Daniels looked at Chrissy, who shrugged.
“Are you sure they couldn’t talk before?”
“I’m sure. They’re a lot smarter now. Uncle Jay knows how to use a gun now, too. But guns are bad. But I guess they’re good, too, because he saved you with his.”
“He did at that. Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Ooh, you said a bad word. Your mommy should wash your mouth out with soap. At least that’s what my mommy always used to say, before she went away…” Amanda started to tear up again.
“Okay!” Chrissy said, looking to stave off the fireworks. “Whaddaya say we finish fixing dinner? We can talk more later and you can tell us how you got out of the city. Gus brought back some flour the other day, so we’re gonna make a big pie with some cherry pie filling we’ve been saving. How about that?”
Amanda licked her lips. “Mmm. Cherry pie. I haven’t had pie since…I don’t know. A long time. Since I was little.”
The gathering burst into laughter. Then they split up into various groups: one to peel the veggies, another to pump water from the well out back to cook the veggies in, a third to prepare the cured meat, a fourth to set the tables, and so on. They now had thirty-four people to feed.
The house was going to be even more crowded than ever.
* * * *
Geoff, Daniels, Chrissy, and a few others met out back to discuss the situation.
“What do you make of this?” Geoff said to the group. “Can they really be Zoms? If so, what happened to them?”
Daniels shrugged. “Beats me. I guess that explains why they don’t seem very bright. On the other hand, Jay can use a gun and they all rode bikes. Have you ever seen a Zom do anything like that?”
No one had.
Then Chrissy chimed in. “Amanda said that the Zoms got sick and most died, and then the survivors got smarter. What’s that all about? We’ve seen a lot of dead Zoms lately, many of them didn’t seem to have a mark on them. So what killed them, and how could they get smarter?”
Daniels shook his head. “We don’t have anything to go on but the word of a little girl. Maybe she’s just confused. Or maybe there’s a new strain of the virus going around that’s killing more people—although that wouldn’t explain how the survivors got smarter.”
“A new virus,” Geoff repeated. “That’s a scary thought. What if these Zoms are carriers? We could all get sick, maybe die.”
“Holy crap,” Chrissy said. “But they don’t seem sick now. Maybe that means they’re no longer contagious. If they are, we’ve probably already been exposed.”
“If they’re really Zoms,” someone else asked, “how do we know they won’t attack us in our sleep?”
Daniels held out placating palms. “Hey, let’s not work ourselves into a panic, now. From what the girl says, she’s been living with them for months and they not only didn’t kill her, they protected and fed her. And remember, they saved our lives today from other Zoms.”
That seemed to calm everyone down.
Geoff nodded. “Y’all make some good points. I suggest we keep a close eye on them, just in case, but treat them like everyone else unless and until we have reason to do otherwise. Agreed?”
The others all nodded in agreement.
“Good. Then let’s show our new friends how we do dinner at Casa Paradiso!”
* * * *
After dinner, the cooks of the household asked to add the food the new members of the family had brought with them to the group’s pantry.
“No!” Jay shouted. “Ours!” He hugged one of the backpacks to his chest. Why did the woman want to take his food?
“I understand,” one of the women said, “but we’re sharing our food with you. It’s only fair that you share yours with us. We’re all one big family now.”
Jay backed away, still clutching the bag.
Amanda, hearing the commotion, ran into the kitchen. “Ma’am, he’s not used to people. ‘cept me.” She turned to face Jay. “Now, Uncle Jay, give the nice lady the backpack. There’s lots and lots of food here. We don’t need to keep our own.”
For as long as he could remember—and that was only a few weeks—food had been hard to come by. You either had to kill it, or risk being killed to find it. Now he was being asked to give it away. He was so confused.
Amanda kept talking. He liked listening to Amanda talk. She was so smart.
Finally, he put down the backpack. Amanda dragged it over to the woman.
“That’s good, Uncle Jay!” She grinned at him and he grinned back.
Amanda was happy, so he was happy.
Later, when everyone was getting ready for bed, someone made up the sofa for Amanda. The others were given throw pillows and sheets. There weren’t any spare beds available for the newcomers. They would have to sleep on the living room floor until some more beds could be built.
The three adults spooned together in the middle of the room. After a few minutes all alone on the sofa, Amanda got up and dragged her blanket over to the others. She raised Suzi’s arm and crawled under, pulling her blanket over their legs.
Then, with a contented sigh, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
* * * *
The next morning, Daniels and Chrissy headed back toward the small town where he’d found the church and feed store for more supplies. They had four more mouths to care for now and were running low on some items.
Daniels hobbled around with a heavily wrapped ankle, but at least it wasn’t broken. Again, he rode Buck and Chrissy was on the smaller Mabel. But this time they had the new cart some of the enterprising carpenters had made from various bits of wood and metal they had found around the homestead.
