Scarlett was mentally organizing how to deal with all of this while setting down the waffles, smiling blandly at the joke that the man should get a discount to dry-clean his pants and answering that she didn’t know exactly how many eggs were represented in the scrambled eggs that came on the side. “Maybe two.”
“That looks like more than two.” The woman fiddled on her phone with amounts and slid it to two-and-a-half. “Oh, that puts me over my protein limit.” She scrolled back to two.
Then the television in the corner, which had been playing commercials for Yum-Yum, snapped to a breaking update. And Scarlett’s license became a relic, even if she hadn’t known it at the time.
She’d stumbled over Fisher ten days later, both of them foraging for food in the same supermarket. The girl had attached herself to Scarlett like a new limb. This was the first normal person Scarlett had seen in that whole time, and to know she wasn’t alone made her want to sink to her knees and praise God.
Bakersfield crawled with deadheads, so they decided to leave. Scarlett’s parents were long gone to the grave, cancer nailing them both while she was in her late teens, but her aunt lived in downtown Kryton. The trip north had been a nightmare, an afternoon’s journey transformed into weeks of trading vehicles, trolling for food and water, and seeking safe havens to hide out the other twenty-one hours of each day. Vehicles had been abandoned on both sides of the freeway, often blocking every lane and giving them no recourse but to abandon their current mode of transportation and locate another. Scarlett had never been more frightened than when she was dodging by foot around bodies and cars, checking handles and the clock ticking in her head, all with a terrified twelve-year-old at her side. It also scared the piss out of them in the night, squirreled away in hotel rooms or houses or restaurants and listening to the zombies scratch around outside. Fisher curled up beside Scarlett and shook like a leaf. This was her kid now, her little sister, a niece or her daughter. The exact nature of their relationship didn’t need to be determined. They were just a patchwork family in patchwork times, both hoping they weren’t going to lose each other to zombies.
The zombies ate each other when they couldn’t find fresh meat, but it was fresh meat they preferred. Thousands of them had been drawn to the giant cattle feedlot that ran alongside the freeway. Bovine skeletons were everywhere, sleeping zombies strewn among the carcasses and the smell so overpowering that Scarlett and Fisher breathed through their mouths. Human skeletons had littered the entire journey. Play fast and loose with travel time, and the zombies played fast and loose with you. Scarlett didn’t believe in playing that game.
They reached Kryton on the first of May. The second Scarlett walked into the hallway of the apartment building, she knew her aunt was dead. She smelled it. Some people had died within minutes of exposure to whatever it was that had been unleashed. The last news report the television had ever played showed no reporters at all. Only a cameraman sat at the desk to say nervously that an experimental chemical weapon had been accidentally released from a laboratory in Texas. That was all the information he had, and he wasn’t even sure if it was truth or rumor. Not long after that, every television went black.
The zombies hadn’t gotten to her aunt’s body yet, but every bug in creation had pulled into town through the cracked window in the living room. Scarlett hauled Fisher out of the reeking, swarming apartment and down to the school bus fast. When there were only three safe hours in the day, every minute counted. They came across Plantation while looking for a place to conceal themselves.
Scarlett loved Plantation, even if she wasn’t sure exactly what it was. A farm? A vacation home? A bed-and-breakfast? There weren’t any pictures in the house of whoever lived here, if anyone had. The only identifying mark was on the gate, which read PLANTATION in script along the top. Outside the wall were fruit trees by the dozens. Her first thought upon arrival was that those had to be watered. It could only happen in the brief window of time when the sun was highest. Scarlett had seen for weeks now how the zombies stopped loping around in search of food to fall into a somnolent state around the middle of the day. They looked dead at that time. Zombies didn’t yawn or turn over or stretch. They were immobilized until the end, when they got up almost as one and started the hunt once more. It was creepy.
