“Not at all, I love kids.”
“I was worried. Taking care of Peeta through all this, alone. I’m glad we met. I feel safer knowing someone has my back.”
“Where’s home?”
“Toulouse, Georgia,” she answers him. “I know it’s a haul, but my family is out there. I’m only here for school. I had a full scholarship at Georgia Tech, but the art program at Waterloo University is better, and they have a program to help single parents go to school. Do you like art?”
35
“This must be the place,” Rocky Roadkill lets the team bus idle on a posh residential street that took a while to find with all the detours and blocked routes. She recalls her friend showing her pictures of the property, though she only half glanced at the magazine spreads she remembers the wrought iron gates had musical notes between the bars.
The gates have been left wide open. Dead bodies are strewn before the opening like rubbish, hacked to pieces from the looks of it. Zombies writhe in a convertible not far from Kelly Peel’s hometown abode, strapped in by their seatbelts and trying to get free.
More roaming corpses are inbound. They have been following the bus as it made its slow navigation through the city. Rocky maneuvers her large transport onto the property. The gate is electrically controlled, since the power is out she has to close the heavy barrier by hand and is thankful to find a latch to lock it.
“KB,” Rocky sweetly wakes her friend on the bus. “I have a surprise for you.”
The last thing Rocky wants is to be stuck on a military base, being told what to do and when to do it. She congratulates herself for having no idea where to find the depot and remembering that her pal’s idol has a house in this town. After what Killer B witnessed, Rocky feels she deserves a nice surprise.
36
Cars belonging to people from both Waterloo and Breckinridge have created an obstruction at the gates of the Reserve Depot, the desperate owners leave them behind after grabbing what they can to gain entry onto the base. The unmanageable jumble makes it difficult for the soldiers to get their own vehicles in and out, it also inadvertently creates an auxiliary barrier they appreciate once the dead converge on the location. Those seeking a safe place are let in and processed.
“Sorry, kid, I haven’t checked anyone in by the name ‘Oswald Johnson’,” a soldier with a clipboard apologizes to Killian.
“Come on, sweetie,” the boy’s mother consoles the saddened youth. “It doesn’t mean he isn’t inside, or on his way.” She hates to give him false hope, but with the state of the world hope of any kind can’t hurt.
Keeping a hand on each child, Susan follows Murphy to the barracks they have been assigned to. The cop had promised her father that he’d stick with them. Once the family is settled in the cramped bay among rows upon rows of steel bunk beds and other refugees, he breaks some bad news.
“It looks like they are undermanned here,” Murphy starts. “I’ve been volunteered to help out with keeping the peace among everybody.”
“Oh,” Susan says. She liked the idea of having him around, it felt safer even when surrounded by soldiers. This city brings back bad memories for her, she had moved here when she had met her ex-husband. They had made a life, and then she decided that life wasn’t enough for her.
“I’m still going to be keeping an eye on you three,” the cop assures. “I’m a man of my word.”
She smiles to let him know that she appreciates his commitment to his promise and understands his oath to serve and protect. And, with that, he takes his leave. The cop is off to lend a hand where needed, Susan is left with her boys. She clings to them on her bunk as they watch people file in. All of the refugees have similar expressions of fear and relief as she figures she must. Though the three of them each have their own assigned bed the mother may make her boys sleep with her. They sit, still stunned by all that has happened since last night, the mother gently stroking her boys’ hair. The woman actually wishes her ex was here right now though she has barely been able to look at him for years.
She never fell out of love with Oz, she just needed more, feared he couldn’t offer her the life she felt she deserved. She met Doctor Newton and began their affair. The next thing she knew she was pregnant with Hippocrates. Deep down she knows what so many suspected, especially her father, Hippo is also Oz’s son.
