by TW Brown
Perhaps two minutes later he was walking out empty-handed. He paused just outside the main doors, produced a disposable lighter, grabbed a wadded up piece of paper from the nearby trash can, lit it, and threw it inside. There was a moment where nothing happened, and then a soft ‘whump’ was heard. A soft orange glow became visible. Moments later, a flaming zombie stumbled past the entry way visible to the four men who were now sitting on their bikes like they were parked at a drive-in movie theater.
“We checked out the Lowe’s,” Jamie paused and looked at the ground. “I screwed up and set off the alarm, so we didn’t get nearly as much as we could have come away with.”
“I guess it’s not necessarily all a bad thing that you set off that alarm.” Kevin returned his attention to Jamie and put an arm around the woman’s shoulders to sort of test the water.
“What do you mean?” She looked up at him and he could tell that he was close to setting the hook and landing this fish.
“Well,” he brushed her cheek gently with his hand and smiled down at her, “that alarm is how we sort of found you. We were not too far away when it sounded and so we headed over to see what was going on. We got there just as your trucks were hitting the highway.”
Jamie did not look away from his gaze and Kevin decided to keep the eye contact. He was grateful that he’d gotten a chance to clean up a little while earlier. He noticed her lean in just a bit and so he lowered his head just enough. That proved to be the clincher. She closed the rest of that tiny space between them and allowed him to kiss her.
Now for the next step, Kevin thought after allowing the kiss to grow into something a bit heated.
“Umm, I don’t think I can take you back to my cubicle. I mean, sure, there are those little dividers, but I doubt we would be fooling anybody.”
Jamie pulled back and looked him in the eyes, and for just a moment, he thought that he saw hesitation. He upped the wattage on his smile and then broke eye contact, staring at the ground, trying to play the shy role now.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to presume…” He let that statement trail off and shook his head.
A soft hand planted itself in the middle of his chest. He held his breath for that few seconds while he waited to see if she might push him back and end things. When her hand drifted up to his face and caressed his cheek, he had to fight to make sure that the smile he flashed was the right one. He didn’t want her to see the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
A few minutes later, she was leading him by the hand. As they ducked behind the stadium bleachers and stopped in some tall grass, he knew he’d won.
10
Regrets and Death
With his left hand, Jonathan grabbed one child by the hair and tossed him sideways. Then, using the right hand, the one with his injured wrist, he grabbed the other child and shoved him away. Pain shot up his arm, but he ignored it as best he could. His mind was very cognizant of the fact that he was facing a life-or-death situation. His options were to endure a little pain now or become a zombie.
Using his elbows, he scooted back and brought a booted foot up just in time to kick away the child that had recovered the fastest and was now staggering for him with arms outstretched and mouth open wide. His boot caught the child in the chin and snapped its head back.
A new bolt of pain caused his vision to blur as he pushed himself up to his feet and staggered back a few steps to give himself some room. He pulled out his remaining knife and waved the zombie children in.
“Come on,” he hissed. “You almost had me fooled, but now I’m on to your little tricks.”
Both children came, but they were now simply just a pair of slow moving zombies and he ended them with almost no effort. As he yanked his knife free, he wiped the blade off on a piece of the tattered tee shirt the little boy had been wearing.
The sounds of twigs being snapped from all around him made Jonathan take off in a jog. He glanced down at the cast on his right wrist and frowned. He was going to have a hell of a time explaining that to Nurse Martin. He added that to the list of things he needed to take care of when he reached his house.
When it finally came into view, he breathed a sigh of relief. He made sure to look around before going inside. If any of those things were following him, he would have to take care of them, but the coast appeared to be clear and he slipped in the front door and breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Looking around, he suddenly felt like an intruder. It no longer felt as if this was his home. His eyes landed on a picture that almost appeared to glow in the shaft of light that shone through his living room window.
Walking over to it, he picked it up and looked at it through tear-blurred vision. It was a picture of him and his mother taken on a trip to Charleston a few years ago. He could see Fort Sumter in the background. He pulled the small knapsack from his back and opened it, placing the picture in with an almost religious reverence.
Moving down the nearly pitch black hall that led to his bedroom, Jonathan pulled out his flashlight with his left hand; somewhere along the way, he’d lost his headlamp. He was fairly confident that he would not need to battle any zombies for a little while, so he allowed himself to relax just a bit. When he opened the bedroom door, he scowled at the sour smell of stale beer and pizza. He wondered if this was how his place smelled to everybody who came to visit.
“No wonder you can’t get laid,” he groused.
Opening his closet door, he had to scramble back in a hurry and tripped over his feet as something large tumbled out at him. He let out a small grunt of pain as he reflexively used his free right hand to help break his fall. Shaking his head to clear it, he saw the dark shape at his feet and laughed bitterly. Standing up carefully, he kicked the vacuum cleaner aside.
How many times had he told himself that he was going to get around to cleaning up his closet so that the stupid vacuum cleaner attachment did not fall out every single time he opened the door? Add that to the list of things he’d always been meaning to get around to, but now he never would.
