Other Side

by Rose, Isabella C.

  Eventually I fell asleep, when I looked at the clock it said 5 AM. I had only slept a few hours. The sun would be up soon, and I wanted to scout the woods around the house. Listening to the house, I didn’t hear anyone else awake. Should I get up and wake Brandi or wait for them to wake up? I was not used to so many options, my old life had been easy. Get up, go to school, study, go home, hide from my step-father’s wrath, and then repeat. Routine worked well for me. I got up and made some coffee hoping the smell woke the house. I didn’t like the taste, but the smell was nice.

  As the coffee was brewing, Annette’s disheveled face appeared in the kitchen.

  “Coffee smells divine, darling.”

  I poured her a cup. “Cream or sugar?”

  “Both. Lord knows whoever drinks it black is wicked,” she teased.

  Bringing the cup over to at the kitchen nook, I joined her. How did I approach the subject that someone or something could be watching us?

  “So, last night, I uh…”

  “Hmm?” she murmured, taking a whiff of her drink.

  Sleep still clung to her, I could tell. After her smell and a sip, she hung her head downward, hands wrapped around her mug.

  “I was up in the attic after everyone went to bed. I wanted to make sure I closed the shutters up there. I took a moment to look outside. I saw something in the woods,” I said bluntly.

  She straightened at my words, coming alert. “What do you mean you saw something?”

  “In the back, by the tree line. A shadow of what could have been a person or zombie. I pretended to leave, and the figure came closer, but not enough to see who or what. There was something out there. I’d like to scout it out in the daylight with back-up and a lookout. If there is something out there, we need to know what it is. I don’t want to be unprepared. With the guys gone, we need to be vigilant,” I scolded.

  Her face became hard. I thought she would refuse. She surprised me.

  “Yes, you are right. We need to know what is out there. Noises and now you saw something. I don’t like we have so little protection. I can be a lookout and Peggy Sue’s a good hunter—she should be able to see if there are tracks. Who to go with her? Hmm. Julia is too timid. Brandi is the next oldest.” She talked as if I was not there.

  “I will go with Peggy Sue,” I said.

  I was not going to be cut off and told what to do anymore.

  “Deary, I know you want to help. Let’s see what the others have to say when they wake up,” she tried to put me off patronizingly.

  I would not be sidelined as the men had done. Treating me as if I was a child. “I know your heart is in the right place, but you have to let go of old standards. Zombies do not care if we are kids or adults.” The anger was bubbling up.

  “No, no, they don’t. I would never have thought a zombie could exist until I saw it with my own eyes. I will try and be more open-minded. Be patient with me. This is all new for all of us. We are used to being the ones to protect the younger ones,” she said emphasizing the word “all.”

  Anger flooded out of me as fast as it came. I knew I had anger in me; I had never let it overtake as much as I did lately. We sat not talking until Julia joined us.

  “Good morning. The kids are still sleeping. Connor didn’t want to go to sleep last night. He is not used to being cooped up. He has always been an outdoors kid. Its wearing on my nerves I tell you,” Julia chatted along as she started to make food. “I’ll wake him up once breakfast is ready. I need a few minutes without him.”

  The others slowly found their way to the kitchen when the smell of breakfast flowed through the house.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Once everyone had gathered for breakfast, I broached the subject of investigating again. “Peggy Sue, can you help me out today with a bit of a curiosity?”

  I tried to speak in subtext to not alert the kids eating at the island.

  “Curiosity you say, girly? What cha got going on in that their noggin?” she said, her voice confused.

  I tried to convey with my eyes going wide and pointing to the kids and then to her to try and come over to the table to talk quietly.

  “Oh, nothing much. I need your opinion on something.”

  I could have laughed when Peggy Sue’s face went from me to the kids, and I saw the moment realization hit her.

  A big “O” made its way to her mouth without any sound. She slowly picked up her plate and the cup that she had on the island walking to us. “Scoot over there, my diary aire needs a nice rest I reckon.”

