by Lara Frater
Tanya opened the door and got out. This time I didn’t follow. Instead I sat at the edge of the truck.
Tanya went around to the front and came back without the rifle. She must have given it to Annemarie.
“You should see the truck, it’s covered in gore.”
About an hour later we stopped again.
“Jim—“ the voice came over the radio. It was Annemarie.
“What is it?”
“We’re moving on to Oyster Bay.”
I went to the window. Nothing was out in the fading sunlight but charred and burnt houses and the metal skeletons of cars.
“Nothing left?” Jake asked.
“Take a look,” I said. Jake went to the window, frowned and then sat. He had been moody for last hour probably from the zombie attack and not being able to see if his parents were alive, but judging by the zombies, it didn’t look good.
I looked at Tanya. “Guess you were wrong about only black people’s houses being burned.”
“Figured those white rich devils can’t let a black person have anything of theirs.”
I snorted and looked over to Dot. “Looks like we’re getting to your rich houses soon enough. If they’re still there.”
“If not, maybe I’ll go out to the Hamptons get me one of them estates”
“We’re going as far as Coram.”
“Whatever.”
The truck stopped again.
“Jim—“ It was Annemarie. “There’s a huge pile up ahead of us. Cars are sprawled across both lanes and the parking lane. Dave thinks he can get around on the sidewalk but he needs to make a sharp turn to the left. I need everyone to move to the right so we don’t tip over.”
“Okay. You heard the lady, let’s do it.” Everyone moved, except for Ashley.
“Come on, Ashley,” I said.
“What’s the point,” she said, “we’re gonna die anyway.”
“I don’t plan to do that right now.”
“You don’t get it,” she said, her voice high. “There are more of them than us. We’re extinct as a species. God sent them to destroy us. Might as well give in.” The last statement worried me. Aisha looked upset and I’m sure I didn’t look happy.
“Ashley, what about your son? Don’t you have a son? And grandchildren?”
“They’re a million miles away and probably dead too.”
“But what if he isn’t? Your daughter mentioned in her letter they were okay. What if he comes looking for you?”
“He won’t. I never gave him the love he deserved.”
“Jim, you ready?” said Annemarie said over the radio.
“Give us five minutes,” I said. “Ashley’s gone funny.”
“I haven’t gone crazy,” she yelled. “I finally get that we can’t live like this.”
“As long as we’re alive, there’s hope.”
“There is no hope. We can keep killing them, but they keep coming and as long as the human race exists, they do too.”
“Oh god,” Dot said, while an unlit cigarette hung from her mouth, “shut the fuck up and get to this side of the truck, bitch.”
That didn’t seem to faze her.
“Ashley,” I said trying to make my voice stern. “You want to die, fine, but I want to get passed this turn.”
“So get the fuck over here,” Tanya said.
Ashley got up and slumped down in the spot on the opposite side. She still seemed moody but at least she moved. I moved the piss bucket to the other side, so it wouldn’t slide across the floor and spill.
“Okay, we’re ready,” I said into the radio
“Okay.”
I felt the truck move then lurch. It hit something hard and I fell but it didn’t hurt. I didn’t get up and no one helped me which was fine, since they would have fallen too.
A moment later we hit something hard again. The truck began tipping over to its left. Everything and everybody began sliding with it. Jake grabbed the air mattress from flipping over. The drums moved to the left but stayed in their netting. A bunch of cans slid across the floor and hit the other end of the truck with a bunch of clangs. I’m glad we didn’t bring furniture. The truck came down with a hard crash but didn’t stop moving. Everything was level again.
It was closing in on six, when the truck stopped again.
“Hey Jim,” said Annemarie. “We found a place to stay.”
“Is it big?”
“Yeah, it’s gated but the gate is open. We’re going to push our way in and look around. It looks like we can pull the truck right to the entrance.”
“Okay.”
There was a thud, probably the truck hitting the gate. A few minutes later we stopped again. No one said anything and the quiet was broken by two shots, then a moment later the back of the truck opened.
One zombie that looked like a gardener was sprawled on the ground where Annemarie dispatched him. She got him in the leg then went closer to get the head as it was now in pieces. The leg was twisted at an odd angle.
“So far it’s only him,” she said.
The house looked secure except for a balcony on the second floor that might be easy for a thief to get in but not a zombie.
We helped the others out of the truck, and then went to the front door. Dave turned the handle but it wouldn’t budge. He knocked hard, waited a moment, but no one came.
“Hold up,” Tanya said. “Here’s where my criminal skills come to good use.” I thought she was going to pick the lock, but instead she pulled out her crowbar and jimmied a window. If the electricity had been on, alarms would have gone off.
“Magic,” she said and climbed in.
A moment later she opened the door.
“Any sign of zombies?” I asked.
“Pretty dead inside,” she said and laughed. “No sign of people, zombies or flu victims but it’s a pretty big house.”
The place smelled musty and covered in dust. No one was here. At least on this floor. I didn’t smell dead bodies.
