“Good. I was starting to think I was Mary Poppins or something, the way everyone tries to pawn their kids off on me.”
I don’t know if my joke was funny or if it’s the stress needing an outlet, but the laugh that blasts from deep in his belly seems to take even him by surprise. I bounce on my toes, feeling victorious—even if we all end up dead on the side of the road, having failed on our mission to reach Alaska, I’ll have accomplished my mission to make him laugh. Nicki runs from the bedroom, probably because her father laughing is not an everyday occurrence. He picks her up in one hand and wipes his eyes with the other. Another chuckle escapes. “I’m going to the houses. Be back in a little while, all right?”
Nicki’s brows come down exactly the way Kyle’s do. I hold out my arms. “Come here, munchkin. We’ll hang out while Daddy goes.” I look at Kyle after she’s wrapped her legs around my waist. “I’ve got her, you know.”
He knows what I really mean. “I know you do, Mary. But I’ll be back.” I laugh as he walks out to meet the others.
They’re back in thirty minutes with a jar of salsa and expired baby formula, which could be added to our morning glop if necessary.
“It probably took the virus longer to spread this far north,” James says. “They had time to eat everything.”
Zeke looks around for children, and when he sees none, says, “There were a bunch of bodies in one that had a woodstove, looked like they froze. There wasn’t a scrap of wood furniture in any of the houses. They must have cut the trees for fuel. There are stumps under all that grass.”
It explains the complete lack of trees, but not the fact that there are still stands of trees along the main road. Maybe they were too weak from starvation or sickness, or it was too snowy to harvest them and bring them back. I’d imagined all the horrors that could happen throughout the winter while I was safe and warm on the farm, and I probably wasn’t far off base.
Zeke pulls himself out of whatever vision he still sees. “Well, we’d best hit the road.”
We stay well above Saskatoon. As we near the Safe Zone that must have taken in Saskatoon residents, the excitement in the RV is palpable. John and Will used to say that Safe Zones need fuel to radio out, but they don’t need fuel to live. They could be safe and sound.
We make our way onto streets with plain but nice houses tucked into conifer trees. At the corner, a fence begins and travels alongside the school-turned-Safe Zone. Nelly stops at the main gate and we stare in silence at the plywood sign that used to read Safe Zone-All Welcome. Someone has since spray-painted UN- in front of the word Safe. Something bumps against the wooden gate, but the doors have been braced with diagonal wooden posts and locked with a chain for good measure.
Kyle opens a window. It lets in cold air and the moans of what’s on the other side of the fence. “Maybe we can get in there. At least get to the food.”
Shawn reverses the pickup and climbs to its roof. He spends a full minute peering over the top of the fence, while the hisses rise in volume and the gate is battered hard enough to make me fear the posts will give out. He finally turns and shrugs, although his nonchalant veneer has cracked a little. “We’d never make it to the buildings. It’s not worth it. Let’s go.”
Bits runs into the living area and leaps into Peter’s arms, the others close behind her. “We’re not going in there, are we?” Ash asks. She must think we’re even crazier than we are.
“No, honey, we’re not,” Zeke says. He pulls her to his side, where she huddles under his arm.
If we still had the Command room in Whitefield with its map of the Safe Zones, it’d be another black pin replacing the green. But Whitefield’s a black pin now, as are Quebec and Kingdom Come. Maybe we’re green pins on Alaska’s map, or maybe Alaska’s the same as this Safe Zone and the ones we left behind. I have to believe it isn’t—otherwise, mustering the courage to travel through this deserted landscape might become harder than it already is.
We pull away, leaving the zombies to their frustration and us to ours.
22
James was right when he said there likely wasn’t much food around. We’ve wasted time stopping at dust-filled kitchens along the way, but I’m sure the last Safe Zone went on patrol and cleaned out everything within a fifty mile radius. That’d be fine, if what’s left of it weren’t locked within that fence.
“The bridge should be just down this hill,” Mark says. He raises a finger and his eyebrows. “Well, look at that. I didn’t think I’d be using the word hill anytime soon.”
