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  The raft wobbled.

  The wind kicked up.

  Nothing could’ve prepared them for what happened next.

  In but a moment, the boat fishtailed and launched into an unstoppable spin.

  The vessel flipped.

  Someone screamed.

  Rose thought she heard Lyra cry her name.

  Something hit her head and caused stars to explode over her vision.

  As Rose struggled for life, she realized there was nothing she could do.

  Game over, she thought, trembling.

  She blacked out a moment later.

  Chapter 7

  The gentle lap of water against her feet pulled her from sleep.

  In a world without precedence—where darkness clouded her vision and the jagged cuts along her hands throbbed without mercy—Rose awoke upon the shore of a land she didn’t know. Head throbbing, any slight movement threatening to make her hurl, she set her sights on the water no more than a few inches away and tried to make sense of it all.

  What had happened?

  How were they here?

  We were on the boat, she thought as her memory began to return, flashing before her eyes like stars exploding in space. And then the storm. It—

  The sensation of something prodding one of her toes drew her attention to her legs. Finding that it was nothing more than a hermit crab was more than she could’ve hoped for.

  It could’ve been—

  A zombie.

  She swallowed, her parched throat screaming with the effort.

  Knowing she couldn’t stay with the risk of the undead, she nudged an elbow under her ribcage and pushed herself up, allowing her head to acclimate to the vertigo before easing into an upright position.

  Take it easy, Rose. You took a hard blow to the head.

  She blinked.

  “Lyra?” she asked.

  She shivered as the fading gusts from Mirabelle pelted her.

  How long had she been out?

  Oh God. Please… no.

  If they were here and it’d already been a few days, wouldn’t they—

  She screamed before she could think, then clamped a hand over her mouth.

  Could they have heard her?

  Unable to control her tears, she trembled and bowed her head.

  They couldn’t be dead. Not now—not after everything they’d been through, and especially not Lyra.

  Lyra—

  “Goddammit,” she said, slamming her fist into the sand. “God-fucking-damn—”

  The hermit crab’s skittering retreat distracted her from her grief.

  She blinked.

  The creature ambled about, rotated a full one hundred and eighty degrees, then cocked its head.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  The thing’s antennae twitched before it turned and continued on.

  Taking a deep breath, Rose pushed her hands out alongside her, then rose unsteadily to her feet.

  The rapid twist the world took nearly sent her to her knees.

  She paused to keep the episode from escalating.

  Did I get a concussion?

  She’d never experienced vertigo after hitting her head. The only thing she could remember was being horribly nauseated. But this...

  She lifted her head.

  Through the dark spots before her vision, she could just barely make out a jagged quagmire of rocky slopes.

  Would she be able to continue in this condition?

  You have to, she thought. You’re too open. Too exposed.

  Here, anything could get her. The undead were only one of her concerns. Animals, the weather, disease… people.

  She surveyed the shoreline as well as she could in the hope that she might find Lyra or E.J., but to no avail.

  She found the lighthouse just beyond the slope.

  Obscured by the dreary weather and her distance from it, she hadn’t noticed its lumbering silhouette until she was halfway up the hill.

  Convinced wholeheartedly that post-traumatic stress was causing her to hallucinate, she paused to stare at the structure. At first it seemed to be a beacon of hope, but then, soon after, an epiphany of destruction.

  There appeared too fantastic a reason for such a place such to exist, much less for it to offer possible shelter in the face of such horrible tragedy. For that, she merely stood there—staring, shivering in the wind whose gale was beginning once again.

  The spots over her vision had lessened but the pain in her skull had not, and her limbs—throbbing likely from whatever exertion she’d mustered to make it out of the sea—struggled to maintain her weight. To say she’d lost her marbles could’ve been an understatement. Surely the lighthouse couldn’t exist.

  The wisping grass across her torn jeans alerted her to the fact that she was still in danger. Though Mirabelle’s oppressing nature had appeared to come in bursts, Rose knew better than to believe that the storm was over. Any child of the Katrina era would know that.

  What could it hurt? she thought.

  Angling her feet far enough to where she could gain stability, Rose hauled herself up the hill.

  The wind at her back was outlandish—whips to the poor man’s cause.

  It seemed to want to drag her down.

  Down.

  Down into the ashy remnants of nothing—where above the world bore upon her shoulders, and below, hands rose to claim her.

  There appeared no greater feat than climbing this slope and reaching that lighthouse.

  Even Dante could not have endured this Hell.

  Stumbling carelessly over her own feet Rose fell to her hands and knees and retched—one long, solid spell that resulted in little more than bile.

  She raised her head.

  She lifted her eyes.

  She centered her focus on the lighthouse.

  How it mocked her with its welcoming security.

  Damn you, she thought. Goddamn you.

  “You won’t beat me,” she said as she forced herself to her feet, battling the sway of vertigo. “I’m better than you. Stronger. I survived.”

