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“It wouldn’t hurt to talk to others, to share information,” I argued.
“If anyone even answers at all,” she amended for me. “We’re leaving tomorrow morning. I’d like it if you joined us, but if you want to stay back here, I won’t fight you on it.”
“Everyone is going?” I asked.
Riva nodded. “It’s like you said when we arrived. This place isn’t home.”
I didn’t have anything to counter that, because it really didn’t feel like any place that I wanted to live forever. But would any place ever feel like home again? Without all the people that I cared about?
Riva left me alone to think about what she’d said, and I went back to trying to reach someone on the radio because I didn’t want to think about anything right now.
“Can anyone hear this? Over,” I repeated into the mic, the way I had all day, and I released the push-to-talk button when I finished and waited for a response.
I was about to say it again when there was a crackle, and then a man’s voice, “This is Sergeant Boden. Over.”
For a moment, I could only stare down at the microphone, and then I scrambled to reply, “This is Lazlo Durante. Are you from the Blaine County Quarantine Zone?”
There was a long bout of static, so loud I wondered if I lost him or if I had imagined it in the first place.
“Lazlo?” A woman’s voice gasped into the mic, and my heart soared because I recognized it immediately. “Lazlo?”
That was Remy’s voice. Remy King, who I hadn’t even seen in six months. Since she was locked up in the medical ward, since we were separated by armed guards, locked doors, and threats of exile.
This was the woman I loved, who I feared I would never see again.
“Remy?” I asked, but there was only silence that followed – no static.
“Lazlo?” she repeated, sounding distressed, and in the background, I heard someone telling her to let the button go.
As soon as the static began, I started talking, “Remy? Is that you?”
“Yes!” she shouted. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I answered hurriedly. “How did you get out? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good. It’s a long story, but I’m fine,” she said. “Where are you?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I said. “Somewhere in Canada, or near to it.”
“Who all is with you?” she asked. “Is everyone in your party okay?”
I winced at the question, but I swallowed it back to reply evenly, “There’s eight of us. We found an abandoned militia base to rest up, and it had this CB radio, so that’s good.”
“How’s Harlow?” Remy asked, and I grimaced. How could I answer that over a damn CB radio? “Laz? How’s Harlow? Over.”
I took a fortifying breath and gave her the simplest explanation, “She didn’t make it.”
In response, there was a long stretch of static, and I worried that my words had cut out or gotten scrambled.
“Remy? Did you hear me?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said flatly. “Where can we meet you?”
For the most glorious of moments, I let myself fantasize about a future reunion between the two of us. But then I realized that in order to get to me, Remy would have to pass through the same area where we’d gotten caught on road spikes and hunted by zombies. I still didn’t understand what had happened there, but it was a dangerous mess.
And how would I even tell her how to find me? I didn’t even know where I was – there was no address, no map, and all I knew was that we’d followed roads through forests for miles and miles. I couldn’t even tell her where the spike trap had been left. Somewhere northeast of Idaho on an empty stretch of highway?
Besides, what good what it do for Remy to join up with me again? I hadn’t been able to protect her or Harlow or anybody. Hell, when we were together, Remy had spent far more time protecting me than the other way around.
