The day dragged by slowly. There wasn’t much to do except smoke cigarettes, listen to music, and play board games. Cassie spent part of the morning making a little stove. She had got out a cookie sheet, set stacked glasses at each end, placed a small skillet on the cookie sheet, and balanced a cooling rack on the glasses, so that the center was over the skillet. When they were ready for lunch, she filled a pot with some bottled water, put some noodles in it and set it on the cooling rack. She stuffed a rag underneath and lit it on fire with her lighter. When the noodles had boiled, she poured a little bit of water around the pot to put out the flames, and used potholders to move the pot to the stove top. She then checked to make sure the rag was completely out and dumped the skillet into the sink.
“That’s pretty clever,” Kaylee complimented. “Wish I had thought of that. There’s noodles in the pantry. We can take them with us.”
“So, we’ll need to leave in the morning,” Matt told her. “There’s creatures lurking all outside, and we’re going to need supplies.”
Kaylee nodded. “I heard them on the porch this morning. That’s why I had my gun with me. I think my dad is gone. I had a dream about him last night. He said he couldn’t come back, but he loved me. He said I should go find my paradise.”
“Do you want to leave today?” Matt asked.
“I guess we can,” Kaylee replied. “We should take whatever might be useful. I want to take some personal things.”
Trey helped Kaylee pack up some things while Matt and Cassie loaded the Suburban with all the remaining food, blankets and pillows, pots and pans, and some dishes. They also collected the candles and a couple boxes of matches, as well as a package of batteries and a flashlight. The garage door was electric, but Matt was able to manually raise it and had pulled the Suburban in the day before when Kaylee agreed to let them stay. It kept them safely concealed while they loaded the vehicle. Kaylee packed her backpack and a duffel bag with clothes, bathroom items, her CDs, a photo album, the picture from her night stand, and Connor’s bear.
“I wonder if we could get into the safe,” Kaylee told Trey. “My dad has guns and ammo in there, but I don’t know the combo.”
“Well that sucks,” Trey said. “I don’t think we can get in it.”
She took him into her dad’s closet in the master bedroom to show him the safe.
“You think he might’ve had it written on something?” Trey asked.
Kaylee shrugged. “Probably not. He knew the combination. He’s never told me what it is though.”
“I’m sorry, Kaylee,” Trey replied. “I don’t think we can break into it. We’d have to have some serious tools to get in that, and we could spend a year trying all the different combinations it could be.”
She opened his night stand drawer and dug through it, but didn’t find a combination. She tried the night stand on the other side, the one that used to be her mom’s. It had been cleared out except for a bible with her mom’s name engraved on the cover. Kaylee picked it up and looked at it for a moment.
“I think I’d like to keep this,” Kaylee said.
“You should. It was your mom’s,” Trey agreed. “Anything of your dad’s you want to take?”
She thought a moment, then went back to the closet. She grabbed a few shirts and a hoodie that he had often worn. She went to the office and looked through the filing cabinet, hoping to find the combo to the safe. She didn’t find it, but she spotted hers and Connor’s baby books on the bookshelf and decided to keep those, too.
“I know you probably want those guns, cause they were your dad’s, but we’ll find other guns,” Trey assured her.
Kaylee nodded and reluctantly gave up on trying to find the combination to it. They loaded everything up, and Kaylee took a minute to look over the house she’d lived in her entire life one more time. With tears in her eyes, she climbed into the backseat with Trey. Cassie got in the front passenger side, and Matt raised the door. He hurried into the driver’s seat, cranked the engine, and backed out, hitting the creatures in his way. The Suburban had a CD player, and Cassie put in one of her CDs. She looked back for Kaylee’s reaction of whether she liked it or not, but there was no reaction. Kaylee sat staring out her window with tears streaming down her cheeks.
Several blocks away, Kaylee suddenly sat up straight, a look of horror taking over her face. “Oh my God! That’s our car! The green Jeep!”
Matt stopped and backed up to it. It was parked on the side of the road, but no one was in it. She knew then that he hadn’t survived. Matt asked her if she wanted to look it over, but she said no.
“If he was this close and hadn’t come home, then he didn’t make it,” she concluded.
“What if he’s in one of these stores?” Trey asked. “We could check it out.”
“I don’t think he is,” Kaylee replied. “I can see creatures through the windows. I don’t want to see him like that.”
They waited a few more minutes just to be sure, and then slowly drove away. Kaylee asked Trey if he minded that she lay down, and he told her that was fine. She laid her head in his lap as fresh tears escaped her eyes. At first, Trey tried to keep his hands to the side, but after several minutes of feeling a bit awkward and knowing that she was crying, he put his left hand on her shoulder and rubbed her hair with his right hand. After a while, they both had dozed off.
The sun was starting to set when Kaylee and Trey woke up, and they were no longer in Tampa. Matt was pulling over, talking about finding some food. Cassie was telling him there was still peanut butter and crackers in the back. Matt pulled into a convenient store anyway. He wanted to find canned food. Trey stayed in the car with Kaylee, who had now sat up, while Matt and Cassie went into the store. They came back out a few minutes later with canned spaghetti, some chips, and some Powerades.