The tiny lines around his eyes bend and fold with his amusement. Mark has the permanently wind-burned skin of someone who’s been outdoors much of his life. He’s hiked all over the world, rock climbed when he was younger, and was an archery pro. He’s small but strong, with bright eyes and energy that belies his sixty-some years. Sometimes I get the sneaking suspicion he views all of this as one giant adventure—in fact, I think he might view life that way, zombie apocalypse or no.
I stand to look out the windshield. Sure enough, we’re heading downhill. It’s not a very steep hill, but it’s Mount Everest compared to the rest of the topography. The bridge over the muddy, wide river could use repaving. Zeke says as much and Mark replies, “Interesting. I hadn’t given it much thought, but we might find the way back east difficult. If we ever do go back.”
“Why?” Penny asks from her new home on the cabover bed.
“Bridges need fairly frequent repairs. Roads as well. A few years would be fine, but ten years, twenty years, and people are going to find moving around a lot harder. We won’t quite be back to the days of the Oregon Trail, but rivers will have to be forded, roads will need to be cleared.”
“We’ll have to use wagons like Laura Ingalls did, right?” Bits asks.
“It’s certainly possible,” Mark replies. “But we know a lot more than they did back then, so we might have it a bit easier. Wagons with struts, at least.”
Bits climbs onto the dinette and points at a tree-covered island in the center of the river. “Look at that island, Peter. Is it like the one you stayed on?”
“This one’s bigger,” Peter says. “Too bad there’s not a cabin on it. You could have a big garden and livestock, too.”
He watches until it’s out of sight. Peter’s told us about the island he stayed on with Chuck, Rich and Natalie last summer after we were separated in Bennington. Natalie, Chuck’s teenage daughter, had lowered a ladder out a window for him to escape a certain death by zombies, and he’d stayed with them until his hurt ankle healed enough to travel. He’d hoped the three would make their way to Kingdom Come this summer; but whether they were happy on their island or tried to reach us and failed, we’ll never know.
“I wonder where they are,” he says.
“Probably safe, since they’re surrounded by water,” I reply. “They can walk out when they freeze and make their way somewhere else.”
Peter doesn’t remark that the lake could have filled with floating Lexers from the giant pods. Lexers who would’ve eventually made their way to the island. I’m sure he wants to imagine the three of them safe and sound in their little cabin with their moat of a lake, waiting out the worst of it. I do, and I’ve never even met them. I’d like to give Nat a big hug one day for saving Peter’s life.
“I have a new mission for us,” James says. “We’re going to need a ton of gas to get to Alaska, and I don’t know that one tank’s going to do it. This stretch of road—” he runs a finger along the large map from the Yukon into Alaska, “looks pretty empty.”
“We’ll have just enough to get to Whitehorse if we start from Edmonton with every tank full,” Mark adds, “but if we can’t stay at the Whitehorse Safe Zone and can’t find more fuel, we’ll be stuck. We need a larger reserve of fuel than we have. James and I have us going north before Edmonton, but it may be necessary to pay the city a visit.”
“Then our first order of business is more fuel containers,” Zeke says. “We’ll top off everywh
ere we can and hope to avoid Edmonton. Y’all find the next town and we’ll stop there to see what we can find.”
Zeke rubs his eyes and leans by the sink. I jump to sit on the counter and put my arm around his bulk. “What’s up, sugar?” he asks.
“Nothing. I just wanted to see how my favorite zombie killer’s doing.”
He smiles, but his usual good cheer is absent. “Tired. Just goddamned tired of this.”
I squeeze his shoulder in answer. It seems to be a running theme today.
“I was gonna retire in three years, ever tell you that?” he asks. I shake my head. “Except for Mama’s retirement home, I had no bills. Owned my house, my bike and car outright, and had money socked away. Dentistry’s a good job and all, but I worked my ass off so I wouldn’t have to do it forever. I mean, how many times can you tell patients to floss and have them ignore you before you want to punch them?”
“You’d think they’d listen to you, the big scary dentist.”
