Zombie Country (Zombie Apocalypse #2)

by Hoffman, Samantha

  I swallow my hunk of ham. “I’m with Aaron,” I say, much to the surprise of Michael. “We can’t stay here, or we’ll be dead by the end of the week.”

  “Madison, this is foolish,” Michael says, pleading with me. “Look at us! We have no supplies, barely any ammunition, and we have three little burdens to look after—two of whom just lost loved ones. With them to look after, we’ll never get out of this city in one piece. We have to think about this logically. Our best bet is to find someplace small to fortify as best we can and just ride this whole thing out.”

  “Michael, I don’t think there’s any riding this out. I think this is it for the world. I mean, do you really think humanity can bounce back from something so catastrophic? The world we knew is gone! Even if these zombies could all be destroyed, are there enough people left to rebuild society?”

  “We’ll have to try,” Michael says, leaning forward. “We can’t give up hope. As long as we have hope, the human race has a chance. Don’t forget that.”

  “It’s hard to have hope sometimes. Take a look around. What do you see? Nothing. Nothing but death and destruction. That’s all that’s left of our lives. We’ll never be the same as we were before. Even if society could be rebuilt, it would never be the same. Where are all of our doctors, police officers, and politicians? What about military personnel, scientists, and our teachers?”

  “Couldn’t we just train more teachers and stuff?” Felicia asks as she finishes the last of her cookie.

  “Who would teach them?” I ask. “You can’t just decide to be a scientist or teacher and become one. You have to learn that kind of stuff from someone experienced in your field. There are no more experienced people, Felicia. I guess we could always try to teach them, but our medicine, our teachings, and our science will never be the same as it was before.”

  Everyone lapses into thoughtful silence, and I take one of the two green Gatorades from Aaron. After a quick two sips, I pass it on to Felicia, who looks like she could easily eat more than we have. She passes the Gatorade to Daisy, who ignores it. She hasn’t touched the food in front of her, and she hasn’t spoken since we left Rose back at the school. Felicia reaches out to touch her, and Daisy recoils away as if Felicia had tried to hit her.

  “Daisy, you need to eat something,” Felicia says softly. “Please. You need to keep your strength up.”

  Daisy pushes the Gatorade away and draws her knees up to her chest. She turns her head, refusing to look at any of us, and instead chooses to stare at the wall. Her shoulders heave with each sob, and her cries are the only sound on the upstairs landing. Levi hasn’t cried since we left the school, but his eyes have a glossy, dead look to them, and I wish I knew what was going on inside his mind. All of us sit in miserable silence while Daisy and Levi mourn for their lost family.

  We pass the Gatorade around one more time, and finally, Aaron gets up and dusts off his cargo pants. “We should all try to get some sleep. Whatever we decide to do tomorrow, it’ll take energy, and we’ll need to be vigilant. There are two bedrooms up here—we’ll have to divide them up. Felicia, Levi, and Daisy should take the bedroom at the far end of the hallway. You’re the smallest, and you can probably fit into one bed.”

  “What about the rest of us?” Rachel asks. “There are nine of us, and only two beds. Who sleeps on the floor?”

  “Why don’t the three of you take the other bed? You might be able to squeeze in together. There’s a couch in the family room next to the master bedroom—Todd can take that. Michael and I can take turns sleeping on the floor while we’re not on watch.”

  “Aaron—”

  He waves off my concerns before I can even voice them. “Don’t worry about it, Maddy. I’m sure Michael and I have had harsher conditions than a bedroom floor before. We’ll manage. We have to.”

