by Diane Butler
“Why don’t you come with us Martha?” Lucky asked. “We’re going to Lake Pontchartrain to look for a floating casino to live on.”
Martha was shocked, “Are you fools? The whole Gulf is swamped with Ze’s. Baton Rouge and New Orleans in Louisiana; Gulfport and Biloxi in Mississippi they all swarmed together to form a devastating herd, not to mention the Florida beach communities that joined them.” Lucky and Roxanne turned to look at one another, more worried about Lake Pontchartrain every day. “If you want to help me,” Martha continued, “the car still runs and I can’t drive. Attempted to, but when I ran over the mailbox out front I knew I would probably kill myself. There’s a country store about two miles up the road before you get to the major highway. I’d like to make a run and see if there is anything left. My granddaughter was making runs to a closer store about a half mile away, but she cleaned that one out and refused to go any further.
After checking all the windows to make sure the outside was clear of zombies Martha said to wait while she got the extra car key from the other house. “That won’t be necessary, Martha” Roxanne dangled the keys in front of her. Martha looked surprised and then realized that the keys came from the body in the shed. “He’s dead then, is he?” she asked. “For good this time?”
Martha asked if they would take the canoe off the car since it was too heavy for her to do. She said she had won medals for her canoeing skills when she was younger and had continued to enjoy the sport. They drove the car down to the wharf and unloaded the canoe, putting it into the water for her. Brandon was not pleased to hear that they would be leaving him but he declined the invitation to go along, not wanting to leave the boat unattended.
As they began driving away with Martha and Mutt in the back seat, Roxanne was starting to fear that Mutt would not want to leave Martha. Mutt was lying with his head in Martha’s lap while she scratched him under the ears. “You said that Bill was bitten shortly after arriving. And he was in the shed all this time without feeding?” Roxanne was still trying to determine if zombies had a life span.
“Oh, I’m sure he fed on some animals that went into the place looking for shelter or food,” Martha surmised. “Mice, squirrels, raccoons, possum. It’s not like I checked on him or anything.” She looked out the window, “Only thing I worry about is this winter. None of the homes have fireplaces and things got pretty bad last year.”
“Martha I don’t like leaving you here” Lucky said. “There’s an older gentleman on the northern part of the lake by the name of Joe. He’s also alone. He has a wood stove and he’s also a survivor. If you get into trouble could you canoe that far?”
“Don’t worry about me. It’s yourselves that are heading for trouble. But it’s always good to have a back-up plan. What’s this guy’s name again?” They told her of Joe and his approximate location. “I know that area,” Martha said. “If I left in the morning and continued through the night, depending on moonlight I could be there the next day.” Roxanne turned to look at her and Lucky glanced at her in the rear view mirror. When Roxanne told her that they had already spent two days on the lake on Jenny she laughed and said, “In that old thing? I can overtake her any time.”
They passed the store that Martha said her granddaughter had emptied out and saw two zombies hanging around. They began to pass houses and Lucky asked if her granddaughter had checked any of them out. “No, she never went further than the store. And we didn’t check any of them coming in because the car was already full of supplies. Besides, things were pretty scary back then and Bill didn’t have a gun.”
Hearing that last statement surprised Roxanne and she couldn’t understand why Bill had not revealed to his family that he had a gun in the glove compartment, unless…unless he was saving the bullets to kill a member of the family if they were bitten. But why not tell his wife after he was bitten so she didn’t need to hear him in the shed as a zombie the whole time?
They came to a crossroad and saw the store along with a gas station on the corner but there were five Ze’s milling about. “I don’t like this,” Lucky said. “We have no idea how many are in the store.”
“And I don’t have my staff,” Roxanne said. “It was too awkward to put in the car.”
“There are folding fishing rods in the trunk,” Martha said. “I use them to poke their eyes out. I have two at home so didn’t bother getting more out of the trunk.”
Lucky and Roxanne looked at one another, “Not a bad idea, but first let me run this one over with the car,” Lucky said as he gunned the motor. BAM! Lucky hit the first one with the left fender and saw the zombie break apart before he swerved out of the parking lot to the road again. Then he put it into reverse and backed up to hit the next zombie, BAM! It doubled over the trunk and his head smashed against the car.
“Don’t damage the trunk!” Martha yelled out. Lucky pulled down the road and waited to see if any more zombies came out of the building, but only those last three remained standing and were now following the car.
“OK,” he said. “Let me get the fishing rods out and then I’ll drive us back in.”
They found Martha’s method of using the folding fishing rods to poke a zombie’s eye out to be very effective. Once you penetrated one eye it would throw them off balance and when they made a second lunge at you they would miss. It was rather messy however since removing the rod often pulled the eye socket out, along with a gory mess. Lucky was actually able to kill one zombie by pushing the rod so far back into the zombie’s head that it penetrated the brain causing it to die instantly.
The door to the store was open so they weren’t expecting much in the way of supplies. Some shampoos, deodorants, toothpaste was about all that was left but they took those. Lucky noticed that there were two cars parked outside and thought that they could have belonged to the zombies when they were still human. If they were bitten perhaps they had loaded their car with some of the store supplies before they turned. A quick inspection showed that he was right and that the cars provided more than the store did. There were cans of soup, stews, tuna, oysters and various crackers in one car. The other car contained water, soda, juices, paper plates and canned fruit. If forced to go on foot again they could use the paper plates to start a camp fire after a rain and everything was wet.
