“When do things get to be simple again, George?” I whispered. “Ever?”

They weren’t simple to begin with, she said.

I didn’t have a comeback for that, and so I just sat in the sunlight in the garden and breathed in the smell of rain-soaked grass, waiting for the world to slow down. Just a little bit. Just long enough to let us rest before the next storm came crashing through. Was that really so much to ask? I just wanted to rest.

Just for a little while.

Things it is not polite to discuss at the dinner table: politics, religion, and the walking dead.

Things we wind up discussing at the dinner table every single night: politics, religion, and the walking dead. Along with small-caliber versus large-caliber weapons for field use, personal security gear, Maggie’s garden, our ratings, and vehicle maintenance. It’s very claustrophobic and intense, with everyone on top of everybody else pretty much all the time. There’s no real privacy, and there’s so much security on the house that getting out is almost as big a production as getting in. It’s like a f**ked-up combination of prison and summer camp.

Is it weird that this is what I always dreamed the news would be like? Because, God, maybe I’m f**ked in the head or something, but this is the most fun I’ve ever had. I want someone to remind me I said that when it all turns around and bites us in the ass.

—From Charming Not Sincere, the blog of Rebecca Atherton, May 9, 2041. Unpublished.

Check it out, folks! I can add “survived an unplanned zombie encounter while visiting the CDC to discuss the outbreak in Oakland” to my résumé! Not to brag or anything, but why don’t you all download my reports, and then go fill out your Golden Steve-o nominations for the year? I’ll be your best friend…

—From Charming Not Sincere, the blog of Rebecca Atherton, May 9, 2041

Seventeen

Five days ticked by with li

ttle fanfare. Becks and I went shooting in the woods outside of town, clearing out a mixed mob of zombie humans and cows. Once the disease takes over, species isn’t an issue anymore. Maggie spent a lot of time writing poetry, weeding her garden, and avoiding Kelly, who took over the dining room table with Dr. Abbey’s research and kept muttering things none of the rest of us could understand. Alaric hung out with her, listening, taking notes, and nodding a lot. It was almost unnerving, in a geeky sort of way.

Those five days may have been the last good time for us. Maybe the universe had been listening when I made my wish out in the garden; I don’t know. I just know that I asked for time to rest, and somehow, miraculously, I actually got it. Nothing exploded. There were no outbreaks and no emergencies, nothing to pull us away from the difficult task of turning ourselves back into a team. The hours turned into days, and the days blended together, distinguished from each other only by the activity in the forums and the reports we were posting.

Kelly continued her series of guest articles under the Barbara Tinney byline. It wasn’t exactly a runaway hit, but it was popular—surprisingly so. I always forget how much people like getting excuses for their crazy. The profits Kelly’s column brought in went directly to Maggie, where they could help pay for our room and board. She snorted and waved it off like it was no big thing. She also took the money. It made me feel a little bit less guilty about the way we were intruding.

Becks moved into the study, saying that the air mattress was better for her back than the couch was for mine. That meant I could move to the guest room, which was a relief, since I wasn’t really sleeping in the living room. And I needed my sleep. I went to bed every night with my head stuffed full of science, and woke up every morning ready to cram in some more. I needed to understand the research Dr. Abbey had given us. More important, I needed to understand the research Mahir was hopefully sweet-talking some British professor into doing. If I was going to march everyone off to get themselves killed on my behalf, I was by God going to be certain I knew what they were dying for. It was the only promise I could make that I felt reasonably sure of being able to keep.

When I wasn’t studying, I was making calls. My little team of reporters might not have much in the way of manpower, but we had connections, and it was time to exploit them. Rick’s ascent from Newsie to vice president of the United States isn’t a normal career path for either a journalist or a politician, but hey, it’s worked out pretty well for him. I started calling his office, once a day at first, then twice a day, until it became clear that he wasn’t going to call me back. That wasn’t like him. Not even a little bit. And that worried me.

The days rolled on. Alaric started a series on the rise of digital profiling and its applications in the medical field. Becks took a trip up into Washington, looking for zombies she could harass on camera; she came back with powder burns, bruises, and twice as many articles about her adventures. Reading the first one made my throat get tight with half a dozen emotions it was hard to put into words. That used to be me running into the woods to play tag with zombie deer and gathering “no shit, there I was” stories from truckers who remembered the roads during the Rising. That used to be all I wanted in the world. Everything changed when George died. Sometimes I read the articles that Becks posts and I wonder whether the man I used to be would even recognize the one I’m becoming. I don’t think he’d like the new me very much.

I know I don’t.

I told Mahir and Maggie about the silence from Rick’s office, and they agreed that it was best if we kept it between us, at least for now. Everyone was freaked out enough without adding that little wrinkle to the mix. Maggie’s Fictionals didn’t help; at some point, she’d given at least half of them the all-clear. They went back to dropping in without warning, appearing on the doorstep and in the kitchen like they’d been there all along. Most of them brought pizza, or cookies, or samosas. I’d never met two-thirds of them before, even though they were all technically part of the site staff. They walked on eggshells around everyone but Maggie, and we started using their visits as excuses for equipment repair and trips into Weed for more groceries. Once their grindhouse parties got started, they could go for hours, watching crappy pre-Rising horror movies and eating gallons of popcorn. I didn’t realize how antisocial I was becoming until the Fictionals started to descend, and all I could think of was how quickly I could get away.