Whatever this place was, it could not have been more perfect. The wall ran all the way around the massive property, a grand, two-story house at the very center. From the road, the house couldn’t be seen with all the trees. She and Fisher settled in, raiding local stores in the safe hours for non-perishables and seeds. They did the same with the nearby houses and farms, chasing after every live animal and hauling them back to Plantation. That was how Bridger and Elena found them, from driving around at the safe time in his car and spying their bus tootling down the road with a furious chicken flapping in the window. Those two weren’t married but had come across each other in a market like Scarlett found Fisher. When you found someone, you held on. Even if you didn’t speak the same language. Elena’s English was halting, although she read it much more easily and understood most of what she heard. When she saw the wall and garden and big house, the chickens and cows, her hand flew to her mouth in wonder. She took over the kitchen and Bridger got to work with Scarlett on building a rudimentary barn for the animals. Over time, they picked up other people and had more hands to help.
There was something quite rich to be said about a woman named Scarlett who lived on a place called Plantation, and all the while being one quarter African American through her father’s side. Some of the younger children they collected over the next months even called her Miss Scarlett. It made her feel like an aide in a nursery school, or it did until one of the older men did the same thing. He had been raised in a generation that always referred to single women as Miss, so it was Miss Scarlett. At least her last name was Castrilli, not O’Hara, and when someone occasionally asked in jest if she were Irish, she could say no.
What that rich thing was to be said exactly, Scarlett didn’t give a damn. She had too much else to do than play at irony, if that was indeed an example of it. Irony hadn’t been on the menu at Yum-Yum Waffles in the nine years she’d worked there. Her mind hadn’t even been in the ON position during her shifts. Her body just went through the motions at high speed while Rogelio smoked by the dumpsters or spent half an hour in the bathroom.
After March 24th, her mind was stuck in the ON position.
When she got out of bed in the morning to another blazing day, it was with the knowledge that her first task was watering to keep the garden from burning to a crisp in the heat. July and August had been brutally hot, with early September shaping up to be no different. They needed every squash and tomato and cucumber for the winter, which was what she reminded herself when a hose leaked or the hours stretched out before her in dullness at this task. Watering was tedious. Starvation was painful.
Brainless Shirley had given the chore a lick and promise three weeks ago, and some of the plants shriveled beyond salvaging as a result. Scarlett almost brained her. Their blow-up shook the house. Shirley played up a pain in her back that made it hard to stand around with a hose for hours, and got defensive when Scarlett pointed out that it only appeared to flare up when she was assigned to watering. Working in the kitchen and Shirley was fine, since she could stuff her face with extra food. Working in the barn and Shirley was fine, since she liked to talk to the animals. Working in the garden and suddenly she was a cripple. And speaking of cripples, the few they had on Plantation worked a damn sight harder than Shirley.
There was likely a more judicious way of saying that, but Scarlett hadn’t bothered to seek it out. The fight finished with the invitation for Shirley to pack up herself and her kids and walk out that gate. The former receptionist had been absolutely scandalized at the thought of leaving. She willed her IQ up a few points to avoid being thrown out of Plantation to the wild.
Elena and her morning crew had breakfast ready in cut up chunks of fr
uit and scrambled eggs. They had that almost every morning, with toast and jam as a treat on Sundays. Fisher was giggling with Tanya and Serena on the window seat, the girls twelve, ten, and eight respectively but made best friends by circumstances. Seeing Scarlett, Fisher pointed to the calendar on the pantry door and said, “Look at that. We should be going back to school.”
Her tone wasn’t sad, more bemused with a touch of bewilderment. Were this a regular year, she’d have a closet full of new school clothes and a backpack loaded with unmarked paper and fresh pens. Her fingernails would be done up in glitter polish and she’d be going back and forth on which outfit to wear for the first day. She’d be nervous.
“What grade would you be in?” Serena asked.
“Seventh,” Fisher said.
“I remember seventh,” Scarlett said, and they looked at her in disbelief since to their perspective, being twenty-nine rendered her as ancient as the pyramids. But it hadn’t been so long ago. Of Scarlett’s six teachers that first day of seventh grade, four had mutilated her last name. Cast-er-ILLI. That was what they’d called out at attendance instead of Ca-STREE-lee, like they had huddled together in the teachers’ lounge before the first bell and picked out a few oversensitive kids to embarrass. Now it was humorous. Back then it was mortifying. “My teachers screwed up my name all day long. Be thankful you have a boring last name, Fisher Greene.”
