Amanda Carter in the L.A.Z., life after zombies

by Jo Lee Auburne

  “There’s a kid with her, another little creeper kid,” Sam said, backing away from the window. “That’s all we need, is another little creeper kid.”

  “Just help me get the wood off of the door,” Amanda said, “and I’ll take care of them.”

  “Wait a second,” said Sam, drawing closer to the window. “I know that kid, and I know that creeper lady. That’s my math teacher, Ms. Garcia, and her son. This totally sucks, I really liked my math teacher.”

  “Most kids don’t like math much,” Amanda said.

  “Ms. Garcia made math fun, everybody thought so,” Sam said, and Amanda could tell that the girl was really working herself up just thinking about it.

  “We can skip this house if you want,” Amanda said, trying to save the girl some grief.

  “No, I’m sure there’s some good stuff in there, and I don’t want to just leave them that way. That would be really lame.”

  “I’m sorry,” Amanda said, wondering how it was that she had picked this house and not some other one. “Why don’t you go to the truck, and I’ll take care of them and check the house out?”

  “No,” Sam said. “I can’t believe I have to whack my favorite math teacher over the head. You take the boy, his name’s Juan.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I can do it, and I should be the one to do it because I cared about her, and you don’t leave someone you cared about like that,” Sam said, resigning herself to the task ahead.

  “Let’s get the boards off of the front door. We’ll open it and let them out, and then they’ll be easier to take care of,” Amanda said.

  “Sure,” Sam said and followed it by a long sigh.

  The boards were pulled off, and they had taken all the nails out, deciding to go and stack the wood in the truck before they took care of the creepers inside. It seemed to Amanda that the girl needed a few minutes to ready herself emotionally. Amanda knew from experience how hard it could be to have to put down someone you cared deeply about.

  “Ready?” she asked the girl, being sure to look her in the eyes.

  “Ready,” Sam said, hefting the baseball bat.

  “I’ve got Juan, and you take Ms. Garcia, quick and easy. We’ll put them out of their misery. I’m sure she would thank you for that if she could,” Amanda said.

  “I know I’d want someone doing it for me,” Sam said, beginning to walk very determinedly toward the house.

  They had put Red in the truck, not wanting him to be confused by what his job should be in all this. He had looked at them as if they were betraying him in some way, but they didn’t cave, and he currently stood watch from the passenger seat of the big moving truck.

  Amanda forcefully used her hip and shoulder to push the door open. The lock came free of the doorframe, and she pushed the door a little farther with her foot before backing up.

  The two creepers found their way out and down the front steps to the walkway. The front yard was cute, covered in rock and small cacti with gnomes of various shapes and sizes looking like they were working with the plants. This place had once been a happy home for this woman and her son, and all that had come to a sudden end. Amanda found it hard sometimes not to become resentful because of all that had happened. But she knew that anger and resentment wouldn’t help her now; it wouldn’t help any of them now.

  Juan went down, clean and easy at the tip of Amanda’s knife, and Ms. Garcia was quick to follow when Sam smacked her harder than usual. She explained to Amanda afterward that she only wanted to have to hit her once, so she made sure that she did it right the first time.

  “I understand,” Amanda said, looking down at the fallen boy.

  “We should at least put them together,” Sam said, looking at their graceless positions.

  “Okay,” Amanda said, knowing that she would do whatever it took to make this go easier on Sam.

  No other creepers had come out of the house. Perhaps, Amanda thought, they had lived alone.

  Chapter 51

  Together, the women moved Juan and his mother, the math teacher, to where they looked like they were resting on the porch. Ms. Garcia’s body was sitting, propped up against the house, with her son in her lap. Juan’s head looked like it was lying on his mother’s shoulder. Sam gently put the mother’s arms around the boy.

  “There,” the girl said. “If we can’t bury them, at least they have each other.”