  I slid to the middle of the seat nook.

  “What’s going on?” Peggy Sue said over her coffee quietly.

  “Tell her,” Annette pushed.

  Peggy Sue’s gaze focused on me.

  “Well, last night I saw something hiding in the woods. Could be a zombie or a human or something else.”

  “You want to go have a looksie?”

  Looksie? I could never pull off her style of speaking, but I enjoyed the drawl to it. It fit her.

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s get these kiddos occupied and get set up.” She pointed to Gracie and Connor.

  “Julia knows. She will take them to her room and set them up with a movie,” Annette supplied.

  “Good,” Peggy Sue sipped from her mug. “I’ll check the heat in my room. Meet me up there.”

  She met our eyes and nodded above her, getting up to place her dishes in the sink. I watched her go, tousling Gracie's hair on her way out. It was hard not to be drawn to Peggy Sue, she pulled you in and made you feel comfortable and like her. Doing the same, I left my dishes in the sink. We had set up a list of chores, and Brandi was on dishes this morning.

  Trying to leave without being noticed Gracie called after me, coming to meet me in the hall, “We working the lab today?”

  “Most definitely, I need to take care of some stuff first. How about after lunch?” I smiled.

  Her head cocked at me. I was a terrible liar.

  “Lady stuff,” I added to deter her suspicions.

  “Ewwww, TMI!” She waved at me going back to the kitchen.

  I remembered her reluctance to know any details about Jaime and me. She was young enough for things like a woman’s menses to gross her out I guessed, and it worked to hide my true intentions. I enjoyed Gracie’s company; she reminded me of what I had lost in Jessica, and I wanted to be there for Gracie since I was not there for Jessica. Would I regret Jessica’s death if I found a cure? Could I have left her there like that? To fend for herself, and could Jessica live with herself if she could be cured knowing she had killed our mother? Would she be able to get out of the house or starve to death waiting for a cure? That was “IF” a cure could even be found. We still had a lot to figure out, and we had no clue how the virus started in the first place. The thoughts made me shiver. I didn’t want to second-guess my actions. I had to be firm that Jessica was better off this way. I could not forgive myself if I became a zombie and killed the people I loved.

  Reaching the stairs, I turned to look at the front door, thinking of Jaime. Where was he? I prayed he was okay out there. Turning around, I almost ran head-first into Tiffany.

  “Excuse me,” I said to her.

  She moved to block my path.

  “What are you up to?” she asked suspiciously. “I know you’re up to something. What is it?”

  Did I tell her and have her in my hair for the next hour while I tried to avoid worrying the kids? Or ignore her and go on about my business? Moving to one side to go past, she moved with me, not allowing me to go upstairs.

  “Can you move, please?” I said with as much distaste in my voice as possible.

  “No way! You are up to something and I won’t move until you spill the tea.”

  “Spill the tea?” I said aloud, not really asking for an explanation, but she provided it anyway.

  “You cannot be that dense. You are supposed to be some kind of smarty pants and don’t know ‘spill the tea.’ It is getting th
e scoop, give me the details?” she said, mimicking my confusion.

  God, I didn’t like her spoiled… face.

  “Why do you want to know? It’s not like you can help,” I scolded her.

  With a huff she flipped her hair. “You act like you are something so great, and treat me terribly! I am not worthless like you might think.”

  How was I to take her seriously when she acted this way? Tiffany had done nothing but whine most of the time coming to the cabin. Was I being too hard on her? Did she want to be taken more seriously, just as I wanted to be treated like an adult by the actual adults? Sighing, I had to give her some credit as she survived in the strip mall alone.

  “Fine. This stays between us, though. The kids cannot know, they don’t need to stress out. Promise me,” I said pausing until she agreed.

  “Yeah, yeah promise,” she spit out annoyed.

  “Not here,” I said looking back toward the kitchen. “My room.”

  She turned and walked up the stairs, swinging her hips. I bent my head, saying another prayer in the last few minutes that I was not making a mistake telling Tiffany about the thing I saw outside. Pulling myself together, I pushed up the steps after her.

