“I said partially responsible,” Ben retorts. “You think our soldiers would have stood a chance if they didn’t have Spam to fill their stomachs?”
“Okay, we get it,” Caleb says. “Spam saved us from the Nazis.” He rolls his eyes, popping a bit of the casserole into his mouth. “What kind of protein powder is this?”
“Plain.” Lila, from her seat besides Eric, spoons a heaping amount into her mouth. “It gives the cheese sauce a nice texture.”
A few people cough. Ben says, “Good stuff.”
I stir the stuff around in my bowl, working up the courage to try it. “If Spam is responsible for the defeat of the Nazis, what do you think are the chances of it defeating the zombies?”
Ben glances up from his bowl. He looks at me like he can’t tell if I’m serious or not.
Best not to leave that open to interpretation. “I’m joking.”
“Thank God. I was trying to figure out the best way to answer that from a logistical standpoint.”
I do my best not to laugh in his face. Only Ben would use Spam and logistical in the same sentence. I look away before the conversation can deteriorate, as it often does between us.
I venture to put a spoonful of the stuff into my mouth. My gag reflex works in the back of my throat. The cheese sauce has a gloppy texture, but not in a nacho-cheese sauce sort of way. More in a runny-with-chunks way. The supposed plain flavor of the protein powder has a distinct earthy flavor that lingers long after I’ve swallowed.
It’s amazing than even Kraft mac n’ cheese can be thoroughly ruined, even in the apocalypse. Straight water with the cheese powder would have been better than the sticky mess that’s in my mouth right now.
“I did the calculations,” Lila says. “We each have about twenty grams of protein in this meal. It’s good for us.”
“Twenty grams?” Jenna’s mouth sags open. “How do you figure that?
“I calculated the serving ratio of the protein powder and added that to the protein in the mac n’ cheese. I added a little more for the soy milk. The apocalypse is treating us well.”
“It’s the best damn thing I’ve had since the world ended,” Jesus says. “Can I have seconds?”
Lila narrows her eyes at him. “You’ve been complimenting my food for the past week. Why?”
Jesus’s eyes widen with innocence. “Can’t a man compliment the chef?”
Ash snorts. “Mentiroso.”
Lila doesn’t buy it. “In all the months you’ve lived with us, you’ve never said one nice thing about my cooking. In fact, I believe I recall you saying something along the lines of my stew tasting like roadkill.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“What I meant is that maybe we should find some roadkill for snacks.”
“You are so full of shit.”
“No, I mean it. Roadkill could make nice jerky.”
“I can see why you and Reed are besties,” Lila says. “You’re both full of shit.”
“Hey, don’t drag me into this,” Reed says. “I don’t fill your ears with lies. This casserole makes me want to yack, Lila. But I’m going to eat it because I know it has nutritional value and Mama Bear made us run for two hours today. Then she made us run up and down the bleachers for another thirty minutes. So I’m hungry and pretty much up for anything. See? Truth.”
“Thank you, Reed.” If Lila is offended by anything he’s just said, it doesn’t show. “I’m glad you appreciate the nutritional value. I work hard to find ways to get you all extra protein.” Her gaze swings back to Jesus. “Out with it. What do you want from me?”
“Want from you?” Jesus protests. “Why do you think I want something?”
Lila stares at him, refusing to answer. She stares at him until he squirms and throws up his hands.
“Okay! I admit it. I was trying to soften you up.”
Lila narrows her eyes. “For what?”
“For St. Roch.” Jesus fishes the necklace out of his shirt, holding it up for Lila to see. “He’s the patron saint of plague victims. I want to build a shrine for him in this room.”
“Why here?”
“Because this is where the Creekside crew gathers,” Jesus replies. “St. Roch can look over all of us this way. And we can pay him respect.”
Lila considers this. “If I let you have space, will you continue to tell me my food is good?”
“If you will grant me a place for a tribute to St. Roch, I will gladly tell you every dish you serve is worthy of French royalty.”
