by Rudolph, J.
I sighed and finished my breakfast. After my breakfast dishes were cleaned up I needed to go on my rounds to check on the medical needs of a couple people. Before I climbed in the trailer I went to find Trent. I was falling into a funk and Trent has always been my touch stone. I hated this, there was no reason to feel this down. We were protected and my family was safe. I was trying to count my blessings, I hadn't been shot, I hadn't lost my spouse. Drew was fine. Trent was fine. But still I felt all this pressure and heartache.
Trent was scraping ice off the windshield with a now useless ATM card. Well, maybe calling it useless was a bit of dramatic flair. It was, after all, an excellent ice scraper. I giggled a little that he had grabbed his wallet like he needed his driver's license. It wasn't like he has the special letter on the license saying he could drive this truck. I mentally slapped my head over that, there aren't even any cops to pull us over anymore!
When he decided that he had done just as much good as can be done, he put away the card and put his billfold back into his pocket.
"What's up, Baby?" he asked me. I didn't say a word; I just fell into his arms.
"I just needed a reminder that the world isn't full of shit. That there are good things to fight for. It was easy before, we were fighting to keep our home and our supplies ours. We lost. Badly. So now the complete world for us, the only thing keeping us from being a zombie free-for-all is this here truck. Not the same."
"Stop looking at this like we're bums living out of a car, that's not on the program. We have an actual plan, mainly getting to Idaho, maybe gather a few more supplies that Mom and Kristen and everyone will need to make life better. I don't even know if mom has been taking any of her blood pressure meds. If nothing else we need to get there so you can give her those. The next phase of our plan is figuring out a place that is 100% off the grid. If we set it up right we can make our place so it has never been tied to any conventional road. It will be a place where we will be safe from zombies and people. Stop looking and acting like we gave up our home to be a band of gypsies. That's not how that happened. We are starting over, that's it, and we needed stuff in our new place, so we took what we could. Keep breathing Cali, you'll pull it together, you always do."
Yup. He understood and grounded me.
I went ahead on checking on DaWayne and Jody. DaWayne looked like he would rather be shot again than being bounced around more. We hadn't really traveled with the memory foam padding but I knew it would be minimal comfort in the long run. We just didn't have anything better to offer him. I was excited to see that is shoulder swelling was minimal and that the drainage was almost nothing at all. He moved his fingers around and gripped my hand tightly when I asked him to. It seemed that his nerves were intact. I did a decent surgery! My spirits lifted quite a bit over this.
I moved on to Jody who was feeding JJ. I asked her how her bleeding was and she said it looked okay to her, no huge clots or anything anymore. She stopped JJ's feeding so I could look him over. He was alert, responsive, and a bit angry that his breakfast was interrupted. He had a healthy cry. I smiled over the mewing sound he gave, newborn cries were always my favorite when Drew was born. They were doing well. I was still worried about the impact of all the hormonal shifts and the loss of her husband on her, but that was going to be what it was going to be. I had a friend that would say "It is what it is" whenever work got hectic. I tried remembering this mantra in this new world often.
As I finished checking on people, Tyreese and Trent were finishing getting everything into the truck. I offered to stay back in the trailer so Tyreese could continue to learn about the truck. Trent suggested Tyreese take the wheel this time to really get the hang of it. This definitely appealed to Tyreese. He had a sudden spring in his step.
"Okay! Let's go!" Tyreese said, excitedly.
We all piled into the truck and Tyreese took off. From the feel in the trailer his moves were a little jerky, but so were Trent's, we just noticed it less in his learning curve because we were running for our lives at the time.
We drove for a bit then felt the truck come to a stop. Trent came back and opened the trailer and explained that there was another traffic snarl. I was rather tired of the snarls. Tanya and I got out so we could help with moving the cars around. I asked Tanya if she wanted to buddy up with me, and smiled when she agreed to.
