by Betts, M. E.
"I'll get over it," Shari said. "But wait up. If I'm not with you when you pop into my friend's field of vision, she's likely to throw a sharpened stick into your brain."
As they cleared the treeline and entered the creekside clearing, Juanita squealed with delight. "Daddy!"
"Juanita!" He broke into a run, catching the young girl as she slid down from the horse and into her father's arms. Tears flowed down the man's cheeks as he held his daughter, kissing the top of her head.
"I can't tell you how grateful I am," he said, facing Shari and Daphne. "I'm Cesar, by the way."
Shari smiled. "I'm Shari, and this is Daphne."
"And they're the nicest, smartest, bravest ladies I ever met, besides mommy," Juanita said. "They killed all those bad guys that took me away, and they kept me safe and gave me food and these pretty new clothes!"
"And you should know," Shari said, "that your daughter is pretty damn brave herself, and smart. You should be proud of her."
"And I promise I won't run off ever again, daddy," Juanita said. "I hope you're not mad at me."
Cesar shook his head. "No, baby, I'm not mad at you." He kissed the top of her head again. "Me and your mom were just so worried. What would we do without our little girl?"
"Where is mommy?" Juanita asked.
"She's back at the camp, down a ways," Cesar said. He turned toward Shari and Daphne. "We had to move our camp, but I've spent most of the past couple days here. I was just...I was afraid she'd come back and find us gone. We've had at least one person out here at all times since she disappeared, just in case she came back."
"How far away is your new camp?" Shari asked.
"About a half-mile upstream," Cesar said. "I have my dirtbike, so I'll take Juanita. You guys should come with, though. I know my wife would like to meet the people who brought us our daughter back."
Shari and Daphne nodded. "Sure," Shari said. "We're not in a huge hurry to get back on the road."
"Wait here," Cesar said, starting for the treeline. "I'll get my bike and we'll be on our way."
Juanita ran after him. "Wait up, daddy! I'm coming with you!"
Shari felt herself beginning to tear up.
"It's just too much, ain't it, princess?" Kandi said from behind her. "Just when you thought everything in the world had gone to shit, all of a sudden you're faced with a happy ending. Really throws a wrench in the works, doesn't it?"
Shari smiled faintly and let the tears flow. She saw smoke from a campfire up ahead as she rode behind Cesar. We must be close to that fire, she thought. I can smell the fish they're cooking for lunch.
"Well," Kandi said, "in my opinion, they owe you a meal. It's the least they could do, considering the enormous favor you've done them."
I didn't do it to be rewarded, Shari thought. Although if they did offer me some lunch, I can't say I'd turn it down.
After a moment, they reached a clearing beside the river where the camp was set up. There were about a half-dozen tents and several dirtbikes. A man and woman were hanging clothes to dry on a line strung between two trees, and a woman with a very pregnant belly looked up from the meal she was preparing as Cesar, Shari, and Daphne rode up. That must be--
Shari didn't get to finish her thought before the woman abandoned the pan full of fried fish and rushed toward Juanita, who was running toward the woman's open arms.
"Must be her mum," Kandi said, finishing Shari's sentence.
Juanita's mother covered the little girl's face in kisses. "Oh, my baby!" she sobbed, smiling as the tears slid down her cheeks. "My little girl! I was so scared that I'd never see you again."
"I'm sorry, mommy," Juanita said. "I didn't mean to scare you. I chased a cat, and I got too close to the road. A bunch of guys came and took me away."
The woman squeezed her daughter one more time before she stood and turned to face Shari and Daphne. "Are you the ones who brought her back?" Shari nodded.
Cesar stepped between Shari and Daphne, smiling as he put a hand on each of their shoulders. "Shari and Daphne. They're the guardian angels who found our little girl and brought her home to us. Shari, Daphne, this is my wife, Maria."
Maria stepped forward, engaging Shari and Daphne in a group hug. She pulled back, looking each of the two women in the eye. "I don't know who you two are or where you came from, but Cesar is right. You two are guardian angels."
"We just did what anyone else in the same situation would have done," Shari said, although she didn't know if it was true or not.
