I raise an eyebrow.
“Don’t believe me?” he asks, and hacks a hand sideways. “I’ll have to show you my ninja skills later.”
“You do that.” I act unconvinced, though I’ve noticed the bulge of bicep under his shirt. He’s filled out since I last saw him months ago, and his hair now reaches just below his ears, neither of which downgrades his appearance.
“Please,” Holly says. “The only time you’re a ninja is when you play that stupid video game, and you suck at it. I have to go to the bathroom.”
She jumps off the chair and heads down the hall. Jesse sighs. “Family, man. You can’t get away with anything when they’re around.” His eyebrows draw together. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
I shrug and look out the window so he won’t see my tears. I switch between pretending it didn’t happen, holding back tears that it did, and fury that it happened at all. Though I know it isn’t fair, I’m angriest at Dad. Maybe because he’s an easy target. My usual target. And because the most he’s done in five days is order me around. Help out more, Clara. Don’t look out the windows so much, Clara. Don’t be so loud, Clara. He hasn’t hugged me since the night it happened. Hasn’t once asked if I’m okay. I’m trying my best to remember that moment in the house, after Jeremy, but it’s getting more and more difficult to do. That version of my father has disappeared as if it never existed.
“Hey, Clary Sage.” Jesse’s voice is quiet. “I’m really sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
He began calling me Clary Sage in middle school, and he still does when he’s being nice or wheedling something out of me. He did the night we kissed, too, whispered it when he pushed my hair behind my ear and looked at me the way other guys have since, though none of them have made me feel the way he did. We were teenagers, both ludicrously drunk, but I was sure in that moment we were meant to be. As sure as I was that zombies couldn’t exist. Wrong on both counts, obviously.
I turn to him, ready to say not to worry about it. Instead, all the grief over Mom and Jeremy, the sadness that Dad hasn’t changed though he’s all I have left, bursts out in the form of tears. None of this is fair, and it’s too much to take.
I set my elbows on my knees and bury my face in my hands. A moment later, Jesse’s arms are around me. He smells like Jesse, like Holly and Rose and their house. I lean into him and let go of the tightness in my lungs, glad I can’t see what I imagine is his expression of bewilderment. I pretend he holds me not because I’m hysterical, but because he wants to.
Willa jumps to the seat of the chair and scratches at my legs with a whimper. When she begins licking my arms, I push her off, only to have her race back and lick me again. I laugh through my tears and lean away from Jesse, who drops his arms and steps back.
“You’re such a weird dog,” I say.
Willa puts her paws on my knees and pants up at me, tail spinning in circles. I can’t help smiling at her ugly-cute face, which makes her tail go crazy. I pat her head and dare a glance at Jess. He watches me with a mixture of amusement and concern, then grabs a box of tissues from the side table by the couch and hands them to me.
“Sorry.” I pluck out three tissues and wipe at my nose, thinking that of all the times to freak out, I had to choose when Jesse was nearby. Now I’m like every other crybaby girl he’s come across in his life. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“Sorry? Or fine?” Before he can answer, I add, “I’m sorry about your dad. He’s probably just hiding out until it’s safe.”
Jesse scratches under Willa’s soft ear. “I guess my mom won’t be able to get rid of Willa now.” It’s a strange response to my comment, and his usual carefree expression is tight, closed off.
“Why would she?”
“Things aren’t great with them. She didn’t even want a dog, but he did what he wanted, as usual. He—”
Holly enters the room. “What’d I miss?”
Jesse faces the window, back straight and jaw rigid. Whatever’s going on between their parents, Holly doesn’t know, and he wants it kept that way. I hold up my wad of tissues. “Just me losing my shit. I think I scared your brother.”
Holly sits in the chair beside Willa. Her auburn hair, of which I’ve always been jealous, is fiery under the elusive Oregon spring sun. She tilts her head to watch Jesse, who I can’t see off to my side, and gives me a smile pulled straight from her mother’s playbook—kind but knowing. “Jess doesn’t scare easily. If you haven’t scared him yet, I think you’re good.”
