“There you are!” Leah yelled.
Liam’s heart skipped a beat. She stood in the door, her eyes burning in lilac fury below her scarf. She inched closer, suppressed gun gripped in gloved hands. Though not aiming at him, he had a feeling that could soon change.
“How’d you find me?” Liam asked, unsure what else to say. He’d made certain that no one would follow him.
She tossed a book on the ground. Is that the White Pages? “Liam Fenix, Lakewood. You’re publicly listed, asshole.”
Liam grimaced. All he’d wanted was a little bit of peace… A little time to be alone…
“Don’t think you’re getting off this easy,” Leah said. “You have no idea how much of a pain in the ass that book was to get.”
She started to go through the living room bookshelf, examining everything in stock. She seemed more interested in how much they weighed than the contents, and quickly tossed one after the other into her backpack.
“What?” she jibed. “Did you think there’d be some red carpet here? Some bunker in the basement where they’d be hiding? They left. They did it over a decade ago, and they haven’t come back. That’s what everyone did when the Hollowing hit. You aren’t special.”
Liam just sat and stared. Here he was, back home after a triumphant voyage at the sea, weeks on the horizon, only to return to the very place he’d envisioned and found it destroyed. And this walking corpse was pilfering his living room while mocking him for the hope he’d given himself.
Leah caught his eye and paused. The backpack fell with a slam as she walked next to him and sat by his side. Both stared into the same empty space.
She sighed. “Look, I get that this is all bullshit, but you have no idea the risks. A single bite and it’s all over. I’ve seen it thousands of times before. No one survived. Trust me.”
“Please,” Liam said. “Just stop.”
“I can’t. There’s a hollow herd not far from here. You must have missed it, but it’s migrating this way. We stay much longer and we’re holed up for the night. Do you really want that?”
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“I don’t want to go back.” Nothing else mattered.
She shook her head. “I was around for the early outbreak. And I don’t just mean my hollowed self. I mean me. My first memories are from the part where everyone still thought this would all die down. Some thought that I was proof they could outlast it. Maybe build an immunity or vaccine against the Hollowing.
“But the sad reality is that the opposite came true. Their future wasn’t going to be saved by me. Mine would come from them. They all died, one after the other after the other, and I still survived. That’s just how it was.”
“How it was or is?” Liam considered. “Seems like everyone’s in it for themselves these days. Is it really so wrong of me to want to find out what happened to my family?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just stupid. Why bother? You already know how it ended.”
Do I? Liam’s eye had caught something in his peripheral, in the kitchen. He lurched to his feet and walked straight for the refrigerator.
Leah started to speak, but Liam wasn’t listening. He gripped a post-it note that’d been stuck on the door, still clear and fresh in spite of the time.
It was in Nelly’s handwriting. ‘We tried to stay here and wait for you, but there isn’t any time. I’m going to a friend’s cabin with Lilith. Please find us. We need you, Liam.’ There was an address and directions to a small town called “Ponderosa”, located deep in Sequoia National Park.
He laughed. This was exactly what he was looking for! The time capsule he needed. The breadcrumb that would let him persevere. Of course there was still hope. Why wouldn’t there be?
Leah glanced at the note. “This was written twelve years ago…”
“And? You said that I’m the first living person that you’ve seen. Well, what’s to say that there aren’t more out there, but they’re just in hiding?” The pause she gave was all he needed. “Exactly. There’d be no safer place to be than an unincorporated community at high elevation. Good natural defenses, plenty of game, low population, cold weather. Don’t know how well that last bit works on you lot, but it does wonders against spoilage. Nelly is just like me. She’d know how to survive this!”
But Leah just furrowed her brow. “You can’t be serious.”
He shoved the note in his pocket. “Tell you what. You can come with me. It’ll be less than a week on foot, a couple hours if you can get one of those trucks. If I’m wrong, you’ll never have to worry about me again.” He swallowed the lump in his throat, remembering what Mother had said about Leah. “You can do whatever you want with me after that. I won’t fight.”
Leah watched him in silence with those demonic, magenta eyes. Whatever trepidation Liam might have about indulging this contract, there was no way out of it. He could only do so much on his own, and he suspected that getting this far without complication was more luck than skill. He needed her just as much as she needed him.
Thunder roared as a gun went off. The shot was close.
“Come out, come out, Leah!” someone screamed from a megaphone. “I know you’re in there!”
Leah rushed to the nearest window. Her eyes bulged.
“What’s going on?” Liam asked, trying to poke past. “Who’s there?”
She removed the safety on her pistol. “The Devil himself.”