“Um, guys,” Vanessa said in a strained tone of voice. “Can we take this inside, please? It’s dangerous out here.”
Emily’s mom coughed. “Of course, I’m so sorry. Come in and close the door.”
Together, the little group moved through the house to the kitchen where a few candles and a lamp burned. The windows were shuttered, not allowing any light to shine through outside, and they were all safe for the moment.
Emily’s mom bustled about, preparing coffee on her gas stove and making sandwiches. “You kids must be starving.”
“We ate at Vanessa’s house, but I could eat again,” Chas admitted, while Dean’s face lit up at the mention of food.
“That’s teenagers for you,” Emily’s mom said. “Now, tell me everything. Quickly.”
Chas obeyed, telling their story through mouthfuls of bread and coffee, glossing the worst bits over so it didn’t seem quite so dire. Vanessa, Dean, and Emily filled in a few of the details, and their faces fell when they reached the bit about Andrew and his parents.
Emily’s dad nodded. “I suspected something like that would happen. It’s to be expected. I’ve been listening to the radio on and off, keeping abreast with the news.”
“And?” Emily asked. “What is the latest?”
“Emily, no,” her mother admonished. “You shouldn’t hear such things. You’re only children.”
“Mom, no offense, but after tonight, I’m not a kid anymore. I’ve seen a lot of things that can never be unseen,” Emily said. “I need to know what’s happening.”
“She’s right, Amelia. They deserve to know,” Emily’s father said, his face haggard in the glow of the candlelight. “The National Guard cleared most of the Eastern, and Southern parts of town including the suburbs. A few of their units are still in the city center, evacuating survivors and torching pockets of the infected, but it seems the rest of Red Rock has been written off due to lack of manpower. That includes us, and your place as well, Chas.”
Chas swallowed hard. “I need to get home then before it’s too late.”
“You can’t go alone, hun. It’s too dangerous. You have to come with us to the school. They’re evacuating survivors until three in the morning. After that, what’s left of Red Rock will be abandoned to the zombies,” Emily’s mother exclaimed. “Our neighbors have all gone, and we’re packed and ready to go. We’ve just been waiting for Emily, hoping she’d make it back here in time.”
“But, what about Chas’ grandparents? And her mom?” Emily asked. “We promised her we’d go with her to fetch them. I promised her too.”
“Emily, sweetie. There’s no time. We’re leaving now, and you’re coming with us. So are your friends. It’s not what you wanted, maybe, but it’s for the best,” Emily’s father replied in an uncompromising tone of voice, his features stern.
For the first time, Chas noticed the packed boxes of food on the floor next to the full suitcases and bags. All ready to be loaded into the family car at a moment’s notice. She glanced at the clock on the wall, and her heart sank. It was half past one in the morning. They only had an hour and a half left. Still, I don’t have a choice. None at all. It’s my family, and I can’t abandon them.
Chas shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Barnett, but I have to look for my grandparents, and my mother too. I can’t leave them behind. Even if it’s impossible. Even if I run out of time.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying, child,” Emily’s mother admonished. “It’s hell out there. The world is ending.”
“I know, Mrs. Barnett. I’ve seen some of it happen. I’ve even killed tonight. Four sick people, to be exact.”
Amelia gasped. “Oh, my. You’ve killed?”
Emily’s father remained silent, but he regarded Chas with a look of surprise and respect.
“I have, ma’am. I’m not proud of it, but I’ll do it again if it means saving my friends.” Chas pushed back her chair and stood up. “Thank you for the hospitality, ma’am, but I can’t stay, and I can’t go with you either. I’m sorry.”
“You’d go out there alone?” Emily’s father asked.
“Yes, I would,” Chas said.
“She won’t be alone. I’m going with her,” Vanessa said, moving to stand next to Chas.
“So am I,” Dean said, lending his support as well.
“Are you sure, guys? It’ll be dangerous,” Chas asked.
“We’re sure,” Vanessa answered with smooth confidence.
“Why, I’ve never seen such foolishness in my life,” Amelia said, shaking her head.
