“We need to go back out tomorrow, I don’t think we brought back enough.” Kaige told Logan after climbing the stairs to the second story apartment where Logan had taken up residence. They had decided to take the smallest share out of the supplies because they didn’t have anyone, they were both single with no children to provide for.
The cigarettes from the Dollar General weren’t the freshest, but Kaige wasn’t worried about that. No matter where they went they weren’t going to be able to find a fresh pack of cigarettes, but these tasted ridiculously old.
“I was already thinking the same thing, we wouldn’t have been able to carry back even more if we hadn’t run into you know who, but maybe if we keep going out scouting every day we can build up enough supplies to last us through winter. We’ve got it better than we did, but winter isn’t going to be any easier and this is just the beginning.” Logan said through the smoke that filtered from his nostrils. “Once everything dries up again Tom and I can get to work on chopping more firewood too, we’re going to go through it fast when the temperature really starts to drop.” He added, his eyes, pinching shut for a second, shielding them from the smoke.
“I wish we had a truck.” Kaige frowned stubbing the cigarette out hearing someone climbing the stairs.
Tobey knocked at the door gently before turning the knob and sticking his head inside.
“Mom said I should knock first.” The little boy told them as he looked at the two of them sitting on the couch together.
Kaige glanced at Logan a second feeling her cheeks getting warm for reasons that she wasn’t ready to think about yet and decided that it was better just to not look at Logan until the redness disappeared from her cheeks.
“What’s up, kiddo?” Logan asked and put his cigarette out in the ashtray on the coffee table, thankfully he didn’t have to go looking for something to substitute it. It looked like all the people that lived here before had been smokers too.
“Mom’s making dinner and said you two should come down and eat. We’re having roast beef and mashed potatoes.” Tobey smiled from ear-to-ear.
Grabbing his flashlight from the coffee table, Logan and Kaige followed Tobey down the stairs.
“We have roast beef?” Logan asked, trying to recall everything they were grabbing at the dollar store, but it all felt like a blur, at the time it felt like they were gone for hours, but it was virtually minutes.
“I probably threw some into the cart when I was grabbing all the soups. I wasn’t paying close attention to what I was grabbing.” She laughed a little getting to the first-floor landing and smelling the scent of food, it made her stomach growl. Kaige wondered why she never treated herself all this time and grabbed canned meat. When she was a little girl it was one of her favorite things, Kelly’s brand roast beef that came in slices with brown gravy. You couldn’t find it anymore, of course they still had cans of roast beef, but it wasn’t the same, not like Kelly’s brand.
Stepping inside the apartment Kaige saw Megan was working over the fire, sitting on the stool that used to be next to Walter’s armchair where he so often took his afternoon naps. Megan was stirring two different boilers sitting close to the fire and another was boiling water. A bowl filled with the powdery looking substance of what Kaige knew where instant mashed potatoes.
“Need any help?” Kaige asked, looking over what Megan was doing, although it looked like she pretty much already had everything ready except for the mashed potatoes.
“Nope, just sit yourself down and relax.” Megan replied using a dish cloth to grasp the handle of the boiler, pouring hot water into the mashed potatoes, using a fork to whisk them around and stir the clumps out of them.
Never being one to just sit down, Kaige went into the kitchen and found Tom and Logan talking while Tobey was setting the table. Kaige went to the silverware drawer, grabbing their utensils and began to sit them next to their place settings.
“I was thinking,” Logan began, pausing as Megan brought the bowl of mashed potatoes to the table and then went back to the two boilers, one with the roast beef and another one that had turnip greens and sat them down in the middle of the table so that they could all serve themselves. “We’re all smokers, right?” Logan asked, “Tobey is the exception.” He added.
“Yes.” Tom said, holding Megan’s chair out for her as she took a seat at the table, everyone following in turn.
“Mike and Jeremy both smoked, Zach used to smoke, but he quit, then started back up when we were all living in the office together, and his wife smoked.” Logan was leading up to something, but none of them could clearly define what it was just yet.
Megan helped fill Tobey’s plate, a few bottles of red Powerade sat in the middle of the table as well for their beverage, something different, something that wasn’t coffee or water.
“Where are you going with this?” Kaige asked, looking at him from across the table.
“It just seems strange to me, that all these people suddenly drop in the streets, perfectly healthy people just die out of nowhere, but we, the plague of the civilized world, the smokers, the people who have basically been banned pretty much everywhere, are the ones that survived.” Logan explained spooning beef and gravy over his potatoes.
“So, you think that might be something that helped us live?” Tom asked skeptically.
“I mean it kind of makes sense. If this was bio warfare, then maybe it didn’t work on people who smoked or who were around cigarette smoke on a regular basis.” Logan shrugged as he dug his fork into his food giving them all some well-deserved food for thought.
11.
The weeks passed without another living survivor being found and Logan’s theory about smokers was still stuck in Kaige’s head. It was interesting, but without more people, it was just that, an interesting theory.
Every day when Kaige and Logan returned from scouting, Tom and Logan would get to work chopping down more trees to stock pile the basement with firewood.
