by Lowry, Chris
She didn’t know if it was fear, anger or both. Maybe wonder at how three kids had survived when so many hadn’t. Or what they were doing here in a place they thought was protected.
Emma didn’t know. And not knowing scared her.
“Tent,” said Steve.
“I say we take a vote,” Bob leaned between the front seats.
“What are we voting on?” Emma asked.
“Leadership.”
“I think the Ranger’s in charge,” said Steve, making a face like he thought Bob was stupid.
“I know that,” Bob scoffed. “I meant with us.”
“Why do we need a leader with us if he’s the leader out there?”
Bob looked through the dirty windows at the campground and shivered.
“If things go wrong here, or if things get weird, we need to move fast and someone needs to be in charge of that.”
“We’ve been doing okay so far,” said Emma.
“Besides,” Steve added. “I’ve been leading.”
“No,” said Bob. “I have.”
“What have you done Knob?”
“I got the food.”
“I told you to get the food.”
A dirty fist rapped against the window and made them jump. Bob let out a small squeal.
A thin faced man stared in at them, greasy hair swiped to one side. He wore dirty pants, dirty shirt, and dirt on his face, like it was too much of a bother to clean at the end of the world.
“You got any food in there?” he said through the window.
Bob reached over to open it.
“Don’t open it,” Steve hissed without moving his lips.
“We’ve got to,” Bob explained. “He’s right there and we can’t stay in here.”
He tried the button, but the window didn’t move.
“Emma?”
She twisted the key for power, and Bob cracked the window halfway.
“We’re getting our camp set up,” Bob said, not quite answering him.
“We all pitched in with food,” the dirty man explained. “If you got any, you need to give it over and share.”
“We just got here,” said Steve.
“Don’t matter none,” the man said. “We’re hungry. What you got?”
He reached through the window and started patting for the inside handle.
Bob swatted his hand.
“Hey!” the dirty man shouted into the SUV. “Quit now!”
He grabbed for Bob, but the curly haired boy fell over backwards and slid into the floorboard to keep out of reach.
That freed up space for the man to grasp the handle and yank the door open. He dodged around it and started to root for the seat handle, so he could reach the back.
Steve tackled him through the door. Both men landed on the ground in a squirming thud.
The man shrieked as Steve landed a punch, then another.
A second body ran around the back of the truck and tackled him off the man on the ground.
“Bob!” Emma yelled. “Help him!”
Bob scrambled out of the truck as the dirty man pulled himself off the ground and grinned.
“You want some fat boy?” the man leered.
He held up his fists and advanced, legs open in a wide stance, and took a wild roundhouse swing at Bob.
It wasn’t skill that allowed the kid to avoid the blow, but his clumsy feet tripped over each other and he stumbled out of reach.
The punch turned the man sideways at the waist, but he kept his feet planted.
Bob twisted and sent a kick between his legs, which knocked the man to the dirt in a groaning heap.
He turned to help Steve.
His traveling partner was locked up in a stranglehold, the newcomer riding his back with both legs wrapped around his chest.
Steve yanked and pulled at the arm that encircled his throat, but his face was turning blazing shades of purple and red.
“Buttcheese!” Bob shouted a battle cry and ran to help Steve.
Emma slammed her door open.
The metal edge caught the side of the guy holding Steve. It sliced into the thin skin on his thick skull and knocked him to one side, blood cascading from the wound on his head.
“Good one Em,” Bob congratulated.
“Look out!” she pointed.
The man he had kicked was up and stumbling forward for a sneak attack, dirty fist drawn back for a punch.
The Ranger rounded the large new RV in a rush.
“Earl!” he shouted in a whisper.
The dirty man stopped and leaned against the SUV as he glared first at Bob, then at the Ranger.
“You know the noise attracts them, damn it!” the Ranger hissed.
“They wouldn’t share their food, Jimmy Ray,” Earl muttered as he massaged his groin. “We is hungry.”
“I don’t give a damn,” said Jimmy Ray as he moved past Earl and checked on the bleeding guy dazed on the ground. “They just got here. They don’t know the rules or the set up yet.”
Steve stood up and brushed himself off.
“No, I’m fine, thanks for asking,” he said.
“I was coming to save you,” said Bob. “Then she did it for me.”