“They have pop top lids,” Matt told them happily.
He popped the lids off, tossing them out the window. Trey reached in the back for some silverware. Matt then pushed the cigarette lighter in the accessory and waited for it to pop out. He then held the lighter to the bottom of the can.
“What are you doing?” Cassie laughed.
Matt grinned. “What? Haven’t you ever seen ‘A Goofy Movie’? He heated soup this way.”
Cassie laughed harder. “Yeah, that was a cartoon. Those things don’t stay hot that long.”
He handed her the can. She took a bite. “It’s still cold. You didn’t actually think that’d work, did you?”
He laughed, too. “I always wanted to try it. Well, at least it’s food.”
As horrible as it was, they ate cold spaghetti from a can, drank room temperature Powerade, and shared a bag of chips for dinner. He had a point; at least they wouldn’t be hungry.
“Where are we?” Kaylee asked, realizing it was not Tampa.
“The last sign I noticed said Osprey,” Matt answered.
“Well, once we pass Venice, we’ll need to break away from the coast and cut across toward Port Charlotte,” Kaylee informed. “If you go to Englewood we’ll dead end into Charlotte Harbor and back track north.”
“Thanks for the heads up,” Matt replied.
Cassie drove from that point so Matt could get some rest. Trey and Kaylee played some card games in the backseat as Cassie drove. They used a flashlight propped in the back of Cassie’s seat so they could see. Cassie played her music at a low volume so as not to disturb Matt while he slept. She wished they could just stop somewhere, but Matt told her they needed to keep going, and they would be in Miami soon. They had reached Cape Coral by early morning, and Cassie pulled over so they could get out and stretch their legs.
“Want to walk down on the beach?” she asked them.
Matt stretched and yawned. “Sure, sounds good.”
The four of them got out and walked down onto the beach barefoot. Kaylee collected seashells as they walked. Trey helped her carry them when she’d gathered more than a handful.
“What’re you going to do with thes
e?” inquired Trey.
She smiled. “Make jewelry. I can make necklaces and bracelets with them.”
“That’s creative,” Trey grinned. “How do you make them stick together?”
“Well, I’ll need some string, or a chain. Then I’ll need something to tap a hole in them. Some have holes in them naturally,” she explained, showing him one that already had a hole. “Then you just slide them on. There’s other ways to make them, too, but I’d have to have a glue gun and some other things.”
They headed back up to the Suburban shortly to dig out some food for breakfast. They sat by the truck to eat. There were creatures in the distance, roaming around on the strip. They didn’t seem to notice them eating behind the truck. They made sure not to linger too long and returned to the inside of the truck so they could keep going. Matt topped off the gas with what they had left in the last gas can.
“When we get down to a quarter of a tank, we’ll need to start looking for fuel,” Matt informed Cassie.
“If we keep moving like we are, we should be in Naples by lunchtime,” Kaylee told them. “We could drive across from Naples and go to either Fort Lauderdale or Miami.”
“Well, I’m thinking it might be safer to stay near the ocean,” Matt told her.
“Whatever you think is safer is best,” Kaylee returned. “It would take less time to cut across, is all. Following the coast will take us all the way through Monroe, then into Dade. And Miami is near the top of Dade.”
He looked at Cassie. “What do you think?”
She thought a moment. “Maybe we should. We’re having to go away from the water to get supplies. I didn’t realize the strips along the beaches would be so crowded with creatures.”
When they reached Naples, they again got out and stretched their legs, then had some lunch. They headed east from Naples, still keeping to city and town roads, afraid to trust the highways and interstates. They were still in Collier at dinnertime, and they decided to find a house for the night. There were three creatures roaming around the house when they went in. They killed the two adults, and then went to the room that held the child.
“I can’t,” Cassie told him.
“Cassie, it’s not a child anymore. The child’s dead. This is a creature. It’s an evil little cannibal that will eat us if we don’t kill it.”
“I know,” Cassie replied. “I just can’t do it. You do it.”
Matt went into the room and stabbed the small creature in the head. Afterwards, they tossed all three out into the backyard. Kaylee went back to the child’s room after dinner and stood in the doorway. Trey came over to her after a short time.
“You okay?” he asked her.
“Kids shouldn’t die,” Kaylee sighed. “It’s not fair.”
He thought she might be thinking of Connor. Maybe she felt guilty that she had survived the accident, and Connor hadn’t. He had obviously known death, but not like that of a child, and he didn’t understand how it hurt any different. He hesitated a moment, but took her hand and smiled sadly at her.
“I really don’t know what to say to help you feel better, but I’m a pretty good listener if you need to talk,” he told her.
She smiled back at him. “Thanks.”
They headed back to the living room hand-in-hand. She pulled her photographs out of her bag, and Trey looked at the pictures with her as they sat on the couch. He didn’t mean to forget Emily so quick, and she would always have a special place in his heart, but she was gone, and he was really falling for Kaylee pretty hard. They ended up falling asleep together on the couch. Cassie and Matt had made a pallet in the floor and fell asleep there. They headed back out right after breakfast. They had helped themselves to some cereal, although they had to eat it dry, and took the rest of the food with them.