“I was thinking,” Kaige began as she and Megan were in the basement ringing out wet clothes to hang on the clothes line they had rigged in a corner of the basement. “That maybe now that we have nearly filled the spare apartment with supplies, when we go out tomorrow that I could look for some books. We have enough food and water and medicine put away to get us through the winter.”
“That sounds like a good idea, and Tobey could use something to keep him entertained, I’m sure he’s starting to get tired of the stories that I make up for him. Sometimes my imagination can only go so far without stalling.” Megan said with a laugh as she shook out a pair of Tom’s pants and tossed them up over the clothes line. “If it isn’t asking too much, maybe you could find some school books for him, primers and things like that. Eventually, more survivors must surface and when they do, I would think that school will start again, and I don’t want Tobey to be so far behind that it’s difficult for him to catch up again.”
“I don’t think that would be a problem, Tobey is a very bright little boy. It might be hard at first, but I think the sheer joy of going back to a life that is normal will be a weight off his shoulders. Going back to school will probably be like a treat to him. I know it sounds strange, but I’d much rather go sit at my desk every day than to be a human pack mule.” Kaige laughed a little bit comparing herself to such a thing, she didn’t think she’d ever heard anyone every say pack mule except for her mom.
“You really think about it, don’t you?” Megan asked her, hanging up the last pair of socks from the laundry basket.
“What?” Kaige asked almost confused as she picked up the basket and put it up on top of the old washer and dryer.
“About the world going back to the way that it used to be.” Megan confirmed.
“I think it would be impossible not to, I don’t know if the world will ever be completely the same as it was, but there has to be something better than this. Every time Logan and I go out, it’s a miracle compared to what it was. The streets lined with those horrible
monsters. This whole year has been like one big nightmare for all of us, sometimes daydreaming about how things could be makes it easier to keep going no matter how much we may hate our current circumstances. There’s nothing we can do to change it. We just have to wait for things to get better and they will, they always do.” Kaige shrugged softly as the two women made their way back up the stairs from the basement and disappearing to their own apartment. Kaige gave way to the thoughts that usually plagued her mind whenever she was alone and probably what the rest of them were all thinking about too.
What Kaige wanted was to understand why this happened, it didn’t just happen, that made no sense at all. Figuring out what caused the sudden and unexplained death of literally hundreds of thousands of people, followed by the walking dead roaming the streets sounded like something that would come from a science fiction novel. It wasn’t real, but somehow here she was, living in that reality. Kaige wasn’t naïve enough to just take their current circumstances as they were, but if history had taught her anything, humans were responsible for this. She just didn’t know how yet.
Putting on her warmest clothes Kaige got her backpack and her baseball bat and went outside, looking inside of the cars that were abandoned not only on the sides of the street but the ones that had just stopped in the middle of the street. It was time to start trying to do something about them, of course Kaige couldn’t say what that thing was, but she began by looking through them. The doors weren’t locked, and some of them still had the keys inside of them because their drivers had left the vehicles so suddenly trying to escape when their cars were surrounded by the dead or they were stuck, blocked by other cars.
Picking through the contents inside, Kaige found gallon jugs of water, bottled water, canned goods, sleeping bags, flashlights, all manner of things that the group could use. She never knew why the idea to search the cars never occurred to her. Packs of cigarettes, full cartons of cigarettes. Kaige ran around the side of the house and grabbed one of the buggies and brought it around to fill it up. Those poor people, where ever they thought that they were going, they never got there. A small part of her felt guilty for taking things from their cars, but Kaige was reminded that where they were now, they wouldn’t be needing anything in their cars.
The events that had taken place in the human world, right here, went against everything that she’d ever been taught to believe, but Kaige still believed that God was watching them. People asked why? Kaige couldn’t answer those questions, only God himself could answer those questions. She just hoped that when she was standing before Him, that he said she’d done well facing those circumstances.
Filling the cart up, Kaige went around to the trunk of the car and popped it, lifting the lid only to slightly stumble back into the front of the car that was parked behind her.
Weapons.
Kaige stared into the trunk of the little red Saturn, there were two shotguns with the boxes of shells that went to them. Grabbing them, Kaige had never fired a gun in her life although there were many times when she had considered purchasing one and learning how to shoot for her own protection, but she was always more afraid of having that gun taken away from her in a dangerous situation and used for her own harm, her fear always prevented her from going through with the idea. Now, she looked at the shotgun, examining it closely for a second or two before she laid it in the cart along with its sibling and took the boxes of shells out. They weren’t going to be able to believe what she’d found and Kaige wondered if there were other people who’d had the same idea of getting out of town, somewhere that wasn’t populated with their supplies and weapons and holing up until this whole thing was over but never made it out of their own neighborhood.
Pushing the cart back up to the house, Tom and Logan were just finishing, using the second cart to bring some of the firewood back to stack in the basement.
“What are you doing, Kaige?” Tom asked, looking at the shopping cart. He knew that she and Logan had gone scouting earlier that morning, but pretty soon they wouldn’t be as the temperatures were dropping steadily more and more each day, they also had managed to nearly fill up every open space in the spare apartment with supplies to get them through the winter and it was starting to spill off into the basement too, not that anyone was complaining.
