by Morris, SJ
There was a soft knock at my door, so I told Christian I’d be right back and opened the shower door a little, so I could still hear him playing.
I opened my bedroom door, and Chris was waiting patiently.
“Oh, hey Chris, what’s up? Christian’s still in the tub, but he’s done. He’s just playing.”
“Okay, good. Dinner is ready, and we won’t start without you two.” Chris had such a sad, defeated face.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s with the sad face, Santa?”
“Santa? Really, is that what you’re sticking with?”
“Only when I feel like it. What’s the matter?”
“Tom told me about Cooper. It’s not right, Abby. It’s just not fair what happened to that poor kid.”
“I know, Chris. It’s awful, but we have to do everything we can to make sure this doesn’t happen to the other kids or anyone else if we can. There’s nothing anyone could have done for him. Not that we know of, anyway. We just have to take care of each other and look out for one another. We can’t try to make sense of it because none of this will ever make sense. You, more than anyone, knows that bad things happen to good people, and that means children as well, unfortunately.”
“I know, you’re right. I just wish this wasn’t happening.”
“Me too. Hey, did anyone tell you about what Amelia said happened to them?”
“Yeah, I heard. It sounds like the daycare was overrun when parents came to pick up their kids early because of the news or when they were dropping them off. One of the parents was probably infected, and all hell broke loose.”
“Well, I think we should go to the daycare and see if we can find out exactly what happened and if there are any other children or people that might still be alive and need help.”
“I was thinking the same thing, but it’s dark, and without knowing what we’re dealing with, I’m not going to risk it. We’ll plan to go out at first light. It’ll also give me some time to hash out a plan of sorts.”
“Okay, good. I’m glad we’re not just going to sit here with all these open rooms and space. There might be people that need our help out there.”
“I agree, but we can’t just start taking people in that we don’t know. We have to try and contact our closest friends or relatives first and give them the opportunity to come here while cell and phone service is still up and running.”
“I don’t really have anyone,” I offered sadly. “My parents are dead. I was an only child, and Jack’s parents moved to Australia a long time ago. I guess there’s a few of my neighbors and families that my kids are friends with that I can call.”
“Only six of the twenty-eight apartments are accounted for. There’s one for Christine and myself. Dan, Kristen and Chase are in another. Tom has one, one’s for Troy, and we have one reserved for you and your children if something happens up here, and it isn’t safe to be up in the house. So, that leaves us with twenty-two families that we can take in. Do you know if Troy called anyone else to come up here?”
“Not to my knowledge, no. I don’t think we have time to find out, though. I don’t want to talk about this stuff in front of my kids, your daughter, or the other children, so try and pull the adults aside tonight and tell them to get on the phone with friends and family. That way, they can get here as soon as possible. Everyone can call six families and make sure they tell them to take back roads here. They’ll never make it on the main roads, even if they aren’t already a cluster fuck.”
“Sounds like a plan, boss lady. I’ll get right on that.”
“Boss Lady, Doc, what the hell? If you’re going to give me a nickname, pick one. I only call you Santa.”
“Hey, if you’re going to call me Santa, I can make up as many nicknames for you as I want,” Chris laughed as he walked away.
I walked back to the bathroom and grabbed a towel for Christian.
“Time to get out now, buddy, dinner’s ready.”
There was no answer except for quiet crying. I ran to Christian to find him sobbing softly into the washcloth.
“I miss my Mommy. When is she coming to get me?” He asked, with more tears in his eyes.
“I am not sure, sweetie. We’re going to go out tomorrow morning and try to find her, okay? But for now, I need to get you dressed and get some yummy food in your belly. How about you hop out and get dried off? Then, you can go sit with your friends and we can have a sleepover in the living room. Does that sound like fun?”
“Yeah, I never had a sleepover before.”
I helped Christian out of the tub and dried him off. I gave him some of Tyler’s old clothes, the t-shirt looked okay, but the shorts were hysterical. We used the drawstring to tighten them, but they were still sagging terribly low.
I actually got a good laugh out of him, which was good.
We went to the kitchen to find all of the kids at the galley table, and the adults in the dining room. I laughed to myself. Even though the world was coming to an end, we still followed the adult and kids at separate table rules.
There were already seven at the kids’ table, and Christian and I made nine, but we squeezed in. I wanted to be at the kids’ table. Their conversation was going to be a lot more fun than the one the adults would be having.
We all settled in for dinner, and it was delicious. Kristen made a mean lasagna and I don’t know what she put on the garlic bread, but it was perfect.
The kids had all finished eating, and no one choked. I’ve always been scared to watch children eat. I was always worried someone was going to gag while eating. I don’t know where it came from, but watching kids eat has always been stressful for me.
I thought to myself, what a strange thing to worry about as the world was falling apart just outside our door.
When dinner was cleared away, I got all of the kids together in the living room and put a movie on. I made sure to feel the heads of all of the children as I had them lay down on blankets and pillows on the floor. Thankfully, no one had a fever.
