by David Rogers
“What’s Sandy Summit?” Jessica asked.
“Retirement community.” Stuart answered. “Gated neighborhood, condos and houses, though we’ve basically moved everyone into the main building for safety and to make it easier to help each other.”
“Retirement community?”
“Mostly seniors.” he nodded. “At least, those that survived the outbreaks. Some family members who showed up, and some others, like you folks maybe, who joined us looking for safety.”
“I see.” Jessica said.
“How many are you?” Austin asked.
Stuart shrugged. “I don’t think we’re keeping an exact count, but somewhere around a hundred twenty, maybe a hundred thirty, something like that.”
“And you’re looking to expand?”
Jessica glanced at Austin, but his eyes were on Stuart, who just smiled sadly.
“I don’t know that expand is the word I’d use. But extra hands to spread the work around is definitely something we’ve been keeping our eyes open for.”
“Getting ready for winter?”
“That, plus the obvious stuff.”
“Obvious stuff?” Jessica asked.
Stuart nodded. “You know, collecting supplies, guarding the fences, working on defenses, tending to people. . . stuff like that.”
Jessica frowned. “You said it’s a retirement community? How ‘retired’ are we talking?”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you.” he said, though she saw a flash of unhappy tiredness flit past in his eyes.
“Like, are we talking active seniors, or nursing home seniors, or what?”
“A mix.” Stuart said after hesitating a moment. “But yes, we’ve got a lot of older folks who need some care.”
Jessica’s frown deepened, but she honestly didn’t care. “I can’t say I’d be all that interested.” An able bodied group might turn out to be more dangerous to her and hers, but a dependent group could just as easily become anchors that dragged her down. Neither interested her.
“We’re not invalids.” Stuart said quickly. “I mean, I’m out here talking to you now aren’t I? And my companions outside are with me. There are only a handful of people who are bedridden.”
“And how many others who can’t do more than sit at a table?” she asked.
“Even sitting there are things a lot of our retirees are helping with. They handle most of the kitchen duties, they manage and organize supplies, and they’re most of our watch force. Mrs. Tuttle is the one who spotted you when you pulled up here, and she’s in her eighties and in a wheelchair.”
“That’s—” Jessica started, but Stuart went on speaking.
“Please.” he said, his voice filled with a decent measure of pleading. “You seem like an able pair. And Austin here is obviously someone who knows what he’s doing. We need that sort of expertise, badly.”
“We’re just passing through.” Jessica told him. “Like I already said, we’ve had some bad experience with other groups.”
“We’re not like that.”
“How do you know what ‘that’ is if you’re so okay?”
A darkness crossed his face. “Like I already said, we’ve had some bad experiences too.”
“How bad?” Austin asked.
“How much do you want to hear?” Stuart laughed, but it was a harsh laugh lacking in any real amusement beyond the sarcastic.
“Try us.”
“Well, starting with just after the outbreaks, we couldn’t get anyone from the county or state or the feds or whoever else who are supposed to be helping people to, you know, actually come out and help. That’s when we started collecting family members, at least, the ones who showed up and didn’t load their parents up before taking off for God knows where.
“Then the zombie problem really got thick for a while, as people led them out of Ocala and in this direction. We held that off thanks to the fences, but then, middle of September there were some gang problems with survivor groups that showed up hungry and looking for aid.”
“How bad did that get?” Austin asked.
“Well, for a while we were a little worried, but we managed to convince them we were too close to Ocala to be worth their while.”
“What, they wanted to take over or something?”
“No, they wanted to evict us and take over.” Stuart sighed.
“What for?”
He looked at her, and Jessica frowned back at him. “I mean, why would they target you? Are you sitting on a big stockpile of supplies or something?”
“No, it’s Sandy Summit.” he said. “See, it’s a planned community, and designed for inclusive privacy. So the fence is a good one that’s hard to get through, there’s a pretty nice visitor’s building where most of us are staying, and we’ve got an on-site clinic that’s well equipped for routine emergencies. A lot of the medical equipment isn’t any good without power, but even so, it turned out to tempt this one group who had formed.”
“Yeah, we’ve run into the bad side of that kind of thing.” Jessica said. “Exactly that kind of thing.” she thought tiredly.
“Well, anyway, that worked itself out without too much damage, and since then we’ve been running hard to keep up. Couple weeks ago another group showed up, maybe fifty or so people, and they wanted to move in with us – it’s not like we don’t have a lot of room inside the fences to grow – but they were throwing off a bad vibe if you catch my meaning.”
“Like they wouldn’t be interested in playing well with others?”
“Exactly.”
Jessica sighed. “Mr. Bryant.”
“Stuart.” he interrupted her.
“Stuart.” she started again. “I don’t mean to sound unfriendly, but we’ve had our share of problems. I guess everyone still breathing these days has. I’m sorry for the ones you and yours are having, and I wish you the best, but I’m responsible for my daughter. I’m all she’s got left.”
“We’re stronger as a group.” he interrupted again.
