Roxanne's Story (Book 1): Survival in the Zombie Apocalypse

by Diane Butler

The team climbed over the fence to see Mutt continuing to tear out the zombie’s throat and throw the meat aside like some wild animal whose young had been threatened. The growling continued as he did this but when the group drew within a few feet of him Mutt put his front paws on the body of the zombie and leaned in towards them. He bared his teeth, daring them to come any closer, growling with meat still hanging from his mouth. Everyone backed off in shock since Mutt had never shown any reason to fear him in the past.

  Brandon slowly hunched down and put his hand out. Mutt gave a deep throated bark, baring his teeth which covered Brandon’s hand with saliva and zombie meat. “Easy Mutt,” Brandon said softly. “Easy boy. Let me check to see if it got Roxanne. Let me check its hands and clothes.” Mutt closed his mouth but did not back off. “Let me check it for Roxanne, please Mutt? Roxanne?”

  Gretchen covered her face in her hands and started to cry. Morgan pulled Caleb into his arms and would not let him look. The rest were frozen in place. Brandon looked behind him and saw that Toby had carried a lantern with him. “Let me have that.” Toby carefully walked forward not wanting to startle Mutt into a frenzy and handed the lantern to Brandon. Brandon held it high and looked back to Mutt, “Let me look Mutt, please? Let me look.”

  Mutt stared at Brandon for a moment longer and then licked his chops. He slowly backed off the zombie and sniffed its neck, then he nudged the zombie’s head to see if it moved. Satisfied that it was dead and safe for Brandon he backed off and sat down to let Brandon approach. Lucky stepped forward and knelt down to check the zombie’s hands while Brandon held the lantern. “No fresh blood, just dirt and mud.” They both leaned forward so Brandon could shine the light over the body. Lucky touched the shirt and ran his hands over the zombie’s arms. “No human blood. These are splatters from Mutt ripping its throat out.”

  They stood up and stepped back, “Why would Mutt attack like that?” Brandon asked. “Never saw him do that before. The way Mutt tore into him I thought for sure it had something to do with Roxanne.” They looked over at Mutt who had again approached the zombie and was sniffing it when suddenly he grabbed one pant leg of the zombie in his teeth and began to pull at it growling, trying to rip the material off the zombie. He started to shake the leg back and forth in his teeth until you could hear the leg being torn out of its socket.

  “Mutt, get away,” Brandon ordered and stepped over the body to examine the leg in the light. He hesitated and then reached down to pull at the material, “Oh, Jesus” they heard him whisper. He stood and turned with something dangling from his hand, “its Roxanne rawhide headband.”

  “It was tied to his ankle,” Brandon said. “I don’t understand,” he looked up at Lucky.

  Lucky reached out and took the rawhide, putting it in his shirt pocket. “They knew about Mutt and Mutt wasn’t here all day. That means they have been watching the place. They put it on the zombie’s leg so Mutt would catch the scent and take us on a wild goose chase.”

  They turned and began to walk back toward the house, “I told you these guys were good”, Toby said. He started to drop behind and grabbed Smokey’s arm as a signal to slow his walk. As the others drew away Toby said, “I want you to go with them Smokey because there may come a time where you will need to physically force Lucky to give up the search. I’m not strong enough to do that. I don’t think Lucky will be rational on this search, won’t know when to give up and turn around. With both you and Brandon gone I will be the only one who knows anything about boats. If we are swarmed I’m all on my own to get them out of here. I’ll give you two days out, not more than that and you best mark your way at every bend and turn or you’ll be lost. Two days out and two days back, that’s four total. If you haven’t found a sign of her in two days you knock Lucky out if you have to.”

  Lucky and Brandon peeled off from the group and went toward the levee. “We’re going to get the rowboat tonight and will put it in the front yard so it will be available first thing in the morning,” Lucky shouted back to them.

  The rest went back to the dining room where Toby lit up a cigar, “Terry, Gertrude start ripping up sheets into strips, lots of strips. Smokey will need them to mark his way tomorrow.”