“Get Ced some bandages,” Jimmy Ray picked the man up off the ground and waited for Earl to grab his arm. “Then you guys do a perimeter sweep to make sure none of the dead are coming to see what the yelling was about.”
Earl glared at Steve and Bob as he limped his buddy away from their campsite.
Jimmy Ray watched them go, then turned to the trio.
“You haven’t been here five minutes,” he shook his head. “That’s not making a good first impression.”
“He broke into my car,” said Emma.
“He was trying to take our stuff.”
Jimmy Ray held up a hand.
“You took us by surprise,” he said. “And there are some people here who aren’t as prepared as others.”
They saw him look at the giant RV, then back at them.
“I can catch you up on the particulars, but you need to set up a camp,” he glanced into the back of the RV. “And if you do have some supplies you could spare, it might go a long way toward soothing hurt feelings.”
“My throat hurts more than my feelings,” Steve croaked.
Jimmy Ray shrugged.
“If this wasn’t an end of the world type situation, then Ced would need stitches. As it is, let’s just call it even.”
He took another look at the back of the truck.
“Bring what you can share to the pavilion over there,” he pointed. “We all eat dinner together before dusk.”
He turned and slipped back around the front of the new RV.
“What are we supposed to do til then?” Bob said as he stared at the empty space once occupied by the man.
Steve moved past him and opened the back of the SUV.
“We pitch a tent, Knob,” he said as he began pulling out the camping gear from the spot he organized.
CHAPTER NINE
“I suppose it’s something,” said Bob.
The tent was set up a few yards from the back of the truck, even with the edge of the rusty vintage camper.
They still hadn’t seen the owners of either rig that bracketed their camping spot, though several people had strolled past on the blacktop path that doubled as a road.
Bob waved and said hi, but none of them returned the greeting.
“It will do,” Steve announced and wiped sweat from his brow.
The tent was an older dome model, and would have popped up with ease had the tent poles been inside the bag.
But Emma’s grandfather had put together a collection of tent poles and stakes that looked to be an accumulation of camping trips of the past.
None of which actually went with the nylon construction in the bag.
Which left Steve to improvise. He did so with great gusto and a small amount of pride, ending with a tent shaped sleeping structure on a cleared
space on the ground.
“It should keep out the rain,” said Steve.
“Bugs?” Emma asked.
He nodded.
“Creeps?” Bob whispered under his breath as yet another resident of the campground strolled past, watching them from the corner of their eyes.
“Bugs yes, creeps TBD,” said Steve. “I think we’ll make a few friends when we share the food tonight.”
“That’s what you hope,” said Emma. “Otherwise, I’ll have to rescue you again.”
“You can rescue me any time you like,” Steve wiggled his eyebrows.
“Is that supposed to be flirting?” Bob snorted. “Is that you’re idea of it?”
“Shut up, Knob,” Steve snapped, but he was smiling.
So was Emma, which was Bob’s goal anyway, and so he smiled too.
“We should keep the truck locked while we’re away from it,” said Emma in a low voice.
The smiles evaporated as the seriousness of the situation intruded.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” said Bob. “Should we carry the shotgun?”
Again, his voice was pitched low, for their ears only.
“I only see a few people armed,” said Emma. “Maybe that’s the rule. Maybe so everyone stays safe.”
“I don’t know about you guys, but I want a shotgun in case we run across any of those undead,” said Steve.
“You could use a stick,” said Emma. “You were good with it the other night.”
“That’s what she said,” Steve quipped.
It drew a sniff of slight appreciation, and a snicker from Bob.
“The tent’s done,” said the curly haired boy. “Let’s go explore.”
CHAPTER TEN
They stepped around the edge of the new RV and studied the layout of the camp.
There were rows of campers, RV’s and tents that stretched on either side of smooth blacktop that cut through the woods in a meandering path that ended at a giant pavilion by the water.
Beyond the picnic structure there was a man made sand beach that stretched around three sides of the narrow peninsula that jutted out into the narrow lake.
“This is not good,” Bob whispered.
“I don’t like the way they’re looking at us either,” said Steve as he returned the baleful stares of a small group of people near the pavilion.
“I mean the whole set up,” Bob explained. “They should have picked a cove or maybe they do something to hide at night.”
“What the hell are you talking about Knob?”
