WILLA

by Jennifer Reynolds

  Deep inside, I was fighting the urge to scream, cry, shut down—die even. I couldn’t imagine a scenario where any of us could survive. If those creatures were anything like their counterparts in the movies, we were doomed. We were the walking dead, as the T.V. show suggested.

  Stop, Willa. Stop thinking that. You do what you have to do to live for as long as you can, I mentally chastised myself.

  “Rest a bit,” Grandma said to break our silence. “When you’re ready, I’ll give you something to do.”

  She hugged me, kissed my forehead, and moved off to talk to one of my uncles.

  5.

  Organizing our belongings under the cots didn’t take long. Afterward, I wandered around the cellar to see who had come to Grandma’s house. Both of Mom’s brothers and their families had arrived that morning. Grandma’s baby brother, his wife, their only son, and his wife and two girls were there. Her youngest sister was there, but only one of her children, his spouse, and children were there. A few of Grandpa’s, God rest his soul, nieces and nephews, and their spouses, and children milled about the area. Others either refused to leave their homes or lived too far away to get to us safely.

  Once I made my rounds, I went looking for my grandmother. She and one of my second cousins, Stella, were unloading the totes of food we’d brought from my house and making notes of what we had on a clipboard.

  “Need any help?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Grandma said. “You can take the totes of medicine and first aid stuff over to that back shelf. Divvy it up into its appropriate place. There’s a clipboard on the top shelf. List all the items you put on the shelf on it. I doubt we’ll be able to keep perfect records on everything, but we need to try. This stuff might have to last a long time.”

  “Okay. I can do that. It’s a good thing you had a nearly full cellar when this started,” I said.

  “Oh yeah,” Stella said, looking around at the shelves of food.

  “Well, your Aunt Carol’s stash helped,” Grandma said.

  “I can’t believe she had the patience to shop for all of this,” Stella said, pointing at the shelves of food.

  I left the two women discussing my aunt and her coupon addiction. Carol is Uncle Jamie’s wife, and she’s obsessed over digging through coupons. She spent most of her time either looking through ads or store hopping to cash in on the deals she found. The only problem was that my aunt and uncle didn’t have a large basement or walk-in pantry, but what storage areas they did have stayed stocked with supplies.

  Fortunately, over the years, anything that couldn’t fit at their house went to Grandma’s cellar, giving us plenty of food for family gatherings or for any family member who was struggling and needed a little extra help. My family didn’t horde the items for ourselves either. Once a month, Grandma and Aunt Carol would take loads of it to local shelters and food banks.

  One of my family’s saving graces was that the end of the world fell midmonth, so both Grandma’s cellar and my aunt and uncle’s house was stocked almost to overflowing. All of the food at Uncle Jamie’s home went to Grandma’s basement in the hours after my uncle had heard about the outbreak.

  Grandma lived on a large farm that my Uncle Jamie, Uncle Carlson, and a few farmhands helped her tend. My grandmother had loved to can. She canned or froze everything my uncles could grow in the fields behind her house. Couple Aunt Carol’s coupon obsession with Grandma’s love of canning, and we should have food for a year if we rationed appropriately and if no more of our family came. I couldn’t see how we’d be able to fit any more people in the cellar, let alone many more supplies.

  The medical items from our house only filled one tote. I carried it over to the shelf that Grandma pointed out and grabbed the clipboard off the top shelf. Sitting on the floor, I opened the tote and inventoried everything in it before placing the stuff on the shelves.

  Taking note of how bare that section of shelving was in comparison to the rest of the cellar, I feared we’d run out of medical supplies before we would run out of food.

  Once I finished, I took the tote to the bottom of the stairs, where Uncle Carson carried it up to the kitchen and wherever he was storing them. No new people had arrived since we had, and I couldn’t think of anyone who would.

