Love and Decay, Volume Eight (Episodes 9-12, Season Three) by Rachel Higginson Page A

whispered next to me. Baby Lennon curled up on her chest and
slept peacefully, unaware of the distant sound of constant gunfire
and groaning Zombies. “It’s huge !”
    The van crested a hill, giving us a panoramic
view of the massive city able to house nine million people. I
sucked in a breath and tried to breathe through my panic.
    The size of this city was incredible. Even in
the dead of night with only the milky light of the moon and the
fires that blazed in bright dots, I could see that this city was
never ending.
    If it were truly at war with itself, how
could we make it through unscathed?
    “Why couldn’t we go another way?” I asked
with bulging eyes.
    “This is the only road,” Adela reminded us.
“They destroyed every other way. They funnel people to them.”
    A shiver of alarm went through me. “Why?”
    Adela sucked in a deep breath and explained,
“In the beginning, it was for their protection. They wanted to save
their city, so they set up perimeters forcing travelers to go
through them. They wanted to check for the infection and they
wanted all of the information anyone might be carrying. Then, they
went to war with the Territories, so it became a way to protect
them from attack. Eventually the Territories began fighting with
each other and so did the city. Now it is the only way, because no
one can repair the roads or the damage of the bombs.”
    Even though most of the city was shadowed
with darkness, the sheer bigness of it intimidated me more than
anything else. Industrial buildings mixed with native design to
create a once beautiful cityscape.
    As we drove deeper into the concrete jungle,
I could imagine the city as the crowning jewel of Mexico it had
once been. Now most of the windows were shattered and the sides of
houses and businesses destroyed with gunfire and explosions. The
roads had been ripped apart. They made traveling difficult, but I
supposed that was part of their purpose.
    The smell of wood burning barely penetrated
through the stench of death and Zombies. There was a hazy fog over
everything and a dusting of ash that danced in the cool night
breeze.
    This place was the Apocalypse.
    Before the infection, if I were asked to
picture what I thought an Apocalypse would look like… this would
have been exactly how I imagined it.
    Vaughan slammed on the brakes when a woman
ran screaming around a corner up ahead. Blood streaked her dirty
face and her tangled hair hung limply around her frail shoulders.
When she saw the van, she screamed louder, threw up her hands and
ducked into the nearest building.
    I expected something to follow her, but
nothing else emerged from the dark alley she came from.
    Vaughan pressed on the gas again and passed
the woman’s hideout without incident.
    “Weird,” Hendrix breathed. He sat to my
right, with his arm wrapped around my shoulders. His gun lay on his
lap, ready and waiting for the first opportunity to use it.
    “How are we going to find Tomás?” Tyler asked
from the front passenger’s seat. “We don’t even have a last
name.”
    “When we ask for Tomás,” Adela explained,
“they will know who we are seeking. Our biggest problem will be
finding the right people to ask.”
    “How do we know who to ask?” King
demanded.
    Adela didn’t answer. I doubted she knew any
more than we did.
    Next to me, Lennon grunted deeply. I smiled,
despite our circumstances. He made the cutest baby sounds, like a
little pig. I didn’t have much experience with newborns, but I
thought his voice was unnaturally low. When I said something to
Haley and Nelson about it, they had gotten defensive and argued,
“He was a man!”
    But he wasn’t a man. He was just the most
adorable baby in the world. He was a month old now and somehow,
despite our lack of food and constantly dangerous living situation,
he had managed to grow. His chubby thighs had accumulated pudgy
wrinkles and his little face had filled out. Haley looked too thin,
even by our standards, but she was