Only a quarter mile to go, through an open field and then more thick woods to the back of Rose’s house. “Should we make a run for it?” she whispers, looking behind us at the pack and then toward the field again.
I nod. “Stay close. Shouldn’t be more than three minutes.”
Rose half-smiles before we take off into the field. The ground is wet, low-lying areas soaked, and my boots squelch in the muck. Rose slides for an instant, regains her footing, and keeps going. Groans come from behind, and a quick glance confirms we’ve been spotted. The tree line is only a hundred feet away. I could outrun Rose, but I won’t. We’re in this together. It was a sentence of sorts two days ago; now it’s a comfort.
The pack is midway through the field when we hit the trees and jump over a downed trunk. Rose pushes branches and leaves from her path, backpack bouncing, and raises a hand when the rear of her house is in view.
Two by the fence, and they’ve seen us coming. I draw my knife as Rose pulls hers from her coat pocket. She needs a sheath of some kind—one wrong fall and she’ll slice herself. She ducks under a low branch and heads for the smaller zombie, as is practical. A hand on the shoulder, her knife under the woman’s chin. I kick the feet out from under the large woman who lunges for me and bend to deliver the fatal blow after she lands on her side.
I remove the knife with an internal shiver. Maybe I’ll never get used to that feeling—a sucking wound, the scrape of bone, and the smell that blossoms when the dark matter inside is released. Rose pulls my arm, and I become aware of the sounds behind us. That pack, crashing through the trees.
I vault the fence after Rose, take her hand, then yank her through the trees and down the grass. So far, I can’t see the pack. Maybe they didn’t see where we went. We pass the RV and make it behind the tall bushes by the patio, where Rose skids in her mud-caked boots. I keep her upright, and we listen to the cracking of branches two hundred feet away, loud enough to be heard over the raindrops on the patio roof. Rose watches through the bushes for a minute. “I think we’re okay.”
“We need a privacy fence,” I say. I realize how dictatorial that sounded and add, “If you want.”
She smiles. “I was thinking the same thing.”
The back door flies open. Holly and Jesse bound out, followed by Clara, Mitch, Sam, and Willa. Rose meets her kids without a moment’s hesitation, her laugh no less joyful for being quiet. Clara smiles tentatively, hopefully. That she can’t be as glad to see me is both a shot in the heart and a kick in the ass. I want back all the years I yelled and fought and refused to listen. That’s impossible, but I swear I’ll do better. I promised Sheila this morning. I promised myself.
I set down my knife and go to Clara, gathering her in my arms. She returns the hug, though she’s stiff. “I’m so sorry, Clare-bear,” I say into her ear. “Can you forgive me?”
At the nickname I haven’t uttered in years, she loosens and holds on like when she was small. “Of course, Dad,” she whispers.
My eyes sting. Of course, Dad. I don’t deserve that easy forgiveness. I don’t deserve it one bit, but I’ll do my best to earn it.
The kids helped to kill that pack in the woods behind the house. It had to be done, so that we could steal fencing from nearby houses. Sam, Jesse, and I went out with the truck and got lucky at some new construction down the road, where we found enough privacy fencing to cover the front and back of Rose’s property, along with posts. Under a tarp in the half-built house, we found bags of cement mix.
From places down the road, we managed to salvage enough fencing for the sides, and the new fence screens the yard. If you’re at a distance, the top of the house is still visible on its rise, but we black out the windows come nighttime when lights make our presence obvious.
Rose has a post hole digger, and Jesse is busy using it while I get the wood in order. “This deep enough, Mr. Jensen?” he asks.
I take a look. It’s plenty deep. Jesse insisted on taking over, and he’s been at it ever since, getting the holes dug faster than I would’ve. “Looks great,” I say. He’s a good kid—a good man—and I add, “Call me Tom, Jesse. You’re making me feel old.”
“You are old,” Clara says from where she helps Rose.