“I want to go with them too,” Emily said, moving to stand up.
“No, Emily. You’re going with us, and that’s final,” her father said. For the first time, he looked truly angry, and after a moment, Emily sank back into her chair.
“It’s okay, Em. We wanted to get you home, and we did,” Chas said with a broad smile. “We’ll see you at the evacuation center, I promise.”
Emily sniffed as tears shimmered in her eyes. “Promise?”
Chas nodded. “Have I ever broken a promise?”
“No.”
“You can trust me, Em. We’ll make it in time,” Chas said, gathering up her things.
Amelia sighed. “Well, if you have to go, keep safe, children.”
“We will, Mrs. Barnett,” Chas said.
“Can you handle a gun?” Mr. Barnett asked.
“Yes, Sir,” Chas said.
“Take this,” Mr. Barnett said, handing over his shotgun with a handful of shells. “I’ve got a spare gun, and I have a feeling you’ll need this.”
Chas took the weapon with a grateful smile. She’d used one before thanks to her uncle Al and was familiar with its weight and mechanisms. “Thank you, Sir. I appreciate it.”
Chas and Vanessa said their tearful goodbyes to Emily while her parents packed their things into their car. Once they were all ready to depart, Chas and her group trouped outside and climbed into their truck.
“Godspeed to you all,” Mr. Barnett said, as they prepared to leave.
“Be careful, kids,” Amelia said, dabbing at her face with a handkerchief.
“Bye, Chas, Vanessa, Dean,” Emily said, her eyes rimmed with red.
“See you soon, Emily,” Chas said with a wave, her heart like lead at the thought of leaving her friend behind. But, she knew it was for the best. She’ll be safer with them than with me, evacuated to a safe zone. It’s better this way.
Dean pulled away, and Chas watched with sadness as Emily’s father hustled his family into their car, ready to go the evacuation center. She glanced at the truck’s clock. Ten to two. They now had only an hour and ten minutes to go. Had she made the right decision back there? Or had she doomed Vanessa and Dean to a horrible fate with her selfishness? Only time would tell.
Chapter 16
The trip to Chas’ house seemed to take forever, and she couldn’t keep her eyes off the clock for even a second. The minutes ticked by, each seeming to pass faster than the next. As before, Dean stuck to the backroads, and the streets were dark and silent. They were not empty, though, and a few times they drove past zombies, their diseased faces flashing by in the headlights.
Chas noticed the infected had a rather short attention span. They’d chase the truck for a while before giving up and turning elsewhere. Or maybe the truck didn’t signal food to them. Many times she saw them chasing cats and dogs too, their hunger for living flesh insatiable.
Not for the first time, she missed Emily who would have had an excellent reason for why the undead fed only on the living. If Chas had to guess, it would be that the virus wanted to spread to other living hosts. A corpse would be of little use to it as it couldn’t infect something that was already dead. Even though Chas could work that out for herself, she still missed her friend, the most intelligent girl she knew. Miserably, she hoped Emily was safe and sound at the evacuation zone, ready to go to a more secure location, one far away from the zombies.
When they reached the outskirts of Red Rock, Chas perked up, looking at the familiar surroundings that preceded her home. She noted it was ten past two. Fifty more minutes. Please be at home, Grumps, and Lala.
The houses became thinner and more widely spaced as the suburbs gave way to country houses. Fields and parks filled the gaps with banks of grass and trees. Outcroppings of rock shone beneath the moonlight and coyotes howled in the distance.
Finally, Chas spotted the old farmhouse that made up her home, its roof tiles painted deep red above the whitewashed walls and a wooden porch. They had no pets. Not after Lucky died during the last winter from old age and Sergeant got bitten by a snake. Grumps had debated getting new dogs but so far had held off, a fact Chas was now grateful for. It was bad enough worrying about people eating people. Throwing animals into the mix was just too much. I’ll never look at gorillas in the same way again.
