by Megan Berry
Dad shrugs. “Not much, just thought I’d come chop some wood with my favorite daughter today,” he tells me casually. Despite it being the oldest joke in the history of our jokes, I laugh.
“I’m your only daughter,” I remind him, just like I do every time, and he grins.
“That’s why you’re the favorite,” he replies. Our joke is dumb, but it feels comfortable to do something normal like we used to do before the outbreak. I glance at my dad out of the corner of my eye. First my mom and now him—
“Is this some kind of intervention?” I ask, obviously catching my dad unaware. He gives me a bug-eyed look for a minute, and now I’m pretty sure I’ve guessed right.
“Not quite,” Dad admits after a minute. “Your mom and I are just worried about you. It’s been a lot of change in a short amount of time, then losing Sunny…” he trails off when I let out a small whimper of pain at the use of her name.
“I’m okay, Dad,” I reassure him, and he nods like whimpering in pain at the mere mention of someone’s name is perfectly natural.
“I know you are, kiddo,” he says, and I’m surprised, but I actually think he means it.
“I was thinking though, you’re probably getting pretty tired of chopping all this wood,” he says, and I nod my head in agreement. Wood is now both the one thing keeping me alive, and the bane of my existence. “Maybe after we get a load under our belts, you could come on a run with me?” he says, looking hopeful, and my pulse sky rockets.
“You’re actually going to let me off the mountain?” I ask incredulously, and he nods.
“It was actually your mom’s idea,” he says, surprising me even more. “With the zombies freezing up, it’s a lot less dangerous, and I know you can handle yourself. We just think a change in your routine will be good for you.”
I nod my head excitedly. The idea of venturing around in a zombie-free world again is actually making me dizzy. “Thank you, Daddy,” I tell him, spinning so I can wrap my arms around his waist.
Dad hugs me back for a minute before giving me a playful push towards the truck. “Come on, kid, we have some wood to chop.”
“Gotta chop before you shop,” I mutter like a fool, and Dad and I burst out laughing. Again, it wasn’t that funny, but it’s all we’ve got.
“What’s so funny?” Abby asks as we get into the truck. She and Megan turn to look at us like we are a pair of lunatics—we probably are. Who laughs during the apocalypse?
“Dad said I can go down the mountain today,” I tell them proudly and watch Abby’s face darken with worry.
“Anyone that wants to go down today is welcome to join us,” my dad interrupts me to say. “We’re worried you kids are going a little stir crazy up here, and we can always use the help.”
Abby is already shaking her head before my dad is even finished talking, and I’m not surprised. Megan looks thoughtful for a moment and finally nods. “I’ll go,” she agrees, and I try not to look too disappointed that she’ll be joining us.
The truck winds its way through the fresh powder that’s fallen on our rutted path, and we pull up to the same clearing we were gathering wood from yesterday. I stare out at the quietness of the trees and sigh. The hours are going to drag by even more slowly than usual…
“Where’s Silas?” Dad asks, disappointment clear on his face as we throw our gear into the truck. He’s directing his question to me, and I feel a stab of irritation. I’m not the guy’s keeper.
“I think he went hunting,” Ryan says, drawing the attention off of me, and I shoot him a grateful look. He winks back, and my dad frowns.
“I wish he was around. I’d like to at least offer him a chance to come with us,” he says, and I shrug.
“That boy lives to hunt; he won’t mind missing the run,” Jack chimes in.
I climb into the back seat, squished between Megan and Ryan and all our gear. Dad and Jack are also going, Regg is staying home to work on the woodshed, and to be around in case something happens. My mom is spending the day with Jack’s sister and Abby, and Silas is missing in action.
I stare out the window as the trees pass by. We are taking it easy on the snowy roads, but the conditions aren’t terrible since they’ve been plowed—another perk to having the big machinery at our disposal. Regg makes us keep the roads clear in case we need to make a quick escape.
Dad pulls up to the first ‘check-stop’ as we’ve dubbed them. I lean forward and watch. Jack hops out of the truck and uses a pulley system to lower a drawbridge over the ten-foot gap they dug into the mountain road using the machinery. They chose this spot especially because there are two huge pieces of rocky edge on either side of the road, creating an effective bottle neck. Years ago, Abby’s dad told me this was where the men who built the road had to blast through the rock with dynamite. Dad drives over the bridge, and I lean over Megan to stare out the window at the wooden stakes that are sticking sharply out of the ground at the bottom of the eight-foot pit.
“I’d hate to be a zombie walking into that,” Ryan says with a laugh, and my dad nods like a proud papa– the stakes were his idea.
Jack jogs across the bridge. For a minute I’m scared he might trip and fall over the edge, but it’s just my crazy, overactive imagination. The bridge is as wide as the truck, and he’s crossing right in the center—pretty safe.
Jack uses the crank that Regg installed on the opposite side to lift the bridge back up to its resting place against a couple of pine trees. I can’t help but be impressed. It only took them three days to engineer and build.
