Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,117
our fingers together, squeezing just so.
My heart does a little skitter-jump, and I can’t help it, but here it is anyway, this swelling-to-burst feeling in my chest, like a bubble of doomed happiness.
“What a way for the world to end, huh?” I ask. “Ridiculous old world.”
A flock of butterflies launches itself into a swirling victory lap in my stomach.
“You too,” I say. “Also I like butterflies. All the butterflies. Heaps of them, a flutter-by, or whatever they’re called.”
“A kaleidoscope,” Hunter says, smiling at me shyly. “A kaleidoscope of butterflies.”
Yep. Exactly.
Only losers fall in love during the zombie apocalypse.
* * *
? ? ?
After a while, the others drift over to where we sit, in our little theater row. First Imani and Siggy, who adds her seat next to Imani. Then Blair, pulling up a seat next to Siggy, then Annie and Simon next to Hunter.
And then there were seven.
Annie leans forward, gently depositing her defibrillator case on the floor in front of her.
The hard plastic shell is Red Cross red, blaring out help that we won’t receive.
Behind us, the doors knock incessantly. The zombies, trying to get in.
“How long do you think the doors will hold?” Simon asks.
“Pretty long?” Hunter guesses. “It helps that they open outward.”
“They’re still weak at the middle, though,” Imani says. “I didn’t see any way to strengthen them.”
“I wonder if anyone else made it out?” Hunter asks. “Maybe they did, and they’re telling the army to try a different route right now.”
It’s a hope. But it doesn’t seem likely, given everything we’ve seen.
“Maybe there are little groups of survivors,” Imani says. “Hunkered down in places like the preppers. Waiting to be saved.”
It’s a nice thought, if only the end of the world wasn’t at hand.
Zombies, rushing into the army, overrunning and attacking them, keeping going past the barricades, into Senoybia.
We stare down at the horde of zombies, easily over five hundred of them, and only some of whom have seen us and are flailing claw-handed arms impotently at the air.
“I guess we’re just gonna sit here,” Siggy says. “When it all hits the fan.”
The army or SWAT team, unleashing the zombies into the unsuspecting world.
It doesn’t feel good. Just waiting for the inevitable. As if that’s our only choice.
“Well, I don’t even have a weapon anymore,” Annie says, but her voice is light, she’s making a joke. “If I had found that new defibrillator, I’d give them what for.” The teasing tone falls out of her voice. “Like Linus would have said.”
The defibrillator.
“Damn right you would,” Simon says. A low, exhausted laugh rumbles out of his chest. “That was just about the best thing I’ve ever seen, Annie.”
“It was pretty badass,” Annie agrees.
At the front of the ballroom, the giant screen hanging above the stage glows a digital blue. Under it are preamps and speaker stacks, scattered chairs. Above it are the glowing lights of a theatrical light rig, suspended on a long pole at the front of the stage.
The defibrillator.
If only there was a way to zap them all at once.
It takes me a minute to realize someone is saying my name.
“June?” Hunter’s looking at me with a question in his eyes. “What is it?”
I give my head a little shake.
“Nothing. It’s just a brain fart.” I smile at the others. “It was nothing.”
“Bullshit,” Imani says, leaning into my face, her eyes searching.
I let go of Hunter’s hand and work my fingers into my hair.