Since the age of eighteen, she’d devoted most of her free timeto researching the creatures. Their origin. Their capabilities and weaknesses. Their underground compound, which government officials had declared near impregnable, its complete destruction requiring the sort of drastic measures that would cause unacceptable damage to surrounding communities.
She’d paid special attention to the creatures’ current state, studying the theories of various experts and drone footage of the zombies’ very few excursions outside their compound. Not much reliable information actually existed, though. The creatures might not be smart, but they’d stopped venturing outdoors after the first few attempts resulted in missile strikes and slaughtered brethren. The military had long ago ceased sending troops inside Wall One on doomed missions. And in all her years of research, she hadn’t found a single reference to operational cameras within that damn compound.
Was Definitely Not Human Chad lying to her? And if he wasn’t, where exactly had he gotten his information?
He heaved an impatient sigh. “They can’t climb. They can’t swim. Even if they did somehow get past the hatch, they couldn’t use the ladder. They’d fall into the water pit and drown. They have no chance.”
According to official reports, drowning the creatures was the third and final way to slay them, so that made sense. Only—“There’s a freakingwater pitbeneath us?”
“We can bypass it.” The strained tolerance in his voice was rapidly leaching away, replaced by the tonal equivalent of an eye roll. “I’ll guide you.”
She didn’t trust him, but she couldn’t keep hanging on this ladder forever, and she certainly didn’t intend to pop back out of that hatch and become Zombie Lunchables.
Her questions would have to wait.
Her chest expanded in a slow, deep breath, and she registered his scent for the first time. Piney and faintly sharp, like eucalyptus. It was surprisingly pleasant.
She’d always assumed her neighbor would smell like beer and noxious body spray up close. “I’m good now. You can move down.”
The cool wall of strength at her back promptly disappeared, much to the displeasure of her hormones. Reluctantly, she loosened her death grip on the metal rung before her, shifted to a single-handed hold, and wiped her slick palms on the thighs of her coveralls one at a time.
She began descending again, rung by rung, matching his measured pace.
A minute passed. Two. Three. As far as she could tell, they still weren’t near the end.
Her fingers hurt after a while, so she paused to shake out her left hand, then her right. As she did, she considered the heavy earth-moving equipment such an absurdly deep tunnel underground had required, how much said equipment and the labor required to use it might have cost, and what awaited her at the bottom of this oversized well.
What sort of shelter had he built down there, beyond his freakingwater pit, and what herculean efforts hadthatconstruction necessitated?
He drummed his own fingers against the ladder. “Come on. Keep going.”
“How deep is your damn basement, anyway?”
“Deep.”
“If you’re not human, what are you?” Given everything she’d seen and heard, her best guess was—
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
She supposed she would.
Once again, she resumed her descent into darkness, with Chad—this new, unfamiliar version of him—as her fearless, bethonged guide.
Somewhere along the way, she forgot to be afraid.
2
At long last, Edie dropped onto blessedly solid ground beside Chad.
“Fourteen minutes. A travesty.” The glow of his phone revealed a long-suffering expression. “The descent usually takes me thirty seconds.”
Her hands had become claws sometime during those fourteen torturous minutes. Unzipping her bag was a challenge, as was unearthing her own cell in total darkness. No, that was the burrito…her keys…a tampon…a tin of mints…
There. The phone. And it somehow had coverage down here, which was nothing short of a miracle. The Zone’s limited and crumbling infrastructure meant she frequently couldn’t muster sufficient bars to place calls within the area’s tall, protective walls, even aboveground.
“I suppose you can’t help being a mere human, however.” He seemed to consider this a generous allowance on his part. “I won’t complain.”
Too late.
