He stares down at me. A muscle in his throat pulses. “It’s different.”

  “No, it’s not. You think it is, but it’s not. I should be able to feed my own fucking kids. It’s killing me that I can’t. They’re going to die, and I don’t know how to save them.”

  My terror, firmly lodged in my chest for months, exits with the words I’ve been too scared to utter aloud. It leaves behind an emptiness worse than hunger. From the second they were born, keeping my children alive became my duty. If I die feeding them my food, so be it. I don’t want to live without them, anyway.

  Tom breaks eye contact first. His fisted hands loosen at his sides, and he sits on the edge of the bed. His face is downturned, hidden by his hair and tight shoulders. When he reaches out a hand, I clasp it in mine. We’re always fighting something—hunger, zombies, murderous assholes. I don’t want to fight each other.

  After a minute of measured breathing, he faces me. “They’re not going to die. We’ll figure it out. But I can’t lose you, either. I can’t.”

  A tear works its way down his cheek, and his eyes shine with a love that renders me speechless. Maybe he’ll never say the words, but he’ll never have to as long as I remember the way he looks at me now. “You can’t give me your food, Red,” he says, voice ragged. “You have to eat. Who else are you giving food to?”

  I pull two of the last tissues from my bra and hand him one while I use the other. “Mostly Jesse because he looks the worst. And I’m not taking it back, so don’t even ask.”

  “All right. Anyone else?”

  I motion at the food I set aside. “I have these for Holly, Clara, and Nora.”

  “Holly’s the one who sent me up here.”

  “What?” I ask. “Why?”

  “She said you looked sick. She’s worried about you.”

  “That girl’s too smart for her own good. She’s grounded.”

  “You were already caught. I was planning to talk to you about the magically appearing food later.”

  “This list thing is a real problem,” I say, waving my soggy tissue at him. “You’re just as crazy as I am, but in a much less fun way.”

  Tom laughs, although his beseeching gaze doesn’t change. “Promise you’ll eat your food?”

  “If we find more acorns, or something else, I will. If we don’t, I’m sharing with the kids. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”

  “Then we’d better get going.” He pushes my food packages closer. “After you eat more.”

  I tear open the peanut butter and smear it on a cracker. A whimper escapes as I swallow my first amazing bite of peanutty fat and protein. “Do you even understand how hard it was for me to give up peanut butter?”

  “I do.”

  I take another bite, remembering how it brought more pleasure than pain to drop it into his supplies. I was hungry enough to swallow it whole, but the thought of Tom eating it filled me in a different way. “That’s not true,” I say. “It wasn’t hard to give to you.”

  Tom smiles, and although I’m chewing like a cow, he kisses me.

  26

  TOM

  I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep. There's the constant hunger that makes deep sleep elusive, the worry that keeps me staring into the dark at all hours, and then there are the food dreams. In those dreams, I've sat down to banquets, strolled around stocked supermarkets, and ordered burgers in a drive-thru. The smell of the food is intoxicating at first, until I look closely and realize it’s rotten, or crawling with bugs, or it transforms into a zombie hand or—my favorite—an old boot. I have Sam and Rose to thank for that last one, as they were discussing the plight of 19th century Arctic explorers whose ships got stuck in the ice. Apparently, they grew desperate enough to boil their boot leather for food.

  Tonight’s dream meal was a big dish of spaghetti that turned out to be dirt-covered worms. No mystery as to what inspired that. I stare into the dark before I rise to brush my teeth and grab the MRE pouch I marked as breakfast. I watch Rose’s still form for a few moments, then pull the covers up to her chin, arranging the extra blanket over top. She gets cold easily now that she’s so thin, especially if I’m not there to warm her.

  I force down the helplessness that thought brings and head to the main floor. Willa follows, nails clicking on the spiral stairs. It's nowhere near breakfast time, but the sun will be up in a couple of hours, and that's close enough for me. I feed a few logs into the fireplace, then turn a solar lantern to the dim setting and sit close to the flames. Rose isn’t the only one who’s colder these days. I try to read a book, but I can think about nothing but the pouch in my lap. I lift the brown plastic packet, reading the words Maple Muffin Top three times before I open it. I break off a piece, place it in my mouth, and chew slowly. It wouldn't have been tasty compared to my options a year ago. This morning, it’s a gourmet treat.