"We're about to have lunch," Maria said. "We'd love for you to join us."
"That sounds great," Shari said. "It smells wonderful. It's been awhile since we've had real food."
"So where did you find her?" Maria asked as she carried the pan of fish over to a picnic table near the fire.
"Just south of the Ohio River," Shari said. "We had just had a run-in with a group of traveling shitheads--we've been calling them sadists--"
Maria snorted. "Appropriate enough."
Shari grinned and continued. "And once the sadists were taken care of, little Juanita here came out from her hiding place just before we got back on the road. Well, obviously, we couldn't leave her there, so we took her with us, headed back here, and here we are."
Maria frowned. "What do you mean, once the sadists were taken care of?"
Shari looked away, shifting somewhat uncomfortably. "Well, um...Daphne and I don't take too kindly to sadists."
Maria snorted again. "Honey, don't worry. I'm not going to give you grief for hurting the animals that kidnapped my seven-year-old daughter. I'm not judging you, I'm impressed. If you don't mind me asking, how many of them were there?"
Shari shrugged. "About twenty."
Maria shook her head, glancing at Daphne. "I don't get it--you're telling me you two girls took out twenty guys? Alone?"
"It's kind of our thing," Shari said. "When I told you that Daphne and I don't like sadists, I wasn't kidding."
"Shit," Maria said, sighing as she sank down onto the bench, rubbing her rotund belly, "people like you two are the only hope we have in this world. I mean, between the walking pus bags and the...what did you call them, sadists?...there are only so many actual people left." She rubbed her protruding belly. "I don't know what kind of world I'm bringing this baby into, but it's a relief to see that there are still good people out there."
"Trust me," Shari said, "we feel the same way running into you guys. We've covered a good amount of distance in the past couple of weeks, and we haven't run into very many people, other than sadists. It kind of makes me wonder, shouldn't there be some kind of...I don't know, refugee camp, for lack of a better word? A large gathering of survivors?"
"There is," Maria said. "Or at least that's what we've heard. Over near Louisville. There was one in Sikeston, back where we came from in Missouri, but that one had been overrun pretty early on. We never made it over there, thank god. If we had gotten in, I doubt we would have made it back out. But someone at some point had spray-painted on the outside wall of the place, NEXT CAMP IN LOUISVILLE with an arrow pointing east." She shrugged. "We figured we'd head out there, but when Juanita went missing, obviously we didn't feel we could go anywhere."
"Isn't the CDC in Atlanta?" Shari asked. "Maybe there's something there."
Maria's eyes widened, and she shook her head. "Mm-mmm, you don't wanna go there. The place is a death trap. A guy came through here last week from Georgia, and he made it clear that there's nothing but trouble at the CDC. A lot of people thought that if they made it there, they could save their loved ones. And the result was a huge zombie infestation. Plus, the day this thing broke out, the CDC swore up and down that they had no idea what was going on, and that they had no advice to offer. As far as we know, the survivor camps are all that's left of the old world...the only place left where we can raise our family."
Cesar scoffed. "If there's anyone left alive in them," he muttered as he bit into a piece of fish.
Maria sighed. "A
re we really going to get into this right now?"
Cesar shrugged. "You know how me and the others feel about the subject, and still you insist on making the decision for all of us. That survivor camp might be just as much a death trap as the CDC, or anywhere else, for that matter. It seems we're doing just fine on our own, so I don't see why we should put ourselves at risk again to travel to a magical fortress that might not even exist."
Shari swallowed the last of her fish and cleared her throat uncomfortably. "He's right to worry...all it takes is one person dying within the walls of that fortress, and it could wipe out the whole place. On the other hand, if there is some kind of stable population there, then it makes sense to check it out."
Daphne spoke up from the bench, where she sat sharpening sticks with her knife. "I think what Shari is saying is that there's danger if you go, and danger if you stay. It's just the world we live in."
Cesar chuckled. "Damned if we do, and damned if we don't. For sure."
Shari stood, motioning to Daphne. "Well, thanks for lunch, but Daphne and I should probably get back on the road."