“We’re on a spit of land that just out into the lake,” Bob said in a low slow voice, as if explaining it to a simpleton. “That means if we light up at night, fires or generators or whatever, then everything out there can see us. If they come here, we’re trapped.”
“We would have been trapped in a cove too,” said Emma.
“Yeah, but a cove would have hidden us on a couple of sides at least.”
“Don’t discount the truck across the road, Knob,” said Steve. “A lot of thinking went into preparing this fortress.”
“That’s what I mean,” Bob’s voice went up an octave as he started to argue.
Emma placed a hand on his arm, which shut him up.
“He’s agreeing with you Bob.”
“He is?”
She nodded.
“Oh,” Bob stuttered. “I’m so used to, you know.”
He nodded toward Steve’s back.
“I know,” she said as she tugged Bob after him. “Let’s go see what we can find out.”
Steve stopped just shy of the group of six men and two women standing away from the pavilion.
“Hello,” he said in a greeting none of them bothered to return.
“Friendly,” Bob muttered under his breath as he came up behind Steve.
“You the one that beat up Earl?” one of the men asked as he studied Steve from the tips of his sneakers to his mussed up hair.
Steve nodded until Bob shoved him aside.
“Actually,” said the brainy boy. “She did it.”
“Damn it Knob,” Steve straightened up and prepared for a fight.
It didn’t come.
The man who asked the question broke into a tight grin and glanced around at the others.
“Bout damn time someone did it,” he stepped closer to the three teens. “I’m Keith.”
He held out a hand to Emma. She shook it and they made introductions with Steve and Bob.
“I’m never going to remember your names,” said Steve. “Forgive me if it takes a minute.”
“I’ve got it,” Bob bragged. “Mary, Gina, Ray, Barry, Glen, Dwight, Kevin and Keith.”
He pointed to each of them in turn.
“Impressive,” said Keith as he stood back and ushered them into the pavilion.
“Not really,” said Bob. “I’ve just always been good with names. My dad used to make me show off at parties for people he worked with.”
“Your folks?” Keith raised his voice at the end of the sentence as it trailed off.
Bob shrugged.
“Gone Z,” he said.
“Z? Is that what you’re calling them?”
“Seems as good of a name as any,” said Emma. “What do you call them?”
“Forget what they’re called,” said the woman Bob called Gina. She had thick braids of dirty hair that cascaded down her back, and blooms of color in her cheek. “How did it get started?”
Emma glanced from Bob to Steve and back again.
“We don’t know,” she said. “It just sort of happened.”
Gina nodded, as if this was an answer she expected.
“I just wondered if you had heard anything,” she said. “Before the radios went out.”
She motioned to a picnic table moved to one corner of the covered pavilion, the outside edges blocked off with blue tarps tied to poles to keep the weather out.
A large black radio that looked on the verge of being declared an antique rested on the table, a corded microphone next to it.
The dial glowed a dim yellow, and Emma could see the needle bouncing in one of the tiny plastic windows, but no sound issued from the speakers. The volume was down.
“Just static,” said Bob. “And the one station that looped the emergency broadcast signal, but that was it. We gave up trying.”
“I had to turn it down,” said Keith. “The static was driving me crazy.”
“Is that dinner?” Bob pointed to a pile of food in another corner of the pavilion. Boxes of dry goods, canned goods and sacks that weren’t so easy to identify were stacked in neat rows along the concrete edge of the structure.
“Jimmy Ray tell you we eat together?” Keith asked.
Emma nodded.
“It’s partly a communal thing, and partly to take care of the less prepared.”
Steve couldn’t help but notice his eyes dart toward a pick up truck camper parked in the very last spot on one of the rows.
“If we call share,” Keith sighed. “Then we all survive.”
“For how long?” Gina asked.
Keith silenced her with a hand gesture.
“A lot of people here stick to themselves,” he continued. “And that’s okay. If you want to do that, it’s fine. The folks next to you contributed, and then just stay inside their camper.”
“Which one?” Bob asked.
“The big one,” said Keith. “Got here, turned in their food, and they stay inside and don’t bother anyone.”
“What’s the end game?” Steve asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Bob says you’re on a peninsula and that’s a strategic mistake,” Steve looked at the group. “He says we’re broadcasting our presence to anyone out there. But if no on is on the radio, and what we’ve seen out there- what’s the goal?”