  Willa's tail bangs the floor hopefully. “Sorry, girl,” I say. “I'd give you some if I could spare it.”

  She sighs, curling up by my feet as if she understands. I hear the door to the house open, then the sound of someone removing their shoes. Sam walks into the main room. “Morning. Didn’t expect to see anyone up.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  He sits in the chair beside mine with a long exhalation. “Know it well. Old age gives you less energy to do anything and more time to not do it in.”

  “Sounds like a pain.”

  “It is. But it sure beats the alternative.”

  I chuckle. “I guess it does. Did you come for something?”

  “Gets cold in the RV, and it seems wasteful to use too much wood just for me. I come up here, keep the fire going so it’s warm when everyone gets up.” He looks around. “No one on watch?”

  “Lana and Francis. In the pool house.”

  Sam nods. The pool house stove heats the smaller space more efficiently than our fireplace insert, and with a clear view out the many windows, whoever’s on watch often sets up in there. The guards at the gate have it worse, though we parked a truck down there to protect them from the elements.

  I eat another piece of muffin. Sam glances at my lap, and my face burns with shame that I don’t immediately offer him some. He smiles, firelight dancing in his eyes. “I ate before I came up. Sausage patty. Wasn’t half bad, either. Another thing about old age is I don’t eat as much as I used to. Sometimes went whole days eating next to nothing and didn’t miss it.” I nod, though I still feel bad. “Rosie looks somewhat better than she did. I figure you had something to do with it.”

  “Not sure if it was me or the acorns,” I say. We found more the other day, though a route into town was a wash. “She was trying to sneak me her food. Thought I wouldn’t notice.”

  “She slipped me a packet of cheese spread and some crackers. I snuck it back into her stuff along with a little more.” He shakes his head, his adoration evident. “She can be a real pain in the ass when she sets her mind to it.”

  I laugh, hoping he knows how important his daughter is to me. Every pain in the ass inch of her. “She means well.”

  “That she does.” His attention drifts to the kitchen area. “About how long will those acorns last?”

  “A few weeks, I think.”

  The balcony floor creaks above. Craig makes his way down the spiral stairs. He was thin to start with, but his eyes are bigger behind his glasses, and he's always pulling up his jeans. When he comes into the firelight, I see he's fully dressed in insulated hunting pants and layered shirts, with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

  “Going somewhere?” Sam asks.

  Craig is silent for a few seconds. “I was going to take a truck up to the forest and see if I could get a deer.”

  “Alone?” I ask.

  “I'm usually better alone.” His expression dares us to argue. “I know we don't have a lot of gas, but what good is gas going to do us when we’re dead?”

  Even with all the fish he's caught, he feels he has something to prove. Something to make up to everyone. I get it. No matter what Rose says, I should be doing more, and here’s my chance. “You can't go alone. I'll come with you. I've never hunted in my life. I guarantee you'll be better than I am.”

  Craig huffs out a laugh. Sam lifts his chin, laid-back as ever. “Hope you don't mind if I hitch a ride. I'll set up a ways from you. Double our chances. With the bodies we've seen around here, any big game's gonna stay up there until they absolutely have to come down.”

  We’re by no means inundated with zombies, but there’ve been more than a few small packs wandering the roads recently. If I were a deer, I’d keep my distance.

  “There's no way I'm getting out of here alone, is there?” Craig asks.

  “Doesn't look like it. I think Jess will want to come along, too. We can be ready in fifteen.”

  “After we check with Rose,” I add, imagining the wrath we’d incur if we left without telling her. “I’d like to not be murdered when we get home.”

  Sam laughs. “Smart man.”

