Page 22 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
Buthow? Zombies can’tbecontrolled. That’s a fact.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
Mason pauses next to me, his shoulder almost brushing mine. “You’re lucky to have survived.”
“Not luck,” I say. We had a watch. We were careful.
Mason looks at me, then back at the shop again. “Maybe not,” he concedes, “but many hunters in your position would have died. Come on. I found tracks this way.”
He leads me in the direction I saw many of the zombies go, towards the west of the town. I keep a tight hold on my bat. Mason has me at his back, and he doesn’t seem concerned about that at all. As far as I can see, too, he’s not carrying a weapon.
“How long have you been living here?” I ask.
“My whole life.”
“That’s…” I can’t guess his age. He’s older than me, for sure, but whether five or ten or fifteen years, I don’t know. His hair is shorn short, and he’s so blond that for a moment when he entered the church, I thought he didn’t have eyebrows or eyelashes. Despite his pale skin, though, he’s not going pink the way Otto would under the sun.
“Since before the outbreak,” Mason says. He flashes me a grin. “Isn’t it rude to ask a man his age?”
“Is it?”
He smiles as though I amuse him. I don’t know what to think of him at all. He told everyone he would take me back. What if I just ask him what he was doing in the square last night?
What if I just ask him about watching us arrive yesterday?
“You remember it, then?” I press.
“Do you?”
Challenge sparks in his eyes and when he comes to a stop, I stumble. He reaches for me, grabbing my arm, and the touch is dulled through my jacket and T-shirt, but it’s firm all the same.
“Yeah,” I say, more a breath than a word. “Yeah, I remember.”
I was so young when it happened. Not even ten years old. But I remember the panic, remember my mum being so pragmatic, level-headed, getting her and me and my dad out of there and, ultimately, some place safe.
The Citadel might have its rules, but they’re there for a reason. I wouldn’t have lasted this long outside of its walls.
“Was it bad?” Mason asks. His voice is quieter now, too.
“I—Yeah. It was bad.” I look into his face, breath catching at the interest glittering in his expression. He truly cares what I have to say? “Me and my parents, we were fine in the end, but I remember it being… hectic.”
“Hectic.” Mason rolls his lips like he’s tasting the word. “I suppose that makes sense.”
“What about you?”
“Me?”
“What do you remember?”
He smiles and it’s a little sad but doesn’t reach his eyes. “I remember it being hectic, too.”
We continue up the narrow lane, following it as it winds around past an old farmhouse and towards a park. There’s a swing and slide and roundabout, all rusted, paint flaking. Beyond that, the field rolls off into a forest in the distance.
“This is as far as I could trace them.”
“But you—” I snap my jaw shut.
Mason stares at me for a moment, then wanders in the direction of the swings. “Come on.”