  The word, so cold upon her pale lips, sounded too surreal to be true.

  The warmth that spilled down her face, while unexpected, was the driving force that gave all humans the will to go on.

  Without thought, and with little cause beyond the most primal need to survive, Rose continued to climb.

  She found the lighthouse was locked upon her arrival.

  From the scattered cluster of rocks surrounding what used to be a monument, she pulled a stone and went to work slamming it down on the rusting padlock.

  At first, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to break in, such was its strength and determination to live on. It was only when one side of the lock splintered, then snapped that she realized she’d get in.

  Head spinning, arm numb, she slammed the stone onto the padlock with the last of her strength and cried out as it broke completely.

  Left only to free the rung from its place, Rose reached forward, tossed the aging piece of metal aside, then pushed the door open.

  Dusty air rushed at her.

  It didn’t take much to realize that no one had been here for a very, very long time.

  Stepping into the structure, she extended an arm and pressed her hand against the wall to keep from losing her balance.

  Come on, she thought, fighting the black spots that assaulted her vision.

  She couldn’t pass out—not now, and especially not with the door open.

  She struggled to maintain her senses as fresh air came from one end and stagnant from the other. She gasped as dust inflated her lungs, and coughed to expel it. The mere effort sent her head spinning, to the point where she almost passed out, but somehow she persevered.

  Knowing that she couldn’t leave herself so exposed, she turned, and with the last strength she could muster, pushed the door back into place.

  The wooden plank—which would’ve fit perfectly in any medieval situation—served it
s purpose.

  Secured, she stumbled into the wall and navigated herself to the floor.

  The moment her head fell atop her arm, she passed out.

  She woke to darkness.

  The claustrophobia was suffocating.

  Panicked that she could not see the space in front of her, she lashed out with an arm that had nearly gone numb and grimaced as her hand struck an undeniable stone wall. Its texture, combined with the weight of her situation, was enough to bring back the horrifying memories of the previous day.

  The storm, the accident, her head hitting the water, the darkness that consumed her and the eyes she had so easily thought were the Devil’s—

  Blinking pointlessly, Rose swallowed a lump of phlegm and waited for rationality to take hold.

  Her throbbing consciousness offered little input.

  The whisper of the outside world came in the telltale signs of the wind whose outbursts were punctuated only by claps of thunder and the occasional gale from the ocean. The sound—so overwhelming at times that Rose had trouble imagining how she’d slept—shook the structure, and at points caused her to fear for her safety.

  But you’re all right, she thought. Safe. Inside.

  When a brief tilt of her head dispelled the fear that her vertigo would return, she reached out until her hand touched hard stone again.

  With a much care as she could, she hauled herself to her feet.

  Screaming muscles spoke of unseen battles.

  She questioned how she was alive.

  With a shake of the head, Rose allowed her body a moment to acclimate before starting forward. Despite the knowledge that she’d secured the door and that this place had long been abandoned, she couldn’t help but imagine that something was waiting in the darkness—stumbling forward, its throat dried out, its voice nothing more than a wisp.

  She’d not hear it with the gale picking up outside, nor would she see it while she was blind as a mole. Rather, it would simply step forward, reach out with a hand only God could see, and consume her without mercy.

  She paused.

  She breathed.

  She shook her head.

  Get a hold of yourself.

  It had to be her head. It couldn’t be anything else. She was never this illogical.

  Am I?

  Are you? You’re a bloody wanker!

  “Lyra?” Rose asked.

  A clap of thunder—amplified to the point where it felt as though the entire structure was shaking—threatened to send her to her knees.

  Her head spun.

  Her gut churned.

  Vertigo threatened to take hold.

  But somehow, despite all that was set against her, she managed to hold on.

  The incessant ringing that had developed in her ears quickly became a blessing. With the sounds of the outside world gone, her advance was fruitful—guided solely by intuition, rather than escalating fear. For this reason, she was able to proceed.

  The darkness was her only enemy.

  It appeared to go on forever.

  How long had she been walking?

  Would the wall ever end?

  No, she thought, her brief spell of confidence shattering in but an instant. It won’t. It can’t.

  It took little to realize what such an obstacle would bring.

  Without the wall—without anything to guide her into the bowels of the structure—

  Just as her panic began to take hold, her hand faltered and fell upon a different texture.

  Metal.

  Taking hold of the railing, Rose braced herself for what was to come.

  She took the first stair with ease.

  The second, then third proved difficult only due to visibility.

  Come on, she thought. You can do this.

  The vertigo threatened to return. Sensory overload combined with exertion caused her head to flare with agony.

  Something dripped down her neck.

  Blood?

  She fought the urge to reach back and check.

  If she stopped now—if she hesitated for but a moment—there was a chance she would not make it up these stairs.

  If she fell, she’d die. She didn’t need a bachelor’s in medicine to know that.

  With newfound strength, she tightened her hold on the railing and bulldozed her way through the pain.