“I’m pretty sure France hasn’t had a monarchy in over a hundred years, but whatever. You have yourself a deal, Jesus.”
Jesus kisses the pendant and crosses himself. “Thank you, mi chef.”
By the end of this exchange, most of us have finished eating. I drop my empty bowl and fork into the sink, glad I don’t have dish duty today.
“Babe,” Eric says, “we gotta go back to that part about you calling this a vegan meal. I could ignore that statement if we were just talking about cheese powder, but it has Spam. It can’t be vegan if it has Spam.”
“Don’t be a dick,” Lila shoots back, her eyes brightening. For some reason, these two love to bicker with one another. “It has vegan components. I mean, soy milk, Eric. That’s as vegan as it comes.”
Eric is grinning now. “That’s like saying a chicken Caesar salad is vegetarian because it has lettuce in it.”
“I’m the chef. I get to say what it is.”
“You can say whatever the hell you want. That doesn’t make it factual.”
Lila huffs. “Go fuck yourself, Eric. You try cooking for eleven picky people when there are no grocery stores and see how well you do.” She makes a show of stalking out of the kitchen, loudly slamming the door to her bedroom.
“Here we go,” Carter mutters, rolling his eyes. Jenna elbows him.
Eric waits sixty seconds before following. Another sixty seconds later, rhythmic banging sounds from the bedroom.
Another collective groan rises from us. Lila and Eric never seem to care if any of us are around when they get busy.
“I’m going to go in there with a hacksaw and remove their headboard.” Johnny pushes an empty bowl away. “I have to say, that was weird as shit but not terrible. Maybe I’ll pass the recipe on to Alvarez.”
“You and I have different definitions of the word terrible.” Jenna stares forlornly into her bowl. “My mother would roll over in her grave if she saw me eating Spam. She’d probably give me a sermon on what this stuff does to my colon.”
“Ew.” Carter makes a face at her. “You couldn’t have waited until after I finished eating?”
“Anyone gonna eat the rest of this?” Ben prods the casserole. When everyone declines, he spoons the rest of the mixture into his bowl. “Your loss,” he says to no one in particular.
7
Mayday
KATE
“To the left,” Jenna calls. “Kate, dip your side!”
“I’m trying!” I’m on the bottom corner of the new solar water heater we’re installing. If I get any lower, my hand is going to get crushed.
“Use those killer leg muscles and squat,” Johnny says.
Jaw tense, I take his suggestion and shift my weight, straightening my back and sinking into a crouch.
“Perfect!” Eric crows. “Hold it right here.”
“Nice work, Mama Bear.” Caleb, holding the other bottom corner of the solar panel, flashes me a grin.
“Easy for you to say,” I reply. “You’re buff. How did I get stuck on this end with you?”
“Luck of the draw.” He winks at me.
“You can set it down now,” Eric says.
I let out a breath and ease the solar panel into place. Eric gets to work bolting it into place.
“I’ve been fantasizing about this moment since the world ended,” Jenna says. “Hot shower.” She smiles, face tilted toward the sky.
“I thought I was the o
nly thing you fantasized about.” Carter slings one arm around her waist, pulling her close.
Jenna snorts. “You’re hardly a fantasy. I get you whenever I want.”
“Guys, let’s keep this G-rated,” Reed says. “There are sensitive ears present.”
“Who gets the first shower?” Ash asks.
“We still have to design a catch basin for water to fill the pipes,” Eric says. “We haven’t crossed home plate yet.”
“Yes, but when we do,” Jenna says, “one of us will get to go first.” She narrows her eyes at Ash. “I’ll thumb wrestle you for the rights.”
“You’re on,” Ash says.
“Oh, hell no,” Jesus says. “The only kind of wrestling I want to see is mud wrestling.” He points both index fingers at the girls. “You two. In the mud. That would have been some quality pay per view back in the day.”
“Dude.” Carter tightens his arm around Jenna’s waist, frowning. Caleb mirrors his frown, though he doesn’t say anything.
