Survival Kit

by Haga, A. H.

  Shadia snorted, but there was no humor in it. “So, who are they?”

  I shook my head, unable to answer.

  The car in front of us blinked its lights and started rolling down the hill. It didn’t pick up much speed and stopped when it was on the small, flat area at the bottom of the little valley between us. Both front doors opened, and two men stepped out. One was older, his hair completely white, and his skin dark from hours spent in the sun. The other man didn’t seem much older than us, in his late thirties, maybe.

  “What do we do?” I asked.

  Shadia turned and looked at me. “They might be able to help us. Give us gas and such?”

  “If they let us go again,” I answered.

  We stared at each other for a long moment before Shadia sighed. “I’m taking the chance. We need the help.”

  I grabbed her hand, and she turned to look at me again. “Be careful,” I said, hoping she could see all the feelings welling in my eyes, despite my sunglasses.

  Nodding, she pulled her hand free and started the car again. It rolled a little, but instead of driving to the bottom of the hill, she turned it onto the shoulder of the road, my door leading into the brush.

  “If it seems like I’m in trouble, get out and get away,” she said.

  “Shadia,” I growled.

  She spoke over me. “And if it seems OK, stay in the car until I wave at you, OK? They don’t look like Nicholas and his men, but who knows what they will say and think about someone in a wheelchair?”

  I looked at the two men and their working clothes. “They may not be happy to help someone who can’t help them in return,” I said.

  Shadia’s jaw tightened, but she nodded.

  “But maybe they have a spare wheelchair we can take,” I said, trying to sound happy and unworried.

  Shadia turned to me and took my hand. She kissed it before she unbuckled her seatbelt and crawled out, shutting the door behind her.

  Unhurried, she walked onto the road and headed down the hill.

  I watched her go before I crawled into her seat. She’d turned off the car, but I sat ready to start it if needed. I would not leave Shadia behind, not if there was any chance of us getting away. Wasn’t like I could get far in the forest anyway. Might as well take the chance, right? I couldn’t help but smile, almost wanting the men to do something stupid so I could barrel down on them.

  Shadia reached the men, and they started talking. I couldn’t hear them from up here and inside the car and mumbled a curse that I hadn’t rolled the windows down or something before Shadia left. I noticed that no one shook each other’s hands, and I wondered if it was an insult toward Shadia, or just everyone being careful.

  After what felt like forever, Shadia turned and waved at me.

  For half a second, I considered driving down the road but decided to follow Shadia’s orders instead. I opened the door, made sure my Linkin Park cap was in place, and stepped out, leaning on the door so I wouldn’t put too much weight on my legs.

  “Hey,” I said, waving down at them.

  Shadia said something too low for me to hear, and they all started walking toward me.

  “Why can’t she come to us?” the younger man asked, his voice booming up the hill.

  “She can’t walk,” Shadia said.

  “What d’you mean? She’s standing right there.”

  “She uses a wheelchair to get around, and we lost it a while back.”

  The younger man stopped, gaping up at me. The older man noticed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Manners,” he growled.

  The younger closed his mouth before clearing his throat and hurrying to catch up with Shadia again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just … I didn’t know anyone like … that … still lived. I’m sorry. I’m being rude. I don’t mean to, I just …” he babbled himself into silence.

  “Can’t blame you,” I said, shrugging.

  The young man blushed on realizing I’d heard him and looked down at his feet.

  “So you two need help getting ‘cross the lake?” the older man asked.

  “Any help at all would be welcome,” Shadia answered.

  “Where’d you travel from?”

  “Oslo,” Shadia answered. Her voice sounded as tired as I felt.

  The old one whistled in what sounded like awe. They walked in silence until they reached us. “I’m Martin, this fool is my brother-in-law, Christian. Who are you?”

  “I’m Shadia.” She nodded toward me. “And this is my wife, Kit.”