“I take offense to that,” Rose says. “You’re only as old as you feel inside, and I’m stuck at thirty. Sometimes twelve. Plus, have you seen your dad run around and lop heads off zombies?” It’s absurd to feel pleased by the compliment, but I do. Rose looks up from the wheelbarrow that holds the concrete and winks. “You’d think he’s eighteen instead of sixty-five.”
Clara and Jesse laugh while I shake my head, though a chuckle comes through. Rose knows damn well I have almost twenty years to reach that age. Clara catches my eye, still smiling. We’ve had three days without a fight—unheard of until now. I’m tempted to post one of those wipe-off boards like they do on job sites to count the days without injuries.
“We’re ready when you are,” Rose says.
Sam, Mitch, and Holly are making their way down the side of the yard with their own set of posts and concrete. Thankfully, the found fences were panels, and we were able to attach them to the posts of the original fence. Not only would hammering pickets take longer, but it’d be loud as hell. I lift a new post into the hole and tamp down the gravel, then make sure it’s flush with the middle of the new fence panel. These posts aren’t strictly necessary, but I feel better knowing there’s added stability in case of pressure on the fence. Rose fills in the hole around the post with dry fast-setting concrete, and Clara slowly dumps the gallon bucket of water on top.
“I know they say you can do it dry,” Rose says, watching the water sink through the concrete into the hole. “But it just feels wrong. When we built the first fence, we used wet mix, but we also didn’t use concrete that hardened in fifteen minutes.”
“You built it?” I ask. I was impressed with the strength of the posts and figured it was a professional job.
“We were barely able to make the mortgage every month at first, but we loved this place. We did everything we could ourselves.” Rose’s gaze wanders the trees, the house, the fence. I wonder if she’s thinking of Ethan. Of better times. She shrugs. “It’s not fancy, but I still love it.”
“Is that why you never got a new place? You were in the right business for it.”
“It’s either this or my spread in Idaho, and we paid this off early a year ago. You know what I like better than a fancy house? No mortgage.”
“I hear that,” I say.
“Besides, I’d have to sell a lot of houses to pay that fifteen-million-dollar bill.”
“That you would.”
Clara looks confused but doesn’t question us. I like having this in, knowing the joke. Building something—whether it’s a fence or, possibly, a friendship. I think of Rose as a friend, and I hope she feels the same.
We move down the line while Jesse leaves to dig the final holes. Though the gate has been covered with panels and doubly secured with a plank of wood you turn horizontal to lock, it remains a weak spot. Rose cuts her eyes my way, lips twisted. “I don’t like it, either, but I can’t think of something better.”
“How’d you know what I was thinking?”
Clara giggles. “The frown, Dad. You have a wide assortment of frowns.”
That isn’t true. I cock my head at Clara, and both she and Rose burst out laughing. “You’re doing it now,” Rose says, and turns to Clara. “I think that’s the Dubious Frown, but you’d know better than I would.”
“Definitely the Dubious Frown,” Clara says. “The one before was the I-don’t-like-it-but-there’s-nothing-I-can-do-about-it frown.”
I feel my hackles rise out of habit, though it vanishes at the way Clara’s face shines with delight at her dad taking a ribbing good-naturedly. I wink at her. “Didn’t know I was so transparent.”
“You are,” Clara says. “I’ll get some more water.”
She heads up to the well with the larger buck
et. Rose pushes her wheelbarrow past the gate and sets it down with a thump. I offered to push it twice, and the second time she told me to mind my own business.
I pick up a post and tamp down the gravel, then Rose does her bit with the concrete. While we wait for Clara to return, Rose says, “Just so you know, you’re doing great.”
“What?” I ask.
“You’re doing great with Clara. I know how easy it is to fall into old patterns, but you’re not. Did you notice how she volunteered to be on our team today? How she sat next to you at breakfast? It’s because she wants to be with you.”
I’d hoped that was the case, though I was just glad to have her nearby. To hear that Clara feels the same fills my chest and lightens my feet. Rose pats my arm. “Now you’re wearing my favorite kind of frown.”
“I’m not frowning,” I say. The woman is off her rocker.
She twists a finger in her cheek where a dimple would be. “It’s your upside-down frown.”