  For the second time, I wandered around the cellar, listening to stories about the zombies. Very few people had seen one, and those that described what they saw, honestly couldn’t say that what they saw was a zombie. Most didn’t want to believe that what Uncle Carson saw were zombies. The lack of valid evidence of the creatures made our entire situation surreal.

  What if the outbreak was a hoax? What if we woke up tomorrow with China or Korea or Russia laughing at us for believing the prank they pulled on us?

  That could happen, but my gut told me it wouldn’t. The news footage had been real, graphic, and believable, and from all over the world.

  By the time I made it back to my cot, Grandma had Mom sitting up and sipping tea. By the glazed look in Mom’s eyes, Grandma had slipped her a sedative. I hadn’t heard Mom say anything. If, when she woke from her nap, she awoke as the woman who believed the zombie-apocalypse had happened, then she’d probably been hysterical. If she’d woken in denial, she could’ve gotten a bit violent. Either version would need calming.

  “Whose idea was it to bring everyone here?” I asked Grandma as she coaxed Mom to drink.

  “Mine,” Grandma said, not taking her eyes off her daughter. “This is our family home. We’ll be safe here.”

  “Do you think it’s real?” I asked, nodding toward the outside of the house, hoping she understood what I was referring to so that I wouldn’t have to say the word aloud.

  “Yes. And not just because of what your Uncle Carson says he saw. I’ve lived for a long time. I know real panic and fear when I see it. Those news anchors weren’t joking.”

  “This feels so impossible.”

  “Impossible things happen all the time,” Grandma said, motioning me away from my mother. “With all the hype zombies have been getting over the years, it was inevitable that someone would try to create them. Of course, I don’t think their creator made the creatures with this in mind. Some idiot probably thought they could contain the virus. They always think they can do that.”

  “You think someone purposefully started the outbreak?” I asked, barely whispering the words.

  I couldn’t believe anyone could do such a thing.

  “It’s more than possible,” Grandma said.

  “How are you staying so calm?” I asked.

  “I’m a mother and a grandmother, I’ve learned how to hide my freak-outs, as you would call them. When your children see you scared, it makes their fear worse, no matter how old they are. I’ve had a good cry. I’ve pissed on myself watching some of the videos on TV. Now, I’m just trying to focus on one second at a time...one task after another. What about you? You seem to be holding up well.”

  “I don’t know how I am. To be honest, I guess that I don’t fully believe this is real.”

  “It’s real, all right,” Uncle Carson said, coming to stand beside us. “The latest news reports say that the creatures will be here first thing in the morning. Jamie and I are going to board the downstairs windows and some of the second-floor ones. We’re also going to add bars to the doors, though they’ll be our main guard areas down here.”

  “Okay. Take Willa upstairs with you,” Grandma said.

  “I...” Uncle Carson said.

  “Take her while your sister is sleeping. When she wakes, she isn’t going to let Willa help us do anything. You know that. Which is sad because Willa is one of the few people here who has kept their shit together.”

  I gaped at Grandma’s use of the word “shit.” I don’t think I’d ever heard her curse.

  “Okay,” Uncle Carson said. “Come on.”

  He nodded in the direction of the stairs.

  “Take those nails up to Kris and help him,” Uncle Carson said when we got to the living ro
om, pointing to a few boxes on a table by the front door.

  “Okay.”

  I grabbed the nails and went to the second floor to find my cousin. Kris was in his dad’s old room. He was working on nailing a board over one of the three windows.

  “I come bearing nails,” I said, entering the room and heading to one of the open windows.

  The world outside was growing dark. That didn’t stop me from noticing that someone had moved our vehicles, including the ones used only on the farm to form a circle barrier around the house.

  “Your dad is brilliant,” I said, going on the assumption that either Uncle Jamie or Uncle Carson had the bright idea to use the cars as an extra layer of protection.

  “Oh, that was Chad’s idea,” Kris said.

  “Good on him.”

  “Yeah. It’s a good thing Chad has read all those zombie books.”

  I barked out a laugh that wasn’t at all humorous.