I didn't know much about Tanya. Here we were, living with each other for a long time and I didn't really know much about her other than she was married to Tyreese, mother of 2 teens that I had become quite fond of, and that she had a green thumb. She was quiet and reserved. I was trying to figure out what I could ask to break the ice, something that would let me know more about her.
"So, how did you and Tyreese meet?" I questioned, figuring that was safe enough of an ice breaker. I wanted to know more about her but I didn't want her to think I was prying or anything. We had started pushing cars out of the way, and we needed a topic to help make this go faster.
"Oh, well, I was nineteen and I worked as a waitress at this little bar. Tyreese would come in here and there, before long he was sitting in my section. I asked if there was anything he needed, not even really looking at him as I was asking. I had pulled out my pad to write down his snack order, so once I was ready to write I looked up at him to find he was just staring at me. I got a little self-conscious for a moment there while he was staring at me. I wondered if I had something in my hair or on my face or something. Anyway, I was just standing there getting more and more nervous feeling and finally asked him why he was staring at me like that. He said, and I'll never forget this, he said that he found me. He had dreamed about meeting this woman that he had never met but was going to spend forever with and that I had been that woman that was in his dream. He said that the white wedding dress was going to look glorious on me and he couldn't wait till he was standing at the altar watching me walk to him in real life. Now, I just laughed at him thinking this was a rather dramatic pick up line. He asked me out and I said no. Every day for a couple weeks he was there. If I wasn't working he told another waitress to tell me that he had come in looking for me. When I was working he would sit there, always ordering up something just to have an excuse to have me walk over to him. Lord, the bill he would rack up in a night! It's a wonder he still could afford a place to live. My boss adored him. So anyway, after 2 weeks of this, I finally agreed to go out with him. A year later we were married. Had our reception in that bar. Wanna know the funny part? I had purposely not shown him any hint of what the dress looked like. The night before we got married he handed me a paper. It was a drawing of the dress he saw in his dream. It was exactly my dress. When I was walking to him on the wedding day and he saw it, I could see as I walked down the aisle the big tears rolling down his cheek and this huge smile plastered across his face. I was who he dreamed of. I was his happily ever after. And you know, I may not have had a dream about him, but he is my happily ever after too."
I smiled. "That was a perfect story. I'm kind of stuck in an awww loop right now. That rocked."
"Yeah. When I start feeling down or whatever, I think of that. Makes it better."
We came up on a mini-van and were about to start pushing it out of the way. I opened up the driver side door after we checked to see if it was empty. I noticed something sparkling on the seat from under a paper. It was keys. I picked up the paper and started reading it out loud to Tanya.
"Hey Wanda, the traffic got really bad here, think it will be easier to just walk. I know you're coming up behind us. If the traffic clears up, one of you guys take the van and find us. We won't be far off the road. Love you, Dad."
I tried to not think of the people involved with this road. I tried to not think of the terror that everyone had gone through. This note reminded me that real people were here, once upon a time. I wondered how long Wanda's dad walked along the road. I wondered if Wanda ever came. I stopped myself right there. I didn't want to think of the dead people. I slid into the car, put the key in the ig
nition, expected nothing, and was surprised as all hell that the thing lit up on the first try. It was full of gas. I looked over at Tanya and had a sparkle in my eye.
"Tell me, how much does DaWayne hate riding in the back of that no suspension truck trailer?"
"I can't use the language that he would, and has, about the truck. I'm a Christian woman, but suffice it to say he hates it."
"Think a mini-van would be a smoother ride?"
That's when she got what I was thinking; we could use this van to transport some of the people, like DaWayne and Jody and the baby. "Cali? I already knew I loved you, but this is above. This will make all sorts of a difference."
"Well then, Tanya, let's drive this over to the truck and show the boys what we found."
When we drove over to Trent and Tyreese, they looked at us almost with confusion. "Hey babe. Look what we got." I said, feeling rather proud of myself.
"I see it. How much gas does it have?" Trent asked, with some skepticism coloring his tone.
