by Diane Butler
“I figured as much,” Sally was the first to respond to the news. “I wasn’t getting any answers for that knife wound. I don’t like being played the fool.”
“No one was trying to play you Sally,” Lucky answered. “We were still grappling with it ourselves. It was….it was…” Lucky sighed and looked down at the floor. “It was unexpected that KC was that far gone.” He looked up again and saw everyone’s eyes on him, wishing that Cami would jump in. “It took both of us by surprise, probably less of a surprise to Cami since she saw KC spying on people.”
“I caught her spying on me a couple of times,” Ed said nervously. “Maybe I was gonna be her next victim. Damn. I told Roxanne the first day ya’ll arrived that it was a bad idea letting you in. Bringing in crazies with you. No more. No more people and that’s it. Not gonna be looking over my shoulder every time I go to bed.”
“She scared the hell out of me when I was washing her hair,” Sally said. “I guess she just snapped. Did she say anything to Roxanne at all? Anything to give us a clue as to what pushed her over?”
“No, nothing”, Lucky answered. “Roxanne said that KC appeared to be in a trance. She managed to overpower KC once and pinned her down. Thought KC’s eyes had focused again, had come back to reality so she let KC go, only to be attacked more viciously. You saw Roxanne’s condition. I’m sure she had no other choice, in fact I’m 100% sure she didn’t.”
“But you didn’t bring KC back for us to bury,” Caleb said. “You left her there? KC saved my life once when my arrow missed and I couldn’t reload fast enough. I would have owed her that.” Lucky hated to see the look in Caleb’s eyes that they would leave anyone behind to rot or become zombie food.
“We buried her at the house,” Cami said, which was a lie, “while Roxanne was lying down in the truck. I don’t think she remembers half of it. She was in a pretty bad mental state. Personally, I think that’s why she’s sick now, trying to deal with it.”
“Yes,” Sally pondered, “that could very well be. I’ve seen this reaction before. I wish you had told me and I would have known what was happening.”
Morgan put his hand on Caleb’s shoulder, “Are you going to be OK with this Caleb? Best not to approach Roxanne with any questions. If she wants to talk about it let her come to you first.”
Caleb nodded, “I just want Roxanne to get well. If it makes her sick to talk about it then I won’t bring it up. Promise.”
“I don’t think Roxanne should go on the next run,” Lucky said.
“And I don’t think Roxanne would want us to baby her,” Cami retorted.
Gene stood up to indicate that the meeting was over. “The next run will be to a drug store or clinic. Sally and I will be together plus we’ll take Brandon and Cami. That will leave you,” he nodded at Lucky, “Roxanne, Ed and Morgan to hold down the fort. No reason to even suggest to Roxanne that she should come.” He put his hands on his hips and said, “Are we good with this? Anyone have more questions for Lucky or Cami?”
They all began to disperse when Sally said, “Well at least I won’t need to struggle to move the 2-drawer file cabinet away from my door in the morning.” She meant it to be funny, but no one laughed.
Roxanne was fully recovered by the next day and attempted to go about her duties but Sally objected. “I don’t want you using that arm and breaking your stitches” Sally said. “Wait until we make a run for more medical supplies. I don’t want you practicing with the crossbow or using your staff at the fence line.”
But the zombies weren’t at the fence line that morning; they were at the front tunnel where the bus was parked. The group gathered on top of the tunnel to assess the situation, all except for Ed. When Ed heard of the zombies gathering he was last seen running to his maintenance bay.
“Now, this is a different situation,” Cami said as they looked down on a hundred zombies. “Must have followed the truck back. Small group here and there and now they make up a large herd as they gathered along the road.”
“I wouldn’t suggest that we go down the embankment to the fence and start stabbing them through the links,” Lucky advised. “With the slope of that embankment we could slide right into them at the fence line. And there’s no way to back up quickly if one should grab our leg.”
“I don’t like the idea of wasting ammo on a herd that large,” Gene said, “especially since we don’t know how many are coming or if this is the bulk of it. But we can’t let them continue to push against the fence like that. It was designed to guide people to the entrance, not to hold back a riot.”
“I’ll get the grenade launcher,” Cami said.
“No Cami.”
“OK, then I’ll get the rocket launcher,” she said.
“No. Cami stop it now,” Gene said. “Get the grenades. We’ll launch a few into the thickest part of the herd and that should kill most of them. It’ll also tear many of them apart and we can stab them in the head as they lay on the ground. But try not to blow up the fence or the bus.”
When Cami and Morgan returned with the grenades Morgan announced, “The bay is open and Ed’s car is gone.”
“The bastard has run!” Cami added as she handed out grenades. Lucky and Roxanne looked at one another but it was not the time for discussion.
They took turns lobbing grenades at Gene’s direction not wanting to waste any of the ammo. Because of the tight group the Ze’s had gathered into it didn’t take many tosses to blow them apart. The hardest part was getting them away from the fence so they wouldn’t damage it. What they didn’t expect was the smell of rotting flesh and bloated bodies being blown apart and splattering them. The wind captured the odor and carried it to them in a wave. They turned away and those who had kerchiefs quickly covered their nose.
