57

S tella

I wasn't sure if the zombies would follow me forever, or if they would wander off or attack me eventually. The first night when I had to sleep, I climbed up in a tree to be safe, and I was certain that they would be gone in the morning.

But they weren't, and so we walked onward, me, Chosen, and the horde of zombies.

In the beginning, I didn't know where we were going. I started out heading south and west. When they kept following me, I realized that I had to make a plan. Then an obvious solution occurred to me: I would return the zombies to where Chosen and Mercy Loth had found them.

Chosen was not exactly like the other zombies, but he wasn't so different either. He didn't speak, and he would sometimes play in a way that I hadn't seen zombies do before. He would chase a butterfly or toss around an old tennis ball, although he had terrible coordination, even for a child of his age.

The entire time we walked together, the zombies following us never ate, but Chosen and I did. He would hunt down rabbits and squirrels, catching them with his bare hands and tearing their flesh. He would always bring some back for me, and we ate together in the evenings. The meat, so bloody and warm while it was fresh and raw, was the very first thing to satiate my hunger in weeks. I would fall asleep at night content and full.

We wandered for days and days, maybe even weeks. I wasn't keeping track of time very well, but it felt like it had been ages. I knew I wanted to go to the Tarik Copper Mine, but I didn't know how to find it. I had no map, and my memories felt so foggy to me lately.

Finally, though, I saw a sign for it, and I followed a cracked asphalt road straight to the gates. As far as I could tell, all of the zombies were still following me, and I think I had even picked up a few stragglers here and there.

We walked past all the buildings to the craterous open-pit mine in the center. The roadway down to it had been blown up some time ago, but a ramp out had been created using old sheet metal and boards. It didn't look very sturdy, but Mercy and her family had apparently done enough to support thousands of zombies climbing out.

It was easy enough to lead them back down, since they all followed me. Once they had filled the pit back up, the way they had been when Mercy first found them, I used my pheromones to still them again.

The hard part was leaving Chosen. He wasn't a zombie, but he wasn't a human, and I didn't know where he belonged. At least with the zombies, they wouldn't kill him or think he was a monster. He had room to run, and there had to be enough vermin and birds that came by to keep him fed.

I would be lying if I said that I wasn't tempted to stay with him. Mercy claimed that he needed a mother, and I wasn't completely human anymore. Not the way that I had once been. The virus had changed me, and I had lost my other half.

Out here with the horde, I could pretend that Max was still alive, back home raising our daughter. I could picture Serg still making them supper, and Boden, Remy, Ripley, and Minnie would all be there too. They could stay the perfect happy family in my mind forever.

But then I thought of Rafaella, and I knew that I couldn't leave her behind. I had no memory of my mother, but I wanted her to have memories of me. And I needed to be there to tell her all about her daddy, so she would never forget him or how much he loved us both.

"Goodbye," I said to Chosen. I hugged him and kissed him on the cheek, because it seemed like the right thing to do, but he never reacted. "Stay here and be a good boy."

When I climbed back up the ramp to get out of the mines, he didn't follow me. I found an old crowbar and a saw, and within a few minutes, I was able to make the ramp collapse. The zombies wouldn't be able to get out anymore.

The journey to the S. S. Barbarabelle seemed to take so much longer than the rest of it, likely because I was travelling on my own. The wildlife gave me a wide berth, and I'd gotten rid of all the zombies. I had nothing really to fear except the cold and hunger, but that was plenty enough.

A day later, I made it to the boat. I had to swim from the shore, but since I had been wearing the same filthy clothes since I left Emberwood, it was actually sort of refreshing. And freezing cold.

Eden found me in the lobby, and the first thing I asked her through chattering teeth was, "Where's my daughter?"

"She's fine and I'll take you right to her, but we've gotta get you dry before you catch your death," she said, and she put an arm around me before whisking me away to do just that.

Finally, once I had changed into dry clothes, Eden led me up to the nursery they'd made her on the second floor. I could hear Minnie bleating and a baby cooing before she even opened the door, and tears were already streaming down my cheeks.

Remy was sitting in a chair near the window, holding Fae, and she smiled and stood up as soon as she saw me. I rushed straight over to them, and Remy put my baby in my arms.

As she hugged me to her, she said, "Welcome home, Stella."