  “What are the chances Toby?” Morgan asked while sitting down as if his legs were beginning to crumble beneath him. “The chances of finding Roxanne?”

  Toby lifted his Captains hat to rub his forehead, “None and I don’t like risking Smokey to do it. I’m only doing it out of respect for Brandon because he showed up with Jenny in the nick of time to save us. I see that Lucky and Roxanne are good fighters and hard workers and Roxanne has a level head on her. Or at least she did until she went out there alone. Those two; Lucky and Roxanne? They’re both rogues. They will either work as a team or they will turn on you and you never know which way it will go.”

  “That’s not true,” Caleb spoke up. “Roxanne not only taught me a lot but she wanted to learn from me too. She asked me to teach her the crossbow and she always worked with us as a team. Roxanne is the best!”.

  Toby shook his head, “Meant no disrespect Caleb. I’m just concerned about our safety while three of our best go off looking for one person. If it was any other circumstance, wandered off, maybe hurt somewhere, I’d say yes. But all indications are that Roxanne was taken and taken by people who don’t make mistakes or leave clues behind.”

  Terry and Gretchen came into the room with several sheets of different colors and spread them out on the table. “I thought you might want to use different colors for different routes or different signals? I don’t know anything about tracking.”

  “No, that’s good Gretchen,” Toby said as he saw Lucky and Brandon put the rowboat down into the yard. “That makes sense.” He watched as they began to walk toward the house and said, “It suddenly occurred to me that no one is on watch, and Lucky will be upset by that so Larry why don’t you go up before he comes in and we won’t need to lie to him.” Everyone looked shocked that in the crisis they had forgotten tonight’s watch which could be a very important one if Roxanne should happen to escape from her captors and make her way back.

  “Brandon and I have been talking about these people who could have taken Roxanne,” Lucky said as he walked in and sat down. “Toby, you’ve told us of things that they are good at, but what are their weaknesses? What are their beliefs and fears? Maybe we can use that to our advantage.”

  “Well it depends on their tribe or clan, whether it is Choctaw, Witchcraft or Voodoo, all of which are practiced in the swamps but different from one another.” He looked over at Caleb, “And none that should be spoken of in front of a child.”

  Morgan looked startled and got up from the table, “We will wait for you back at the cabins Lucky, and you can fill us in on your plans.” Lucky shook his head, “Don’t wait up Morgan. I’m sure we will be here for a long time yet.”

  Toby sat down at the table with a sad sigh, “Lucky, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know how to fight these people and we are in their backyard, although things must be getting bad for them to have ventured this far north. The waterway you saw at the edge of the property is just the beginning and gets worse the deeper you go into the Bayou. The foliage and vines become so dense that you think you have reached a dead end, but if you hacked your way through, it would open up again. You would need a native or a voodoo priestess or medicine man to go with you. Only then would Roxanne’s captors be afraid into making mistakes.

  Brandon clasped his hands on the table and looked down at them. “I wish Cami were still alive. She would love playing the part of a Voodoo Priestess, chanting nonsense until she could get close enough to slit their throat.”

  “All right Toby,” Lucky said. “In lieu of a person, is there a symbol or device that would get our foot in the door or scare them?”

  Toby thought for a while, stroking his chin, “Well, maybe we can find something in the estate to make a fake Coco Macaque. That’s a walking stick which the owner can send out
on errands and it is supposed to be able to walk on its own. If it is used to hit an enemy, the enemy will die before dawn. If they saw you with a Coco Macaque they may think you have other powers and make a run for it so you can spot them.”

  “What does this Coco Macaque look like?”

