A Safe Place

by Frost, Scott

  It was a fast walk. The kids were exhausted. They were breathing hard, panting, and looking back. I wanted to help, but I had my own family to protect, but as I watched them come to a stop less than fifty feet from the van, I knew that I couldn’t ignore them. They were kids. They needed help. I looked back toward Natasha, and she appeared to be sleeping. Emma was fast asleep. I waited until the infected walked pass the van, and I slowly started to open the van door.

  “What are you doing?” Natasha quietly asked from the back seat. She had a hint of fear in her voice, and a little anger. But then again, I’d been angry for some time. This wasn’t the life I wanted for Emma. This wasn’t the life I wanted for my family.

  “There are two kids that need help. Come up here and look out the window. They are on the other side of the street, over by the green house. They need help Natasha. They’re being chased by a group of infected. If we can get them in here they should be safe.”

  “Alex, I don’t think it’s safe to try and help. I mean, I feel like a total bitch for saying this, but what’s the chance of us saving them. We are out-numbered, and if we somehow get them in here, we won’t be safe. The infected will stay outside the van, and keep pounding on the windows until they get in. You’ve seen them do it. I wish we could help, but we can’t. We have to protect each other. We have to keep Emma alive.”

  I knew she was right. But I couldn’t let those kids, who looked to be around eight or nine years old, one boy and one girl, die. They had the same facial features, so I assumed they were brother and sister. They were covered in mud, from head to toe. It looked like they hadn’t bathed in a couple of weeks. I kept watching them until they hide behind a bush. They weren’t safe. The infected had already seen them.

  The infected walked toward the green house, toward the bush. The kids only had a few minutes before the infected reached them. I turned toward Natasha, and before I said anything, she smiled.

  “I know we need to help. What can we do?”

  I was grateful that she agreed. The last thing I wanted to do was to put her and Emma in harm’s way, but I couldn’t just let the kids fend for themselves. They were no match for a group of infected.

  “I can sneak out of the van without the infected seeing me. And then I’ll run to the other side of the street and yell until they turn and chase me. I can run much faster than the kids. I will lead the group away from us and the kids. As soon as the coast is clear, call for the kids and get them in the van. I will be back.”

  “You better come back!”

  She leaned forward, and we kissed each other on the lips. And then I opened the door.

  The plan didn’t work. I got out of the van without being noticed, but when I yelled for the group of infected, to get their attention away from the kids, all of them didn‘t turn. I yelled again, but the ones closest to the kids kept walking toward them. I didn’t know what to do. The plan failed. Now, besides the kids being in danger, so was I. So was my family.

  The kids jumped out of their hiding place and froze. They didn’t run. They stared at me, pleading with their eyes for me to save them. We were separated by about a dozen infected. I couldn’t save them. The infected closed of them quicker than they closed on me. The kids didn’t run. I watched them as they were attacked.

  I didn’t watch the whole attack, and I’m thankful. I saw enough. The little girl screamed until her screams were silenced when one of them sank his teeth into her neck. Flesh and muscle were ripped from her neck. The boy didn’t make a sound. They both became submerged under a body of infected. I saw a hand reach up from the pile of bodies, and saw that it was missing three fingers.

  Suddenly I felt someone pull my arm; I turned away, and yelled. There were more of them. I was surrendered, but before the infected that was pulling on my arm could get a firm grip, I took my rifle and smashed it into his head. I needed to save bullets; I only had about a dozen left and so I ran.

  My only thought was to get the infected to chase me. I needed to get them away from the van. As I ran, I kept seeing that little girl, with her blue eyes, staring at me, pleading with me to help. I could not help her.

  The boy wet himself before the infected got to him. He never made a sound. I ran, and turned around every couple of steps. They were behind me, following me.

  After getting a taste of blood, they were hungry for more. They seemed to be walking faster, but I couldn’t be sure. I ran to the corner of the street, keeping the van in my sight. I stopped and froze. The infected were everywhere. My yells had attracted more of them.

