Positive by David Wellington Page B

gotten all these flashy things. The same places I’d found half-­empty liquor bottles and expired pills. The wealth of an entire continent, all its most gaudy and lavish treasures, lay open to these ­people who were willing to risk the zombies to take what they desired. And apparently what they desired was to wear ridiculous clothes.
    â€œNo dress code in the looter camps,” was Adare’s opinion on that.
    I was to learn he was rare in his relatively mundane appearance. He favored comfortable clothes, because, he said, he had nothing to prove. The other looters preferred to dress up in these outfits as a way of displaying how daring they were, what risks they were willing to take just to look good. “You know what a peacock is?” he asked me.
    â€œNo.”
    He grunted in frustration. I knew that grunt—­it was a first-­generation grunt, meant to imply that second-­generation kids didn’t know a damned thing. Which really just meant we didn’t know anything about how they used to live their lives before the crisis. “They were these birds. Used to see them in zoos. You know what a zoo is? Fuck, don’t answer that. These birds grew huge long tails, bright blue and purple and green, gorgeous things, but it made it impossible for them to fly. They gave that up for the fancy colors.”
    â€œWhy would a bird choose not to fly?” I asked, not understanding where he was going with this.
    â€œFor the same reason anybody does anything. To get laid.” A wide smile split his face, but then he relented with a shrug. “Or to, you know. Get attention. Get noticed. The problem is, one guy, maybe one day he shows up in a bright purple shirt and everybody oohs and ahs and think he’s hot shit. But he comes back the next day and every body’s wearing a purple shirt. So he doesn’t stand out anymore. He needs a fancy hat to bring to the party. It never ends.”
    I shook my head. Someone like me, someone from New York City, would never understand the way fashion works, I decided.
    â€œIgnore ’em, anyway. I don’t want you getting mixed up in that crowd. One of them’s likely to try to steal you away from me, Stones.”
    It sounded fine to me. I wanted nothing to do with these ­people. He drove the car past the crowd, barely acknowledging all the waves and shouts he elicited. His next destination was a big concrete building on the edge of the lot.
    About halfway there, my eyes went wide and I had to drop down in my seat, suddenly very anxious not to be noticed by the crowd. Adare looked at me funny, but I didn’t dare show myself.
    I’d seen, among the crowd, one face I’ll never forget. I’d seen the woman who ambushed me at the end of the George Washington Bridge. The woman I’d cut with her own knife, the knife I still had in my belt.
    I really, really didn’t want her to see me there.

 
    CHAPTER 24
    A dare parked the car outside the large concrete building, and we all piled out of the SUV. I was at least glad for the opportunity to stretch my legs. We had to completely unload the vehicle—­Adare told me that anything left inside would be stolen by the time we returned in the morning—­and then we all headed inside. The building’s interior was stained with smoke, and every possible surface was covered in graffiti. I think it was some kind of office building once, but the looters had turned it into a hostel. He took us up the stairs to a metal door, which he hammered on with one fist. The man who answered was bleary eyed and half dressed, as if he’d been asleep when we showed up. He had tattoos all up and down both arms and a piece of jagged metal shoved through the septum of his nose. His back was ridged with muscle, and he looked pretty dangerous.
    He was about a foot shorter than Adare, though, and perhaps half of Adare’s weight.
    â€œAdare?” he asked, blinking his