  “Well it’s just a walking stick really. But the head of it is a round knob that fits into the palm of your hand. Usually it is a polished skull but can also be glass or polished stone. Don’t think I’ve seen any small skulls around here but maybe…”

  Gretchen’s gasp interrupted Toby’s thoughts, “Terry’s bed!” They all turned to look at her and Terry jumped up from the table. “Terry’s 4-poster bed!” Gretchen exclaimed. “Each post has an Agate mounted on the top. We could take the leg off and saw or whittle it down into the length of a walking stick and polish or stain it. I’m sure we can find something in maintenance so it won’t look like we recently carved it out.”

  “No!” Terry shouted. “Not my bed! You’re not going to tear my bed apart. I’ve never had anything nice in my life and I’m not letting you tear my bed apart!” she yelled while running out of the room.

  “Smokey,” Toby nodded toward the door. “I don’t care if you need to bust the door down you know what a Coco Macaque looks like. If you think the agate on Terry’s poster bed could fool them into thinking it’s one, then tear the room apart.”

  “Anything else you can think of Toby?” Lucky asked as Smokey left the room.

  “If you meet anyone descended from the Choctaw, they believe in honesty and truthfulness and that lying is a crime. If they have seen Roxanne they will be truthful with you, but they are very good at avoiding the question so that they will not be forced into lying. You will need to know how to keep rewording the question if you want a direct answer. What little I know, or have heard you may not want to know and I don’t believe that any of it will help you.”

  Lucky shook his head, “No, I want to know everything so I don’t break with their tradition or superstitions and perhaps can use the knowledge to my advantage.”

  Toby sighed. “Like I said, there are various beliefs depending on whether it is Indian, witchcraft or voodoo, but these are some of what I have heard. You will not find her captors camped among rocks because of the spirit called Limba believed to live among rocks. This spirit is thought to have insatiable hunger and eats people. Some Haitians call our Ze’s by the name of Limba. The Choctaw believe in Aba a good spirit, and Nanapolo a bad spirit. If Roxanne….if Roxanne is already dead you will not find her captors camping on trails, paths or roads at night. A person who dies a violent death, even an innocent person does not go to Aba to rest in peace. The dead wander trails that humans use to try to hide among the living and avoid Nanapolo. If these people killed Roxanne they would not want her spirit following them at night and would stay off the main byways.”

  “Oh, dear God,” Gretchen whispered and got up from the table. “I think I will join Larry on watch. If you’ll excuse me.”

  During Toby’s explanation they could hear the rumblings upstairs as Smokey kicked in Terry’s door. There was screaming, shouting and crying by Terry as they heard additional furniture being torn apart or thrown across the room. As Gretchen left the room they could hear Smokey coming down the stairs with Terry yelling after him, “Now where am I going to sleep? You animal, you brute, I hate you!”

  Smokey entered the room carrying the leg post of Terry’s bed. Gretchen was right in that the Agate was a beautiful brown stone and could be polished to shine. Toby had Lucky stand up to measure where Smokey should cut the wood to make it the length of a walking stick. “It needs to be whittled down too, Smokey. It’s too thick and looks exactly like what it is, a bed post. Do you think you could find some stain and have it ready by morning?”

  As they left the mansion with Lucky going toward his cabin and Brandon going to Jenny, Mutt elected to go with Brandon but once they mounted the levee Mutt turned and sat down facing the estate where he could get a full view. “Mutt, you coming inside with me?” Brandon asked. Mutt turned his head to look at Brandon but did not move. When Mutt turned to look back over the estate Brandon knew that Mutt would not leave his post that night.

  Smokey and Larry had both worked on the Coco Macaque during the night and it was a beautiful reproduction. Lucky, Brandon and Smokey turned the rowboat over and carried it above their heads to the waterway. Morgan, Caleb and Larry carried their duffle bags and supplies along with a lantern and their staffs. Mutt brought up the rear carrying the Coco Macaque in his mouth as he would carry Roxanne’s staff. When they entered the marsh the rowboat became a burden to carry, causing them to miss their step and sink into the mud. One time they were completely thrown off balance and dropped the rowboat into the mud. The smell of rotting foliage and stagnant water seemed to take all the oxygen out of the air. After they put the rowboat in the water along with all their gear they realized that Toby was right. If they found Roxanne and she was injured they would need to lay her on top of the gear because there was little room left after the three men and Mutt got in.

