by White, Amber
Dean joined us quickly, all of us squeaky clean and sipping our ice cold drinks. For a moment, I almost forgot it was the end of the world, and we just happened upon some nice people who were offering us a place to stay as we made our way across the country on vacation. Almost.
“If you’ll excuse me, there’s some work I need to attend to downstairs. Would you lend me a hand Brennan?” Bobby said, rising from his chair.
“Sure thing.” Brennan said, following him out of the room.
“So, pretty lady. You seeing anyone?” Andy asked.
“If you are asking if I am currently in a romantic relationship with someone, the answer is no.” I couldn’t help being a bit of a smartass.
“It’s the end of the world and our time here shouldn’t be wasted by being alone.”
“If you ask me to have sex, the end of your world is happening sooner than anticipated.” I said.
“Come on sweetheart, have a little fun with me. I could teach you things you’ve never even dreamed of.” He said.
“Why don’t you take a long walk off a short pier? The lady has refused your futile mating attempts, so I suggest you give it up.” Sully said.
I beamed at him. He winked back.
“Why don’t you stay out of the conversation?” Andy said.
“Why don’t you listen to my friend and stop hitting on me?” I said.
Andy looked unperturbed, but stopped the annoying comments all the same.
Dinner was wonderful. Stew made from scratch, with real corn bread, just like my mom used to make. Andy still flung the occasional flirtatious or suggestive comment at me, and I batted them away with ease. I impressed our hosts with my witty retorts and playful banter with my friends. Ok, so he shot sexual remarks at me, and I was a smartass about it, but at least I was able to keep Sully and Dean from starting a fight. I can image a better situation if I want to.
“My husband and I have talked it over, and we would love for you to live with us. Young people such as yourselves should have a place to call home, one that you don’t have to worry about finding gas for. We could use the extra hands around here, and I’m sure you’d love to start having home cooked meals again.” Amy said after dinner, when all the plates had been cleared away.
“We appreciate your offer, but I think we need time to think about it.” Sully answered.
“Take your time dears; you’ll still be welcome here no matter what you decide.” Amy said.
Chapter ten
Elizabeth showed us to our rooms an hour later. It was well after dark, and everyone else had gone to bed when we gathered in Billie’s room to discuss what we wanted to do.
“I say we take them up on their offer. I want a place to live out the rest of my life that isn’t the inside of a vehicle.” Billie said.
“And if it turns out we don’t like it here, we can always leave.” Dean added.
“What do you think, Jo?” Sully asked.
I thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I’m hesitant to say yes, but I miss having a home and hot food. Do you realize tonight was the first night we’ve had real meat in over a month?”
They nodded.
“So why don’t we give them a try? We’ll stay for a few days and see how we like it here. If we don’t all agree to stay, then we leave without argument from those who don’t want to go.” Sully said.
We talked for a little longer, unwilling to separate at night after we had spent so long sleeping together in cramped quarters. I was the first to stand, stretching, and head to my new room. I was petrified of waking up wrapped around Sully, like I wanted to. Billie and Dean would never let me live it down.
“Good night, all.” I said.
“Good night.” They said, Dean and Sully following me out into the hall.
“Hey there, sweet thing.” Said a voice out of the darkness. Andy sidled up to me, reaching toward me as if to put his arm around my shoulder.
I jumped and slid away from him. “Any part of you that touches me, you’re not getting back.”
“Now that hurts! I’m just trying to have a little fun here, propagate the species and all that.”
“Ooh, propagate. That’s a pretty big word for you. Did someone have to write the definition on your juice box with crayon?”
“You are a little firecracker, aren’t you?” He said, laughing.
“There is nothing I can say or do that will make you leave me alone, is there?” I frowned.
“Not a thing.” He said, still smiling. I swear, I was two seconds from smacking that damned grin off his face.
I ducked into my room and locked the door; sliding a chair under the knob for good measure. I was not about to let that creep sneak up on me while I’m sleeping.
Early morning sunlight filtered in through lacy white curtains, hitting me square in the face. I had slept better than I had in a long time, uninterrupted by confusing or horrific dreams. I strapped my hunting knife to my belt and tucked my pistol into an ankle holster. It weighed heavily against my leg, just out of sight halfway down my boot, the rest of it covered by my jeans. It was an unusually warm morning, so I bit the bullet and yanked on a tank top, despite already hearing Andy’s suggestive comments in my head. Another round of commentary in his voice resounded in my head, and I pulled a sheer, net-like top over it.
I walked quietly downstairs, not knowing if anyone else was awake yet. No one seemed to be, so I made my way to the front porch and settled into one of the wicker chairs to watch the sun’s slow progress through the sky. It was peaceful here, and reminded me of the hunting cabin. I could be happy here, I thought, until Andy swaggered out of the front door and sat next to me.
“Good morning!” He said.
I just nodded.
“Not a morning person, are you?”
I ignored him. I knew I should be nice to him, but he was just so irritating.
“I put a pot of coffee on. How do you like yours?” He asked.
“Black.” I said.
He laughed a little. “Black like your soul?”