“Maybe.” Jessica allowed, but mostly just to be polite. “However, as you’ve seen, as we’ve seen, the more someone’s got, the more interested someone else seems to get in wanting it.”
“Is that why you’re running?”
“Who said we’re running.”
Stuart held up a hand briefly, like he was acknowledging a scored point in some sort of athletic contest. “Okay, fair enough. But you said you’re just passing through, so you’re obviously going somewhere.”
“Where is our business.” she said quickly.
“I’m not asking.” he replied just as quickly. “That’s not what I was getting at. But what if you just took a little stopover with us? Maybe a week, even a few days?”
Jessica frowned again. That pleading quality was beginning to dominate his expression again. “Why?” she asked.
“It’s . . . look, nothing personal, but it seems clear, uh, Austin here has some training.”
Jessica glanced at Austin, who merely blinked slowly at Stuart without changing expression. She waited, as did Stuart, and finally Austin spoke. “And?”
“And we could use some help figuring out what we’re doing.” Stuart said.
“Doing how?”
“With, well, with all of it Make sure our procedures and methods are up to snuff.”
“I thought you said you have good fences and places to watch from.” he asked.
Stuart grimaced. “We do, but . . . none of us are experienced with this kind of thing.”
“What kind of thing?”
Stuart gestured over his shoulder at the rifle he had slung, then broadly around at their surroundings. “You know, the way things are now.”
“It’s not like there’s a lot to really figure out.” Austin said. “Anything hungry coming at you, shoot it in the head. Don’t get eaten. Stay alive.”
“I think we all know there’s more to it than that.”
Austin nodded, just a slight movement of his head. “There is, but
most of it can’t be figured out in just a couple of days.”
“That’s why I’m asking if you’ll stay a while, and help us learn.”
Austin glanced at Jessica, then shook his head once. “Sorry, but like the lady said, we’re just passing through.”
“Please. We’ve got a lot of people to keep safe.”
“And they’re important to you, right?” Austin asked.
“They are.”
He nodded. “Well, that’s the first step. You do whatever it takes to keep them safe. Keep your eyes open, make sure your neighborhood or building or whatever it is you’ve got going on stays secure and solid, and never assume things can’t go bad.
“But these two ladies are important to me. And here is not where we’re planning to be very long. We’ve got places to go.” He glanced at Jessica, catching her eye and smiling slightly. She nodded, grateful and a little ashamed of how relieved she was to hear him say it.
Stuart looked quite unhappy, and Jessica found herself tensing as the moments turned into several seconds, and then stretched out further still. His face went through several stages of worried concern before the man managed to push a reluctantly polite expression to the fore.
“I see. I, well, . . . I can’t say that’s the answer I was hoping for, but I guess I understand your position.”
“We’re just passing through.” Jessica said again.
“I understand.” he repeated, reaching into his pocket. Austin straightened slightly and started to lift the MP5, but Stuart looked at him and shook his head. “It’s not a weapon.” Slowly he removed a card from his pocket and turned to Austin, holding it out. Austin slid forward after a moment and took it, then backed off.
“Our plans are to stay here. If we move, it’ll be because something very very very wrong happened here. But I don’t anticipate that.”
“I bet no one anticipated zombies either.” Jessica said.
“Good point.” Stuart agreed, laughing humorlessly. “Anyway, that’s a Sandy Summit business card. Address, directions from Ocala, phone number and email too, though I guess those probably won’t be all that useful. If you change your mind, or if you run into problems, the offer stands.”
“Thanks.” Jessica said. “Good luck.”
“You too.” he nodded, starting to back through the door to the office. Jessica watched him go, as he turned and walked toward the exterior door. Austin was moving too, over to the bay doors so he could check outside through the windows. Jessica waited where she was. Some shouting – though it didn’t sound angry, but merely a loud voice to get attention – came from outside.
“They’ve got a van.” Austin reported when he got a look outside. “Says Sandy Summit on the side. Four people total, all armed. They’re leaving.”
“Good.”
“He seemed like he might be a nice man.” Candice said.
Jessica looked down, then felt for the safety on her pistol and made sure it was in the safe position before she turned around and squatted down. “He might have been.” she said, studying her daughter’s face calmly.
Candice looked back at Jessica, wheels obviously turning behind her little face, then frowned some. “But we’re still going south?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Jessica took a slow breath. “Because if what he says is true, it sounds like a pretty good setup, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you heard how others had showed up wanting to move in, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you remember what happened back in Knoxville when those other men showed up and wanted the Eagle compound, right?”
“Yeah.” Candice said sadly.
“That’s why I don’t like it.” Jessica told her. “It’s not that I think the man was lying, but there are things about being in a big group with the kind of things big groups need and have that can cause problems. That can attract attention from bad people.”
“So we’re staying small?”
“We’re staying small.” Jessica confirmed.
“Small is good.” Candice said, suddenly smiling.
“Yes, small is good.” Jessica agreed, hugging the girl.
* * * * *
“Try it now.” Austin said from under the pickup’s hood. “Give it a little gas.”