Zeke lays a meaty hand on my knee with a chuckle. “You’d think. I was going to take a long road trip, maybe a year or so. I’d start out south and work my way up north come summer.”
“On the bike?”
“Yup.”
“By yourself?”
“There was someone I’d planned to do it with, but she passed away.”
I’ve never heard Zeke’s story, not all of it anyway. I know about his travels to Whitefield from Kentucky, but not his life before the LX virus. “I’m sorry. Did it happen on the way—”
“No, she died a few years before that. Breast cancer. I might’ve preferred this way. Faster. Cancer took two years to get her, but get her it did.”
I’ve always wanted Zeke to find someone. He’s kind and funny and has a heart even bigger than his big self. I’m glad to know that he had that kind of love once, even if it didn’t last. “She was a lucky lady to have you. What was her name?”
“Julie. Jules.” He squeezes my knee. “I was luckier. Can you believe she put up with me for seven years?” Zeke’s eyes are bright with amusement or tears, or both.
“Oh, stop. You’re the best and it’s time you knew it.”
“Sugar, I can always count on you for a morale boost.”
“I’m only speaking the truth. I’m serious.”
“I know you’re serious,” he says with a show of teeth, “although misguided. That’s why it’s a morale boost.”
I shake my head at his booming laugh, and we watch out the windows until Mark announces the next town is only miles away. “Let’s stick to the west side,” he says. “There may be a better chance of a fuel barrel around the industrial areas.”
We pull off the highway and drive the streets. There are all kinds of businesses, but the few metal barrels we come across either have rusted holes or something that might react with gasoline. We find a couple of gas cans, but they’ll only hold ten gallons. After we’ve given up, we head for the shopping center that houses a gas station, supermarket and Tim Hortons. “Ooh, Tim Hortons,” I say.
“What’s that?” Hank asks.
“A donut shop. Really good donuts.”
He sighs. “Not anymore.”
It doesn’t look as if anyone has broken into Tim Hortons thus far. I wonder aloud if they have baking mixes in there, and Zeke says, “We’ll try everything. Looks pretty quiet.”
We save the gas station for last because the pump will attract attention, and once it does we can’t hang around to investigate. The two vehicles stop outside the small supermarket whose windows are shattered but doors are locked and fully intact.
I suit up. I’ve been wearing a thigh or hip holster in order to keep my jacket zipped up tight. I can wear a shoulder holster over my coat in warmer weather, but with the layers under my jacket it’s too bulky. I slide in the Ruger .22 I found in the VW and shove the two extra magazines in my pocket. According to John, a .22 will scramble a zombie’s brains. That’s all that’s necessary when it comes down to it, and it’s quieter than my revolver. It’s still loud as heck, but quieter. By now you’d think I’d be accustomed to being outfitted like this, with a hatchet and knife on my belt and a holster on my thigh, but sometimes I feel as if I’m on my way to a Halloween party.
The parking lot is quiet but for the wind that moans through the broken glass like a Lexer. I stand between Zeke and Peter at the waist-high wall below the windows and peer inside. Empty checkout lanes and a floor littered with empty packaging is all I can see before the murkiness fades to black.
Adam taps the back of his knife on the frame. “Hello?”
We’re answered by a moan. I don’t know how I could have thought the wind sounded like zombies. Their moans are raspy, almost hisses. The wind is ghostlier, the sound kids make to spook each other. The noises get louder and a figure wades through the debris on the floor. When it reaches the light, the exposed bone of the left half of its face glows.
A few more come into sight, all as decrepit as the first. The black mold grows in patches on every one of them, but they don’t appear slowed by it yet. There might come a day when the mold wins. We’ve seen it happen to a few, so it should only be a matter of time. If we knew how long, if we even had an inkling, it might make this more bearable.
“C’mon, just get your rotten asses over here,” Zeke says, which puts a spring in their step, if that can ever be said of zombies.
Mark taps my arm with the compound bow I used on the farm. I’m not anywhere near proficient yet, but I can usually hit somewhere near where I’m aiming.
“What would you say to some target practice?” he asks. He lifts his recurve bow and nocks an arrow. You’d never know how high his draw weight is by the way he pulls it back so effortlessly. When I tried his bow I almost threw out my shoulder.