Kneeling, he pulled out a khaki camera bag and carried it to his bed. Tucking the flashlight under his chin, he reached over and opened the curtains to let in a little moonlight so that he might be able to see better.
Slipping the shotgun free, he set it on his bed and then began rummaging through his room for a few more things. He knew that there were plans for teams to start salvaging everything they could from the abandoned residences, but there were a few things he wanted for himself. Also, there were a handful of items he’d rather not have salvage teams finding. He pulled his box of “girlie” magazines from under his bed and stuffed them into the knapsack.
Heading into the bathroom, he grabbed a few more things and then trudged into the kitchen. In the cabinet above the refrigerator were a few items that he would turn over to Nurse Martin. He grabbed all the partially used prescription bottles and added them to the haul. Maybe if he gave her these, she wouldn’t rip him a new one for ruining his cast and perhaps even reinjuring his wrist.
His last stop was the shelf in the small laundry room. He opened the cupboard mounted on the back wall and smiled. Two full bottles of Jack and a pint of peppermint schnapps. The last one he opened, taking a pull from the bottle.
Satisfied that he had all he’d come for—plus a few bonus items—Jonathan returned to his bedroom and grabbed his shotgun. He was just slinging it back over his shoulder when he heard what sounded like footsteps on his front porch.
Holding his breath, he heard the door knob rattle. The soft squeak of his front door’s hinges came and now Jonathan was more than just a little scared. If it was a zombie, then they could open doors; that was a terrifying thought. If it wasn’t zombies, then somebody was nosing around town and breaking into homes.
“Jonathan Patterson…if you are in here, could you say something, please?” a familiar voice called.
“Mr. Deese?” Jonathan let out his breath and emerged from his bedroom. “What are you doing here? And how
did you find me?”
“I’m out here because I was on patrol and heard a scuffle. I got there a few seconds too late, but it looks like you handled things well enough. I didn’t want to yell and bring down more of those bastards, and you weren’t too far ahead. I would have gotten to your house sooner if I hadn’t run into a few of those damn zombies my own self.”
Jonathan stepped all the way into the living room and saw Stephen Deese standing in his front doorway. He had a machete still clutched in his right hand and it dripping dark fluid on the carpet where a stain was slowly growing. For a moment, Jonathan was annoyed that the man would appear so thoughtless, and then he remembered that he was in the early stages of a zombie apocalypse and his stained carpet did not really register on any list of priorities.
“If you are trying to sneak about, you probably shouldn’t wave around your flashlight while you rummage through your place.” The man came the rest of the way in and shut the door behind him. “And that brings me to my question. What the Sam Hill are you doing outside of the safe zone in the middle of the night…by yourself?”
For a moment, Jonathan didn’t know quite what to say. He was standing here with a knapsack slung over one shoulder and a second partially full pack on his back. He finally opted for the truth. He told Mr. Deese everything, including how he’d gotten a really bad feeling regarding the four men who had arrived on Harleys. He said that he could not explain it any clearer than to say they just gave him an uneasy sensation in his gut. He revealed his plan about setting up a few motion-activated cameras that would feed to an app on his cell phone once he found out where these men might be working.
The older man seemed to think things over for a few minutes and Jonathan became increasingly anxious as he waited. At last the man clapped his hands and leveled his gaze at Jonathan.
“I guess it is getting hard to just dismiss things and say it is stuff of fiction considering the fact that we currently find ourselves living in a lousy B-movie.” Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief, but the man held up a finger and his voice became stern. “That doesn’t mean I necessarily buy into what you’re sellin’, kid. If you end up being wrong, I don’t know nothin’ and I don’t wanna hear my name falling out of your mouth. Now, let’s get back home before anything bad happens.”
The pair returned in relative silence and Jonathan actually found himself a bit annoyed that no zombies happened upon him now that he had some help. As soon as they were back inside the perimeter, they separated and he headed over to the booths where people signed up for work details. What he saw only made him more certain than ever that he was on to something.
“Why would we just trust these clowns on a detail headed over to the market?” he scoffed quietly.
That was a blessing and a curse. The good thing was that Domino’s, his former place of employment, was in that little complex where the market was located. If he was going to set up his equipment, then this was the best setting possible. He still had his store keys and would have no problem slipping into the empty pizza store. The bad thing was that Mr. Deese had specifically told him to get to his cubicle and not do anything else stupid tonight.
He briefly considered his options. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but he doubted there really was such a thing. Before he did anything else, he needed to go see the nurse. In fact, if it went like he expected, then it might actually help him pull off his little scheme.
***
Jamie sat at the sign-up table and found her mind constantly replaying the events of two nights ago. She had regretted it less than five minutes after it was over. This was not like her. She had never just had sex with some random stranger. Hell, she could count her lovers on three fingers.
