Mike says in a whisper. “I used to think it was funny how much time you guys spent thinking about this kind of stuff.”
“Not so fucking funny now, is it?” Pam asks.
“It might be if I wasn’t scared shitless,” he replies. He takes another step backward before turning away from the window. “I’m just happy the Bakers are away on vacation.”
“But didn’t they tell us they were having a friend of their daughter’s watch the house while they were gone?” Lynn asks.
As soon as the words leave her lips, a high-pitched scream tears from the Baker’s house across the street. They watch as a shadow of a figure runs past the window with the zombies close on her heels before disappearing. There’s another frantic scream, this one a mixture of terror and pain, but it ends abruptly.
“It’s too late,” Dave tells Mike, placing his hand on his father-in-law’s shoulder as he starts heading for the door.
“We have to do something!” Mike says, batting away the unwanted touch without losing his momentum.
Lunging after him, Dave grabs Mike by the arm and spins him around before he can make it to the door. “It won’t do any good, Mike. She’s gone!” he says.
“How do you know?” he asks, jerking his arm from Dave’s grip.
“By the way the screaming stopped,” Pam says.
“Shouldn’t we at least try?” Dakota asks.
“If any of us go out there, we risk drawing their attention and leading them back here,” Dave answers. “We need to get our shit together and get the hell out of here!”
“So, we’re just supposed to ignore the fact there’s a girl being killed across the street?” Mike replies.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Dave tells him, letting the cold finality sink in.
“Goddamn it,” Mike says. He knows his son-in-law is right and his whole body slumps a little in resignation.
“Mom,” Dave begins, changing the topic from probable suicide to hopeful survival. “We need to get some boxes and pack up all the non-perishable food you have. Have Pam and Ben help you.”
“I think there are some empty boxes in the basement, but I don’t know if we’ll have enough,” Lynn replies.
“Then we’ll use bags and pillowcases if we have to,” Pam says.
“Joe and Zack. As they gather stuff together, start getting it loaded into the back of their car. It’s in the garage, so it shouldn’t draw any attention but be quiet while you’re doing it. Mike. Do you guys have any bottled water?”
“I think there’s still two or three cases in the garage. They had a sale on it at Sam’s Club so we picked up several and unloaded them out there,” he answers.
“Great. Take Dakota and load as much as you can. Fill one of the backseats if you need to.”
“Come on, Dakota. We’ve got our orders,” Mike says, heading for the garage while the others start into the basement to find boxes.
“What do you want the boys and I to do?” Brigette asks.
“Nothing,” Dave says after taking a look at the two kids. They both look like they’re having every bit as much fun as Dave is and may snap at any minute. “Those two need their mom right now more than they need to load shit into the car. Why don’t you take them back to the TV room and see if you can find anything out from the news.”
“I tried while you were in the shower, but all I got was static,” Brigette replies.
“Then let them give it a try,” he says, nodding his head toward the boys. Right now, he wanted the boys to be doing anything to occupy themselves that didn’t involve trying to help or being eaten by zombies.
“Right,” Brigette says, picking up what Dave was putting down. “Come on men,” she says cheerfully to her sons. “Grab your cocoas and let see if you can fix the TV.”
“We’re going to need some tools,” Braxton says.
“You’re pretty smart for only being seven,” she tells him as she ruffles his hair. “Let’s go see if we can find some!”
“I call dibs on the hammer!” Jaxson says, darting for the stairs. He’s sloshing a trail of cocoa drops from his mug as he runs, and his younger brother follows his example.
“I don’t think we’ll need a hammer!” Brigette calls after them while trying not to shout.
“It probably doesn’t matter,” Dave tells her as she chases after the two.
Other than his brief, but all too necessary time in the shower, Dave finds himself alone for the first time since this shit-fest started. He tries to remember how long ago that was and shocks himself when he realizes it was just early this morning when he and Pam saw the lady get attacked in the supermarket parking lot by that fucking dog. He remembers all the sirens from the night before and thinks how gloriously naive he’d been for simply assuming it was all because of some stupid football game that night. If he’d just thought about it…
looked around… done something! They might not be as fucked as they were now. He berates himself as he walks to the side of the front window. Peering outside for any signs of movement, he slowly unties the gathers from the thicker curtain to the side and eases it across to cover half the pane of glass. He takes a large arc back to the other side, not wanting to pass directly in front of the window. He unties the other drape and lets it fall to close off the view inside from the street.
“I probably should have done that sooner,” he mutters to himself.
“I don’t know what Gramma was worried about,” Joe says, emerging from the stairs with the first box. “They’ve got a shit-ton of boxes down there. And you should see all the pasta and stuff they have in the pantry. It’s like they’re doomsday preppers or something.
“That’s good news.”
“Yeah. But I don’t know if we’ll be able to fit it all in the back of Grampa’s Mercedes.”
