Page 86 of Doomsdate

I snort and then press a kiss to the top of her head. “We’ll figure out a better way to celebrate, then.”

“You’ve already given me what I want.” Maisie turns her head up to face me, her smile growing. I wish I could bottle up the way it makes me feel, seeing her smile at me like that.

“What would you have done in New York for your birthday? If, you know. The world hadn’t ended because of a rogue diarrhea virus.”

“Probably nothing,” Maisie says on a sigh. “Because I wouldn’t have been brave enough to go through with it.”

I place a soft kiss in her hair. “You would’ve been.”

The thinking line appears between her brows. “Maybe. I don’t know. Part of me felt relieved when the flights were canceled.”

“And the other part?”

“Sad. Incredibly disappointed. But more than anything, trapped in this version of myself that’ll never quite fit in.”

“What do you mean?”

She bites her lip in, then sits up suddenly, reaching for her knapsack and the small pocket on its side. She removes a folded piece of paper and hands it to me, gesturing for me to read it. I prop myself up on one elbow, then reach for my glasses, my eyes scanning across the law firm’s letterhead, the formal salutation, and the life-altering information within.

My gaze shifts back to hers, surprised. “You have grandparents.”

She musters a crooked, wobbly smile. “Had them, at least.” She sniffs, her eyes landing on the letter, then dropping to the keys held in her hand. “I was supposed to meet with these attorneys to go over my grandparents’ estate wishes, but also visit their home, which they left to me, to decide what to do with it.” She traces a key’s grooves with the pad of her thumb. “My whole life, I wondered who we really were. Why Mom changed our names when she took me out of kindergarten and bought that farm in the middle of nowhere. Who we were running from, and why. I invented entire stories explaining it, whole histories, and those were all I had, because Mom would never answer my questions. The little bits I knew, I learned by accident. When she was raving, she’d mention this unnamed city full of darkness. She’d cry in her sleep using words I didn’t understand. But she’d never tell me anything. As far as I was concerned, her life began when I was born. Then, ten years after she died, ten years of trying to make peace with all the questions I’d always have, I get this letter promising answers I never, ever thought I’d get. Maybe not everything I wanted to know, but I was going to learn who my mother really was. What she ran from. Maybe even why.”

“Oh, Maisie.” I fold the letter back up, then ease to sitting. The air is cold without the blankets to cover our naked bodies, and her long back is bare. With a blanket wrapped around my shoulders, I scoot forward until I’m bracketing her small frame with my larger one, carefully enveloping her in my arms. I hold her there, her back to my front, the blankets surrounding us both.

“It feels so isolating, not knowing where you’re from,” Maisie says from within the cocoon I’ve built around her. “But I thought if I went to New York, I’d finally understand the context of who I am and maybe, finally, use it to find the connection between me and the rest of the world. Where I fit into the big picture of things. Now I’ll never know.”

“Says who?” I kiss her shoulder once, a light brush of my lips, then again, harder.

“Says me.” She turns her head to gaze over her shoulder at me. “I can’t go to New York now.”

“Maybe you can’t, but we can.” I place the next kiss on her jaw, my arms tightening around her. “It’s only two hours or so away from here. It’s on the way to West Point. Why not?”

Maisie’s body tenses in my embrace. “Washington, D.C., was one thing, but New York’s so massive, there’ll be literally millions of zombies. More than our Tasers could ever hope to handle.”

“We know how to be careful, we won’t go into any dark places, and we could be in and out long before the sun sets. I lived there for years; I know the city.” I swallow roughly. “It’s your birthday, and this is important to you. We can do this, Maisie.”

She twists to fully face me in my arms. Her bleary eyes regard me thoughtfully as she pushes a stray lock of my hair behind my ear. “It would be crazy.”

“Yes.”

“It’s a bad idea.”

“Definitely.”

“But you want to do it anyway?”

“Yes.”

If it means spending one more day with you.

Everett

I never expected to pick up new water sports during the apocalypse, but here I am, Chicken strapped to my front in the new harness and the back end of a double kayak perched on my shoulder at the Hoboken waterfront. Maisie’s in the lead, carrying the front end and my whole heart in her hand. Across the Hudson lies zombie-infested New York City and, somewhere off Central Park West, the secret history of Maisie’s family.

What a destination.

Despite the rigorous exercise it entails, paddling across the river’s small white chop is our best option for entry by far. The bridges are clogged with wrecked cars and the reanimated remains of their owners, and neither Maisie nor I felt up to the high-stakes parkouring that’d require. Even worse is the Lincoln Tunnel and the one and a half miles of groaning zombies thriving within its darkness. The rumble of their collective throat rivals an oncoming subway train, and even now, a safe distance away from its entrance, it thrums through the short hairs on my neck.