by Gibb, Lew
Another bear growl erupted from her stomach, letting Rachel know the rest of her self-analysis could wait until after breakfast. Rachel scrubbed her face with both hands, then looked for a way down.
“Can’t wait to find out what other twisted shit my subconscious is gonna come up with to process this freaking nightmare,” she mumbled while wondering if she would find anything to eat. She wanted to save the MREs if she could.
Toward the front of the space there was a small area that functioned as a sort of kitchen or break room. There was a refrigerator with its handle covered in duct tape beside some cupboards along one wall and a soda machine against the other. Rachel couldn’t bear the smell of the inside of the refrigerator for more than a few seconds before she had to slam its door shut. The freezer was filled with twenty packages of Lean Cuisine meals. The name Helen was written on all six sides in black Sharpie. Below the name on the front of each box were the words: Do not eat or I WILL kill you outlined in red.
“I hear you, girlfriend,” Rachel said, slamming the door and moving to investigate the cupboards, which turned out to be filled with an assortment of breakfast cereals and instant soups, some with Helen’s name and more dire-threats scrawled on their labels. Rachel munched a box of Helen’s granola as she searched the rest of the space, thinking about how ironic it would be if Helen was one of the zombies outside, and she actually did kill her.
“Fucking hilarious,” Rachel mumbled, heading for a door that looked like it led to the office area. She stopped chewing and rested her ear against it. Not a sound. Very carefully, she twisted the knob and opened the door.
The room smelled like Jerry’s feet after a twenty-four-hour shift in work boots. The smell seemed to originate at a grubby couch, with an equally grubby Seattle Seahawks stadium blanket draped across the back, pushed against the back wall. There was nothing else in the room. Across from the door was a wall of windows, just like there had been at the other place, that ran the length of the room. Rachel crossed the room to the door and put a hand on the push bar. She almost fainted with relief when it didn’t budge but couldn’t help a quick glance over her shoulder before poking a finger between the curtains and peeked out.
A couple ravaged bodies lay in the street and on the grass closer to the building, but the area was otherwise empty. Rachel let the curtain snap back into place, tossed the granola box in the overflowing metal trash can, and dug her phone out of her pocket. The screen was filled with spider webs of broken glass. She couldn’t remember when the damage had happened. She should have noticed and certainly would have noticed such damage to her lifeline before everything went to hell.
“Technology and the apocalypse don’t seem to be compatible,” she said, thumbing the power button and half expecting it to be inoperable. She was actually surprised when the home screen lit up and learned the battery was only down to eight percent. She had no messages, and it was nine o’clock in the morning. Rachel tapped the camera icon and then tapped again to look at the last few pictures she’d taken of Jerry and the dogs. Tears welled in her eyes after the second picture. She scrolled through the gallery for what seemed like only a little while but then she noticed the battery was down to five percent. She needed to find a way to charge it but how that reminded her of everything else she didn’t have: communication, power, safety, Jerry, her dogs, a coherent plan. Rachel mashed the power button to shut the glorified wristwatch down. If she never found Jerry and the dogs, at least she would have their pictures.
Chapter Forty-Nine
When Jerry opened his eyes, Holly was looming over him, crouched on the sofa’s arm and looking out the window with her sword in her hand. The concerned look on her face was made more ominous by the faint light filtering through the small part in the curtains.
“What’s wrong?” Jerry lurched into a sitting position on the couch, groping for the claymore resting on the coffee table.
Holly didn’t take her gaze from the window. “Nothing. I was just checking. I thought I heard something.”
“You might have heard us moving around.” Alberto descended the last few stairs and stopped in the living room doorway. “We were up about a half an hour ago.”
Holly nodded. “That makes sense.” She sheathed her sword and checked the pistol on her belt.
Jerry took a couple of breaths and rubbed his face with both hands while he let his heart stop palpitating. Then he swung his feet to the floor. “Does anyone have any idea where we are?”
