by Chris Lowry
She tapped the side of her head with a finger and snickered.
A clearing opened up in front of us, a meadow in the forest where nothing grew except grass.
It was easy to see how people in the past must have come across these spots in the trees and their mind instantly drifted to the supernatural.
The trees formed a natural barrier in a wide oblong circle, but none grew in the opening.
Maybe a long time ago, it had been a homestead or some native American ritual site and the clearing carved out of nature stood a test of time.
Maybe it was the soil, something acidic in the dirt that made it unreceptive to tress.
No matter what it was though, this woman had made it home.
A fence was nailed to the trees running the perimeter of the camp. A simple shed cabin made of cast off’s and patched with wooden parts stood in the center.
There was a firepit off to a side, and a double barred entry to get in.
It looked safe.
And homey.
"People would think I was nuts being out here by myself. No one understands the hermetic lifestyle."
I understood.
There's an appeal to a cabin in the woods, self-sufficient and solo that's drilled into a generation of middle schoolers with the introduction to Thoreau.
Anyone who has gone through a divorce or bad break up is familiar with the feelings it represents.
Go live in the woods to discover who you are and what you are capable of.
Which made me wonder about Mel.
What happened to her to make her want to live out here alone.
Aside from the xenophobic rants.
"I can't remember when it was in history that we first encountered Muslim fighters," she was saying. "Barbary pirates."
She nodded.
"That sounds right. Anyway, they would capture people and demand money and keep them as slaves even after we paid. Torture, rape, horrible atrocities to anyone who wasn't a believer like them."
She motioned me toward the gate, then made me stand back while she worked the latch.
“I’ve got to know your name before I invite you in,” she said.
“Like a vampire?” I grinned. “Can’t cross a threshold without an invitation.”
That made her smile a sad smile.
“I loved vampires,” she said in a soft voice. “Before I found out zombies were real.”
That sobered us both up and she pushed open the fence.
“I’m Mel,” she motioned me in.
I didn’t hold out a hand to shake. It didn’t feel like it fit the situation.
Mel shut the gate after Kinji padded through and went to sit in a worn spot next to a camp chair. I took a squat on a log laid in front of the fire pit and waited while my new host watched me for a few seconds.
"When Jefferson decided to stand up to them, he created the Marines. They had the right idea. They met the barbarism of the Muslims on equal measure and worse. They would be on a ship that was attacked, beat the pirates, then follow them back to their village and kill everyone. It didn't take long for that reputation to spread, and the Muslims stopped attacking American ships."
Her history was mostly right.
But it was history. Two hundred years ago.
I could name a thousand examples of other religious extremists from every corner of the globe.
Hell, I could list off a couple of really bad examples of terrorist acts committed by white people on US soil.
But I didn't argue with her.
One, she had a gun on me.
Two, you can't argue with people.
Most people are convinced they are right in what they believe no matter what. You can bring up logic, history, science and dozens of other proofs to show they are wrong, or mistaken or misled, and they will nod and dismiss you so they can continue to believe what they want.
Mel had a bias.
Which was fine now.
I didn't know if Muslims still existed. The living conditions in third world countries would make them ripe for a fast spreading zombie plague.
She could hate on whoever she wanted to hate, so long as she let me go.
"The Muslim problem we had could have been solved with Greek tactics."
"What do you mean?"
"The Greeks would attack a village, kill all the men and kidnap the women and children as slaves. They would bring them back to the city-state, and incorporate them into Greek culture and society. If we would have done that, we wouldn't have had the problems we had."
"You're blaming Muslims for the zombie plague?"
She sat in the camp chair and lay the rifle across her legs. Still pointed in my direction. Hand still on the stock, finger touching the trigger guard.
Mel looked tired, but ready.
The gun was still steady, so I kept my distance and waited.
"I don't know who to blame," Mel shrugged. "But someone told me it was a Muslim chemical weapon that caused it. And it's a salt the earth tactic, wouldn't you agree."
If it was, it was brilliant.
Release a chemical weapon into the American heartland that turned the population into zombies, then seal the borders while your enemy destroyed itself.
The survivors would kill off the zombies until there were a few of each left, then soldiers could sweep in and do a mop up operation.
That was something I would have to think about.
I didn't know if it was a terrorist act, but no one knew what started the zombie menace.
From a tactical standpoint, it was brilliant.
Let your enemy rot and die from within, then come in and claim everything.
It made me think there might be bigger wheels at work than we knew about, and made me wonder about the rest of the world.
My brother in California.
The East Coast and across the pond.
Those third world countries I had thought ripe for infection just a few moments before, now had me wondering if this wasn't a grand scheme to knock the US off its perch as a super power.
Then I remembered my purpose.
I'm not a big man in the machinations of political realms. I voted in the major elections, and that was pretty much it.
