The Last City by H. J. Nelson

Author:H. J. Nelson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wattpad WEBTOON Book Group

Seventeen — Sam

A mist hung over the gaping fences and weary houses of the abandoned neighborhood, lit with a soft pre-dawn light. It felt like anything might emerge from the mist—castles or spaceships or enchanted kingdoms—not that I would have ever admitted that to M. I’d woken her before dawn and we walked across the quiet city now, the fog holding the world in silence. Vines and weeds had swallowed some of the houses whole. In some ways, Boise had become a lost city all on its own.

“All clear?” M called softly. I nodded, leading us across the dew-heavy grass. A week had passed since we’d left behind the ruins of the clan. Even though M still tried to hold me at a distance, we were starting to get to know each other. Night after night, she screamed in her dreams, and night after night I woke her, silently holding her until she turned over and went back to sleep. In the morning, we both pretended it had never happened.

The last few nights I’d caught a few new words— green water and prisoners—but I didn’t dare broach the subject with her in the morning. It felt too much like eavesdropping on something private, and I didn’t want to lose the way she huddled into my body in the darkest part of the night. Whatever demons haunted M, I understood. I had enough of my own.

“We aren’t far from the building where the kayaks are stored,” I said as we passed a two-story house with all the windows blacked out, an ugly red X spray-painted across the door. Almost all of the doors in this neighborhood were marked with a red X: the sign of the infected. This was one of the neighborhoods that had been hit first and hardest. Others tended to avoid neighborhoods like this—a fact I’d used to ensure we crossed the city undetected.

It made for a meandering path, and M constantly complained it was taking too long, but I didn’t care. It was worth the delay to circumnavigate the other clans’ territories and not run into others. “We should find them today.”

“You said that yesterday.”

I shrugged—I did that a lot with M. “The closer we get to downtown and the river, the more men there will be. We need to be careful.”

She stared up at the sky and sighed, as if wishing for patience, but didn’t protest. A cool wind blew, shaking the trees, a few leaves drifting down around us. The sun rose higher as we walked, burning away the mist. After a few hours, I was forced to cross out of the neighborhoods and onto what had once been a crowded four-lane road. I vividly remembered the stretch—there was an old bowling alley my mom had taken me to for a birthday party. Today a cold wind whistled down the road instead of traffic. A deceptive calm hung over the remains of business so overgrown with weeds and ivy that I could no longer read their signs.

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