We entered a long hallway with several closets. A large polished wooden staircase was to right and a giant living room to our left. I think the living room was a big as my first apartment. There was a fireplace on the left side and with pictures on the mantle. I looked over them and found the perfect family. The white handsome parents with three precious kids, a boy about 14, a girl about 10 and a baby with a big smile.
“I call this room,” Tanya said.
“I’m sure there are lots of bedrooms upstairs.”
“I call all of that too.”
“I’m going to check out the kitchen,” Annemarie said.
Ashley didn’t say anything but I watched her go up the stairs.
“I call the whole house,” Dot said and coughed. “But you bitches can stay for a bit.” She searched the room and opened various cabinets. She finally pulled something out of one of them: A large bottle of scotch.
“Not great, but good enough. Anyone wants a snort,” she said, opening it.
“I prefer a glass.”
“Sure can do that,” she moved through double doors. I followed her into an immense dining room that was surrounded by china cabinets with different kinds of glasses. I knew what they were for, because Cam was obsessed with wine and liquor. Dot opened it and grabbed one.
“That’s a beer glass.”
She shrugged her shoulders, poured a drink and wolfed it down. She handed me a brandy glass and poured some in it for me. I didn’t correct her. Instead I took a shot. She was right, it wasn’t good but it did make me feel warm.
“Must be Jews,” she said.
“Why, because of their lousy taste in liquor?”
“No,” she said and handed me a plate. There were some Hebrew letters on it. “That’s a Seder plate,” then she laughed like the biggest thing in the world was getting one over me. She put the plate back into the china cabinet.
“I wonder what happened to them,” I said, as I investigated the china cabinets, looking at antique stemware, po
ssibly handed down by a grandmother.
“We won’t ever know I guess, unless the bodies are upstairs.”
“We would have smelled them.”
“We’re on the water, maybe they escaped by boat,” Then she laughed. “Or jumped in.”
“Not funny.”
“Guy was probably a doctor.”
“Why? Is there a medical degree on the wall?”
She laughed. “Cause they’re Jews.”
“Everything okay in here,” Dave said, as he came in. Jake followed.
“Sure,” Dot said. “Dave, dear, would you like to join us for a snort?” She pulled out a sherry glass.
“No thanks. This place has six bedrooms, that bitch Tanya took the master suite for her and the kid.”
“So grab the next biggest bedroom.”
“I did, but you should have seen the master suite. It had giant bathroom with a Jacuzzi so big that if I gave it to my ex-wife she wouldn’t be my ex anymore. Catch my drift?”
This was not conversation I wanted to listen too. “I’m going to check out the kitchen. I opened the door and it turned out to be a linen closet. Dot laughed harder than when Jake got grabbed by the zombie.
Before I closed the door, I grabbed a couple of fancy napkins and a tablecloth.
“Thinking about throwing a fabulous dinner party,” Dot said in a bad gay caricature. She swooshed her hands back and forth.
“No,” I said, although I wanted to slap her across the face. “For Princess.”
“Why do you want to help her? Dave asked. “She’s lucky she can shoot otherwise I’d toss her out for zombie food.”
“Who’s this Princess?” Dot asked.
“This rich daddy’s girl who lives in the CostKing. Doesn’t do squat to help out except to shoot for like eight hours and expects to be waited on. She’s a drunk and a pill fiend.”
“And you wouldn’t let me in?” Dot said.
“She may not do a lot,” I said, “but she keeps us safe.”
“Pointless if she don’t work.”
“I hate that stuck up bitch,” Jake said.
“She isn’t so bad,” I said, wondering why I was defending her. Jake didn’t like her because she wouldn’t sleep with him.
“She doesn’t want to deal with us peasants.”
“She’s been there when we needed it.”
“She wasn’t for Mindy.”
Princess couldn’t have saved her, but I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t condone her behavior, but I had pieces of her story. She was spoiled rotten, but she loved her family, especially her father and older brother Joe. When I did her hair, she’d tell me how wonderful Joe was. How he might have been president someday.
She also let it slip that she killed him and her father. When she talked about them, especially her father, I could tell he was her god, everything she wanted a man to be.
I’m sorry these people had such bad taste in liquor; I would have loved to give her an expensive bottle of wine. I know she drowns her sorrows in booze and pain killers, I figured she might as well do it with good stuff. I don’t think a lot of people realized Princess was still rather young, Tanya also. It’s ironic that both women were around the same age and fundamentally so different.
I didn’t say anything more but instead moved through another door. This one led to a gigantic kitchen. Cam would have loved it.
Annemarie was going through the shelves. The kitchen smelled like rotting fruit, and decay, but there was no sign of bugs as the fruit was probably dust.
“Anything good?”
“Enough that we can save the food in the truck.” Canned food adorned the kitchen table. I went over and looked through it, some sardines, a jar of olives, peanut butter, cans of pears, peas, and lima beans.
“What I wouldn’t do for some bread.” The CostKing bread had long been eaten or gone stale. We kept some in the freezer which Rachel allowed us to share a loaf a month. We were stuck with crackers and melba toast. I never want to eat another slice of melba toast again.
“How about this?” she said and threw a box of crackers on the table.