I nod and take an arrow from his hip quiver. Mark’s arrow zips through the air and into the eye of one of the Lexers farthest away. Mark gets another, this time through the mouth. “Your turn, my dear,” he says with a small bow.
I curtsy and try to block out the others who I know are watching. In the time it takes me to remember what Mark’s taught me about stance, the first Lexer has been impaled with Zeke’s spike. I focus on one in back who’s walking straight for me. I think mouth, I will it to hit the mouth, but the arrow hits neck. That would be great on a human target, but it does diddly-squat on a zombie. I might as well have asked it nicely not to eat us.
“Try again,” Mark says.
This time I don’t think so hard. I let it fly and it rams into its mouth with a punching noise. The Lexer’s lips move around the shaft before it falls.
“Next one,” Mark says.
I ignore the two that are closest. Nelly calls them his way so he and Adam can finish them off. The last Lexer falls when my arrow hits its eye twenty feet from the window. Everyone is suitably impressed, including Hank, who knocks on the RV window excitedly.
“Damn, girl,” Zeke says.
“I’ve never seen someone pick it up so fast,” Mark says. “Hitting an eye is something to be proud of.”
I consider basking in the glory, but then they’ll expect this every time, which is never going to happen. My cheeks are fiery. “It would be, except I was aiming for its mouth.”
Peter chuckles and Nelly laughs so loud that he bites his coat sleeve to quiet himself. Mark gives them the teacher evil eye and strokes his beard, which has gotten slightly shaggier the past few days. “No matter. Hitting a head is no small feat.”
“Shall we go inside or are we going to laugh at me all day?” I ask Nelly and Peter.
We climb through the windows rather than shatter the glass doors and invite over any nearby Lexers. I shine my windup flashlight down the first aisle’s barren shelves. Nelly lifts his light to the sign above our heads. “Noodles, canned soup, crackers. Nope. How about nothing, nothing and nothing?”
It looks as if half the food was consumed in here. Cardboard and plastic litter the floor along with the occasional body. Adam
slams into Nelly when Nelly halts and points with a look of horror. The red, white and blue of the torn packaging of a case of Pepsi lies on the tile, surrounded by several dented cans of the same. The sticky brown goop around them attests to the fact that they hadn’t been drunk.
“Seriously?” Adam asks. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“It’s an absolute travesty,” Nelly says. “Kill me now. I don’t think I can go on.”
“Let’s finish and get out of here,” I say. “Don’t you know that stopping to joke in horror movies always gets you killed? Joke later, when we’re safe.”
“So, never?” Nelly asks. I push him and he walks past his wasted favorite beverage with a dramatic sigh.
The next aisles aren’t any better. The cleaning aisle has a wide variety of options, however, and we grab bleach, laundry soap, dish soap and antibacterial wipes. Toilet paper and baby wipes round out our haul.
“Well, it’s better than nothing,” Peter says as we follow Nelly and Adam to the windows. “That was a good shot before. Sorry I laughed.”
“You have met Nelly, right? I think I’m used to being laughed at by now.”
“I didn’t want you to feel bad.”
“I didn’t. But thanks, Petey.”
One side of Peter’s mouth creases the way it does when I call him Petey. He used to tolerate it, but I think he’s grown to like his nickname. I hop out the window and turn to say something else, but he’s gone. In a second that feels more like a year, I imagine him being pulled back into the store by a Lexer we missed.
Peter reappears at the window holding a ripped bag. “There’s food in here. Someone must have dropped it. It was mixed in with all the other garbage.” He holds it out and finally takes in the fact that I’m clutching my chest. “What’s wrong?”
“You don’t just disappear! You gave me a heart attack!”
“I was ten feet away. Getting food. You heard me say this was food?”
“I don’t care what’s in the bag if you’re dead!”
Nelly relieves Peter of the bag so he can exit the store. I know my last statement didn’t make total sense, but still I stand, hands on hips, and glare at Peter.
Until the End of the World Box Set Page 87