Alberto looked thoughtful. “If I remember correctly, we are about ten to twenty blocks west of the stadium. We still have to cross one big street filled with cars. And some zombies, of course.”
“What do you think of crossing Speer on foot and finding a new vehicle on the other side?” Jerry asked. He hated to lose the ambulance, but it would probably take hours to find a way across the river of cars standing between them and his home. And with the beating the ambulance had taken, he didn’t think it would last much longer anyway. Alberto and Holly both looked thoughtful, but before they could answer, Maria came downstairs.
She stood next to Alberto and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Are you hungry?” She looked at Jerry and Holly, including them in the question.
“Yes, mi amor,” Alberto said, patting her hands. “Everyone is hungry.” He paused. “Except the children. They have already eaten a bunch of energy bars. They couldn’t resist the chocolate.”
Maria gave him a hard look, then nodded and headed for the kitchen.
Alberto shrugged and smiled, then followed his wife. “Let us talk about our next move over breakfast.”
Jerry and Holly joined the Vigils in the kitchen, and the three of them helped Maria with breakfast, although they didn’t get a chance to do any of the actual cooking. By the time they had finished the tasks she’d assigned them—setting the table, finding something to drink, and corralling the kids so they could eat some real food—she had whipped together a large frittata, toast—which she’d put the kids to work holding over the gas burners on bent coat hangers. Maria was a lot like Rachel in the kitchen. His wife could reach into what Jerry thought was a bare refrigerator, pull out an armload of odd ingredients, and after a flurry of chopping and stirring—but before Jerry could figure out what she had in mind—it would all come together as something amazing.
When they were finished eating, Alberto wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “We could walk to the stadium. It looks like it’s only about a mile or a little more. I could see the parking lot from upstairs, and it looks like there might even be some military vehicles.”
Jerry stood and stretched with both hands on his lower back. His whole body felt stiff, especially his arms and shoulders. He definitely wasn’t prepared for the strain of swinging that massive sword around again. “Before all this went down, my friends and I put a lot of extra medicines and supplies in the ambulance. We’re going to need those at some point. We can’t just leave all that stuff.”
Holly said, “We’re not that far from your house, are we, Jerry?”
“No,” Jerry said, looking out the window. “It’s actually right on the other side of the stadium from here.” He had been trying to ignore the fact that his home was so close.
“Why don’t we continue that way today and see what’s going on there? Later, we can come back and get the ambulance, or at least the supplies.” Holly looked at Maria and Alberto. “What do you guys think?”
The Vigils exchanged a look and both nodded.
A half hour later, Jerry shuffled past an undamaged F350 with a crew-cab that would have been perfect for them if it wasn’t for the rusty smears covering the windows. The dried blood was so thick he couldn’t even see inside. They’d traversed the river of cars without incident, but finding a suitable ride was proving to be more difficult than he’d imagined. He also hated the feeling of being outside without the ambulance close by. He tried to tell himself it was because the big box had been his office and second home, and he was just hav
ing separation anxiety, but he also knew it was because he was really freaking scared.
“Jeez,” Holly said, circling a Silver Expedition with her sword drawn. “I didn’t think it would be so hard to find a full-sized SUV in this town.” She stuck her head in through the open front door. “The keys are here, but the transmission’s still in drive.”
“Most likely, the battery is dead like the others,” Alberto said.
Holly reached inside. “Yep. The key’s still on.”
“Dang it,” Jerry said in a soft voice as he walked around the vehicle. This was the first car that wasn’t damaged, wedged in by other vehicles, and didn’t have zombies—or worse, the remnants of a zombie attack—still trapped inside. “It’s got a set of cables.” He popped the back hatch and reached for a disc-shaped nylon carrying case on the deck. “Why don’t we jump it?”
“We will need gas, too,” Alberto said, unslinging his pack and digging for the length of hose they brought for this very reason. “But if one of these other cars won’t start, we will have to move on.” He swiveled his head around, and Jerry did the same.
