I nodded.
Dad got me into the bathroom at the end of the hall. After that, I sent him away. I was weak, but I knew I could manage to take my clothes off and wash myself without his assistance. Although I knew he would have helped if necessary.
The bathroom was nice…clean. It wasn’t hard to find a clean towel or anything else I needed.
I drank a few mouthfuls of water from the sink spigot to quench what felt like never-ending thirst. It didn’t take long before I felt full.
I took my clothes off, turned on the water in the shower, and stepped behind the plastic curtain into the hot spray. The water felt amazing. I made it halfway through washing before I had to sit down in the tub because of exhaustion. I finished my shower, turned off the water, climbed out to sit on the bathmat, and dried myself off. I ended up lying on the floor, covered with the towel when there was a knock at the bathroom door.
“Who is it?” I called out, forcing myself to sit up.
“Dad. I found you some clean clothes.”
“Okay, come in,” I said.
He frowned when he saw me sitting on the bathmat, leaning back against the tub, clutching a towel to my damp body.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, battling a yawn.
“Do you need me to help you get dressed?” he asked. His facial expression said he wasn’t buying my brave front.
I sighed. “Yeah, I guess I could use some help.”
It felt weird to have my dad help me dry and dress, but then I reminded myself he’d done it multiple times when I was younger. I knew he loved me and just wanted to take care of me. That got me past what embarrassment I felt.
“I can’t carry you back to the bedroom,” he said, chuckling, “so don’t pass out on me before we get there.” He hooked one of my arms over and around his neck.
I leaned on him as we hobbled back to the bedroom. I didn’t even pay attention to the clothes he’d helped me into. They were clean and I felt comfortable, and that was all that mattered to me.
Within moments of lying down I was asleep.
Chapter Seven
The room was dark when I woke up. I could hear my dad breathing nearby. I could also hear and feel my stomach rumbling. It was so loud, I couldn’t help but wonder why it wasn’t waking Dad too.
I opened my mouth to call out to him, to wake him up so he could get me food. But then I decided I could handle it myself. I wanted to see where we were and what the world was like now. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see much in the dark, but I was curious.
As slowly as possible, I climbed out of the twin bed in the little girl’s room and made my way over to the window that was covered with princess-print curtains. I pulled them away from the glass just enough to peek out.
The street lights were still working, so the street below was illuminated. There were cars at all angles, wrecked into trees and the sides of houses. There were three zombies – that I could see – wandering around in the street. They looked lost…aimless. But I knew better than to feel sorry for them. They would tear a living person apart as soon as they could get ahold of them, given the opportunity.
The world was different now. My concerns were bigger than getting a stupid boy to notice me and going to parties. This was now survival…life or death. I knew I had to grow up. I knew I had to change who I was. That wasn’t going to be easy, but I was determined to survive.
As far as I was concerned, I’d been given a rare gift. I was still alive after being bitten by a zombie. And I knew there were others like me – Chad was a shiny example of that. There had to be others too. There had to be a reason why we were immune, why we were the exceptions. There had to be purpose…a reason. That’s how nature worked. Nature made everything work the way it did so life could continue, so that life could go on. I was going to be part of that.
The only way I could handle everything was to embrace it and accept the need to change with the world and my circumstances.
I sighed, let go of the curtain, and looked around. It took a moment before my eyes adjusted to the darkness again after staring out where there was light. When they did, I saw the plan Chad had written out for my dad. I walked over to it, picked it up, and headed out of the room to visit the bathroom before I looked for food. I could see just well enough to get out of the room without falling over Dad. I headed for the door. It squeaked a little as I opened it, but it didn’t faze Dad at all. I pulled it shut to where it was only open a crack, for when I returned.
I headed to the bathroom, entered, and closed the door behind myself. The room didn’t have a window, so I turned the light on. I read the plan while I used the facilities. When I was done, I flushed the toilet, washed my hands, picked the paper back up, turned off the light, and opened the door.
I had to stand there for a minute or so, blinking, before I could see in the darkness again. I headed toward the stairs, pausing to lay the plan paper outside the bedroom Dad and I were staying in.
I didn’t know where Chad was, so I walked as silently as I could down the hall. I didn’t want to disturb him if possible. I just wanted food.
My legs held true all the way down the stairs. I didn’t hear any noise coming from anywhere. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought I was here all alone. It was that quiet.
The kitchen wasn’t hard to find. I walked through the foyer, past the living room with the plywood covered window, and down a short hall to the archway leading to a room with a stove. Once there, I started looking through the cabinets and only found plates, glassware, and pans. This led me to believe there had to be a pantry somewhere. There was no way there was no food in the house. After all, there were dirty dishes in the sink. Obviously Chad and Dad had been eating.
A short search of the area led me to two doorways, side-by-side, in a corner. With a shrug, I decided to try the one of the left first. It was a good choice. I’d found the pantry.
The small room was packed with food. I thought about turning on the light, but I didn’t want to draw attention from inside or outside the house. There was just enough light for me to see vague forms and some of the labels.