The truck’s tires crunched over the gravel driveway, and Dean drove through the open gates and around to the back porch where a light shone like a beacon in the night. The curtain in the window next to the back door twitched, and Chas gasped. “It must be Lala or Grumps.”
Seconds later, the door opened, followed by the screen door with its rusty mosquito netting and sun-bleached curtain. Lala stepped through, her skirts swishing around her ankles as she moved to the edge of the porch. Shading her eyes against the truck’s lights, she called, “Chasity, hun? Is that you?”
Before Chas even knew what she was doing, she was out of the car, her feet flying across the rough grass and up the porch steps. She threw herself into her grandmother’s waiting arms, tears of joy running down her cheeks. “Lala, I’m so happy to see you. I thought I’d never make it back here, or if I did that you’d be gone, and I’d never see you again.”
Lala laughed softly, one hand stroking Chas’ hair. “Calm down, sweetie. I’m okay, though I must say the news on the radio has been disturbing to say the least. What’s all this talk about zombies?”
“You don’t know the half of it, Lala,” Chas mumbled as she breathed in her grandmother’s familiar scent of lavender mixed with a hint of peppermint. It smelled like home.
“Who is that with you, and who’s truck is that?” Lala asked.
Chas turned around and waved at her friends to join her. “It’s Vanessa and her next-door-neighbor, Dean. Emily is with her parents and Andrew…”
“Who’s Andrew?” Lala asked before saying, “Never mind. Come inside first, and then you can tell me all about it.”
“We don’t have a lot of time, Lala. Where’s Grumps? We need to leave now,” Chas said.
Her grandmother’s face twisted. “I don’t know where he is, hun. He left to fetch you at the fair, and he never came back. I tried phoning him, but there’s no signal. I’ve been so scared, watching the news reports, worried sick about you both.”
Vanessa and Dean tramped up the stairs, their expressions serious when they heard that Grumps was missing. Together, they went inside the house, and Chas gave her grandmother an abbreviated version of the night’s events while Lala packed a few hasty things into a bag.
“So, you see, Lala,” Chas said once she’d finished. “Things are really bad out there, and we only have a short time to try and rescue Mom before the National Guard packs up and leaves us all here to the zombies. What if they bomb the place?”
“They wouldn’t,” Vanessa said. After a few seconds, she added, “Would they?”
“Maybe,” Dean said with a shrug.
“Zombies. I still can’t believe this is all happening. What about your grandpa? We have to find him,” Lala said.
As much as Chas hated to admit it, it wasn’t possible. “Lala, there’s no time. The fair is a death trap. Besides, Grumps is smart. He probably got away from there as fast as he could.”
“But, what if he’s hurt? We can’t just leave him behind,” Lala said, stuffing a bottle of water into a bag filled with snacks.
“Maybe when he saw what was happening, he went to the hospital to fetch your mom, Chas,” Vanessa said.
“Or maybe he got picked up by the National Guard. They’re forcibly evacuating all uninfected citizens they come across,” Dean said.
“I don’t know,” Chas’ grandmother said, her expression torn. “Maybe.”
“It’s a long shot, but it’s better than nothing,” Chas said. “Now, please. We have to go before it’s too late.”
Dean grabbed the packed bags and carried them out to the truck while Chas’ grandma reluctantly locked up her house and tucked away the key.
“I’m sorry, Lala, but we have no choice,” Chas insisted, herding her grandmother down the porch and into the back of the car. “We can look out for Grumps along the way. Hopefully, he’s at the evacuation center by now.”
Chas’ grandmother stared out into the night, her face pale but determined. “All right. We’ll go to the hospital and fetch your mom first, then go to the evacuation center. I just pray your grandpa is already there because if he isn’t, I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”
“He will be, Lala. I’m sure of it,” Chas said with far more confidence than she felt. As she glanced at the clock, her heart shriveled. Twenty-five past two. Only thirty-five minutes left. Will it be enough?
Chapter 17
“This time, I’m shooting straight for the hospital, Chas. No back roads. We simply don’t have the time,” Dean said, pulling out of the driveway with a roar of the engine.