I made sure that everyone was comfortable enough to sleep where they were, and I went to the adult’s table to see what was going on there.
We chatted about letting our friends and family come here but deliberated over the rule of only contacting six families per group. We hashed out that some people knew more than six families, and some people didn’t, so we split it up. Everyone got at least six if they needed it, some got more, and some got less. We all separated to go make our calls, but I pulled Chris aside to ask who was going with us to the preschool. He was not too happy that I was inserting myself to be a part of the group that was going, but he understood my need to help the children.
The plan was to meet at five-thirty the next morning, ready to go. It was Chris, Tom, and I. Dan was going to stay behind and handle the security cameras and be backup if we needed it when we returned. Lance was let in on the plan, too, just in case we had any unwanted guests trailing us when we got back to the house that he could take care of with his bow and arrow.
Kristen, Dan’s wife, was good with a gun too, so she was also slotted for backup at the cabin and given a rather large firearm with a huge silencer on it.
Justin, oddly enough, was dedicated to watching the kids since he had never really fired a gun before. In defense of his masculinity, guns weren’t something firemen really had to worry about before all of this.
I talked to my own children separately, to see if there were any of their close friends they thought could make it here for me to call. Of course, Allycia wanted me to call Jake’s parents. Jake was her boyfriend. Thank God, she wanted me to call her girlfriend Denise, too.
Tyler wanted me to call his best friend Tom, and Lance wanted me to reach out to his friend, Chester. I already had Mark and Mary, our neighbors, on the list. I figured that I’d give my last slot to someone else or hang onto it, just in case.
I was worried that if we invited all these people and found survivors tomorrow, or other times, that we wouldn’t have enough r
oom for everyone. I guessed I could take one from Chris’ playbook, plan for the worst and hope for the best.
The phone calls to the kid’s friends were slightly awkward. I got a hold of Jake’s family, and I spoke to his mother, Amanda. She was pretty freaked out by what she had seen on the news and had not let Jake out of her sight since yesterday, which was a good thing.
She accepted what I was telling her with a lot more ease than I would have imagined. She wanted to bring along her parents, though. I told her that if she could get to them safely and didn’t mind sharing a small two-bedroom apartment with them and the rest of her family, that they’d be welcome.
She told me that it would be fine since it was just her and Jake, anyway. That she and her husband, Don, had divorced a few years earlier. Now he lived in Colorado. I did stipulate that she couldn’t tell anyone else where she was going under any circumstance. She was taken aback a little with how firm I was on getting her to agree to this before I gave her the address.
Once I explained that we have limited resources and couldn’t accommodate every person that showed up, even though I’d like to, she seemed to understand. She cried quietly for a little while on the phone with me, and she told me how worried she was about everything, but how happy she was that Jake had made such a good friend who would think of him in a time like this.
I wanted to hug this woman that I’d never met, but I’d have to wait and hope she made it here with her family safely.
As I hung up with her, I questioned if I was sending her and her family to certain death by having them try to get here but quickly brushed the thought away. If they thought they had a chance to survive this at home, she would have said thank you, but no thank you. If this got as bad as I thought it was going to get, then making it here might very well be their only chance at surviving this at all.
The other calls went pretty much the same. I was amazed that I actually got through to everyone. I got a few busy signals now and then, but I kept trying and was able to reach everyone I planned to call.
It seemed like all of the people we knew and trusted were smart enough to hunker down at home.
They all said that they were coming and understood my instructions to take the back roads to get here. Most confirmed there were already reports of countless issues on the Turnpike and the Parkway.
Apparently, people were scared to stay at home, even though the virus hadn’t really hit in our areas yet. It sounded like everyone was taking advice from Chris’s playbook.
They told me the local news down there was the same as before, with major cities being hit with large numbers of infected. The emergency services, along with law enforcement and the military and National Guard, were trying to contain the outbreaks as they happened. Most of the people I talked to said they’d seen at least one or more military vehicles patrolling their neighborhoods. There were no limitations on being out and about in Central Jersey, but a lot of other bigger cities, especially where there were major airports, had already been issued curfews or were quarantined entirely.
This was getting exceedingly bad pretty quickly. We’d only been at the cabin for one full day, and major cities were already starting to fall. Plus, after yesterday’s escapades, we’d already confirmed the virus was out here in the boonies too.
After I finished my calls, I realized I hadn’t heard from Troy all day, and when I last spoke to him, I forgot to ask what number he could be reached at if I needed him.
So now, I was feeling stupid and tired.
I figured it was already ten o’clock and there was nothing else I could do; I might as well take a shower and get to bed.
After all, I had to get up early in the morning and be ready for the unknown.
I checked on the children in the living room one last time. Amelia, Gia, and Christian were all asleep on the floor in front of the TV. I made sure they were covered up in their blankets and that none of them had a fever, which they didn’t, before I headed off to bed myself.
Chapter 10
I made sure to keep my phone plugged in all night to charge, and I awoke at four forty-five to my alarm chiming.
This time, when I woke up, I knew where I was, and I knew why I was up so early. It was definitely an improvement from yesterday.