  “I can’t believe we’re living in a world dependent on the knowledge found in fiction novels,” I said.

  “Right. You know, I thought I’d be excited if something like this occurred. Now, I can barely stop from pissing myself when I take a second to think about what’s happening out there.”

  I turned to stare out the window one last time before helping Kris steady a board on the next window.

  6.

  “Willa Marie Ashburrow, get your ass down here right this second,” I heard my mother yelling from the cellar as I followed my cousin to the living room after we finished boarding the windows in the bedrooms that they wouldn’t use as guard stations.

  “Molly, hush,” my grandma said in an attempt to quiet her daughter.

  “I will not. You let my daughter go upstairs. You put her in danger. How could you? Willa,” Mom screamed again.

  “Mom. Stop. I’m right here,” I said, coming to the top of the stairs.

  “Get your ass down here,” she hollered again.

  “Molly, stop yelling. You’re upsetting everyone,” Grandma said.

  “I don’t care. You knew better than to let Willa go up there,” Mom argued.

  “No, I didn’t. Everyone has to help protect this place if we want to survive. All Willa was doing was boarding windows,” Grandma stated.

  “And what if one of those creatures got her?”

  So she’d woken up believing the zombies were real. I guess she couldn’t pretend to be in denial with so many people in the cellar who knew the truth.

  “If a zombie gets inside this house and gets to her, then we’ll die,” Uncle Jamie said, coming down the stairs. “Listen up, people. We are in a remote area of the state. We have a ring of cars around the house, blocking those creatures’ way to us. We have boards and bars on all of the downstairs windows and most of the upstairs. The front, back, and side doors will have guards watching them at all times. They also have bars we can slam down if we need to. If everyone—and I mean everyone—pitches in and we don’t let anyone in who hasn’t been checked thoroughly for bite marks, then we should be fine.”

  Uncle Jamie looked directly at Mom when he said the word “everyone.” She merely glared at him.

  “How long do you think we’ll have to be down here?” my mom’s Uncle Ray asked.

  “I have no idea. If we’re lucky, this outbreak will play itself out in a few weeks. If not, we have plenty of ground to defend. If we don’t panic, that is. Our safety depends on all of us staying levelheaded. I can’t stress that enough. I know we are in a scary situation. I know we’ve all seen at least one movie or television show about these creatures, so we know how dangerous they can be. We are probably some of the lucky few who made it to a safe place. Now, we have to keep it safe.”

  “What do you want us to do?” my second cousin, Amelia, asked.

  “For right now, just get some sleep. We’ve had a lot going on these last two days. Tomorrow, we’ll start brainstorming different ways to keep this place safe,” Uncle Jamie said.

  “I also recommend everyone stay off their phones, laptops, etc.,” Uncle Carson said. “We know it’s bad in many places out there, but for at least a few hours, let’s be ignorant of what’s happening. I think that would help calm our nerves.”

  “Bullshit,” someone called out, but I wasn’t sure who.

  “Maybe, but I think the less we freak ourselves out over this, the better. Remember, we are safe here,” Uncle Carson said.

  No one else spoke up, but as a whole, everyone started talking amongst themselves. A few people turned off their phones or at least turned off social media and news sites. Most didn’t. I guess I couldn’t blame them. Uncle Carson was right that it would help those easily scared, like my mom, stay calm, but the rest of us needed to know what was going on in the world. We needed to have an idea of when the zombies would be on our doorstep.

  I didn’t turn on my phone when Mom directed me to our cots. I was too tired to hear any more about the outbreak. Besides, Mom was ranting about me going upstairs, and about my uncles and Grandma being careless with my life. I didn’t even bother to correct or argue with her. I didn’t have the energy.

  All I could bring myself to do was pull the bag that had my nightclothes and toiletries in it out from under my cot and get what I needed to dress for bed. The basement had a tiny full bathroom and a large sink next to the washer and dryer along the farthest wall. Someone had hung curtains from the ceiling to block that area from the rest of the cellar.