37
Having forged the survivalist social group, Kenny Dewitt has taken to calling himself PapaBear among the members. Right now PapaBear is on his way to the fortress. One of his first members is a woman he knows as Mother, a lottery winner whose good fortune has provided the group the perfect means to establish their stronghold against the apocalypse. Everyone welcomed into the small group of likeminded souls was assigned certain areas to focus their prepping, be it food, supplies, or weapons. Then, should the world plummet into chaos, they all had to simply get it to the shelter, along with any loved ones that have been approved by PapaBear.
The genius of his idea, as he sees it and sold it to others, is the fact that every member needed only to focus on a small fraction of the necessities, thus the expenses involved in prepping wouldn’t be so insurmountable. And, if they put their contributions in safe places, the group will be able to access them even if that member doesn’t survive, or if Kenny gets there first. PapaBear backs his semi through the gate of a self-storage facility, one of the locations on a map he has recorded all the caches on. According to his pictogram, this one should yield food.
Cruising along the rows of identical red garage doors he zeroes in on his target. He carries a large pair of bolt cutters to the locked unit and proceeds to open it. The door is allowed to rise revealing a small pallet in the center of the unit. Upon the pallet are boxes and plastic buckets. It isn’t nearly as much as what he was expecting.
“This is it?” PapaBear voices his dismay.
“I had a minor financial set-back,” a voice startles him. “But, I was able to get the MREs and dehydrated proteins we talked about.”
“Jesus!” PapaBear relaxes the bolt cutters he had drawn back when the man surprised him. “You must be Omega_Man.”
“Call me Richie,” he introduces himself officially, extending a hand. “And, who is the man behind PapaBear?”
“PapaBear is fine for now,” the leader of the group says, he gives the offered hand of friendship a slap rather than a shake.
“You got here fast!” Richie remarks with a smile.
“You too,” PapaBear says, a bit disappointed.
“Yeah, I actually work here,”
“Well, you did,” the schemer laughs. “Past tense, brother.”
“I guess that’s true,” Richie sadly agrees. “Hey, did you try to call me, or contact me through the group? I never got a notice.”
“Yeah, a few times,” he lies. “I figured you didn’t make it. Let’s get this shit loaded up, Mother’s waiting.”
Richie heads into the unit to grab two heavy buckets while PapaBear opens the back of his truck. “I can’t wait to see the place! I have been wishing to see pictures for months.”
“Couldn’t post them for security reasons,” PapaBear explains.
“Is it far?” Richie asks with a grunt as he struggles with the buckets that weigh his shoulders down.
“It’s a ways,” the leader passes him and grabs only one box from the pallets. “I’ll have to take it easy on my back, friend. I wrenched it getting out of Breckinridge.”
“Hey!” Richie calls from the back of the truck. “Where’s all your stuff?”
“I got looted,” PapaBear answers.
“Damn!” Richie laments. “Everything? You had all the guns.”
“I know, it sucks,” PapaBear agrees as they go for another uneven load. “It is what it is.”
“It’s kinda ironic,” Richie tries to see the humor. “You had a whole arsenal and it gets taken from you.”
“I couldn’t get to them in the back, now could I?” the leader defends the loss of the weapons h
e never actually possessed. “And, there was a lot of them. It was a gang. I’m lucky to be alive! That’s why I came here, to make sure we at least had food. Is this really all you have, this dehydrated shit?”
“Yeah, but if rationed it will last for months. And the shelf life is incredible.”
Once all the food is secured, PapaBear closes the back of his truck. Richie heads for the passenger side, he works out a kink in his shoulder that the exertion has put there. “So, do I get to know where we’re heading yet?”
“Not quite,” PapaBear follows the man. “I’ll have to drop the stuff off then come back for you.”
“What? Why?”
PapaBear doesn’t have a good answer for the puzzled survivor. His plan came to him years ago when reminded of the tale of the grasshopper and the ant. The ant toiled all summer in preparation for winter, the grasshopper played and frolicked. Then, once the cold weather came the grasshopper had nothing and arrived on the ant’s doorstep for food. From the cautionary tale PapaBear decided it would be smarter to trick his loyal ants into doing all the cost prohibitive prep work, and then reap the benefits.
