In Another Life

by Liesel Browning

  “And everyone here works for you,” Sadie said. “You wanna be the king of British Columbia? Go for it. But we’re out. Don’t try to stop us!”

  Sadie backed out of the building, not turning to run until she’d cleared the threshold. In the truck, she finally started to tremble as she pulled away from the council building. She had to turn and look at Amelia and Christian, terrified in the seat beside her. Terrified, but there. They were together. They just had to get out.

  To Sadie’s amazement, the streets were empty as they made the short drive to the main gate. The guard didn’t even attempt to stop them. She put up the gate and let them pass on through. Sadie slammed down on the gas, pulling the armored truck away from Sanctuary Coast as quickly as she could.

  After a couple of miles of silence, once Sadie determined that no armored trucks were coming after them, she turned to her family and offered them a sheepish smile. “Well,” she said, “That’s that.”

  *

  Amelia and Christian had nothing but the clothing on their backs. All they had were a few of Sadie’s things, some cans of food, the quilts, and the guns. And when they ran out of gas that evening, they didn’t even have a means of transportation.

  Christian fell asleep in the cab of the truck while Sadie and Amelia sat in the back. Sadie had thought to bring a single candle, and it was their only light as they sat on a few quilts and held each other. Sadie filled Amelia in on her whole plan, and Amelia told her about her time as a captive in the council building.

  “I really fucked this up,” Sadie asked, and she could only laugh as she held her lover in the candlelight. They really were going to die all together.

  “They were gonna kick me out tomorrow,” Amelia reminded them. “I would have walked out of there with nothing. At least now I have you.”

  Sadie kissed Amelia on the forehead. She was too exhausted from two nights of no sleep, and all the adrenaline running through her during the morning’s escapades in SC. At least she could hold her lover and sleep now. At least they could have the night together.

  *

  They awoke the next morning to a loud honking sound. The blaring was frantic, the blasts coming over and over again.

  “What the fuck?” Sadie whispered, sitting up. She wasn’t even certain what the sound was for a moment.

  Amelia sat up, gasping in the dark. “It’s Christian,” she said. Christian was honking the horn inside the truck, trying to get their attention.

  Sadie was already groping for the door when they felt the blow. Something smashed against the side of the armored truck so hard that it shook. Then, there was a sound, like hands slapping and pounding on metal.

  “Oh, my God,” Amelia whispered. “We’re under attack.”

  Sadie reached for her last box of matches. She struck one, and by that scant light, grabbed the loaded rifles from her supplies, piled next to their makeshift bed. She handed one to Amelia just as the match went out, burning the tips of her fingers.

  “This might be it,” Sadie admitted.

  Amelia found her lover’s lips in the dark, trying to give her a kiss that would last for eternity. “I love you,” Amelia said.

  “I love you, too,” Sadie said. They held hands as they went to the door of the armored truck. Sadie fumbled with it a bit in the dark, but remembered what to do from her days of working in the auto shop.

  When Sadie and Amelia stepped out of the truck, they saw that the hoard of zombies wasn’t as big as they’d imagined from inside the truck. Maybe two dozen, and they’d only have to reload once if their aim was good.

  One of the creatures, half of its face peeling off in thick chunks, let out a raspy cry and lunged towards them. Sadie managed to fire off a shot that hit it in the chest, which hardly slowed it down. Her next shot made its mark, and the zombie collapsed in a heap.

  But the rest were now coming on them. Sadie and Amelia retreated and fired, retreated and fired, but they were moving further and further away from the back of the armored truck, and they were running out of ammo. So Sadie had mixed feelings when another armored truck pulled up beside them.

  EPILOGUE:

  CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN

  Sadie and Amelia spent the whole afternoon together after they got off from training. The others knew to leave them alone, let them have this time. Amelia was shipping off to New Mexico the next morning, and Sadie didn’t know when she’d see her lover again.

  Sadie had been training hard, so she could join Amelia’s unit on their missions, these massive “zombie sweeps” meant to eradicate the country, and then the greater world, of the zombie infestation. “We’re not through ‘til they’re all dead,” their commander, General Banks, told them all the time. “Or, uh, destroyed, I guess.”

  While Sadie knew Amelia would miss her, would miss her son, and all the rest, she was excited to go out with her unit. Sadie held her that afternoon, feeling her up under her fatigues. “You have to be careful,” Sadie said. “I don’t know what I’ll do if you…”

  Amelia laughed at her lover, kissing her softly. “I’m a sniper, remember?” she said. “I’ll be up high. It’s not like the zombies are gonna have anyone shooting back at me.”

  Sadie laughed a little, too, despite her fears. She pulled up her lover’s shirt and kissed her stomach. She pulled it up further, exposing her cute little tits, and licked and teased one of her nipples as Amelia groaned, running her hands through Sadie’s hair.

  They made love three times before dinner. It would be weeks, perhaps months, before Sadie could taste her lover again, so she tried to get her fill. When she attempted to go down on her lover for a fourth time, Amelia giggled and grabbed her shoulders. “Wait,” she said. “I think I’ve had enough for now.”

  Sadie frowned and kissed her lover’s bare thigh. “I could never have enough.”

  Amelia reached down and touched Sadie’s face. “You’ll really let me take that picture? Of you and your mother on the beach?”

