Chapter 1: Extra Cheese And Lightening

JUNO'S POV

If you had told me I would die because of a cliffhanger, I would have laughed in your face.

I was on the Red Line subway at 11:47 PM, my pizza bag still reeking of pepperoni and cheap cheese, my phone battery at 2%, and my brain completely stuck inside Chapter 89 of 'Alice in Apocalypse Land.'

My feet hurt. My manager had yelled at me for being two minutes late. I was dirt poor and had exactly $12 in my bank account.

But none of that mattered because Alice was about to make the dumbest decision in apocalypse history.

The comment section was going insane.

> OMG author, don't you dare kill Kai!!!

> Alice girl run!!!

> If she goes into that pharmacy alone I'm dropping this book

I scoffed out loud. The old lady across from me looked at me weird.

"She's not gonna die," I muttered at my phone. "She has plot armor thicker than my rent debt. Author would never kill her favorite girl."

I swiped with my greasy finger.

Alice pressed her back against the cold pharmacy wall. The herd was close. Too close. The smell of rot was everywhere. If she ran now, they would hear her. If she stayed, she would die.

Classic Alice. Always dramatic.

I was so deep in it I didn't notice the subway lights flickering.

The train screeched. Hard. Everyone lurched forward. My pizza bag slammed against my knees.

Then the lights went out completely. Emergency lights buzzed on.

A crackling voice came over the speakers: "We are... electrical disturbances due to... storm outside... please stay..."

I think it was about the thunder. Or lightning. Nothing huge.

The old lady clutched her bag. A kid started crying.

I looked up from my phone for the first time. Outside the dark window, rain was slamming the tunnel walls. White flashes lit up the tracks.

My phone buzzed in my hand. But it wasn't a normal buzz. It vibrated violently.

2% battery jumped to 3%. Then 67%. Then 100%. Then 200%?

"What the hell?" I whispered.

The charging cable I had plugged into the portable battery pack in my pizza bag started glowing. Blue-white. Hot.

I tried to drop it.

I couldn't. My fingers were locked around it.

The electricity traveled up the cable, through my phone, into my palms.

It wasn't like in movies. It didn't just shock me. It 'burned' through me. From my hands to my chest to my teeth. My vision went white.

I think I screamed, but I couldn't hear it over the buzzing.

The last thing I saw before everything went completely white was not the subway. It was my phone screen.

A notification I had never seen before, in blue holographic text over the novel page, popped up.

[CONNECTION ESTABLISHED. SUMMONING READER #89.]

Then everything went black.

-

I woke up face-down in mud.

It was in my mouth. It was cold and tasted like rust and rotting meat.

I pushed myself up, spitting, coughing. My pizza delivery bag was still strapped to my back, but it was empty and torn. The three pepperoni pizzas I had failed to deliver were gone.

My hands were shaking. My palms had red burn marks in the shape of my phone.

"Okay," I panted, my breath fogging. "Okay, Juno. You got electrocuted. You're in shock. You're hallucinating on the subway platform. Get up. Get up, Cooper."

I stood.

I wasn't on a platform.

I was in the middle of a ruined street.

The subway, the train, the people — all gone. The sky above me was not night sky. It was dark red, like a permanent sunset, with black ash falling slowly like snow. The buildings on both sides were skeletons. Burned-out cars. No lights anywhere.

And the smell. God, the smell of rot was so strong I gagged.

Then I saw it.

Across the street. A pharmacy. Green cross sign flickering weakly, one letter broken.

"Lee's Pha...macy"

My heart stopped.

No. No no no.

That was the pharmacy from Chapter 1 of Alice in Apocalypse Land. Lee's Pharmacy. Where Alice hides from the first herd.

I had read that description a hundred times. I had imagined it.

"This is not funny," I said out loud, my voice cracking. "This is a really bad prank. Did someone drug my pizza?"

A low growl answered me.

Then another. And another.

From the alley behind the pharmacy, heads turned.