Chas nodded, but her eyes were fixed on her home which was steadily receding into the background until it faded from sight. Almost every good memory she had was tied up within its walls and borders. Her bedroom filled with books and photos, the herb garden with its strange smells and delights, the berry patch not far from the woods, the swing her mother would push her on, and the porch where she’d watch the sunset with her grandparents.
It was terrible to know that the place you grew up in, felt happy and safe in, was no longer secure. Even worse, it had to be abandoned. All night, her sole focus had been on making it back there, and now she was leaving once more. Maybe forever.
A warm hand enclosed hers. “It’ll be all right, Chasity. We’ll come back someday when all of this is over.”
Chas swallowed as a hard knot formed in her throat. “Do you really think so?”
Her grandmother nodded. “I know so, hun. This is our home, and it always will be.”
Some of the anxiety choking her airways receded, and Chas was able to breathe once more. Her grandmother was right. She was always right. We’ll come back one day. That’s a promise.
With fresh determination, Chas faced to the front and watched as Dean wove through the streets of Red Rock, pushing the truck to its limits at times. While he drove, she went through their packs, doling out snacks and cold drinks. “We’ll need to be at our best when we get to the hospital.”
Her flashlight was still working, and she handed her spare to Lala along with the shotgun. While Chas had some experience with the weapon, her grandmother was an excellent shot. “Aim for the head, Lala. It’s the only way to kill a zombie.”
Her grandmother snorted but she took the gun and flashlight, tucking the latter into her jeans pocket. “I still can’t believe it’s zombies. I always thought it would be global warming.”
Chas chuckled. “Yeah, who would’ve thought?”
“Or terrorists,” Vanessa said.
“Nah, I always thought an asteroid would wipe us out,” Dean said. “Like the dinosaurs.”
They all laughed even though it wasn’t all that funny, but it relieved the tension brewing inside all of them, the knowledge that the end for mankind had come, or at the very least, the end of their way of life.
Once Chas had checked her knife and backpack, she turned her attention to the world outside her window. It was chaos and only reinforced the knowledge that this might be it for all of them, much though she hoped it wasn’t.
The roads were clogged with car wrecks and debr
is. Buildings smoldered in the night, flames licking at their rooftops. Shop windows had been shattered, millions of shards of glass littering the sidewalk. Abandoned barricades blocked off roads long since abandoned, and empty shell casings spoke of a firefight.
Worst of all was the blood. There was lots of it. Evidence of the people who gave up their lives on that spot, either the living turning into the undead or the undead meeting their final rest.
As for the zombies, there was plenty of them, and Chas marveled to think that the National Guard had even made a dent. “And they said they cleared the center? This doesn’t look clear to me.”
“Actually, I think they did do it,” Vanessa said, “but, the gunshots and noise would have drawn in more from the surrounding areas. They react to movement and sound, I’ve noticed.”
“That would explain why the abandoned suburbs were so quiet. Most of the zombies had been drawn off,” Chas mused.
“Must be, hun,” Chas’ grandmother said. “I heard plenty of noise earlier today. Gunshots, helicopters, you name it, but I never once saw a zombie. Not in our neighborhood, and I did take a quick stroll after hearing some of the news.”
Chas shivered. “Thank goodness you didn’t stumble upon one, Lala. They’re fast and super aggressive. We’ve been lucky so far not to get eaten.”
Lala nodded and hefted the shotgun in her lap. “I’ll be ready, hun. Don’t you worry.”
“Have you heard anything from mom yet?” Chas asked.
“No, not a thing. I tried to call after your grandpa left, but all the lines were down. Why don’t you try your cell again?”
“It didn’t work earlier,” Chas said.
“You never know.”
Chas fished out her all-but-forgotten cell phone and dialed her mother’s number. The call dropped but she tried again, chewing on her bottom lip. This time it rang, and her eyes popped wide open. “It’s ringing!”
“What?” Vanessa said, twisting around in her seat. “I can’t believe it.”
Gen Z Boxed Set Page 9
