But the Children Survived

by A. L. Jambor

  “Thank you God, thank you, thank you. A grown up. YAY!” The boys were chanting as they held onto Jenny.

  Jenny looked up and saw Dani. Jenny looked like a frightened deer. One of the boys spotted Dani and Joe and ran over to them. He grabbed Dani's legs and hugged her tightly.

  “Another grown up,” he said. The last one ran over to Joe.

  “Whoa, let's just shake hands,” Joe said. The boy took Joe's hand and pumped it up and down.

  “Mister, we are so glad to see you,” the boy said.

  “Yeah, we're almost out of food,” the boy holding Jenny said.

  “Who are you kids?” Dani asked.

  “I'm Larry, this is my brother Barry, and that's my brother Gary. We're triplets.”

  “I can see that. Okay. So, you're running out of food. We saw a store a few blocks from here. Have you been there?” Dani asked.

  “We were afraid to go too far. Zombies you know. We figured with a church on the corner they wouldn't come too close,” Barry said.

  Joe pressed his lips together hard. Ever since he’d heard their names he had been stifling a giggle. Dani elbowed him, and he lost it.

  “Are you laughing at us? We don't like it when people laugh at us,” Larry said.

  “No, I wasn't laughing at you.” But Joe couldn't stop and he ran outside.

  “Forget him, kids. He's had a rough couple of weeks. So you've been here alone for a while, huh?” Dani said.

  “We woke up one day and our parents...and everybody else too. Something must have happened in the middle of the night to make them all zombies. We moved here because it doesn't smell bad,” Gary said.

  Dani's heart went out to the boys. They looked to be about ten years of age. They looked so dirty and uncared for. She thought about the fear they must have felt being all alone, thinking zombies were just down the block.

  “Would you like to come with us and have a bath?” She asked them.

  “Not really,” Gary said.

  “Well, I think it would be a good idea, especially if you want to come with us,” Said Dani.

  “Why, where're you going?” Barry asked.

  “Florida. We live there. Jenny’s coming with us, too.”

  “Florida, you mean Disney World?” Gary was beside himself.

  “Yeah, Disney World, zombie Disney World,” Jenny whispered to Dani.

  “Yes, Disney World. But you have to bathe if you want to come with us. The hotel has bathtubs. Gather your things and come with us.”

  “We don't have anything. We left it all at home,” Larry said.

  “We can take you there if you want.” Dani looked from one boy to the other. They looked at each other.

  “No, my parents are zombies now. They will eat us because they don't know any better. We'll get new stuff.” Gary and his brothers followed Dani and Jenny to the hotel.

  While they each took a shower, Dani walked to the consignment store and picked out some new clothes and underwear for the boys. She got enough so they would have something new to wear for three days before they needed washing. When she got back, they were laying side by side on the queen size bed. Jenny was telling them about the cavern. After a while the boys drifted off to sleep.

  Dani and Jenny left the room and tried to break the door open on the room next door. Joe had just given the other one a good kick, but the women just didn't have the strength to do it.

  Meanwhile, Joe had found another car parked in a garage of someone's house. It had the keys in it and it didn't smell. It also had GPS installed and a third row in the back to seat extra people. When he drove up, Dani told him they were taking the boys, who were now asleep in their room, and they would have to break into the one next door. Joe obliged them by kicking that door in.

  There were two beds in this one, and Jenny immediately lay down and fell asleep. Dani and Joe got into the other one. Dani turned her back and Joe put his arms around her. For the first time in a long while, Dani was beginning to feel close to him again.

  *****

  The boys came into the room and woke up the grown-ups. They jumped on Joe, Dani and Jenny. Joe nearly threw Gary across the room, but Dani stopped him. Dani told the kids to get dressed in the new clothes she got them right now or they would be left here. The kids, still convinced that zombies roamed the town, obeyed her.

  Joe grabbed another shower and Dani looked to see if there was any food available for breakfast. They would have to visit a food store before taking off.

  Jenny rolled over and began to fall asleep again. Dani gently shook her and told her she really had to get up. Jenny rolled over onto her back and stretched. The boys came back in in various stages of dress and Jenny sat up. Dani helped the boys straighten their clothes. All in all they hadn’t done too badly.

  Joe was finally out of the shower and Jenny went into the bathroom. Dani went next door to take care of herself. In an hour they were loaded up and on the road to the grocery store.

  Larry, Barry, and Gary wouldn’t get out of the car. Dani told them they were at her mercy and would have to eat whatever she picked out. They said that was okay since the store was in zombie central. Joe said he would stay and protect them while she and Jenny went shopping.

  The store was locked. Dani looked at Joe. He got out and looked for a big rock. He found a semi-big rock and threw it overhand into one of the picture windows. It shattered into little balls of glass, leaving the window wide open. An alarm went off, and Joe ran to the back of the store to see if he could turn it off. He found the breaker box and stopped the alarm.

  Dani and Jenny climbed over the sill and entered the store. Dani opened the sliding doors and grabbed a shopping cart. Fortunately, no one had been in the store before it opened the day of the tragedy. There were no bodies in here.

