Sorrow's Gift

Part II: The Dreams/Chapter Seventeen: Zoe

Something startled her from her dream and she sat up, her eyes wide open in fear.

She'd pulled all the extra blankets from the closet and made a little nest for herself in the corner of the room farthest from the doors behind a chair. It felt good to hide in the soft blankets where she couldn't hear her dad moving around in the next room.

But something had woken her up.

She huddled inside her cocoon and listened. It sounded like something was ringing. Was that her phone?

It couldn't be. Her phone had been dead for days now.

With shaking hands, she pulled the cotton ball out of her left ear and listened again. Her heart raced. What if someone was out there? What if help had finally come?

Another ring sounded across the room, and she jumped up from her spot on the floor. She tried to run around the side of the chair, but her feet tangled in the mess of blankets and she fell. Her knee banged against the metal frame and blood trickled from the scrape, but she didn't stop to look at it. She heard the phone ring again as she pulled her feet from the blankets and finally made it to the other side of the room.

She stopped and listened again, trying to ignore the way her father was scratching and bumping against the door of his room. The ringing had probably stirred him up, and she knew from experience that it would be hours before he calmed again and went back to pacing the floor like he usually did.

She didn't care. If someone was reaching out to her, maybe that meant she'd be safe. Maybe they were coming for her, and she'd be rescued from the hotel soon.

Zoe couldn't remember where she'd put her phone, though. Once it had run out of power, it was useless to her without a place to charge it. She'd put it somewhere, not even thinking.

But her heart skipped a beat. If her phone was out of power, how was it ringing? Was she losing her mind?

The phone rang again, and she sprinted through the darkness toward the couch. A slight glow emanated from that part of the room. It had to be her phone.

She banged her leg on the side table and a lamp crashed to the floor. She stepped on some of the glass trying to climb on top of the arm of the couch and winced as it pierced the bottom of her foot.

Dangit, she was tearing herself up trying to answer the phone in time. She didn't even understand how it could possibly be ringing, but she didn't care. All she cared about was answering it before whoever was on the other end of that call gave up on her.

Zoe flopped onto the cushions and stretched her hand across to the other side. She could see it now, the phone's light muffled by the pillow she must have placed on top of it earlier.

As her hand closed over the plastic case, the light went out and the phone stopped ringing.

"No," she cried, shaking it up and down. She pressed the power button and waited, praying she would see some kind of light coming from the screen.

Nothing happened. It was just as dead and out of power as it had been for the past few days.

Zoe shook her head violently. What was going on?

She could have sworn she'd heard it ringing. She saw the light. Someone had tried to call her.

She turned the phone over in her hand, not understanding. Had she imagined it?

Her breath came in uneven gasps as she tried to make sense of it. She'd been asleep. She'd heard the phone and gotten to it as fast as she could. She'd seen the light. She was sure of it. There was no other explanation. Her phone had been ringing.

She pressed the power button again, this time holding it for a several seconds. She waited, praying for the light to come on and the phone to restart. It was so dark in the room now that she could barely see her own hands clutching the case, but the darkness was all she needed to see to know she was losing her mind.

Her phone was dead. No one was calling her. It was impossible. Even if Parrish had tried to reach her, the call wouldn't have gotten through. There was no battery left.

Zoe leaned back against the soft cushions of the couch, her body shivering. In the next room, her father groaned and rammed against the door of his bedroom, trying to get out. She'd made too much noise, and now he was trying to get to her.

The same thing had happened when she'd been stupid enough to play her violin the other night. Loud sounds agitated him, and she knew all he wanted to do was get through that door and tear her apart, the way she'd watched so many of those things kill in the streets.

Someone else banged on the main door to the suite, and Zoe screamed.

She clutched the phone tightly in her small hands and pushed her back as deep into the couch as she could.

Who was that?

She listened, hoping against reason that her sister's voice would come through the door, saying they were here. They were safe. Instead, she heard the familiar scratching sounds of a zombie trying to get in. There was another one out there in the hall, and she'd drawn it toward her with all her banging around.

Hot tears spilled from Zoe's eyes as she listened to the two zombies trying to claw their way through the doors. No one was coming for her. No one was normal anymore. The whole world was dead, just like her father, and after weeks of being alone, she was losing her mind.

She clutched the phone tighter in her hands, wishing she was strong enough to crush it to pieces. No one had called. This was just her mind playing some cruel trick. Somewhere in her subconscious she must have wanted this to happen so badly that she'd imagined it was real.

Or maybe she was still dreaming, locked in some neverending nightmare.

Her mind had created hope when there was no hope left.

Anger surged through her. It wasn't fair. She was supposed to be in Europe right now having the experience of a lifetime. She should have been safe in Paris with her mom and dad at her side, and Parrish safely back home with their aunt. None of this should have ever happened.

Zoe wished the virus had taken her, too. Why leave her alive to watch all this death and horror? At least her father had gone quickly.

She was going to die slowly. She had enough food and water to last a while, but it wouldn't last forever. If her father didn't manage to break through his door and kill her, she would die of starvation. One way or another, she would join the rest of them.

It wasn't fair.

It had been hard enough to handle just being alone and listening to the groans of those things in the streets. But this? She stared down at her phone. This was the worst of it all.

She couldn't even trust her own eyes and ears anymore.

Zoe pushed herself off the couch and fell to the floor. Screaming, she banged the phone against the floor over and over as hard as she could until it came to pieces in her hand. She smashed the pieces with her hand until she felt the warm trickle of blood on her palm.

Sobbing, she leaned back against the couch and placed her wounded hand against her shirt.

No one was ever coming for her.

Zoe Sorrows was going to die alone.