by Chris Lowry
She hit me in the chest, wrapped her arms around me and the four of us fell in a sobbing heap on the edge of a shell road in the middle of a Florida farm.
And it’s mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I woke up later.
Turns out, reunions make me faint. Or blood loss and pushing across country, killing Z and anyone who stood in my way.
I woke up in the barn on a cot.
A saline bag nailed to a post by the bed, needle clipped into my arm.
Bem, the Boy and Bis sat on the floor beside me, not talking, just staring.
I tried to sit up, but the Boy pushed me back down.
“They had antibiotics,” said Bem.
“You did it,” said Bis, eyes wide in wonder. “You said you would, and you did.”
“For us too,” said the Boy.
My three children, sitting on the floor beside me after a zombie apocalypse.
I tried to say something and couldn’t get past the lump in my throat.
“He’s probably thirsty,” said the Boy.
Bis unscrewed the cap to a water bottle and held it to my lips.
I took two big swallows and let the third swish around in my mouth before taking it down too.
Anna and Tyler stood at the door to the barn, like sentinels standing watch.
"Tell me what happened," I managed to croak.
And so, she did.
"Kai was bit by another kid in the camp, because that's what toddlers do," said Bis, her voice becoming sullen and business like.
There was a rhythm to her speech, like she was telling the story of someone else instead of events she had actually witnessed.
But I knew she witnessed them, lived through them, and it broke my heart.
“Kai got sick, and bit Mom," here her voice caught on a squeak. But she swallowed down a lump and kept going. "Mom got sick and attacked Paul. But he got he out. He got me away."
I nodded. Her stepfather had been in her life since she was three, probably considered him his own daughter. His need to protect her would almost be stronger than mine.
Possibly more, since he was there to do it.
"We got out of the camp, and got away," she said. "We met with some other survivors, a small group. He died saving us. The zombies got him too."
She reached up and wiped a tear from her face and my heart lurched, ached for her. She had seen so much. They all had.
And the little voice inside my head told me it was my fault. I should have been there. Should have found them faster, or never been far away in the first place.
I tried to argue against it, the voices that picked and worried at the edge of my doubts, the ones that spoke the loudest and highlighted every mistake I made.
It was a long list.
I let it roll over me, bathed in the depth of the misfortune my dumb decisions have caused. Then it receded, a wave of regret washing out, and all I was left with was a grip on the rock that was now.
She was here. Bem was here. The Boy was here. And I wasn't going anywhere.
The regret kept washing away, receding and I stayed on the rock of now. Clung to it with a death grip, but deep breathes helped. Now, I focused.
"I'm sorry," I said to her and expected a look full of condemnation and anger.
I got it.
"They're dead," she said. Like it was my fault.
"Our mom too," said Bem.
"And Dustin," the Boy added.
We could have gone around the group in front of a campfire and listed all the lost. Everyone there had lost a loved one, more than one.
Except me.
I was alone before the Z pocalypse started, and the three people I cared most about in the world sat beside me.
I hadn't lost anyone. I waited for the group to realize this, and hate me for it. But no one ever did.
Maybe they were wondering who we would lose next, I suppose.
I vowed we wouldn't lose anyone, then realized just how stupid that prayer was. In this new world, it was a foregone conclusion. Not everyone could make it.
So, I vowed to just try harder so they could.
Brian moved into my field of vision.
“Back from the dead,” he joked, then stammered.
“Bad taste,” I croaked.
“That’s why the Z won’t eat me.”
He glanced at the cots lined up to the end of the barn.
“They’re really helping us here,” he said.
“Doctor?”
“Medic,” Bis answered for him. “Army. Plus medicine.”
“They gave you vet quality stuff,” said Bem. “But it works.”
I looked at the clean bandage around my mid-section, shifted. Everything still hurt. Everything ached. But it would go away.
“He said you could stay,” Bis said. “You’ll need to work. We all do. But it’s safe here.”
“He needs to rest,” Anna interrupted.
“No,” I said as they started to move away. “I’m fine. I’m good. Just stay.”