As I stepped forward to enter and examine the goods, my foot hit a case of bottled water that was sticking out. This caused a loud noise when it bumped into a stack of large cans and knocked them over. I cringed at the noise they made. It seemed deafening to me in the silence. I hoped it hadn’t been loud enough for anyone outside to hear, or Chad, if he was sleeping close-by. But, for all I knew he was asleep upstairs in a bedroom.
I bent down and righted the cans of tomato juice. Just as I was finishing, I heard the slight sigh of a door opening behind me.
I stuck my head out the pantry door and spotted Chad in the doorway beside the pantry.
“Hi,” I said with an apologetic smile. “Sorry I woke you.”
He jumped, startled, and moved quickly, dropping his arms down to his sides.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed breathlessly. “Don’t do that! I could have shot you!”
I frowned. “What? You have a gun?”
I had no idea Chad had a gun. If I had, I definitely wouldn’t have been sneaking around in the dark, in the middle of the night, during a zombie apocalypse.
Chad held the gun up, pointing it at the ceiling, for me to see.
“Damn,” I said, coming out of the pantry and taking a couple steps forward to have a good look. “I didn’t know you were packing heat.” I joked and giggled, trying to lighten the mood.
Chad was a little bit taller than me, and thin like I was. I didn’t know if that was his natural state or if he’d lost some weight while being sick. I know I had. He was actually kinda cute, all sleep mussed and scared.
He tucked the gun into the waistband of his pants, and asked, “What are you doing down here in the dark?”
I shrugged. “I woke up and I was hungry. I thought I could find something to eat without waking anyone up. I guess I was wrong.”
“There are a couple of apples in the fridge drawer,” he said.
“That sounds good,” I said, turning away to check what was in the fridge. “You got any junk food?”
“Yeah, there’s a couple bags of chips in here,” he said, and pointed into the pantry.
“Awesome,” I said, biting into an apple as I closed the fridge door and headed back toward the pantry. The thought of crunchy, salty chips made my stomach growl even louder. I hoped Chad couldn’t hear it… I chanced a glance at him and was relieved he didn’t seem to. I don’t know why I felt self-conscious around him, but I did.
Chad stepped back to let me into the pantry.
“Can I turn on the light?” I asked, pausing in the doorway. Looking for stuff would be quicker if I could see.
“Yes, there are no windows, so no one outside should see the light,” he said, stepped forward, reached inside, and flipped the switch on the wall. “There you go.”
“Thanks,” I said, and started looking at the stock on the shelves.
“The chips are up there,” he said, and pointed at the top shelf in the corner. “My mom put them up there so my sister couldn’t get them.”
“Ah, okay,” I said, glancing back as I reached up for one of the bags. I noticed Chad looked sad when he talked about his family. “My mom was hella cool about everything except junk food. I had to buy it on the sly and hide it in my room.” I giggled, but then frowned, thinking of my own mother. We were quite the pair… I mentally shrugged. At least Chad and I had a couple things in common, I just wished they weren’t so morbid.
“It doesn’t look like your junk food addiction hurt you any,” he teased.
I assumed he was trying to cheer me up, since he probably saw my mood go downhill fast.
“No,” I whispered, “it didn’t.”
I looked around a bit more and snagged a couple cans of fruit cocktail before heading back out of the pantry.
“I read your plan for tomorrow,” I said, walking past Chad into the kitchen.
He reached into the pantry and turned the light off before he followed me.
“Oh? What did you think?” he asked, standing beside the fridge, watching me.
Surprisingly, him watching me wasn’t making me uncomfortable anymore. I think we’d subconsciously bonded over our mothers in the pantry…as messed up as that was.
I set my collection of goods on the island in the center of the kitchen. I picked up the can of fruit cocktail and shook it. Once I was sure all the fruit was mixed together, I pulled the ring on the top and opened it.
“I liked it,” I said. “Spoon?”
“Top drawer,” he said, and nodded toward the line of drawers beside the stove.
“Thanks,” I said, turned, opened it, took out a spoon, and closed it again. I stepped back over to the island where I’d set down my food. “It’s a smart plan…but can I ask you a favor?”
Chad slowly nodded “yes” while looking wary.
“Sure. What do you need?” he asked.
“Can you make sure nothing happens to my dad?” I asked. I stared into the can of fruit, trying to keep my voice even, and from breaking down into tears. I alternated bites of canned fruit and apple, just to appear calm and collected, but I didn’t taste any of it.
“I can do my best…” he said slowly, before walking over the island directly across from me. “I can’t promise anything.”
I nodded and finally felt I had enough control over my emotions to look at Chad without bursting into tears.
“That’s all I can really ask… You’re only human after all.” I grinned at my pun.
“And so are you,” he said, and smiled back.
I fell serious again, just because I needed to get my point across.
“Seriously though, I don’t think I could handle losing my dad after…”
Chad grew serious, went still, and remained silent for a few moments.
I figured since I’d brought up possibly losing my dad and having lost my mom that he was more than likely thinking about his family. He’d lost everyone and here I was asking him to help me keep my dad, like a sad little puppy. I didn’t have a right to ask that of him, but I had anyway…out of fear. I knew that even though I was being a little insensitive and selfish that he understood why. He’d lost everything, so he had to understand why I didn’t want the same to happen to me.
