by J. Rudolph
Trent started the meeting, and began to tell everyone about our trip. As Trent spoke my eyes drifted over the group and my mind began to wander.
There was something that inspired being introspective when we were getting ready to start again. We'd started again a few times since the day that changed everything. It had only been a year and a half since the director of the CDC made his infamous reanimation speech, but we had lived many different lives in that time, more than people ever lived in the days before the apocalypse. I was far from that idealistic early 30's girl who was defined in life as 'that nurse' or Trent's wife or, among my favorite titles, Drew's mom. Back then, there were less worry lines around my hazel eyes, less gray in my auburn hair. Back then I moved with a confident stride, so sure of the world. Now every movement away from the confines of our walls was made with purpose and caution. Funny how much a person can age when they live with a virtual knife to their throat and no sunscreen.
My eyes scanned each face in the crowd. I studied the intense looks on the children's faces as they tried hard to pay attention. Daniel would have been proud of his little ones as they sat still, hands folded in their laps. I still missed him. Every once in a while, three-year-old Dalynn would tilt her head just a little when she was thinking about something, and the way her eyebrows knitted together, she looked just like him. When Tomisha, now four-years-old, took that extra step to do a random kindness, the look on her face as she walked away was identical to her dad. I watched as Trisha played with them and how she taught them new things. They loved Trisha and tried to mimic her every movement and sought out her approval in everything they did. Tomisha was close to mastering the art of shoe lace tying under Trisha's care, the pride that little girl had on her face was so awesome and inspiring. Trisha was the mother they always should have had, not that woman who gave birth to them and then abandoned them to do drugs. Not that woman who only came back when it served her interests. Not the woman who sold us out to the marauders. Not the woman who shot their father. I was still bitter about Alexus, and I probably always would be. I tried to keep that anger in a locked box, but every once in a while it bubbled to the surface.
I wondered how Mercedes was doing in Scipio. I wondered how much Kyle and Annali had grown, and if they were happy. Sometimes while sitting in the window while on guard duty with Derek's rifle propped up on my lap I would search the roads for any sign of a moving vehicle. Sometimes I used the binoculars in my search, but not always. It made me sad to stare out over the abandoned highways to find nothing at all.
As much as I tried to avoid it, I thought about Jody. I missed her. I remembered the hours we spent talking on the roof of the complex. We giggled like teenagers as we sat in the sun and pretended that we were sitting poolside getting a tan. She earned a good sunburn and new freckles for her efforts while I wore a mild burn that faded into a tan. I remembered how worried she was about how Christmas would be handled. I thought about the way her eyes seemed to be lit from inside whenever Joey was near. She wore her emotions on her outsides like a suit that was glued on. Her eyes were windows into her soul, and they were incapable of hiding her secrets. She was my friend, my sister, and that was a hard title to earn in my book. As my finger traced the wood grain in the stock of the rifle, I wondered if she was doing okay. I wondered if there was anything I could have done that would have changed what happened in Heartsvale. Would she have left her children to stay with Brother Michael if I had been a better person to her? Jody's four kids were virtually orphaned when she opted to stay behind, and even though Erin put on a brave face when people were watching, the effects of being abandoned were etched in her eyes. She had her mother's eyes, both in that deep jade color and in the way they betrayed the thoughts in her head. Some nights she would slip out the back door and silently move into the garden where she would cry for the mom that she once had. She tried so hard to keep her brothers and sister safe and protected, but she was just a kid herself and her arms just weren't big enough to wrap all the way around them all.
Lacey tried to fill the void in Jody's children. She moved in a gentle fashion, her small hands moved softly as she showed Erin how to take care of a touch of diaper rash on her baby brother or how to encourage him to reach those developmental milestones. Her blue eyes were hypnotic and her soft lips gave smiles freely whenever JJ would reach up to grab at her silky black hair, tangling it in his long baby fingers. She was kind and encouraging, and she loved Jody's children like they were her own. She taught with love and led by example. When it came to JJ, never had there been, nor will there be, a baby that was as doted on as he was. Lacey's husband, Lucas, helped corral the energy of the boys and included Liam and Drew in as many activities as possible.
Jackson and Justin were hard to classify as kids. When we first met them they struck me as normal teens, but in the time we spent on the road, the loss of their mother, and the time we were trapped in Heartsvale, they matured a great deal. Their eyes spoke volumes, having seen so much of the world and its horrors. The youthful shine was gone, leaving behind pools of blue-green sadness and defensiveness. Derek and Matt worked with the boys, teaching them how to work on cars, partly to have them prepared to help out in the event of an issue, but more to keep them occupied. They got along well with Derek, and I think Derek enjoyed having them around.
Matt was struggling to keep the ground under his feet himself, the loss of Merideth just before the internment at Heartsvale hovered over him, threatening to slice through him like a hot knife in butter. He missed his wife deeply. He seemed to be off balance, like half of his soul was missing, and it kept him from total equilibrium. His black hair used to have just random strands of gray, but now those strands were streaks; silvery lightning bolts that raced through a moonless sky.