“Do your best,” Dave replies as Joe heads for the garage.
“At least the boxes are light,” he says without turning around.
“Holy shit, Dad,” Zack says, coming up from the basement a moment later with another box of dried goods. “Did Joe tell you about all the food they have down there?”
“He mentioned it,” Dave replies.
“The downside is a lot of it is past the sell-by date.”
“Let’s take it anyway. We’re not going to be worried about freshness once we’re on the road. We’ll scrap the boxes if it gives us more room.”
The next one to come up the steps was Braxton. He wove around Joe, who was heading back down for another box. His eyes are fixed on Dave and from the expression on the seven-year-old’s face, he’s coming up for a reason.
“What’s up, buddy? Do you need to use the bathroom?” Dave asks him.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Mom wants me to tell you there’s nothing on the TV,” he reports.
Crouching down to eye level, Dave smiles and tells him, “That’s cool, stud. Just keep trying.”
“Okay,” Braxton sighs with a shrug as he turns around to go back down and Dave stands. “But there’s nothing on.”
“If you can’t find any news or anything, tell your mom to let you and your brother watch some cartoons or something while we load up,” Dave tells him, trying to ease some of the kid’s fear and apprehension. Maybe he and his brother could lose themselves in some animation, if only for a few minutes. The respite has to be good for them in some manner and Dave wishes he could join.
“But there’s nothing on the TV,” Braxton mutters, disappointed from having been dismissed so casually.
“Hold up a sec,” Dave tells him. “You meant your mom can’t find any news on TV, right?”
Even as the question leaves his mouth, he already knows the answer. There must be at least a half-dozen, twenty-four-hour news channels to choose from. He knows for a fact Mike and Lynn have FOX News marked as one of their favorites on the remote, much to his dismay. But Braxton said there’s nothing on the TV, not there wasn’t any news.
“Nope. Mom says it’s all ant r
aces. But it doesn’t look like ants to me. It looks more like a snowstorm or something,” Braxton says. “Did they forget to pay the cable bill? Sometimes my mom and dad forget too, and our TV looks like that. Do they have any movies we can watch?”
“Damn it!” Dave says as Zack comes back for another load.
“Hey little dude. What’s happening?” he asks his son.
“Your dad’s mad at me,” Braxton tells him hesitantly.
“What’d he do?” Zack asks in his son’s defense and setting a protective hand on Braxton’s shoulder.
“Nothing. I’m not mad at him. We’re cool, Braxton,” he says. “Thanks for letting me know and ask your mom to please check to see if the cable is connected and keep trying while your dad and I talk.”
“Okay,” he answers, throwing his hands in the air and going back down, taking one stair at a time. “But she’s already tried that.”
“What’s up, Dad?” Zack asks once his son is downstairs.
“Check your phone,” Dave replies. “Mine’s in the car. Do you have any internet connection?”
“I don’t have their WiFi password,” Zack says, pulling his phone from his back pocket. He’s always preferred the larger versions of the newest phones and he reminds Dave of trying to hold a tablet to your ear to make calls. “If you know what it is, I can check.”
“In a minute. Tell me you’re at least getting a signal. A couple of Gs. A few bars. Anything…”
“No… Not a thing. What’s going on?”
“It might be nothing. Maybe a cell tower is just out, temporarily.”
“You mean like a squirrel chewed through the line or something?” Zack asks, to which Dave nods. “It doesn’t work like that, Dad,” Zack says.
“I know.”
“Then why do you suddenly look more worried than you did when I walked in?”
“Maybe I’m wrong,” Dave replies. “I don’t want to cause more shit for everyone if I am.”
“Just say it.”
“If you were the government, or the military, or whatever, what’s the first thing you’d do if you decided to do some fucked up shit to a portion of the population? Say, like a city or a state. And I don’t mean just sort of fucked up. I’m talking proper fucked.”
“I don’t know. Maybe set up roadblocks or something, I guess.”
Dave says with dread. “You start by separating them from the rest of the population. Put them in a communication dead zone. No internet. No phones. No contact with the outside world or ability to report on the potentially heinous shit going on.”
“What are you saying, Dad?”
“I’m saying I don’t think the zombies are our only threat. Probably not even the biggest one at this point. If I’m right, we need to get the fuck out of Dodge!”
Pam, Lynn, and Ben come up the stairs, each carrying a fully loaded box of dried goods. Multiple boxes of various pastas, an assortment of cereals, several cartons of instant potatoes, bundled blue boxes of mac & cheese and different flavored instant stuffing. Joe’s following behind them, carrying an unopened, forty-pound bag of rice over his shoulder. Dave looks at the four of them with a nagging feeling he’s overlooking some important fact, but he can’t put his finger on it. He asks them to wait before taking the stuff to be loaded in the car as Mike and Dakota return with Bongo panting and wagging his tail behind them.