  I could see them coming in all directions. They moved slow, staggering as though drunk, though some of the infected moved quicker than others. The van was clear. The group of infected that had attacked the kids was less than twenty feet away from me. I decided that it was time to lose them. I glanced toward the north side of the street, and decided my best shot would be to run in between houses, until I lost them. I needed them to follow me. I couldn’t take any chances of them seeing me get into the van.

  I ran in between the last two houses on the block, I waited at the corner, making sure they saw me. They did. They were closer than I expected they would be when I turned to check. They were closing in. But now there were more of them. I looked toward the van, there was no sign of infected. I wondered if Natasha was watching me from the window. I hoped that she wouldn’t try and help. But I knew better. She loved me, but she would never leave Emma or put her in harm’s way. And I remember wishing that I would’ve listened to her, and stayed in the van.

  I ran in between two houses, jumped a fence, and landed in a puddle of water. I stood there watching them come closer. I looked behind me, and the coast was clear. The house looked empty. I didn’t see any movements. I turned around and watched the group of infected try and climb the fence. It was a short fence, about four feet high. At first they had a hard time, but then one of them made it over, and then another. I ran as fast as I could toward the front of the house. As I got to the front of the house, I looked around the corner, and didn’t see any of them. I could smell them.

  I ran half way down the street before the infected came out into view. I quickly turned in between two houses and jumped another fence and made it back to the street the van was parked. I was only two houses away. I hide behind a bush, and looked both directions, I didn’t see anything. I ran with all my might to the van, as I rounded the front of the van, the door was pushed open for me. I jumped in, shut the door and locked it. We hid in the back of the van until the sunset. We wanted to stay the night, but Emma needed food. And Natasha did not want us to separate again. We left the safety of the van and ventured into the night in search for a safe house and supplies. We found both that night. Luck was with us that night.

  That feels like a lifetime ago, and in fact in was. A day in this new world feels like a lifetime.

  Emma turned toward me and smiled, putting her book down. She was hungry. I was hungry. I gave her the can of baked beans and fruit cocktail. I didn’t eat. I was hungry, in fact, starving, but in the off chance we didn’t find any food, I wanted to save our last can of beans for her. She needed to eat more than I did. What I really wanted was a cup of coffee and a camel light. I hadn’t had a cup of coffee in a long time, and the last cigarette I had was months ago. But it was generic and didn’t count.

  Before Natasha vanished, we had searched several gas stations, but most of them had been empty. We got lucky a couple of times, and found a candy bar behind a pile of trash. And the pack of smokes I found was smashed- but still smoke-able. I was in heaven, as I lit the first one. Natasha rolled her eyes at me and laughed,

  “I thought you were going to quit”, she said with a smile.

  “I am going to quit, I swear this is my last pack,” I said, and we both laughed. It was a good laugh, and the first time we had laughed in a while. Emma smiled at both of us, but she took her mom’s side.

  “Daddy, you told me you weren’t going to smoke anymore.” She glanced
at me and then her mom, and her mom nodded her head, in agreement, and they both looked at me. I took the cigarette out of my mouth and dropped it to the floor. I kept the pack.

  “Sorry sweetie. I forgot.”

  “That’s okay. I still love you,” She said in a very sweet voice. She walked to me and I leaned down to meet her hug. Natasha joined us, and we hugged each other for a while. Natasha quietly cried. I tried to fight the tears, but failed.

  Emma finished eating and asked if we were going to the store. I told her I didn’t know. She said okay and climbed back on the bed and started reading. And the truth was I didn’t know. We needed food and water. I felt Emma’s head and she was still warm, but she said she was feeling okay. I told her I was going downstairs to look for some more supplies. She stayed in bed. I left the bedroom and walked downstairs. It was quiet in the house. I searched everywhere trying to find something that I had missed. But I didn’t find anything that we could use. I didn’t find any medicine.

