Pop moves beside me, his blade—a cross between a chef's knife and a machete—in his fist. We wait to allow the faster Lexers to pull ahead. If you get those first, you're ready for the slower ones by the time they catch up. I take a few steps and meet my first body on the center yellow line. Half her face is missing, the entirety of her jaw exposed. I tangle one hand in her long hair and jab my knife through her eye. The awful crunch and ensuing black goop are expected, but the effort it takes is surprising.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mitch struggling to remove her axe from a skull. Barry plants a boot on the man's neck while she wrenches it free. My next zombie is heavyset, with wispy auburn hair, and I have an absurd moment of jealousy that she ate well before she died.

  Once she’s on the asphalt, we pant in the silence. Even Tom looks winded, and Tom never looks winded. If we can't kill two zombies each without needing a nap, fighting our way into town doesn’t look probable. I used to be able to run for three minutes—it’s more like three seconds these days.

  “That about did me in,” Pop says, wiping his weapon on a frayed, colorless zombie shirt.

  Barry tugs at his beard. “Maybe a long walk like this isn't the best idea. At least until we have more energy.”

  We continue walking, our moods dampened by his words and the rain that begins to fall. By the time we reach the house, we’re wet and cold and dispirited. Tom takes my arm as we climb the sloped driveway, though I keep the rest of my body a few inches from his.

  “Everything okay?” he asks.

  “Of course.” I think about smiling at him, decide I might cry if I do, and nod at the ground. “Why?”

  “You seem distant.”

  I’d hoped he hadn’t noticed. I’ve been keeping my distance so he won’t realize how much weight I’ve lost. If he’s in the bedroom, I change in the bathroom. I make a point to wash up alone. Mostly, we’re too exhausted to do anything in bed but sleep, though I’ve found that dim lanterns and strategic blanket placement hide a multitude of sins. My current wardrobe of big sweatshirts and oversized sweaters is partly to keep me warm, partly to hide how quickly the ten pounds I wanted to lose became twenty.

  I don’t want to lie to Tom, but if I tell him that half my daily ration goes to the kids, he’ll be upset. If he knew I sometimes slip him food, he’d be livid. But no matter how much I give up, it never seems like enough. Yesterday, I barely ate breakfast because Craig looked so thin. If I didn’t sneak him the rest of my porridge, I would’ve felt guilty all day.

  “Red?” Tom prompts.

  “Sorry.” I stop in the parking area while the others go on ahead. The worry in Tom’s eyes makes me want to tell him everything, to seek comfort or reassurance, but I’m afraid to speak my worst fear aloud. Maybe because it grows likelier by the day. “I’m just tired and discouraged. Everything’s okay. Well, maybe not everything. But we’re okay.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.” I stand on tiptoes to put my arms around his neck. “After dinner, why don’t we bundle up and sit on our balcony? My phone is charged. I’ll play you all the disco you want.”

  My tension subsides at the sight of Tom’s wide grin. “By which you mean none?”

  “C’mon, not even ‘It’s Raining Men’? That’s a disco masterpiece.”

  He laughs, arms circling my waist. I stiffen initially out of habit, though my four layers of clothing render me shapeless, then nestle into the warm crook of his neck. His presence, his touch, is better than food. When the hunger feels unbearable, that’s what I remember.

  22

  TOM

  I hit the main floor and realize I’ve left my gloves in the bedroom, which I need for our trip to Bend today. Sighing, I head back up the spiral staircase. Everything is harder when you’re malnourished, including a single flight of stairs.

  I’m grabbing my gloves from my dresser when movement in the bathroom catches my eye. Through the half open door, I watch Rose pull a sweater over her tank top, and a tingling, cold dread spreads to my limbs. We’re all thinner due to lack of food, but no one’s ribs are so starkly outlined, no shoulders as bony as hers. I know this for a fact: we went to Belknap last week, where everyone wore swimsuits. Rose begged off, volunteering for watch with the excuse she wanted quality time with Sam. That should’ve been my first clue. The woman is obsessed with hot springs.

  A mix of emotions swells in my chest, chokes my throat, burns my eyes. I want to hug her, throttle her, and cry simultaneously. Finally, her recent aloofness makes sense. How she sidesteps my embrace when she never did before. Why she always happens to have just eaten when I suggest a meal together.

