by Evans, Mike
Kya looked behind her but it was to late and Joey had come up behind her wrapping his massive arms around both girls and squeezing them tight. Joey said, “Its ok Kya, yu don’t need to be sad, Jenn always tells me to stop eating, I never do.”
Both girls laughed a little bit but he did help. Jenn rubbed her hand through Joey’s hair and patted him on the shoulder. “Alright stud, we can’t breath can you let go.”
Joey did and both girls sucked in a deep breath. Joey pumped up his biceps smiling, “These guns are something.”
Patrick looked at his arms in comparison to Joey’s cursing a bit under his breath at his much smaller size. Ellie patted him on the shoulder and said, “Hey it’s all good those seals are going to make you buff.”
Patrick said, “What are you talking about?”
Ellie smiled and gave a nodding wink, “I am just saying don’t be so worried about you know.” she motioned to him.
Patrick said, “Dude you like, just pointed to all of me, with my diabetes it makes it hard to lift weights and workout which unfortunately for me leaves me with this less than impressive physique. But you know what really pisses me off about it?”
“Sure what?”
“The fact that all those years during elementary and junior high that I kept hearing from teachers and counselors and my parents that when I grow up it is going to be the smart kids who rule and that it’s going to be people with college educations that go somewhere in life. Well that just all turned to crap, it’s still going to be those kids that could run faster than me, that could lift more than me and that were just overall more able to be active than myself who are going to be the survivors. God it pisses me off!”
Ellie patted him on the shoulder again, “Hey it could be worse right, you could be one of the Turned walking around.”
Patrick laughed, “Does that mean I could eat the jocks?”
“They’d be all stringy nothing good there about them. No you want to go for the bigger kids maybe.”
Patrick just stared at her, “You are just a bit off aren’t you?”
“Oh you know it buddy, i’m the best kind of chick you can know, no stupid makeup or designer wear for me. Give me a t-shirt or a hoody any day of the week paired with a hoodie and I couldn’t be happier about it.”
Patrick went to say something when Andy hobbled out staring around shaking a match out and tossing it off the deck. “What the hell are ya’ll just sitting around here for? There is work to be done this is a damn farm. We can’t just wait for someone else to come and do it now can we?”
Ellie said, “Well we aren’t farmers Andy, how are we suppose to know?”
Andy nodded, “Valid point kid, don’t worry I got a entire list of shit to keep you kids busy until the others get back and need our help. Now I know it is only barely past spring but we are going to want firewood this winter. I know we got a whole bunch over there but I tell you it gets damn cold out here when we lose power. I can only assume what power we do have eventually is going to go to shit in a hand bag.”
Ellie raised her hand, “How did crap get in a handbag Andy?”
“You might be missing the point there sweetheart. What i’m really saying is, you aren’t doing anything productive, and there seems to be plenty of work that needs to be done around here. Now none of you know what that work is, but being the helpful, knowledgeable old handsome man that I am, i’m going to be here to help you with everything.”
“You are too good to us.” Ellie said.
Joey pointed to the giant yard worth of unsplit firewood that Andy had next to the house, “What about all that wood Mr. Mr. - hey what is your last name?”
“Joey don’t worry about it. I’m too damn old for you to be that worried about being proper with me. Christ I think the fact that you kids didn’t leave me for dead in my shop is plenty enough respect for me to be able to sleep with at night. Joey you just call me Andy, that is plenty good enough for me kid.”
Joey nodded still focused on the wood. “What are you going to do with all of that wood back there Mr. Andy?”
Andy smiled looking at Joey and pointing at it he said, “Well Joey once we teach you the finer points of how to swing a axe and a sledge hammer i’m going to put you to work.”
Patrick cut in, “He isn’t going to be able to do all that work on his own Andy. That is a two man job and-”
“You know Patrick, it is Patrick is it?” Patrick nodded his head slowly wishing he’d have just kept his mouth shut. “Well Patrick lucky for Joey that you are still around. He is gonna need someone to move the pieces of wood that are left. Hell it’ll be good for you put a little meat on them there bones for ya to. Hell you are going to be thanking me by the time you two are done. You never know you might just find yourself a new buddy.”
