Unbound

by A. R. Shaw

  Once the girls were cleaned and happily snuggled into her bed, she said, “Goodnight. I’m going to stay up for a little longer and keep watch in the den. I’ll wake Wren in a few hours to take over while I sleep and then it will be your turn, Wren, to wake Mae. Don’t leave the room, only watch out the window. If you hear anything, wake me.”

  They both agreed so quickly that Sloane feared they didn’t really take her seriously. They were so tired, they’d agree to anything as long as they could close their eyes at the moment. All of them had only had a few hours of sleep over the past few days. She didn’t really blame them. Without Brady, though, their lives would be easier—even in an apocalypse, as it were.

  Their snores came quickly. She mentally prepared herself for the remaining task. I can do this. It’s just a body.

  With work gloves on, a spare blanket over her shoulder, and a short piece of spare plywood in her hands, she grabbed the small flashlight and locked the side door of the garage as she left. She then made her way over to the dead body in Larry’s backyard. She’d planned to haul him into the woods behind Larry’s house, as far she could, to keep the decaying smell at bay.

  She suspected there were more bodies out there anyway, caught by the wave. Every now and then, when the wind blew just right, she got the distinct aroma of what she knew to be decay. The smell could be an animal, but she knew there were several people who probably succumbed to the traveling wave. It happened so fast but, thankfully, it came so early in the morning that most people were still asleep instead of driving on their morning commute.

  “Quick and easy,” she said to herself, willing each step. “Shove the bastard on, cover him up, and haul him away.”

  I should probably stop talking to myself. It’s a sign of insanity. It’s bad enough I’m turning my daughters into liars.

  As her steps neared him, her body told her not to go any closer. “God, I wish I couldn’t smell him.” She’d given up caring about insanity.

  Gagging harder the closer she got, she said out loud, “Suck it up, buttercup.”

  She put the end of the flashlight into her mouth while she laid down the items she brought along. She wedged the plywood underneath his head—which, thankfully, was turned away from her. His head was stiff, but his brown hair moved and glistened with beads of moisture in the ambient light. She didn’t want to see his open, bug-eaten, eyes. She began to heave as she imagined larvae swarming in there. She quickly had to remove the flashlight from her mouth while she gagged several times. “Get through this, dammit!”

  She picked up the blanket, whipped it open, and covered Brady’s dead body with it. “Okay, you bastard, last ride,” she said and reached down with her gloved hands. She grabbed the stiff form through the blanket and around the shoulders and then hauled him onto the board, leaving several inches for a handhold near his head.

  She tested out the cumbersome load, knowing it would be a difficult trip. She pulled and began to drag him, looking behind her in the dark. The chirping of crickets kept her company and the thought occurred to her that if they stopped their cadence, it would mean trouble. They were her witnesses and accomplices in this morbid crime.

  Once she hit the forest, her progress slowed a bit as she maneuvered around the many trees and bushes. It took longer than she’d hoped, but when she came to a comfortable distance, she decided only ten feet more. She heaved the load again, then slipped on loose grass and fell down on her ass.

  This is it, you bastard, your final resting place.

  She thought about leaving the plywood sheet and blanket there but felt he didn’t deserve the comfort. She pulled away the blanket and tipped over the plywood. She began to head back when she heard a noise in the nearby brush. Instantly, she pulled her Glock and flashed her light in the culprit’s direction. She was getting pretty good at pulling the trigger in an instant.

  It’s probably Doug, dammit.

  Her heart leapt into her throat as a metallic jingle preceded a dirty white puffball from beneath a bush. She’d nearly fired at the small dog that was now yipping at her legs as if she were its long lost owner.

  She reached down to pet the dog, but it scampered a few feet away. “Well, be that way, but I have food where I’m going,” Sloane said and picked up her gear. As she walked away, the little dog followed at a short distance.

  Once she reached the garage, she tossed the items inside and coaxed the dog to follow, using a charming voice and an offer of treats. She left it in the locked, dark garage while she retrieved a box of cereal to feed him. When she returned, she flashed the light around and found the little dog curled up on the blanket she’d tossed on the ground earlier. She poured a cup of cereal near the blanket, and after the dog sniffed the food, it began to eat. “If I put you in with Ace, he’ll probably eat you.” She picked out several sticks from the dog’s fur and petted the dog while it ate. She then noticed the little red collar about its neck and said, “Sally’s your name, huh? Well, Sally, this is where you sleep tonight. Maybe we’ll move you to Larry’s house tomorrow. Goodnight.”

  When she finally washed off Brady’s death from her hands, she found that the rest of her still smelled of him. He was persistent that way—never taking no for an answer, even in death. She ended up removing all of her clothes and started to wash from the top down; she shampooed her hair over the bathroom sink and then cleaned herself, from her face down to her toes, removing every last molecule she could get to.

  9

  New Dawn

  * * *

  At the crack of dawn the next morning, Sloane checked the draining hoses by herself and let the girls sleep in. She’d left the windows open upstairs so she could hear them if they spoke above a normal level. She enjoyed the cool morning breeze as it chilled her bare shoulders. Before long, the hot afternoon sun would bake them.