I cared about the environment enough to make small changes, but still drove an SUV, and mostly as a single occupant. Sure, I biked sometimes, but other drivers made biking dangerous.
My role in the world before the Z was insignificant.
Like most people.
We grow up, get a job, pay taxes, have kids, and eventually die.
It's sad, but the main purpose of most people is to have kids and pay taxes. They have a small impact on the world around them, their towns and cities, but ninety nine percent of the population is not going to make a big difference.
So, people focus on what they can.
Family.
I didn't know a how, or why any of this happened.
All I knew is I could make a difference for my kids.
Like helping them survive and keeping them safe.
My purpose was this mission.
And the one after it when I got the kids from Mags.
And the one after that when I found my youngest.
That was the most important thing.
If I had to adopt some Greek tactics and salt the earth to save them, so be it.
There was always a cabin in the woods to go find and survive.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I think everyone deserves to wake up next to someone who loves them. Not just love though, someone who is excited to be waking up next to them. Happy to be in love.
Maybe that was my problem in my marriages.
I had unrealistic expectations of what happiness should be. I would often rise early, put on a pot of coffee and make a cup for my then spouse so we could share it together.
I would crack jokes, talk about my dreams if I had any, ask about theirs, and what the plans for the day were.
Neither of them w
ere morning people, and so woke up quiet, and seemingly cranky.
I took that personally.
Maybe I shouldn't have. And some wise advanced thinker would suggest that I shouldn't have let their mood affect how I acted or treated them. But I did.
They would act mad, and even if they weren't, I would grow quiet, sullen and resentful. Which impacted how I treated them.
Is it any wonder any marriage could survive when neither side feels wanted, feels loved or appreciated?
So, they left, and it played right into the way I felt, which was, of course they left, they didn't love me, look how they treated me.
And that might have evolved into feeling that since no one could stick around, I didn't deserve to be loved. Could not be loved.
Unlovable.
Which fit me perfect in the zombie world.
The woman, Mel, had the right idea.
Be a hermit.
If you didn't let anyone in, didn't let anyone around then you couldn't lose them, and wouldn't feel the pain of that loss if they left.
She had built herself a cabin in the woods, and surrounded it with double fences, one by nature, the other manmade.
She locked the world out, and locked herself away, and spent the last months alone, no contact with anyone except the occasional zombie.
She might have been a little crazy.
"I would offer you coffee, but that is an exotic commodity these days."
She wondered around the outside of the paddock, moving from one pine tree to the next. She grabbed a branch in one hand and stripped the needles from the other, then motioned me back through the fence.
She went to an outdoor work kitchen set up next to a fire pit made from cinderblocks, and dropped the handful of needles into a pile.
I watched as she snipped off the brown ends, and cut them into small pieces over a pestle bowl.
She gripped a mortar in one hand, the bowl in the other and crushed the pine needles into a mushy paste.
Mel dropped the needles into a dented silver percolating coffee pot, and took water from a kettle on the grill over the flames. She poured it over the needles and put the lid on.
She set it back on the fire next to a twin pot, which she lifted and poured into two waiting cups.
She passed one to me, then took the other, cupping it between her hands as she sat on a smooth piece stump of log, cut so they were seats around the fire pit.
"Pine needle tea," she explained.
I could have guessed it by the ingredients, but I sniffed the cup instead.
It smelled like pine air freshener.
Mel blew across the top of the cup and took a small sip.
"Pioneers used this during the first winter, if you believe in legend."
"Never tried it I told her."
"It's good for you. Ton's of Vitamin A, Vitamin C. When's the last time you had an orange?"
I shrugged. I couldn't remember.
"Scurvy," she said. "Sailors used to get it because of deficiencies, but anyone left is at risk now. This will help."
I would have to remember that.
I'd probably eaten more processed food since the zombie Armageddon than the last four years before, but the packaged stuff is what survived.
Going forward, we would have to figure out how to grow food, how to hunt, how to live with the zombies.
I imagined at some point, the Z population would dwindle, culled and hunted like bear and wolves and other alpha predators in the US. In the past, it was because pioneers and populations expanded.
For the Z, it would be survivors.
Banding together, growing villages into towns, towns into cities, a wiping the slate clean and starting over.
If we survived that long.
I had to think we would.
I had to hold out some sort of hope that there was a future for my kids, because why else would I work so hard for their survival?
"I'll remember that little trick," I told her.
"Some pines are poison," she sipped her cup. "You've got to learn which."
I had a lot to learn still. I knew that.
Surviving was one thing.
Rebuilding a society? They would need better men than me to do that.
Farmers. Journeymen. Engineers.
Maybe they would keep me around and break out in the case of war, or give me the task of eliminating all the lawyers and politicians.