Four, she reminded herself. How had she tossed all her morals out the window so easily? She kept trying to tell herself that it was the madness of the past several days mixed with the booze. It had destroyed her defenses and left her emotions bare so that everything was going at hyper speed. That might explain how sensitive she’d gotten over Mr. Deese and the way he’d stepped in and taken charge of her mission.
After all, it wasn’t her mission. It was for Liberty. It was for everybody living inside their little community.
You need to get your head together, she scolded herself. You have a responsibility to this town and this is not a time for you to be acting like some stupid schoolgirl. Howard Merchant saw something in you. Isn’t it about time you start behaving like the person he knew you to be?
She would talk to Kevin tonight when he got back from the run he’d signed up for. She would explain that they needed to take a step back and slow things down. He seemed like such a sweet guy. She just knew that he would understand. If not, then that would be his loss.
“We have a problem,” Sophie’s voice broke into Jamie’s reverie. She jerked her head up to see her friend standing with a piece of paper in her hands. Mr. Deese was beside her looking more than a little annoyed.
“It seems that Jonathan Patterson has decided to leave.” Sophie shoved the crumpled piece of paper at her.
“What are you talking about?” Jamie took what appeared to be a note from her friend and read it. She looked up with an expression of confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“This is partially my fault.” Mr. Deese stepped forward. “I caught him outside the perimeter. He had slipped out and went to his house in the middle of the night. He had a couple of packs loaded up, but I didn’t think anything of it after I gave him a bit of a lecture and escorted him back here.”
“That’s when he came to see me in the middle of the night because he had ruined his cast. I told him I wasn’t going to just get up and go to the infirmary because he couldn’t follow simple instructions. I checked it to make sure he hadn’t done too much damage and then I wrapped it tight with an Ace bandage and told him to see me later. When he didn’t show up yesterday, I figured he was just sulking. I didn’t think anything of it.” Sophie sounded more than a little distraught, and it was clear that she was in the process of heaping as much blame as possible onto her own shoulders.
“When I didn’t see him around yesterday, and then again today, I made a trip out to his place and found that note tacked to his front door,” Mr. Deese assumed the narrative. “After making sure he wasn’t just hiding out in his house, I asked around, but there is no sign of him.”
“Well,” Jamie scrunched up her nose as she considered the situation, “it’s not like we have a rule saying that folks have to stay here. I feel bad for him, but he is an adult. If he wanted to leave, then he is obviously free to do so.”
“You don’t think we should look around for him? He damn near got himself killed that night he slipped out,” Mr. Deese pressed, sounding like he might be trying to take a little of the blame Sophie was trying to assume.
“I think it’s unfortunate, but anybody can leave anytime they want. And it might seem sad…even a little cruel, but we can’t spare resources to go looking for a grown man who might be having a bit of a tantrum.”
Jamie got up and turned over her seat to her shift replacement. There were still at least a couple hundred people roaming the booths set up on the football field. She joined the pair and steered them away from everybody.
“Look, I understand that you might be upset about this, but I’m honestly surprised more people haven’t left.” The pair stared at her with open amazement and a hint of confusion. “We make everybody work a six-day week from sunrise to after sunset. Many of our citizens have friends and family that they have no idea as to their condition. People are starting to get a little frayed. We are probably going to lose a few more, but let’s not start putting ideas in people’s heads. I know what I saw on that little drive to the Lowe’s the other day. We may be the anomaly in this apocalyptic equation. All I saw were burning buildings, zombies, and death. Nothing out there that I witnessed gave me any hope that this might be somehow temporary.”
Mr. Deese gave her a curious look and then shrugged his s
houlders. “If that’s how ya feel.” And with that peculiar comment, he simply turned and walked away.
Jamie waited until he was out of earshot and then grabbed Sophie by the arm and led her just a bit further from the remaining individuals that were scrambling at the last minute to get their name on tomorrow’s work detail lists.
“I did something stupid,” she blurted.
“Slept with that Kevin guy, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question. Sophie had her best “stern mother” face on and her arms folded across her body.
Jamie dropped her head and mumbled that she had. She waited, certain that she was about to get a very angry lecture. All she got was silence and she was beginning to believe that might be even worse.
“Girl, I guess everybody is entitled to a little selfishness as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else.”
“You aren’t mad or disappointed?” Jamie’s head came up slowly. Sophie was smiling.
“Did you give me a ration when I got knocked up and married right after graduation?”
“No, but you and Cliff were a couple that had been together basically forever. Everybody knew you two were going to get married.”
“Someday, sure. But I had to turn down a full basketball scholarship. Instead of becoming a doctor like I dreamed, I became a nurse.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. You are an amazing nurse.”
“But I would have made an amazing doctor,” Sophie said wistfully.
“Still, I don’t see how that can be equated to this. I barely know the guy. In fact, I had to dredge my brain to remember his last name.” Jamie paused and fought back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
“I know that.” Sophie put an arm around Jamie. The two stood huddled together for a few moments. “So maybe you take a few steps back. If this guy is as nice as you think…he’ll understand.”