I chuckle. She’s off her rocker, but Sheila was right: Rose is good people.
27
Rose
The house feels like a fortress. It isn’t, of course, but the wood fencing alleviates fears I didn’t know I had. It’s nice not to have to slink back and forth to the RV, and even nicer to sit on the patio in the daylight. With the house windows partly boarded, it’s dim inside, and I miss sunlight after a gray Oregon winter.
It’s been almost three weeks since the world went to shit, and I like to think we’ll make it, though everyone knows thinking something like that is a jinx. We all agree Bornavirus has likely spread, that the world outside Oregon must be just as bad, but we remain hopeful the zombies will die. According to books and movies, they last for years, but those are books and movies. This is real.
“There’s such a thing as fucking science,” I mutter.
Mitch, sitting beside me at the patio table, lifts her head from her book. “Yes, there is. Thanks for the report.”
“Shut up. Realistically, how long can dead bodies walk around?”
“The question should be: How the hell can dead bodies walk around? The answer is that, if they can, then anything is possible.”
It’s true. I feel sorry for the people out there, though maybe they’ve created their own safe places from the virus. Craig pops into my mind, as he does multiple times a day. I miss his texts and self-deprecating jokes, but most of all, I miss him. “Do you think Craig might be okay?”
When we imagined the apocalypse as teenagers—especially after we all read The Stand—he always reiterated his wish that he die immediately so he didn’t have to deal. He’s tall and thin, with glasses he’s forever pushing up his nose. Compared to Craig, Mitch and I are practically ninjas.
Mitch sets down her book. “I hate to say it, but I think Craig was probably among the first to go. It’s Craig we’re talking about here.”
Her words might seem callous to a casual observer, but her jaw is too firmly set and her shoulders have inched to her ears. I blink back tears at the thought of Craig dying, scared and alone. I can’t think about it at length or my heart begins to crack, so I tell myself he’s safe in Oakland. It could be true—Craig is far stronger than he believes. “I wish he’d come up early like we told him to.”
Mitch pats my arm, then picks up her book and resumes reading. Pop walks past with the well bucket and grabs a couple of the five-gallon buckets on the patio. I set down my book and follow with the remainder to save him the trip.
It’s a gray day, though warm. The Gustafsons had an old reel mower that works well enough to silently cut the area around the house. Jesse mowed the other day, and it might’ve grown an inch since then. Oregon springs make for grass that grows like weeds, and weeds that do the same. No sooner do you mow than you have to mow again. And then, when the dry summer begins, your lawn is dead in a week and brown until October.
I set the buckets down by the well, flip one over, and sit on it. “Thanks, Rosie,” Pop says.
“Sure.”
I watch him remove the cap and lower the pipe bucket down the metal shaft that extends eighteen inches aboveground. Once the bucket hits water, the line goes slack then slowly moves through his fingers inch by inch as the bucket fills. When the rope has fed out about the length of the bucket, it’s full, and he pulls it up hand over hand.
“Want me to do that?” I ask, and he shakes his head. “Maybe we should make a winch.”
“I could use the exercise.”
“So could I.” I know how heavy it is on its way up, and though Pop went to his gym before zombies, he looks as tired and worn as I feel. “You feeling okay, Daddy?”
He dumps the water into a five-gallon bucket. “I’m good, Rosie. Just not sleeping well.”
I set my chin in my hands. “Why? Aside from the obvious.” He shrugs, doing his close-mouthed bit, but I know when he’s fibbing, same as Ethan. “Don’t make me beat it out of you.”
His smile doesn’t take over his face the way it usually does. “I’m worried about you and the kids. This isn’t the world I wanted you to live in.”
“It’s not the world I wanted for them, but we’re all together. Imagine if we weren’t?” The times I do imagine, it feels as though an ice-cold hand clutches my heart. “We’ll make it okay as long as we’re together.”
“We will.” He offers a bigger smile that’s still lacking. “I know you will. Have I ever told you how smart you are?”
I roll my eyes. “Once or twice.”