“Man, this is going to be a long trip,” Kaylee replied as they started out. “It’s only, like, two and half hours from Naples to Miami on the interstate. I didn’t know back roads could take so long.”
“Well, we’ve never been to Florida, and definitely not on the town and back roads. I wish we could be there in two hours,” Matt responded. “Do you know the roads around here?”
“No, just the interstate,” Kaylee answered. “Maybe if we got a map of the local roads, that would help.”
“Yeah, that really sucked driving all the way down that one road just for it to dead end,” Cassie commented. “The compass can only give us direction. We need a map to figure out the roads.”
“We’ll try to find one,” Matt replied.
They searched the next convenient store they found and located a map showing the local roads. Cassie opened it up.
“God, we’re all up at a national forest. Probably going to have to take the parkway,” Cassie replied. “Or if we can get to Oil Well Road, it runs north of the parkway, but it’s pretty much parallel to it.”
“We’ll go that way,” Matt decided.
They drove for a long while until they came to County Line Road. “Turn here,” Cassie navigated.
“That’s north,” Matt told her. “Straight is east.”
“Right, but according to this map, there doesn’t appear to be any more roads,” she informed. “It just stops. Take this road to Immokalee Exchange, then go east.”
Matt followed her instructions. She led them onto Josie Billie Highway. While there were still abandon cars along the highway, Matt was able to maneuver around without having to stop. They ended up having to get onto the Everglades Parkway, also known as Alligator Alley. There were hundreds of cars, and they had to stop several times to move other vehicles out of their way.
“We have to get off this fucking parkway!” Matt yelled with frustration as they had stopped for the third time to move several cars.
“Well I can’t find it on this stupid map!” Cassie yelled back.
It took them three days to get down the parkway, also Interstate 75, to Weston. They were nearly out of food and water and completely exhausted from the non-stop driving. They got off onto Glades Parkway when they reached Weston. They took Glades Parkway to Weston Road, which then turned into Dykes Road. They turned on Sheridan Street, then took Douglas Road down to Miami Gardens. They finally got over to Westview and followed NW 119th Street, which ran into NE 2nd Avenue. They turned left and went up to NE 125th Street. They followed it across the water over to Bay Harbor Islands. They stopped to find a phone book. Matt, Trey, and Kaylee kept guard, shooting at the many creatures coming at them while Cassie searched the phone book she found.
“Here it is!” she finally exclaimed. “Paul Parker. He lives on Carlyle Avenue. Let’s go there. He has a boat. Maybe we can find out which one it is and where it is, and keys to it.”
It took them another hour to find his house. They made their way in, and searched around the house to find information about his boat. Cassie found pictures and cards, confirming it was the right Paul Parker.
“I hope he didn’t take the boat,” Trey mumbled as they searched.
“So you hope he’s dead?” Cassie clarified.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Trey returned. “His car’s not here. I hope he just drove somewhere other than his boat, otherwise we’re lost.”
They couldn’t find any keys, but they did find papers indicating where he kept it docked and the registration number that should be on it somewhere.
“God, he’s got it at Miami Beach Marina,” Cassie announced. “It looks about a half hour away. It’s like ten miles.”
“Ten miles? We can do that in fifteen minutes,” Matt assured.
They raided some food, took some gas that was stored in the garage, and headed out. They headed east on 92nd Street, which was pretty short. They turned right onto Harding Avenue, which changed to Abbott Avenue after a mile and a half. After another half mile, they were on Indian Creek Drive. They traveled about half a mile and turned right onto West 63rd Street. After several more close together turns, they arrived at the Marina. It looked as though all the boats
were docked. It didn’t seem anyone tried to escape by water.
“I bet they weren’t letting anyone leave when it happened,” Matt guessed. “Not by water anyway.”
It was a very eerie sight with all the boats just floating at the dock, algae growing around their water line. They had been just sitting for over a year. They climbed onto the boat and started looking around. Cassie hoped there would be a spare key on it somewhere. She ran her hands under the dash, thinking it would be a good place for a spare.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe it!” she called. “I found the key!”
“Let’s hope it starts,” Matt replied.
To his amazement, the engine started right up. “Somebody’s looking out for us,” he happily announced. “I can’t believe it started.”
There didn’t seem to be any creatures around, so they checked out the other boats for more supplies. Cassie and Trey’s uncle had a decent stock of nonperishable foods already, but if they were going to head out to sea, they wanted as much as they could get. They also gathered an ample amount of fishing gear. The boat was a small yacht, equipped with a kitchen and sleeping area. They felt very lucky to have found the boat and that it still ran. It didn’t have much gas left, but they discovered generators that were still functional, and Matt was able to fill up the tank. It made it difficult that none of them knew anything about boats.
“You think we’ll have enough to get over to Europe?” Cassie asked, her tone hinting sarcasm.
Matt laughed. “It’s a small yacht, Cass, not a ship, so no, I don’t. But, we’ll go as far as we can and hope we’re saved before we die. At least we won’t have to fight off zombies. It’s the only choice we have for a normal life.”
Creatures Page 14
