“It was my fault,” a woman interjected.“It was an accident, but it was still my fault.”
She was sitting a few places down from us, and I hadn’t seen her around before.She looked to be in her early-twenties, with jet black hair in corkscrew curls, and her skin was light brown.Her cheeks were round, almost cherubic, but she was slender and petite.
“Who are you, and how did you cause this?”Murphy asked.Xe was sitting on the other side of Boden, but xe leaned forward onto the long table so xe could get a better look at her.
“I’m Alphonsine Babineaux, but people usually call me Alphie.”She lifted her head up, awkwardly trying to meet our gazes.After a deep breath, she began again with the honesty of someone who had run out of places to hide.“Me and my friends left a bad situation a couple weeks ago, and we were looking for another community.But when we got here… Clifton was already infected.
“I didn’t know it then,” Alphie amended quickly, her dark eyes insistent and apologetic.“He hid it fromeveryone.It must’ve happened the day before we found the boat.We ran into some zombies, but I swear I didn’t see anything.”
“Alphie, we know,” Sienna said gently.As one of the longest residents of the Barbarabelle, she’d become sort of a one-woman welcoming committee for any newcomers.
“And it’s not like Clifton was the only one hiding things,” Harlow added, her tone weary and bitter.“That’s how this whole thing became such a clusterfuck.After Clifton went full zombie, he killed two people outright, and then he managed to bite another two in the process.But of course Castor hid his own bite, so a few days later, we had to go through it all again.”
Castor had been with us when we first discovered the boat, along with a few others and his twin sister, Polly.Things between us got somewhat strained after everything that happened in Emberwood, but he’d always been polite and helped out around the boat when needed.
“How many did we lose?”Boden asked.
“Five, including our nurse Mika Dumont,” Sienna said.“And when we burned the bodies, the fire got out of hand, and we lost one of our vegetable gardens and our shuttle boats.”
I held Fae a bit tighter to me and tried not to let myself think about what would happen if I lost her.The Barbarabelle was supposed to be a haven, some place where she could be protected, but nowhere was truly safe anymore.Somehow I’d let myself forget that for a while.
“We have new precautions for getting on the boat, as you all witnessed,” Edie said, as if reading my thoughts.“It can be safe here, as long as we’re cautious and prudent and honest.”
“That’s easier said than done, isn’t it?”Harlow asked dryly, and Edie shot her a look.
“Alphie, you said you had to get away from a bad situation,” Bianka remembered and turned her attention to her.“What was that?”
“We were part of this group called the Reverence of the Revenant – ” Alphie started to answer, but Murphy cut her off.
“Wait, you were one of the fucking Revvers?”Murphy asked, sounding simultaneously incredulous and disgusted.
“Look, I left them,” Alphie snapped.“I realized they were messed up, okay?”
“What are the Revvers?”I asked, confused.
“You heard about the Dignity in Death folks, right?”Murphy asked.“They were basically zombie rights activists who thought that instead of fighting them, we should be keeping them as pets or some shit like that.And the Revvers take it a whole other level.”
“They think zombies are superior to humans, that they’re the next stage of our evolution, and that humans should serve them,” Harlow continued for xer.“They think it’s an honor to be infected.”
“It’s not quite that simple,” Alphie argued, and her cheeks reddened with shame or anger, I couldn’t tell which.“When someone gets sick, they don’t stop being human.That’s all I ever truly believed.But that doesn’t mean I agree with everything they did.”
“Why did you leave?”Bianka asked, sounding much less accusatory than her partner.
“It’s hard to explain, exactly.”Alphie stared down at the table and seemed to struggle choosing her words.“A lot of little things, and some big things.I wanted to help people, but everything we – er, the Revvers – did only caused suffering.And one day, I realized all we really have is what we do ourselves, here and now, and I didn’t know how much longer I could survive with what the Revvers were doing.”
“And we’re so glad you found us,” Sienna told her warmly.“Life hasn’t been easy for anyone these past eleven years, but here we can be part of a community that actually helps each other.”
The conversation at the table gradually lost its intensity, and people went back to finishing their meals or talking amongst themselves.
“Well, how was your journey?”Edie asked me and Boden.“I know you’ve found some new friends” – she smiled and motioned to Murphy, Bianka, Ryder, and Leandro – “but did you find any sign of Remy?”
Boden’s mouth pressed into a grim line and he shook his head once.“No.”
“Did you say Remy?”Alphie asked.“Are you looking for someone named Remy King?”
“Yeah.”Boden instantly perked up.“Do you know where she is?”
“I don’t know where she is at this moment, but she ended up with the Revvers back in December,” Alphie said.“She wasn’t around that long, and she carriedThe Book of Mercywith her.”