  I knew we would have to leave. We had no choice. I could go a couple of days without eating, but Emma couldn’t. If she was getting sick, she needed to eat, she needed medicine. She needed water. We were down to half a liter of water. I walked upstairs, and Emma was still reading. I checked the rifle, and counted the bullets. Didn’t have many left. If we ran into trouble, five bullets wouldn’t help. I could use the rifle as a weapon without bullets but I preferred to stay away from the infected, and shoot them at a safe distant.

  I had become a pretty good shot. I also had found a new baseball bat in the garage. I had two knives, which I didn’t care to use. But I would if I needed too. I also had a crow bar. When the time came for us to leave, I would take the rifle, baseball bat and both knives. I didn’t want too much to weigh me down in case I needed to hold Emma and run. And plus, the baseball bat would do just fine, I hoped.

  I decided that we would wait until the next day to leave. I didn’t want to leave our safety. Emma was relieved. She didn’t want to leave. She made me promise her that she could bring her book with in her book bag. I told her that we could put the book in the attic and that we would come back, but she wasn’t happy about that idea. She held the book in front of her chest, clutching it, and gave me her sad puppy eyes. I told her she could bring it. That made her happy. She jumped back on the bed and read for the rest of day. She fell asleep several times, and in the evening she asked if she could have something to eat. I gave her the last can of baked beans and the last of the water. She ate all of the baked beans and used her fingers to get everything the spoon missed. She was hungry. She needed more food.

  Chapter Four

  I didn’t sleep well that night. I had terrible nightmares of losing Emma. In one of my dreams, Emma and I were running away from the infected, only to run into another group of infected. It was an endless cycle with no escape. As we ran, trying to find a safe place to hide, Natasha was walking toward us, but it wasn’t her. She walked, staggering, her left cheek was missing, and all I could see was a peace of skin hanging from the bottom of her face. Her left arm was covered in blood. Her shirt had been ripped off and her stomach and breasts were visible, though not quite all there. Her breasts were gone, and all that remained was two small mounds of blood. Her stomach was wide open and muscles and intestines hung out of her body. She didn’t look like the girl I had fallen in love with. She didn’t look like Emma’s mom. She looked like death.

  She watched me as she walked closer to us. Her eyes looked hollow. She had no remembrance of me or Emma. She walked toward us, not because she loved us, or missed us, but because she was hungry. We were food to her, and that was all. I reached behind me to grab Emma, and when I turned to grab her, I screamed. She had become one of them. Her eyes were empty. Emma stood there, grabbing at me with her little hands. And as my infected wife came closer to me, baring her rotting teeth, I couldn’t move. As she reached for me, I woke up. I was covered in sweat.

  I slept in the bed with Emma the night before we left the safety of our Manteno home. She didn’t want to be alone, and the truth was neither did I.

  She fell asleep earlier than I did. When I woke, I turned toward her, and when my eyes focused in the darkness, I could see that she was still sleeping. I was thankful that I didn’t wake her. She looked at peace, hopefully in a dream, maybe even with her imaginary friend, Harry Potter.

  It took me a while to fall back asleep. I stayed in bed, waiting for sleep to come. I couldn’t close my eyes. I feared what the darkness would bring. Eventually my eyes did close, but they didn’t stay closed for long. My mind took me back into a nightmare. In this nightmare, I had become one of them, and slowly walked toward Emma. I had cornered her in the master closet. Her only escape was the attic, but she didn’t make a move. I was hungry and she was my food. She looked at me with her loving eyes, but I didn’t stop. I continued walking until I reached her. I forced myself to wake up.

  I didn’t fall back asleep after that.

  Emma turned over and opened her eyes. She was awake and hungry. She didn’t have to tell me, I could see it in her eyes. I could hear it from her stomach. She giggled.

  “I’m sorry sweetie, we’re out of food. We ate the last can yesterday.”