The man that started the survivalist group surprises his member with a crack across his head with his bolt cutters. Bleeding, Richie falls to the asphalt. He’s shocked by the betrayal. PapaBear rolls him into the open and now empty unit.
“Why are you doing this?” the victim groans.
“No hard feelings,” is the only forthcoming response. PapaBear closes the retractable door and engages the latch. He doesn’t lock it, in time Richie will be able to jiggle the door enough to get out. He’ll have his freedom and he will have learned a valuable lesson, don’t trust anybody.
Feeling bad though he left the man alive, PapaBear opens his truck enough to grab one of the boxes of MREs and leaves it for Richie before departing. He takes the time to close the gate to the storage lot. He can already hear the duped survivor rattling the door. “Sorry, Richie. Mother’s waiting.”
38
A tingling sensation crawls through her body as Killer B wanders the home of Kelly Peel. She knows she shouldn’t be here and that only adds to the thrill of it. The excitement makes it hard for her to breathe as she lets her eyes slowly caress every object she passes, every closet she opens and room she enters brings the fresh joy of discovery, an almost childlike wonderment.
Rocky Roadkill is not so easily impressed, after losing interest in her friend’s adulation she struck out on her own among the finery and high living after securing the front door which at some point had been kicked in. Her mission is to find a bottle of anything and curl up in it. Killer B’s idol might not be a heavy drinker, but Rocky knows her husband is. She locates a bar just off the dining room, fully stocked. Jim, Jack, the Captain, she takes roll. All the greatest guys I’ve ever known.
With her hand around the neck of one of her familiar friends, they become reacquainted as she heads onward toward the kitchen. Rocky knows the singing sensation that owns this dwelling doesn’t live here year round, since her and Killer B can’t live on spirits alone she needs to examine their food situation.
The kitchen is everything she expected it to be from her first impression of the home, massive. It strikes her as odd though since Kelly Peel, in her opinion, looks as if she never eats. The cupboards are bare, some dry goods and snacks, but nothing fresh. The freezer contains some meats and a box of popsicles, not enough to sustain the ladies for long. Rocky knows she’ll have to go shopping.
Beyond the walls of the large house and its iron gates she can hear the rising chaos of the city, they’re going to be here a while. Having checked the local weather before the trip she is privy to the projected cold snap the region is in for and can only assume that the dead will be much slower once the chill sets in. That leaves only the living threats out there.
39
Archie and his new companions continue to push eastward in silence. The smallest of the travelers slumbers having just finished a bottle of formula. He enjoys the lull, he feels strangely content as if all he’s been through has lead him to this moment, this woman. She saved him, he came out here to be a knight in shining armor only to be the one in distress. He watches the world pass them by, the walking dead wandering along the road, the bodies and the car wrecks, perfectly at peace.
Things are not so serene for another set of travelers on the road east, Paul Coburn and Abraham Bishop have landed on a hot button issue. “I just don’t understand it!” Paul gives his reason after much badgering from his own knight in shining armor.
“What’s to understand?” the driver probes further. Their ceaseless banter had veered onto a tense subject, he wishes to delve into why Paul and many like him have a problem with homosexuals. “It’s just a question. No microphones, just straight talk, so to speak.”
“Because it’s weird!”
“Weird how, 'cause the bible says?”
“No… Ok, here it goes,” Paul creates an analogy on the spot. “It’s like this: I have a favorite cookie and you tell me that you don’t like them. I love these cookies and don’t get how anyone can not like them as much as me. Vaginas are my cookie.”
“So, dicks are like my donut?”
“If you like, or your crueler or éclair. I can accept your preference, I just don’t get it.”
“Your lack of understanding drives you to hate?”
“My politics drive me to hate, it’s expected of me,” Paul admits. “Even my religion tells me I’m supposed to hate you.”
