by Powell, Lora
I didn’t miss that Shawn took a step, putting himself partially in front of me, but the concern seemed to be unnecessary as the guy stopped a few feet away and held out a friendly hand. “I’m Colton.”
He probably wasn’t any older than me. Dressed in hunting camouflage, he looked at ease in his surroundings and us.
Shawn took his hand. “I’m Shawn. This is Bri.”
The smile that Colton directed my way looked genuine. “Nice to meet you two. We don’t get too many new arrivals anymore.” He looked down at the dog who was watching him intently. “And who’s this guy?” He started to reach towards Rex but thought better of his actions when a low rumble rolled up the dog’s throat.
“This is Rex.” I reached down to pat the dog.
“Everyone will be happy to see him. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I saw a dog.”
Just then, a woman’s raspy voice called out, “Whatcha got, Colton?”
Swinging around, I saw a short form approaching through the gloom. As she got closer, I saw a middle-aged woman, also dressed in camouflage and armed. She moved with a pronounced limp.
“Charlie, this is Shawn and Bri. And Rex. They followed the signs in.”
“Either of you bitten?” Her pack-a-day-for-thirty-years voice was oddly soothing. Maybe because it reminded me of my grandmother.
“No.” I couldn’t help but smile a little at the woman.
“Well, ok then. Nice to meet you, but I need to get on watch. You can follow Colton in, and he’ll get you set up for the night.” Turning away, she limped to the cluster of trees.
“Ready? It’s not far, just to the strip mall up ahead.” Colton gestured with his hand.
Eyeing Shawn, I moved to follow. Other than running in the opposite direction, we didn’t have much choice. They hadn’t given us any reason not to trust them so far.
The walk had been nerve-wracking. I kept second guessing our choice to go with this stranger. If Colton noticed, he didn’t say anything and just kept up a steady stream of chatter the whole way.
As we walked across the parking lot to the strip mall, I noticed a few more people on guard, even one on the roof. They all called out greetings to Colton but didn’t seem alarmed by two new faces. I wasn’t sure if that should make me feel better or not.
Stepping up onto the wide sidewalk that ran in front of the stores, Colton led us right to the front door of an outdoor store near the middle of the row of stores. The windows and glass door had been covered on the inside, blocking any view of what was going on inside. Colton knocked on the door lightly, waited for a second and then pulled the door opened.
A man and woman eyed us as we hesitated just inside the door. “This is Shawn and Bri. Is Maggie around?” Colton leaned his rifle next to the door as he addressed the pair.
The man nodded at us. “I think she’s in the back. I’ll go get her.” He turned around and disappeared into the dark store.
Here and there, lanterns had been lit, casting circles of light that seemed to strategically show the way through the maze of shelves. A couple of people watched us but stayed back. I caught a glimpse of a little girl’s head peeking around a corner before she smiled and waved—I think at the dog.
“Maggie is in charge around here. She’ll want to meet you and explain how things work herself.” Colton flashed us a reassuring smile.
I moved a little closer to Shawn. So many people staring at us was making me more nervous.
“I hear we have newcomers.”
“Hey, Maggie, this is Bri and Shawn. They found our signs.”
The woman walked through a circle of light, briefly showing brunette hair and a blank expression before coming to stand a few feet away from us. “Hi. I’m glad you made it. We just have a few questions, and then we’ll settle you in for the night.”
Maggie had asked the expected questions, showed interest in the fact that we still had a dog, and then explained that all new people were quarantined for twelve hours. Just to be safe.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly, until she mentioned the quarantine. We had already left our friends for too long on the highway. We couldn’t leave them there all night. But the lie we told that we were alone had made it impossible to say so. Instead, we found ourselves herded into an office at the back of the store. They shut us in, leaving several bottles of water and more food than either of us had seen in a while.
