Page 64 of Hollow Child

The silence of the forest ended too quickly, and we returned to Emberwood. I was happy to come back to my house and see my family, but I would also be lying if I didn’t feel some anxiety about the town. I could smell it and hear it before we arrived, and the sound of the zombies rumbled to the north.

Neither of the wolves nor the mule nor my fellow hunters Nova and Eden seemed the slightest bit bothered by the small zombie horde that lingered around the northside fencing. They thought this seemed safe, that this seemed normal.

I returned to a quiet house in a noisy neighborhood, and a goat bleating in the side yard. Inside, Max was asleep on the couch, Stella and the baby were in their bed. In the loft, Boden was sleeping because he worked later tonight, and Ripley was asleep because she was a cat.

Serg was the only one awake, so he made us both a cup of tea, and we brought out two chairs onto the front porch so we could watch the sunset and talk.

“How were things while I was gone?” I asked.

“Lazlo brought the goat over this morning.” He motioned to the goat tied out to the post in our yard. “Things have been better since then. From what I gathered, Stella wasn’t making enough milk, and so they’re supplementing with goat’s milk. Fae has been quiet and more content now that she’s not so hungry.”

Before I had left on the hunting trip, I had thought that the baby was crying a lot, but I honestly had no idea how often babies were supposed to cry or poop or grow. They were a mystery that I never thought I’d have to understand, not until Rafaella practically fell in my lap.

“Has Ripley met the new goat?” I asked. She got along okay with Lazlo’s mule Vince the few times she’d met him, but a mule was much bigger and stronger than that fat little goat.

“The plan is to keep the two of them apart forever,” Serg said. “Boden and I cleaned out the shed, so we can put the goat in there at night, or to keep her away from Ripley.”

“I brought a deer femur home for Ripley.” I pointed to my bag, with the thick bone sticking out the top. “She hasn’t had any in a while.”

“How was the hunting trip?” Serg asked.

“Fine. We got as much meat as we could carry,” I said. “But then they brought back some organ meat to feed the zombies.”

“Well, you knew they fed the zombies. Where did you think they were getting the food?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t want to think about it. It feels so perverse to me, feeding the zombies. We don’t feed raccoons or rats or bears because we don’t want to have them around, so why the hell are we feeding zombies?”

“I agree that it sounds counterintuitive, but Emberwood has been here for nine years. They clearly know how to keep their community safe when nobody else has,” Serg reasoned.

“Or maybe they’ve just been really lucky,” I countered.

“Do you really think that?” he asked.

“Everyone who is still alive is really damn lucky. But eventually that luck always runs out, especially ifyou get careless and start thinking you’re safe,” I said. “The moment you think you don’t have to worry, and you forget to check for the monster under your bed, that’s when the real monsters show up.”

“I know that at the lakehouse, we had to be on guard because we were really the only defense, especially the three of us as the adults,” he said. “But here, with so many others to help, we can actually rest. Recuperating is not being careless – it’s being alive.”

“The ‘so many others’ thing is actually the danger, though,” I insisted. “They’re building new houses because new people are arriving every day. Which also means that every single day, the population has never been this large before. The zombies are drawn to our scent, and they’re feeding them, so the local horde has to be constantly growing, too.

“Maybe the fence holds a few hundred zombies, or even a few thousand,” I went on. “But what about hundreds of thousands? Or a million zombies?”

“There are nowhere near a million zombies outside,” Serg argued.

“Not today, no, but there could be. Someday,” I persisted. “They’re attracted to humans, and there are so many of us here. How far can a hungry zombie travel to find the largest bastion for humans in the country?”

“I don’t know,” Serg admitted. “But I do know that there isn’t anything close to that here now. Why are you suddenly so worried about this?”

“Nova told me about this thing called Emberwood Fest,” I said. “People from all over come to celebrate, and Nova said that a lot of folks who come to the fest end up moving here. So there’s going to be a big population boom, just before winter, before the zombies hibernate through the cold.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about the fest,” Serg said. “Wehave to make more food at the cafeteria.”

I looked at him, appalled. “And this doesn’t bother you?”

“They’ve been doing it for years, and it’s been fine.” He shrugged. “Besides that, what can we even do about it? Stella and the baby won’t be ready to leave until spring. What would we have done if we were at the lakehouse now? We didn’t have a goat to supplement the milk. How would we ever ensure that Fae doesn’t starve to death if we’re alone and Stella has no milk?”

“I’m not saying we should leave. At least not now,” I said. “But I think we should be prepared to leave on a moment’s notice, if need be. It’s not as safe here as it seems.”

“It’s not safeanywhere,” Serg reminded me with a sigh.” You know that better than anyone, Remy.”

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