As Roxanne and Martha were transferring things to her car Lucky walked around the outside of the store to see if he could find motor oil for their guns and to keep Jenny running. He saw a skeleton of someone who had been devoured by zombies and noticed the sun glinting off of something by his hand. He walked over to see a gun on the ground but could tell by the condition that it would be useless. He picked it up to check it for ammo and saw that it had two bullets left which he removed and put into his shirt pocket. After that he started walking the area looking for other weapons in the dried grass. He walked as far as a dead tree that looked like it may have been hit by lightning and had some firewood piled up against it.
Behind the firewood he found another skeleton with a rifle. The rifle proved to be empty of ammo but he saw two boxes of bullets stacked up next to the wood pile. The shooter must have sat out here taking out Ze’s and one must have come up behind him. Lucky grabbed the two boxes and then went to the back of the store where he found a case of motor oil. Suddenly a vision of Roxanne hiding the gun that she found in the car came back to him. He was looking in the window of the house at the time and saw her reflection as she did it, angered that she was still hiding things from him. He took some of the oil cans out of the case and put the boxes of bullets in the bottom, then sat the oil on top of them. As he picked up the case his heart was suddenly heavy with sorrow. What had become of them hiding things from each other? Was Roxanne planning on abandoning him and Brandon using the same technique as when she left Ed? He didn’t know what she was up to but he decided that he couldn’t be deceitful with his team.
As he walked to the front of the store Roxanne was putting the last of the groceries in their car and asked where he had
been. “I was looking for motor oil and found two skeletons. It looks as if they were shooting Ze’s when they died. Their guns have been out in the elements too long to be useful, but I did find two boxes of ammo for our rifles.” Roxanne’s face lit up with the news.
On the way back Martha said, “I hope you plan on staying anchored until it rains. You are about to leave the lake and enter the creek. At the current water level Jenny will have her bottom tore out. If I can’t talk you out of going at all, then at least wait until you have a chance to make it.”
“I think it is an excellent idea,” Roxanne said. “Until then you can have dinners with us and maybe sleep on the boat where you will be safe. At least have a couple of good night’s sleep, and we would enjoy your company. Other than Joe, it’s been a long, long time since we met friendly people. I’m surprised that you haven’t been raided by now.”
“Most people don’t know that road and there’s a sign that says ‘Dead End’ so they don’t bother,” Martha said. “But I’ll take you up on your offer. I’ll bring my shaving kit and take that beard off your face Lucky, you and your friend on board. I’m a hell of a good barber.”
Brandon did not like the idea of staying anchored but since Martha was the second person who knew the lake and had warned him against it he grudgingly agreed to wait until rain. “Shouldn’t be long,” Martha said as she slowly ran the razor up Brandon’s neck. “Should have rain by tomorrow night.”
They had shared dinner together and Martha had already shaved Lucky who was lying back on the bench with his hands behind his head looking at the stars. They had split the supplies up 50/50 with Martha protesting that she did not need as much. But they convinced her that if she should go upstream to Joe that she should take an offering. Lucky had stopped listening to the conversation and was thinking of Roxanne. The shave had made him feel so clean and fresh and it reminded him of their nights together in the cabin and how they would keep a bucket of water handy to rinse off. He turned his head to look at her and she laughed at something that Martha said. Mutt was sitting by her side and she was petting him absentmindedly as she listened to Martha’s stories.
To look at her now you would see a woman who was enjoying herself, but Lucky knew better. He saw how her eyes would dart past Martha to look at the shoreline, always searching for potential danger. Now that they were gaining weight and their health was returning he knew that her mind had cleared and that the near rape was starting to haunt her at night. When they were on the road they were too depleted to think of anything other than finding food to stay alive, or how to stay away from more gangs or how to avoid more zombies. Often one of them would collapse and the other two would stumble to help them up, almost too weak themselves to be of much use. Her mind had gone far, far away and he knew that she was just concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.
But where was she now, Lucky wondered. He had seen her cry in Brandon’s arms but he didn’t think that had been enough to rid her of the fear that had lurked in her since the gang they had encountered. He thought it had probably eased a little and that the bottle of booze she took to bed with her at night also helped. But the booze would be gone tonight and he wondered if he should be there to share the last of it with her and find out just how much she hated him, because he was sure that she did.
Roxanne must have felt his eyes on her because she turned to look at him. The smile left her face and perhaps it was the light, but her eyes appeared to grow very dark as if something evil had quickly passed over them. He felt a chill in his bones and sat up to break the stare.
Brandon sat up and looked in the mirror that Martha handed him, “This is wonderful,” he said. “I feel like a new man. Roxanne, do you want to get your hair cut like you had it at The Park?” he asked.
She shook her head, “No, this is fine.”