I jumped in the shower again, just to wake myself up as much as possible, and got all of my anti-zombie gear on. Just as I grabbed the duct tape from my nightstand, there was a gentle knock at my door. I opened it to Chris, already in his full SWAT gear, ready to go.
“You knocking at my door first thing in the morning is going to be something I need to get used to.”
“Well, you said you wanted to come, so I wanted to double-check that you were still crazy enough to be on board.”
“I’m definitely crazy enough,” I said with a smile. “I just need to get my helmet, check my gun, and tape up my wrists and ankles.”
“Let me help,” Chris said as he took the tape from me. I might have had leather biking gloves on, but every time he touched me, I seemed to tingle. I just kind of stood there, like an idiot, as he bent down to tape up my ankles.
Then, he stood and put his hand out for my wrist, and I just looked at him. His ordinarily dark eyes were very bright today, and his facial hair had gotten pretty scruffy over the last two days, which was surprising since he was so clean-shaven the day I met him.
“Can I have your wrist, or are you going to just stare at me?” He smiled from ear-to-ear as he spoke. He knew what I was thinking, and I think he was on the same page. Or, at least, I hoped so.
No matter how awful that may be, it made me feel pretty good to still be attractive to the opposite sex.
“I’m sorry, I was... ugh... lost in thought. What are the plans for going out to the daycare? Do you have directions to get there?” He looked at me funny since he knew I was just trying to break up the awkward moment, but he didn’t say anything, which was nice. I don’t like defending my emotions before six am on Sundays.
“Yeah, I spoke to Amelia last night before she went to sleep, and she said the name of the school is Kindergarten Beginnings. I looked it up online and found the address. It’s only about ten miles away. I didn’t think there was anything that close to us since your property is pretty big, but then I looked at the map. Sure enough, there’s a strip mall where the preschool is, along with a sandwich place, karate studio, nail place, and dance studio. I have no idea how those kids made it this far as quickly as they did unless they ran full tilt the whole way, but we’ll find out. You know what, I’m going to leave your gloves off until we’re walking out the door, so you can have some breakfast. Do you want me to check your gun for you? How are you going to reload with those gloves on, by the way?”
“I’m not planning on reloading, but yes, if you want to check my gun, I’d appreciate it. I can rip my gloves off in a bind if I need to.”
“If we get into trouble, Abby, I want you to stay as close to me as possible, okay? I’m serious, back-to-back if need be. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Thanks. I’ll let you know if I get into trouble. I promise. Hey, do you have any extra SWAT helmets with the clear visor? My helmet doesn’t give me the best visibility on the sides.”
“How about you stick with what you have for now since it covers your neck and we’ll see how it goes out there. Next time I’ll give you one if you need it. I’m not planning on letting you out of my sight, so I’ll be your eyes all around.”
Talk about overprotective, but then I thought about it. I remembered hitting the first zombie yesterday with the ax and how much spatter there was. I did not want any of that gore that comes out of those things on my skin at all.
“You’re right, I’ll stick with mine for now. What about you, your neck is exposed? Remember that a single bite means death. If you get any of the blood in you somehow, that also means death. You’re worried about me, but it looks like I need to worry about you.”
“Thanks, but no worries. I have a
n extra vest that goes over my shoulders and covers my neck. It’s normally for close encounters, riot gear stuff. I was going to wait to put that on until we were ready to walk out since it is pretty bulky. It’s good to know I have someone worried about me, other than Christine anyway.”
Now, the warm and fuzzies were back, oh geez.
Even kind words from this guy got me going. Oh boy, I’ve got it bad, apparently. I quickly dismissed those feelings as I got my game face on, grabbed my helmet, and tucked my gun in my back waistband after Chris looked it over.
He was impressed with how clean it was. I told him I knew a thing or two about guns very smugly.
The truth was, I only know how to clean, shoot, and reload. I had no idea about the names of all of them, or what the different calibers meant.
I just wanted to hopefully make him feel less worried that he was taking a so-called helpless woman along to get killed. I also hoped, for my own sake, that was not the case either. I was a badass in my own right, but this new reality was a whole different ballgame for me.
We met up with Tom in the kitchen. Dan was there also, with a cup of coffee in his hand and it smelled so good. Nothing like a cup of coffee before you go hunt some zombies.
We all had a light breakfast, and we were headed out the front door within fifteen minutes after sitting down.
I put my gloves back on, and Tom taped me up.
We were ready to go, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether I was truly prepared for this. There was no time to deliberate that now, though. I had to be ready. There were possibly more people out there that needed help, and we could provide it.
We walked out to the porch to see the sun just now rising. It was a beautiful, clear, crisp morning that made me almost forget what was happening in other parts of the country and the world right now.
Right at this moment, people were being torn to shreds by friends and family members who were ravaged by this man-made virus. It was infuriating. I kept thinking of Cooper, restrained in the surgical suite just below my feet. He was a little boy just yesterday, with hopes, dreams, and a family that loved him.