  Amanda didn’t remind Sam that the fire would be here soon to burn up the bodies in whatever position they were in. This, she decided, was Sam’s process, and I’ll give her that.

  “She would have liked this, sitting here with her son,” Sam said, standing up.

  As Amanda watched Sam closely, it occurred to her that the girl now looked much older than her fifteen years. In fact, the girl looked much older than she had when they had left camp this morning. She couldn’t be sure when exactly cold, hard experience had aged her while on this trip, but what had occurred at this house had certainly been a culminating factor.

  They didn’t speak as they entered the house. They were solemn. The house was tidy, except for a lamp that had been knocked off of an end table by one of the creepers. It was hot and stuffy with the pungent smell of creeper lingering in every room.

  They moved to the kitchen. Once-shiny appliances, now covered in dust, rested on the counter that had once been used by the beloved math teacher.

  Amanda could see that the girl’s eyes were full to the brim with tears that looked like they would spill over at any moment. She said nothing and worked quietly, giving the girl the time and space that she needed to grieve.

  This kitchen was laid out a little differently than the other two houses that they had been in, but there was a pantry with two long doors, and they were not disappointed with its contents. Sam collected three cans of ravioli, two boxes of macaroni and cheese, a bag of melted chocolate chips, flour and sugar, seven cans of various types of vegetables, and two of baked beans, two cans of chicken noodle soup, and one of minestrone. There were juice boxes and a big plastic bottle of pineapple juice that Sam imagined would taste heavenly once it was chilled in their new fridge. Lastly, she tucked a bottle of wine under her arm. It took both of their backpacks to carry the contents of the pantry alone.

  Amanda had her hands full with boxes of cereal, crackers, a grape jelly, two boxes of Spanish rice mix, and three cans of condensed milk as they made their way back out to the vehicles.

  “Thank you, Ms. Garcia,” Sam said as she walked by the two corpses.

  Amanda felt at that moment that her heart would break. But it didn’t, and they made it to the truck.

  “Do you want to go upstairs, or should we call it a day and head for the river to fill the tanks?” Amanda asked.

  “Let’s go,” Sam said, being uncharacteristically sedate in her affect.

  “I’m sure if this is like the other houses, then there’s a big propane tank out back. I’ll go fill our two bottles, and we’ll head out,” Amanda said, dumping off the food items in the back of the moving truck.

  There was no real organization to the jumble of goods in the truck, and Amanda realized that they would want to protect the food from any sloshing water that might occur after the tanks were full. It was a long, bumpy ride home on those dirt roads, and she would be very upset if any of this food was damaged.

  “Why don’t you let Red out to stay with you while I go fill the tanks? I need you to organize this food in such a way that any water that comes out of these tanks on the trip home doesn’t damage the food,” Amanda said.

  “What happened to us always sticking together?”

  “I think Red will watch your back just fine,” Amanda said.

  “Well, who’s got your back then?” Sam said, sounding a little flustered.

  “I do, and I’ll be fine,” Amanda said, going to the back of her truck to pull out the two empty tanks and the regulator that Roy had given her to fill them off of.

  “If you f
ind yourself with some extra time on your hands, then maybe you want to dig out the aloe vera plant in the front yard. Your mother will want to thank Ms. Garcia for that,” Amanda said, grabbing each tank.

  “Okay, I can do that, if I ever finish organizing my truck. Do you know what a mess it is in there?”

  “Yep, I have a pretty good idea,” Amanda said, carrying the tanks off toward the side of the house.

  This backyard was neat and tidy, except for a few articles of trash that had blown up against the fence. There were no creepers in the yard, and Amanda plopped the two smaller tanks down beside the one large one and got to work. The regulator had no gauge, so Roy had taught her how to feel the tank to know how it was filling. The extreme pressure from the large tank pumping into the smaller one caused the air to grow cold, and by feeling the tank, it was easy to tell how far up the propane pressure had reached on the tank. Just in case, the tank also had a pressure release plug that, should the tank become too full, rather than exploding, the plug would blow out like a bullet and pressure would stream from the hole it created in the valve. But she didn’t want that to happen because it would prevent her from being able to use this tank again.