“Don’t blame me.” Jesus holds his hands up. “Your woman is hot. That’s not my fault.”
Carter opens his mouth to retort, but he’s cut off by Lila’s unexpected voice. It drifts up through the roof access hatch.
“Guys! Come downstairs.” The urgency in her voice stills me. “You guys have to hear this.”
“What is it?” I hurry across the rooftop and scramble onto the ladder.
“I was flipping channels on the ham,” Lila says. Her eyes are wide, her lower lip lodged between her teeth. “Someone is in trouble.”
I frown, unsure why this has her riled up. We’re six months into a zombie apocalypse. Of course, people are in trouble. It isn’t the first time one of us has met someone over the ham in a dire situation. Just last week we talked to a man caught in the cab of a semi at a monster truck rally somewhere in Texas.
“Trust me. You guys need to hear this,” Lila says.
We reach the second floor where we live. Ben comes out of the weapons room as we file past. It’s a dorm suite we converted to hold all the weapons we’ve scavenged. Half the supplies were brought by Ben when he joined us. The rest were taken from Johnson’s lair. Ben has been in there cleaning since lunch.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“Come in here,” Lila replies. She ushers us into our main sitting room and cranks up the volume on the ham. “Listen to this.”
A woman’s voice bursts from the tiny receiver, filling the room.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday. Can anyone hear me? Boat grounded in Humboldt Bay. My husband was attacked by a great white. His condition is critical. Is anyone out there? Can anyone help us? Mayday, mayday, mayday. Our boat is a blue charter boat named Fairhaven.”
The message repeats three more times, the woman’s voice becoming more and more despondent with each one.
Lila turns down the volume after the third desperate message. She stares at us, lips compressed in a thin line.
“We need to help them.” Carter shoulders up to the table, reaching for the receiver.
Ben’s hand whips out. His big hand covers the receiver. “It could be a trap. It’s not safe.”
Carter frowns at Ben. “She said her husband was attacked by a shark. That’s not the sort of thing you say if you’re setting a trap.”
“It’s gotta be real,” Jesus says. “Who the hell says her man got attacked by a shark in the zombie apocalypse? No one would believe that.”
To my surprise, Caleb sides with Ben. “Someone just so happens to ground a boat in Humboldt Bay? It wasn’t exactly filled with boats before the apocalypse.”
I glance at Lila. “Have you spoken to her?”
Lila shakes her head, dark eyes still wide. “I had a meeting scheduled with Alvarez to go over composting techniques. He wasn’t there so I was just scrolling through the channels.”
Alvarez wasn’t there? It wasn’t like him to miss a scheduled ham appointment. I file the worry away to examine later.
“Turn it back up,” I say. “I want to hear the message again.”
“Mayday, mayday, mayday.” The woman on the other end of the receiver chokes on a sob. “Can anyone hear me? Can anyone help us?” She breaks down into tears.
It’s the sound of her sobbing that solidifies my decision. That is a genuine sound of someone who needs help.
Ben must see the decision on my face. His mouth opens, an angry furrow between his brows. I can practically smell the argument.
I cut him off. “That crying”—I jab a finger at the ham—“is not fake.”
He purses his lips, scowling at me. We lock eyes. I don’t look away.
“How many times have we talked to people we can’t help?” I say. “Just a few days ago there was that officer in Oregon. He was barricaded in a police station closet and slowly starving to death. And what about that woman whose semi was swarmed in Southern California? She was surrounded by zombies with no way out. All these people out there talking to us on their ham radios and we can’t do a damn thing to help them.” I rest my hand on the receiver. “This time, it’s different. We have the chance to help someone in our backyard. This woman, whoever she is, is asking for our help. I’m going. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Fine,” Ben snaps. “But we do it carefully. Recon the ship. Don’t show ourselves until we’re sure it’s safe.”
“We?” I raise an eyebrow at him.
“Did you think you’re going alone?” He stomps over to the door, sifting through the rack of weapons we have mounted on the wall.