The night had been long. I felt guilty as I ate too much and guzzled an entire bottle of water without taking a breath. The ones that we had left behind needed us, but the guards that had been posted in front of the office door were armed. We weren’t sure how they would react if we tried to leave the office before Maggie said so. I could guess that it wouldn’t be pretty.
So we spent a mostly sleepless night leaning up against each other, sitting on the office carpet when morning had finally come. The small window high on the back wall of the office let in the light. I hoped that the rest of our group didn’t think that anything bad had happened to us.
I wasn’t sure yet if it had or not.
“I don’t know. This group doesn’t feel like the other one,” Shawn talked for the first time in a while. “The other group came in with guns drawn and shouting orders.”
“I don’t like being shut in here,” I grumbled.
“Me either, but I get it. I’ve been thinking; they have to protect themselves too. I saw a kid. It’s not unreasonable for them to want new people to stay separate until they’re sure that they aren’t sick. Yeah, they kinda hustled us in here in a hurry, but I don’t blame them.”
“They don’t know about the others waiting for us,” I added the thought that had weighed on my mind all night. “We’re going to have to tell them as soon as we can. If we’re going to stay.”
He thought for a minute before answering, “I think we should stay at least for a while. They have food, maybe they’ll have the meds we need too. I think we can trust them as much as we can trust anyone we don’t know.”
“Yeah. Ok.” I didn’t really see any other choice. If our friends were still ok, they wouldn’t be for much longer. And while these people had hurried to lock us up, they had been polite and provided us a safe place to spend the night and plenty of food.
I entertained myself for the next hour by feeding bites of a granola bar to Rex. When that was gone, I tried to figure out how to fold the wrapper into an origami bird. I failed miserably.
I had just chucked the wrapper into a corner in agitation when I heard Maggie’s voice outside the door.
FORTY-EIGHT
DAY 23
“I’m sorry to have locked you in here so quickly, but it’s necessary. I hope the night wasn’t too uncomfortable,” Maggie addressed us from just inside the door. An unfamiliar man watched us with interest from over her shoulder.
“We’re fine,” Shawn answered her a little abruptly. We still couldn’t be completely sure that this group was safe.
“And you’re both still feeling ok?” Maggie searched us for any indication that we may be infected. Covered in dried gore like we were, it would have been difficult to be sure at first but enough time had passed by now that we would have been visibly ill if we were infected. “You seem ok.”
“We’re fine,” I repeated Shawn’s words.
The first smile that I’d seen from Maggie spread across her face. “That’s good news. You are free to leave quarantine. Let’s get you cleaned up and I will show you around.” Stepping to the side, she indicated toward the open door.
Glancing to the side, I shared a meaningful glance with Shawn. It was time. We needed to make a final decision. He nodded almost imperceptibly.
I inhaled to steady my nerves and hoped that we were making the right choice. “We haven’t been completely honest with you.” When suspicion bloomed on Maggie’s face, I hurried to explain, “There are more of us. We left them up on the highway, and we really need to get back to them. Several of them need medical attention.�
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Maggie was quiet for a few seconds as she seemed to be thinking through what I had just told her. Finally, she said, “Why did you feel the need to hide this?”
Shawn stepped in to answer, “Not everyone left alive out there can be trusted, you know? A couple of our group are in bad shape. We weren’t sure if we wanted to tell you about them. The plan was for the two of us to find you and decide if you could be trusted first.”
Maggie nodded slowly. “I understand. That’s smart. How many are in your group?”
“There are four more. Two aren’t in any shape to walk.”
Maggie looked to the man who had been silently looming through the conversation. “Gather a group to go out, two trucks.” She turned back to us. “Let’s go get your friends.”
***
The metal bed of the pickup was nearly hot enough to burn my skin. Crouching in the back, I did my best to come into as little contact with the metal as possible; however, it was no easy task as the truck dodged a small group of zombies.