  Martin seemed to jump a little at that but kept his face empty of any feelings. Christian looked between us but didn’t say anything. Neither of the men seemed angry or hateful, just curious as if they had never actually seen lesbians before.

  “We’ll give you a ride to town, and you can get cleaned up and have a good meal and some sleep,” Martin said. “Tomorrow, we’ll talk about how to get you ‘cross the lake.”

  “Why do you keep talking about a lake?” I asked.

  “The roads’re over-run,” Martin said. “Not just cars, but the dead, both walking and not. We tried raiding Larvik last week and almost lost four men ‘fore we were even ‘cross the highway. Not going back that way, for sure. The only way ‘cross now’s by boat, or go further North.”

  “Oh,” I said, glancing up at Shadia. Her face was drawn, and she was chewing on her bottom lip, thinking.

  “Don’t worry; we’ll figure something out. Unless you wanna stay, ‘course.”

  There was nothing in his voice to set me on edge, but I could still feel adrenalin spike through my body at those words. I looked at Shadia, but she was staring into the distance.

  “It’s a pretty good place, all things considered,” Christian said, probably noticing my hesitation. “We’re just a small hamlet, really, but we’ve got our own deep-water well, so we didn’t get contaminated when SHTF.”

  “SHTF?” Shadia asked.

  “Shit hit the fan,” both Christian and I answered at once, and he grinned.

  Still smiling, he continued. “Anyway, we got clear. Managed to snag a bunch of farm animals, have enough fields to keep us fed for a good while. We’ve built fences and gotten a hold of as many weapons as we can. We’ve raided everywhere we can get to, so we have a lot of everything. As far as we’ve seen, we’re the only place still standing like this, and we’ve taken in a few others lucky enough to escape the worst of it. You know, we actually have a guy that got sick but survived?”

  Christian continued to talk, but I tuned him out as Shadia looked at me.

  “What do you think?” she said in a low voice. Christian continued speaking as if not hearing her.

  “I think it’s as good a deal as any. Especially considering we’re almost out of gas,” I answered just as low. “And at least we’ll be on guard. We’ll know if something feels wrong. And it doesn’t so far,” I added the last as an afterthought, but Shadia was nodding, clearly agreeing with me.

  “You can drive your own car,” Martin said. He’d followed our conversation without a word. “So you’ve a way out if you wanna.” His eyes glinted with a smile, even if his lips stayed still.

  “Actually, we’re almost out of gas,” Shadia answered truthfully.

  “Then you’re welcome to ride ‘long with us. You mind if we take what gas you’ve got left?”

  Shadia shook her head.

  After a short discussion, Christian was sent down to get their car, and Martin started emptying our car of stuff. He asked a few questions about my condition as I sat in the front seat, waiting. Shadia answered for me, and when she mentioned the cancer treatment that started it all, he only nodded once. He didn’t say much after that, not until Christian had emptied our gas tank, and we were as ready to go as we would be.

  “I’ve a chair left from my wife’s, so you can take that if you wanna.”

  I thanked him, but couldn’t miss the shocked look on Christian’s face. It made me wonder about these men and their families, their live
s, and I was actually looking forward to getting to find out more.

  38

  “So, what’s the story of this village of yours?” Shadia asked.

  She was sitting in one of the window seats as I lay stretched over the two other seats, head in her lap. Christian had taken the driver’s seat and was taking it slow, after a request from Shadia, so I could relax. He kept glancing at us in the rear-view mirror, as if to check we were really there.

  Martin answered her question. “’Tis not really a village as you’d expect. More like a few houses on a hill that share the same water source.”

  “Which is an underground well that hasn’t been contaminated?” Shadia continued.

  “Yeah,” Christian answered.

  Martin made a huffing sound before he continued. “Correct. It includes a few farms with their own water source spread across the valley, but they’re usually just two or three houses at the most, and we’ve realized that we can’t protect ‘em all. Some stubborn fools stayed in their homes ‘course, but the rest of us have worked together to set up a fence around the farms and the houses on the hill. Still not done, but we’ve got a lot of land secured.”