I blow my nose and avoid her eyes.
“Don’t listen to her,” Jesse says, “I was terrified.”
I throw an arm back to smack him and miss. He laughs, returning to the semi-obnoxious older brother persona I know well. “More outside,” he says. “They’re not looking our way, though.”
A dozen bodies move down the road. It’s the third big group today. We have no idea where they’re going, though they came from the direction of town. Eugene has over 150,000 people, plus college students. Springfield, the city to our east, has another sixty thousand. That’s a lot of zombies.
The radio guys haven’t returned with news of the anticipated Safe Zone. The TV turned to static on day four. The other radio stations continue to blare the same emergency status. Except for the occasional distant gunshot and the food changing at meals, every day feels exactly the same.
There’s a loud click, and the power goes out. Though it was already quiet, it’s another level of silence when all electricity ceases. The refrigerator’s hum dies, the low static of the stereo stops, and everything seems to still.
Dad’s curse carries upstairs through the basement door. “Clara, did you turn off the light?” he calls, annoyance plain in his voice.
I close my eyes and mutter, “Yes. I did it just to fuck with you.”
Holly snickers. The other day I shut off the light at the top of the stairs out of habit. You would’ve thought I’d personally sent a zombie down there to finish him off, which is becoming an increasingly attractive idea.
Jesse strides to the door. “Power’s out, Mr. Jensen.” Dad hasn’t given Jesse or Holly permission to call him Tom. I’m surprised anyone is allowed to call him anything else, including me.
Rose and Mitch enter the living room. “Pop’s sleeping,” Rose says, “and there’s no need to wake him to tell him things are about to get suckier. Don’t open the fridge or freezer unless necessary. We’ll eat that stuff first and move what we can to the RV.”
“What about the toilet?” Holly asks.
“If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”
“Glad I just pooped, then.”
Mitch drops her head back, though she keeps her laugh quiet. I’ve always liked her, but now I like her more. Probably because she doesn’t attempt to hide the exasperated looks she’s thrown Dad for the past days, and she meets his comments with plenty of snark.
“You’re gonna wish you’d taken a shower,” Mitch says to Holly.
Holly isn’t the only one who groans. This means no showers, no hot water.
“We have enough for thirty days,” Rose says. “For eating and drinking. But we need more if we want to wash up and flush the toilet. As long as we can fill the RV’s tank, we’ll have hot water and showers. Pop said something about making a bucket for the well. We’ll ask him when he wakes up.”
Dad enters the living room. “This can’t be good.”
“None of it is,” Rose says. “But what in particular?”
Rose keeps up her cheerful commentary and attitude, which I suspect drives Dad insane. I also suspect she knows it. Rose is no dummy, and I’ve always thought of her as a genuinely happy person, which makes what Jesse said about his parents more surprising.
“Might mean no one is manning the power stations now. If they were, there’d be power. Maybe they ran out of fuel.”
“We’re mostly hydroelectric power, so I don’t think they need fuel. But the
dams are far, and maybe they were overrun, or no one can get near them.” Rose pushes back a curl and shrugs. “We can’t do shit about that, but we can figure out how to get water from the well. We have camping lanterns for light and wood for the fireplace if it gets too cold.”
Dad blinks like he’s surprised. “How do you know all that?”
“I went on the school trips to the Leaburg Dam. I guess we’re having ice cream for lunch.” She smiles at Holly and Jesse, though her brow creases once she takes me in. She’s noticed the signs of crying. Dad didn’t, of course. “You feel okay, sweetie?”
“I—” Dad watches out the windows, paying me no mind. He doesn’t care, and I don’t want to pour out my heart in front of him only to find out just how much he doesn’t care. “I’m fine.”
I can take something from Rose’s playbook, too. I won’t let him get to me.
15
Tom
Sam McGann is a good guy. Equal parts quiet and sociable, he can shoot the shit, discuss a problem, and then shut up for twenty minutes while we work it out. His grandkids love him, and so does Rose. So does Mitch, for that matter, though I don’t like her much. She’s loud and pushy, two qualities I don’t admire. Not ever, and especially not now, when I’m barely holding it together.