Joey walked by putting his arm around Patrick engulfing the boy with it. “Come on Pat you and me are going to go cut wood.”
Patrick tried to get free of his grip but he was in a one armed bear hug and he wasn’t getting out. Patrick said, “Ok Joey lets go cut some wood. You can call me Patrick though ok?”
Joey shook his head, “Nah I like Pat better. My sister’s been trying to get me to call her Jenny for years, it doesn’t sound right though.”
Andy showed the boys the material and helped Joey with his swing. Within ten minutes the two boys were kicking ass and taking names. After Joey had broken his first massive log in half and split those remains as well Andy had pulled a Snickers bar from his overalls. He held up a weathered old finger to Joey letting him know to keep it between the two of them. Joey’s eyes lit up when he saw the treat and dropped the axe running for it. He ripped it from Andy’s hands giving the old man a hug he would not soon forget. Joey ripped the bar in two and handed off one of the pieces to Patrick patting him on the back. Andy pulled one for himself and as the took a quick break he said, “You work hard and I might even show you two where my stash is. But you gotta play your cards right. I don’t just go showing anyone where I keep my stuff. This kind of food is going to be a hot commodity in no time at all.”
Patrick stared at the bar for a second. “You think we will really be here for that long? I don’t think you heard that news report saying that the government was going to be finding a cure. They said that there was a good chance that they would be able to use the research that we sent them yesterday. They didn’t really say that specifically but I doubt anyone else sent them anything like that.”
Andy who was sharp as a tac didnt miss a beat. “Oh thank god the government is going to save us all. That is a good thing isn’t it. Hell maybe we don’t need to g out chopping all this wood after all huh?”
Andy finished his candy bar and the boys started following. Andy started laughing, “Oh hell sorry boys, I was just kidding. We best plan on being out here for a long time and we can keep ourselves safe. If it don’t last that long well than at least you get to not be lazy shits and learn some new skills.”
Patrick’s shoulders dropped as he thought about how funny what Andy said might have been if it wasn’t himself and Joey being the brunt of his joke.
Ellie walked up seeing this going back and forth and said, “So while you men folk are doing all this hard work what do you intend on us women folk doing? Did you have some pies that need making or something?”
Andy said, “You got a bit of spunk in you don’t you? You keep that about you its going to help you stay strong. Its going to help you surive don’t you forget that. Now you all head down around that timbers edge and get anything that burns. We are going to be cutting down plenty in the coming months and I figure all the kindling we can get is going to be more useful than you can imagine.”
Ellie stared at the wood treeline and thought about how far it was from the house. “What if any of those things from home come in across the bridge? What are we going to do to save ourselves?”
Andy said, “Well you know how to shoot anything Ellie?
Ellie waved her hand back an
d forth in a fifty fifty gesture. “I can shoot one of the rifles that we brought in but i’m not very quick about it; Greg got us these cool pistols that have the lasers on them and those seem like what i’m best at shooting.”
“Well there you go, you, Jenn, and Kya can head on down there and pick it up. If you want to make a big pile of it on the tree line we can take my tractor down there and when we do that we will cut some trees down and be able to keep Patrick and Joey busy for a long time to come.”
Patrick shook his head thinking of an entire summer spent chopping wood with Joey. Joey put his arm around him the stickiness of his shirt soaking through the back of Patrick’s shirt. “Hey you hear that Pat you and me are going to get to spend all kinds of time together. That’s good news isn’t it?”
Patrick wiped at the sweat on his brow and nodded. “You know Joey there are probably worse ways to spend a summer.” He whispered, “If we keep working like this were gonna be ripped and Andy is going to hook us up with his Snickers stash.”
Joey squealed at the thought of this. “Oh man, heck-heck yes.”
