A World Alone - A Zombie Novel

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-One

Stella P.O.V

It has started to rain. Light and gentle, I can barely feel the liquid kisses on my skin. But it's getting heavier. Soon, I think, it will be a storm. I can already see the heavy clouds, threatening in their slow roll over the hills.

A fitting scene, almost as if it were painted specifically for me. A reflection of how I feel. But I know I've done the right thing. Even if it doesn't feel that way.

I'm better on my own.

Always have been, always will be. No one around that I have to worry about, to care about. I'm more than capable of being on my own. It's how I've survived for most of my life. I'm happy being alone.

I'm happy being alone.

I tell myself this over and over until the words sound strange in my head. Forcing myself to believe it, cramming the idea of it down my throat.

But I know that I'm lying.

It doesn't matter, I think, throwing the lie away and leaving it to fester on the side of the road. I won't be alone for long, I won't be. As soon as I get to the coast and find him. Then I won't be alone. I'll be happy, I'll be safe and I'll forget all about Joey and Rocket and Aaron and Gale and...

And Logan.

The thought pulls me back, so much so that I actually falter in my steps. It weighs me down, torturing my already fatigued legs. How long have I been walking? It feels like hours, but just like usual, there's no way to tell. I glance back at the road behind me, the house already long gone.

The road in front of me stretches on for an eternity. Staring down its tongue, it disappears into a dot in the distance. I can't even see Las Vegas and begin to rethink my plan of going through it. Maybe I should just go around, hike through the desert.

But there's no chance of finding food and water out there. No chance of finding anything but rocks. And I don't exactly need rocks. So I'll need to go through Las Vegas, stock up on supplies and then set off towards the coast.

It sounds like a perfectly fine plan, even if I know that plans never work out the way that you want them to. But I've gotten this far, and if that's a testament to anything, I know that I can make it to the coast.

A memory bites at me, sharp and clear in my mind. The two strangers at the supermarket and what they said.

We can't go back to Las Vegas man! That place is crazy!

The memory worries me, but I'm quick to stifle it. The entire world is crazy, Las Vegas will be no different. Besides, it's apparently obvious to me that I have no choice. I'll just have to be extra careful. And extra lucky.

The rain is heavier now. I can hear the bodies of water crash against the ground. It's a nice distraction. A way to drown out my thoughts, if only for a little while.

Again I look back down the road behind me, more on edge than before now that the rain has overpowered most other noises. I expect the bus to be coming soon, unless they've decided to wait for me. This is the road that they'll take to get to Canada. I can't let them see me. As soon as I hear the rumble of an engine, or see the faded yellow of its metal body in the distance, I'll have to hide.

It doesn't escape my attention that so far out from the city, still relatively in the middle of the desert, there is no place to hide. I'll just have to get down into a ditch and hope they don't see me. I'll just have to stay alert.

Thunder booms, it's loud echo almost burying the singing voice of an infected to my right. A woman, covered head to toe in mud blends almost seamlessly with the mountains behind her. I'm not surprised I didn't notice her.

Long hair, drenched by the rain and crusted with dirt sways with every step she takes towards me. I stop walking to watch her, her emaciated limbs stretching out towards me.

She's alone, just like me, and I wonder how she managed to get so far without the company of a horde. Most of them don't stray from the outskirts of a city. She must have been desperate.

Just like me.

She groans again, her black teeth gnashing at a meal she won't get. The rain has gotten so heavy that it's almost difficult to see her now. It pelts against her frail body, and she stumbles to the ground, her thin leg snapping on the way down.

She must have broken it, because she doesn't move to get up. Instead she crawls through the mud, her skinny fingers sinking in like clay and struggling to get ahold. She wails again, this time sounding more like a cry than a groan of hunger.

It's a pitiful sight, and it leaves me wondering if this is the fate of everyone left alive. If we're all doomed to reanimate and wonder the desert alone for all of eternity, or at least until someone is gracious enough to stab you in the head.

She howls again, and I reach for the knife in my back pocket, the one that the nice lady gave me. I never gave it back to her, and I hope that she won't need it. The infected at my feet poses me no threat, she can't even crawl, the mud too slippery for her to get a grip. But I put her out of her misery, because I hope that if I ever turn out like her, someone will do the same for me.

I step back onto the road and look down at her body, awash with mud and slowly being buried by the rain. It's unlikely that anyone will ever find her again. I will probably be the last person to ever look at her. Her body is doomed to lie out here in the middle of nowhere, alone for the rest of days.

It only reminds me of how alone I am.

Out here in the middle of nowhere, just like she is. How long will it be until I end up like her? I scoff at the irony of it, that in a world that once held seven billion people, I would find myself entirely alone. And for the first time in forever...

I don't want to be alone.

End of Book One