“But you want to be here?”
“But I want to be here. I want to be safe. I want to start a new life. It won’t be anything like what I had before, but I don’t really care. I’m here with you, with my crew, with my family. That’s all that matters.”
“How did you guys all meet, anyway?” Emily had pieced together the basic story, but she wanted to hear it from Neil.
“We were all on base. Kari and Robert lived in the same cul-de-sac and were home for lunch when the first reports started coming in. The base went into lockdown. No one got in or out. The first thing they did was head to the daycare, but it was already too late.”
“Too late?” They couldn’t get their kids?
“The CDC was close to the main gate and it had been breached. Honestly, it didn’t take long. I’m guessing someone was already through the gates who had been infected when the lockdown went into effect. Cody was at lunch, too. He was trying to get back to the CDC at the same time Robert and Kari were. They sort of grouped together from there.”
“That’s insane. Wait, so Robert and Kari both had kids?”
“Had.”
She let it sink in for a minute.
“What about you and Butter?” She asked. “How did you guys meet up?”
“We all knew a lockdown was bullshit. None of us wanted to be sitting ducks when the Infected overran the base. Large areas were under construction, so the perimeter wasn’t as secure as it should have been. Plus, lots of gates, lots of military spouses going in and out all day. It wasn’t as easy to secure as people liked to think.”
“You mean military bases aren’t zombie-proof?”
“Forrest AFB wasn’t.”
He sighed and stood up. Neil put his hands in his jean pockets, then took them out. He didn’t seem to know what to do with them. He was restless, unsure. He was nervous. Had he told anyone this story before? She doubted it. For someone who had so confidently kissed a complete stranger just the day before, he was now obviously out of his element.
“So you guys just got together?”
“Cody is from Manhattan,” Neil said finally. “He had this idea that if we could just get to them, we could all be safe. There was no radio the entire way from Colorado, but he didn’t lose hope. Not once.”
“And when you got there?” She already knew the answer. Cody’s parents weren’t with them now, were they? They must have been dead or worse when they arrived. Howe had been horrible and Manhattan was an hour north of there. Emily didn’t think there would be anyone left alive.
“They were already dead,” Neil said flatly. “We walked into that house and right back out. His father had shot them both.”
“Were they…” She gulped. “Were they infected? Do you know?”
Neil shook his head. “We don’t know. Cody won’t talk about it. I don’t think he can, really. I don’t think he’s processed any of it. Shit, he’s just a kid. He’s just 19. You know he moved to Forrest AFB just to work at the CDC, right? He’s great with children and he wanted to make a difference in the world.”
Neil didn’t have to say anything else.
Emily knew.
Cody had the entire world at his fingertips, but now that world was dead and gone. Maybe together they could find something new. Maybe they could find new places in this strange new land they were facing together, but she wasn’t sure.
Somehow, it seemed like too much of a fairytale dream that could never come true.
“What now, Neil?” She asked. Her paper and pen sat on the bed, untouched. Writing felt good: better than she wanted to admit. She’d been itchy and uneasy until she finally managed to get all of her thoughts on paper. That was the writer’s curse, she knew. If she couldn’t write, she couldn’t function. Writing was like breathing. She had to do it. It was a compulsion, an urge. She had no choice.
“Now we make a new life,” he said.
“That’s what you wanted my cabin for, wasn’t it?” She asked, even though she knew.
“Your place was perfect,” he said. “Pretty ironic, isn’t it? The first day you get back there’s a hell of a storm? Imagine if you’d come back the next day. We’d never have met you.”
“Or the day before.”
“Or the day before,” he agreed. “You would have shot us on sight.”
She didn’t argue with him because it was true. Emily was timid in many ways, but when it came to protecting her property, she was a true Kansan. She wouldn’t let anyone get their way when it came to taking her land. Daddy had taught her better than that.
“So the Cody and Kari thing?” Emily asked.
“I don’t even know,” Neil shrugged. “They had a thing going on before I met them. Dunno how long. Don’t care, really.”
They sat in silence for a long time. It was nice to have someone to be with, even if they didn’t speak. There wasn’t much to say and Emily had learned through the silence of the last month that sometimes, you didn’t need to fill the void. Before the infection had ravaged the world, people were always trying to fill in the blanks. Radios and televisions and music videos had to be going all the time. Internet videos and social media and apps. Everything was filling the silence with noise, noise, noise.
But then it stopped
And now she didn’t feel the need to fill it in anymore.
“Butter and I are going out tomorrow to get supplies, scout around, see what we can find.”
“I’ll come,” she said quickly. Kari and Cody would probably want alone time. Robert would be figuring out ways to make the house stronger, more fortified.
“We leave at dawn,” Neil said. He turned and left, closing the bedroom door behind him. Emily stared at the door for a long time, then got up and went to the window.
Her room faced the back of the house and overlooked the trees of the forest. If there was one thing she loved about countryside Kansas, it was the sheer number of trees. Granted, not every property had them. Some places really were just plains and open fields and rolling hills.
Here, though, she could picture getting lost in the woods.