“Jesus,” Sally said turning her back on the odor. “Can their smell infect you? This is horrible.”
“Caleb, go to the Admin Bldg. and shut all the windows,” Morgan said but his real intent was to get Caleb away from the smell in case Sally was right.
Once the herd was down to a few stragglers they used their guns to kill the rest, then went down to go through the bus and enter the circle parking lot. They walked among the zombies and used their staffs to kill any who were still moving. “We need to get the bodies out of here,” Brandon said through his kerchief. “I’ll get the trailer and we can haul them to the bottom of the hill. Maybe the smell will keep other zombies from coming up the driveway.”
“Roxanne, I want you out of here,” Sally shooed her away. “I don’t want that wound to get infected.”
“We’re all getting out of here and not bringing in the trailer just yet,” Gene said. “All that noise, another herd could be coming up the hill. Let’s give it an hour and see before we decide.”
They waited two days before deciding to go on the medical supply run. In those two days they did not experience any additional zombies at the front entrance nor did Ed return. The Ze’s continued to gather at the fence portion that Ed had cut, or at the back entrance.
“I tell you he ran like the coward that he is,” Cami retorted “and left the back gate open. We were lucky that Ze’s weren’t gathering there as well. At least he left the key in the lock.”
Both Lucky and Roxanne were stunned by this move on Ed’s part. He always came back and on that first day they expected him to arrive at any time. “You mean he’s done this to you before?” Cami asked. Lucky explained the pattern that Ed had on the road while traveling with him; that he would circle until the coast was clear. No one was aware that Roxanne once traveled with Ed as his wife. The story they knew was that Roxanne was already at the park when Ed and Lucky arrived.
“I guess you were right, Roxanne,” Gene said. “You told us that he was not loyal but after Brandon and I informed him that there was a back gate, we thought he understood that there would be a penalty if he messed with us.”
“If he was alive he would have come back by now,” Roxanne said. “I don’t believe he would at
tempt to survive on his own and he’s not good at planning ahead. He must be dead.” But Lucky did not agree, convinced that Ed had ulterior motives for his action.
Morgan backed the bus up to let the truck through for their trip and waved them off. Gene was against separating Morgan and Caleb for these excursions and felt that family members should always stay together. Caleb had already lost his mother to cancer before the ZA and Gene did not want to be responsible if anything should happen to Morgan. Since the swarm had hit the front of the park they decided that a scout should always be on the tunnel. They found a bullhorn in the entertainment section of the park and would use it to alert everyone if necessary. Morgan, Caleb and Mutt would take the first lookout.
As they drove to the bottom of the hill everyone held their handkerchief over their nose when they approached the area where they had dumped the zombie bodies. “Perhaps this is working after all,” Sally said. “We haven’t had any more zombies attempt to reach the front gate. Maybe they can’t smell us from this direction. Maybe they’re like elephants and know where to go to die. This would be their burial ground.”
Gene looked in his rearview mirror, “Brandon what is it? Something has been bothering you for a couple of days now.”
“I don’t like it,” Brandon said. “We’re down to eight now that KC and Ed are gone. Why aren’t more people coming to the park? Why haven’t we seen more people on the road when we go scavenging? We used to run into groups all the time, small pockets of people or a couple traveling together, or even a lone individual on the road. Eight people are not going to hold off a hoard of zombies or sustain a stronghold for very long. We’re spread too thin. We need more people.”
“Hell, Ed wasn’t any good anyway,” Cami said. “We have the firepower to hold off anything in my opinion. Just what is it that you’re expecting, Brandon?”
Lucky was passing Roxanne’s cabin when he heard a slight tapping from within. The front door was partially open so he called out to her. “Back here, Lucky. Come on back and give me your opinion.” He walked to the doorway of Roxanne’s bedroom and saw her standing on a small step stool of three steps, “What in the world are you doing, Roxanne?”
She was hanging sheer material around her bed and using thumbtacks to nail it up. She was almost completely done with just a small section in front of her still left open. She smiled at him. “I found the material in the theater. The nights are getting too hot to sleep with the bedroom window closed but the mosquitoes are eating me up at night. This will act as mosquito netting yet let in the breeze too. What do you think?”
She put in one more tack before she noticed the silence in the room. She turned to look at him, but his eyes did not meet hers. He was leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed and his eyes were slowly traveling upward along her body. She had jeans and a man’s white shirt on but his eyes told her that he was seeing something different. She suddenly had a mental image of lace panties back home in her dresser and was so surprised by her thoughts that she began to blush.
The silence in the room was becoming intense so she took a step down the ladder and teetered for a moment before regaining her balance. Lucky came over and put his hands on her waist. She had forgotten what a man’s touch felt like, could feel her very skin beneath the shirt responding to it. Against her better judgment she reached up and let her fingertips touch his cheek and gently slide down to his jaw. He cupped his hand over hers, turned it and kissed the palm, never taking his eyes off her. She took another step down the ladder which put their bodies against one another but Lucky did not back off. Instead he slipped one hand under her shirt to touch the skin of her back and with his other hand he reached up to guide her head down into a deep kiss. She momentarily stiffened, but he gently held her there until her body responded. While still in that kiss he picked her up, turned with her in his arms and disappeared behind the curtain.