They hadn’t seen a single zombie roaming around since they’d finished breakfast and set out. It should have made Jerry more relaxed, but it just made him worry more. Like in the movies when they say “it’s too quiet.” His knuckles ached from the death grip he couldn’t seem to stop himself from using and no matter how many times he told himself to relax, five minutes later his shoulders were back up by his ears.
“I wonder where all the zombies are,” Jerry said.
“Don’t talk about it,” Holly said, making her own visual sweep of the area. “You’ll jinx us.”
“Ha!” Jerry flinched at the involuntary bark of laughter he’d let loose. “You mean more jinxed than being in the middle of the zombie apocalypse?” It still felt strange saying the words. The whole thing felt like a bad dream. A very bad dream. He unzipped the case and pulled out the cheapest-looking set of jumper cables. “Great, these look like they cost all of five bucks.”
Holly raised one eyebrow and pointed at the cables. “See.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Jerry said. “Just help me find something with a good battery before the universe decides to punish me some more and you get caught up in it.”
There was an abandoned Prius up the hill whose battery hadn’t been drained. The electric car was silent except for the crunch of tires in the gravel as they drove it next to the dead Expedition.
Alberto had to travel much farther for the gas. First, he had to locate a gas can in the third garage he and Maria searched. Of course it was empty, but once they had it, siphoning five gallons of gas from another car wasn’t hard, just nerve wracking. Twice, they heard zombie screams close by, followed by barrages of gunfire that picked up speed and then died out.
The second set of screams and gunfire sounded like it was coming from the next street. Jerry was already moving toward the sound, ready to do whatever he could to help, when human screams overpowered the zombie sounds. First one, then two, then three distinct human voices cried out. The sound of their pain made the hair stand up on Jerry’s forearms.
The group stood there staring toward the sounds without saying anything, until the screams were drowned out by more zombie calls.
Jerry shook his head. “Come on,” he said, unslinging the food duffel he was carrying and tossing it through the SUV’s back hatch. “There’s nothing we can do for them.”
The mood was somber as they started off again. Jerry and Holly were in the rear with Marco between them. Isabella sat between their parents up front while Alberto drove. There had been a short argument about who got to ride shotgun. Jerry was amazed the kids could even think about that kind of thing. Maybe they were blocking the other stuff out. He couldn’t stop staring at the skyline. He could just see the top two floors of his building.
She’ll be there, he said to himself. She has to be there. It was the only thing keeping him going. If he thought he was a basket case now, he couldn’t imagine what would happen to him without Rachel.
He realized Holly was talking to him.
“Earth to Jerry.” She poked him in the shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“I’m good,” he said, looking at her. Holly’s eyes were glassy, and the dark, half-circles beneath them made her look much older than seventeen. “How about you?”
“I hate not being able to do anything.” Her voice was high-pitched, and tears erupted from the corners of her eyes. “Why didn’t I stop him?”
“It wasn’t your fault.” He couldn’t believe he had been so focused on his own problems, he’d missed how much Justin’s death had affected Holly.
Plus, the voice in his head said, she had to kill her own mother to save your sorry butt.
Jerry reached over Marco and patted Holly’s shoulder, wishing he could do more to comfort her.
“I was so helpless.”
“We all were.” It was easy for him to say. He’d spent the night thinking of things he should have done to get Rachel to listen to him.
“He was an obnoxious kid, but maybe that was just his way of keeping people from hurting him.”
“You’re right.” Jerry wondered how he would have made out in Justin’s situation. Would he have gotten into trouble and made one bad decision after another? Would he have ever met Rachel?
Crap. There he went again. He scrubbed his sleeve across his prickling eyes and focused on Holly. “There wasn’t anything you could have done.”
Holly shook her head, and tears ran down her cheeks. “I could have kept him from getting my gun.” She was clearly in so much pain, and it was breaking his heart.