They settled back to the floor and sat with me until I passed out again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"We hear things," Meroni picked a long green weed, stripped it of the leaves and stuck the juicy end into the corner of his mouth. "You heard about the wall?"
His eyebrows lifted as he asked the question in that way people have when they're curious and searching.
We were lined up on the fence with him, the interior fence looking out over a pasture. Brian stood on one side of me, the old man on the other.
My side still hurt, a dull throb that settled inside and pulsed with every beat of my heart.
But my heart was beating, the sun was shining on my face, and my children were sitting on the edge of the porch behind me.
Together.
It was a good day, despite the bruise, despite the pain.
"We saw it," said Brian. "From a distance."
"So it's real," the old man leaned back on his boot heels and chewed on the end of the stalk in his mouth. "I wondered. People make up a lot of things if they think a good story will get them a meal or a safe place to stay."
"There are a half mile of Z pounding against it," said Brian with a shudder.
The memory of it was terrible. We were a mile away, staring through binoculars and the sounds of the dead carried on the wind. They surged in a relentless tide against the thick stone barrier that stretched as far as we could see to the North, and curved away from us to stretch into the sea.
"Like that everywhere?" Meroni asked.
Brian shrugged.
"We don't know. What we saw, though."
The old man nodded.
"I've caught 'em on the barbed wire round here," he told us. "Four strands on fence post stretches around my whole acerage."
"It holds?" Brian asked.
Meroni shrugged.
"My family has been keeping cattle here for almost a hundred years," he said. "I had big city dreams and got away from it all, but it was here when I retired. That's when the real work began. There's always something that wants inside the fence to get the cattle. Rustlers. Panthers. Wolves at one time, though they were hunted out of Florida. Even a gator every so often. The fence keeps most of 'em out. If they get through, I got the fence around the homestead."
He nodded his head toward the white house with the wrap around porch and the barn beside it. A second pole fence circled it like a barricade.
"We ride the outer fence every other day," Meroni said. "Check for breaks. Shore it up if we need."
I wanted to tell him to shore it all up. String up six more strands of barbed wire until it was a solid wall of flesh ripping wire. Then double it again.
Anything to keep my kids safe now that we were all together again.
But I held my tongue.
"I'll ride with you," I offered.
He nodded thanks, took the weed from his mouth and tossed it to one side of the road.
"I'll check on sup
per," he told us.
We watched him walk off, a bowlegged ramble older men seemed to acquire after time on horseback. He may have been a city slicker in his youth, but retirement must have been ten years behind him. Ten years on a broad back mare could make a person walk like that.
"You don't ride horses," Bem said from behind me.
I turned to see Bem, the Boy and Bis lined up shoulder to shoulder, all touching as if to reassure themselves they were really there.
My heart lurched in joy and fear. They were safe. They were here. It was all worth it. Every scar, every hurt, every person who stood in my way, gone, shot and not quite forgotten. Worth it.
"I could be a cowboy," I said. "Yee haw."
"I think it's yippi-kay-yay," the Boy smirked.
"You forgot the MF," Bis added.
"Language," I scolded with a smile. "I'm going to help out."
"We could help too," said the Boy.
"Help me by staying here," I stopped short of telling them to sit on the porch and wait.
Teens and pre-teens were not so good at sitting still and waiting for their parent to return from the wild.
"What are we going to do?" Bem asked.
"Chores," said Bis. "I'll show you."
She had spent her time as a ranch hand for months.
Bem asked the million dollar question as Brian walked up.
"Are we going to stay here?"
Bis nodded, before I could answer, but didn't say anything out loud.
The truth was, I hadn't decided.
And they were looking to me to decide. That weight was mine, somehow.
But there was too much to learn here still. Too much to see. About Meroni. About the world around us on the middle edge of Florida, tucked between the Space Coast and Orlando.
Part of the reason I wanted to ride with the man tomorrow was to learn more.
"I'll tell you when I know," I promised.
"It's safe," said Bis.
Safe was important. Especially for here and what she went through. What they all went through.
If it was true, we would stay.
If I could make it safer, I would.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Meroni put me on the back of a plodding mare as we saddled up and started riding the fence as the sun broke the morning horizon.