"Have you been out here long?"
She glanced over my shoulder at the cabin.
I watched her eyes to see if she was reacting to something behind me, a threat sneaking up on me, but her face remained placid, calm.
She was checking on her home and dropped her eyes back to mine.
"My family got caught in the first wave," she said, voice laced with sadness. "I moved out here that day."
I wasn't sure where out here was yet.
"You've done alright."
"I have," she agreed. "But that's because no one knows I'm here. If you hadn't caught me mid-stream, neither would you."
There was something about the way she said it that rang true.
I bet she would have hidden behind a tree and watched me pass by because I didn't have anything worth stealing.
Which made me think that there were some dead bodies out there Mel left along the side of the roads where it met the woods, stripped of everything useful.
"Can you tell me where I am?"
She was sharing tea, and I could smell something cooking, meat slowly roasting in a stew.
Maybe she would share information too.
"Near Free Hill," she said. "Where are you going?"
I reached into my pocket, and she didn't flinch. Mel was not scared of me, and that made me wonder what other tricks she had up her sleeve.
Or maybe she thought she was faster on the draw and could drop me before I crossed the room since she knew I was unarmed.
I pulled out the crumpled address and showed it to her.
"Livingston," she said and pointed at the wall on the eastern side of her cabin. "Fifty miles."
I could run that in twelve hours, or drive it in one.
Not too far, but just enough to be inconvenient and add more delay to my time.
"Thank you," I swigged the tea.
"What are you going to do there?"
The question was innocent enough, even the way she asked it, like it was casual small talk.
But her eyes flashed up and down too fast, her glance away was too calculated.
"I'm looking for some people. I'm supposed to take them back toward Lexington."
They say honesty is the best policy and I didn't have a reason not to share with Mel.
Besides, I still had tea in my cup.
If she went for her gun, I planned to throw it in her eyes and follow up with a body check. It would cost me some dog bites from Kinji, but what's one more scar when you're trying not to get shot.
"Big group," she said. "About thirty or so. Came through four weeks ago."
I shrugged.
"There is someone in Kentucky who wants them back."
"Why?"
"Did you talk to them?"
She shook her head.
"Just watched them walk by. Like I said, if you hadn't locked eyes with me, you would have walked by too."
"I don't know why," I told her. "But it's a tradeoff for me."
Her eyes travelled up and down my ensemble. Tattered clothes. Ratty, empty knapsack. Socks, no shoes.
"What have you got to trade?"
Her eyes twinkled a little bit as the corners of her mouth crinkled up in a hint of a grin.
"What? My good looks and charm aren't enough?"
She snorted a laugh through her nose, and let a full grin pull up on her cheeks.
Kinji wagged her tail to join in.
"I was a fan of reading Frankenstein in high school," she said. "Don't know if I ever had a crush on the man though."
I almost said doctor or monster, b
ut that would have been rude.
It's like one of those people who always feels the need to correct you and start the sentence with the word, "Actually," in an attempt to prove they're the smartest person in the room.
Instead I returned the grin and sent a finger up to trace the purple welt of skin that dragged along my scalp above my ear.
"I only use the neck bolts for formal occasions."
Another snort. Another grin.
"I'll feed you," said Mel. "Rabbit stew is just about all I make, unless I can get a squirrel. Plenty of rabbits left."
"It smells good."
"It is."
I watched her go to an iron kettle set on the side of her fireplace, glowing embers banked around the edge. She ladled two bowls, passed one to me and handed me a spoon.
"You'll have to move on," she told me. "I don't allow overnight guests."
I scooped up a spoonful, blew across the top and tasted it.
Peppery, with a hint of some vegetable that gave it an earthy flavor. It tasted delicious and my stomach grumbled in loud appreciation.
Kinji growled back, ears up and alert as she searched for the source of the roar inside my belly.
That made Mel laugh again, and I laughed with her.
I offered to wash the bowls, but she turned me down and turned me out.
She walked me to the edge of the property where the barbed wire made a circuitous route among the trees and ushered me through the hidden gate.
"Livingston is a...unique place," she said once I was outside the fence.
"You've been there?"
"I've watched from outside. Be careful," she told me. "I guess that goes without saying in this world now."
"Be safe."
She nodded.
"I always am," and patted the pistol on her hip.
I stuck my hand through the fence to pat Kinji on the head and accept a few licks on my palm to say goodbye to her. Then I felt them watch me walk away, but when I glanced back, they were both gone.
There were still angels left in this world, even if they were armed and a little dangerous.
CHAPTER EIGHT
What if everything you thought you knew turned out to be a lie?
There is some truth in that. It's called cognitive beliefs, or something similar but basically what it means is that your thoughts, the way you think, the way you live is a product of your environment.