He suddenly grabbed the bag of chips I’d brought out from the pantry and savagely ripped them open. He reached into the bag, withdrew some chips, and shoved them in his mouth.
I reached out and plucked a couple chips from the bag, feeding my own hunger.
We ate in silence until I started to get sleepy again. My eyelids kept getting heavier and heavier, but there were still chips to be eaten. I almost started crying as I thought about Tiff and how she’d called me “Chips.” And how funny she would find it that I was forcing myself to stay awake to finish a bag.
“I think it’s time for both of us to go back to bed,” Chad said. “Do you want me to walk you back upstairs? Or can you find your way okay?”
“I can make it,” I said, licking salt and seasoning off my fingers. “Can I take the rest of the chips with me?” Again I heard Tiff laughing in my head. My heart physically ached in my chest.
“Sure,” he said, and chuckled. “You might want a bottle of water too.”
I nodded, grabbed the chips off the counter, went to the pantry to get a bottle of water from the case just inside the door, and then headed down the hall towards the stairs with a wave.
I hadn’t expected to like Chad, but I did. He wasn’t the shallow loser I expected. But, then again, it didn’t seem like I was a good judge of character, at least not initially. I mean, I thought Brad was the greatest and he turned out to be a cowardly piece of shit that didn’t give a damn about his fellow man. I thought Chad was going to be a weak person with no moral compass and he’d put together a plan I thought would work great and get us to safety one way or another.
As I made my way through the darkness and back to bed, I felt calm for the first time since my world had fallen apart. I wasn’t in this alone – I had my dad and Chad looking out for me – and I was going to make it through everything, because I was now determined to survive.
Chapter Eight
The sun was shining through the princess curtains when I woke up again. The bag of chips I’d been eating last night was hugged close to my chest. My mouth was dry and tasted…funky.
“All the salt,” I muttered, and groaned as I forced myself to sit up.
I found the bottle of water I’d brought back to bed with me after my midnight snack with Chad. I’d drank half of it. I quickly unscrewed the lid and drained the bottle.
Dad was nowhere to be seen. I figured he’d started working on Chad’s plan. They were to start right around first light, which meant I’d probably already missed half the action. I felt I should be helping, but at the same time, I knew I needed to build up my strength for the trip so I wasn’t dead weight if something bad happened during the journey to the safe zone – Washington Center, I believe Chad said.
I stood, stretched, dropped the pretty much empty bag of chips on the bed, and headed out of the bedroom to the bathroom. I took care of business, flushed, and washed my hands. Since my teeth felt slimy and I knew my breath had to be rank, I had to brush my teeth or I was going to go insane.
I searched through all the cabinets and drawers until I found an unopened, spare toothbrush and toothpaste.
Once I found what I was looking for, I yelled, “Score!”
In mere moments I was brushing my teeth with my finds, groaning in pleasure the entire time.
When I was done, I decided to keep the toothbrush and toothpaste; I took them downstairs with me to see how Dad was coming along with packing up the food. Everything he needed to do was done. I found him sitting in the living room, relaxing.
“Waiting for Chad?” I asked.
“Hey, pumpkin,” he said, sitti
ng forward with a grin as I entered the room. “Yes. I’m waiting for Chad to come back.”
I looked around, still clutching the toothbrush and toothpaste.
“Is there anything I can do or help with?” I asked.
“Hmmm…” Dad said, sitting back again. “Not that I can think of…unless you want to go through Chad’s mom’s clothes to see if there’s anything you want or need.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. That sounded like shopping and shopping was fun. “Where do I find them?”
“The master bedroom is to the right at the top of the stairs,” Dad said. “Be warned, it’s a mess in there.”
I nodded and smiled, turning to head back upstairs.
“Do you want something to eat?” Dad called out after me.
“Sure!” I hollered, half-way up the stairs. “Whatever you find that you know I’ll eat.”
I opened the door to the master bedroom without really being prepared for what I’d find.
There was blood everywhere…spattered, pooled, and in drag marks that headed toward the doorway I was standing in.
Something had gone done in this room. Something bad.
Overcoming my disgust at the dried blood, I took a couple hopping steps into the room. I didn’t want to step in the blood, but it was hard to avoid. Once I was a few feet into the room I spotted the wide open door to the closet – a huge closet. Inside were clothes. Lots and lots of clothes, all pilled in the middle of the floor. I don’t know what had happened in there, but it was just as mysterious as the main area of the room.
I stepped into the mess of a closet, looked around for a suitcase, found a small carry-on sized one, opened it up, put my dental supplies inside, and then proceeded to look through the clothes. I found a lot of good stuff even though most of the clothing was too big for me.
Once I felt I had enough clothes, I took the bag out through the master bedroom and started to raid the master bathroom. I took all the soap and everything else I thought might be useful. When I couldn’t fit anymore in the suitcase, I took the trashcan liner out and started putting things in the bin. I felt good about what little I was doing to make sure we had the supplies we needed. The guys were taking care of transportation and food, the least I could do was gather the other things we would need for daily life.
Zpoc Exception Series (Book 2): Re-Civilize (Elaine) Page 4