  Dani filled the cart with non-perishable food and bottles of water. Jenny took another cart and did the same on the other side of the store. When they were done, they grabbed a handful of plastic bags to take to the car. It was easier to fill the bags in the back of the car than to carry them out already filled. When the food was safely stowed away, Jenny got in the middle row of seats while Dani got in the front passenger seat. The boys were wrestling in the third row.

  “If you boys don’t stop, I’ll blow my zombie whistle and pull you out of the car, understand?!” Dani yelled. The boys stopped and sat down. They dared not move. They didn't know Dani well enough to know if she was bluffing.

  Dani played with the GPS for a while, but this one was different and she was having trouble figuring out how to set it. Joe told her to leave it because he had the direction pointer in the mirror and he would just keep going east.

  Dani decided not to pick on Joe and to let him have his way. She believed he was really trying, considering all the responsibility that had been thrust upon them. They would have to be allies in this, or they might just kill each other.

  Chapter 48

  They had been riding for three hours following the “E” in the mirror. They hadn’t passed a town or bathroom for a long time, and the kids were starting to squirm.

  “I think we better let them out to pee,” Dani said.

  Joe pulled over and the kids climbed over Jenny's seat and opened the car door. They ran to the side of the road and pulled their pants down. When they were done, they got back into the car and into the third row. Joe had to go, too, and went to the other side of the road.

  “We might as well, Jenny. I have some paper in the back.”

  The women got out and Dani went to the back of the car and pulled out the toilet paper. They went a little ways away from the car where there was a large bush. They both went behind it and squatted. As they were pulling their pants up, they heard a faint yell coming from behind them.

  “HELP!”

  Dani turned towards the sound.

  “Don't go. Maybe it's a trick.” Jenny was holding onto Dani's arm.

  “What if it's another kid?”

  Dani shook off Jenny's h
and and walked in the direction of the sound. She looked ahead and saw a line of trees that you couldn't see from the road. Out of the trees came a little girl running towards her.

  “Please help,” the girl was saying. Dani began to run towards her. They met and the little girl grabbed Dani's hand. Jenny ran back to the car to get Joe.

  “I saw you. I saw you over the hill. I saw the car and I ran. I took the shortcut. I just kept running hoping I could catch you.” The girl had to be around 10 years old. She was out of breath. She looked very thin.

  “What's your name honey?” Dani asked her.

  “Rebecca. Becky. Please, come with me. We need help.”

  “How many of you are there?” Dani didn’t know what to do. She could see the distress the child was in, but what if it was a trap?

  “There are twenty of us left. We grew up together. Please, we have no food.”

  The little girl was pulling Dani's hand. Dani turned to see if Joe could see her. She waved that she was going with the girl. Joe looked mad.

  “You kids stay here with Jenny,” Joe said and he ran to catch up with Dani. When he caught up to her, he grabbed her arm. “What's going on?”

  “She says there are twenty of them. She says they have no food.”

  “Twenty of what? Maybe they're cannibals and we’re tonight's dinner.”

  “And maybe they're the children of the corn, or maybe zombies.” Dani was still following the girl.

  “Of course not,” Joe said, even though he had thought about that.

  They reached the woods and the girl walked right into it. They followed her. Joe was determined to protect Dani. The girl kept walking and soon they could see a clearing in the woods where a small town had been built. The road into the town was probably just down the highway from where they were traveling.

  There were several houses and a school. They also had a church and a library. The sign in front of the library indicated there was a post office inside. Someone had planned this town for its privacy.

  In the center of the town was a small playground and a gazebo, and playing on the playground were several half-starved kids, all around 10 years old. Dani looked at Joe. She had many questions in her eyes. Why were all the children they’d found the same age?

  “Hey, kids,” Dani said.

  The kids looked at her and tried to smile. They were dirty, just like the triplets.

  “Where are your parents?” Dani thought that maybe, by some miracle, the poison had not made it this far from Vegas.

  “Our parents didn't wake up. After a couple of days, we buried them,” Becky said.

  “All by yourselves?” Dani couldn’t imagine what these kids had been through.

  “We helped each other,” a boy said.

  “I'm sorry. I guess you're all hungry,” Dani said.

  In unison, the kids nodded their heads. Dani looked at Joe. There were several bags of groceries in the back of the car. Joe looked at her as if to say, “We can't save everybody” but he turned around and walked back to the car. Dani asked Becky to show her around the town. Becky took her to the library.

  “This has the story,” Becky said, “of how we were born.”

  In the middle of the library, there was a small plaque dedicating the town to the Fetura Babies of Dr. Tomlinson. Dani thought that was very strange. The doctor who delivered Mindy was named Tomlinson. Dani had taken Fetura when she was pregnant with Mindy. Becky then took her to the back of the library where there were photos of all the children, from birth to just a month or so ago.

  “See, this one's of me.” Becky was pointing at a picture of a little purple newborn in the arms of a pretty young woman. “That's my mom.” Dani noticed that the women in the pictures were all dressed in very nice clothing. Their hair and makeup were perfect.