  When she reached my room, Tiffany had already opened the door and gone inside. Rushing forward to get in the room, Tiffany was standing by the desk facing away from me. How insensitive of me to forget about all the flowers still littered around the room.

  Tentatively I asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Yup,” she said, turning, wiping her eyes with her fingers.

  What did I say? I had no clue how to comfort an ex to my current boyfriend, and who was I kidding? I had no idea how to comfort anyone in issues of love.

  Tiffany pulled herself together, then as I had anticipated and to my relief, she asked, “So what’s the deal?”

  Closing the door, I told her about what I saw. To her credit, she took the news rather well.

  “You’re going out there to figure out what it was?” She pointed to the window leading outside.

  I sat on the bed and she came to sit next to me. The outdoors, the fresh air, the sky, the endless peace that the outside world had provided me when I lived under my step-father’s roof was now just as dangerous as his house. I longed to be in the open. Would I never be truly free?

  “What do you want me to do?” Tiffany said next to me.

  Her words brought me back to remembering she was there.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” I tried, but was cut off.

  She stood facing me. “Oh no, I want to be a part of this too. I know you don’t like me, and I really don’t like you. We are in this together regardless.”

  Her words were echoing the ones I had told the adults a few days ago. She was right. We didn’t like each other, but we had to rely on each other. What could she do though? Thinking back to the strip mall when she shot the rat. She had perfect aim, even terrified. Her dad had owned an outdoor sports shop. Maybe he taught her some skills… maybe. Extra eyes couldn’t hurt.

  “Alright Tiffany, here’s what I want you to do.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Julia had taken the kids upstairs while I got dressed. I had layered up; if there were zombies outside, the layers would protect my skin from a bite. Tights, two pairs of long socks, jeans, a tank top, long sleeve t-shirt, sweater, my overalls, boots, a jacket, and a scarf for my neck. I had put my hair in a bun on top of my head to get it out of the way with a beanie. Peggy Sue had brought a few guns; I chose a handgun with an extra magazine in my coat pocket. She was not as layered as me but had her skin covered. Annette was on guard duty in the kitchen watching for us if we had to retreat back into the house. I had put Tiffany in the attic with a rifle. Hopefully she would not fail us. She had assured me that she would keep Peggy Sue and me safe if she saw any zombies coming for us. I had to believe her because the stress would distract me, and I needed to be focused. Peggy Sue would go out first, and I would follow as we watched each other’s backs.

  “Ready?” Peggy Sue asked Annette and me.

  We both nodded. Annette unlocked the door and Peggy Sue peeked out.

  “All clear,” she whispered.

  Peggy Sue squeezed out, and I gave Annette a sad smile and went out into the world. The door closed with a soft click behind me. We had devised a plan to talk as little as possible to keep our presence unnoticed for as long as we could. The trees whistled in the wind, and leaves crinkled on the ground. I listened to our surroundings as Peggy Sue did before we moved off the back porch. The porch was a wide deck with chairs stacked against the house, and a built-in stone grill with a portico that covered our heads, and a wood swing hung between the house and the grill kitchenette. The deck roof also covered us from Tiffany's view. Peggy gave me a quick glance and moved forward to the stairs at the far end of the porch. When Peggy Sue reached the stairs, she paused again, checking out the yard and the edge of the house. I had my back to hers in order to watch both sides of our bodies. Peggy Sue tapped me with her foot when she was ready to move off the deck.

  She drifted quickly for me to keep pace, walking backward. I listened to everything, straining my ears to listen for anything out of the ordinary. It still baffled me that I could hear no birds. This time of year, birds were out harvesting for the winter to come. Filling their nests or homes, but none squawked or chirped. Were the birds affected by the virus? I had called whatever was going on with changing people into zombies a virus because of the similarities the blood had to a common cold.