  She took her gloves off to be able to feel the tank better. The extreme heat of the outdoors made it much easier to tell where the cold parts were on the tank. It didn’t take much time to fill the first one before she was ready to repeat the process for the second one.

  Meanwhile, Sam was fussing and sputtering to herself inside the hot, enclosed portion of the moving truck. She had to toss things over the big water tanks and then crawl over the tanks in order to stack them in the back. Surprisingly, once she began the process of organizing their load, there was a considerable amount of room left in the truck that had looked to be filling up fast when everything had been in a jumbled mess.

  She was beginning to second-guess her decision to leave the area. With so much room now in the truck, it seemed a shame to leave without gathering as much as they could, especially considering that whatever was left here would surely be consumed by the fire. And that, she thought, is a terrible waste.

  By the time she made it back out and onto the quiet, wind-blown street, her clothes were soaked with sweat, wet and clinging to her skin. She suddenly felt itchy too, all over her body, but that she figured was the combination of grime and ash that had coated her skin, irritating it. The ash would invariably contain all types of chemicals and carcinogenic materials from the structures that it had been consuming all day.

  She couldn’t imagine what her mother would say when she finally arrived back at camp looking like a refugee from some war zone, and she hoped that her parents would give Amanda a break and not lay into her too much for all the adventures that they had experienced today. It really wasn’t Amanda’s fault that there was a fire in town and that they needed to collect as much of everything as they possibly could. And besides, she thought, I’ve had a good day, learned a lot, and will be better at all the LAZ stuff. But then she remembered the bite that Amanda had received earlier and frowned. It hasn’t been such a good day after all, she thought. She wished that she could take that scene in the girl’s bedroom back, take it all back, and have her Amanda back safe, not contaminated.

  Sam eyed the aloe vera plant and issued a groan. She wished that she had thought to grab one of the shovels when she had been in the back of the truck. But then she remembered that there was a shovel in the back of Amanda’s truck, so she opted to grab that one instead of climbing back into that oven of a truck to dig out one of the shovels from the very back.

  Amanda had filled both of the tanks and detached the regulator. As she stood, she thought that it was a shame that they didn’t continue to collect as much as they could before leaving here. But it had been a long day on Sam emotionally and an especially long day for Amanda’s body, and they were both tired. “It’s just as well that we’re leaving,” Amanda said, stifling a yawn and trying not to think about all the supplies that within a couple hours’ time would be of no help to them ever again.

  The backyard had a child’s swing that swayed in the wind, making a squeaking sound each time it moved forward and back. The sound was rather mesmerizing, she thought, noticing the small gardening shed up against the opposite fence. She decided that while she was back here, she might as well check out the shed.

  Amanda slipped back into her gloves, not wanting to touch any of the hot metal with her bare hands. She walked to the shed and slid open the door. It shimmied and jerked on the rails it rested in but opened.

  While her eyes adjusted to the dark of the shed, she tried to place the buzzing sound that was in her ears. The sound was familiar to her, and she knew that she must know what it was, but because she was tired, she was nearly too late in identifying it.

  A medium-sized rattlesnake was coiled up on the other side of a bag of potting soil. She noticed the snake just in time, before she stepped into the shed.

  “Damn,” she said, jumping back a solid five feet in one swift movement, “that was close.”

  That’s all I need, is to add a rattlesnake bite to my already bad day, she thought, moving to the side and sliding the door shut again. Whatever was in the shed would need to stay there because she didn’t feel like fighting the snake for it.

  “You might want to get out of there,” she said, feeling pity for the snake when she knew the fire was coming.

  Feeling disappointed about not taking anything from the shed, she went back and grabbed the propane tanks.