  Surprisingly, Felicia helps both Daisy and Levi to their feet and ushers them down to the master bedroom, whispering soothing words of encouragement as she goes. She’s a little immature at times, but she’s a natural at taking care of others. I hope she can help them, or we’ll end up carrying around dead weight…and dead weight will get us killed…

  Chapter Eight

  In the morning, I wake from a dream about fast food to the sounds of my very real growling stomach. For just a second, I don’t move from my place in the very crowded bed that is occupied by me, Rachel, and Janelle. I just want to savor the remnants of my greasy, delightful dream, but the urge to use the bathroom finally makes me slide out of bed and tiptoe into the attached bathroom. My muscles scream in protest, and I try not to think about the colorful bruises that probably cover my back and shoulders.

  Once my business is taken care of, I slip out of the bathroom with one last wistful look at the shower. I haven’t had a hot shower in so long I can barely remember what it feels like. And while scrubbing down with cold water and a washcloth will get the job done, it doesn’t ever really make you feel clean. There’s always that thin layer of dirt and built-up grime that can never be washed away.

  Back in the bedroom, I slide open the closet door, looking for new clothes that aren’t covered in blood and gore. I should feel weird about wearing a stranger’s clothes—especially since the owner is most likely dead by now—but I just can’t bring myself to care. This is survival, and it isn’t always nice. If I let something as small as this get to me, there is absolutely no chance I will survive long outside the school.

  There is plenty of clothing to choose from since most people pack weapons and food, not clothing. I grab a pair of black pants that are folded over a hanger, along with the dark purple shirt and the white camisole next to it. While the other girls sleep on, I dress in the corner of the room opposite the bed, making sure to keep one eye on my bedmates. Rachel whimpers in her sleep, and she says two names over and over again, as if the faces of her children are haunting her.

  Unable to listen to Rachel anymore, I step out into the hallway, gently closing the door behind me. I’m not surprised to find Aaron already up and awake, despite probably only getting a couple hours of sleep at the most. When he sees me up and dressed in clean clothes, he gives me a quick, weary smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Badly,” I admit. “I had nightmares all night, and I’m not the only one. Rachel’s dreaming about her children, and Janelle woke me up once when she thought she was burning.”

  “After everyone else was asleep, Daisy snuck out here, leaned against the banister, and cried all night. I could hear her while I was on watch, but I figured she wanted to be alone, so I just tried to ignore her. Michael, too.”

  The two of us rest against the banister in total silence, and we stare down at the main floor. I get the feeling there’s something Aaron wants to talk about, but he doesn’t know how to start. So I do it for him. “Aaron, what happened in the school? What did you do after we split up?”

  He runs a hand through his matted, unwashed hair, reminding me once again that we need to find a way to clean ourselves soon. “I’m not sure,” he says in a cracked voice. “It all happened so fast. One minute the school was protected and our people were moderately happy, and the next, the soldiers were all dead or dying. They were eating people in the hallways—kids, and women. Those pregnant women were so vulnerable…I couldn’t help them. I tried to save as many people as I could, but it was a lost cause. There were just too many of them…”

  He shudders, and I put my hand on his shoulder, hoping to comfort him and dissuade some of the obvious guilt he’s feeling. He should know that what happened at the school isn’t his fault, or anyone else’s. “Aaron, I’m sure you did everything you could. Nobody blames you for what happened. You were the best leader we could have hoped for, but even you couldn’t overcome all of those infected creatures.

  “And soon, you’ll have to stop blaming yourself, because this group needs our leader to be strong. I know it isn’t fair to put so much weight on your shoulders, especially after what just happened,
but you’re the only one that I would trust to keep us safe. So you need to shake this funk off, because we’re still alive, and I don’t want that to change anytime soon.”

  Aaron looks at me for a second, and I wonder if my little pep talk went too far. But instead of yelling at me, Aaron grabs me and pulls me close, giving me the tightest hug of my life. “Thank you,” he says quietly. “I needed that.”

  When he pulls away, he looks stronger and less tired. “Maddy, you and I are going back to what’s left of the school. I need to see if any other survives have rallied back there, or if we can maybe find some spare weapons or supplies.”