  “Remember,” Morgan said. “Two days out and two days back.”

  “They already have a day’s start on us,” Lucky called out as they began to row away.

  “Don’t be reckless and get lost,” Morgan ordered. “Listen to Smokey.”

  They continued to row south in silence. It had been agreed that Roxanne was probably captured around 10 am and it was 3:30 before the men had arrived back from the barge. Her captors would have been looking for a place to set up camp by then and they were hoping to discover the previous night’s campfire on the banks. After an hour Mutt became tired of holding the Coco stick and let it drop to the floor then he settled down on the duffle bags for a nap. They realized what Toby meant about getting lost in the swamp when they saw how often the waterway broke off into other sections. “How do you know which way to go?” Lucky asked Smokey.

  “I don’t,” he answered. “I am having you continue to row south, thinking that they would want to get deeper into the Bayou. But that doesn’t mean that we are on the right channel. Any one of those inlets that we passed could also swing around and go south.” To prove his point they rounded a bend to see that the channel had suddenly ended in heavy marsh and swamp land. The boat began to scrape bottom and woke Mutt who sat up.

  “Could they have gone through here?” Lucky asked. Smokey shook his head, “don’t see any signs that a pirogue was pulled up here. None of the foliage is disturbed, no tracks through the mud. We need to turn around and try another waterway. And Mutt doesn’t smell anything.” Lucky silently cursed himself for not watching Mutt. If he caught a scent of Roxanne he would let them know.

  They managed to get themselves out of the mud and moving again but Smokey by-passed the first inlet they came to because he felt that it would lead to solid ground and not further into the Bayou. He had them continue to row until he saw a small passageway leading to the left and asked them to pull over to the bushes. “I’ll put a blue rag on this side to indicate that it is a dead end,” he said. “Now go around the bend and I’ll put a white sheet on that side. If that also turns out to be a dead-end and forces us to come back I’ll change the white over to a blue so we won’t go down that inlet again.”

  Mutt continued to sit up watching the scenery as it went by but after a couple of hours he began to paw at one of the supply bags. “We haven’t eaten and we’ve been out here for five hours. Let’s just let it drift and eat,” Lucky said. They had often let the boat drift to rest their arms and shoulders. They had also alternated between rowing and using the oars as paddles to propel them like a canoe but their knees would become sore from kneeling on the seat of the boat.

  “Lucky,” Brandon said with a sigh, “My arms are so tired and heavy that I would not be able to fight these guys in hand-to-hand combat.”

  “When we stop tonight I’ll make the two of you some poles” Smokey said. “You stand up in the boat an
d use the poles to touch the bottom and push the boat forward so it glides. That’s how they use a pirogue and it skims on top of the water. Don’t know if the two of you could balance yourself to do that, but I’ll make them anyway. I’m sure they don’t have gas for motor boats. Been too long in the ZA to find gas anymore.”

  Gretchen had fried up some squirrel and they ate that along with some club crackers that the plantation seemed to have plenty of. Mutt gobbled his so quickly that they were afraid he would choke. “I’m relieved to see him eat,” Brandon said. “He wouldn’t eat at all last night or this morning. I’ve been watching him since he chewed into that zombie, not knowing if he’d get sick and die. But he seems alright.”

  The boat had drifted under a tree with Spanish moss hanging from it when Mutt leaned over and started pawing at the reeds and leaves caught up into the water. Brandon saw something black in the water and yanked Mutt back into the boat, “Stay away from there Mutt. It’s just a snake.”

  “Snakes have gone into hibernation this time of year, along with the alligators,” Smokey said and leaned over the boat to see what Mutt was trying to get. He looked puzzled for a moment and then reached in to pull out Roxanne’s staff. “Looks like we’re on the right trail,” he said holding it up for everyone to see.