"Full tank, and has keys." I responded, a bit smugly. "Tanya and I are thinking that this will be an excellent transport car for our injured people who are having a hard time in the trailer. I'm thinking that it would be awesome to use it as a scout car when we need to go off into a town but don't want to announce it with the roar of a semi-truck. I'm thinking convoy, baby."
Trent grinned. He loved this idea.
Moving Out
We loaded up the mini-van with people that would do better with the smoother suspension. DaWayne took the reclining front passenger seat and looked as though he was instantly more comfortable with that seat than he ever had been with the truck. Jody and JJ took over the middle seat while Trisha, Dalynn, and Tomisha settled into the larger back seat. Yet again I saw how acquiring car seats was one of the best ideas ever as we buckled the little ones in. Tanya offered to drive so she could be close to her kids, and now grand kids.
Part of me felt guilty that we were not able to put everyone into a more comfortable vehicle. That feeling was mollified a bit when Drew cheered over being able to stay in the trailer. It seemed to be a fun adventure for him to ride in the trailer, and this was shared among his friends as well. I also wished that we could put Mercedes and Annali into a car, but at this point that would have to wait until we came across another find.
It was time to get moving again. It had been horribly slow going, our travels, taking significantly longer to get out of California. We passed a sign saying that if we took the next off ramp we would end up in Death Valley. Since the beginning of the zombie take-over, didn't all roads lead to Death Valley? The farther away from Barstow we were the better traffic was. We drove through Baker and noted that the world's largest thermometer was broken, the electricity running the display was out, making it the world's largest paperweight now. We continued to move at a slow pace, not wanting to risk damaging the vehicles on the roads that were in much disrepair. They weren't the greatest before the zombies. It seemed that with the end of the world, fixing pot holes just wasn't high on the to-do list.
Stateline
We saw the roads congest again as we approached Stateline. Tanya pulled the mini-van along side the truck. Tanya called out, "I'm going to drive ahead to see if there is a way around this mess." We slowly followed her. We got a bit farther in before the minivan backed up and pulled itself alongside us again. It was as far as we were going to get, we had to stop to start clearing the road, again. On a plus this was always an opportunity to gather more supplies. People took a lot of things with them when they ran for the hills. I will be forever grateful for the hoarding that happened because as long as we kept running into these snarls we would be able to replenish. We were going to have to repeat this process in a few hundred yards, so we had Trisha climb up onto the trailer to see if we were going to run into anything once we got there.
As it would turn out, we definitely were going to. She noticed an SUV that was pulled off the road. It stood out because there were billows of steam pouring from under the hood of the SUV. There were people standing on the right side of the car, partially obscured from view. A young teen girl occasionally peeked around the car to check us out, wary of the idea of people coming into their proximity. We pulled forward a bit further and Trent killed the engine to the truck. I got out of the cab, walked to one of the gun ports, and said to the group in low tones, "Stay in the trailer guys and stay quiet. Tyreese? Would you cover us from the trailer please?"
Trent and I walked up to the group, walking with our hands showing that they were empty. We didn't want to come off as aggressive in any way. Two men came out from behind their car. They walked with confidence, conveying that they were not about to be taken advantage of. Even with this stance there was something about them that said that they were good people. They were going to take care of their family, but that they were not of the shoot-first variety.
The slightly taller of the two men called out to us. "Hey there, man. What's going on?"
Trent smiled at him and replied, "Not a whole lot, just trying to get out of Dodge." He looked over to the SUV and added, "Looks like you have some issues on your hands. Need any help?"
The shorter of the two men sighed. "Nothing to be done about this one. It's deader than a door nail. We were looking over these other cars hoping that one of them ran still but they are either all run dry or they have dead electrical. We were talking about hoofing it over to that casino over there and start poking through the parking lot, but that's a bit of a trek."
"Do you want us to give you a ride over?" asked Trent.