“Are you kidding?” Fisher exploded. “My fifth grade teacher thought it was Greenie. That was what she called out, Fisher Greenie and everyone laughed. And the other kids call me Fishie.”
“That’s not nice,” Serena said in loyalty to her friend. Tanya was muffling her mirth with her hand. Scarlett thought that might be why Fisher hadn’t noticed the date with any sadness. Fishie Greenie. When Yum-Yum Waffles presented itself in Scarlett’s mind over the last five months, she wasn’t sad either. Bemused and bewildered just about covered it. She ate her eggs and fruit and headed out to the garden to water.
The sight of the crisped plants from Shirley’s debacle ticked her off again. Within the walls of Plantation were fifty-nine people and plenty of animals to get through the winter. They needed this food. Thankfully it was California, so they weren’t at risk of dying in the cold months from hypothermia. If people had survived in Wisconsin or Minnesota, or any of the colder climates of this planet, Scarlett hoped they had had the sense to book it south over the summer.
She watered one of the crispy plants in hopes that it might revive. The food was a necessity. The squads had worked over this area thoroughly, bringing back busload after busload of foodstuffs and drinking water to be packed into the downstairs game room. Bridger oversaw that operation, possessing a keen eye for detail of what they needed and in what amounts. He had been a psychiatrist, albeit retired, before their world came apart. Scarlett depended on his calmness and organization, his ability to explain why Shirley was the tool that she was. His voice was steady and soothing in the conference room after the battle. Conference room. That was the laundry room with some plastic chairs set up in it, a name suggested as a joke that stuck. “Shirley has spent forty years learning that if she does something badly enough, someone else will eventually take it over for her. Now she is unlearning a deeply ingrained behavior. That is going to take a while.” Scarlett wasn’t feeling too patient. And Shirley wasn’t a tool. That was an insult to tools everywhere. A tool was useful.
“She lazy,” Elena said, and that was that. If Fisher had become Scarlett’s daughter by this disaster, Elena was Scarlett’s aunt and Bridger her unflappable grandfather.
Although the game room was packed, Scarlett only saw it for the empty spaces now and those to appear in the future. There was a strict limit to how far they could send the squads for raids. What had been left in the stores and homes that fell inside the radius of an hour’s travel outside Plantation wasn’t going to last forever. Neither was the fuel to get there.
Once harvest was done, they’d kick back a little and work on less pressing projects like figuring out some kind of schooling for the children. But it wasn’t done yet, so issues like that were tabled. Reading and writing were optional in this world. Eating was not. Avoiding being eaten was imperative.
By half past ten, Scarlett was wiping sweat from her forehead. It was already uncomfortable outside. Elena would be sending out Tucker and Tanya in time with bottles full of water for the people working in the garden. Those were Shirley’s kids, who she had introduced proudly as Irish twins upon the family’s arrival. Scarlett assumed their late father was a brighter fellow, since the kids did a lot better at staying on task and learning new things than their ditzy, lazy as hell mother. Their latest problem with her was that she was pressing to be part of a squad. Too weak in body to hold a hose, but champing at the bit to bring back furniture, books, and giant sacks of rice and chicken feed. Scarlett had been hard-pressed to say that a requirement was intelligence. The woman just wanted to peek in other people’s houses for some entertainment, and that was the last reason the squads were out there. The clock was always ticking over their heads. Every time they had people out there, Scarlett kept a silent prayer vigil in her mind for their safe return.
No one was going out today, except for the few checking over the fruit trees on the other side of the wall. She was so pissed at Dustin that had a raid been on the schedule, she’d consider cancelling it. He’d been nothing but trouble since the moment he’d stepped into Plantation. At first, she thought he had problems taking orders from women. Then, watching him tangle with Bridger, she concluded that he didn’t like taking orders from anyone. It wasn’t a sex thing at all. Dustin and his double-digit IQ just knew best.