  After she’d finished checking the Carsons’, she let Ace accompany her on her morning rounds. He trotted alongside her like her own personal protector. At each house, she arranged things differently than they were before. Trent now had his lawnmower parked in the side yard and the Bakers were airing out sofa cushions on their porch. In addition to several different windows opened than the day before, the Millers also had several conspicuous, clear, plastic bags tied around the green leafy branches of the blueberry bushes lining their driveway. No one would question this about the Millers because they were known to be avid survivalist types. It was a great way to collect extra sterile water, and she was glad she had remembered seeing them do this as an experiment the summer before.

  By the time she returned home, the new little dog, Sally, was yipping from the garage and letting her presence be known. She let Ace sniff at the garage door while she listened to the girls rousing upstairs.

  “What’s that sound, Mom?” Mae whispered loudly.

  “It’s a little, fluffy white dog I let in last night. Her name is Sally.”

  “You named her, Sally?” Mae asked.

  “No. That’s the name on her tag. She was someone’s pet too.”

  She observed Ace sniffing at the doorway. He wasn’t growling.

  “You promise not to eat her?” He looked back at her with big, brown, soulful eyes. She opened the door, though there was a standoff for a few minutes. When little Sally yipped and lunged up to confront the larger dog, Ace only looked back up at Sloane as if to say, What is that annoying thing?

  Then both dogs simultaneously turned, cocked their ears forward, and appeared to be alerted to something Sloane herself did not hear.

  “What? What is it?” she said.

  Ace went to the front door and barked, with Sally right behind him.

  Then she saw the man on his bicycle. There were two more dogs with him. One was a short but long-bodied mixed breed and the other, a large yellow Labrador. Sloane’s first thought was, And so it begins… what the hell does this guy want? It was quickly followed by her second thought of, Great—I wonder if I can get him to leave the dogs with me?

&
nbsp; The bicyclist was a man in his thirties with a shoddy appearance. He was eyeing Larry’s house and then Trent’s while the dogs sniffed around the roadway. Sloane heard the girls on the above floor move around, and bicycle guy then scanned her house.

  She had to think of something to say quickly to somehow warn them of the danger. Suddenly it came to her. She yelled in a singsong voice, “Cachez-vous” which translated directly from French as “hide yourselves”. Both of her girls were taught French from an early age and would instantly understand what their mother was saying. She knew it had worked when the noise above ceased right away.

  Sloane watched the bicycle guy through the window. When he reached behind his back, she thought, I might rename him ‘dead guy’ here in a minute. She went to the door and allowed him to see she was armed with the holster on her hip.

  “Can I help you?” she asked him with Ace and Sally by her side.

  His eyes slipped over her from top to bottom. She knew she was an attractive lady, even in her forties. She’d seen the looks over the years but never took advantage of the asset.

  “I think you can,” came his suggestive reply. It was the slimy way he said it—more than the words—that put him in the ‘dead’ column. She pictured him lying in the woods next to Brady’s dead body. She hoped it didn’t come to that, but there was no way bicycle guy was getting past her and to her daughters.

  “Just so we understand each other, there is an AR-10 trained on you, right now, from across the street.” She nodded toward the Carsons’ house. “Another weapon on you from my neighbor next door.” She bobbed her head to the left. “As well as the house on the right.”

  His eyes darted in all directions as she continued, “If you have legitimate business here, state it. Otherwise, I suggest you get back on your bicycle and leave.”

  Ace began a deep, guttural growl. She pretended it didn’t worry her. She didn’t think bicycle guy was too bright; she could almost see the rusty wheels turning as he tried to decide whether or not she was bluffing.

  “I’m just looking for a place to stay,” he complained.

  “These houses are all occupied by their owners. I suggest you keep moving. The day is young and you’re still alive—so far.”

  He looked from her to Ace.

  The yellow lab with him had taken up a position behind him. She didn’t think the dog liked Ace too much, and the smaller, patchy dog only looked at Ace with curiosity. Neither of them growled in return. More displaced pets.

  The man began to get back onto his bicycle.

  “One more thing before you go—are those your dogs?”

  “Hell, no,” he said and pedaled away.

  The two dogs remained, staring at her, not certain if they should follow. She kept an eye on the guy’s retreating form as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of dry peanut butter cereal that she’d used to coax Ace with earlier. She tossed a handful into the street, and although the scrawny dogs shied away at first, they scampered back to sniff out the offering. She continued to toss them tidbits to eat as she watched the guy disappear around the corner. He never looked back as he escaped the strange scene he’d stumbled upon, and she hoped she wouldn’t see him again. “La côte est clair,” she said loud enough for the girls to hear, letting them know the coast was clear.

  10

  Treasures

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, she and the girls were in Larry’s house, using their own warped sheets of plywood to patch up the hole left by the broken sliding glass door. Once finished, they still had the Millers’ to do, and already the drill was complaining. “Mae, look in the garage and see if Larry has another one of these,” Sloane said as she held up the drill’s battery pack.

  “Got it,” Mae said as Sally followed the girl to the garage.