It was built rickshaw-style, with two long poles harnessed to Buck’s flanks. The poles led back to a two-wheeled base riding atop the spare tires from two of the SUVs still parked in the garage of the first farmhouse. The axels had been the tricky part, but they worked it out. The cart was relatively small, but plenty big enough to hold a generous amount of supplies, and with the fold-down wooden bench seats it could even hold four passengers in a pinch, two to a side. Today, it carried only Hiram, curled up on the pile of burlap sacks.
It was a good two-and-a-half hour ride into town, which gave the couple plenty of time to talk.
“So,” he began, “What do you make of our new guests?”
“I dunno. Can they really be Zoms?”
He shrugged. “They aren’t normal, that’s for sure. Slow, maybe, but there was a look of cunning in Jay’s eyes.”
“If they’re Zoms and something changed to make them smarter and less bloodthirsty, are they the only ones, or have others changed, too?”
“No telling. But the other Zoms we’ve encountered recently sure haven’t been any friendlier than before.”
“Oh, I’d say they’ve been way too friendly, as in ‘Come here and hug me so I can eat your face.’”
They laughed at that, causing Hiram to open one eye, before going back to sleep.
* * * *
As the horses approached town, Daniels observed a change from his last visit.
There were more Zom corpses littering the streets, but this time in the town square there were two Zoms standing over a pile of them. They were working together. One hacked off arms and legs with a hatchet, while the other put them in a wheelbarrow.
“It looks like some of them survived whatever killed the others,” Daniels said. “And these two appear to be more of the ‘upgraded’ variety, like Jay and the others. Keep your guard up, in case there are others around that aren’t too busy to notice us.”
They rode around town, checking various neighborhoods. They discovered another grocery story, a convenience store, a hardware store, two pharmacies, and several small shops that contained usable items. And they found one neighborhood that appeared almost untouched. The doors and windows were intact in most of them.
What they didn’t find was a bunch of rampaging Zoms.
That latte
r realization provided food for thought.
* * * *
“Are y’all insane?” Geoff asked.
It was evening, and Chrissy and Daniels had asked to speak to Geoff and the rest of the “ruling council” that made most of the decisions—subject to group vote—for those living in Casa Paradiso.
“Y’all want to move us into a town full of Zoms? Wasn’t that the whole point of living out here in the country, away from population centers?”
“It was,” Daniels said. “But things have changed. You know as well as I do that thirty-four of us can’t continue to live in this one house indefinitely. There’s no electricity, we have to pump water by hand, and it’s a five-hour round trip into town to scrounge for supplies. What’s gonna happen come winter when there’s no heat, except for the one fireplace, the well freezes over, and there’s no one to clear snow on the road from here to town? We need a more permanent solution.
“Look, Chrissy and I scouted around town for several hours and saw a grand total of four living Zoms. Four. I think that’s a manageable number. And we found a nice neighborhood that still has power, running water, and working furnaces. We can fix up a few houses so we have room to breathe. It’ll put us much closer to the grocery store, farm supply store, hardware store, and everything else we need to survive. We can plant gardens in the yards for vegetables and make a more permanent life for ourselves.”
Geoff nodded in thought. “Hmm. Y’all make some good points. We’ll have to give this some thought. I’m still concerned that being in town we’d be more exposed to Zom attacks.”
Daniels shrugged. “It looks like most of the ones that were there died from this new plague, or whatever it was. The ones we saw were more workmanlike, rather than mindless animals. If there are only a small number left, we should be able to manage them. There’s no guarantee that the occasional Zom won’t show up here, either.”
“It’s also possible,” Chrissy chipped in, “they can be taught, like Amanda taught Jay and the others. If they can be trained to tend a garden or do other chores to help the community it would not only solve the Zom problem, it would also give us a chance to start rebuilding.”
One of the others sitting around the table asked, “What about the aliens? Mightn’t we attract their attention if we start rebuilding a town? What if they swoop in and slaughter us?”
Daniels shrugged again. “We don’t know their intentions toward us. Maybe now that they own the planet they’ll be content to leave us alone. On the other hand, say they plan to wipe us all out. They could do that just as easily if we stay here. The smoke from this fireplace is visible for miles. In town, we can use electric heating—no smoke. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not try to survive a winter in this house without heat. If they’re going to come for us either way, I’d rather be living comfortably in a warm house than cowering in a freezing one.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The council decided to go on a fact-finding trip into town to see for themselves what life like there would be like. A couple of the members were in the middle of some building projects. Because of that, it was two days before the six of them left. As before, Daniels rode Buck, but now towing Geoff and three others who rode in the cart behind.
After one of the cart’s wheels hit a particularly large pothole, Daniels asked, “You folks okay back there?”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Geoff replied. “But next time remind me to bring a pillow to sit on.” He repositioned his backside and held onto his rifle all the more securely.
When they reached town, it was immediately apparent that things had changed in just the past two days. There were no Zoms lying on the ground. The industrious ones had apparently collected the remains and carted them off somewhere.