  Sam was digging out the aloe vera plant, and because of the hard ground, it looked like a bigger job than Amanda had anticipated it would be. But the girl was undeterred and determined to get the plant, working away at getting underneath its roots. The plant was full and healthy despite the obvious lack of care lately, and Amanda knew that Maryanne would be thrilled to have it to add to her small medicinal arsenal.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Sam when she looked up to see Amanda moving toward the truck with the heavy tanks. “It’s a shame to leave now when there’s probably some more stuff around here. I was just sad about Ms. Garcia and her son.”

  “Oh, really,” Amanda said, realizing that she would need to make a place for the tanks again, because when she had pulled them out, other things had spilled down like an avalanche.

  “Yeah, I mean, if you’re up to it and all,” Sam said, triumphantly pulling the plant out of the ground.

  “It’ll be dark before we know it, and it’s a ways to the river and then a long way home. Are you sure?” Amanda asked, and now she had mixed feelings about the venture, having finally settled on the fact that they would be leaving.

  “Yes, I’m sure. When we run out of food or toilet paper or something, I don’t want to be thinking that I could have done better,” said Sam, grabbing the plant with one gloved hand.

  “Now you know how I have felt all these months,” Amanda said.

  “You can put that plant back here. I don’t think it’ll like riding in the back of that hot truck with no air circulating,” Amanda said, indicating a spot up near the front of the cab.

  Chapter 52

  “I’m sure that Ms. Garcia left us a few things upstairs,” Sam said after she had carefully placed the plant in the truck and returned the shovel.

  “Do you really want to do that?” Amanda asked, eyeing the girl reflectively.

  “Yeah, she wouldn’t have wanted all her good stuff to go to waste, and since she was my favorite teacher and all, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind,” Sam said, looking toward the corpses.

  “Well, all right then, I’ll lead the way,” Amanda said, trying to dig deep in order to find a second wind that would give her the energy she needed to finish out the day.

  Amanda pulled her knife out, wanting to be ready in case there was another one upstairs that hadn’t shown itself yet. She was feeling like her reflexes were slower than normal and didn’t want to take any chances.

  Upstairs were photographs on
the wall, similar to the previous families’ house that they had been in. Amanda wondered how this would affect Sam, when she saw the girl reaching out for one of the smaller framed ones and pulling it off of the wall.

  Sam looked at the picture a few seconds before turning it over and removing the back portion from the frame. She slipped the picture out and slid it into her pocket.

  “This is how I want to remember them, not like that,” she said, nodding down the stairs.

  Amanda nodded, feeling relieved that the girl did have this soft side to her too.

  The doors to all the rooms were open, and Amanda shut them all except for the first room on the left and the bathroom. She would check out the other rooms but didn’t want to be surprised if there were another creeper hiding out up here.

  The first room on the left looked to be a library and office, probably the place where the teacher had graded papers late into the night after putting her son to bed. The room was neatly organized and filled with books of all types. The teacher’s interests had stretched beyond math into all areas of fiction and nonfiction.

  “I wanted to read this one,” Sam said, pulling a book off of the shelf. “And look, she has all five in the series. I want to take these,” she said, looking to Amanda for approval.

  “Sure,” Amanda said, opening drawers in the desk.

  Aside from the books, there was nothing else in the room that looked like anything they really needed, but Amanda did grab an empty notebook and a couple of pens.

  The hall closet had rolls of toilet paper and nose tissues and paper towels, which Amanda piled on the top of the landing. The bathroom had another two-and-a-half rolls, plus some shampoo and bar soap and two new toothbrushes shaped in the form of super heroes, reminding them both of the boy that was downstairs, lying in his mother’s arms.

  The next room that they entered had been Juan’s room. It looked like a boy’s room, filled with RC cars and helicopters, a television with a gaming console sat on the side opposite the bed. He had sheets with a matching comforter from a popular cartoon movie that had come out. The room was messy and looked like it had been well lived in.