She could walk out into them and disappear forever, forgetting she had ever been stuck in a zombie world, after all.
Chapter 11
Neil sneaked into Emily’s room and woke her up at dawn. He shoved a granola bar into her hand and a bottle of water and she ate a speedy breakfast in the dark. She pulled on her clothes. Maybe they would find something new to wear today, she thought as she smelled the unpleasant odor of stale sweat and dried blood.
A girl could dream.
She joined Neil and Butter in the car and they took off down the road, careful to keep track of where the house was.
“Most of these roads are divided at the one-mile point,” she told the men. “Some of them at the half mile point.”
“What do you mean?” Neil asked, glancing out the window, staring at the little gravel roads.
“Not every area has a 9-1-1 address,” she explained. “So when you call and have an emergency, you can’t just say you live on Bucket Road, or whatever. Not every road has a name. Most of these houses are still on rural routes.”
“Even the places that have addresses, people still go by route numbers pretty frequently,” Butter chimed in, and Emily wondered if he had ever been a country boy. Maybe in his pre-military days, she speculated.
“So the roads are divided so people can find things as easily as possible,” she continued. “These longer breaks in the road are one mile each between intersections. Some of the shorter ones are half mile.”
“Makes sense,” Neil commented. “And really, it’s kind of genius.”
“Makes it easy to give directions,” Emily added. “You can just tell someone to go five miles, then turn south, or whatever.”
They continued down the road in silence. They were driving slowly so they could keep their eyes out for anything unusual. They needed to know how many Infected they could expect in this area, how many prying eyes there wer
e, whether there were bands of survivors or not.
“Looks pretty uninhabited to me,” Butter commented. He slowed as the road rounded a bend, then stopped. “Want to check it out?” He asked, peering at a small house just off the road. The yard was full of trees and they couldn’t get a clear view, but it looked empty enough.
“Yeah,” Neil said. “Back up around the corner.” Butter reversed the car and went back up the road a bit, then parked. They couldn’t completely hide the car, but they also didn’t need to announce their arrival if the house was packed full of survivors.
They got out with their weapons. Emily had brought her .38 special, while Neil and Butter each carried a 9mm Glock. Butter grabbed a bat, too. The men were nothing if not resourceful. They circled around to the back of the house and approached through the trees. They watched for a minute, but there was no movement.
“Time to go check it out,” Emily said. She started to stand, but Neil yanked her back down to where he and Butter were squatting.
“Wait,” he said. He picked up a rock and chucked it at the house. It bounced off the first-floor window, but nothing happened.
“There’s no one there,” Emily protested. This was a waste of time.
“One more,” Neil said. He picked up another rock and threw it. This time the window shattered and a face appeared in its place. “Gotcha,” he said.
Neil climbed out from the trees and aimed for the Infected’s head. It opened its mouth, but didn’t make a noise before Neil had put it down. The sound of the gunfire would undoubtedly bring more if there were any others in the area.
The Infected collapsed where it was, half in and half out of the house.
“Nice shot, boss,” Butter said. Neil was silent as they walked up to the house and peeked inside. It was dark. Emily didn’t see any others right away, but she was wary as they tried the back door.
“Locked,” Neil said.
“Check under the mat,” Emily pointed at a tattered welcome mat that read Home Sweet Home.
“Nothing,” he said, holding it by one corner.
“Over here,” Butter handed him a key. “It was under the flower pot.”
“Predictable,” Neil commented, sliding the key into the lock. “Good thing we aren’t robbers.”
He pulled the back door open and the scent of sweat and rotting food wafted out.
“Ladies first,” he said to Butter.
“Fuck you,” Butter said as he stepped into the door, gun raised. Sunlight streamed into the kitchen from the broken window and open door, but they were too busy looking for Infected to notice. Emily held her flashlight up as they walked around the empty room. The only thing around was the rotting Z Neil had put down.
“Start looking around,” Butter told Emily. “We’re going to check the rest of the house.”
The farmhouse wasn’t big. There were two stories, but judging from the exterior, the upper floor was probably a single bedroom and bathroom. The old woman Neil had shot wasn’t moving or twitching, but Emily kept an eye on her, anyway. Z’s were quick and she didn’t want to be caught unprepared.
Not today.
She quickly rummaged around in the cupboards. There were several reusable shopping bags beneath the sink and she filled them with crackers, pasta, nuts, and coffee. Emily didn’t want to open the fridge, but she did, and found two water bottles among the rotting food.
The freezer was empty save for a bottle of Jack, and she tossed that in the bag, as well. Lucky find, she thought. The gang would enjoy that later.
When the guys came back downstairs, they handed her a few bottles of pills they had found in the upstairs bathroom. Butter checked for a basement, but didn’t see one. He grabbed a set of keys from the counter and headed outside.
“Gonna take a look in the garage,” he called out, and headed out to see whether or not the dead lady had a car they could use.
Neil helped Emily haul their loot to the car, then returned to the house to get blankets and pillows. Emily went upstairs to check for clothes. Almost everything was 10 years out of date and wouldn’t fit her or Kari. While Emily would have once loved to be as thin as she was now, she was finding it difficult to keep her once-tight clothing on. Everything was baggy now. She grabbed a flannel nightgown and brought it out to the car. It might be way too big, but would keep her warm during the coming winter nights.