  Rose wasn’t overjoyed to hear our plan, but she gave her blessing before instructing me to be careful seven times and making me promise to outfit everyone in blaze orange. Our ride into the mountains is quiet, filled with hope and tinged with desperation. We need this meat. Aside from town, our only other option is to ask Belknap for food. Or take some forcibly, the thought of which makes me feel uncomfortably related to Boone. Maybe not immediate family, as I don’t want to hurt anyone, but distant cousins for sure.

  Jesse drives the pickup, his raccoon eyes suggesting he should’ve used the time to sleep. The roads are snowy in places, though drivable, unlike the higher elevation of the pass. After we park on a logging road pullout, Jesse and Sam cross in the opposite direction to hike a mile or so in. Craig leads the way on our side. My boots crunch on frozen ground. The temperature is below freezing, and a good bit of snow has stuck around.

  Twenty minutes later, we come upon a clearing. Craig checks the snowy patches for deer tracks and nods, breath fogging in the air. “Good, they’re still using it.” He points at a haphazard pile of logs just inside the trees. “One of the blinds Troy and I made.”

  Upon closer inspection, I see the pile is artfully arranged. Behind that, a square is dug into the earth, big enough for the two of us to sit comfortably. Comfortably in terms of space, because my ass rests on a thin cushion and tarp over cold ground.

  I learn two things in the first couple of hours: hunting can be incredibly boring, and Craig knows what he's doing. He instructed me to bring my MRE instant coffee, which he heated on a backpacking stove, and the hot drink I sip gives me new life. If the temperature has risen, it’s not by much. When Craig had me practice dry firing and loading both rifles, my fingers were clumsy with cold.

  “This is hunting,” I say.

  “Basically. See what you've been missing out on all these years?”

  “What was I thinking, sitting in my heated home, eating meat from the butcher? The scenery’s nice, but it’d be nicer if we could move around. Warm up.”

  “Take a walk,” he says. “If you head in the direction of the truck, you shouldn't scare anything off. Just don’t get lost.”

  I stand, suspecting he wants time alone. “If I'm not back in an hour, call in the National Guard.”

  Craig grins as I walk away. I've done my share of camping and hiking, but I'm by no means a woodsman, and I'm not stupid enough to pretend otherwise. I head out the way we came in, warming some as I move, though I cast a yearning look at the truck as I pass. If we had fuel to waste, I'd be in there with heat blasting.

  I decide to walk farther down the logging road. I'm an idiot if I get lost on a logging road. It's so quiet, I could be the only person left in the world. I used to like taking long bike rides on empty roads—an unappealing thought now, to say the least. I suppose it’s the difference between pretending you’re the only person left in the world and there being a decent possibility you are the only person left in the world.

  After a quarter mile, I stop. Warming up is a good idea, burning too many calories isn't. Before I turn around, my attention is drawn by what looks to be bodies on the ground farther ahead, and I walk that way. It is bodies, seven of them. All zombies, all down for the count with no sign of head trauma. Four have visible spots of black mold.

  I crouch beside one and poke it in the shoulder with my knife, meeting with some resistance. I push harder. It slices through flesh with the same whispery crunch as when cutting through frozen steak. I poke it with a gloved hand, wrench its stiff arm into the air, then drop it to the ground with a thud. My heart speeds up from excitement as I check the others.

  They're frozen. Zombies freeze.

  I return to the blind, where Craig receives the news with enthusiasm. “We can get into town when they freeze.”

  “Yup,” I say. “We have freezing nights by the cabin, but I saw them moving the next morning. Maybe they need a longer cold spell?”

  “When was the last snowstorm?”

  I think back. “Three years ago, maybe. At least two.”

  “That's promising,” he says.

  The valley is known for its milder climate. Most days in winter are above freezing even if nights dip below. But we get cold snaps and snowstorms, and if we haven't had one in a couple of years, it means we're due. Usually a storm comes in, dumps snow and ice, and then the cold sticks around. Depending on the storm, it could take up to a week to melt. A week of freezing weather would give us all the time we need.

  I watch the clearing, buoyed by the idea. Even a couple of freezing days would be enough. Storms often arrive in December or January, which means we’d get into town in the next two months. We’ve made it this far. We can make it until then. I’ll spend every damn day in this blind if that’s what it takes.