Jessica pumped the pickup’s accelerator lightly once, then twisted the key. The engine turned over this time, which was an improvement.
“Keep cranking.” Austin called loudly. She could see only a sliver of what was going on beneath the raised hood – just through the crack at the back edge of it near the windshield – but he was adjusting something. The tone of the engine’s cranking changed, deepening, then turned into a couple of coughs before finally it caught and rumbled to life.
“Keep giving it gas.” he yelled as she let go of the key. She pumped the pedal a few more times as he stood back from the hood. The idle was very rough, and every time she let up on the gas, the engine immediately began to sound like it was going to quit. Afraid of other problems that might develop if she let it die, she went for a steady pressure on the pedal that pushed the engine up to a high idle.
Austin stepped out to the side and gave her a thumbs up, then scratched his head and refocused his attention on the engine. He stood there for nearly half a minute, watching and listening to it run. Eventually he looked at her.
“Okay, let it run on its own.”
Jessica released the accelerator and waited. The engine revved down to a normal idle, holding there without the stuttering coughs that made it sound like it wanted to give out at any moment. He came around the open driver’s door and stood next to her.
“Turn it off.”
Jessica killed it. “Now what?”
“Now we let it sit for a minute, then see if it’ll start up without fiddling.”
“And if it does?” she prompted.
“Then we’re probably in good shape.”
“Where’d you learn engines?” Jessica asked.
He snorted. “That’s not engines, that’s the basic skill that comes with my guy card, and is the absolute limit of what I can do. Well, I know how to change tires and add fluids, but otherwise that’s it.”
“I’ve known lots of men who can’t even check the oil.”
Austin shrugged. “Yeah, well, that’s their problem. As for me and this thing, let’s just say it’s lucky the damned fix-it guide was in the door pocket.” He tapped the paperback book he’d folded in half and stuck through his belt for safe keeping while he worked on the truck.
Jessica smiled, willing to give him that one. The cars inside the garage had, quite expectedly, turned out to be unusable. Whatever was wrong with them had not been fixed before things had turned from normal to apocalyptic, and neither Jessica nor Austin had been able to make heads or tails of them. But the pickup outside had seemed like it might be what they were looking for.
The engine hadn’t wanted to turn over – in fact, it hadn’t even had electrical power when they first checked it out – but Austin had poked around in the garage and turned up a replacement battery. A few minutes of work had swapped it in for the one in the truck, which had let it turn over but not start. Some more rummaging through the garage had produced some fuel additive that Austin added to the tank before getting back under the hood to fool around with a screw driver.
“We might be in business.” Jessica said as the truck’s engine continued running without issue.
She hoped so anyway.
Austin nodded once. “Let’s find out. Kill it and see if it’ll start back up.”
Jessica turned the key. The engine caught immediately. She beamed at him. “My hero.”
“Don’t start that again.” he said with a tired grin.
“I never stopped.”
“Why don’t you and Candice ride in this, and I’ll follow in the Toyota.” he said, pointedly refusing to rise to the bait.
“What? Why?” Jessica as
ked, surprised.
“Let’s not toss all our eggs back in one basket just yet. And it occurs to me we might need two vehicles to get back to the SUV. Unless the zombies all took a breather.”
“Zombies don’t breathe.”
“Smart ass.”
“Yup.” Jessica grinned, then shrugged. “Okay.” she allowed after a few moments thought. As usual, his reasoning was sound. “If you’re okay to drive.”
“I’ll be fine.” He said, leaning down and picking up the shotgun he’d recovered from inside. The suicided garage owner didn’t need it anymore.
Jessica got out and walked back to the Toyota, where Candice sat on the roof keeping watch for the adults. “Candy Bear, come into the truck with me. Austin’s going to follow us in this, but you stick with me.”
“Follow us?” the girl asked as she clambered down the windshield to the hood, then slid down to the ground.
“Yup. Come on, it’s already midafternoon.”
Austin folded himself into the battered little hatchback’s driver seat while Jessica got Candice situated in the truck. When she drove out to the road, prepared to wait for him to finish getting ready, he was right behind her without delay, so she kept going. The little Toyota stayed a steady two car lengths behind her as she turned the pickup east toward the city they’d left behind that morning.
“What if we can’t get the stuff out of the SUV?” Candice asked as they drove.
“Then we’ll leave it and replace what we can with more scrounging.” Jessica said, though reluctantly.
What was in the SUV might seem like just a bunch of ordinary supplies – and in some ways it was – but she hated to let it all go. The food and ammunition they needed, and it was true all of the food they had was the result of steady scrounging to build up the stockpile. But that stockpile had taken most of two months of work to create, and represented both a lot of work and a lot of future meals.
The ammunition was almost as vital as the food. In fact, Jessica felt it was reasonable if someone wanted to argue it might be more critical than the food. Pasta and rice and canned soup couldn’t kill zombies. Well, maybe the cans might manage to do some damage if used right, but the principle held. And those bullets had come with the SUV when they’d laid hands on it; several cases that the Eagle men had been carrying around.