  I felt like I had let her down. I let us run out of food. She kept looking at me, with her cute smile and bright blue eyes. Her hair was stuck to her face, and sweat rolled off her forehead. She wiped the sweat away.

  “It’s okay. I’m not hungry. Can I have some water? “

  She was hungry.

  “No, sorry we are all out?”

  “Okay.” She replied. After that was settled she rolled back onto her stomach and closed her eyes. I hoped that she would fall asleep. I didn’t have our plan completely figured out, well, I did, but I was scared. She didn’t fall back asleep. She rested on the bed, and eventually turned back toward me and asked me when we were going to the store.

  “Daddy, when are we going to the store?” Her voice was soft, as though understanding that I didn’t want to leave. But she was right. We needed to leave. We needed supplies.

  “We will leave soon. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to get there, any ideas, kiddo?”

  She laughed. And put her hand up to her chin, which was her imitation of someone thinking.

  “Can we drive there? That would be fast.”

  It was an excellent idea.

  “I wish we could sweetie. But remember we couldn’t find a car with keys. When we walk to the store we will look for a car, Okay?”

  “Daddy,” She softly whispered my name. “If we find a car, can we look for mommy?”

  I was speechless. I looked away from Emma, as tears spilled down my cheeks. She put her hand on my back, taking the part of grownup, trying to comfort me. I kept crying, and she joined in. We stayed on the bed for a long time, and in between crying and talking about nothing important, I promised her that we would find mommy. It was an empty promise. And in truth, I feared that if we did find Natasha she wouldn‘t be the same. But I promised, and eventually we would start searching. First things first, we needed supplies. I needed more ammunition. We needed a vehicle.

  I knew it was time to leave. I was scarred shitless. But we didn’t a choice. We had already searched the houses in the subdivision, and had taken everything of use. We found food, but not much. We found several dead bodies, but they were not infected. It was in the last house, the farthest away from the house we were staying in, that we found the dead bodies.

  We walked into this home. The door was shut but not locked, which made me worry.

  Why wasn't it locked?. Most of the other houses we had searched, the front doors were locked. I gained entry by breaking a window with the butt of my rifle. I did it as quietly as possible. It wasn’t quiet enough.

  We walked into the house, Emma at my side. As we entered I closed the door, and locked it. I told Emma to stand behind me, she did. She held onto my belt. We searched the downstairs, and found several cans of peas. Emma
hated peas, but was excited that we found food. We continued searching. We found some clothes, but nothing that would fit either of us. I filled my bag with several sweaters and t-shirts that I figured we could use in the winter, and for bathing. I didn’t find any weapons. We walked upstairs, and even before we reached the top, the smell of death filled my nose.

  “Daddy,” she whispered, “It smells. Do we have to go up there?”

  She was right. It smelled of death. I tightly held her hand, and kept walking. I didn’t reply. As we reached the top of the stairs, I turned left toward two bedrooms. One door was open and the other was closed. We walked into the bedroom with the open door. It was an office. I found a flashlight that didn’t work. I took the batteries, hoping it was just a broken light bulb. My bag was getting heavy. I also found a steel letter opener. Emma kept her eyes wide open, and held my hand. Usually she searched, trying to find supplies, but this time she didn’t.

  As we reached the other bedroom, I paused. I slowly turned the door handle. It was locked. Emma was shaking.

  I should have listened to her, but I needed to see what was behind the door. The smell of death was stronger in front of the door. I knew what we would find, but hoped that we would also find some useful supplies. I kicked the door until it crashed open. The door opened and flung against the wall. It made too much noise. The smell of death attacked us. I put my hand over my noise. It didn’t help.

  On the bed was an older couple, a gun, at their side. They each had a bullet wound in their forehead. I envied them. There had been so many times that I wish I could have just ended my life, just closed my eyes and left this world. But I couldn’t. I had to protect Emma. I had to find my wife.