“Okay, you’re right. But we could probably find a hundred things that all of us could have done differently. We could have posted a guard at the door or even nailed it shut. Hell, we never should have left you alone with the little perv. We all knew what he wanted.”
Holly gave him a sad smile, acknowledging his weak attempt at levity. “I know what you’re saying, but it was my gun he took, and I feel bad about it.”
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel bad about it. I’m saying you shouldn’t blame yourself for it. I hate to say it, but from what little I saw of him, I’m pretty sure if we hadn’t come along, he’d be just as dead now because he was a loner who didn’t think he needed anyone else.”
“Thanks.” Holly reached across the space between them and put her hand on his shoulder. “I think what I’m already really upset about is my parents, and this is just making me more sad.”
Jerry nodded. “I know it’s hard,” he said, looking Holly in the eye. “But this is a different world. People don’t have the luxury of being on their own. It’s like you guys told me yesterday, we need to stick together and watch each other’s backs if we’re going to get through this. Justin didn’t want that, and now he’s dead. It’s as simple as that.”
Chapter Fifty
Rachel gnawed the corner off a Clif Bar as she walked, then took a drink from her CamelBak to wash the bolus of ‘healthy’ candy-bar down. She replayed the scene from the night before again, considering her accuracy with the pistol. It was something she’d done since her first hunt with grandpa Joe.
“Bullets are expensive, little girl,” He said after every hunt and every trip to the range out behind the barn. “We need to make sure we aren’t wasting them.”
Then he’d go over every shot with her. What had she felt like? Had she pulled the trigger at the right time? Could she have gotten into a better position? This process taught her to not only pay attention to her aim but to be in the moment and learn from her mistakes. It was a useful exercise for her chosen sport of biathlon, where one miss meant the difference between winning and being out of the top ten. She could remember every shot on the course, so remembering the times she fired the night before wasn’t too difficult. Still, she only remembered firing forty-four rounds, way short of the sixty round capacity of the four magazines she’d emptied
.
Sixty rounds to kill sixteen zombies. She’d gone over the count again while reloading, just before setting out again. Jerry would have given her a hard time if they were at the range, but she felt she had actually done pretty well considering she was shooting on the run at moving targets who were trying to kill her and trying to make each one a head shot. Now that she thought about it, that level of precision probably wasn’t necessary. She knew she could kill them with a knife to a critical artery, just like regular humans, so why shoot them in the head? Maybe it was a holdover from the movies that she fell back on when her brain shut down. She should probably aim for center mass from now on. The hollow point loads Jerry had supplied her with had plenty of stopping power.
She’d gone back on the roof after finishing Helen’s granola and part of an MRE and found that the zombies around the warehouse had dispersed. She was still five miles from home and constantly checking her six, as Bob would say, certain there were zombies, or tweakers, sneaking up from whichever way she wasn’t looking. She couldn’t stop thinking about how having Jerry and the dogs with her would make everything so much easier, even if the two lovable furballs wouldn’t pose a danger to anything more threatening than a chew toy. The two furballs were so good-natured, they usually seemed more concerned with getting strangers to pat them than making sure the strangers weren’t a threat. And Kodi was a bit of a chicken.
Rachel laughed, remembering the time Kodi had freaked out over an oddly shaped tree in the forest. Not long after Rachel had met Jerry, the four of them had been hiking on Rabbit Ears Pass, and Kodi had started barking at a big birch tree with a deformed trunk. It was one of those things where some trauma early in the tree’s life, maybe a branch breaking off wrong or some pathogen infecting the bark, had resulted in a lump twice the diameter of the trunk forming about five feet off the ground. The big dog had been so freaked out, he wouldn’t get closer than fifteen feet from the thing while pacing around it and barking hysterically. When she and Jerry had stopped laughing enough to call him away, Kodi had taken a big circle around the tree and kept looking back as if he expected it to chase him.