  Rose steps into the bedroom and startles at my presence, hand to her heart. “You scared me. I thought you were downstairs.”

  I lift my gloves. “Forgot these.”

  “Oh.” She moves into the closet and reappears with a down parka. “Think I should wear this, or should I go for zombie leather? Maybe I can wear this until we have to get out of the tru—”

  “Red,” I say. She stops, coat clutched to her chest. Her throat moves with her swallow, and something like panic passes over her eyes, immediately replaced by a steely opaqueness. She suspects I saw, and she’s ready for a fight. I have to tread carefully. “Why are you so thin?”

  “Because we’re starving to death,” she says with a strained laugh. “Remember?”

  “How could I forget? But you—”

  “I needed to go on a diet.” Rose forces a smile. When I don’t return it, she dons her parka and wraps her arms around her middle. “We should go.”

  “In a minute. Are you eating your food?”

  “Of course I am.”

  It was the wrong question, one easily evaded. I amend it with, “Are you giving your food away?”

  The line between her brows deepens, as if what I’m suggesting is preposterous, and she fixes me with a wide-eyed blue stare. “Sometimes I share part of my MRE entrees with the kids, but you know that.”

  What I know is that Rose is lying through her teeth, and doing a damn fine job of it. She’s sharing more than the occasional entree. I understand—I slip Clara food when I can, but I also know that if I want to provide for her, to protect her, I need energy. I need to be here. If it comes down to it, I’ll give Clara every last calorie I have, but we’re not there yet. At least for now, I’m worth more alive than dead.

  “You’re eating all of your food aside from that?”

  “I said yes.” Rose’s laugh rings hollow. She takes my hand in her cold one. “Is the interrogation over? We should go.”

  I think about arguing, insisting, but I have no proof. Nothing except my gut. Without evidence, she’ll deny any and all accusations. I curl my fingers around hers, allowing the subject to drop, and she releases a barely audible sigh. I’ve known what dire straits we’re in. Or thought I did. But I didn’t see what was right under my nose and beside me in bed every night. From now on, I’ll be watching.

  I don’t have high hopes for this excursion, but it’s something to do other than watch people go hungry. Up ahead, Barry leads the way. Our two trucks will eat up double the gas, but if we get lucky, they’ll bring back double the food. Patches of white on the roadside attest to earlier snow, and flurries begin as we ascend to the pass. At this elevation, the thick forest thins out and shortens, with only a few tall trees defying wind and weather.

  “Looks like we’re just in time,” Sam says from the passenger’s seat. “We shouldn’t take too long over there. This could end up being three inches or three feet.”

  I nod from my spot behind the wheel. Rose, Craig, and Mitch sit in back, peering out the windows. “It’s probably too late for pine nuts,” Rose says. “If we can even find whitebark pine.”

  “What do your books say?” Craig asks.

  “It’s not in the books. But Adele is sure she heard something about the nuts.”

  Mitch makes a noise in her throat. “Adele is nuts.”

  “Remember how annoying Holly and Jesse were when they were young? You and Adele are worse. I had enough of playing referee back then.”

  “Blessed are the peacemakers,” Sam says, “for they shall be called children of God.”

  Rose snorts, though Sam’s not wrong. I’ve watched her smooth relations many times—I present Clara and myself as exhibit A. “I don’t know why you can’t just ignore each other,” Rose continues.

  “Maybe it’s because she and Adele are so alike,” Craig offers, unable to contain his chuckle.

  Mitch screeches in protest while we laugh. I catch Rose’s gaze in the rearview. Her eyes are worried, her lips uncertainly curved, as though expecting anger or disapproval. At my wink, the curve widens to a smile. There’s been no time to sort out my emotions around our earlier conversation. Fear, anger, and sorrow all roil internally, but none is directed at her. If she’s doing as I suspect, it’s coming from a place of love.

  Mainly, I’m angry at myself. For not seeing, for not providing. Sheila joked that my sense of duty fell just short of chauvinist, but after years of watching my father fail my mother, I needed to protect my own. To not be him. It was one thing I was proud of amid myriad things I screwed up. In the end, I failed Sheila and Jeremy. I can’t fail again.

