana!” Peter and I scream at the same time.

I’m roasting in embarrassment, and out of the corner of my eye I see Peter drop his head in his hands. She and Nelly high five, which causes Nelly to swerve to the shoulder before he straightens the truck out. This is why seatbelts are important, especially when your friends are jerks.

“Everyone okay back there?” Zeke asks over the radio.

“Yeah,” Nelly gasps. “We’re better than okay.” He can barely get the words out. “We’re having the most enlightening conversation. Did you know that—”

I rip the radio from his hand and press the button. “We’re fine. Nelly’s being a dumbass.”

“Well, just be careful,” Zeke replies.

I set the radio on the seat between us and turn to the back. Ana’s teeth are dazzling against her tanned face, and she wipes tears from her eyes. Peter looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world. I’d like to be there with him.

“This conversation is over,” I say. “Forever.”

Nelly and Ana go silent, apart from the occasional chuckle. I never think about sleeping with Peter, and I’m sure he does the same. I don’t want our friendship to be strained, and I want to kill Ana for being so oblivious. Nelly puts a hand on my leg and frowns when I move away.

The two-lane road widens and becomes a small town. Besides the few abandoned cars, including one flipped on its roof, it looks relatively untouched. A farm equipment store is across the road from the service station, and a church sits another hundred yards down the road, door hanging on its hinges. The steps of the few small houses are choked with weeds.

The trucks ahead slow to a stop and Nelly pulls onto the shoulder. John steps on the running board and leans his arms on Nelly’s window. “We’ll check here first,” he says. “Maybe we won’t have to go much closer to Burlington.”

We walk to the pumps. It’s a fairly large station for such a small town. Zeke wrestles with the lock on the ground tanks. There are so many of us to watch that I head inside the small convenience store to see what’s left. There’s not much, although I find something I think Dan would appreciate. I stuff it into my coat pocket and pull bags from behind the counter. I’m in the process of taking all the toiletries when I hear Peter clear his throat.

“Sorry about Ana,” he says with a quick glance at me. His hair has gotten longer, and he pushes back the shock that’s fallen over one eye.

“You’re not your girlfriend’s keeper,” I say. “You’d have to be a lion tamer for that.”

His lips twitch at the crack of my imaginary whip. And like that, we’re okay again. He looks at what I’m putting in the bag, which at the moment is a box of condoms.

“Can we not discuss what you’re holding?” he jokes, and I thump him with my hip. “I’m glad you’re happy. Or happier.”

“I am happier, and I feel like shit about it.” I look out the store’s window to where they feed a tube into the hole in the ground. “I still can’t believe he’s gone. Sometimes when I wake up I think everything’s fine. Then I remember and I have to go through it all again. It doesn’t happen when I’m with Dan.”

Peter takes the bag from my hands, sets it on the floor and pulls me to him. My cheek presses into the zipper of his jacket. I breathe in his scent and then I do remember him, us. But it’s not a big deal; it’s like another life, a movie I once watched.

“That’s why I don’t end it,” I say.

“You don’t have to. You deserve to be happy.”

I nod and pick up the bag. He takes an empty bag and fills it with the remaining bottles of mouthwash and boxes of Motrin. “But I’ll rub your eyebrows, if you need me to.”

I laugh. “Thanks, Petey. I know you majored in business, but you’re turning out to be an excellent therapist. When’s our next session?”

“Let me check my sched—”

Ana knocks on the window to let us know they’re done. We bag the rest and meet them outside.

There wasn’t much in the tanks, and John thought the fuel might have gone off, based on its color and smell. We head to Winooski, where the road widens into four lanes. At first it’s more of a highway, with glimpses of houses through the trees, before it opens up on the usual stores: Pizza Hut, Dunkin’ Donuts, and then an assortment of large old houses and office parks. A group stands under the awning of one office building on what looks to be a zombie smoking break.

We see one here and there down the road, but not enough to scare us off. We can take care of a few, even a dozen or twenty, but after that it isn’t worth the risk. We drive under an overpass and come upon two gas stations, side by side. John and Kyle pull their trucks into the first, and we pull to the underground tanks of the other station. Caleb and I stand in the back of the pickups to watch for signs of movement, but the kiosk in the center blocks my view.

“I’m going out to the road,” I say. “I can’t see a thing.”

Ana follows me, leaving Toby and Caleb to watch the back. I’m encased in leather and sweating like crazy. I take a swig from my water bottle and shield my eyes with my hand; even with sunglasses the glare is intense.

Ana swivels her head and takes in the wide road. “This doesn’t look too bad.”

“Mm-hmm,” I say.

“I’m sorry.” She removes her sunglasses and squints at me. “I thought it was funny, but you didn’t.”