Page 100 of Doomsdate

After ten minutes, the antigen tests come back negative for all four of us, and we exchange nervous smiles. You can logically ascertain you’re not infected with the zombie virus, but it still feels good for a little science kit to tell you so. Every time my stomach gurgles, I’m plunged into terror.

The first gate lifts, and Maisie’s rig is waved through a heavily electrified perimeter. I guess Gemma’s figured out the electricity thing, too. Here, we’re ordered from the car and patted down while our weapons and supplies are inventoried. Cadets usher us into a small administrative office off the parking lot, where a sour-faced man tiredly takes our pictures, then asks us a series of questions in a tone so bored, it’s like his apocalypse hasn’t started yet and it’s just a normal Monday.

“Should you decease and reanimate, do you consent to submitting your corpse to scientific and medical research, including but not limited to neural imaging, pain testing, amputation, starvation, IQ tests—”

“You’re giving zombies IQ tests?” I break in, incredulous. “And—amputating limbs?”

His yellowed eyes roll up to face mine, unamused, and he continues without answering. “—vaccination, behavioral modification training, sexual observation—”

“The zombies are doing it?” Ellie’s eyebrows nearly launch off her forehead.

“No, but if they do, I want to watch,” a woman’s wry voice cuts in from behind us. A voice so familiar, so beloved, I wrench out of my seat before I can turn fully around and stumble toward her, arms outstretched to envelop her in a backbreaking hug.

Gemma, my little sister. My insanely brilliant, ridiculous, obnoxious, amazing little sister.

She runs to meet me, and for a second, I’m not sure who’s going to pick up and spin whom here. Because I’m a good seven inches taller, I win.

Barely.

“You’re okay,” she laughs into my shoulder, tears streaking down her cheeks. “I was so scared, but you’re actually okay!”

“I’m okay,” I confirm, squeezing her so tight she yelps a little, then laughs some more. “And thank god, so are you.”

She pulls away, wiping her eyes and grinning until suddenly, her brow bolts together and lightning strikes in her eyes. “Dammit, Everett! When you didn’t show up at the helipad, we thought—”

“We were kidnapped!” I cut in before she can really lay into me. “So dangerous. Very not-our-fault. But we escaped! So. Don’t be mad?” I smile-wince down at her.

“Kidnapped? Are you kidding me?!”

Gemma may be four years younger, but she can be very scary.

“Nope! I swear it. A weird gym cult tried to recruit Maisie and kill me. It was the gym down Francois Street, a block north of you?”

Recognition flashes across her face. “Coach Connor’s gym?”

“You know him?”

“Tried a free session there,” Gemma says, then blows out a breath. “Let’s just say there were warning signs.” She grabs me in another big hug. “I’m just glad you’re okay. And that you’re here.”

Gemma knows the way I was living my life the last three years, i.e., not living it at all. The fact that I’m standing here before her, a week into this apocalypse and still alive, having actually done something about it instead of staying home and letting myself die along with the rest of the country, is probably nothing short of shocking to her. She couldn’t even get me to fly to D.C. for Christmas, but somehow I, a useless film professor who can’t drive, made it from North Carolina all the way to New York during zombie end-times.

As if naturally drawn to the answer to this particular mystery, Gemma’s eyes move to Maisie, standing behind me. She looks paler than normal, and that’s really saying something. Jesus, is she…trembling? She is.

“Hi,” she says, stepping forward with her hand outstretched. “I’m Mai—”

But before she can finish, Gemma pulls her into a big, fearsome hug. “I know who you are. Thank you. You’re the reason I get to see my brother again.”

“Yeah,” Maisie agrees, laughing a little as my sister squeezes her tight. “I guess I am.”

“Hi, I’m Ellie.” Our podcaster tagalong appears by Maisie’s side. “I just want to throw this out there, but if the zombies are doing it, I want to see that, too. That’s my kind of science. Coincidentally, also my kind of romance.”

Gemma tilts her head, frowning and smiling all at once. “Duly noted.”

We finish our zombie-body-donation registrations, and a machine spits out neat little cards for us to wear on our persons at all times. They even print a little card to affix to Chicken’s collar, stating her virus-free status. She bats at it viciously but can’t quite reach it, so it looks like she’s slapping herself, over and over again. I lift her back into her kitty carrier, slung over my front the way she hates it least, her little gray head and long twitching tail the only parts of her visible.

“Also, for the record, you can definitely watch my sexual activity,” Ellie says to Gemma, and then, for the first time since I’ve met her, blushes furiously. She raises her hands in surrender. “You know, if I’m a zombie. Wow, that came out weird. But I am bisexual, so. Just leaving that out there.”

“Also noted.” Gemma’s grin turns wolfish. Leave it to her to find a willing sexual partner in five minutes flat, even during a zombie-apocalypse paperwork session.