Hot Sauce knew she was going to die.
She had known this for about 48 hours, now. Ever since the blue light faded from the sky over New Ro, ever since monsters fell from the heavens like rain. Ever since Nona -
Hot Sauce carefully avoided thinking of Nona. It made her feel - too much, which was something she couldn’t afford.
It has been a week since the zombie broadcast, over a week since the mob had shot and burned three zombies in the cages at the riots. Hot Sauce had been there. She had not slept well since.
Honesty was still missing. He had been gone for three days. He had left in a hurry, saying he had urgent buisiness in another part of the city. He had said he would be back before dark. He hadn’t been home since.
Kevin was asleep in a cot in the corner of the classroom, at school. He looked peaceful. When he wakes up crying, he is badly in need of a bath.
Born in the Morning and Beautiful Ruby had left to be with their families. Hot Sauce didn’t have a family to go back to.
The Angel is gone. She - they? - had taken Noodle with them. Hot Sauce missed Noodle terribly.
Hot Sauce pulled her knees to her chest and faught the headache that pulsed through her neck and shoulders up through the base of her skull. Her belly was empty, and ached. Her eyes and mouth were dry. Her skin was parched and itchy. And there was a wound, from the night when the people with masks and guns had stormed the school. The wound festered and stung.
Hot Sauce closed her eyes. She could still smell the blood.
More than anything, Hot Sauce was cold. She was colder now than she had ever been. The sky had gone dark when the sun went out in the middle of the day and had not turned back on, and the world had been plunged into cold, cold darkness.
“The sun is going out,” said the woman in the middle of the crowded street. “God is dead. The sun is going out.”
And people were panicking, screaming and rioting in the streets. People in uniform, with guns. Gunshots. Dead bodies in the street.
Hot Sauce was wounded. Her wounds would not heal.
Kevin is sleeping in the corner of the room that is most sheltered from the window with the broken glass. He stirs, then is quiet again. He smells bad.
Hot Sauce curles into a ball on the floor beside his cot, and closes her eyes.
When she opens them again, she is being shaken awake by hands that are not gentle, but persistent.
It is dark, but even in the darkness, Hot Sauce finds herself staring at the most beautiful zombie she has ever seen. Its hair is gold, tumbling down around her shoulders. Its skin is pale. There is something uncanny about the features - the nose is too small for the face, and there is blood all over the chin. The body is at least seven feet tall, the hips and chest too large, the legs too long, the waist impossibly small. The eyes are too big. And those eyes -
Hot Sauce would have known those eyes anywhere.
“Hot Sauce!” says an unfamiliar voice that is, nevertheless, unmistakably, Nona. “Can I still be part of the gang?”