“Don’t leave without me, Anna. I’ll be there in five minutes,” Max said over the radio. He was running a little late and was worried that she was going to take off before he got there.
“Max, listen,” Anna said, then she handed the radio to Camille. “Hi Daddy,” she said.
Max immediately teared up and struggled to find his voice. He honestly had never expected Camille to find her way home, not after she’d been gone for so long. “Hi baby girl,” Max said as he was overcome with emotion. “I’ve missed you so much. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Dad,” Camille said through tears of her own. “I just got home a few minutes ago.”
“I love you, baby girl. I’m right around the corner,” Max said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
“We’ve been searching everywhere for you,” Anna told Camille. “Your dad got home not long after the horde finally passed by. What were you thinking? You could have been killed!”
“You know I didn’t have a choice, mom,” Camille said. “I was so scared, but I knew that the zombies at the front of the horde saw me. If I’d gone back into the Wright’s house or hopped the fence to ours, they would have followed me. We’d all be dead right now. I had to run.”
Anna knew that was true, but it killed her that her daughter had been out there on her own for so long. “I know. You’re braver and stronger than I could ever be. I’m so proud of you.”
“Is everyone else okay?” Camille asked with worry evident in her voice. It was the middle of the night, so she knew that her brother, Joey, and Lucia were probably sleeping.
Anna diverted her eyes for a moment before answering. “Honey, Jesse didn’t make it. He was killed when he and your dad were on their way home.”
Camille’s eyes grew wide and filled again with tears. “What happened? Are Joey and Lucia okay?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I do know that he didn’t suffer,” Anna said quietly. “Joey and Lucia will be okay. It’s just going to take some time. They’re going to be so happy to see you, especially Lucia. She’s been blaming herself this whole time and thinks it’s her fault you had to run.”
Michelle fought back tears at the mention of Jesse’s name. She had endless tears to cry for him, but she was trying hard to keep herself together for the moment.
“Your dad brought home some other people they managed to save along the way. One of them died last night, but Frank and Junior are here. They were trapped in their fire truck when your dad and Jesse saved them,” Anna said. “And your dad found another woman yesterday. Her name’s Maggie. She’s been helping him search all this time. Emily helped me the whole time I was out there looking for you. They’re good people.”
“So you all have been driving around looking for me all this time?” Camille was amazed. Not surprised because she knew how much they loved her, but amazed that they had been searching for so long when they had no idea where to look. “How? I mean, where did you go?” She couldn’t imagine how they would have found her.
“We drove around neighborhood after neighborhood, mostly to the east. I never realized there were about a million streets around here until I tried to drive down every one of them,” Anna said, shaking her head.
Before she could say more, Max came in the front door, followed by Maggie. Max rushed over to Camille and picked her up in a giant bear hug. “Look at you,” Max said. “I’ve missed your face.” His tears fell freely, and Camille shed a few more. She’d never felt so loved or safe in her entire life. She had missed her family so much that it hurt, and it was hard to believe that she found her way back to them. She never wanted to leave their side again.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Have you had anything to eat or drink?” Max asked one question after another before she could answer.
“I’m okay, Dad,” Camille said. “Michelle already fed me muffins. I’m just tired and sore. It feels so good to sit down again.”
“Sore? Did you get hurt?” Max asked.
“She drove a car into a telephone pole and twisted her knee at some point. We haven’t gotten into any of the details yet,” Anna said. She looked at Max with the most peaceful expression on her face. Her family was whole again. Max mouthed “I love you” to Anna, then shifted his focus back to his daughter.
The commotion from Max and Maggie coming in and everyone talking woke the kids, Frank and Junior. Coming down the hallway, Damon was the first to see Camille and ran toward her. Wordlessly he hugged her tightly and breathed a sigh of relief. When he’d heard the noise, he’d been afraid that something was wrong.
“I’ve missed you, sis,” Damon said. A little more quietly, he added, “I love you.” She whispered back to him, and they just sat there for a moment, feeling happy.
Joey and Lucia were a little louder with their greeting. Joey high-fived Camille and said, “I knew you’d make it back here. Holy fuck, I just knew it.” He caught his mom’s glare and said a quick sorry for his language.
Lucia walked up to Camille and hesitated. She loved her with all of her heart, and she was scared to death that Camille would never forgive her for freezing up when the horde came. “I’m so sorry, Camille,” Lucia started outright crying before she could even begin to try to stop herself. “It was all my fault that you had to run. I froze up when I was in the tree, and you needed my help.”
Camille stared at her best friend for a moment, confused by Lucia’s words. “It wasn’t your fault, not at all,” Camille said. “The horde saw me, Lucia. If you had jumped down, they would have seen you too, and we both would have had to run.” She closed the gap between them and hugged Lucia hard. They cried on each other’s shoulders for a moment until Lucia’s tears of guilt and fear became tears of relief.
“I’m so sorry about your dad,” Camille said quietly. She knew that nothing she said would help with her friend’s grief but needed to say it anyway. “I love you, and I will always love you. You know that, right?”
Lucia nodded and said, “I love you, too.”
