1

Remy

Every time I killed a zombie, I hoped that it would be my last, and that after nearly ten torturous years, the zombie plague that had taken over the world would finally be gone. But with each new spring, when the snow melted enough, a fresh crop of zombies would head north.

The lyssavirus genotype-8 was ceaseless, an unending and infinitely patient monster far worse than the creatures it created. Once infected with the virus, the host could never find a natural death, never again know a moment of clear thought, and never feel anything beyond the ceaseless hunger. They became hollow husks of humans, little more than living dead, following a lone instinct to consume human flesh and blood.

The zombies I encountered were not angry or sad or anything at all. They were nothingness , a vacuum for all that was good in this world.

But I had also learned to accept that they were part of this life. Another mutated branch in our vast ecosystem. They were something to be avoided and dealt with when necessary, like a rabbit tearing up a garden or a wildfire approaching through the forest.

The journey between my lakehouse and the old farmhouse was a long one to travel by foot, but it had already grown familiar. Over the past two years, I had gone on it a half-dozen times. Since I only travelled in the warmer months, the Canadian landscape didn't change that much from one summer to the next.

It also helped that Ripley knew the way. The last half-day of the trek always went by quickly because she was so excited about getting there, she would pick up her pace. The lioness had been my companion since I had found her eight years ago, chained up outside the ruins of Las Vegas.

According to an old encyclopedia abandoned with the lakehouse, Ripley was likely an African lioness. Their lifespan was typically sixteen years in the wild, and twenty in captivity. I didn't really know what her life with me counted as. She slept in the garage, but the side door was always open, so she could roam without fences and hunt freely. We shared our food with her, and she spent the long winters curled up inside the main house more often than she was outside.

As she had aged, Ripley slowed down some, and she had definitely mellowed, seeming to prefer naps by the fireplace over stalking prey most days. Although, she did still love giving chase whenever a zombie happened across our path. She hated them more than I did.

I did know that we both had a good life. An astonishingly good life, considering we survived a zombie apocalypse. I could never be anything other than grateful for all that I had and the people who shared my home with me, those that I considered my family.

We lived in an isolated lakehouse, with only the very rare friendly visitor passing through. Meaning that most days, it was only the same five people and one lion trapped in the same four walls or on the acreage around the house. During the harsh days of winter, when long nights and frigid temperatures made it unsafe for us to venture out, it could feel suffocating at times.

Even then, I knew I was still so lucky, because it was a large house with books and games, weapons and fishing poles. It was a virtual paradise compared to so many other places I had been, with space to breathe and feel safe.

All of that gratitude didn't change the fact that after a long winter, I was looking forward to the week I spent away from my family. It had started as a simple hunting trip with Ripley two summers ago, looking for the game that her presences scared off for around the lakehouse.

And then I had found Lazlo Durante setting up camp in an abandoned farmhouse. We had spent time together in the earlier days of the apocalypse, and we'd gotten split up so we ended up going years without seeing one another.

Lazlo had established himself on a homestead with his family, but it was nearly on the other side of the province. I lived on the edge of the Coast Mountains, but Lazlo and his family were over 50 kilometers away, nearing the border between British Columbia and Alberta. We had some old maps and an atlas, and we tried to do the best we could at making sense of where things were located.

We had also found calendars and aligned ours so we could make plans to meet up two or three times a year. That way we could exchange food and information, without risking the full hike between our respective homes. Even with meeting at the old farmhouse, roughly in the middle, the round trip through the forest and over the river took a week.

That meant that we had to keep the visits few and far between, but it was hard to complain after we had spent nearly six years apart in radio silence. This was definitely preferred.

I remember the first time I saw him at the old farmhouse two years ago.

He was completely the same, and entirely different. His dark eyes, his welcoming smile, the tattoos that decorated his forearms beneath his sleeves – those were all the same. His thick beard, the noticeable limp in his leg, the lines around his eyes, the silver streak at his temple ? those were all the proof that so much time had passed between us.

"Hi," he said, breaking the silence first.

"Hi."

"Have you been walking long? Do you want to sit?" He motioned to the stained, tattered couch.