The sun was already brutal, and I could feel my hastily scrubbed face and hands trying to burn. Beside me, Shawn shielded his eyes with one hand, and Rex panted heavily, eyeing our companion warily. Colton was also in the bed of the truck with a rifle nearby.
Maggie was behind the wheel. She had slid open the back window to better able to hear our directions. Following us was another pickup, three armed men watching alertly from its bed.
The trip that had taken us hours to make the day before was flying by in minutes under the humming tires of the vehicles. I knew we had to be getting close to where the van had finally given out on us. I could only hope that our friends were still waiting for us.
“Hey, we got trouble,” Maggie called back.
Switching my gaze from watching the disappearing group of zombies running after us, I looked ahead. I sucked in a breath in horror.
The straight stretch of highway ahead was all too familiar. It was where we had left the van. But I couldn’t see the van because dozens of zombies crowded it from every angle. You could hear their distant shrieks even over the sound of the engine.
“That’s the rest of our group.”
Maggie nodded her understanding and slowed down to allow the second truck to catch up with us. When the other driver pulled even, she indicated the swarm of zombies ahead.
“This is good news.” Colton moved to stand just behind the cab of the truck. When I eyed him with an expression that said he was crazy, he elaborated, “The zombies wouldn’t be so interested in that van if there wasn’t anyone inside.”
He was right, but I didn’t have much time to think that over because the truck was slowing to a stop. Less than fifty yards from the van, both trucks swung around to face back the way we had come and stopped completely. The zombies at the edges of the swarm noticed us, and some immediately broke free of their group to attack easier prey.
I jumped to my feet as several of the freshest zombies sprinted full tilt, snarling. It would only take a matter of seconds for them to cross the space between us. Shawn and Rex had also lunged to their feet, and I grabbed hold of the dog’s collar to keep him in the truck.
“Fire at will,” Maggie ordered as she climbed into the back of the truck. The men in the second truck had already taken aim, and the first of the charging zombies fell. My ears started ringing as the rifle Colton seemed to always have nearby fired too close, but that was fine by me because the zombie nearest to our truck fell in a spray of its brains.
The gunfire drew the attention of more of the zombies. A second wave of them, this one mostly made up of older and slower creatures, began working their way towards us. They didn’t come as fast, but there were more of them, and my heart pounded in my chest as the mindless predators came closer to the trucks. By then, the armed members of the new group had fired a lot of rounds. More than one of them was reloading.
One rotting zombie managed to dodge enough bullets to make it to the side of our truck. Grabbing my machete, Shawn brought it down square on the zombie’s forehead as the creature swiped over the side at him.
Heat waves shimmered off of the road. The stench was nearly overwhelming. A few more shots and the last of the zombies shuffling through their fallen brethren went down. There was only one of the creatures left, a single zombie who had paid no attention to its own kind running off. It still snarled and clawed at the van’s windows.
As I watched, the opposite door of the van swung open and Maya climbed out. She stumbled a bit, before straightening up and striding around the van determinedly. The zombie crumpled to the ground as she stabbed it.
I missed what happened next because I was climbing down from the back of the truck. As soon as my feet hit the pavement, I started sprinting.
FORTY-NINE
DAY 23
I tripped over the body of a zombie and nearly landed facedown onto the pavement. Jerking back upright, I slowed down to a more reasonable pace. The ground was littered with corpses in varying stages of decay, but I barely noticed them. My entire focus was on the van.
Its original color was unrecognizable with the thick layers of dirt and zombie blood covering it. Maya leaned up against the side, just in front of where the sliding door now stood open. As I got closer, I could see just how bad she really looked. Her hair was plastered to her skull from sweating in what must have been unbearable temperatures inside the van. Already too thin, stress and dehydration had done nothing to improve her sunken features, worsening them until she resembled some of the zombies that I was carefully stepping over.
“You have impeccable timing.” Her voice was raspy.
“We couldn’t get back any sooner. Bill?” I skidded to a stop next to her, afraid of her answer.