“I’m going, too,” Carter says. “We don’t know what sort of shape this guy is in. You’ll need at least four of us if he has to be carried out.”
“I’ll go, too,” Jenna says.
“I’m the medic,” Ash says. “If the husband really has been attacked by a great white, I should be there to help.”
“Do great whites even live around here?” Eric asks. “I tend to be on Ben’s side in this argument. I think it’s a trap.”
“San Diego is home to the largest population of great whites in California,” Caleb says. “Humboldt County is the second largest population.”
“How do you know that?” Ash demands.
“I made it my business to learn about great whites the first time I saw Jaws as a kid,” Caleb says. “I’ll go with you guys. Ben and I are best suited to recon the boat. Assuming it’s even there.”
I’m grateful for the help. I run my eyes over the group, wanting to make sure we truly have everyone we need.
“Reed, suit up,” I say. He’s the fastest. I don’t know what we’re going to find out there, but there’s always the chance we might need a sprinter. “Jesus, you, too.” The man is a good shot.
That leaves Johnny, Lila, and Eric at home. Enough to keep an eye on Creekside until we get back. Ben is adamant about never leaving Creekside empty.
“Are we going to stand around and stare at each other, or are we going on a suicide mission?” Ben glowers. He has a rifle over his shoulder, a gun on either hip, and an ammo belt slung across his chest. I wish he didn’t look so good.
“I’ll finally get a chance to try this out.” Ash grabs the first aid backpack she assembled a few months ago from our supply cache. She takes it on supply runs, but until now she’s never had a real reason to use the things inside.
I move toward the weapons rack. The rest of the group mobilizes with me. I already have a knife and a screwdriver on my belt. I pick out one of the smaller handguns, a glock that I’ve been practicing with.
“Take one of the rifles,” Ben says.
I shake my head. “I’ve never used one.”
“Take it anyway. It could save your life.”
“At the very least,” Reed says cheerfully, “you can smash a zombie in the face with it.”
“We all know Mamita is good at smashing things.” Jesus touches the dent on his forehead. “Speaking of which, we should try out our new zom bats.”
He grabs a box fil
led with modified baseball bats. The handles have been sheared short and the bottoms welded closed with the original ends. Jenna, Jesus, and Carter have been working hard to assemble these new weapons.
“What do you think?” Jesus hands me one of the zom bats.
“Nice.” I give it an experimental swing. I can already tell it’s going to be better than the regular baseball bat. The others show similar appreciation as they receive their new weapons.
“We could get rich selling these things on eBay,” Carter says.
“Heck, yeah.” Jenna grins at her boyfriend. “We could finally afford our own place and move out of this dump.”
“Creekside is not a dump,” I say loudly, right as Jesus says, “Don’t forget who’s the master with the soldering gun. Half those eBay profits are mine.”
“One-third,” Jenna counters. “Or I’ll solder your hands together.”
“Ouch.” Jesus feigns wounded hands. “Carter, your woman is ruthless.”
“I know.” Carter slings an arm around Jenna. “It’s hot, isn’t it?”
“Okay, time to focus,” I cut in. “We need to move out. There are people who need our help.”
Ben blocks the door, preventing us from leaving the apartment. “We need to agree on a few things before we go out there.”
I put my hands on my hips and face him, ready for whatever argument he has in store. “Such as?”
Ben jabs a finger in the general direction of the group. “When we find the boat—if we find the boat—everyone else stays in hiding until Caleb and I give the all clear. No matter what happens, you wait for our all clear.”
I can’t argue with this logic. “Agreed.”
“Should we tell them we’re coming?” Jenna asks.
Ben shakes his head. “No. If it is a trap, we don’t want to alert them.”
“If it’s a real emergency, knowing help is on the way might give them the strength to hold on,” Carter argues.
My son makes me proud, but in this case, I think Ben is right. “We don’t alert them. We find them, recon, then decide our next steps.”
Three minutes later, we’re out the door and heading down Granite Avenue.
Undead Ultra (Book 3): Lost Coast Page 5