  When she touched down on flat ground, she made no hesitation.

  As soon as she was at the door, she twisted the doorknob and pushed it open.

  A burst of lightning revealed through a window that rested just above a twin-sized bed offered but a glimpse of the one thing she needed most.

  Reaching back, Rose pushed the door into place, then fumbled for the lock.

  At that moment, she couldn’t care less about whether the bed was covered in dust.

  The moment she collapsed atop it, she passed out again.

  The last thing she heard was the rain striking the window overhead.

  She woke to birdsong the following day.

  Is this a dream? she thought.

  As her vision cleared, giving way to a sheen of dust and a domed ceiling, she briefly wondered how she’d managed to get here.

  Her joints ached, her limbs screamed, her head throbbed and the scrapes on one palm burned.

  She rolled over just in time to avoid throwing up.

  Fuck, she thought.

  For having slept, she sure didn’t feel any better.

  First things first.

  Get out of bed, figure out what to do. She couldn’t stay here—not without food.

  The scream was what pulled her from her daze.

  Mary? she thought.

  Had it all been a dream?

  She blinked to clear her vision and cast her gaze about the room.

  Stone walls, stone floor—

  No.

  Such beautiful salvation had not been found. She was still here—in Hell, the middle of fucking nowhere, with the living dead walking her world, and her best friend—

  “Lyra.”

  Throwing herself upright, she hauled herself to her knees and braced her hands on the windowsill.

  The porthole offered no clues as to who had screamed.

  Was I imagining it?

  She’d taken a blow to her head. Anything was possible. Disorientation, delusion, hallucination—

  A second scream followed by a gunshot broke the spell of thought.

  From the distant edge of the sloped land appeared a bedraggled woman and a man whose clothes bore the signs of struggle.

  “You’ve gotta stop screaming!” Rose heard the man say as she pried the window open.

  “What’re we going to do?” the woman asked. “You’re the one who led us away from the fucking lighthouse!”

  “We couldn’t get in!”

  “The lock was broken!”

  They were here, Rose thought. At the door—

  Pounding, in the moments just before she’d woken, desperate in their attempt to break through a door whose refusal came in the form of a twenty-plus-pound plank: she’d heard the gunshot before consciousness had begun to take hold, and imagined that was what had drawn the undead. But now that another shot had been fired—

  The woman—who in the moments following the man’s dismissal had begun to survey the area—lifted her head to the lighthouse and froze the moment her eyes fell on Rose’s window.

  “Hey!” she screamed. “Hey!”

  “What’re you screaming for?” the man cried.

  “There’s someone up there! Look! Someone—”

  The first corpse broke from the nearby trees.

  The man turned and fired.

  Three more appeared.

  Though mangled, mutilated and rotten, they continued without regard for their condition.

  The man snared his hand around the woman’s wrist and began to pull her away.

  She screamed, her eyes desperate for help.

  Runners darted into view.

  Rose turned and sunk do
wn just as the screams began.

  There was nothing she could do.

  She cried.

  It was impossible to ignore the site of the slaughter as she emerged from the lighthouse and began to scan her surroundings. Framed at the bottom of the hill, before the ocean and its beautiful devastation, the man and the woman who’d cried desperately for her help lay motionless—eaten to the bone in places and gutted like slaughterhouse carcasses in others.

  The undead—who’d undoubtedly come in droves, based on the carnage alone—had left little for any remaining wildlife in the area. Their internal organs, exposed to the world through ripped flesh and broken bone, resembled soup that had been spoiled after being left out for too long.

  God, she thought, lifting her hand to cover her nose.

  She suppressed the urge to vomit as she began to make her way down the hill, careful to avoid the large clusters of rock and driftwood that blanketed the terrain. The wind swept her hair; the salt burned her skin. Always she watched the woods—knowing without a doubt that the dead could return at any moment—and always she prepared to run. She wouldn’t have even dreamed of venturing this close if she hadn’t believed it would be worth it.

  The gun.

  It’d likely remained on his person—used once in the heat of the moment and then hopelessly lost after the initial attack. Though she’d tried to block out as much as she could, she’d heard enough to know that he probably still had bullets.

  Hopefully.

  She reached the shore and pulled a deep breath through her mouth, fighting to remain cognizant of her surroundings through the smell of blood and death.

  They were all but unrecognizable upon approach.

  Their human features—once perfectly marked upon their faces—had been ripped away.

  She was about to approach when she saw the dead man’s fingers twitch.

  She froze.

  He posed no threat to her in his condition, given that his lower half had been completely removed, but she still didn’t want to take any chances.

  After scanning the ground around her, she crouched, lifted a piece of driftwood at her feet, then brought it down over her head.

  His skull cracked.

  His fingers twitched, then stilled.

  Though his companion’s skull had been cracked and excavated, Rose repeated the process on her before dropping the driftwood and beginning her search.