The men looked over to the semi with skepticism. The taller man drew a breath and began to voice a concern. "I don't think you're going to get through any of that mess with a semi without some major road clearing."
"We have a scout vehicle," I started, "Perfect for just this."
The taller man offered a huge smile. "Really? Cool. If you really don't mind, we'd love to take you up on that offer. Oh, I never introduced myself." He put out his hand and said, "I'm Matt, and this is my brother, Lucas." We shook their hands warmly.
"I'm Trent, this is my wife Cali. We're part of a group of us that are heading out of here. Looks like you all have the same idea."
Lucas laughed an easy laugh. "Yeah you can say that. We were doing all right til the supplies finally dried out. Figured we'd take a gamble on Vegas." He winked at his pun. I chuckled.
"I'm going to go over to the others and let them know what's going on. I'm sure they are all curious about the stop." I said. With that I turned around to talk to everyone. I heard Trent continue to talk to the men and saw that the rest of their group started to come out of their hiding spots.
I rolled up the door to the trailer and said to everyone, "It's okay guys. Just people like us trying to get out of California. We're going to give the men a ride to the casino to get a car together." The relief was obvious on everyone's faces.
"Can we get out of the trailer for a bit mom?" Drew asked. They were all tired of being cooped up. I nodded yes and he about skipped out of the trailer.
I went over to the mini-van to give the same speech and to help get everyone out. Tyreese came up and offered to give them the ride. "I figure," he started, "that if they are up to no good I could probably have a better chance at taking them. All that training and stuff." I told him to tell Trent this thought. He wandered over. When we were done shifting people out I went back over to Trent.
"Cali, this is the rest of their group. This is Merideth, Matt's wife and their twin boys, Jackson and Justin. Lacey is Lucas' wife and their daughter, Lorraine."
"Call me Raine." Raine was a soft spoken girl and she never looked up from her feet.
"She is really shy around almost everyone." Lacey offered. "It seems to be more now with everything that has been going on." I totally understood.
"How old are you?" I asked.
"Thirteen," she said softly, "I just turned 13."
"We have a 14-year-old in our gr
oup," I told her, "her name is Erin. I have a 10-year-old named Drew."
"My boys are 15." added Merideth. She noticed the people milling about the trailer. "You guys sure do have a big group. We didn't think we'd see so many alive people in one spot ever again." She laughed softly, "I never thought I'd ever say that on a trip to Vegas." I laughed with her.
"Lace!" Lucas called out, "We're going. You gonna to be okay?"
"Sure baby. See you soon." Lacey smiled at her husband with total love written on her face. She caught me looking at her and blushed. "We never got out of the gushy phase." she explained. I smiled at her. We watched them get into the van and drive off. I waved the group of people over so everyone could get to know one another. Several conversations sparked up, everyone marveling over the idea of new people to talk to. When Lacey and Merideth met Jody they absolutely gushed over the baby. I noticed that neither woman asked about the father, almost like they knew that this would have been a sensitive subject. I liked them even more because of that.
After a while we noticed three vehicles coming our way, but none of the vehicles were our mini-van. I went on alert. "Hang back, guys." I said to the group and trotted over to where Trent was with the binoculars.
"Looks like Tyreese did a trade-in program." Trent said with a smile. He handed me the binoculars and I saw that Tyreese was driving a very new looking van. I was instantly relieved. The other two vehicles were driven by the brothers. Matt had a high end large SUV, the kind that environmentalists used to detest. Lucas had found a Hummer.
When they got to us Tyreese started to explain what they found. "We were talking on the way about how we'd do best on this. None of us know how to hot wire new cars. Lucas then had the most awesome idea; hit the valet cart. We had all the keys we could ask for with the alarm key fobs on them. We picked the keys up and started walking through the valet lot clicking the button till we found the right cars. When we go by there I want to go back and have Mercedes find a car and pick up another van so we can all get more comfortable and just use the trailer for storage and sleeping." He was absolutely beaming over his adventures.