It was a miracle that anyone survived since March. She should rejoice at every new face. But when she had Shirley or Dustin pestering at her like gnats, she wished that she could exchange them for better people the world had lost. Like Eamon.
God, she didn’t want to think about Eamon. The problem with watering was that there was nothing really to think about, save what you didn’t want to think about crossing your mind. She pushed him out resolutely.
Dustin didn’t like doing the dishes. Dustin didn’t like having to keep quiet at night. Dustin didn’t like that he wasn’t allowed to chase the chickens around for fun. Dustin didn’t like that he had to earn the privilege to go on raids. Dustin didn’t like that Scarlett carried a gun but didn’t let him have one. He was never so outright defiant that Scarlett could toss him from Plantation, but she’d been hoping for a reason. Yesterday, he gave her one. Stealing a car! Leaving without even locking the gate! When he showed up again, if he showed up, she was going to let him bring in the minivan and kick him out for good. Her place, her rules. No one was being forced to live here. Elena and Bridger had agreed last night in the conference room that this guy didn’t contribute enough to cover the aggravation he caused. And leaving the gate unlocked was unforgivable. Anyone could have walked in. They were wishing him well, giving him a backpack with provisions, and cutting him loose.
“Do you want some water, Miss Scarlett?” Tanya had come up behind her, light brown eyes under a mop of dark brown hair. Her Irish twin brother was the opposite, dark brown eyes under a mop of light brown hair. The water bottle was offered, as was a straw hat, and Scarlett accepted both with gratitude. Elena had flavored the water with ginger. She read farmers’ almanacs, gardening and livestock books, reservoir management and cookbooks and Canning for Beginners. Anything along those lines the raiders found in homes and stores, they brought back for her to read, put into practice, and add to the library. They also took guns.
Dustin took a car. Damn, that had pissed her off all night. It made those in charge look out of control. She wasn’t worried about mutiny, but a lot of little nibbles eventually made a bite. Dustin hadn’t acted alone. For him to get out that gate, he needed help in Wesley looking the other way. There was no way Wesley had missed the minivan gliding along the driveway, not when he’d been assigned to that area to check
on the barbed wire along the top of the wall. No one was in the watchtowers at the time Dustin left, since there wasn’t any danger of zombies in midday. Wesley was a sweetheart, but he was even less bright than Dustin. He could get talked into going along with anything.
Scarlett moved the hose to another withering tomato plant. They needed better and longer hoses to get this done. There hadn’t been a single hose on the property when she first walked in, leaving them to steal from the farms down the road. It was best to water in the morning, not giving the sun a chance to evaporate it before it trickled under the top surface of the soil. But the garden was too large and their hoses too few to have it all finished by the time the heat went from blast to inferno. She missed air conditioning. It was hard to sleep at night when the heat persisted.
Berries and vegetables grew abundantly in the multitude of box beds. Pyramid-shaped trellises held vines growing gourds and pumpkins, which dangled down in mid-air. In the beginning, Scarlett knew that she and Fisher were putting in far more than two months could eat. It didn’t look like so much bounty with fifty-nine.
She drank her ginger water and watered away with the hose, in time moving on to the cans. Those were lined up at the faucet. Tanya and Fisher barreled out of the house to heft them away after they were filled. That wasn’t on the schedule for those two, but Elena had sent them out to help. Little Doug came out next and took up the smallest can with all the earnestness of a four-year-old who knew it was important to be a good helper. The head of a stuffed cat was poking out of the pocket of his overalls. The one non-essential squads had the okay to bring back was stuffed animals for him, which they did frequently. He slept on a love seat surrounded by his friends.
Did Scarlett actually intend to throw out Dustin? This was the first time she’d thrown out anyone. She thought about it as water bubbled up in another can. Yes. He was finished here. This was her home and she was going to protect it with all she had. It was so out of the way that no watchtower guard had ever delivered a single report of a deadhead coming by. They had all had the shit scared out of them at night by deer and raccoons.
Zombie Tales Box Set [Books 1-5] Page 3