  As she looked at the pictures of the newborns, Dani remembered the first time she had laid eyes on Mindy. They all looked like she had for the first few days of her life. There was a book on a pedestal similar to a church altar. Dani opened it and read about how the town was founded.

  The founding mothers of this town had been patients of Dr. Michael Tomlinson. They had joined together to raise their children in a “safe harbor of love and respect.” They had come from different parts of the country with their husbands. These couples had money.

  They had met on a website sponsored by Dr. Tomlinson. He had created it so that they could share their experiences with miscarriage and with Fetura, purple concoction that allowed them to carry their babies to term.

  Dani remembered Tomlinson trying to get her to go onto the website. She was working at the time and it just seemed like one more thing to do. She never went on it. Apparently these women had decided to raise their kids in some type of utopia, away from the dangers of the modern world.

  Oh well, thought Dani, you had too much money for your own good. You should have lived in a cavern.

  Dani began to think about the triplets. She wondered if they too were Fetura babies. If they were, then they had some kind of immunity from whatever had killed everyone else. That also meant Mindy would be immune!

  Dani's heart beat faster. She’d been so scared to think about Mindy dying. Now Dani had hope that her little Fetura baby would be waiting back home when she got there.

  Joe arrived with the bags. He enlisted Jenny and the triplets to help. The triplets at first refused, believing these kids were zombies luring them in. But Jenny said they were live children and for some reason they believed her. They carried the bags into the middle of the playground and the kids descended on the bags like vultures.

  “Wait, wait, I know you’re hungry, but we have to divide it up fairly. I’ll do it,” Dani said.

  Dani walked towards them and they parted like the Red Sea. She opened the bags and started handing out toaster pastries and bags of snack chips. There were also cans of tuna and chicken, which required a can opener. Becky ran to her house and got one.

  Dani opened can after can while the kids used their fingers to dig out the meat. Soon the feeding frenzy died down and they all sat on the ground. They looked at Dani to find out what they would do next. Dani took Joe's arm and pulled him to the side.

  “What are we going to do with them?” She looked at him.

  “You're really asking me?” Joe wasn’t used to her asking him for advice when it came to something so important. Dani usually had the last word. “Well, I would say we have to get a bigger car.”

  “For sure, but not a car, we need a bus. A school bus maybe. That road leads to the highway. Maybe there's a real town there with a public school. We have to go and find out.”

  They asked Jenny to stay with the kids while they drove to town to look for a bus. Jenny asked them to bring her some chocolate if there was a store. She said she needed it after the last two days.

  As they were heading back to the car, Joe stopped walking.

  “I don't think I can do this Dani. I can't do this.” He was shaking his head.

  “Do what? You don't have a choice, Joe. You can't leave. These are kids. They need adults, and tag we're it.”

  “I’m not kidding. I really don't think I can handle this.”

  “I know you’re not kidding, Joe. But what you don't get is that it doesn't matter whether or not you can handle it. You have to do it. I have to do it. You won the lottery again, Joe, only this time the prize is kids. Lots and lots of kids!”

  Dani continued to walk to the car. Every nerve in Joe's body was trembling. Though he wouldn’t admit it, he was scared to death and this time he couldn’t run away.

  Dani was in the driver's seat when he got to the car. He slid into the passenger seat and they drove down the highway.

  The center of the next town was three miles away. It had the usual convenience store with gas pump, a small doctor's office, a hospital, a Big Mart, etc. Dani kept driving through the town until she spotted a row of yellow buses. They had found the school.

  She parked the car and they both g
ot out. They walked up to the first bus. Joe had trained once to drive a school bus, but at the last minute decided he couldn’t handle the kids. These buses looked kind of old. Joe pulled on the door and it opened. He climbed up the stairs and looked to see if the key was in the ignition. YES! It was.

  “The keys are here, Dani.”

  Dani smiled. There was one less thing to worry about. She was glad they’d found the buses.

  Joe sat in the seat and looked at the gauges. He looked for the yellow knob that signified it had air brakes. It was there. He would have to teach Dani how to use them. He put the bus in neutral. He then pulled out the yellow knob, stepped on the brakes, and turned on the bus. He put the bus in drive and pushed the yellow knob back in. He was ready to go. When it came time to stop, he would reverse the process. It had all come back to him. Dani was impressed.

  “You look good up there, hon,” she said. Joe smiled.

  “Why thank you ma’am.” Joe pretended to tip his imaginary cowboy hat. “I guess I have to drive this back. It's got gas in it, so I'll see you there.”

  Joe closed the doors and drove the bus out of the parking lot. He would have to practice wide turns. He made the turn onto the highway. He was doing pretty well. He wanted to practice a little before putting kids in the bus. He drove up and down the highway a few times, turning and reversing. He then drove to the little road that led to the kids’ town.

  Dani was there with the car parked in the driveway of one of the houses. He parked on the road. He jumped down from the bus and walked over to Dani and Jenny. Dani must have stopped at the convenience store because everyone was eating chocolate.

  “So, what's the plan and where's mine?”

  Dani handed him a chocolate bar.

  “We want to clean them up. We're checking the houses to see if there’s running water all around and then we’ll give them baths. We need your help.”