At that moment, Frank and Junior stepped in from the living room doorway. Both of their faces were lit up with joy at seeing the family being reunited. They had waited for a pause before coming in because they didn’t want to interrupt the happy reunion.
“It’s gotten a little noisy with everyone talking and the front door being opened and closed, so we’re going to head out to do a perimeter check while you guys catch up,” Frank said.
“Camille, this is Frank,” Max pointed to the tall, dark man that was built like an ox. “And this is Junior. They’re good guys.” Camille said a quick hello to both of them. As they headed out the door, Max realized he hadn’t introduced Maggie.
“This is Maggie. She’s been helping me search for you ever since I found her early yesterday,” Max said.
“Hi Camille,” Maggie said. She had salt and pepper hair, crow’s feet, and smile lines on her face. She gave the impression of being a happy person. She grinned at Camille feeling true joy that she was home safe.
“Hi Maggie,” Camille said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Well, let’s everyone get settled down here so we can catch up,” Michelle said.
“I want to check your injuries to make sure you’re okay, and we all want to know what happened and how you made it back home,” Anna said.
“I’m fine Mom. There are some pain pills and a knee brace in my backpack,” Camille said. “If you could just grab those, that’s all I need.”
Anna wrapped the brace around her daughter’s knee, gave her two of the mild pain pills, and they all settled in to hear Camille’s story.
Chapter 23
Day 5
Everyone was shocked to learn just how far away from home Camille had ended up when she told them about Bradford, Elizabeth, and the mansion on Lake Road. With all of the zigzagging she’d had to do, she had probably run at least five miles when she took off running from the horde.
“Holy shit,” Max said. “We never looked that far north.�
�� He shook his head, feeling guilty that he hadn’t thought to check the mansions along the lake.
“Even if you had, it’s a big area Dad,” Camille said. “To use one of your old people's expressions, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack,” she said with a grin, trying to lighten the mood. She didn’t want her parents to feel guilty about anything.
Anna was beating herself up, too, for not going all the way to the lake. It had just seemed too far away. It wasn’t just getting to the lake but going as far to the east as Camille had run. She’d never even tried to search that area. “Motherfucker,” Anna mumbled to herself.
“Anna, stop,” Max said. “It’s like our lovely daughter just said; it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. All that matters now is that she made it home.”
“I was lucky to find such a nice couple,” Camille said. “They were my last hope, and they took me in. They kind of felt like grandparents; the way they made sure I was okay and had everything that I needed. And then they let me take one of their SUVs.”
“About that, you ran into a telephone pole?” Anna asked.
“It was really hard to drive, especially around all of the cars. Whenever there were a lot of zombies, it got pretty scary. I scraped against other cars a few times, hit the gas and the brakes too hard,” Camille said. “I was only a mile from home and nearly out of gas when a zombie appeared right in front of me. It was so dark out that I didn’t see it until it was too late. I tried to swerve around it, but I hit a telephone pole instead.”
“That must have been terrifying,” Anna said. She worried that her daughter would be traumatized and full of nightmares.
“It was, but I’m okay Mom,” Camille said. “After I wrecked the car, that’s when things got pretty scary. A pickup came weaving down the street, and I heard a bunch of guys yelling and laughing, so I jumped into a ditch to hide. They were drunk and acting like dumbasses. They fired their guns into the air, set a house on fire, and even left one of their friends to suffer and die when he got bit by a zombie. They drew in dozens of zombies before they left, so it was a little scary trying to run away in the dark.”
“You poor thing,” Anna said. She was shocked to hear about the idiots in the truck. “I’m so sorry, Camille.”
Max pulled Camille closer and kissed her forehead. “You did the right thing hiding in the ditch. That’s one of the things we were worried about. We were driving strange vehicles, so even if we drove right past you, we didn’t know whether you would show yourself or not.”
“I just went with my gut, Dad,” Camille said. “At the mansion, my gut said to trust Bradford, so I ran inside. With the guys in the truck, I knew I had to hide.”
“We haven’t all had a chance to talk about things we’ve seen yet,” Max started. “But I ran across an evil man yesterday. I stopped at a gas station, and this gray pickup came speeding down the road toward me and pulled in right next to me.” Max hesitated with Camille and Lucia listening, but he decided that everyone should know what was out there. “He was a sociopath and a rapist. He was looking for women and had already found some. He won’t be going after anyone else.” Max said with finality that the others understood for what it was.
“Holy shit,” Emily said and shivered. “When we were stuck on the roof of a bar, a gray pickup went speeding past us. We tried to flag him down, but he didn’t see us.”
Max looked at Anna, and the color drained from his face. If Bill had seen his wife and Emily, they might both be dead instead of him.
“Well, thank god he didn’t see us, but we were armed and ready for anything,” Anna said, then changed the subject. “Emily and I cleaned out a pharmacy last night…”
“Yeah, I saw the bags,” Max said with a laugh. “It looked like one of your usual shopping trips.”
Everyone laughed at that because of the way Anna shopped. It was lucky that she did, though, because they were well stocked up on pretty much everything.