Matt's brother, Lucas worked hard to keep his brother from sliding into oblivion on the bad days, and on the good days he hammed up whatever project they worked on to try to keep the mood light. Lucas shared the same color of hair and eyes as his older brother, minus the gray, and when he stood next to his brother, it was obvious that they were siblings, almost able to pass for the other. Had Lucas been a bit taller the similarities would have made us all question whether or not they were actually twins, rather than being born less than a year apart as Irish twins. Lucas was a gentle person, always searching to lighten the mood and offer hope as often as he could. He and Lacey had been married for many years and they had a daughter named Lorraine.
Lorraine went by the name Raine. Raine was thirteen, but much older than her years, her features were much like her mother's, but smaller. Her eyes betrayed that she was still a kid, but those eyes were beginning to lose that innocence that only kids have. She took to her mom adopting Jody's kids, and accepted them as her own siblings. She had been an only child before the apocalypse and always wished she had a brother or sister like her cousins did. Trent's mom, Louise, as well as his sister Kristen, worked with Raine to develop her green thumb. Raine enjoyed digging in the dirt and the magic involved with planting and harvesting. She loved turning the mixture of the harvest into a stew or canning the freshly plucked fruits and vegetables for later. She wore a wide smile when people commented on how good the fruits of her labor were. Her introverted self and her love of gardening sometimes reminded me of Steven, our introverted rock star friend who found his calling in the gardens. He died protecting our gardens back in the complex, and I missed him very much.
Louise, Trent's mom, took the girls under wing in the kitchen. Louise was a kind woman with a warm heart and mothering spirit, and she even looked the part of a grandma with her long gray hair twisted in a braided bun at the base of her head, although she lost a lot of her round shape on the apocalypse diet plan. She adopted all the kids as her extended grandkids, and they loved her. She was their surrogate grandma, and helped lessen the loss of everyone's extended family. It was especially fun to watch them all in the kitchen together. When all the ingredients came together, intact and bug free, which was
rare after a round of scavenging, the smell of bread that they worked on together filled every space of the house. It was in those moments that I could lose myself in the moment, and revel in the fantasy that everything was fine and we were simply on vacation.
Kristen was standing in the back of the room holding on to Nathan, who was asleep on her shoulder. She rocked from side to side, soothing him. Five-year-old Nathan hadn't been sleeping well at night for a while; his dreams were filled with monsters. I noticed that Nathan's hair did the crazy spike thing that Drew's did when he was asleep, which made me smile. Mike came over to his wife and took Nathan from her. When he was passed over, Kristen put her long blonde hair into a ponytail before she readjusted her tank top and skirt. Nathan buried his face into his dad's chest, and sighed. Mike gently patted his son on the back.
Tyreese and Tanya were sitting together. Tyreese had his arm around his wife and she leaned into him. They looked like two pieces of a puzzle that were designed to be interlocked. The firelight reflected in their eyes as they listened to Trent speak. They seemed to be entranced by the idea of a town of our own, like I was. Tanya let her eyes wander over to her son, DaWayne then on to Trisha.
DaWayne was doing very well after our run-in with the marauders when he was shot. He had almost full movement in his shoulder and was back to being an active young man, although on occasion he would rub his shoulder and grimace when the weather was changing. It was hard to look at him sometimes. I wondered if I had done something different in my "surgery" if he would have fared better. I wasn't prepared for that kind of stuff; I was a heart nurse, after all. I did the best that I could, and was grateful that he did manage to recover without a significant disability. He was still able to be a part of what he seemed to enjoy doing as far as the work was involved. He was excellent at security during a scavenging trip, a trait that he must have learned or inherited from his dad. His sense of humor lit up the room, and his touchdown dance that he did when he was part of taking out a mini herd was becoming legendary.
I felt guilty sometimes that I still had my people. I saw the others pile up their losses and I looked at my family. We got off light in the loss department and that made me feel almost guilty that I had so much. I had my husband, my kid, and Trent's family still. Everyone that I counted as my people were there, which was something I didn't take lightly. I knew that in a moment, it could be taken away.
I forced my mind back into the speech that Trent was giving about Wilsall and how wonderful it could be. The others seemed to be lifted by the idea that there would be a chunk of land and space for everyone. Soft whispers broke out over the idea that they would have a home of their own in this place. We might be able to breathe there. I know I thought a great deal about being able to live in my own house again with my husband beside me. I felt that same giddy swirl that the others were feeling just thinking about having space to be myself again without stepping on the toes of the rest of the group. I missed a quiet house where I could have a cup of tea in front of the fireplace, or where I could stare into Trent's eyes and feel that young crush feeling that wasn't interrupted by a game of tag. I was just as excited as the rest of the group. I hated tucking away those hopes to take the reins of this discussion.
I took a turn at speaking when Trent was done.
"What I think needs to be done as a first step is to clear the town, make sure that it really is zombie free and to make sure that there aren't any survivors holed up in any of the houses. We need to do what we did in Scipio, go house to house, clear them, and then gather the resources. After we know we are clear, then we can start securing the borders. I don't want to have anyone moving there until it's secure, and that might take a while. We definitely need to take our time and do this right. So," I paused here for a moment, partly to take a breath, but also to give the others a chance to consider what I was saying, "Any volunteers for the clean-out?"