  Cold begins to seep in deep. Craig tosses something into our cups, then pours boiling water over top. “Adele made tea from mint and pine needles. Mitch says it tastes like floor cleaner, but it’s hot.”

  I sip my tea. It is hot, which is the best thing you can say about it. “I can’t decide if this is better or worse than Adele’s dandelion root coffee.”

  “Dandelion is worse,” Craig says without hesitation. “It’s the carob of the coffee world. You want so badly for it to be coffee, but it tastes like disappointment. With this, you go in expecting floor cleaner, and that’s what you get.”

  I laugh. He’s got a point, and the tea’s minty-pine flavor is refreshing once you get past recollections of Pine-Sol. “You grew up doing this stuff?”

  “Yeah. Hated every minute of it.”

  “I can see why,” I say. “My old man didn’t do much with me. Except yell—he was good at that.”

  Craig gazes thoughtfully at the distant trees. “Mine did his share of yelling. But I think this might’ve been his way of trying to get close to me and my brother. He'd bring us to the woods, but he couldn't hold it together long enough to make it fun. He was in Vietnam. Had PTSD.”

  “I’m sorry. My dad was just a dick.”

  Craig lifts his cup. “To dickhead dads.”

  I tap it with mine. “Did he ever try to get help?”

  “No. I think he thought it would make him less of a man, like he should’ve been able to kill dozens of people and not be affected by it. Maybe that's why he disliked me so much sometimes. I was a constant reminder of that part of him.” Craig follows his words with an oof of surprise. “I've never thought of that before, not that way.”

  “It wasn't you,” I say. I think of my own father, how I emulated him in certain respects. How pain turns to anger, and if allowed to take root, crowds out everything else. “Take it from me, it was him.”

  Craig glances at me quickly, then turns to the clearing with a nod. “How about your dad?”

  “He was a gambler and a drunk. Hit me, never my mom. Nothing we did was good enough.” Snow flurries have begun to fall, and I catch a few in my glove while I think of what to say. “I left home for years, but I came back for my mom because he was sick and had gambled away all their money. It was like his final slap in the face, in my face. I'd gotten away from the bastard, I'd won, and then I ended up losing. Took me a long time to get past that.”

  “When did you?”

  “Sometime in May.”

  Craig muffles his laugh with his forearm. “Well, I think I got past mine about five minutes ago, so you’re doing better than me.”

  “Better late than never.”

  We fall into a comfortable silence, sipping our floor cleaner tea. Like Rose, Craig is easy to be around. I get the sense I could tell him anything, and he would accept it. Accept me.

  In the next two hours, there are two false alarms that turn out to be a small animal and a clump of snow falling off a tree bough. Both times, we watch the woods with raised rifles that we lower regretfully.

  “Too bad we can’t have some music out here,” I say.

  “Right? If only deer came running at the sweet sounds of Floyd.”

  Craig straightens and sets his cup in the dirt. Slowly, silently, he lifts his rifle and tilts his head to the scope. In the darker forest on the other side of the clearing, something moves. Something large. I lift my rifle and peer through the scope, though I have no plan to take a shot unless he gives me the go ahead. This is Craig’s department; a few pointers on the best place to shoot a deer do not a hunter make.

  A black-nosed muzzle enters the light of the clearing, followed by a head with a sizable rack of antlers. The buck’s nose twitches, gauging scents and safety. Another step brings him farther out, though his body is still behind brush. Finally, he moves for the acorns Craig scattered on the ground.

  His legs are muscular, his chest broad, head held high. I have a moment of regret that we plan to kill something so magnificent and wild. After sniffing the air again, the buck bends to the acorns. Craig’s rifle shot reverberates in my chest and ears. The buck leaps straight into the air and runs zigzag for the far end of the clearing. I look to Craig, wondering if he should shoot again, but he raises a hand. The buck’s run slows to a stagger. His front legs buckle, and he plunges to the ground with his antlered head resting in a patch of snow.