We’re playing our usual game. Though he’s more worried than he’ll let on, he won’t tell me any more, at least today. Chilly fingers pinch at my heart, giving me a taste of what it would be like if Pop weren’t around. He’s my champion, my rock, and though I know the day will come when I don’t have him, I can’t bear to anticipate it. When Mom died less than a year after we moved to Oregon, I found there was no preparing for that kind of loss. He’s my last parent, and no one else will ever love me the way he does—unconditionally, wholeheartedly, and, often, blindly.
Tom walks across the grass. “Let me do that, Sam.”
“Let an old man pull his weight, would you?”
“All right,” Tom says, looking amused before he turns somber. “We’re out of batteries. I just put the last of them in a lantern.”
I knew it was coming, but that doesn’t make it any less troubling. We need light at night; at the very least, I want to see the zombies before they eat me.
“We’re not running low on food, but we will at some point,” I say. Some point is if the zombies don’t disintegrate, which they both understand without my explaining. “We have most of the RV’s propane to use after the second tank is gone, but we should save it if we can. There have to be tanks for barbecues around here.”
Pop lowers the empty bucket down the well. “You think we should chance it?”
“We can leave the kids here and the four of us go,” I say.
Tom watches me steadily. “More hands mean quicker work. They can keep an eye out.”
“They can handle it, you know.” Pop says it casually, but it’s his gentle way of telling me to chill the hell out.
I have no illusions I’m the voice of reason on this subject, but there are zombies. Zombies. I’ve seen the kids in action, though from behind the safety of our fence, and all three are watchful and quick. That doesn’t stop the terror that I’ll lose them, but I have to let Jesse and Holly be the smart and cautious adults they are.
“Then we’ll all go,” I say, and force a smile. “Now we just have to figure out where we’re going.”
“I might know a place,” Tom says.
Mr. Gustafson’s pickup has gas, and we have the keys. Pop’s truck is close to full. Though we’ll keep the vehicles together, Tom and I drive the Gustafson’s truck with the kids in the backseat. Adults or not, there’s no way in hell I’ll be separated from them for the drive.
“It’s cramped back here,” Jesse complains.
“To
ugh potatoes,” I reply. “You can stay home if you’d rather.”
Jesse grumbles. Tom’s shoulders jump with a silent laugh as we make our way down the road. The plan is to circle around the edge of Eugene, then head in at the west end of town. There are fewer houses, more businesses, and areas that are industrial as well as undeveloped due to protected wetlands. The plan is also to turn right the fuck around if we come up against anything too deadly. I haven’t forgotten the first trip into town.
“Maybe we’ll see Dad,” Holly says softly.
It’s meant for Jesse’s ears, but I pretend to be looking at something out Tom’s window and catch a glimpse of Holly’s earnest expression. She doesn’t mention Ethan, though she holds out hope. Mine has faded, and I’ve locked my sadness away. At some point in the future, I’ll mourn for Ethan, for what once was and for how it ended. There are more pressing matters to deal with now. Namely, keeping our kids alive.
“Doubt it,” Jesse murmurs.
I fight tears at Holly’s optimism and Jesse’s ambivalence, then stretch a hand to touch Holly’s knee. “I hope we do, sweets.”
Tom glances at me, but I return to the view out the windshield. The two-lane road is bordered by fields that once held sheep and farmhouses that once held people. The fence is down in places, and a zombie is caught in barbed wire that wrapped around his legs and tripped him to the ground. He kicks his feet and rolls as we pass, entangling himself more. A few bloody, wooly carcasses lay by the side of the road—at least we don’t have zombie animals along with everything else.
We turn toward town. A house on the right is gated, its first-floor windows boarded. “Maybe someone’s there,” Jesse says.
“We’ll check it out on the way back,” Tom answers.
An elementary school on our left has a wall of shattered windows. A woman’s body hangs over the glass, folded so that her long hair brushes the ground with the breeze. The parking lot is full of cars; if people fled to the school for safety, it didn’t work out. We pass a few more quiet houses. The grass is green, overgrown, and the land flat until it reaches the buttes in the distance. Power and telephone lines stretch for miles under the gray sky.
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 22