“We came in to see what the hold up was,” Mike says. When he sees the halted convoy and the volume of the things they’re carrying, he says, “I don’t know if we can get all of that in the car. We should probably hold off on the rice for now until we get the rest of it loaded.”
“Thank god,” Joe exclaims, setting the heavy, burlap bag of uncooked rice on the floor where he stands.
Uncooked rice… Uncooked… Dave seizes on the elusive thought, disgusted with himself for missing what he now sees as obvious. All the food they were loading needs to be cooked, which he realizes isn’t the real problem. If it came down to it, they could always build a fire or something. The true flaw that had slipped past him is it all needs water or some other liquid to be prepared. Sure, they could eat it without cooking, but they’d be risking having it swell in their bellies and causing other, now obvious issues.
“Put the boxes down,” he tells them.
“I think we can get most of it,” Mike says, looking puzzled by Dave’s instructions.
“Canned food,” Dave replies. “We need to be packing canned food. How could I have been so fucking stupid?” he asks rhetorically, banging the butt of his palm onto his forehead.
“Take it easy, sweetie. We’ve got plenty of canned food,” she says.
Lynn puts her box down and walks over to the set of four cupboards in the corner of the kitchen. The wide doors are stacked two on two, with their hinges set on opposing sides so they open like French doors. With both hands, Lynn swings the upper set open to display the set of shelves hidden inside. Each one is packed full of canned goods and Dave’s certain he can hear a chorus of angels trumpeting as the light gleams from the edge of one of the cans. Lynn pulls the lower set open and steps back to show the same volume within.
“Jesus Christ, Mom,” Pam says. “Why do you need so much canned food?”
“I just pick it up when it’s on sale.”
“I get that,” Pam replies. “But when is it enough?”
“It’s not like it goes bad,” Lynn says in her defense.
“It will eventually,” Pam replies.
“I don’t care what your daughter says. I love you, Mom.” Dave jumps in as he hugs Lynn and kisses her on the cheek. “We need to take all of this,” he tells his sons.
“Now I know that won’t all fit,” Mike says.
“Then you and Dakota go back and toss everything out of the car while we gather all this beautiful food, and we’ll start over,” Dave answers, giving Lynn an approving glance before continuing. “Leave the cases of water, but this is the stuff we need. If there’s still room after that, then we’ll grab some of the dried stuff. But we need to get moving because things are turning to shit, fast.”
Without need for further clarification, they set about swapping the unwanted food in the car for the precious canned food they need. Fifteen minutes later, the last of the cans are being individually placed in the back of the Mercedes SUV and the discarded boxes have been tossed in a large pile behind it. Brigette and the boys are up from the television room and all are gathered in the living room.
“Um… Dad,” Zack calls, spying through the narrow gap in the curtains covering the front window.
Dave joins him as the others gather themselves and prepare to make an organized exit.
“What’s going on?” Dave asks, pulling the drapes open another inch for a better view.
What he sees doesn’t require an explanation. There are a couple dozen horrors outside the former Baker residence. Half of them are pushing and shoving each other below the shattered window, not allowing any of them enough room or leverage to gain entry. There’s no sign of the two that had originally climbed in to attack the doomed house sitter. Dave assumes they’re still inside, either fighting over her liver, minus the nice bottle of Chianti, or they’re searching the place for dessert. He also figures they might have eaten their fill and figured out how to exit the house. Regardless, neither of them is visible. He has to admit it’s a little tough to tell one from the other, what with thick coatings of blood and gore on each of them.
But Limpy’s managed to extricate himself from the flowerbed. The curtain he’d ripped from its moorings is still wrapped around one of his feet. As he mills about, he repeatedly steps on the damn thing, causing him to stumble with each shuffling step. Dave feels a moment of pity for the guy when another of the monstrosities brings him down after stepping on the trailing end of Limpy’s snare. That is until his dead eyes drift to the Foster house and he begins to crawl their direction.
“Fuck,” Dave whispers to himself as he releases his hold of the curtai
n.
“I know, right?” Zack says, turning to follow his father away from the window.
“We need to make this quick,” Dave tells everyone. “Zack. As soon as you hear the garage door start to go up, get the boys in the car and get it started. Brigette, you cover him until you get in. If those fuckers haven’t noticed you by then, get their attention, lead them away and then double-back and meet us at the school,” he says, adding the detail they’d all worked out while reloading the car. Their chosen meeting place is about a mile or two away on the other side of the park set in the middle of the upscale neighborhood the Fosters had lived in since Pam was in her late teens. They made this choice because it had a large, open parking lot with an extra-large entry point on each end for the school buses and an even larger one in the middle for the staff and parents to enter and exit. Plus, it had easy access to the paved playground behind the school, out of view from the street. “Our phones are shit now, so just trust we’ll be there.”
The F*cked Series (Book 2): Proper Page 9