Clara fits in here. She’s practically a family member. I knew that in theory, but the reality is uncomfortably close to an accusation of how I’ve failed her. They tease her, they laugh at her sarcasm, she knows their inside jokes—she was here for many of them. All the Christmases she celebrated with the Winters, the weekends she spent here, are apparent. They love her, and she loves them, and I might as well have lost her along with Jeremy and Sheila. It’s clearer than ever I lost her a long time ago.
Sam lifts the four-foot length of PVC pipe he scrounged from the shed. It’s a small enough diameter to fit down the well shaft once the cover is off. We sent it down to check, and it came up wet. Good news—we were afraid we’d have to pull up the submersible electric pump that sends water to the house.
We have an end cap that will turn the pipe into a long, narrow bucket, but if we lower that to the water, it’ll float on top unless heavily weighted. There isn’t space for a weight, if we even had one heavy enough to work.
“We need a valve at the bottom,” I say. “One that’ll let in water when lowered and close on the way up.”
Sam nods approvingly. I feel a bit of pride, as if Sam is my dad and I’m fifteen instead of forty-six. Maybe all men are just boys angling for their father’s approval in some way—particularly those who never got it. The image of Jeremy on the porch comes front and center, and I try to think of anything else, not wanting to recall how my last words to my son were ones of disgust.
Sheila said, Don’t do what you always… She didn’t finish the thought, but she didn’t have to. What I always did was tell Jeremy he wasn’t good enough, made plain my disapproval, and assumed the worst. That can’t be further from the tone of the Winter household. Jesse goes to that hippie college in Washington, where he studies music. No one here has a problem with it; if anything, they think it a swell use of time and energy.
None of it matters now, and it didn’t matter before. I once believed that with all my heart, but for the past years, I rarely listened to my heart when it came to anything but Sheila. The shame of that is almost too much to bear, as is the thought that I ended up more like my father than I dreamed possible. Clara hates me for it, but not as much as I hate myself—of that I’m sure.
Sam surveys the pipe on the dining room table. “What do you think’s the best way to go about a valve?”
“Aside from a valve, what else do we have?” I ask. “Maybe something rubber?”
“Why do we need rubber?” Rose enters the kitchen and yawns on her way to the coffee machine. She has one hand on the coffeepot before she remembers, and then she groans.
“We can make coffee in the RV,” Sam says. “Batteries are charged. I’ve been waiting for everyone to wake up.”
“Daddy, I love you.”
She calls her father Daddy like she’s five years old. Clara hasn’t called me Daddy for well over a decade. I’m not sure when she stopped, though when I realized, I missed it.
Rose comes around the counter, sits on a stool, and pushes at the hair that falls all around her face. It looks like it could use a good brushing. “Why do we need rubber?”
“We need to make a valve for the bottom of the pipe, so that when we drop it in the well, it opens to fill but closes on the way up,” Sam says. “You usually find them on pumps. They open based on water pressure and only allow the water to move one way. Sometimes it’s a ball that moves up and down, sometimes a flapper.”
“Like the toilet flapper?”
“That might work, if we cut a hole in the pipe cap and fit it in with a hinge.”
Rose stares into space. She yawns again. “Are they on most pumps?” Her dad nods. “How about the sump pump? There’s some sort of valve thingy on the pipe that runs out of the sump pit.”
Sam beams at Rose. “That’s a great idea. Let’s check it out.”
“Can we have coffee first?”
“Nope.”
Rose makes a face like a teenager and grabs the flashlight that sits on the counter. The three of us take the stairs down, which deposit us in the strangest basement I’ve ever seen. I’ve thought it on previous visits, and it still holds true.
“This is some basement,” I say.
The flashlight bobs with Rose’s laugh. “Isn’t it cool? This is why I fell in love with this house.”