As she reached the car, she heard the sound of another engine and Butter appeared in a little beat-up truck.
“A pickup!” He yelled out the window, hooting and hollering. Emily wanted to tell him to keep it down, that they didn’t need to be attracting any Z’s, but she just grinned. Now they had a place to stay and not one, but two running vehicles.
“See you at home, boys,” Butter yelled and drove on down the road. Emily and Neil closed the back door and stared at the dead woman for a minute.
“We should do something,” Emily said.
“Like what? Can’t exactly have a funeral service here.”
“I know, but, I mean…” She hesitated. “We can’t just leave her here.”
Neil rolled his eyes, then placed his hands on her shoulders. Emily looked up at him. He was so much taller than her.
“Em, I know this sucks, but we aren’t moving that body.”
“But Robert moved the ones at the other house,” She started to protest.
“Robert was clearing out a house, love,” Neil said. “We aren’t. We don’t have time to properly bury every Infected we find and even if we did, I wouldn’t try it now. It’s midmorning, it’s starting to get hot, and I don’t want her blood splashing around on me. I don’t want to get infected and I know you don’t either.”
He was right, but she didn’t exactly want to admit that. And why was this one different? Emily had left Melanie and ran right on home without looking back.
Was this some sort of desire for redemption?
She turned and went back to the car. She sat down in the passenger seat and closed the door. It felt like she was alone in the car forever before Neil finally came and joined her. He sat down, but didn’t start the car right away. Instead, he reached over and grabbed her hand. He held it for awhile.
“I know this is hard,” he said. Somehow, it was enough. They sat like that for awhile, then finally went back to their house.
She couldn’t bring herself to think of it as “home” just yet, but she knew there would be a time when she undoubtedly thought of the little house that way.
Home.
What did that even mean anymore?
Chapter 12
Emily and Neil arrived back at the house in time to see Robert putting down two Infected. The Z’s were young, probably in their mid-twenties. Emily didn’t recognize them. They were slow and wobbly as they hesitantly made their way toward Robert. He himself did not hesitate.
He killed them quickly.
“What the hell?” Neil jumped out of the car and walked toward Robert, who was standing at the side of the house.
“No idea, boss,” Robert said. “The fuckers just wandered out of the trees.” He motioned toward the densely wooded area that lined the sides and back of the house.
“What’s back there?” Emily asked. “Where would they have come from?”
Neil and Robert exchanged looks and Emily was instantly on alert.
“What? What did I say?” She asked.
“You asked what was back there,” Neil said, checking his gun. “And I honestly don’t know. Get Butter. Tell him we’re checking out the woods.”
She ran into the house to find Butter and tell him.
“Fuck,” he said. “I wondered what all the shouting was about.” He finished a can of beer and left it on the counter. Emily wasn’t sure where he’d found it, but she didn’t ask. They all had their secrets.
“Cody and I can take care of these two,” Kari appeared and pointed at the dead Infected lying in the grass. “You guys go on ahead.” She pressed a .380 into Emily’s hands and Emily ro
lled her eyes.
“A .380? What am I going to kill with this? A mouse? Come on.” She showed Kari her old standby, her .38 special, and headed out to see what the boys had found.
Emily stepped into the woods and immediately felt like she was someplace new. The forest was darker than it was by the house and quieter. She could still hear Kari and Cody talking as they cleaned up the corpses, but the woods held a certain air of silence.
Of solitude.
She could see Neil up ahead of her and followed close behind, careful to make enough noise that he could hear her, but not enough to attract the attention of any Z’s that might be lurking nearby. She reached him and he held out his arm to stop her from going any further.
Another infected was up ahead in a clearing, wandering aimlessly.
“Seriously, where are they coming from?” Neil muttered. Robert headed out and wacked it with a baseball bat, quietly and quickly putting it out of its misery.
“It’s too far from town, isn’t it?” Emily asked, but her heart fell. Would they ever be safe? The Infected were slow and growled a lot, but all it took was one bite, one scratch, one cut. All it took was too much contact and you’d be done for.
She knew that much from losing her sister.
Robert motioned for everyone to follow him and they did. They went down a little hill and stepped over a fallen tree trunk. There were piles of leaves: a sign that winter wouldn’t be long in coming. Finally, they reached a road.
“There,” Robert pointed down the road. “Right there.”
Neil, Butter, and Emily looked where he was wagging his finger. There was a building up ahead, but she couldn’t really tell what it was.
“Is that a church?” She asked, squinting.
“It’s a country bar,” Butter said, suddenly sounding pretty pleased with himself.
Sure enough, when they started walking toward it, they saw the shabby faded Branding Iron Restaurant and Tavern sign.
“Looks like everyone was having fun, but the party ended early,” Butter pointed to a row of cars parked outside the restaurant. They all looked to be in fine condition, but the building itself was crawling with Infected.
Lost in the Apocalypse Page 8
