We’d be able to hunt and defend ourselves against attacks.

We were somewhere in Canada, and although I wasn’t sure how deep we were, it was cold enough that the grass was still mostly covered in snow.

Ripley had followed us all the way up here, and I let her into the garage. Boden seemed a little leery of idea of letting a lion run loose in the house, but it was too cold to leave her outside. She loved swimming, and I knew she’d love the lake out back when it warmed up.

Max and Stella were running up and down the stairs, playing some kind of game I didn’t understand, but it involved a lot of laughing and squealing. Serg had discovered a wine rack off the side of the kitchen, and he went through it, trying to pick out a nice one to go with our dinner.

I’d pulled the covers off the couches in the living room, revealing soft leather furniture. The sun was setting on the lake behind the house, so I stood in front of the window, admiring it.

“What do you think?” Boden asked, walking over to me.

“This is it.” I turned to face him. “This is what we’ve been looking for.”

“I know.” He nodded, but he had a look of apprehension. “It almost seems too good to be true, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t care.” I looked away from him to stare back over the lake. “This is it. And I’m not letting anybody or anything take this place from us.”

31.

“Stella!” I leaned on the banister leading upstairs and yelled up to her. “Are you coming or not?”

“I’ll be down in a minute, Remy!” Stella shouted back. “Hold your horses!”

While I waited for her, I flipped through the book again.

We’d been at the house for a few days, and we’d already settled in rather nicely. Max and Stella especially took to it. The game room downstairs had a rather well-stocked library, and they had books on everything from cooking to making candles to finding edible plants in the wild.

That was the one I flipped through now. Stella and I planned on going out to try to gather some plants to eat, but I wasn’t sure how many of them would be out, since spring was only just beginning.

The previous tenants had been kind enough to mark pages – some were dog-eared and others were written on with a red pen – letting me know what they’d been able to find around here, where it was, and if it tasted any good.

“Stella!” I called again, sine she still hadn’t come down.

“I’m coming!”

I heard her before I saw her, a weird slogging sound that I didn’t understand until she appeared at the top of the stairs wearing oversized pink galoshes she’d found in her new bedroom. They came up to her knees and the rubber made an odd slapping sound when she took a step.

To top it off, she’d added a bicycle helmet we’d found in the garage. At least she’d worn her own clothes with it, but I wasn’t sure what we’d do when she started to outgrow them. I’d have to learn how to sew, I guess.

“What’s with the get-up?” I asked Stella, gesturing to her boots and helmet.

“We don’t know what’s out there,” Stella said, like it should be obvious. “I need to be prepared.”

“Can’t argue with that,” I said. “Come on.”

I took her hand when we went out the front door. She hesitated before following me, though, looking around in all directions several times before deciding it was safe. I didn’t hurry her because that was a good habit to have.

The house was pretty isolated, which was another reason I liked it so much. As far as I could tell, it was the only house on the entire lake. The driveway even stretched a quarter of a mile to the road.

The area surrounding the property was fairly wooded, mostly with pine trees but a few maples and oaks stood bare-branched in the mix. Despite the chill, some greenery was poking out here and there, shooting up between melting patches of snow.

We didn’t travel far from the house, because I hadn’t brought anything to defend ourselves with. I didn’t hear any zombies, and the area seemed safe enough. But that didn’t mean it was. I didn’t want to be any farther than a quick dash to safety.

Stella and I took turns looking at the book, and she studied the pictures carefully. We found a few leaves of something that was supposed to edible, but when I tried it, it tasted too bitter to possibly be consumed.

We did manage to find a small cluster of berries. I examined the pictures several times before I tried one, out of fear of accidentally ingesting something poisonous. Nothing happened after I ate a few, so I let Stella try one. I didn’t let her have any more though, until I’d seen how I reacted to them.

I wished Daniels was around. He’d know what to do if we accidentally ate something that could harm us. Hell, he’d probably even know what plants were dangerous, so we wouldn’t even need the book.

That wasn’t the only reason I wished Daniels was around, of course. I missed him a lot, more than I’d expected I would. But he’d been my only companion for six months, and though our relationship was rocky a lot of the time, I truly believed he was a good person. He tried to be rational in an insane world.

Sometimes I found myself going to ask him something or wanting to tell him something, only to remember that he wasn’t here. That he would never be here again.

“Remy,” Stella whispered. Her hand found mine, squeezing tightly onto it.

“What?” I asked, pulling myself from my thoughts.

“Are they zombies?” She pointed to three figures walking on the road at the end of the driveway.

They moved normally, with the fluid movements of humans that zombies were incapable of.

“No, honey, they are not,” I said quietly as I watched them.

There were two men and one woman. The woman had fiery red hair, long curls she hadn’t even attempted to tame. The younger of the two men was wiry, with a grizzled face. He had a scar that stretched out from underneath one eye around to his temple.

But the last guy was a giant of a man. He towered over the other two, with broad shoulders and a bald head that appeared to be twice the size of mine.

Their clothes were ragged and worn, and all three of them carried bags, fat with their possessions. I supposed they didn’t appear all that different from our little group, but my heart beat erratically when I saw them. I couldn’t see any weapons, but I was never sure if I could trust people.