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

could hardly hear them, she was crying so hard. They came upon her like a storm, making her eyes so blurry she hardly saw the dark man from the comics, Amo's friend who had died, as he wheeled over toward her, smiling too, holding out his hands.
    She threw herself at him. He was warm. His eyes didn't glow. For the first time in months one of the people she hugged hugged her back. 
    She couldn't speak. They surrounded her and her voice went away. Their bodies pressed in like the ocean, and they reached down to her and all of them were crying too, but it was hard to tell through her own tears.
    "I'm Robert," the man in the wheelchair said. She sat in his lap and clung to his dark hand, nodding happily. He pointed to each of the others in turn: an old lady, two men, a woman. "That's Cynthia and Jake, and Masako and Julio. What's your name?"
    She tried to say but her throat didn't work, so she rustled in her pack and pulled out the comic. She pointed to the pictures and her name scrawled above them, and Robert's eyes widened.
    "So you're Anna? We saw your name up on the wall in Denver, with the Pac-Man. Did you really walk all this way?"
    She nodded happily.
    "That is amazing. It's over a hundred miles! Anna you are so brave. Have you been out here all alone since it happened?"
    She wanted to explain more but her throat still didn't work, so she just smiled and nodded.
    "I think that's really amazing," Robert said again. "Well done." He even sounded like her Daddy. It made her cry more so she buried her face in his shoulder.
    "I think this calls for a party," one of the men said.
    Robert talked to her and patted her back while the others set to work unpacking things from the van: a long plastic table they assembled in bits, a black grill they snapped the legs onto and poured black rocks on, cans of hot dogs, beans, and buns in plastic packaging which they put on the table, then paper plates and plastic cutlery which Cynthia laid out in six places, with six white plastic chairs.
    She winked. Anna blushed and looked away.
    "Do you like hot dogs?" Robert asked. She nodded.
    Some music started up. She didn't recognize it, but it was happy and fast and the first music she'd listened to in over a year. Robert was saying more things to her, but there was really too much going on to properly pay attention to him. One of the other men, the young one with feathery dark hair, was standing at the black grill with flames licking up, roasting sizzling hot dogs.
    It was a party, and at that she finally remembered her manners.
    She hopped up off Robert's lap and ran over to the table. From her pack she rustled out two Snickers bars, a handful of grimy red strings and two packs of trail mix nuts. She laid them out on a clean white plate.
    "Is that what you've been eating?" the boy at the grill asked.
    Anna nodded.
    "Then thank you for sharing it," he said. His smile was lovely. It brought her voice right back, slotting neatly into position.
    "I'm Anna," she said.
    His brow wrinkled in surprise. He looked at Robert then back to her. "Nice to meet you, Anna. I'm Jake."
    She held out her hand. His brow wrinkled deeper, then he smiled and shook it.
    "Where have you come from, Jake?"
    He laughed. "I'm from Chicago, Anna. Cerulean picked me up on the cairn-trail in Illinois. I'm the most recent addition, I guess apart from you."
    She nodded curtly. That's the kind of thing Alice would do, even if she didn't understand what somebody had just said. She had asked, so it was correct to listen and nod.
    The others were gathering around now. Jake licked his lips. "What about you, where have you come from?"
    She thought about that for a minute. "I don't know. A city, but I don't know the name. I walked to the ocean with my Daddy for lots of weeks, then I walked back here. I saw Amo's comic in the city with the smiley cake-face. Denver, Robert said? Then I came this way. I want to find him. Amo I mean."
    Jake's jaw dropped. "You walked here from the