He didn’t let his grip go of Patrick and the two of them walked quickly. Patrick was doing his best to keep his balance as they raced back to the wood pile. Ellie stared at the two of them thinking of Mike for a moment and thought how it might not be the worse thing for Patrick to have a new friend that he could to talk to if he wanted to. Ellie looked at the woods and yelled to Jenn and Kya to hang on a moment. She ran inside to her room grabbing the rifle Shaun had taught her how to use the day before and clipped on the holster to her jeans belt making sure that it was snug and put the extra rounds for it in her back pockets. As she left she over heard the talking on the television and couldn’t help herself but stop to look.
She stopped as she saw the list of cities going across the screen. She sat as she saw the names slowly going across. Ellie read the listings it was the proposed safety camps that were being set up in mass across the United States. She saw Des Moines, Iowa Wells Fargo Arena. She knew that they could be there in less than a half hour if they needed to it gave her a little bit of hope that if worse came to worse they might be able to make it to a safe zone if they needed to. The other message stated, do not travel if you have somewhere safe. There is nowhere to run outside of your state the spread has taken over the central states and has made it all the way to the west. The east is all that is left and is hanging on by a small line. Godspeed and goodluck.
Ellie wasn’t sure how she felt about the fact that she couldn’t dream of fleeing going anywhere. She understood that they were dead set in the middle of America and without the aid of flight there was very little chance they would have a was to bypass all of the states in between and the east coast. When she went outside Kya and Jenn were waiting with small hand saws and hatchets that Andy had pointed out to them to make their job easier. Jenn said, “What’s wrong you look like you saw a ghost or something, what happened between you walking upstairs and back down.”
Ellie tried to speak but when she opened her mouth nothing came out. She walked down the steps and said, “They are setting up a shelter a safety place of some type over in Des Moines. It’s like a half hour from here probably, they didn’t have any details on it as far as what is there if we could make it, but yeah they said they are trying to set up something. I am not sure if they have it up and running but at least it is an option.”
Kya said, “Really they have somewhere where we could go if we needed to? God that is great news isn’t it?”
Ellie shrugged as she chopped at the downed limbs, “You know it is and it isn’t I think. It is hard to say. We would have to be able to make it there, and if we did make it there how do we know that we would be safe. I think once we get there we are going to be stuck there. I can’t see going there and not liking it and just saying hey thanks for letting us try this place but you know it isn’t for me, I think I am going to go back out on my own. There is no way once we go in somewhere like that we are just kids again in their eyes.”
Jenn said, “We are teenagers though, what the hell do we know about surviving anything?”
“We’ve all survived for a few days on our own and that includes both of you and your brothers. It seems to me we are doing a good job of it so far. I don’t know kya’s story but I don’t think that any of us have had a easy last few days.”
Kya shook her head slowly thinking back to her day one shuddering at the thought of it. Kya said, “We were headed home to Colorado down by Colorado Springs. We had gotten a late start because my mom had lost her cell phone in the locker room. We were just one of the regular people who were leaving at that point. We had gotten stuck on the interstate trying to head west and when it wasn’t moving my dad decided to follow some of the other cars that he knew would be headed west.”
Ellie said, “Probably a dumb question but how is it that he would know where perfect strangers were headed?”
Kya smiled, “Lucky i’m not bitchy or I might have mentioned it could be considered a dumb question. It’s was their license plates. He followed a few of them that had Colorado, Utah, and I think there were a few that were from Nevada as well. Anyway as we headed back we thought we’d traded one pile up for another.”
Ellie said, “Oh no, was it just a few miles from town where there was a huge pile up?”
Kya shook her head, “It wasn’t a pile up to me it was like that old movie Constantine where the guy could go to hell and back except hell came to us. They were everywhere it was a massacre.”
Ellie didn’t want to ask but they had already opened a can of worms that wasn’t going to be able to be closed again. “The Turned were everywhere Kya?”