  In the yard, Peggy Sue moved faster, and I kept up. Nothing moved. I had shown Peggy Sue the spot I saw movement from the attic when I told her Tiffany would watch from there for us. She moved toward the edge of the woods. The hairs on my neck stood up, and I tried to calm my breathing. Facing the house, I saw a zombie sleeping on the portico roof! It was on its side, away from us. We had not made any noise, had we? To wake it. Before exiting the house, we had made the decision that if we saw a zombie to give the other a signal anyway, they could without having the zombie see, and in the event the zombie saw us we would fire, and move back to the house with speed and be cautious of other zombies. As the zombie had not noticed us yet, I used my free hand to grab Peggy Sue’s coat, pulling her to a stop. I turned my head enough to see Peggy Sue’s face and still have eyes on the zombie. I jerked my head toward the house, and we turned in a circle for Peggy Sue to face the house and me the woods.

  Next to my ear Peggy Sue spoke softly, “It’s asleep. Move on or go back?”

  I looked at the woods, the ground; we were almost to the spot. Did we risk going into the woods? The ground looked clear but we might step on something that would crunch. Would it wake the zombie because so far, we had made little to no noise, and it still did not move. Would other zombies be in the woods?

  Looking back at the house, the zombie on the roof was small, wiry-looking with a white shirt that had rips in it and smeared with dirt, blue shorts and no shoes, not much hair on its head. The skin was darker than most of the zombies’ we saw. The zombie looked like it had deteriorated. Had it not eaten in a while? Its skin looked saggy too. I watched for the chest to rise, but saw no movement. We needed to know what was watching us. It could be the zombies setting a trap for us again. If it was a human, why would they not come to the house? Logically, my brain was screaming to go back to the safety of the house. My gut said to go on with the mission.

  Going against my mind, I motioned to Peggy Sue toward the woods. She gave me a tight nod, and we flipped spots again. My attention focused on the zombie, and then around the yard, and then back to the zombie. How had it got on the roof? Climbing was not something zombies were supposed to be able to do from all the made-up stuff I had ever encountered. But then again, the zombies were not like the books. They were smarter, talking, and looked less dead.

  We reached the woods, and Peggy Sue took a step into the brush. I waited for her foot falls to make a sound. Luckily silence met my ears. I w
atched where she stepped while keeping a lookout. Once inside the cover of the trees, I breathed a bit easier. Not much, because even though the woods hid us, they were also likely to hide other dangers. I felt Peggy Sue lean down. I glanced to see her examining the ground. The ground was made of dirt and had a tiny gloss to it as if wet from rain, not enough to be squishy mud, enough that I saw footprints. From my view, I could not tell if the prints were human or not. Peggy Sue stood and gently moved further into the woods. I followed, glancing down to see the prints faded deeper into the woods as we went. The trees and brush grew thicker the further we went too. Peggy Sue came to a stop when the woods opened into a clearing that I could make out from my vantage point.

  “The footprints lead into the clearing, but it will be hard to follow as the grass hides the prints. I might be able to track the steps, but it will take time. I don’t want to be out here any longer than we need to be,” Peggy Sue told me quietly. “Head back?”

  I wanted to go further and find out what was out there, my curiosity peeked, but I knew that was not wise. I had to listen to my head now.

  “Back,” I agreed.

  I took the lead, going back toward the house since I was already facing that way. Peggy Sue hung close to my back. I tried to step in the same spots that we had used going into the forest. The house was coming into view through the trees; I looked for the zombie on the roof. The closer we got, the slower I treaded to make sure my feet did not disturb any twigs or leaves on the path. Coming to the edge, I halted. The roof was empty. Shit. Shit. Shit. Peggy Sue bumped into me slightly. Her head came around and saw what made me stop. Her head swiveled all around. I stupidly kept looking at the roof as if the zombie would appear out of nowhere. Shaking myself out of my stupor, I followed Peggy Sue’s lead and ran my gaze over the yard for the missing zombie. Nowhere did I see any hint of it.

  Leaning back, I asked, “What do we do?”