The room quickly came alive with a buzz of indistinct conversations overlapping, but it wasn't a buzz of anxiety. The room was alive with the sounds of promise.
Home Is Where The...
We decided that, like in Scipio, a small group of people would be ideal in checking out the town. I argued my spot on the team, using the argument of a medical person and a woman being there as a good idea, and I won. I wanted to be there; I wanted to be a part of making a home for Drew. Tyreese wanted to go as well, and in the past, his eye for the unexpected was a valuable asset. Lucas and Trent also joined us. We had done this before, and I was comforted by the familiar group since we worked so well together in Scipio. I was also grateful that Drew was going to be with his grandparents. My initial thought was that he was staying with family but I quickly chastised myself for thinking that. We were all family, not by blood, but by sweat and tears, and our experiences. We had been through more than a lion's share of hurt and struggle, and that formed bonds that were stronger than blood, and I knew that they would have my back in any situation, and I theirs.
It was early in the morning when we were preparing to go. The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, and a soft pink glow was kissing the earth in the east. Only the most dedicated birds were making their songs heard in the branches above. I packed lightly, my back pack held a couple clean tank tops, a sweat shirt, and a few pairs of really thick socks. I loved socks. The feel of nice, thick, cotton socks were like little blankets that kept me warm and grounded, and socks were always the first thing I went for after I raided all the medical supplies in one of those box stores. The rest of my bag was filled with gauze and rolls of tape. I also kept a knife in the medical supplies, sharpened to a razor sharp edge, because you never knew what the future held. When I was content with the stash, I zipped the bag shut and tossed it by the door. I fished my steel-toed boots from under the bed. They were worn with the constant wear, and the leather was getting thin in both toes. They were my constant fashion-meets-function accessory with every trip beyond the walls, the weight of them kept me focused. I looked longingly at my low-top bright red Chuck Taylor's, the shoes that I wore all the time at home. They were a sign that we were safe, and that we could dial the anxiety down a notch. Steel-toed boots said we were getting ready to walk into the mouth of hell, and I felt my muscles tighten with every pull of my boot lace. After each boot lace was pulled as tightly as I could make them, I tied them up and double knotted the bow, before I slid the cuff of my jeans over the laces.
I sat on the edge of my bed with my hands on my knees, and took a deep breath. Part of me was excited over the idea of going out and doing the door to door thing, but another part of me was scared at the same time. Right now this idea of taking over the town was perfect. Moving there was a grand dream, a perfect utopia. I was terrified that the reality was going to fall flat on its face. What if there were people who already lived there? What if there were more zombies than was worth clearing? What if we settled in and a whole new set of marauders took everything away again? My head was full of what-if scenarios and I felt almost glued to the spot.
"Cali?" Trent called from downstairs, "Are you coming?"
I made my brain stop this looping panic at the sound of his voice. Trent always had that effect on me. I closed my eyes, drew in a deep breath, and I slowly exhaled. This is what I wanted; I wanted to be a part of the clean-out. I wouldn't have volunteered otherwise. I wanted to be in on the action, and if there was someone to save, I wanted to be there for that too. It didn't take away the anxiety, but it helped to remind myself that there was a bigger picture here. I remembered that I always had that anxiety when a patient was going bad at work, but I loved the adrenalin rush as the job was being done. This clear-out was the same thing, and I was in store for a big shot of adrenalin.
"Yeah, sweetie. I'm on my way." I called back as I stood up. I walked across the room, squatted down to pick up the back pack, opened the bedroom door, and stepped out into the hall. I closed the door behind me and ran down the stairs, my hand lightly tracing the glossy oak banister, and my
boots made a loud thudding noise the whole way down. Trent was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs and I leaned in to kiss his cheek. His eyes searched mine, making sure that I was up for the task that stood looming in front of us, and I made my stance show that I was ready for this. I loved that he still worried about me, that he still wanted to keep me safe, and I felt that safety when I was near him. He completed me, and as long as we were together, I could move mountains.
We kept the weapons in the hall closet next to the front door. We had taken a locking doorknob with a key and replaced the old knob with it. The key lived on a cup hook near the top of the door frame, high enough that it was almost too high for me to reach, and that was the point, not to make it impossible to find a way into the closet, but harder for the kids to get access, without being obvious about it. I retrieved the key, opened the door, and pulled my Luger off the shelf. I tucked the gun in my waistband then pulled out a couple of boxes of ammo. I handed the boxes over to Trent and reached for my homemade sword that I had crafted from a lawnmower blade. I had made a sheath with a strap for the blade so I could leave it on my shoulder until I needed it, and I fastened a hunting knife to my belt loop, making sure the snap that held the knife in the sheath was still easy to open and close. I hoped that I didn't end up needing any of the weapons too much.
Drew saw through the window that I was loading up in front of the weapons closet, so he ran in from outside where he was playing. He nearly tackled me as he wrapped his arms around my waist.
