Life After the Undead (Book 1 in the Life After the Undead Series)

CHAPTER 5

I woke up every morning for the next two years and went to classes. After that, I went to my job. I didn't have any other choice. What was I going to do? This was my new life. The new normal. On the day of my seventeenth birthday, I couldn't do it anymore. I woke up and felt a pressure on my chest, and every time I thought about going to class, I broke out into a sweat. The thought of scrubbing another toilet made me nauseous. I was tired of pretending everything was fine. I wanted out. I made it a point to leave my room before Pearl arrived and went to sit by the lake.

The sun peeked over the horizon, and I inhaled a humid breath. By that point, the zombies had all migrated west, and there was an invisible line, starting at the panhandle of Nebraska, extending north to Canada and south to the Gulf of Mexico, that the zombies refused to cross. There had been plans in the works for several months to build a wall to keep the zombies on one side while the humans repopulated the nation on the other. It was assumed that if given enough time, the zombies would decay away to nothing.

I put in my earbuds and turned up the volume. White Zombie's More Human than Human thumped in my ears. I sat on the beach and threw some sand into the water. I watched the ripples for a second, then leaned back on my elbows. What was I going to do? I may have been tired of my "life" and ready to escape, but it wasn't as if there were that many options available to me. I leaned my head back and sighed. A shadow crossed my face, and I turned to see an entourage of soldiers heading into the hotel.

The man at the front was bald with a pock-marked face and tattoos of pin-up girls on his forearms. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, making them prominent. He glanced down at me, smiling. I stared at him and the group until they disappeared inside, then I jumped up and followed them. The hotel buzzed with rumors for days that an elite group of soldiers was going to be visiting. They had supposedly been handpicked by Mrs. Johnson to oversee the construction of the wall. I didn't believe it, of course, because rumors like that floated around for weeks and nothing ever happened, but my interest was piqued with the new group. I could only hope the rumors were true.

I lagged behind and stayed out of sight until the elevator doors closed. I watched the lights to see what floor they were heading to. They stopped in the penthouse. I was curious but not stupid. If I went upstairs, I'd have to wait on them. If they turned out to be plain soldiers who weren't tasked with building the wall, I'd be pissed. I decided to play it safe. My plan was to head back outside when someone grabbed my arm.

"There you are." Pearl pulled out my earbud and hissed in my ear. "They have been looking for you all morning."

"No." I groaned. "I don't want to go up there."

Pearl directed me toward the elevators. "They said they have something important to tell you."

Another new development. My curiosity went up another level. "What?"

"I don't know."

The elevator doors closed, and I turned off my iPod. "Who are those people who just came up here?"

"They're the soldiers in charge of the wall."

I raised my eyebrows. I was right to hope. "So they are going to build one. Who's the guy with the tattoos?"

Pearl stared at me for a moment. "That's Liet. He's been promoted to general. You don't want anything to do with him."

I shrugged and turned my music back on.

Normally, Pearl would have been right. Most of the soldiers in Florida weren't very nice to be around. They had attitudes, thinking they were untouchable and could do anything they wanted. Some even stole things from the local markets because they knew no one would do anything. Not all of them were bad, but the vast majority of them were. I had a different feeling about Liet and his soldiers, though. I mean, they were going to build the wall. They were going

to make it possible for life to go on. They thought of the greater good. That meant they were the good guys.