“Oh hush,” Anna playfully swatted at Max. “Anyway, the whole store had been ransacked. There were bullet holes all over the place, and it looked like the place had been trashed just for the hell of it.”
“I ran into a guy at a pharmacy. I was trying to get medications that I thought you would want. This guy had broken in to get high on pain meds and ended up getting bitten by the pharmacist. He was almost gone when I got there, so I stayed with him then put him down,” Max said. “We’ve gotta be careful out there. Not everyone we come across is going to be a good guy.”
“We’ve been lucky so far, that’s for sure,” Anna said, shaking her head. She was still processing what Camille had said about the drunken guys and the evil man Max had run into. They’d had some very close calls.
“Now that everyone’s here, we don’t need to be going back out for a while, do we?” Michelle asked.
“We can take a little break to rest up. Everyone needs some real sleep,” Max said. “But we’re going to have to figure out a way to get gas. I’m not sure how yet, but I’m going to talk to Frank and Junior about it to see if they have any ideas. In the meantime, we can hit neighbor garages around here for gas cans. It’s a start, at least.”
“Won’t the power go out soon?” Damon asked.
“Yeah, I’m not sure how much longer we’ll have it. Maybe a day or two at the most,” Max said. “If we’re only hiding from zombies and not from people, we can use the grill by the pool to cook and heat food. There are so many trees that the smoke may dissipate enough that it won’t even matter if people are around.”
“It’s going to get extremely hot in the house,” Joey said. “With everything boarded up, we won’t get any kind of breeze in here.”
“We’ll have to figure out something,” Max said. “My biggest concern is gas and water. We need to keep all of the vehicles fueled up and ideally have extra in the gas cans. I’m not sure how long the water will keep running either.”
“When the water treatment plant goes down with the electricity, there should still be water for a little while. We can purify it with bleach. During my shopping extravaganza,” Anna paused to laugh. “I grabbed a couple of bottles. Those will go a long way.”
“Well, everyone should shower as often as they want to before we lose the water. I haven’t had one in days,” Max said.
“Yeah, we noticed,” Camille laughed and held her nose.
“I’m going to go ahead and hit the shower, then get some sleep,” Max said. “Can you ladies please get Maggie set up? She hasn’t slept in a while either.”
“I’ve got her covered,” Anna said. “Anyone else needing sleep, now’s a good time to do it. The sun’s about to come up, and we’re going to have a lot to do today. I want to make sure everyone is well-rested.”
“The medication must have kicked in; I can hardly keep my eyes open,” Camille said with a yawn. “Goodnight everyone,” She hugged her mom and dad then headed to her room with Lucia.
Before long, everyone was lying down except for Michelle. Frank and Junior had come back in from their perimeter check and took over the living room. It was a little bit of a tight squeeze, but they had managed to find a place for everyone.
She went back to baking in the kitchen. It seemed like a silly thing to do, but there was nothing that needed to be taken care of at the moment, at least nothing she could do on her own. With Anna's bottomless pantry, Michelle was able to whip up several more batches of cookies and desserts before anyone in the house started to stir. When she started to hear people moving around mid-morning, she cooked a big breakfast. There were a lot of people to feed, but Michelle was in her element and made more than enough for everyone. She’d just about finished up all of the remaining fresh food in the fridge and started on the freezer. She was going to make sure that everyone ate well until they were forced to live on canned and dried goods.
Chapter 24
Day 5
Everyone was in a good mood over breakfast. Camille’s homecoming had considerably lifted everyo
ne’s spirits. Getting some solid sleep had helped to energize and invigorate. There was a lot of laughter which didn’t come as easily as it had only six days ago, so it was good to hear. Even though her heart was aching, Michelle felt happy seeing everyone together and enjoying themselves. As they were finishing up, Max announced plans for the day.
“There are some things we need to get ahead of while we still can,” Max said. “Gas and water are at the top of that list. Junior here used to work at a gas station and knows how to get the pumps working as long as we still have power, so that’s going to be our first priority.”
“I’ve got some ideas for when the power goes out, too, but they’re messy and dangerous. We need to get as much as we can now. These trucks and SUVs aren’t too good on gas,” Junior said. “Frank and I are going to head out in a few minutes to get started.”
“All this bottled water we’ve been grabbing isn’t going to go that far with our group. We need trucks full of water. I want to hit a Costco and take every last bottle they’ve got,” Max said. “That will keep us going for a little while.”
“Joey and I can go hit all of the neighbor’s garages for gas cans since you guys are going to be out,” Damon said.
“Absolutely not,” Anna said.
“Like hell you will,” Michelle said simultaneously.
“Mom, we can’t just all sit at home when there’s stuff that needs to be done,” Damon said.
“He’s right,” Max said as both Michelle and Anna fixed him with angry glares. He held his hand up as he continued. “There’s too much to do. The boys have proven themselves to be more than capable. I’d rather have them checking garages up and down our street than have them driving anywhere.”
“So what, all of us women are just supposed to stay the hell home?” Anna seethed because she was pissed about Damon going out.
SUBURBAN JUNGLE: A Post Apocalyptic Zombie Survival Thriller (Chronicles of the Undead: Book 2) Page 17