She nodded wiping tears, “Yes they were everywhere and when my dad tried to reverse he drove into the ditch and got stuck. There were to many cars and nowhere to go. It was a buffett for them. They ran through the cars smashing their faces and heads on the windows until it broke and they took without asking, never getting full. When we thought that it was safe to try and run my family slipped out of our SUV and made our way into the ditch trying to stay hidden in the grass but it didn’t do any good.”
Ellie said, “They smelled you didn’t they? They probably knew where you were better by your scent than they would have if they had actually seen you.”
“How did you know that? I mean I think you are right. I don’t think that they so much saw us because I know when dad got out and slid into the ditch he cut his arm on a glass beer bottle that was in the grass. He didn’t even scream when he did it he didn’t have anything to wipe at the wound with or to bandage it and within minutes the Turned or whatever you called them started coming towards us sniffing, walking slowly until they had figured out where dad was.”
Ellie was entranced, “What did you do, I mean obviously you got away, right?”
She nodded slowly her shoulders started to shake as she tried to put the thoughts out of her mind but it was too late there was no stopping now. “We had tried hiding but once they got the scent of blood it was all over, there was nothing we could do to try and hide it no longer mattered. My dad’s last act on Earth was to save me and my mom. When they came down into the ditch he’d slowed them down with a crowbar that he’d taken from his SUV. When they came at him he took out a few of them with the crowbar smashing in their skulls.”
Ellie said, “It wasn’t enough though was it?”
Kya said, “Not even close, it was the worse thing that i’ve ever seen. They didn’t have an ounce of humanity left in them. It seemed to only make them more angry and violent. When he had struck a few of them with the crowbar three of them leapt into the air landing on top of them and pummeling him with their bare hands. They clawed at his face until it was unrecognizeable. Just when I thought they were going to come at us they dug their faces into his skin each of them ripping pieces off. The more they bit the louder his screams grew. They didn’t let up ever when more came they acted like wild dogs ripping off limbs and running aw
ay with them feeding greedily on them. My mom and I sprinted away and when those that hadn’t been able to get a piece of him saw us we were public enemy number one.
Jenn said, “You don’t have to continue if you don’t want to Kya. I know how hard it is to think about it, it’s not doing you any good you are going to make things worse for you.”
Kya laughed and wiped at the tears. “Are you kidding me Jenn? It’s going to make it worse for myself? Every waking moment i’ve had i’ve been trying to think of what I could do to try and save my dad and when I sleep the only thing I can think of is my dad and the blood. I have never seen anything like that before. I fear that there is a good chance that it won’t be the last time that I do see something like that though. My mom was even worse, imagine what you have to be going through when you see your husband being eaten in front of you and as bad as you want to try and save him to try and protect him you have but one thing you can do and that is getting your only child to safety. You know that if you don’t leave right then that you will have a even lesser chance of getting safe.”
Jenn said, “You don’t have to go on Kya really it is ok.”
“You worried i’m going to have nightmares? Because that is all I have had since that first day. My mom forced me to run she told me no matter what happened to run, to run until I couldn’t run any further and then to keep running. She knew that we didn’t stand a chance and that if we did’t get somewhere where we could hold up we wouldn’t last the night. Of course we thought that once we made it town we were going to be safe.”
Ellie said, “And that is how you lost your mother? You two made it to town probably thinking that you were going to find shelter and someone to take the two of you in right?”
Kya nodded, “Yeah we made it to town, but there wasn’t anyone friendly to be found. We ran to main street thinking that, that would be our best chance but when we got there, there was nothing but the Turned waiting for us growling and salivating for a taste of us. My mom got me somewhere safe and then used herself as bait. She refused to let anything happen to me. She sacrificed herself for me. By the time I knew what was happening it was to late. She had pushed me in the store building, it was the same one that I found Jenn and her brothers in. I watched her through the window and she didn’t make it half a block. They didn’t leave anything to Turn they just tore her apart her last sounds I will ever remember will be that of her in the worst pain in her life-I mean think about your dying moments after a good life, she didn’t do anything wrong, she didn’t ever hurt anyone and now-well now she’s just another victim.”