I looked at him straight faced, completely serious. “No, black like my coffee, now go get it.”
“Yes Ma’am!” He said happily.
He was so freaking strange. As much as I despised him, I was grateful for the steaming cup he handed me. It was the first cup of bean juice I’d had in who knows how long, and it was amazing. Brennan came out soon after, sipping from his own cup.
“Looks like we’re going to need to send someone on a supply run soon.” He nodded to Andy.
“Yes, Sir.” Andy said.
“Brennan?” I said.
“Hmm?”
“My friends and I decided we would like to stay with you for a while. I would be more than happy to go on a supply run, to help out. I’m sure the others would be willing to go as well.”
“It’s wonderful that you kids want to stay here! However, you’d have to talk to Todd and Andy about going on the run. I put them in charge of that.” Brennan said.
“I’ll do that.” I nodded.
Brennan returned to his coffee, staring out at the lawn before him.
Andy was all for letting me and my friends go with him and his brother. Todd on the other hand, was a bit more weary.
“We don’t really know them, do we? How do we know we can trust them?” Todd said to his brother over lunch.
“They’ve lived on the road this long, they have to know what they’re doing.” Andy fired back.
“Yeah, but can we trust them? What if they survived by cutting people’s throats and stealing their food?” Todd said.
“We don’t kill people, and we don’t steal from others. We take what we need from stores, and that’s it.” I said. “I understand your concerns Todd, I really do, but you have to trust that we don’t hurt the people who help us. And besides, we are currently living with you. You have to put more trust in someone who’s a few room away while you’re sleeping than someone you take with you on a short trip.”
<
br /> “If they don’t want our help, why are we even trying to offer it?” Dean asked.
“Come on bro, let them help out!” Andy said.
Billie batted her eyelashes as Todd. “Please?”
“Oh, all right. But we do it my way!” Todd said.
After lunch, I pulled Billie aside. “Why are you so insistent on going? And what was with the eye thing?” I asked. “You don’t normally flirt with guys like him.”
“Because Todd’s cute!” She answered.
I rolled my eyes.
The expedition rolled out the next morning. My friends and I piled into the RV with Todd driving, and Andy sitting uncomfortably close to me at the table.
“What’s with all this stuff?” He asked, pointing at the reloading equipment.
“I use it to reload bullet casings and shells.” I said.
“You know how to do that?” He said, wide eyed.
“Yeah, my dad taught me when I was a kid.”
Where’s your dad now?” He asked.
“He didn’t make it when the infection took over our town.” I answered.
“Oh.” He said, and looked away. He stopped smiling, and refused to make eye contact with me the rest of the drive. Thank God!
Ten minutes later, we slipped into a store, its shelves almost completely empty. Todd and Andy led us to the storeroom in the back, where a few dozen boxes remained untouched. I read the labels as we piled some of them into a cart. Coffee, toilet paper, soap: things that used to be considered common household items, and where now luxuries. Andy grabbed Sully and wandered over to the pharmacy at the front of the store, coming out minutes later with a basket full of bottles.
We hightailed it outside and loaded the RV quickly. It was oddly quiet. The birds that chirped happily when we had parked were now silent, the wind no longer whistled through the trees. We were all worried.
“Hear that?” I said.
“No, nothing.” Todd said.
“That’s exactly it. Creepy isn’t it?”
He looked around, suddenly a bit more worried than before.
Something scraped against the pavement on the other side of the RV. I tightened my grip around my gun. I knew what was waiting for us just out of sight, and I hoped I was wrong. It scraped again, like a shoe dragging across gravel and asphalt. A female moaned softly, like she was calling out to us. I knelt down next to a tire, looking to see how many zombies were headed toward us. Only one pair of legs was visible on the other side.
“I only see one.” I mouthed at the group.
Todd sidestepped around the back, his rifle raised, ready to shoot. Billie and I followed closely behind, Andy, Dean, and Sully went around the front. A single female zombie stood between us, her rotted face stretched into a kind of grin, her blackened teeth bared.
“No,” Todd whispered, horrified. “Oh God, No!”
She shuffled toward him, and I aimed, ready to shoot. All my insecurities from the start of the outbreak flooded back into me. I didn’t want to shoot her, but I knew I might not have a choice. Todd looked over at me when the safety clicked off.
“What are you doing? Don’t shoot her!” He yelled.
The zombie turned toward him, growling as she shuffled forward.
“What do you mean, ‘don’t shoot her?’ It’s a zombie!” Billie said.
The zombie turned to us again, following the new voice.
Todd set his riffle down and walked up to her, his hands held out before him. The zombie lunged, snarling, and Todd backpedaled toward a tree.
He mumbled something I couldn’t hear, seeming to plead with her. I raised my gun again.
“Don’t shoot her.” Andy said, rushing to my side. “Let him handle it.”
The zombie lunged again, her arms swinging wildly.
Grabbing a broken tree branch, Todd stabbed her through the heart, tears running down his face, his mouth set in a line of grim determination.
“Did you just stab her with a tree branch?” Billie asked, amused. “Major props for creativity!”