  “Of course,” Sadie said.

  “You just…you look so much like her,” Amelia said. “I’ll look at it and think of you. You’re so beautiful.” Sadie kissed her lover’s palm.

  After dinner, Hank and Johnny went back to the underground barracks. They could have gotten one of the small cabins that were set aside for families, but they seemed to prefer staying with the other young guys. It didn’t take much to imagine why.

  Amelia went to take a walk with Christian while Sadie fed Daisy. Sadie loved her pretty baby, though she didn’t look much like her namesake. She much more resembled her Aunt Manny, with her dark, silky hair and her round face.

  Manny came in while Sadie was feeding Daisy. She held Dina by the hand, who was toddling along. “Hey,” Sadie greeted them.

  “Where’s Amelia?” Manny asked. “I wanted to say my goodbyes now and leave you two alone.”

  “She’s out with Christian,” Sadie said. “I think they were gonna take a walk down to commissary.”

  Manny sat down with her daughter in her lap. “You look freaked out.” Sadie shrugged, but it was true. She’d been dreading Amelia’s departure for the past couple of weeks, since they’d gotten news on her unit’s departure. “Don’t forget the numbers, okay? Less than 10%. And that’s for the ones fighting on the ground.”

  Sadie nodded. She knew the numbers. She knew they had the guns, the tanks, the gas, on their side. The vast majority of Amelia’s unit would survive their mission, and might even go on to survive the war and help rebuild the world.

  But Sadie would have felt much better if she were going along with Amelia on this mission. She’d been training hard, yeah, but it was slow going. She’d just given birth to Daisy a few months before, and it was rough, even with the help of the base’s medical staff. Sadie couldn’t work out too long without having to take a break because of some kind of ache or cramp. She wanted to push herself past the pain, but she knew this would just create more problems.

  So she had to sit and wait. Manny was in
the same situation. Her girlfriend Cora was leaving with her own unit, heading up to British Columbia to complete the mission that the base leaders started mapping out the day that Sadie and her family arrived at Cheyenne Mountain. The mission to shut down SC, recruit the residents, and bring the scientists, and the cure for the zombie virus, to Colorado, was meant to be a peaceful one. If they couldn’t stand up to one woman with a handgun, what would they do against an entire army unit, anyway?

  Johnny, for one, wanted in on that mission. Sadie could imagine him driving a tank through the streets of SC, smashing into the newly built church and laughing as it tumbled down. Hank’s unit was scheduled to head for a mission elsewhere in the Southwest, but the exact details had not yet been released.

  “Well, she’ll get to see for herself what a nutty place it is,” Sadie said.

  “I gotta admit, I thought that this place would be just as bad,” Manny said, bouncing her daughter on her knee. “When they said we had to join the army, I was like, hell no. But, I don’t know, it’s like we’re actually doing something, eh? Like actually changing the world, not just, like, hiding behind a wall.”

  Sadie nodded. She’d had the same thoughts herself. “It’s not so bad,” she said. As long as they took part in training, they were allowed to do whatever they wanted, more or less.

  When Amelia and Christian came home, Manny got up and hugged Amelia goodbye. “Take care of yourself,” she said.

  “Look after Sadie,” Amelia said, getting a little tearful. Sadie thought of how much their relationship had changed in the last few months. Amelia trusted Manny now. They were all a family.

  Amelia took Daisy from Sadie’s lap and held her, kissing her chubby brown cheek. “I love you so so much,” Amelia cooed to her lover’s child. To Sadie, she said, “I’m gonna put her down, okay?”

  Sadie nodded. She knew how attached Amelia was to the baby. When they’d been traveling around with the Charles family through most of Sadie’s pregnancy, trading and looking for a new safe place to live while avoiding zombies as much as possible, Amelia was very protective of her lover. It was another side of Amelia that Sadie had never seen before. It made her feel proud of her lover, the sniper.

  Christian went off to play with some other kids on the base by the time Amelia came back into their small sitting room. “She’s such an angel,” Amelia said. She sat with Sadie on the sofa. “You know, I think you should hold off on some of your training…”

  Sadie sighed and took her lover’s hand. “I already told you, Johnny can stay here with the baby when we’re gone,” she said. Johnny wasn’t fit for duty, as some of the nerves in his right arm didn’t work after he was shot in the shoulder in Denver. They’d already discussed his staying in Sadie and Amelia’s cabin and looking after the kids when Sadie went to join her lover in battle.

  Amelia frowned. “But they’re training you for the field…”

  “10%,” Sadie reminded her. “And we’ve beaten the odds before, haven’t we?”

  “I think in this case, beating the odds would mean…” Amelia couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  Sadie kissed her lover. “I’m not even gotta be ready by the time you guys get back from this. So let’s not worry about it until then, okay?”

  Amelia nodded in agreement and returned her kiss. “Come on,” she said, standing up and taking her lover’s hand. “Give this soldier a proper send-off.”

  “I thought you said you had enough,” Sadie teased, but she stood with her lover and followed her back to their bedroom.

  “I’ll never have enough,” Amelia said.

  Questions or comments for the author? You can reach me at liesel.browning.writes@gmail.com.

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  Happy reading!

  -Liesel Browning