I shrugged, “Close enough.” At least it wasn’t melba toast.
“We even got food for Chinakitty,” she said. She put the cans on the table instead of throwing them. I looked over the labels and discovered it was tuna.
“I rather eat this.” We had a few cans of cat food from Aisha’s house. “And you better grab a bedroom before you end up on the couch.”
“Jake will nab us a room.”
“So you guys together again?”
“No, it’s just sex.”
“What about Harlan?”
“He’s sweet and all. He’s teaching me to shoot, but ever since Mindy died, I’m starting to understand how Jake sees relationships—Mindy was my best friend. She was someone I needed to help me through all this and now she’s gone. I don’t need to get close to anyone.”
“So no jealousy?”
“Nope. I know he’s doing it with Tanya and any other female he can find.”
“I’m sure he’ll do it with Dot if he could.”
Annemarie laughed. “The man has to have some standards.”
Chapter 12
The empty house gave no clue to the whereabouts of the family. Even though they had six bedrooms, only four had beds and one had a crib. Tanya took the master suite and shared it with Aisha. Dave took the next biggest bedroom, the boy’s, and Jake and Annemarie ended up in what I thought was the guest room because it was non-descript. I ended up in a small top bunk of a kid’s room. The walls were littered with Twilight posters, so I must have the girl’s room. Ashley found a home office with a couch and gym on the third and took that. I don’t know where Dot went and didn’t care. I had a grand dinner of sardines, raisins, olives, and peanut butter on stale crackers. I got food all over the floor. I’m sure mom would kill me. I thought about my parents in Ohio, in a gay bashing town I fled as soon as I could. I wondered if they were still alive.
After dinner, I lit a candle and headed up to the darkened attic.
“Ashley,” I said. I shinned the light in the room, but the couch was empty.
No response. “Ashley,” I said again.
“In here.”
I followed her voice passed the office and the home gym into a third room. I couldn’t see what it was. Ashley had a single candle as well, but I only saw her outline.
“A playroom,” she said.
“Yes, they had three kids.”
“You think they’re dead?”
“I don’t know. I see no evidence they are.”
“We won’t ever know, will we?”
“Ashley, you aren’t going to kill yourself?” I worried about her sitting her alone in the dark.
“Why? Jim? Are you worried?”
“A little, yes.”
“My baby is dead and my son probably is too but I’m not going to off myself until I can find out if I should.”
I was confused. “What do you mean?”
“I’m going to California to find my son.”
I absorbed the information, then realized with fear that Ashley planned to cross a country where society had collapsed and zombies were at the top of the food chain.
“Ashley, it’s insane out there. How can you possibly think you can make it?”
“I should have tried with Katie. I should have gotten to her. Why did I listen to Abe? I should have gone when I had the chance.”
“You couldn’t have saved her,” I pleaded. “The flu had no cure.”
“Then I should have been with her. I owe it to myself to find Martin and my grandkids. I need to know if they are still alive. Otherwise there’s nothing for me. Don’t talk me out of it. I know you’re good at that. I’ll walk there if I have to.”
“You barely know how to drive. Maybe when we get back to CostKing we can plan a safe route for you.”
Ashley didn’t respond. In the dark, I couldn’t tell if she was convin
ced.
“Ashley, I won’t stop you from finding your son but don’t be foolish in planning.”
“I’m almost 60. I have arthritis. I might live for another 20 years but not without major medical care. I gotta do it before I can’t. I probably won’t make it, but I need to try.”
“You promise to wait a little longer?” I asked. “So I can plan something.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said, then yawned. “I’m tired. I’ll talk to you in the morning.” I didn’t believe it but I got up to leave.
I went back to the microscopic bed. Before I jumped in, I ripped the poster of Robert Patterson off the wall. I tore apart the room. An expensive PC fell to the floor. I ripped clothes out of the closet. I could barely see anything over the dim of the lantern in my room. I knew I shouldn’t mess things up. The family could come back, but who was I kidding. They were either dead or on the run like the rest of the human race. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t going to stop a 57 year old woman from going cross country.
I might well have let her kill herself.
I stopped when I heard a tapping on the door. I opened it found Tanya standing outside.
“Doing some redecorating?”
“Ashley wants to go to California.” I opened the door and let her come in. She sat on the chair by the kid’s desk and ignored the mess.
“Her son lives out there, right?”
“That’s not the point. Going on her own is suicide.”
“Probably, but I ain’t gonna stop her.”
“She seems determined, but it’s still wrong.” I felt flustered.
“What can we do to help her survive?”
“Kill all the zombies, make her twenty years younger, removed all the smashed up cars, Fix the phones so she can call--”
“One thing we can do,” she said interrupting.
“What?”
“Give her some driving lessons. Can’t be hard, I learned when I was 12. My friends jacked a car.”
She was right. We could teach her to drive tomorrow. A few days of lessons might give her a chance.
“Dave isn’t going to be happy.”
“Since when do you care about Dave?”
I ignored her comment. “We’ll have to stay here longer.”
“This house seems secure, the family is gone, there’s food in the kitchen, and I haven’t spotted any zombs.”