He stood over her, sopping up his tears with one hand, and with his gun clutched in the other, finished her off.
Though it was neither the place, nor the time, I had to burst into song.
“Unbreak my heart, say you love me again. Undo this curse that you caused when you walked out the door and… too soon?” I said, noticing all eyes on me, Todd glaring openly from where he stood, shaking.
“You are so weird!” Andy said. “And kind of a jerk.”
“Weird? Me? No, I just have this thing called personality. It’s kind of a rare trait these days.”
Andy looked more closely at the zombie, and then stood in front of me, blocking his brother from my view. “That was his girlfriend.” He whispered.
“Oh. Oh god.” I gasped. Leaning around Andy, I called to Todd. “I am so unbelievably sorry. I didn’t know!” I said.
He didn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the day, unloading our spoils in unyielding silence when we returned to the house. I didn’t blame him. In the past year I had grown hard, not really caring who the zombies once were, but seeing his face, hearing him sobbing quietly, reminded me of what I was still going through; the realization that they might still be human. I tried to make myself numb to it all, but moments like these seeped through and I felt my heart breaking a little more for him.
“What’s with your brother?” Megan asked Andy.
“We found Brianna at the store. He stabbed her through the heart with a branch.”
“Oh,” She said, slightly horrified.
“And old Comedy Club over here started singing ‘Unbreak My Heart’.”
Megan glared at me.
“I didn’t know! I just thought she was a regular old zombie freak, and he didn’t want to kill her ‘cause she was a chick!” I said.
“It was still insensitive.” Megan said.
“How was I supposed to know? I mean, I can never express just how sorry I am. If I had known they used to be together, I would have kept my trap shut!” I said, my anger flaring up slightly.
“Don’t worry. He’ll get over it.” Andy said, patting my shoulder.
I let that one go. Grabbing the basket of medicine, I turned toward the house. “Where does this go?” I asked.
“Bobby wanted those. He’ll probably be in the basement.” Andy said.
I marched off, headed toward the basement door. It was locked.
“Bobby?” I knocked loudly.
“Yes? A muffled voice yelled from below.
“I have the stuff you asked for.” I called.
There was a loud clank, and the sound of heavy footsteps rushing up the stairs. Bobby unlatched the door and threw it open, looking frazzled. I handed him the basket.
“Did you look inside?” He asked.
“No. Andy grabbed them for you and I just brought them in.” I said.
“Oh, good. Good.” He mumbled.
“Umm…What are they for?” I asked, suspicious. I was afraid he might have some sort of drug habit, or something.
“Nothing for you to worry about.” He said, and slammed the door in my face.
Chapter eleven
“What was that about?” Sully asked from behind me.
I turned around, stunned. “I have no idea.”
“Did I just hear a door slam?” Amy said, coming down the stairs.
“Yeah, Bobby just slammed the door in my face after I gave him the stuff he asked for from the pharmacy.” I answered.
“Oh, he does that sometimes. It’s nothing to worry about.” She said. She smiled, but I could tell it was a bit strained.
Dinner that night was tense. Todd refused to speak to me, and only used one word answers or nods with everyone else, and where he glared at me constantly, Bobby wouldn’t even look in my direction.
“So, Bobby, how are you today?” I asked, trying to break the ice.
“Fine.” He mumbled into his plate.
“So…um, what
are you doing…” I started.
“Who’s ready for dessert?” Brennan interrupted me.
“…Tonight? I was going to suggest a rousing game of scrabble.” I finished.
Why was everyone acting so odd?
“No, thank you. I have work I need to do. It’s National Novel Writing Month after all.” Bobby said.
“What?” My friends and I stared at him.
“National Novel Writing Month? Thirty days of literary abandon.” He answered.
“We know what it is.” Dean said.
“We did it every year in high school.” Billie added.
“We just thought it was June.” Sully said.
“Oh, yes. It’s the summer camp version. I’ve been working so hard on it, I get rather distracted. You know how writers get.” Bobby laughed nervously.
Somehow, I didn’t think writing a novel was the only thing going on down there.
Chapter twelve
Bobby seldom came upstairs after that. Amy would coax him upstairs for meals, but other than that, he remained locked in the basement 24/7. My concern was mounting. What exactly was he doing down there? Why did he have fresh scratches every time he came up, that he would try to hide? And why would he lie about it being November?
I sat in the RV, reloading the last of the shotgun shells before moving on to the bullet casings. It had been four days since the supply trip, and Todd had only just started really talking again.
“Good Morning!” Andy said, sticking his head through the open door.
I sighed. “I see my assassin has failed to kill you again.”
He sat next to me, studying the reloading equipment in front of me, and the bomb supplies stashed in the open cupboard behind me.
“You learned how to do all this as a kid?” He asked.
“Yes. My dad was in the military. He wanted a son, but got me instead.” I said.
There was a long, blissful pause.
“What did you want to be when you grew up?” He asked.
“Emperor of all mankind. Failing that, a lion tamer.”
“And that stuff?” He pointed to the bomb supplies.