  “But the storerooms were near the kitchens—where the fire started. There’s no way they escaped the flames. We won’t find anything there except a shit ton of hungry, ravenous, flesh-eating monsters.”

  “I have to hold out hope that a few other survivors made it out alive. The nine of us can’t be all that’s left. I need to know, Maddy. Please say you understand. Or if you don’t…lie to me.”

  “I understand,” I say slowly, and I do. I understand why this is so important to him, but I’m worried he won’t get the answers he’s looking for. He’s trying to remain optimistic, but I have a feeling it won’t end up that way. But even though I think this supply run will end up being a dangerous waste of time, I trust Aaron more than anyone else left in this world, and if this is what he thinks is important, I’ll go along with it. “When do we leave?”

  “Now. Michael’s up and ready to keep watch over the others. If we leave now, we might be able to get back before they wake up. And who knows, we might even have breakfast with us. That should cheer them up a little.”

  “Alright, let’s go.”

  Aaron hands me my mostly dry jacket, and he helps me into it. Then we move the dresser away from the stairs as quietly as we can, tiptoe down them, and slip out the front door. Michael watches the two of us go with a worried expression on his face, and I wonder if he thinks this is a suicide run, because he looks like he wants to stop the two of us from leaving. But we close the front door behind us without a word from him.

  The street is empty for now, and Aaron and I start off at a brisk jog. Without Levi, Daisy, and Felicia to slow us down, we can move a little faster than we did yesterday, but with just the two of us to look out for each other, we have to be a little more cautious. We spend some time weaving in and out of the shadows of empty houses, trying to avoid being caught out in the open, just in case a horde of zombies decides to pass by and corner us.

  We make decent time, and before we know it, the remains of the school are in front of us. Any tiny trace of hope I had left vanishes at the sight of the charred mess of a school. It rained hard all night, and it may have slowed the fire down and kept it all from burning to the ground, but there won’t be much that is salvageable. This supply run is going to end in bitter disappointment, and I just hope Aaron can take it.

  For a minute, Aaron just stands there in the middle of the empty street, staring at the remains of our temporary home. He takes a deep breath, and the two of us walk up a set of concrete steps and through one of the side doors in the only remaining wall. The other three walls of the school have collapsed and partially burned away, but this one remains mostly untouched.

  I guess the rain did more good than I thought.

  The door enters onto the second floor, near the science department, and I try not to think about all the people that fled out this door yesterday, only to be torn apart by ravenous, flesh-eating monsters. Aaron and I try not to stare at all of the blood that coats every remaining surface, or at the pieces of flesh and bone ground into the carpet. We tiptoe through an archway and into the hall, stepping over half of a body in the process.

  The walls are black and scorched, and even though it creates a dark, somber mood, at least it covers the bloodstains. There are no lights on anywhere, but sunlight spills in through the open doors in the still-standing classrooms, partially illuminating the hallway in some places. We walk with our guns out and ready to fire, just in case anything jumps out at us from the shadows.

  “Do we split up to cover more ground?”

  Aaron considers it. “Yeah, we may as well. The area looks empty, and we don’t wanna be here any longer than necessary. I’ll take the ground floor storerooms and what’s left of the kitchens, and you can take my office. I don’t always eat all of my meal, and I’ll save a granola bar or something. Just look around and you might find something.”

  Aaron and I branch off and head in opposite directions. Without Aaron beside me, my heart begins to beat wildly in my chest and my palms start to sweat. My mind races and my breath comes in short little hitches. I can see that the hallway is empty except for me, but I can’t help but imagine the faceless decomposing monsters that might be lurking in the darkness. I can shoot well enough, but without Aaron beside me, I can’t help but be a little afraid.

  This stretch of the school is mostly untouched by the flames, and Aaron’s office is still the way he left it. The only damage is from the smoke that rolled through the entire building. Slipping into Aaron’s office, I close the door behind me so nobody can sneak up behind me while I search the room from top to bottom.

