Not today.
Not with the scene from breakfast so vivid and clear… and the memories still way too fresh.
Chase Knight is—was—Hallie’s fiancé. The three of us had gone to school together since kindergarten; Chase and Hallie were inseparable from that time in fourth grade when they would play pretend-husband and pretend-wife on the elementary school playground. Everyone thought it was inevitable that they would get married and, when the lurkers appeared and tomorrow wasn’t promised to anyone, Chase didn’t hesitate in throwing away their life plan—college first, working their way up at their prospective jobs, saving for a downpayment on a house—before impulsively proposing.
Not surprisingly for a world gone to shit, their February wedding kept getting pushed back. Something seemed to happen every day that made the two of them feel as though their getting married would be selfish compared to all the hardships in the community. Chase has always puts the needs of the Grave before his own, and Hallie was just as selfless. At last count, my twin had set the simple wedding for the second weekend in July, but I’m absolutely positive something terrible would have caused another delay.
Why did it have to be Hallie’s death?
I don’t blame Chase for his reactions. Apart from me and Jack, he took her death the hardest. I know how he felt—we both lost our second half. Of course he would think it was my fault that I survived and she didn’t. Itismy fault. He was the only one Jack allowed to visit me at the church, and though my memory of those first few days after the accident are hazy, I pointedly remember him sitting there with bone-dry, frantic eyes as he pleaded with me, demanding that I bring Hallie back.
But then something happened. Something changed. When I was able to go back to Oak Grove, he, well,chasedme there. He’d visit every night before I began to purposely avoid him. At first he said he just wanted to talk, and I felt guilty enough to encourage him to open up to me about his grief. The first time he called me Hallie, I told myself that it was a slip. When it happened again and again, I wasn’t so sure.
And then, before I shut the door on him for good, I did the unthinkable?—
Three weeks ago, I slept with him.
It was a mistake. If I’d had two words with him since, I’m sure he’d agree. Between mourning Hallie and sharing half a near-full bottle of whiskey he snuck over while Jack was on patrol, we drowned our sorrows in forbidden booze, bitched about how it wasn’t fair that Hallie was gone, and then… one thing led to another.
That’s how it always goes, right? In the right light—or maybe because my better sense was clouded by alcohol, plus the fact that I’ve always been a lightweight—Chase looked tempting. No denying what he saw when he looked at me. Hallie. He wanted his lover, and I wanted comfort.
So I fucked him, then panicked when it was over. Before Jack returned to our borrowed condo, I kicked Chase out, and now I can’t face him. It’s impossible. Every time he looks at me, I don’t know if he’s seeing my twin, her killer or her replacement, and that scares me more than anything else in this fucked-up world.
At least I know how to take care of the lurkers.
I don’t think fire is the answer when it comes to Chase.
CHAPTER 3
The scraping of my penknife against glass is like a lullaby to me. No matter how anxious or angry I am, the repeated motion, the soft yet harshscrape, scrape, scrape,it always manages to calm me down.
There’s probably about thirty bottles in the bedroom. They’re lined up against the molding, stashed in empty dresser drawers, covering every inch of the fancy wooden desk in the corner. I used to spend my days with Hallie, scavenging old recycling bins, looking for anything that might work as a container for one of my firebombs. Some of the other survivors would save them for me when their rations ran out so that, before long, I always had a steady supply.
Of course, that was all before the accident. Things are different now, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up. I keep my bottles ready just in case Jack finally changes his mind. My gas can is full and perched expectantly on our back porch, the pockets of Rory’s jacket are stuffed with matches, and I keep scraping the labels of our old lives from the bottles. Somehow it just doesn’t seem right to throw a firebomb that still says Heinz ketchup on the label.
It’s September in New Jersey, and before I got to work, I dared pulling the blackout curtains away from the windows, cracking them open just enough to let in a breeze. The sky is a pretty blue out there. The remnants of a brutal summer are definitely holding on, despite being so early in the afternoon. I can’t wait for fall. Making our way through three months without AC was rough, and even if it’s still warm out, at least it’s not that humid out.
Small victories, Xandra. Celebrate what you can.
It was winter when the Turning happened. Those early days were cruel, too, especially since we had the worst winter we’ve had in years. When we discovered the power of fire, the snow either melted into puddles or lingered, covered in ash blown in from another lurker hunt. Us Holdens—the ones still standing—stayed in the family home through mid-January. Halfway through the first month, it became clear that huddling behind locked doors on our own wouldn’t save us.
A community might.
The Grave—once known as the Grove due the name of the throughway that stretches through this part of town—was formed by the end of the first month, with Jack its de facto leader, and our surviving neighbors closing ranks.
When we left our old house on Firestone and moved into Oak Grove, most of the condos were already long abandoned. Except for the traces of blood left behind and signs of fire everywhere, it was as if the people living here simply disappeared right in the middle of their ordinary lives.
Jack and some of the other men who agreed with him spent close to a week checking the complex for any lurkers—or lurker victims. The condos that were completely uninhabitable were marked with an "X" in red spray paint. Jack and the others moved half of the Grave into the rest.
It was easy for me to recognize the owners of our condo. The Finches had pictures of Stacy, Tom, and their parents all over the first floor. Jack quietly took them all down. He didn't want the reminders that this wasn't really our house, or that we only have it because the Finches couldn’t.
My dad didn't put up any pictures of our family, either. Even then, it was easy to tell he couldn’t handle the reminders. I struggled, too, throwing myself into hunting lurkers and keeping the Grave safe. Sure, I might have to live in the condo now, but it wasn’t home.
Myhome was smack dab in the middle of a lurker nest, barely a mile away.
That didn’t stop me from holding out hope that we might figure out a way to defeat the hordes of monsters instead of just taking out the stray ones that test our boundaries. Nine months in, I have to accept that we never will.
I can’t. My mother… Rory… they haunt the old house as much as Hallie haunts this one. Ghosts follow me everywhere. I might as well stick close to the other survivors while I can.