Apocalypse: After Reanimation, I Became The Queen-Chapter 84: _ HOW?

It’s funny how Lucas is rambling on about his talking zombie when we’ve got some mutant zombie lurking somewhere in the woods with a horde.

"Yeah," I tell him, keeping my voice soft and careful not to rouse the others. "I believe you."

Lucas blinks at me like he didn’t expect that.

I nod toward the rest of the group. "Now go on, kid. Get some sleep. Join the others."

He stares at me a second longer, like he doesn’t quite trust the sudden softness in my tone. Then he nods. "Okay."

He curls up near the others, tucking himself tight like a kitten trying not to take up too much space. He doesn’t look back.

I remain seated by the cave entrance, knife still clutched in my hand, the air around me damp and musty with rock sweat and old ash. Something drips in the distance. Might be water. Might not. The cave has that sour, damp smell of mustiness and a bit of feet.

I shift to get more comfortable, bones creaking like old floorboards. My eyes flick to the quiet group behind me, chest tightening when I imagine my daughter is asleep, little limbs splayed out like she owns the place back at home.

I wish she’s here with me. I wish I took Maggie on every mission, but the mission I go to is a literal death sentence. I can’t endanger my child. What I need to do instead, is to find food soon and return home victorious.

It hits me then, out of nowhere – the sharp punch of missing my wife.

Not the apocalypse version of missing her, not the polite nod of "she was a good woman" before moving on. No, this is the raw, stupid kind of missing that curls into your lungs and gnaws at your ribs like a starving rat.

I close my eyes and I’m back there. She’s smiling. Her hair is a mess. She’s got flour on her nose, trying to make pancakes and burning every single one.

"I’m not a cook, Garth," she used to say, holding up the sad blackened flap like it was a crime scene photo. "I’m a dreamer."

Yeah, well, that dreamer kept us going. When the world went to hell, she held me together. Until her body just... gave up. Six months ago, she laid down and never got up again.

She didn’t die in the hands of zombies. No drama. It was just her heart that was tired of fighting. One would have thought you could only die by a bite or bullets now.

No.

You can still fall sick and lose your life.

She left me with a kid, a half-broken machete, and way too many feelings. I wipe a hand across my eyes. It comes back wet.

Damn it. A leader doesn’t cry but that’s all I seem to do whenever memories of her come to haunt me.

I sniff, glance behind to make sure no one’s watching me have a breakdown like an overworked sitcom dad, and mutter under my breath, "I’m trying, Em. I swear I’m trying."

The words taste bitter. I’m not trying hard enough.

My kid deserves clean water. Breakfast. A damn bed. Instead, she’s curled up every day on that wooden floor back at the baselike a feral animal. I can’t even guarantee I’ll bring home food.

I feel like a loser.

A big, knife-wielding, apocalypse-grade loser who can’t even be the hero in his own daughter’s story.

Eventually, exhaustion settles in. I try to fight it, but the cave lulls me like a cradle with dripping water for lullabies. My head tips back against the stone wall. My eyes shut. Just for a second...

I drift off.

******

Something rustles.

It’s a dry crunch. Like brittle leaves or someone shifting their weight a little too quietly.

My eyes snap open.

Cold air kisses my cheeks. The kind of cold that tells you something’s wrong.

Fuck! I slept off!

I jolt upright and scan the cave. The morning is dim, a grainy haze of blue light slipping through the cracks above. My limbs are stiff from the floor. My back feels like I’ve been hit with a bat made of sleep deprivation.

"Trish," I whisper.

She stirs. Rubs at her face. "Wha...?"

Then her eyes interlock, and she sits up fast.

She sees it too.

"Where the hell are our weapons?" she asks, wrinkled lines appearing on her forehead.

My stomach drops.

I spin around. My machete is gone. Trish’s crossbow is gone. Dom’s bat with the nails duct-taped into it like some medieval DIY project is also gone.

Dom is still asleep, snoring like a grizzly bear drowning in mud.

"Dom!" Trish kicks his foot hard. "Wake the hell up!"

Dom snorts, throws his hands around, and sits up with his hair in every direction. "Huh? What?"

"Our weapons," I growl. "Where are they?"

His eyes widen as he does a quick mental inventory and finds his bat missing. "Son of a—!"

And then it hits me like a train crashing through a gas station.

Lucas.

"Where’s the kid?" I ask.

Trish scans the cave, her face going pale. "He was right there. I saw him. He was curled up like a damn armadillo. He—he’s gone."

Gone? Did those bastards take him?

The silence that follows is ugly.

We all glance around like he might just be hiding behind a rock or peeing in a corner. But we all know.

The cannibals are gone. And they took the boy.

Dom curses loudly and kicks a rock. "Why would they take him?"

We’re already grabbing bags, checking what else is missing. Rations? Some, but not all. Blankets? Still here. They only took the weapons... and the kid.

Trish turns to me. Her face is grim, but her voice shakes a little. "You don’t think they took him to... you know..."

"To eat him?" Dom blurts out, eyes bugging.

Trish nods.

The thought punches through my chest like a sledgehammer. My gut twists. I shake my head hard, refusing it. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

But the look on Trish’s face stops me cold. Not her words but her eyes.

Chapter 76

Trish is not just throwing out an idea. She’s putting something together.

I swallow. "No. No, that’s not it. They wouldn’t..."

And then the realization crashes in like a rogue wave. One of them must’ve heard my conversation with Lucas.

The stash. They took the kid because they want the stash.

I nearly shout. "Shit!"

Dom stares. "What?"

"One of the cannibals must’ve heard me and Lucas talking last night. About the supply spot. The rendezvous where his group kept their supply and which was supposed to be a meeting point for when they ever get separated. They took him to lead them to it."

Trish lets out a furious breath. "Of course. That crazy leader guy... what’s his name? Wormy little face, always chewing something."

"Bran?" Dom offers.

"Yeah, Bran. I remember he kept glancing over here while you two were talking."

I curse again. The noise echoes off the cave walls like an accusation.

I should’ve known better. Should’ve waited until morning. Whispered quieter. Tied Lucas to a boulder, maybe.

Trish runs both hands through her mess of hair, pacing. "Okay, okay, think. They took our weapons. They took the kid. That means they’re heading to the stash right now."

"Three miles," I mutter. "That’s all. If they left before dawn, they’ve got a head start. The fucking kicker is we don’t even know where the stash is except for the little detail Lucas told me and that it’s in the city."

Dom groans. "And we’ve got no weapons."

"Correction," Trish says, patting her boot and pulling out a rusty shiv the size of a butter knife. "We’ve got one weapon. And it’s as deadly as a strong suggestion."

"Great," I say, rubbing my temples. "We’re going to save a kid with a potato peeler."

Trish looks at me with a tight jaw. "What do we do?"

I think of Lucas’s wide eyes. The way he picked at his sleeves like unraveling them would hold him together. He’s just a kid. A scrawny, scared kid who didn’t ask for any of this.

I exhale, steadying the fire in my chest. "We go after them."

"With what?" Dom exclaims. "We’re down weapons, outnumbered, and we don’t even know what route they took!"

"We know the end location," I snap. "That’s enough."

Trish nods. "If we move fast, we might catch up before they get there."

"And if we don’t?" Dom asks.

My jaw clenches.

"If we don’t," I say, "then we find new weapons along the way. Rocks. Sticks. I’ll fight with my damn fists if I have to."

Trish claps a hand on my shoulder. "That’s the spirit."

Dom mumbles, "Or the beginning of a very short funeral."

I glance toward the mouth of the cave. The morning sun is starting to rise, illuminating shadows on it and painting the world in bruised gold.