“Sometimes its better to walk,” he told me without looking back. “We’re going further today to check the outer perimeter.”
I didn’t answer because there was no need.
The horses picked their way through the knee high grass, leaving tracks in the dew that looked like scratch marks, a darker green.
“Glad you volunteered,” he said.
We saw our first Z walking next to the fence. His horse nickered and blew a raspberry through its lips at the sight.
The Z turned, saw our movement and bounced into the wire.
Meroni pulled his machete, angled his horse close and swiped off the top of the Z’s head.
He wiped the blade against his pants leg at the boot and slid the tool back in the sheath at his belt.
“Saves you from asking me out here on my own.”
He glanced back then, snorted and nodded.
“I’m too old to do much beating around the bush.”
The man had twenty years on me, maybe more. And he’s built a safe place in an insane world.
Plus, he’d kept my daughter safe.
“I appreciate that,” I told him.
“I don’t mind patching your people up,” he said. “I don’t mind you joining and staying on.”
I heard a but coming.
“That one, Brian. You said he was in charge.”
“He is.”
“You don’t seem like the kind of man that gives up being in charge.”
“I’m not.”
“So which is it? You or him?”
I thought about it for a moment. The fence stretched uninterrupted by anything but dragonflies for almost half a mile.
A creek ran under the wire in the distance, terminating in a long shallow cow pond where Meroni or his family had dammed it with cut logs.
Water ran over the top in a trickling overflow. It was a smart design, letting the creek keep the pond water fresh as it circulated in the depression before continuing across the property.
“He’s the leader,” I said. “I give him advice.”
“The power behind the throne?”
“Not quite.”
He nodded.
“If you stay, you’re going to have to understand something.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m the throne.”
“A man’s home is his castle.”
Meroni waved his hand to encompass the land we were riding on.
“All this is my castle. My family built it. I made it safe. And if your little girl wasn’t here, I’d send you on to keep it that way.”
“I’m safe,” I started to say.
But four Z pressed against the lower edge of the fence as it dipped into the creek cut me short.
We couldn’t reach them from the back of the horse.
I dismounted first.
“Let me,” I said.
Meroni crossed his hands on the saddle horn and watched me.
I took a pike from the saddles, and stood on the edge of the creek. I had to hold the fence with one hand to balance, and poked the sharp end of the blade with the other.
The first two Z were easy. Close enough in that ending them wasn’t a problem.
The third Z clawed out with a grotesque hand and hit the end of the pike, knocked me off balance.
My boot slipped on the dew slick grass and dropped me toward the creek.
“Son of a bitch!” a hunter screamed as he sprinted from the woods, shooting.
The slip saved my life.
I heard the bullet zip past me and the whinny of my horse followed by a meaty thud.
Three more men followed from the trees, rifles held on Meroni and me.
I sat up, jerked the pike and threw it like a spear.
It would have been cool if it lodged in the man’s chest, but it didn’t.
The makeshift spear turned at an angle in the air, the pole slapped the man across the cheek.
It bought us time.
Meroni drew his pistol and fired off two shots, dropping two of the hunters.
I got the other two from where I sat on the ground, leaning on one elbow.
Meroni wheeled his horse around, searching for more threats, and slipped off the side.
I noticed it put the horse between him and the trees.
“Friends of yours?” he called out after a moment.
The two Z in the creek battered against the wire fence, arms reaching through.
I pushed up off the ground, tried to hide the wince and stared at the pike on the other side of the wire.
“My friends have better aim,” I said.
“More of them?”
I shrugged.
If there were, I wanted the rifles lying in the grass.
These must have gotten away from the ambush and followed us.
Or came after and picked up our trail.
If there were more, they might be attacking the house.
“The house,” I turned to Meroni.
But he was a step ahead of my thinking.
The words hadn’t left my mouth before he was on the back of his horse and galloping back toward the ranch.
I was left with a dead horse, four dead hunters, two moaning Z and no fast way back to help.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Flopping over the fence was painful. The barbed wire moved and rocked under my fists as the thin metal bent under my weight.