  I’d closed my eyes and almost drifted off to the deep drone of his voice, but Shadia moved beneath me, and I sat up straight, grabbing for my new ax where it lay on the floor. Before I could do anything, Shadia shushed me and pulled my head back down into her lap again. When I looked up at her, I saw she’d been rooting around in her rucksack and pulled out André’s notebook.

  “According to someone we traveled with,” she said as she flipped through the book. “There was a chance the blood of the zombies could be a problem. If it was spilled on fertile ground later used to grow crops? Have you taken any precautions against that?”

  I glanced toward the front in time to see Christian turn to look at us, then realize he should keep his eyes on the road and turning forward instead.

  “We haven’t really got any walkers up this far,” Martin said. “There was a big fire in Larvik a few weeks ago, and it drew ‘em like moths to a flame, pardon my cliché.”

  Silence fell over the car, and I drifted into an uneasy sleep. I’d never liked sleeping in the car, and that was no different now, but I was too tired to keep my eyes open. I woke once as the men and Shadia were talking about something, but I drifted away before I could hang on to whatever it was. When I woke next, it was from Shadia shaking me.

  “Kit,” she mumbled. “Wake up. You’ve got to see this.”

  I forced my eyes open and found she had removed my sunglasses and draped something over my face. I fumbled around before feeling the glasses pressed into my hand. Pushing them on and removing the fabric, I sat up and looked out and saw only trees. The road under the car was uneven and bumpy, and looking through the front window, I saw it was just a dirt road. On either side of us were trees rising up high, with huge, moss-filled stones in-between.

  When I glanced at Shadia in confusion–I’d been seeing trees for the last few days now, after all–she pointed up at the window in the ceiling. Leaning against her and looking up and out, I finally saw what had caught her attention.

  Mountains. Mountains rose on either side of us, tall and stark. The road was winding its way deeper in between the mountains, which must have worked as a natural wall to keep the zombies from even noticing the people living there.

  A few minutes later, Christian slowed down as we neared an open area. It looked like the clearing had been thick woods until recently, for the ground was littered with stumps, freshly cut. The ground even had some sawdust spread around. Some two-hundred meters from the edge of the forest, a wall rose out of nothing. It was built of freshly cut timber and reached some three meters into the air. The only somewhat low part was what I guessed was a gate, and it was pulled to the side as we drew near.

  Christian drove us through the gateway and stopped. The wooden gate rolled closed behind us, caging us between it and a chicken-wire fence running three meters high on either side of us.

  On the other side of the wire, were people holding hunting rifles. Actual shooting weapons. They were both scary and a relief. I’d never seen a gun in real life, but in every zombie show I’d seen, guns were easily found. That wasn’t the case here in Norway. The part of me that kept comparing my life to a zombie-show felt somewhat safer at the sight of those guns, but the part of me that was raised to think of guns as something dangerous and limited, something that killed, wanted to hide within the car.

  Instead, Christian turned off the engine and stepped out. Martin did the same, after telling us to follow.

  “Still think this was a good idea?” I mumbled to Shadia as I pulled my hat from the floor.

  “Yes,” she answered. “Stay in the car, and I’ll come to the other side to support you, OK?”

  “Sure,” I grumbled, and she undid her belt and climbed out.

  Instantly, I saw a ripple go through the people standing on the other side of the fence. Martin was walking that way now, talking as he went.

  Shadia opened the car door and gave me a hand. Helping me out, she leaned me against the side of the car and closed the door behind me. I leaned my head against her shoulder, hiding my face from the bright sun.

  I could hear Martin say our names, Christian chiming in every now and again. When my eyes had adjusted to the light outside the car, I looked up. Someone was riding a horse deeper into the valley, where I could see a few houses splattered around between fields of yellow and green. On the far side of the valley, only visible because they were built uphill on the foot of the mountain, was a group of houses.

