Page 111 of Doomsdate

Finally, a burst of static erupts from the speakers. “Maisie-girl?” Gramps’s voice sounds odd, strained and strangely hoarse.

“Gramps, it’s me! What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

He makes a sound that’s almost like sobs into the mic. “Maisie, sweetheart! Thank god. Is that you outside?”

“Outside your bunker, now?” My blood chills. “No, Gramps. I’m still at West Point—we’ll be there in the morning. Is there somebody outside your bunker?!”

But Gramps doesn’t immediately answer. He’s activated the lock on the talk button, so it’s picking up everything on his end and not letting me say anything. “Listen, Maisie,” he whispers, the bristles of his chin hair rubbing unpleasantly against the mic. “I think there’s bandits outside. I could’ve sworn I heard somebody’s footsteps this morning after I visited the well, but I didn’t see anyone. I think they’ve gone and tracked me here.”

“Bandits?!” I screech into the mic, but of course he can’t hear anything I say. “Fuck, Gramps, what’s going on!”

The unmistakable sound of a rifle being loaded and cocked fills the speakers. “I’ve gotta keep you off the speakers now, Maisie-girl. Gotta be quiet,” he whispers. “Whatever you do, don’t come here until you get my okay in the morning, you hear?”

“Gramps!” I’m breathing rapidly now, and Everett’s right by my side, his eyes reflecting my panic. “Goddammit, let me speak, Gramps!”

“If you don’t hear from me by morning, well. Just know that this grizzled old man loves you, and you’ve been the best part of my days since we met. I’m sorry for nagging at you, sweetheart, because I know you’ll find your way. You’re a survivor, Maisie-girl. You’re—”

The words are suddenly cut off by the sound of screeching metal. Gramps yells, though I can’t make out what he’s saying. I push back from the desk and stand so quickly the desk chair tips over and tumbles backward, crashing to the floor.

“We’ve got to leave right now!”

Everett

“You can’t leave,” Dad says sternly, wearing nothing but soft green fatigues and a pair of dog tags that hang on his silver-haired chest. His cheeks are stained red, and Mom looks similarly disheveled. I do not want to know what the Colonels Greer were getting up to before the cadets on guard ratted us out for trying to leave after curfew and ushered us into my parents’ barracks.

“We have to,” Maisie says desperately. “Gramps is on his own—someone’s attacking him right now!”

“You don’t understand, sweetheart,” Mom says, the term of endearment awkward on her lips. “There’s no leaving West Point now—battle maneuvers began two hours ago!”

“Battle maneuvers?” I glare at her. “What do you mean, ‘battle maneuvers’?”

“Every night’s a battle here, and it’s getting worse,” Dad explains grimly. “The zombies are drawn to people and food. After Z Day, we recovered all remaining survivors in town and relocated them here, along with all the safe food.” He points out the window, his voice fierce. “They come for us every night, like a goddamn blitzkrieg out there, and you can’t just drive out into the middle of the fray! You’ll be slaughtered, and we just—” He brings his fist to his mouth, uncharacteristically emotional. “We just got you home, son.”

The words punch me in the chest, along with the wet sheen on my father’s blue eyes. Mom grips Dad by the upper arm and squeezes tight, their preferred mode of comfort—hard, respectable, and vaguely uncomfortable. He nods once in acknowledgment, and she releases him.

Flashes of light glance along the horizon. In the distance, a sound like popping fireworks tat-a-tat-a-tats into the night. Gunfire. This isn’t just a settlement, it’s a war zone. A tactical encampment under siege every night.

“What about the electrified perimeter?” I ask, desperate to decrease the direness of the situation. “Doesn’t that keep the zombies out?”

“In the early evening hours, when they come in packs of five, ten, even fifteen—yes. But once the swarms begin, the lines are easily trampled and torn down, and the dead roam our campus unimpeded, wild and starving. A regular zombie at nighttime is bad, but the starving…” She shakes her head. “Had we known the impact of removing all the food sources from town, we would’ve left the food there. Half of it we can’t eat anyway because of the preservative.”

Oh. Oh. The realization hits Maisie at the same time it does me.

“The starving ones are worse, aren’t they?” Maisie says, her voice low and hollow.

“They’re faster. More agile. Incredibly vicious,” Dad admits. “Not as coordinated as a living human, but far more determined to eat. It doesn’t help that, in the beginning, the previous superintendent ordered that we round up the docile daytime zombies and herd them onto the athletic fields.” Dad shakes his head. “Bastard up and died the next evening thanks to his own bad decision. Now, with the town to the south, the athletic fields to the west, the residential areas to the north, and the river to the east, we’re utterly hemmed in at night unless traveling by air or water. It takes considerable resources to hold them back.”

Resources. That means people.

I collapse onto the couch in my parents’ barracks apartment, Maisie following beside me. “When were you going to tell us?”

“Tomorrow,” Dad says, nodding quickly to Mom, who’s nodding right back. “We’d decided to share that bit tomorrow, right, honey?”

“We wanted you to get some rest before—well.” Mom winces. “Before you had to worry.”

The door opens suddenly, and Gemma appears, as bright-eyed and restless as ever. “Ah,” she says, seeing Maisie and me slumped together. “They told you about the night hordes, then?”

“We were going to wait until tomorrow, but they were caught trying to leave just now,” Mom says, eyeing us as though we’re a couple of kids trying to sneak out without their parents knowing instead of grown-ass adults trying to sneak out without their parents knowing. “And we were explaining how that’s impossible.”