  The flurries become a steady snowfall. Near the top of the pass, four inches of white already covers the road. It worsens every fifty feet we travel, until wind buffets the truck and the wipers’ fast setting barely improves visibility. A white haze obscures everything more than a hundred-fifty feet away.

  “If we get stuck and become the new Donner Party, I’m eating me a Mitch sandwich,” Rose announces, to which Mitch laughs.

  Ahead, Barry’s hazards flash as he comes to a stop. We pull alongside. When Sam rolls down his window, snow swirls into the cab on bitterly cold wind. He closes it again and steps onto the road. I do the same, tramping through snow to walk around the pickup.

  Barry joins us outside. “What d’ya think?” he calls over the wind. “Put on chains and keep going?”

  Deb steps from the backseat of Barry’s truck to inspect the thick gray mass looming above. “Nimbostratus clouds. Could be a lot of snow. Maybe feet.” At our curious glances, she adds, “Amy and…we skied.”

  She about-faces, shoulders hunched, and returns to the truck. I don’t think she’s said Amy’s name aloud until now. At this point, I can mention Sheila without my voice wavering. Jeremy is another story.

  Sam puffs out his cheeks, then shakes his head on the exhale. “If it keeps coming down like this, chains won’t get us through multiple feet of wet snow on the way back.”

  Craig has cracked his window to listen. Beside him, Rose nods in agreement with her dad. This trip was more of a look-see than anything else. We don’t want to get trapped on the other side of the pass, even for a few days. Worst case scenario, we’d be stuck for months. It’s not worth the risk.

  Barry opens his door. “All right, let’s turn around.”

  I start toward my side of the truck, stopping when Sam does. He looks eastward into the driving snow, then brings a fist crashing down on our pickup’s hood. His jaw bulges with clenched teeth, and his tight, burning eyes reflect every ounce of frustration, anger, and fear I feel.

  For whatever reason, it calms me. Proof I’m not alone in this, maybe. I make my way back to rest a hand on his snow-dusted shoulder. Sam meets my eyes, nods once, and forcibly expels a breath. After another exhalation, he squeezes my forearm and steps for his door, placid expression restored.

  The ride down the pass is quiet until Rose leans between our seats, flings an arm around Sam’s chest in a half-hug, and rests her chin on his shoulder. “Remember how excited you were to eat bugs? Looks like you’ll get your wish.”

  Sam chuckles, patting her head. “It’ll be all right, Rosie.”

  “I know, Daddy.” Her voice is tender, comforting. Whether or not she believes it, I can’t tell.

  Thus far, I’ve believed we’d make it through somehow. But I’m beginning to think it might not be all right. We might not make it. It seems like everything in this goddamn world wants us to starve. I’m starting to take it personally.

  23

  ROSE - NOVEMBER

  It turns out that large quantities of bugs aren’t easy to find in cold weather. Our frosty nights have sent them burrowing deep to wherever they go in winter. With the excuse that we were fishing, we went on a secret bug foraging mission. We’re not sure what’s safe to eat, so we came up with a rule we think won’t end in death: most mushy things are okay, six legs mean maybe, and anything that ends in -pede is a hard no.

  There were no crickets or grasshoppers, or any other bugs we know are edible. We found a good number of worms and grubs under logs and rocks. While we think one can eat slugs, I couldn’t stop myself from sharing the awful story of the kid who died from doing just that, and they were crossed off the list. There’s a way to prepare them safely, but pooling everyone’s knowledge on edible bugs hasn’t exactly made us a brain trust on the subject.

  It's late at night when Gabrielle pulls our inaugural tray of bugs from the oven. The smell of it roasting was surprisingly pleasant until I pictured the wriggling, slimy things we captured. Post-baking, they’ve taken on a dried, crispy appearance.

  “Decent first batch,” Barry says, inspecting the tray. “Good. I wanted enough for The Big Kids.”

  He holds a paternal-slash-big brother view of the young adults. Though I ensure they receive every gram of their allotted food, I have no extra to give Gabe, Lance, Marquez, Amber, or Dalton. Knowing Barry looks out for them is a weight off my mind. There are too many people to worry about.