They lay together afterward but were unable to keep their hands off of each other, still exchanging those delicious kisses between them. “Do you think it would appear inappropriate to the others if I moved my gear in here?” Lucky asked.
“There’s only one person’s approval we need and that’s Mutts.”
Lucky started laughing, “That’s right. I don’t think Mutt will like the idea of shutting the bedroom door on him. He’s very protective of you. I asked him once to tell me about you, but he wasn’t giving out any information, “he caressed her arm and kissed her on the neck. “How the hell did you end up with Ed?”
Roxanne stiffened. She hated it whenever anyone asked her about her past. “I’ll say this once and then we’ll never speak of it again. My parents were only able to have one child and they wanted that to be a boy. When I arrived they felt that I was a disappointment and continued throughout my childhood to tell me that I was useless to them. It’s what I grew up with and believed because children always believe their parents. So when I met Ed it was the norm for me, I didn’t know any other type of life, I thought that was the way things were supposed to be. It wasn’t until after civilization fell that I learned otherwise. Now I realize that people who tell you that you are useless are trying to divert attention away from their own shortcomings and keep you focused on your own. I’m not the same person he met, never will be again.”
At that moment Mutt’s paws appeared on the bed and he stuck his head around the curtain. “Shit” Roxanne whispered and quickly threw the sheet over them, “Just be still Lucky,” she cautioned. “Mutt, it’s alright, boy. It’s alright,” she said in a soothing voice. Mutt looked from one to the other as if studying them, and then jumped on the bed and began to lick Lucky’s face.
Lucky laughed and hugged Mutt. “Well I guess that’s one hurdle out of the way.”
“And the other?” Roxanne asked.
“Hoping that our group gets back OK.”
The group had found both a Farm Supply Store and a Drug Store within a short distance of each other and were glad to be on their way back. They had encountered some pockets of Ze’s, but were able to drive through them. The Farm Store had been the most gruesome and difficult to get into since it had once housed animals around back. Those were all devoured now, but the zombies had lingered in the vicinity as it had once been their feeding ground. There were three zombies inside but were easily disposed of. They were able to find sutures, antibiotics, vegetable seeds and ointments that could be used on humans. Gene, still wishing to find a hen so he could have eggs, loaded a couple bags of chicken feed in the back of the truck. He had heard that it could be a substitute for popcorn and intended to find out if it was edible.
Brandon was about to exit the supply store when he spotted a magazine rack and one magazine had a cover picture of a dog so similar to Mutt that he stopped to pick it up. Roxanne had always been curious about Mutts webbed feet so Brandon flipped through the magazine while they drove further to the Drug Store. He was shocked to discover a Catahoula dog breed with that exact characteristic and learned that the breed was a tough dog bred to work in swamps and forests. The webbed feet allowed them to swim and work in soft, marshy areas and that they were herding dogs. They are protective of their owner but wary of strangers and were excellent judges of character as to who is and isn’t trustworthy. Brandon looked up from the magazine and knew that this described Mutt perfectly and how excited Roxanne would be to read the article.
At the Drug Store Sally found Morphine, Demerol, Ampicillin, and Amoxicillin and had the men look for things like Benadryl for bee stings, ointment for poison ivy, peroxide, even creams for muscle aches and pains.
It was on their way back that they saw the hitchhiker. They passed him at first so they could get a good look at what he was carrying in the way of weapons or if he drew on them and fired as they drove past. He did not, so they drove further down before pulling off and all but Sally got out of the car. Gene leaned against the trunk of the car and watched the hitchhiker as he ran toward them, while Brandon walked the left shoulder of the high
way with his rifle drawn, searching the foliage for any possible ambush. Cami did the same on the right side of the road. Sally slid into the driver’s seat but watched for approaching cars that could be an ambush while glancing into the rearview mirror to keep an eye on the team.
The hitchhiker raised his arms and yelled, “I’m unarmed. I ran out of bullets a long time ago. There’s no one with me. I’m alone.” When he got to Brandon he stopped but Brandon told him to keep walking toward the truck. Both Brandon and Cami came up behind the guy and began to pat him down. Cami pulled a revolver out of his backpack but it wasn’t loaded. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see other people,” he continued. “I haven’t seen anyone alive in over a month. I was beginning to think……beginning to think,” his voice cracked as he tried to control his emotions.
“I’m sorry to be a beggar as soon as I get in your car, but does anyone have some water or crackers or something,” the hitchhiker said. “Name’s Randy. Sure am glad you came along. I was about to give up. Was gonna find some farmhouse and just lay down to die. Can’t survive out here alone.” Cami handed him some crackers and a peach. “Your mind starts playing games with you when you’re alone”, Randy continued. “Like, you’re dreaming and can’t wake up. Or if you’re alive then you are the only person left in the world.” He bit into the crackers and drank some water that Brandon handed him.