Prologue
You know that that old motto, life is a bitch and then you die? Yeah, that about sums it up. This is my life, in my words… and sometimes Wolfe’s words. If you don’t like it, you can walk away now. If you think you can handle my most-of-the-time bad attitude, then stick around, because this is going to be a wild ride.
I was born on August 15th, 2045. Twenty-three years after the Great Fall. I lived a happy life in Old Canada with my family until I was eleven. Then mom, dad and my little brother died from the flu. Not Necrotitis Primeval but something else. Something just as deadly but with less zombification. After the death of my parents, our home was no longer viable and I travelled with my sister, Taran, and my grandparents to the Nevada Sanctuary. We tried to build a new life, but flu and the fucking zombies killed that idea. When Nevada fell, I was unfortunately still inside. I got separated from my family and had to find my own way in the world.
Fast forward about twelve years and I finally set eyes on my sister again. Life was much different. She was married to a Warlord and I was living in a harem, married to my own reclusive Warlord. I got to live in a palace, eat until my belly was full, wear beautiful clothes and bend the ear of the most powerful man in the city. Things should’ve been awesome, right?
Wrong.
Awesome turned to ashes when the fucking zombies figured out how to make nuclear meltdowns happen. I mean, how much shit needs to go wrong before we all just give up, lie down and die? I was forced to flee my Sanctuary and my husband by our head of security, the badass warrior and zombie hunter known as Wolfe. A man who terrorizes anyone and anything that comes near him. Except me. He took me back to my sister, where we would have had a joyful reunion if it weren’t for the massive horde of Primitives that followed us into the Tucson Sanctuary.
If you think more shit couldn’t possibly go down, you’d be wrong. Again.
We fought that horde for months, pushing them back over and over, only to be confronted with even more waves of them coming in from the east, chasing and picking off survivors searching for Sanctuary. Eventually we were able to come up with a solution; use my sister’s and my magic virus-immune blood to kill the horde and vaccinate the survivors.
It worked!
The year is now 2075. Wolfe left, and I continued to live in the Tucson Sanctuary. Along with a group of warriors, I’ve been deployed to distribute the vaccine as far and as wide as we can get it, in an effort to eventually eradicate the disease that brought our civilization to the brink of destruction.
And we lived happily ever after….
Ha! Kidding.
Buckle up babes, this story is just getting started.
One
Skye
Year: 2068, 7 years earlier
Location: Somewhere in the Mojave Desert
Boom!
I flinch as a gun goes off over my head. Adrenaline surges through me and I have to fight the urge to climb out of the hole where I’m hiding and help. I’ve been tasked with keeping the children safe. I curl as tightly as I can, wrap my arms around the four terrified, clinging children and pray for the attack to be over.
I’m hidden beneath the floorboards of an old farmhouse we’d been using as a temporary shelter on our way to Sanctuary. I’ve been travelling with the same group of people for the past several months. There is a war happening above me, human versus zombie. The same fight we’ve been engaged in since the dawn of a virus that turns people into Primitives, terrifying zombie-like creatures. I long to sink my own blade into the enemy, to take my revenge for every loss I’ve been forced to endure, but I don’t have the skills necessary to fight like a warrior.
As I hear the screams above me, I wonder if anyone is skilled enough to fight them off. Zombies move fast and attack without thought. No one is immune.
Except me.
Six years ago, when I was living in the Las Vegas Sanctuary I discovered that I was in fact immune. I found out in the worst possible way, at sixteen years of age, with a zombie’s teeth buried deep in my throat. I’d closed my eyes, relaxed my muscles and waited for death. When I finally opened them again, the zombie was gone, my family was gone, and I was lying on a deserted road. I was terrified and confused, but I wasn’t a Primitive.
Now, I am one of several survivors travelling from Sanctuary to Sanctuary. Searching for my family, I’ve been travelling for six long years. Every time I reach a Sanctuary, search the city and come up empty-handed, I leave with the next group of travelers as they head out. Most people who leave Sanctuary are in the same boat as me, searching for lost family members.
We travel together, occasionally mixing up our group as people discover their families or give up the search. Right now, we are between Sanctuaries, in a dangerous no man's land, where hordes of Primitives can easily get to us. We thought we'd be safe in this town. There's no gas here, no people, no reason for the Primitives to be hanging around. Yet, here we are, under attack.
I cringe as I hear another high-pitched scream that cuts off abruptly, probably because the screamer’s throat was just ripped out. Another of our group has gone down. This horde is big, with far more zombies than I’ve ever seen in one place. At first, they were taking us out one at a time as we headed down to the creek for water or hunted for food. Then, as our defenses became weakened, they attacked en masse, swarming over us like a cloud of mosquitos. Now here I am, hidden away under the loose floorboards of an old abandoned house, with four children.
I squeeze my eyes shut tightly and wrap my arms around the little bodies clinging tightly to me, their frail arms gripping my clothes as we wait for the verdict above. It doesn't take long, maybe five more minutes, then an eerie silence falls. The battle is over.
I know without looking that we’ve lost. If the humans had won, we would hear them mourning the dead and calling out to each other. We emerge slowly from our hiding place, looking for any signs of life, but the humans are either dead or turned. I'm forced to comfort the little ones as they cry against me. What are we going to do now?
I try to organize the children, calm them down so they don’t attract any straggling zombies, but I'm battling my own grief. Not over the people we've lost here. I don't let myself get close to anyone anymore. No, I'm battling my grief because once more my path back to my sister and my grandparents has been destroyed. Without the protection of other people, I won't be able to travel. We’re sitting ducks out here.
My last thought is confirmed when I hear a growling sound from behind me. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I slowly turn my head to the side, looking out of the corner of my eye.
Just inside the broken door of the broken house is a Primitive lurching drunkenly inside and sniffing the air. I silently beg the children to keep quiet, to stand still. While some Primitive senses are sharpened, sight it is not one of them. If we don't move, the Primitives might not see us.
"Run!" Lisa screams, untangling her hands from my skirt and rushing to the opposite side of the room. The other children scatter while I remain frozen to the spot.
Stupid, I think to myself with numb dismay as I watch helplessly while the zombie takes down an eight-year-old girl. I look away, squeezing my eyes shit tight while my stomach lurches painfully. There's nothing I can do for her. Children don't survive the Turn, so this one will die a bloody heap in the corner. I want to feel something, anything, but I feel nothing. Only anger. My sorrow died many years ago, along with any sense of contentment I might have been able to find. Everything died when I realized we can't win this fight. There’s no way to find any semblance of peace in this world we’ve been forced to endure.