Zombie Ocean (Book 2): The Lost by Michael John Grist Read Free Book Online

ocean passed by. She tipped the contents of her filthy jeans pockets into one of the big backpack's inner compartments: her father's wallet, coins, keys and the little statuette of Alice. She filled the rest with the food and magazines then strapped it tightly to her Daddy's back, clicking lots of buckles and ties.
    Into the smaller pack she put water, chips and the dead phone, then strapped it to her back.
    "Houses for a couple of snails," she said.
    He didn't laugh. He kept on struggling to escape. She fitted the new sling to his front then untied him.
    He walked, and Anna followed.
     
     
    That day they walked along a straight road through a deep green forest, and their numbers grew. People emerged from amongst the trees and pressed in closer at their sides.
    Anna walked and daydreamed of their destination. It had to be something big and special. She chewed on candy red strings and sipped warm banana milkshake. She investigated the people nearby. Some of them had wallets so she could check their names. Her reading wasn't great, but picking out names was easy enough.
    A tall white guy walking at the same pace as her Daddy was Trevor. A short old Indian lady was Amandeep. Some of them had photos in their wallets too: of family, children stamped with the date of their graduation, prom pictures.
    Anna put them back carefully. She watched the trees for some sign of the Cheshire Cat too, or even the Caterpillar, but they never came.
    Two days later she changed clothes again, outside a Target. In the window she'd seen a perfect blue and white outfit that looked just like Alice's dress. She tried it on and admired herself in the mirror.
    She looked different already. Her stick-thin arms and legs were filling up with new muscle. She smiled. Muscle made out of bananas and cereal, which meant she was filled with shooting stars.
    When she was tired she hung from the sling on her Daddy's chest. At night she slept and his walking rocked her through the night. When she was thirsty she reached to the pack on his back and drank. When she was bored she looked at pictures in magazines or daydreamed impossible situations, often imagining what kind of place they were going to. When she was lonely she talked to her father, or sang, or looked at Trevor and Amandeep's photos again. She took to tethering them along with her father, so they could all walk on together, like a family.
    Soon enough they came out of the forests and walked across great baking expanses of low vegetables, laid out in neat rows, some low and some tall. For a time she could lean from the sling and pluck fresh ripe tomatoes from the vine. They were warm and juicy and seeds spurted out as she bit. 
    There were orchards of apples and lemons, then fields of low grass, and here was a school with its football field, and in the distance a city with high towers.
    "Who do you think lives there?" she asked her father.
    Days went by. They passed through a vacant small town. Anna looked into hollow windows of the houses lining the street. The ocean of people flowed everywhere, ignoring roads and fences and rivers, always heading straight away from or straight toward the sun, depending on whether it was morning or evening. Anna hung on to her father's shoulders tightly as he waded deeper across one wide river.
    She recorded time with lines in her magazine. Ten days passed, and she looked at herself in the mirror of a house somewhere on a hot and steamy day. The room was a little girl's, with pink wallpaper and dolls arrayed in cubbyholes all around.
    She was dark and vibrant. Her teeth shone against her gums. She twirled in her Alice dress. She imagined a photo of herself as she was now, hanging in their home so far behind. This was the little girl she had always wanted to be, not the sickly child from before.
    They went on. They crossed great sandy plains where the air smelled of salt, pushed through a barbed wire fence and passed over an expanse rucked by craters and exploded dirt,