“You’re Baptist, right? So am I. God doesn’t want you to hate me, he wants you to love me like he does, unconditionally. As far as your party, I don’t see how it should matter whether I eat cookies or donuts, as long as I’m not hurting anyone. I have the right to the pursuit of happiness just like all Americans, if dick makes me happy, and it does, who cares?”
Paul nods as he contemplates his life’s work, he’s played a role for the past several years, a hate monger, and an extremist. He has let ratings turn him into a monster, people only tuned in to see what he’d say next. He wholeheartedly agrees with Abe but makes one request, “Can we go back to calling them donuts?”
40
Humanity has gotten weak, Kenny ponders mankind’s downfall. Adjustable beds, soft water, hand sanitizer, no surprise something like this could overtake us so easily.
He’s alone with his thoughts since he has no one to talk to, he doesn’t so much plan his future but pictures it. The steps he must take to achieve his goal are secondary at the moment to mental images of himself standing triumphantly, leading his people with rousing speeches. The people he sees are inconsequential, puppets in his fantasy. As PapaBear he figures he and Mother will take in survivors, loyal and grateful survivors that will obey without question. He sees himself delegating tasks to these faceless soldiers as he and Mother grow old together, surrounded by their children.
Lost in his imagination he almost misses his turn, one of his group members has a supply cache he must acquire before arriving at home base. The job he assigned himself and four other members was weapons, he’d hate to arrive empty handed.
The semi is parked in a field, its rumbling engine is turned off. PapaBear hops down from behind the wheel after making sure it is clear. There isn’t a shambling figure to be seen in the barren, scraggly plain. The lot was once a farm according to Bullseye who inherited the land and sold off pieces of it save for this one slice. Only one structure sits at the end of the rutty dirt road, a small corrugated steel shack. Up the dented beige sides weeds grow in defiance of attempts to mow the area short. The caretaker had halfheartedly cut down the vegetation that struggles to thrive on the neglected property for some semblance of a yard, leaving behind what the blades were unable to touch.
Bolt cutters in hand, PapaBear cautiously approaches the shed. No vehicles are parked outside, a good sign to him since the sting of abandoning Richie has yet to abate. He knows he’ll get over it in time, just as he has already forgotten th
e other guy. He’ll also get over the moral ramifications of misleading his followers. He has to wonder if they’ve tried to contact him yet, who among them has survived. Which caches are out there for the taking. They were all instructed, in the event of an apocalypse, to sit tight and wait for him to arrive.
He awoke this morning to building chaos, arrived at work to begin his route filling vending machines all over Breckinridge. The moment the radio suggested people should stay indoors he took off in his truck before it could even be loaded. Now he has what passes for food when one is desperate, and he’s about to get the guns he promised.
Baby steps are taken toward the shack, he clings to his bolt cutters like a security blanket. He can’t be certain the owner isn’t here, though no car is parked outside Bullseye always seemed like a bit of a recluse from his postings.
There’s no lock to clip off as he was expecting, but it is secured. From the inside, he thinks. PapaBear knocks. Bullseye has to be inside, there’s no keyhole in the weathered wooden door. He knocks again and listens for movement, a sign that his guy is inside.
“Hey, Bullseye!” he calls loudly. “It’s PapaBear!”
Nothing. He slowly rounds the simple dwelling finding no other doors. There isn’t even a window. Back at the door the man knocks one last time to no avail before deciding to kick it in. He hitches his pants up to his potbelly in preparation, takes a few puffs of air and then goes for it.
PapaBear’s foot lands against the wood, it gives easier than he had expected catching him off guard when the lack of resistance makes him lose his balance and fall forward. His leg is numb and his groin hurts, he lays on the ground waiting for the pain to subside. He hasn’t much time to recover, he hears a moan besides his own.
From the shack creeps a man PapaBear recognizes from his group. Bullseye had made it to his cache, but had suffered a bite at some point. He has a blood-soaked bandage on his hand that he reaches for Kenny with. The survivalist screams, crab crawling backwards to get away from the zombie.
Life Among the Dead (Book 4): The End Page 12