Ten. Twenty. No, thirty Rotters. The zombies from the book.

In the book, I thought they were cool. Pale skin, black veins crawling up their necks, jaws unhinged too wide, nails sharp. Fast. They hunted by smell and sound.

In real life, they were terrifying. Their eyes were completely white. Black drool dripped from their mouths.

One of them sniffed the air. Looked straight at me.

It screeched — a high, inhuman sound.

The whole herd locked onto me and started running.

I did what any self-respecting, broke, terrified pizza girl would do.

I ran like hell and screamed my lungs out, holding my empty pizza bag in front of me like a shield.

"THIS IS NOT IN THE JOB DESCRIPTION! I DON'T GET PAID ENOUGH FOR THIS!"

I was not athletic. I only delivered pizza on a busted bicycle.

I tripped over a burned bike frame and went flying. My bag flew off.

I scrambled backward on my hands, ash sticking to my pants.

The Rotters surrounded me. The circle closed in. The first Rotter reached for my hair, its black-veined hand inches from my face.

I closed my eyes so tight I saw stars. I thought about my mom. I thought about how my last meal was cold fries.

I thought, At least I die knowing how Alice's story ends.

BANG!

The Rotter reaching for me. its head exploded.

Black blood splattered my face.

BANG BANG BANG!

Three more dropped around me like puppets with cut strings.

I covered my ears and screamed.

Then a shadow fell over me.

Something or rather someone — dropped from the water tower above the pharmacy. Ten feet high. Landed without even bending his knees.

I looked up slowly.

Long black hair tied half back, dirty military coat open at the chest, scar cutting through his jaw. In his hands were two guns I was sure should not exist. Huge, modified, custom-built rifles that looked heavier than me.

And his arms. My god, his arms.

I knew that face. I had stared at fan art of that face for months.

Kai Storm.

The male lead.

He didn't even look at me. His gray eyes were locked on the herd, cold and furious.

"KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN!" he roared at me.

I obeyed instantly. I slammed my head down into the mud.

He fired.

The world became pure noise and light. I had read that his ability was Overdrive — his bullets created kinetic explosions on impact, but reading about it and feeling the ground shake from it are two different things.

Every shot was a small bomb. Rotters were blown apart.

Ten seconds. Maybe less.

Then silence. Only ash falling and my own ragged breathing.

I was too scared to look up.

A boot nudged my pizza bag toward me.

"You okay?" That low, hoarse voice.

I shook my head violently. No. Absolutely not okay. I was in a book. I was covered in zombie blood. I was going to throw up and die.

"Can you walk?" he asked, less harsh now.

I looked up at him slowly. Up close, he was more handsome than the book described, and the book spent three paragraphs describing him. Sweat on his neck, dirt on his cheek, strong arms flexing as he reloaded those giant guns.

My legs, which had been running for their life two seconds ago, completely gave out for a different reason.

I nodded yes. Then I looked at his arms again and immediately shook my head no.

"My legs," I whispered, my face burning. "They're acting some kind of way."

He stared at me like I was the most insane person he had ever met in the apocalypse. Which, fair.

Then he sighed, holstered one gun, bent down, and picked me up.

Bridal-style. Like I weighed nothing. Like I was in one of those romance novels my roommate reads.

My face went from red to nuclear.

"Oh. Oh okay. This is happening," I mumbled into his coat, clutching it because if I didn't I would fall.

"Don't get used to it," he muttered, already walking. He smelled like gunpowder and rain. "What's your name, pizza girl?"

He saw my bag.

"Juno," I managed. "Juno Cooper."

"I'm Kai."

'I know!' I wanted to scream. Kai Storm, 27, Overdrive ability, leader of Sector 7 base, fated lover of Alice Ward, you die in Chapter 89 if no one saves you.

I didn't say any of that. I just held onto his coat tighter as he carried me away from the dead herd, toward the pharmacy I knew too well, and whispered to myself,

"I'm so screwed."

~