  No one, thankfully enough, was in the bathroom, so I peed, brushed my teeth, and changed clothes, knowing that in a day or so, we’d have to come up with a routine for everyone to shower, go to the bathroom, and dress. Sure, those brave enough could go upstairs and use one of the bathrooms on the first and second floor, but even with three bathrooms, we were going to have problems with as many people as we had in the house.

  That was a crisis for another day.

  Mom was still ranting when I returned to my cot.

  “Mom, go brush your teeth and change for bed,” I said, not caring that I’d interrupted her.

  She looked at me, surprised for a second before her expression changed to confusion.

  “Your stuff is under your cot. I brought a basket for our dirty clothes. I’m sure we’ll have to take turns washing clothes, but we’ll probably have to wear things a few times before washing them.”

  “I need to shower,” she said.

  “Okay. Go. The house has three bathrooms. I’m sure one is open for showers. Just pray that you have hot water.”

  Mom gaped at me, again, as if she hadn’t thought about that aspect of living in the cellar. Of course, she hadn’t.

  Before she could say anything else, I grabbed my phone, which was only fifty-percent charged, and opened a word game that I’d been playing. For half a second, I pondered at how odd it was not to see any notifications for phone calls or messages from my friends.

  The thought of calling my father for the millionth time also crossed my mind, but I didn’t. I was scared for him. A knot of worry in my stomach warned me that I might never see him again, but I knew I’d make myself sick if I kept calling and texting him without receiving a reply. I had to put thoughts of him out of my mind for the night.

  I barely made it through one game on my phone before I was asleep. I didn’t even hear Mom come back to her cot.

  A gunshot woke us all the following morning. More than a few people ran for the stairs to see what was happening. I tried to be one of those people, but Mom snatched me by the shirt.

  “What the hell do you think you are doing,” she hissed in my ear as she pulled me to a dark corner of the cellar behind a row of food shelves. Most people in the basement had the same idea.

  “I was going to help.”

  “No, you were not. You let your uncles take care of that,” she said, pointing to the ceiling.

  “We can’t let them do everything,” I argued.

  “There are plenty of other grown men who could help.”

&nb
sp; The glare she gave the males in our general area would have shamed me into coming out of hiding if I’d been one of them. As far as I could tell, no one moved. Don’t get me wrong. I felt their fear. I didn’t want to be upstairs fighting against those creatures, but what I wanted didn’t have anything to do with our situation.

  We waited in our huddle for nearly five minutes, listening for more gunshots. None came. There was a great deal of movement going on above us, but those initial shots seemed to be the only ones that were going to come from the ordeal.

  Little-by-little, as time went by, people started leaving our hiding place. On more than one occasion, I tried to follow them, but mom would grab hold of me and pull me back.

  “Mom, stop,” I finally said.

  “You are not leaving this spot until your uncles say it’s safe.”

  “You are going to have to ease up. I understand the danger we’re under, but we can’t live in a state of terror. If we don’t help keep this place safe, then we’ll all die.”

  “My job is keeping you safe. Everything else is secondary.”

  “I love you too, Mom,” I said.

  All the fight went out of me at the terror in her eyes. At that moment, I felt terrible for being so hard on her for the last few days. She was only human and a mom. I understood that, but I did worry that her fear and overprotectiveness would get us killed.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Grandma said, coming down the stairs.

  “Was it a zombie?” someone asked.

  “We think so. We’ll know more in the morning. Either way, it’s dead. Our scouts don’t see anyone or thing else wandering around the house. Let’s go back to bed,” Grandma said.

  More questions flew through the air, but Grandma didn’t have anything different to say. Eventually, everyone except those who were on the next watch shift went back to bed.

  I lay there for a long time before giving in to the need to message my father again. He didn’t reply, not that I expected him too.

  From the cot beside me, I heard Mom crying. I reached out to her and took her hand. We fell asleep holding each other.