  “What’s it look like out there, Wren?” she called from the back of the house.

  “Nothing new, Mom. I like this one,” Wren said about the yellow Labrador whom they had discovered was named Oakley according to the metal name tag on his collar. He kept watch by Wren’s side and leaned into her as she stroked his soft fur.

  “Just make sure you’re keeping watch.” Sloane smiled to herself and shook her head when Mae returned with empty hands. “I don’t see anything like that,” she said.

  “Great. We’ll have to use nails and a hammer. Problem is that it’ll be easier to bust through with nails. They’d have to work at it more with the screws.”

  Wren’s voice beckoned from the living room. “Mom, remember that time when Dad lit a light bulb with the car battery? Or the time he hooked up the TV to the battery when we went camping? Can we use the battery in Larry’s truck to charge the screwdriver’s battery unit?”

  She thought about the process. “Hmm, interesting idea. Your dad used an inverter to light the bulb using the car battery. It’s worth a try at least. Great suggestion, Wren,” Sloane said. It was amazing the things kids picked up when you thought they couldn’t care less. Finn had been a geeky science teacher before he became a principal and he’d often shown the girls the wonder of science, just as she taught them French growing up. Oh, how she missed him.

  Once, on a Saturday morning, she woke to hear Finn using her hairdryer to hover and spin a little white Ping-Pong ball as Wren’s four-year-old eyes beheld the wonder and believed her father a magician. Just like the Ping-Pong ball, she also recalled the light bulb incident. She had gone to retrieve frozen lasagna out of the garage freezer one afternoon and was surprised to find him holding a bright light bulb over the car’s engine. Again, her girls looked at him as if he was capable of conjuring anything with his bare hands.

  They left Larry’s place with their dog procession in tow, and once they returned to their own garage, Sloane quickly located the inverter. Finn had stashed it away years before under his workbench in a waterproof plastic tub, and once again, she was relieved that Brady had no interest in the garage or Finn’s tools.

  She left the girls to keep watch with the mudroom door open while she worked. She lifted the hood of her floodwater ruined minivan and connected the negative clamp of the inverter and then the positive. She then prayed the little LED green light would turn on when she turned the inverter around, and it did; the little bulb glowed green. “YES!”

  That told her two things: one, she could charge the screwdriver’s battery pack and two, all the auto batteries in the neighborhood’s abandoned vehicles were a valuable commodity, even if the autos themselves were worthless. She needed to collect the batteries and hide them or keep them under guard before someone tried to relieve her of them.

  The thought panicked her a bit, envisioning bicycle man making off with her battery under his arm. One thing at a time, she eased herself.

  She plugged the cordless screwdriver’s recharging unit into the inverter and affixed the dead battery inside. The red charging light flashed off and on, indicating the battery was in the process of charging.

  I have smart girls. We might make it through this, yet.

  “Mom,” Mae called.

  “Yes?”

  “What are we going to feed the dogs next? They’re sniffing around the kitchen.”

  They had four dogs now—one for each house. She’d gladly take in a few more strays for extra insurance if she could find them. “We only feed them in their own houses. We should try to make use of the spoiled food in each house first. That way, they’ll gladly separate from the pack, go inside, and stay the night. So don’t feed them anything out of the kitchen here. We’re the bringers of food and good things. We’ll go around and check the hoses again after we finish boarding up Larry’s house and then check to see what’s available for each dog to eat.”

  She left the battery to charge and returned to the living room as Ace came to greet her. She really liked this dog. She scratched him around the scruff of his neck and under his collar. “Good boy, Ace.” He panted at her and she would have sworn he smiled.

  “Great idea
, Wren. It’s working. The drill’s battery is charging. We should be able to finish the work on both houses today.”

  Wren smiled and stood a little taller. Sloane thought about how crazy it was. We’re in the worst of situations and we’re—happy? Almost as happy as we were with Finn.

  “Mom, if that works, could we run a fan, too?” Mae asked.

  “Uh, no. We can’t use the power for comfort, only necessities.”

  “I figured you’d say that,” Mae complained.

  “There are worse things than being hot, Mae—like being hungry. Let’s keep our priorities in order.”

  “Mom! I hear something,” Wren warned.

  The dogs heard it, too. Baxter—the shorter of the new dogs—began to howl. They hadn’t heard the sound in days, but it seemed like weeks. The main highway going through town rumbled, a mere vibration on the wave of the air. A minute sound they knew they were missing before, yet couldn’t name now. They only knew that it was too quiet. With its presence again, it stood out sorely and obtrusively in the peace they’d already learned to savor.

  “Is it traffic noise?” Mae asked with uncertainty.

  “Most vehicles are so water damaged, they don’t work now. It must be the military trying to get things back together,” she said with hope, but inside she wasn’t sure if it was a good idea or not. She was afraid of what the government might make of them—those who survived on their own and didn’t need their help. She didn’t want to go to a FEMA camp and she certainly didn’t want her girls in one. She’d take to the forest if it came to that. Or she’d fool them in some way with the hope of remaining on Horseshoe Lane.