Relief nearly brought me to my knees when a hint of a smile tried to form on her cracked lips.
“He’s been in and out of consciousness. He’s a little confused, but I think if we can find a place for him to recover, he’ll be alright.”
A full blown grin stretched across my face. I indicated the group that was approaching, carefully driving the trucks closer over the piles of zombies. “I think we’ve found just the place. They have plenty of supplies, and someone said they even have a nurse.”
Maya grinned back at me. Knowing that Bill was not only still alive but he had improved a bit too galvanized me into stepping closer to look in the open door.
“Took you long enough.” Devon waved at me without lifting his head from where it rested on the back of his seat. Frankly, he looked too sick and exhausted to lift his head. Fallon hovered next to him. The look she sent me was full of things that she didn’t want to say out loud.
“Hey, guys. I am glad to see you.” I leaned in the door and peered into the back seat. Bill wasn’t awake, and he still looked awful, but the steady rise and fall of his chest proved that he was still alive.
The first of the pickups stopped with its lowered tailgate about ten feet from the front of the van. Shawn and Colton jumped down, and Maggie stepped from behind the wheel.
“How’s Bill?” Shawn looked from me to Maya.
“He’s alive. I think he’s going to make it.” Maggie smiled again upon saying those words.
“That’s good.” Shawn broke out in a smile of his own. It occurred to me that we all were smiling more right then than any of us had in a while. “Guys, this is Maggie and Colton.” He introduced the two who had stopped a few feet away from us.
“Hi.” Maggie stepped forward. “Looks like you folks could use some help.”
Maya glanced sideways at me. When I nodded slightly to her, she held out her hand in greeting. “I’m Maya. We’re really glad you all came along.”
Moving our group from the van into the back of the two trucks didn’t take long. We had essentially zero belongings. The hardest part was helping Devon and Bill. Despite doing his best to hide the amount of pain he was in, Devon’s condition had deteriorated badly since we last saw him. He needed help to move, and onc
e we settled him in the truck, he leaned over in an obvious effort to control his dizziness.
Bill started out asleep, but there was no way to move him without jostling him around. By the time the four guys lifted him into a truck, his eyes were open. Climbing into the truck after him, Maya shushed his efforts to speak with assurances that everything was ok.
The addition of the rest of our group had filled the trucks. Colton still rode with us, but this time he climbed into the cab next to Maggie. He rolled his window down and kept an eye out for dangerous zombies that way.
Between Bill lying flat out back there, and Devon having to keep one long leg stretched out in front of him, the rest of us crowded into what felt like a sliver of the truck bed. I leaned tiredly up against Shawn and let my head rest on his shoulder. It had been days since I’d really slept.
The adrenaline from trying to survive had kept me going, but now it was starting to feel like we had the chance to breathe even just a little. This new group had supplies, weapons; they even had the next best thing to a doctor. And they had proven helpful instead of insane. It became increasingly difficult to keep my eyes open as the realization hit me that we were finally safe or, at least, as safe as a person could be during an apocalypse.
I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, Shawn was shaking my shoulder lightly. The truck had stopped in front of the door to the shelter, and a man and a woman were already helping Devon down.
“We require that all new people go into quarantine for twelve hours. But don’t worry, you will be provided food and water, and I’m going to go get our medical people to come take a look at your wounded right away,” Maggie told them before she began issuing orders to her people. They scurried to follow orders.
“It’s ok,” Shawn answered the questioning look Fallon sent us. “Bri and I had to be quarantined overnight too.”
It felt like I was walking through a fog as I trailed behind my group. When we reached the same room that Shawn, Rex, and I had spent the previous night in, I noticed with bare interest that it had been converted quickly into a hospital of sorts. Medical supplies, including a bag of IV fluids that managed to perk up my interest, waited, along with an entire case of new water bottles. A pile of blankets lay in one corner, and a couple of people hurried to make a makeshift bed for Bill to be placed on.