  “Now what?” Shadia asked, drawing my attention back to the current situation. Christian and Martin seemed to have finished with the people at the gate and joined us by the car.

  “Usually, one of the men would check us out, and we’d get to go home, but seeing as we brought you, we need one of the women to come to check you out. Make sure you aren’t hiding any bites,” Christian said.

  “We told you we aren’t bitten,” Shadia said, a flash of anger in her voice.

  “Sure,” Martin said, leaning against the car and fishing a cigarette out of the pocket on his shirt. “But gotta make sure. Can’t be too careful these days.”

  “I guess not,” Shadia answered, then moved to support me a little better. “Can we at least get a chair or something? Standing like this isn’t too good for her.”

  “You can go back into the car if you want. The guards just needed to see you.”

  Shadia mumbled something not too nice before leaning across me and opening the car door. I slipped inside and sank into the seat, letting out a sigh of relief. My legs had started shaking, and the pain was jumping up and down them like a puppy wanting to play, but with claws and teeth instead of soft paws.

  “You OK?” Shadia asked as she slid in beside me, making me lean my head against her shoulder.

  “Sure,” I answered. “What about you? How do you feel?”

  “Tired. Looking forward to a bath and some rest.”

  “Want me to wash your back?” I asked, but the flirty tone I’d intended didn’t make its way into my voice. Shadia chuckled anyway.

  “Yes, please.”

  We sat in silence for a long time before Christian tapped on the door and told us one of the women had arrived to check us out.

  I climbed onto Shadia’s back, and one of the guards opened a door in the side of the wire-wall and let us into a new building hardly big enough for the three of us. The scent of sawdust hung in the air. The guard hurried out, leaving Shadia and me alone with a woman around fifty years old.

  Everything that followed was a quick affair. The woman had us undress to our underwear then looked us over with heavy focus. There was no talking until she was sure we were wound-free, when she introduced herself as Maria, who we would stay with until we moved on.

  After the check-up was done, she helped us out of the shed and into the back of a horse-drawn wagon. Once sure w
e were as comfortable as we could be between the boxes and bags Christian and Martin had brought from the car, she climbed into the driver’s seat with the two men, and the wagon jumped forward, soon enough leaving the entrance cage and the five male guards behind.

  The car had been removed from the cage and driven to the side, where it stood beneath a shelter of drapes and plastic together with a few other cars.

  Turned forward, I saw the valley open up before us. From the car-cage, I had been able to see the houses on the other side of the valley. Now, I saw that we’d been standing on the top of a hill, and as the ground started turning down, I saw the two other farms lying at the bottom of the valley, surrounded by paddocks and gardens filled with trees.

  My awe turned to tiredness, however, as the wagon bumped its way down the road. Beside me, Shadia was yawning and doing her best to stay sitting up straight, but I could see in her every move that she was tired.

  Maria’s home was everything one could expect from a farmhouse. It was small and cramped with a weird floor plan. It would be a nightmare to navigate in a wheelchair, but somehow Shadia managed to get me up the stairs and into the bathroom. There was a huge bathtub there, and all we wanted to do was crawl into it, but before we were allowed, Maria ordered us into the shower.

  She had a shower stool from when her mother used to live there, and I slumped into it and let the hot water stream over me. Actual hot water!

  It felt like I had never been clean before. The filth and blood and sweat of the last few weeks melted away, helped by a sponge that I used on the parts I could reach, and Shadia used on my back. Afterwards, I washed her back, but there was nothing sexual in it. We were both too preoccupied with our own bliss at the warm water. When our bodies were clean, we washed our hair with one of a butt-load of shampoos.

  Finally, Maria deemed us clean enough to climb into the bathtub. While we were in the shower, she had prepared a bunch of small flasks, and the moment we turned off the spout, she started filling the tub, sprinkling in herbs and oil. A calming scent of lavender and chamomile rose with the steam.