Chapter 1 – Now

I stomp my snowshoes into the white slush, crunching as I climb up the mountainside. The blustery wind bites at my face, my balaclava not quite blocking it. Birds chirp and chitter to each other in the evergjesreens above me, the same song they sang before the world ended. The air smells of pine, a scent I stopped liking hundreds of feet ago. Against my better instincts, I look down. My harness won’t save me from the ragged rocks on the slope just a few feet below. My duffel bag, overstuffed with climbing essentials, tugs on my shoulder straps, threatening to pull me down with it. If I fall, I won’t survive.

But I’m not afraid. I’m gonna find that damn lab. Follow Jack to his final resting place. Find out if he still loved me in the end, even after he left me. If not that, at least find out what he was really up to at the end of his life. And what’s waiting for me on the ground, anyway? A kangaroo trial for sedition, then a life sentence in an “reclamation camp.” Death would be less painful.

I shake my head. I can’t get distracted by my past now. Mount Rainier is tricky enough when I’m in a good mood.

The trail reaches a broad plateau, stretching for at least fifty feet. My stomach grumbles. This should be a good spot to hunt, right?

I unstrap my duffel bag from my back and place it on the ground. While I have the opportunity, I take inventory. My toolbox, nicked off a soldier’s corpse, has plenty of icepicks, a length of rope, and a grappling hook. My shotgun, General Snell’s abortive wedding gift, sits in its lockbox. My folded tent, the one thing I owned myself, fits into a corner of my bag. It always amazed me how you could fold even a small, primitive form of housing on your back and carry it with you. How astonished I was when I went camping in Yellowstone and saw Jack pitch the tent. Claire mocked my shocked face for the whole week.

I snap out of my memory. It’s a happier one, but still useless to me. I have enough firewood for a couple days. My box of food is getting very low – about six pieces of squirrel jerky left. Yeah, it’s time to hunt.

I unhinge my lockbox, load my gun, and strap it to my shoulder. Then, I let myself sink into the snow a little. My coat is white enough to camouflage me, and it keeps out the wet cold, too.

A few moments later, a small doe tiptoes a few meters away. I smirk. Superstition has it that the mountain is cursed, so most people avoid it. The animals don’t know well enough to fear me.

With a finger on the trigger, I raise my gun, making a soft tapping sound. But when I’m about to press it, the deer spooks and runs off.

I remove my finger and place my gun on the ground. Sure, it’s possible it the deer heard that. But it shouldn’t have recognized the sound, unless…

I shiver. I’m not the only one here. It could be Commission soldiers, a new patrol who got unlucky with their assignment. Or bandits, from the rogue gangs that have rejected the new government, camping to hide from our dictator’s eyes. Maybe desperation drove them to ignore the alleged curse. Makes some sense. It has been three years since the horrible battle that killed the zombies and Jack’s stupid Last Stand. But it’s just my luck they get over it during my climb. I’ll have to be more careful from here on out. No matter who they are, they could do unspeakable things to a lone woman.

A rustling noise brings me back to reality. A rabbit hops in front of me, a little further away. It’s less meat, and there’s every chance I’ll shoot too hard and turn it to mist. But I’m pretty desperate.

I keep very quiet as I raise my gun and pull the trigger. Even with a silencer, the shot deafens me as the pellet flies into the rabbit. It slumps to the ground.

I return my gun to its box and walk over to my kill with a buck knife from my toolkit. I grab the rabbit and skin it with my buck knife. I cringe when I make the first incision, revealing the pink flesh. I’ve done worse things than sustenance hunting. But taking a life, even an animal’s, will never stop disgusting me. As I remove the pellet and move on to deboning, I can imagine Snell telling me domination is the only way to survive, that I’d be dead if I hadn’t abandoned my principles.

Somehow, I finish skinning, deboning, and cleaning the rabbit. I place a couple pieces of firewood in a crisscross arrangement in the snow, then light it with matches from my toolbox. A small fire flickers and spits. I add a couple pieces of tinder to it, and the fire bursts up. Now it’s ready, I skewer a couple pieces of rabbit meat on a stick and hold them over the fire. They take a few minutes to turn brown and look something like food.

I remove my first skewer from the flame and take a bite. It’s gamey and stringy. I used to be so picky about my food, but now rabbit skewers are a delicacy.

I scarf down about a quarter of the rabbit meat, then I’m full. I pack the rest into a game box. That should keep it fresh until I’m ready to smoke it.

I pack everything back into my duffel bag and strap it to my back. The sun is getting a little low, but I don’t want to camp here. It’s far too exposed, especially since people are around here somewhere.

I climb along the plateau. It’s turning back into a slope. I’m breathing a little harder from the increased effort.

My feet slip a little. I grab onto a branch to keep my balance. Guess my snowshoes aren’t cutting it. I broaden my stance to make climbing easier.

A few feet ahead, the slope turns icy. It’s too slippery, even with my snowshoes – I’ll need to break it up.

I slam my icepick into the ice on the slope. I expect it to break on contact. But the pick sinks in instead. Why?

A couple seconds later, as I retract my icepick, I get my answer. White ice shears away to reveal red blood. A sliver of frozen flesh catches on the icepick’s tip.

I scramble up the mountainside, running across the ice. I’m breaking my own safety rules. There’s every chance I’ll slip and fall. But I won’t spend more time here than I must.

I’ve seen plenty of corpses, made far too many myself. But it never gets much easier. I don’t care if it’s clean or a zombie. Either way, it was once a human being. A person who should be cooking dinner, reading a book, kissing their children goodnight. Not frozen into the ground.

The blood on my icepick reminds me of all the sacrifices we made in the war. Of how much blood was spilled – including my own. Of how much I’ve lost and can never get back. Sure, the zombies are all gone now. But any hope for a free society is gone with them.

That’s enough climbing for today. There isn’t too much daylight left anyway. I clamber onto a rocky ridge. It’s still more exposed than I’d like, but it should be an acceptable place to camp. I pitch my tent.

I shake my head, remembering when I found my studio apartment on Aurora Avenue to be poor housing. Now my old half-functional space heater would be a fantastic luxury.

As I settle into my sleeping bag, I pull out my tiny, frayed photo from a coat pocket. It’s the very last one I have of my family. Jack smirks from behind his scruffy beard, making the scar on his cheek stretch. Claire’s grin presses dimples into her little cheeks. My pale face is young and innocent, free of scars, my dark hair is long and luxurious, and I’m smiling, too. I brush the photo with my fingers. For a second, I can imagine my husband and daughter are alive again. For a second, I can feel their warmth on my body, like we were all cuddling on the couch under one blanket. For a second, I’m not a fugitive from the Commission, not a pariah from society, not a friendless widow. I’m just Anne Latham, a woman with a family and a normal life. But cold reality creeps back in soon enough.

I drift to uneasy sleep.