"Where are you headed?" Maria asked.
"To my parents' house near Carbondale, then north from there, toward Wisconsin. We figure the undead should be almost a non-issue once they're frozen, and the winters start earlier up there."
"And then they'll thaw into puddles in the spring!" Maria said, her eyes lighting up. "That's a good idea. I never thought of it that way. It makes sense, though. It doesn't seem like the zombies have normal blood flow like we do. God, let them all freeze into ice cubes!" She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hands together as if praying. "Come on, winter!"
"Are you sure you don't want to take a nap while you're here?" Cesar asked. "Take advantage of the extra safety of having more people around?"
Shari shook her head. "Nah, thanks. We'd probably take you up on it, but we need to take advantage of the daylight."
Cesar nodded. "Yeah, you don't want to travel at night, I understand." He extended his hand to Shari, then Daphne. "We can't thank you enough for what you've done."
"We were glad to do it," Shari said.
"You two be careful," Maria said, hugging each of them. "You'll be in our prayers."
"If you ever come across a ham radio, or a walkie-talkie," Shari said, "get in the habit of using it. Maybe we'll be in touch again someday, and if nothing else, it's a good way to connect with other survivors. Warn them of trouble in the area, or listen to warnings transmitted by others. Maybe you can even find out something about that survivor camp without having to get too close to it."
Cesar nodded. "That's a good idea. I'll look around for walkie-talkies the next time I'm in town." He smirked. "I mean, it's not like I'll know how to use the thing, but we've got time to sit around and figure it out."
Juanita threw her arms around Shari and Daphne.
"I'll never forget you," she told them. "Be safe, okay?" Shari and Daphne nodded, both of them wiping tears from the corners of their eyes.
"You too, kiddo," Daphne said, bending to give Juanita one final squeeze before she mounted her ATV. "I think you learned from your ordeal, huh?"
Juanita nodded. "I'm not chasing any more cats any time soon, I know that!" she said emphatically, turning and taking her mother's hand to see the two women off.
"You guys take care, alright?" Shari said as she mounted Eva. "Stay safe." She looked back as they waved goodbye, then smiled, nodded, and followed Daphne along the creek, heading back toward the park.
Shari finished checking over the last room of the four-room cabin, then walked back into the front living area. She flopped down onto the couch.
"It's okay, you can let your guard down," she told Daphne, who closed and locked the front door, where she had kept watch while Shari checked over the rooms. "No monsters in here, I even checked the closet."
It was past eight o'clock, and the last remnants of daylight were fading from the sky. The cabin sat on a stretch of 51 about thirty miles north of the Ohio River, in Illinois.
Shari lit up a joint, inhaling deeply and holding it in her lungs as she spoke. "If we leave at sunrise, then we should be there before midday," she said, "barring some sort of major incident." She exhaled a large, dense cloud toward the wooden ceiling beams. She sat in silence for a moment, then sighed as she continued. "I don't really expect to find them alive. I mean, it's entirely possible, and I'm hoping for it, but if they're not, then we can be back on the road. I don't want to hang out there for too long if...."
"If what?" Kandi prodded. "If the place reeks to high heaven of your rotting mum and daddy?"
Eat shit, you evil cunt, Shari thought. "If there's no good news to be found there," she concluded.
Shari had a quick meal of canned minestrone, then looked around the cabin for any useful items. She gathered a few canned and dry goods from the kitchen, along with the matches and lighters. She went back to the front room to load the food into her backpack, then searched the desk near the front door. In the top drawer, she found a small, spiral-bound notebook. She opened it, and quickly realized it had been somebody's journal. She read the entry on the first page.
I don't know if there's any purpose in writing this, the entry began, or if anybody's ever going to read it or even care, but I feel better getting it out, either way, just in case I don't make it for some reason. I was using my tablet, but then something happened to the generator and we didn't have power anymore, so now I'm forced to do it the old-fashioned way, with a pencil and paper. Well, to summarize what I wrote on the tablet, the shit hit the fan, mom's dead, and now I'm stuck with dad, who's as angry and abusive as ever. And to make matters worse, I think he was bit. He's been wearing a long-sleezed shirt since yesterday morning, even though it's been past ninety-five degrees every day for the past week. He's acting even crazier than usual lately, and he's been looking through my stuff, acting all suspicious or something. I even saw him looking at my journal when he thought I was asleep. Ha, good thing he can't read. Shari skimmed about a half-dozen more pages, then flipped to the last page.