  Craig releases a surprised huh. “That’s not so bad looking.”

  “You want one?” I ask. My plan to be brave and try a bug is fizzling out despite my hunger. Other people shrug off eating something they’d rather not, but sometimes it feels like there’s a force field between my mouth and food I don’t want.

  “Okay.”

  “You’re serious?” Mitch asks, mouth ajar.

  “I’m hungry.” Craig shrugs his noticeably thinner shoulders. “We should probably make sure we don’t die before we feed them to the kids.”

  Gabrielle turns to Alan, eyes agleam. “As I’m the pregnant person in our marriage, this is your job.”

  “You enjoy this, don’t you?” I ask her. “Remember when you made me taste Spam?”

  Gabrielle laughs but doesn’t deny it. Alan laughs along, looking slightly rattled. “Worm or grub?” he asks Craig.

  “Grub,” Craig says.

  “I’ll do worm.”

  Craig lifts a browned grub. In a decisive, un-Craig-like action, he pops it into his mouth and crunches. After a few seconds, his anticipatory grimace smooths out. “Not bad. Kind of fatty tasting. Wouldn’t want to eat it when it’s mushy, though.”

  “Ah, might as well.” Pop tosses a grub into his mouth, crunching it between his teeth. “Little smoky, too. Poor man’s bacon.”

  Alan takes an earthworm that’s dried into a curlicue and eyes it warily. Mitch leans on the counter, chin propped in her hands. “Not trying any?” she asks Barry. “How impolite of you.”

  Barry picks up a worm. “I’ll do it if you will. Unless you’re too chickenshit.”

  Mitch straightens at those fighting words. The rest of us ooooh. “I don’t see you two eating them,” she says to Tom and me. “Are you chickenshit?”

  “One hundred percent chickenshit over here,” I say. “But I can’t speak for Tom.”

  He sighs sadly, shaking his head. “Sorry, bugs aren’t kosher.”

  I roll my eyes. “Don’t even try it. You eat bacon. And I didn’t see you passing up the linguini with clam sauce at the fairgrounds.”

  “Worth a shot,” Tom says with a grin. “I’ll try a grub, but I’m giving those worms a wide berth.” He tosses one in his mouth, then shrugs. “It’s not bad.”

  “I’m going to need to see you brush your teeth before those lips touch mine.”

  Tom grabs my waist and dips me as though coming in for a kiss. “Stop!” I whisper-screech.

  “What?” he asks innocently. “I just want a little kiss from my lady.”

  “Get your grubby—pun intended—lips off me. Daddy, help.”

  Pop’s eyes twinkle. “Not a chance, baby doll.”

  I shut my eyes in surrender while Tom’s lips lightly brush mine. Under his watchful gaze, I’ve been eating more, though working in the kitchen allows me to transfer part of my communal ration into his and the kids’ bowls. I feel guilty for my dishonesty, but it’s a relief to be in his arms without worrying about what bones he can feel.

  Tom sets me upright and smacks his lips. “Delicious, even if you’re not kosher.”

  Everyone laughs except Mitch, who’s too busy scowling at Barry. She’s incapable of ignoring a dare when it poses no danger—no danger we know of, anyway. With a final glower, she sets her features to stoic and grasps a worm between her thumb and forefinger. “Fine. You’re on.”

  I begin to hum the worm song. “Nobody likes me,” Craig sings along. “Everybody hates me. Think I’ll go eat worms—”

  “I will kill you both,” Mitch says.

  She, Alan, and Barry place their worms in their mouths and chew, expressions slowly transforming from reflective to repulsed. Alan’s the first to break, swallowing his with a shiver. “That was so bad,” he gasps. “We didn’t get all the dirt out. It was…gritty.”

  We did our best to empty the worms’ digestive systems by running fingers along their lengths to squeeze out the dirt. It seemed to work, but since that tip was vaguely remembered by someone from a long-ago episode of Alone, I’m guessing we didn’t do it perfectly.

  “This one’s still chewy,” Mitch chokes out. Her hand flies to her mouth, and she heaves once before she swallows with visible effort.