“I decided to start looking through the cars. Maybe we could get some of them pushed out of the street, it would be a long job, but we could do it if we set our minds to it. Anyway, I was looking inside and found all these extra supplies, plus guns.” Kaige picked up the shotgun, carefully keeping it aimed away from the two men because she had no idea whether it was loaded or not.
“Holy Jesus, put that thing down.” Tom said, taking a quick step back. Tom didn’t like guns, he never had. His dad was an avid hunter when he was a boy, but he’d never taken a liking to the sport and was more interested in games of football and basketball.
“We’ll have to be careful with those.” Logan spoke up, stepping forward and taking the two shotguns out of the cart along with the shells. “I’ll put them in my apartment. Tobey doesn’t go up there very often.” Logan told them, before he ran ahead and disappeared inside the house.
“You really think it’s wise to have those on hand?” Tom asked Kaige, the two of them carrying firewood down into the basement.
“Wise?” She looked at him, almost laughing. “Tom, we live in the zombie apocalypse, do you really want to get into a gun safety debate? We will teach Tobey how to use them, and that they are not toys when the time is right, but for right now? I’m happy that we have them on hand. What happens when winter is over, and those things start coming back around? We don’t know if they are gone for good or if they just wandered further south to get away from the cold.” Kaige explained, brushing her hands together before she headed back up to finish bringing the new supplies she found inside. Kaige wasn’t at all finished with the cars either. Who knew what all could be inside them that they could use this winter?
Returning to her cart Kaige went back to the Saturn and put the trunk lid back down, turning to the tan Chevy Trail Blazer that was sitting in the middle of the street, tugging the back door open, and stepped back as the items that were slumped on the door fell out at her feet.
Bending down, she started putting them back inside the plastic crate that was overflowing against the door. Kaige realized that there was no organization put into the packing. It was all thrown inside, chaos. Much like so many others, they weren’t prepared for this and when they decided to run, they just grabbed everything that they thought they might need and threw them into the car.
Picking up the last item, Kaige felt her heart drop. It was one of those handheld gaming consoles. It was at least fifteen years old, a Gameboy Advanced and while she knew that adults played video games, it brought flashbacks of her childhood to her memory. Placing the device in her back pocket there were kids in this car at some point, the evidence clear as she went through the rest of the back seat and found a pouch that was filled with all the game cartridges that went to the Gameboy. A child’s blanket, duffle bags full of clothes that were haphazardly packed.
Taking everything out Kaige stopped looking at the items themselves, she couldn’t. The only thing she left in the Trail Blazer were the picture albums she found in the trunk. Those felt too precious to disturb from their resting place.
Rapping her knuckles on Tom and Megan’s door Kaige was carrying the more kid oriented items in her arms when Meg came to the door.
“Where in the world did you find all that?” Megan asked her, taking one of the bags out of her arms so she didn’t trip or fall trying to carry too much at once.
“Did we somehow miss a bunch of laundry?” Her brows pinching up in confusion.
“No, but we’ll need to wash this stuff too. I started looking through the abandoned cars and found all this stuff. Maybe Tobey might be able to use it.” Kaige explained setting the box she had in her arms down on the table.
At the mention of his
name, Tobey came out of the living room to see what his mom and Kaige were talking about.
“Hey buddy, look what Kaige found for you.” Megan smiled, the mother knew better than to waste her sons time showing him the clothes that Kaige brought in, instead Meg helped Tobey into a chair, so he could look inside the box.
“Toys!” The little boy grabbed a yellow robot from the box. “Bumblebee!”
Kaige instantly shrunk back, she was allergic to bees and wasps, pretty much anything that stung, she would swell up like a beach ball and Tobey’s shrieking voice made her heart suddenly skip a beat thinking that somehow there was a living bee inside the box she’d brought in.
“Look, mom. It’s Bumblebee.” Tobey’s smile was a mile wide as he held up the toy robot for his mother to see. It was then that Kaige realized he was talking about the toy. It was one of those action figures from the Transformers movies.
“I see, I see.” Meg laughed seeing a real smile on the boy’s face for the first time in such a long time.
“Check this out, Tobey.” Kaige said, drawing his attention to the Gameboy in her hand. “Ever seen one of these?” She asked.
“What is it?” Tobey asked, placing Bumblebee down, not sure what it was until he turned it over in his hand. “It’s sort of like my Nintendo Switch.” Tobey said, finding the on switch and the console came to life. The little boy was instantly transfixed.
It might not have been the latest version of the most popular gaming toy, but to a little boy who didn’t have anything anymore, it meant the world.
“You said you found this stuff going through the cars?” Megan asked, Tobey was collecting his Bumblebee under his arm, staring at the screen of the Gameboy was he wandered back into the living room.
“Yeah, I thought there might be something inside that we could use, then maybe, we could see about getting the abandoned cars out of the middle of the road. It’s probably a stupid idea,” Kaige said, feeling uncertain of herself suddenly. “I was bored and started thinking.” Kaige gave Meg a small smile since that was when she usually had most of her ideas, when there wasn’t anything else to keep her busy.
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