Rose would buy a house based on something so absurd. Small windows let in enough light to see the room, which was converted to a Tiki bar decades ago, complete with woven grass wallpaper, fuzzy barstools, and palm fronds. When the power works, the bar lights up green underneath. Another, larger room off this one has a fireplace, plenty of rattan furniture, and large amounts of fake greenery. The near corner holds a couple of speakers and microphone stands, along with something that looks like a stereo receiver with a screen attached.
Rose sees me looking and shines her light there. “Karaoke machine rental,” she says. “It’s the only reason I let the kids talk me into an anniversary party.”
Finally, there’s a reason to be thankful for zombies: I didn’t have to attend a karaoke party, which is a hundred times worse than the regular party I was dreading. Rose leads us past the furniture to a normal basement room. She points at the sump pit cover, then at the pipe that runs up from there and into the wall, where water travels to discharge outside.
Sam begins to loosen the clamps that hold the black rubber valve in line with the pipe. It’s a one-man job at the moment, and I stand back with Rose and her flashlight. “You didn’t want a party?” I ask.
“I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than go to most parties.”
“Rosie’d rather hang out with a book any day,” Sam says, grunting as he loosens a tight screw. “Me, too.”
I recall what Sheila said about Rose being shy, which I thought preposterous at the time. “Why don’t you let me do that?” I ask.
“I’m fine.” Sam grunts again. “Ah, got the bastard.” He unscrews a coupling, then removes the pipe. A little water splashes to the concrete when he frees the valve. “We’re good to go. Cross your fingers the basement doesn’t flood if the power comes on.”
“And ruin my beautiful Tiki bar?” Rose asks. “I think that’s the least of our worries. I’ll cook up some frozen food while I’m in the RV. Help me get it upstairs? I want to get started.”
“You want coffee,” Sam says.
“I might even bring you a mug.”
“Now you’re talking.”
We reach the small freezer. Rose opens it, quickly pulling out a few boxes that she stacks in my outstretched arms. She grabs a couple more things and we head upstairs to where Holly and Clara sit in the kitchen.
“Morning,” Holly says. “Please tell me we have a way to
make coffee.”
Rose laughs and drops her packages, motioning for me to do the same. “We do. You ladies can help me cook in the RV. The added perk is coffee, no pun intended.”
Clara hates to cook. I eye her. We’re guests here, and she needs to do her share. More than her share. “You’re helping, too.”
“Did I say I wasn’t?” Clara has my coloring, but she has her mother’s green eyes, and now Sheila glares at me from her face. “Gee, Dad, you always believe the best of me.”
The anger simmering below the surface boils up my throat. “You always try to get out of helping, and I believe what I see.”
Clara opens her mouth, notices the rest of the room’s occupants trying not to stare, and pinches her lips together. She’s reconsidered whatever she planned to say; she has better manners here than at home.
Clara stands with her head down. “I’ll be in Holly’s room,” she says, her voice strangled. “Get me when it’s time to cook?”
Her shaky shoulders extinguish my faint sense of victory. I’ve done it again, right after I finished berating myself for it. I walk into the living room rather than look at the others. For someone who prides himself on doing a job well, being on the right side, I’m not batting a thousand in recent days. More like recent years.
A lone zombie limps down the road, torn clothes colored brown by substances I don’t want to consider. This world is almost unbelievable, but I see it with my own eyes. I’m living it. The only solace I can take is that Jeremy and Sheila aren’t out there. They didn’t become like this sad, soulless, hideous thing searching for a meal.
Rose appears at my side and stands on tiptoes to look over the window board. “Kids can be tough. Our own, especially.”
I keep my eyes on the road, where the zombie is almost out of sight. “That doesn’t seem true for you.”
“We’ve had our moments, believe me. There were days I felt like the world’s worst mother. You should’ve heard the screaming. I just hoped I’d have enough cash to cover therapy when the time came.” I laugh despite myself. Rose pats my arm, and I can feel her watching me. “Be gentle with yourself, and Clara. You’ve both been through a lot.”
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 11