“But,” Brandon began, “I remember it as…”
“No!” She shouted and stood up. Mutt whimpered and backed up a few steps while everyone fell silent. She felt the awkwardness and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. If you’ll excuse me I have some things to attend to.” Mutt stared at Roxanne as she walked off and then looked back at Martha, then Brandon, then Lucky as if waiting for someone to go after her. Finally Mutt got up and left to follow Roxanne to her room.
“I shouldn’t have brought that up about The Park,” Brandon said. He looked up at Martha, “we lost a lot of people there.”
“We don’t know that,” Lucky said. “We don’t know about Morgan, Caleb, Sally and Gene. They could have been delayed and missed us.”
Brandon shook his head, “Sorry Lucky I don’t believe that. Only reason they wouldn’t show up is if the Ze’s were at the bottom of the front entrance too. They would not have left us behind.”
“Why don’t I draw you a map of the creek,” Martha said. “Any old paper bags or stationary designed for tourists on Jenny around here? Maybe the Captains log?”
As Brandon and Martha kept busy planning Jenny’s trip Lucky decided to check on Roxanne. He found her sitting on the edge of her bunk, elbows on her knees and a bottle of booze dangling from her hands. Mutt saw him in the doorway and sat up, as he did when they first found Jenny and Roxanne had claimed this bunk.
Lucky put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the door frame. “Mind if I share the last of the booze with you?” he asked.
Roxanne turned the bottle sideways and glanced at it as if she was calculating whether there was enough to share. Without changing her posture she turned to look at him with a penetrating look. “What do you want Lucky?” she asked in a weary voice. He could tell by the tone that she really did not want him there, did not want anyone there. That she had been lost in her own thoughts and they hadn’t been pleasant ones.
He took his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms but did not venture further into the room. “If it rains according to Martha’s predictions we will have only tonight and tomorrow night before pulling up anchor. Neither she nor Joe thinks that we will make it downstream in one piece without Jenny breaking up. If we should become separated I would not like for things to be left unsaid between us. I would like to talk to you before we drift further apart.”
Roxanne sat up and took a drink, “Drift apart? How ironic, funny really since we could be thrown into the creek.” She shook her head, “Not tonight, Lucky. We have a guest and Martha will be put into the room behind you,” she nodded to the room across the hall. “Whatever you want to talk about, it would only be interrupted when Brandon and Martha come in. However,” she got up and handed him the bottle, “You can have the rest of the booze. I never could drink anyway.”
Lucky took the bottle and was suddenly overwhelmed by the closeness of her body. She had washed her hair with the shampoo that they found and he had forgotten how beautiful she could smell. He realized that his heart was starting to beat faster and that he had been holding his breath. He reached up to touch her face but Roxanne stepped back. Mutt saw the movement and stood up but did not growl.
At that moment Brandon stepped into the hall, “Let me show you to your room, Martha”. With their eyes still locked onto each other, Lucky stepped back from the door and Roxanne softly closed it.
That night Roxanne heard a soft knock at her door. She was sleeping in her t-shirt and panties having grown so tired of sleeping fully dressed while on the road. It felt good to have the safety of Jenny to be able to sleep half-dressed again. She quickly sat up and retrieved the revolver from under her pillow and approached the door. “Roxanne, its Martha” a soft voice said. Roxanne hid the gun behind her back and opened the door a crack. “I’m sorry to bother you but it’s so cold and I wondered if you had an extra blanket.”
“Oh, of course,” Roxanne opened the door and stepped back. “I’m afraid we have been negligent in making you comfortable.” She reached to the upper bunk and pulled down a blanket. “I was hoping we would find some leather jackets in one of the homes because the nights
are getting so cold.” She handed the blanket to Martha who wrapped it around her shoulders.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there,” Martha said. “We had coats when we arrived but Bill was wearing his when he died and my granddaughter was wearing hers when she disappeared.” She looked at the floor. “I’m sure that Katie and David are dead.” She looked up, “Do you mind if I sit and talk for a while, Roxanne? It’s been so long since I have spoken to other people and I can’t sleep with all the excitement of today.”
Roxanne took her blanket off the bed and went to the end of the hall to get a chair while Martha sat down on her bunk. Mutt came over and lay across Martha’s feet to keep them warm. Roxanne pulled her knees up to her chest and put the blanket around her when she noticed Mutt’s reaction. “I’m afraid I may have lost Mutt to you Martha,” she said sadly. “I would hate to see him go, but he’s been good to me and deserves to be happy. I can’t say that I’ve provided for him very well while he was busy saving my life.”
Martha could see tears starting to develop in Roxanne’s eyes. “I think you and I are alike in some ways, Roxanne. This is a horrible, horrible situation for a woman to be in and we have been put to the maximum test. Neither of us is as brave on the inside as what we show to people on the outside. Yes, I have the ability to row to Joe’s but would be doubting myself the whole way and scared to death. But that’s not the persona I showed to you, Lucky and Brandon. Yes, I can take care of myself at the cottage but I will be in fearful agony the whole time. However, only you and I need to know this about ourselves. We were both brought up thinking that it was our duty to take care of others, but as others made the decisions and we watched them fall by their mistakes we knew we had to step up and take control. But we’re faking it, you and I, Roxanne.”