  I start with the desk drawers, sifting through papers with supply numbers, zombie numbers, casualties, and details of all the people that lived in the school. For a second, the names blur across the page, and I have to blink to keep from crying as I imagine all the children and other survivors lying in a puddle of blood somewhere. Shaking off my tears, I toss the paper to one side, and open up the next drawer.

  There are three energy bars shoved into the back, and I stick them in my pocket, upset there aren’t more of them. The rest of the drawers are all empty of anything aside from papers, pencils, and a calculator, none of which will be of any use to us on our journey. With the desk searched, I move on to the rest of the room, and come up empty handed.

  This can’t be all there is. The nine of us can’t survive on three fucking granola bars!

  I leave the office a little upset, and I try not to let it show when I meet back up with Aaron. Apparently I don’t hide it to well, because he frowns and says, “You didn’t find a whole lot, did you?”

  I shake my head. “Nope. What did you find?”

  “Nothing. Both storerooms are completely burned to the ground. But we can’t give up yet. There are still a few intact rooms we can search. I’m sure some of the other survivors were hording supplies they didn’t eat as well…just in case something like this happened.”

  “Where do we start?”

  “The science department is the only one that totally escaped the flames,” he says, motioning to a few classrooms in a little cove behind him. “There might be something left in there we can use.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  I follow Aaron into the nearest one, which is one of only a few classrooms in this school with tiled floors instead of carpeting. A puddle of sticky, drying blood is smeared across the entryway, and Aaron and I step over it. There’s a body near the door, but I refuse to look at its face, just in case I might recognize them.

  The desks and chairs have all been removed from the room to make space for eight thin cots. This is one of the most cramped rooms, and probably our best bet to find something edible. Judging by all of the blood on the floor and the walls, not a lot of people got out of here alive, meaning there should be some supplies left. The thought of taking supplies from a dead person—a person I probably knew—is not a pleasant one. But if I’m going to survive, I need to toughen up and quit thinking about things as if the world around me hasn’t already drastically changed.

  I move over to the nearest empty cot and search under the bed, looking for anything that can be of use. There isn’t much under the bed other than a few dust bunnies, and a single empty cookie wrapper. The dust causes me to sneeze. “Bless you,” Aaron says, coming up from under a similarly empty cot. “Did you find anything?”

  “Not
yet.”

  I slide over to the next bed and come up empty handed once again. There’s nothing under any of the cots in the room, but behind the desk in the corner, Aaron finds two hidden bottles of coca-cola and an unopened sleeve of honey graham crackers. He stuffs them into his backpack, along with the three energy bars I found in his office. “Well, we didn’t find much, but at least we have more bottles to hold water once this pop is gone. That’ll be the hardest part, I think—keeping ourselves hydrated while on the road.”

  “I think we should head back. The others will probably be up by now and we shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

  “I thought for sure we’d be bringing back some other survivors with us,” Aaron says softly. “I hoped we’d bring back enough food to keep everyone at least satisfied. I don’t know how I’ll be able to look those kids in the eyes and tell them they’ll have to stay hungry.”

  “Aaron—”

  “Energy bars and graham crackers will only keep us nourished for a short amount of time, and after that, they’ll just starve.”

  “We’ll manage. Aaron, I have faith in you, and so do the others. You’ll do right by us.”

  He lifts an eyebrow as he looks at me. “You have faith in me? I thought you had no faith.”

  “I don’t have faith in God. If he were real, do you think there would be dead children lying in pieces in the streets?”

  “God works in mysterious ways, Maddy.”

  For a second, I just stare at him, surprised at what I’m hearing. “You believe in God?”

  He draws back a bit, as if offended. “Gay people can believe in God, too! He loves all of His children, Maddy, even those that don’t believe in Him.”

  I suppress the urge to roll my eyes, hoping I don’t offend Aaron anymore than I already might have. “Okay, if you say so. Can we please get going now? Felicia must be worried sick about us.”