I nodded because my legs felt unusually weak, and I collapsed back onto it. "This isn't your place, is it?"

"No." He hobbled over and sat down on the other side of the couch. "I have a place to the east of here."

"Mine's back to the west. Ripley and I are on a hunting trip."

"Yeah. Me, too. I've been foraging, hunting, scavenging, gathering all I can for winter." He leaned forward, his elbows rested on his legs, and he smirked at me. "Holy fuck, Remy King, how have you been?"

All through the night, we chatted and caught up on our lives and how they'd been different. He lived on a homestead with his partner Nova, and they had a young daughter together. Lazlo had found Harlow alive, and she and her girlfriend lived with them, too. They had built a good life for themselves, just one that was far away from the where I had built my life with my family.

Our time together had been painfully brief, but it left an indelible mark on my life. After the talking, we both woke up in the morning at the old farmhouse, and we packed up our things to go.

"It was really great seeing you, Laz," I said as I headed for the door .

"You, too, Remy. Take care of yourself."

"Yeah. You, too." I forced a smile at him, and then I turned away.

My hand had just touched the doorknob when he said, "Wait."

His hand was suddenly on my back, and when I faced him, he pulled me into his arms. His mouth crashed against mine, and I held him to me. Our lips never parted, and it wasn't a kiss of passion or romance, but something else. Something like friendship, like love, like need.

And then we parted, both of us breathing roughly, and I didn't brave looking in his eyes.

"Goodbye, Lazlo," I said, and when I reached for the door this time, he didn't stop me.

And that was how our planned visits had begun. We had seen each other a handful of times since, and there was never any other physical contact. It wasn't about that. We were old friends connecting again.

Ripley and I were finally close enough that I could see the roof of the old farmhouse through the branches filled with bright green buds of early spring. It was in a clearing, but the grass around it was already growing high.

Lazlo usually arrived first, since he travelled on a mule, so I was often greeted by the smell of a fire and something cooking. Today, there was no fire, but Ripley raced on ahead.

We hadn't been there since the fall, but when the lion ran at the front door, it opened easily. I followed her, and the house was in slightly worse disarray than how we had left it.

I liked keeping Ripley in the house with the door shut, because Lazlo and I usually kept my lion and his mule apart. They got on well when they interacted, like the lion sensed that he was a friend and not food, but I had also seen her take down a full-grown elk before, so I wasn't about to push my luck.

I set about doing all the things that Lazlo usually did before I arrived. First was gathering up wood for the woodburning stove, so the outdoor chores were finished before nightfall. Next I swept up the dust and debris that made its way into the house over the winter. I aired out the few belongings we kept stored here in the small closet: blankets, a pot to cook in, several candles, a cribbage board with cards, and a few tools. Some of it we had brought from our respective homes, and others we had found in the old farmhouse and cleaned them up.

By the time it was dark, I realized that Lazlo wouldn't make it here today. He would be bedding down for the night, so the very earliest he would arrive would be tomorrow.

That's what I told myself when I lay on my bedroll and stared up at the water damaged ceiling as the lion snored beside me.

After a night of fitful sleeping, Lazlo and his mule didn't arrive in the morning. Or the afternoon. Or the evening. In fact, I saw no sign of either of them over the next two days.

Ordinarily, I would only stay at the farmhouse for three nights. With the roundtrip, I would be gone for a total of ten days, and it was difficult packing and carrying enough provisions to last me that long for a ninety-kilometer hike.

On the fourth night, I ate the jerky I had brought to trade for Lazlo's raspberry preserves and hazelnuts, and I played solitaire until I passed out.

In the morning, Ripley and I ventured just slightly to the east, checking to be sure Lazlo wasn't stuck somewhere nearby with a broken leg. Ripley kept sniffing around, but she never pursued anything, and eventually, we had to go turn and head west, back toward the lakehouse .

Before I left the old farmhouse, I tacked a note up onto the closet door, telling Lazlo that I would be back in two months' time, and that I hoped all was well with him.

There was nothing more to say, nothing more to be done, and so I turned and headed on the long journey back home with Ripley by my side.