Tomorrow Land by Mari Mancusi Read Free Book Online Page A

pictured him looking so cold, so angry. She supposed she deserved it though. In fact, she was probably lucky he was even speaking to her.
    “Well,” he said at last, as if making a decision. “We can probably hook you up with some supplies. And give you a place to sleep for the night.” There was no warmth in his invitation. No softness. He might as well be extending the offer to a stranger. In a way, she guessed, he was.
    “We?” she couldn’t help but query. “Who’s with you? The kids from school?”
    He shook his head. “Not many left from our original group,” he replied briskly, but she caught a flicker of pain in his eyes. “But my brother is great at picking up strays. We’ve got an even dozen, counting myself. We’ve been here for two years now, ever since we came back down from the mountains.”
    So they had gone up to the mountains. She felt an ache deep inside as she wondered how things would have been if she’d gone with them, as planned. If she’d chosen Chase instead of her dad. Once again she felt the urge to apologize, but didn’t know where to begin.
    “What made you come back?” she asked instead.
    He shrugged, looking uneasy. Half of her wondered if he came back for her, but then rebuked herself for thinking it. He’d probably given up on her years ago. For all she knew he had a new girlfriend, back at the Walmart.
    “Way too many people, not nearly enough food,” he said in way of explanation. “We figured we could come down here, get some supplies, maybe head back up. Problem was, when we got here, we ran into the Others. They’d pretty much taken over the town by that point. They attacked immediately and killed most of our little group. We weren’t prepared back then. We had no idea.”
    Peyton thought back to the monster she’d fought, and she shuddered. She didn’t want to imagine fighting off a group, didn’t want to picture what he’d gone through. “But you escaped,” she concluded.
    Chase nodded. “Yeah. Most of the credit goes to Tank—you remember my brother Trey? He’s a born leader, that guy. After we fought our way out… well, he dredged up all the survivors and herded us into the local Walmart. He even collected others who’d been hiding out around town.”
    “And now you live in a Walmart?” she asked, eyebrow raised.
    “Hey, don’t knock it,” Chase declared. “‘Wally World has everything you need to survive an apocalypse: canned food, camping supplies, first aid, bedding, even toys for the kiddos. You can live in a Walmart for a long time. We even grow our own vegetables in the Garden and Patio section.”
     “You grow your own food?” She’d been wondering how they were eating. How many years of canned food could a Walmart hold? She supposed it depended on the number of survivors.
    “Sure. In addition to the stuff in our building, we have some corn growing out in Washington Park. We also hunt. Neighborhood’s overrun by animals these days. Deer, rabbits—we even keep a cow around for milk.”
    “Nice,” she said. And she meant it. She hadn’t had a glass of milk in years. “So… what about the others?”
    “Oh, yeah, well, we have to compete with them for the deer and stuff. But they really aren’t into the whole vegetarian thing, so they don’t mess with our corn. And they’re lousy at opening cans.”
    “No, no,” Peyton corrected. “Not the Others . Not the monsters. I mean the other survivors.”
    Chase gave her a strange look. “There aren’t any,” he said, as if surprised by her question. “As far as we know, we’re the last. Everyone else either died, was eaten or… well, you know—became one of them .” He looked ill for a moment, then shrugged it off. “That’s why I was so surprised to see you today. I haven’t seen anyone new for probably a year.”
    Peyton swallowed hard. Everyone was gone. The whole world. It was hard to wrap her head around it. Maybe her mother had had the right idea. After all, what