Fuck it, I'm done. Dad always tells me to be a man, so it's time for me to man up and do what I have to do. That crazy old burnout's definitely been bit, and now he's just a ticking time bomb. I haven't slept in four days, because I don't know which one of his breaths will be his last, and I don't want to wake up to my zombie dad eating my face off. I'm leaving, and if he tries to stop me, I'll kill him. He's done for, anyway. He's gonna be one of them, it's only a matter of time. I don't know where I'll go from here...maybe Sikeston, I heard there's a survivor camp there. But I have to go somewhere. I don't want to live my life here, alone with the ghost of a dad I hate.
Shari closed the journal, then picked it up to return it to the drawer. As she lifted it, a photo slid out from between the pages, fluttering down to the desk. She picked up the photo, bringing it closer to her face to examine it more closely. It showed a handsome, dark-haired teenage boy with ear plugs and a pierced eyebrow, his arms thrown around the shoulders of a middle-aged woman whom, Shari was guessing, must have been his mother. His chin rested lovingly on the woman's shoulder, and they both grinned at the camera. Shari tucked the picture back into the journal, then placed it back in the drawer where she had found it. She laid down on the couch to go to sleep for the night, wondering about the young man. Had he made it to Sikeston, or anywhere else? Had his zombie dad eaten him? She hoped he was still alive and well, but she knew that the fact that his journal was left in the desk didn't bode too well for his odds. She struggled to settle into sleep, then experienced nightmares throughout the night that woke her only to disappear from her conscious mind back into obscurity before she fell asleep to begin the process over again. One of the nightmares woke her up around 5:30, and she sighed, resigning to give up her attempt to rest.
"Pointless," she hissed to herself as she swung her legs down from the couch to the floor. She picked up her jeans from the floor, wiggling into them
and sliding her feet into her boots. She lit up a smoke, settling into an armchair near the bedroom, where Daphne lay sprawled across the bed. Shari had about half an hour to kill before it was time to wake Daphne, so she used the time to clean her assault rifles by the flickering candlelight. She had finished her regular AK and was working on her sniper rifle when the sun began to peek over the eastern horizon, slowly filling the small cabin with daylight. Daphne awoke, stretched briefly, and trudged through the living room and into the small bathroom.
"Sorry to hold us up," she mumbled.
"Neh," Shari said. "Sun's just now coming up." She finished piecing her rifle back together, then held it up into the stream of light coming in through the window. "Besides, it gave me time to clean my irons." She stood and crossed the room, gathering the various items she had unpacked. By the time she had finished packing, Daphne was finished in the bathroom. Shari used the toilet, washed up, and went back into the living room to join Daphne for a quick breakfast. It was a few minutes past six when they left the cabin, stepping outside into the brightening day. Shari was pleased to find Eva sleeping where she had left her the previous evening. She had hitched the horse closely to a post, then dumped several large garbage bags full of aluminum cans she had found in a shed in a perimeter around the post. She had hoped that if any undead approached with the intention of making a meal of the horse, the jingling of the cans would give them away. It appeared, though, that each can was where she had left it.
She stepped inside the ring of cans and mounted Eva. "Must not be any zombies in the area," she said.
"Appears to be the case," Daphne agreed as she turned the key in the ignition of her ATV. She started down the quarter mile-long dirt driveway back toward the highway, Shari and Eva behind her.
Shari's eyes flitted over the landscape as she rode, taking in the sights and sounds of the late summer morning. The various scavenging birds had ruled the skies ever since the outbreak began back in April. The ever-present sound of hawks and vultures calling to one another became just part of the background, although Shari was trying to get into the habit of using the birds' presence as a clue to let her know where dead bodies, or undead themselves, might be.