Now the town merely looked abandoned, littered with wrecked vehicles and debris rather than bodies. The farther into town the group traveled, the less pessimistic the expressions of the council members became.
“Show us this neighborhood you found,” Geoff said.
* * * *
Oak Street held eleven homes, five on one side of the street and six on the other, ending in a T intersection. The house on one corner of the T was an immense antebellum mansion with impressive two-story-tall white columns framing an arched entrance. A large wrap-around porch looked big enough to accommodate a dozen people on rocking chairs. On either side of the front lawn stood a massive oak tree, casting cooling shade over the porch and most of the lawn.
The three-story structure appeared well maintained, with eight bedrooms and six bathrooms, power and running water, and a huge kitchen. It would make a great headquarters for the new community. The other homes on the street were smaller, but equally nice. A couple needed to be aired out to make them livable. Overall, the effort required to move in would be minor.
By a unanimous vote, the members of the council approved the suggestion to move to town.
* * * *
Other members of Casa Paradiso, as expected, objected to moving.
“Why can’t we stay here, where it’s safe?” one asked.
“What about all the work we put into fixing it up? It’ll have been a waste of effort if we move,” said another.
Yet another raised the issue of being noticed by the aliens. Other questions and objections followed. Geoff and the others answered them, one by one. Some still held doubts, but eventually nearly all agreed that moving made the most sense.
The council decided that due to the number of people involved, and the amount of food and other supplies that needed to be moved, it was worth the risk to use the SUVs. It would have taken forever to cart everything using their one small wagon and horses.
The next few days were extremely busy ones, between fixing up their new homes, gathering and preparing food for everyone, and moving their belongings from the old homestead to the new ones.
Chrissy and Daniels moved into one bedroom of the mansion, and Geoff another. Moose and Jesse decided to share a third for now, all on the second floor. It meant a shorter climb from downstairs,. Besides, the third was mostly cluttered with spare furniture, anyway. Amanda and the Zoms refused to be separated. They took the fourth bedroom on that floor. The others spread out into several other homes.
Chrissy established a sort of classroom in what had been the parlor for the education of Jay, Suzi, and Joanie. Thus was born Chrissy’s School for Wayward Zombies.
Amanda had demonstrated earlier with Jay and the others that she was an excellent teacher of Zoms. However, she needed schooling herself. She was added to the roster of students in Chrissy’s school. Because Amanda was so good with the Zoms, she also served as teacher’s assistant for their education.
* * * *
Over the next weeks, the community settled into their new homes. After being cooped up together for so long, it was wonderful to be able to spread out. Oddly, after a while most started to group together again. For those without their own families, it just didn’t feel right living alone. Most homes ended up with four to six people living in them.
Under Amanda’s tutelage, the Zoms learned fast, not only words that they would need to better communicate with the others, but also basic concepts, like inside versus outside, hot versus cold, etc. All along the way, Amanda kept them singing and dancing.
As Chrissy told Daniels, “That girl is a natural born teacher. I wish we’d had teachers like her when I was in school, teachers that made learning fun. And she’s what? Five, six? Amazing.”
“I think they relate to her because she’s so young,” he replied, “Right now, they’re like little children themselves and they respond to the kind of education that Amanda learned when she was in pre-school.”
“Sure, but it’s more than that. She seems to know exactly how to reach them. Maybe it’s from the months living with them. She figured out how to reach them when they couldn’t communicate yet. That’s one smart little girl.”
Late summer turned into fall, and with it came the first c
hilly nights. The community hastened to make preparations for the coming winter.
Then the outsiders came.
* * * *
The pickup truck tore through the center of town. Gunshots rang out as the two in the back and the one in the passenger seat fired in the air, whooping and hollering. One of them tossed an empty whiskey bottle out the window to smash on the curb. A second pickup followed, with four more gun-happy drunks shooting up the sky.
At first, the residents of the town didn’t know where the shots were coming from. The sounds grew nearer. The residents ran inside, locked the doors, and slammed shut the interior reinforced shutters installed for this reason. Then they watched through the gun slits as the trucks barreled down Oak Street.
For a minute it looked like the outsiders would fly by and be gone in seconds. Then the trucks slowed and pulled up in front of one of the houses. The eight men got out and slammed the doors. They looked up at the top of the house, and one of them pointed.
“Damn,” Geoff said to the two others in the room with him. He’d been helping to repair a balky hot water heater across the street from the other house. “They spotted the smoke from the chimney. I told them to use the furnace, not the fireplace.”
The men, armed with rifles, walked up to the house. Two stood in front of the door. The other six spread out, across the front and around the side of the house. The driver of the first truck pounded on the door. “Hey! Anyone in there? We’re just lookin’ for some food. Do you have any to spare?”
A male voice called out from behind the door, “No. I’m sorry, we don’t. But there’s a grocery store four blocks over. There’s still plenty of canned goods there.”
Aliens Versus Zombies Page 23