I stare out into the forest and imagine Silas standing in the trees watching us drive away, and I feel a small stab of anger. It serves him right to get left behind. He didn’t even tell us where he would be hunting this morning. My stomach dips uncomfortably at the thought of Silas injured in the woods. It’s unlikely to happen, but Silas isn’t superman; he isn’t infallible. Zombies aren’t much of a threat anymore, but he could still get attacked by a wild animal, or twist his ankle… I turn my brain off. Silas will be fine, he is always fine.
“Where are we headed?” I ask as Jack gets back in the truck and shakes a little snow off his boots.
“There’s a small town we’ve been scavenging, it’s only about fifteen minutes east. I thought we’d head there,” Dad says, and my stomach clenches with a strange mixture of excitement and fear. It’s a heady rush, and I’m honestly not even sure which emotion is winning out. There is probably something wrong with me that the thought of leaving the safety of the mountain actually excites me. It must be pretty safe though, if my parents are willing to let me go. The idea of picking through a store without the fear of zombies, like we used to be able to do, almost makes me weak in the knees.
“Won’t the roads be bad?” I blurt out. “Once we get down the mountain?” I clarify. The mountain roads are a bit slippery, but at least they’ve been plowed.
“It depends on the weather, but it should be okay. The weather isn’t as treacherous down below; they haven’t gotten as much snow as we have. We will use the four wheel drive and take it easy,” Dad promises, mistaking my curiosity for fear. I don’t bother correcting him. When we finally leave the well-plowed mountain road behind and burst out onto the pavement, my dad is right. It’s very anticlimactic.
There is snow on the road, but it’s nowhere near the amount we’ve been getting up on the mountain. There are also ruts in the snow, and I lean forward to stare at our ready-made path.
“Who made all the tire tracks?” I ask, surprised to find out there are other survivors in the area.
“We did,” Jack tells me, effectively eviscerating my small bubble of hope. “We usually come down the mountain once a day to look for supplies and check on the zombie situation.”
“It’s like chopping wood,” my dad chimes in with a meaningful look in my direction; he knows how much I detest the job. “It might look like we have a lot of supplies now, but we need to constantly gather more because there will come a time, in
a couple of years, that things won’t be as easy to find as they once were.”
I sit back in my seat, feeling an uncomfortable stab of terror in my belly. I had foolishly never thought about the future—not really. Sure, I’d thought about things like what I would do if the apocalypse suddenly ended. But I’d never thought about five years from now, still living with zombies, and all the supplies already picked over. There aren’t any more factories around to make more canned goods and toothpaste.
“I think you just terrified the girl,” Jack says, and every eye in the vehicle turns towards me. I shrug and force myself to sit up in my seat like it’s no big deal, but he’s right. I’m officially scared of more than just the zombies.
“So what’s this town we’re going to like?” I ask, and my dad eyes me in the rearview mirror for a second before answering. I have a feeling he can see right through my facade and into my insecurities, but at least he doesn’t say anything in front of everyone else.
“It’s a small town; only had a population of a thousand or so people before the outbreak,” Jack answers again, and I frown.
“What kind of stores does a town that small have?” I ask, and Jack holds up two fingers.
“There’s a mom and pop grocery store that we’ve been picking over a little more every time we pass by and a bait and tackle shop that we’ve already cleaned out.” My eyebrows go up in surprise. What kind of trip is this? Obviously one where my Dad wants to play it safe, but not one that is going to be productive. From a survival standpoint, it’s a huge waste. A waste of time, energy, and most importantly, fuel—I’m surprised Regg even sanctioned the trip.
“This is ridiculous,” I say, once again drawing every eye in the truck towards me.
“Care to elaborate?” Dad asks with one eyebrow quirked, a warning sign that I am about to get on his nerves and possibly get myself into trouble. I ignore it.
“Why waste time picking over a tiny, one-horse-town grocery store that you’ve already picked over?” I demand, “Why don’t we try and get a big haul and actually make this trip worthwhile?” I continue, not giving anyone time to answer my first question.
“What do you suggest?” my dad asks, his eyebrow quirked so high that it’s disappeared into his wave of brown hair. I can’t help but notice suddenly that it’s streaked with grey now, grey that hadn’t been there two months ago.
“Did you ever go back to that Walmart?” I ask, and my dad’s eyebrow crashes back down in surprise. He looks at Jack, and they both shake their heads.
“We didn’t,” Dad says, and I can tell his brain is running a mile a minute. “It was overrun—” he starts to say.
“But you said the zombies have frozen up,” I interrupt to point out, and he nods, stepping on the brake suddenly. The truck slides for a minute before coming to a complete stop in the middle of the road. Dad whips the wheel around and starts off in the other direction.
Jack looks surprised, but he’s grinning and so are Megan and Ryan. I sit back in my seat with a self-satisfied smile. If no one else has found it, that place will be a gold mine.
We reach the parking lot and can tell from the tire tracks in the fresh snow that at least a couple vehicles have come and gone recently. My heart drops, and I start to sweat underneath my winter clothes. What if all the good stuff is gone? My joy at discovering other human life is pushed down beneath a wave of fear that they’ve taken what we will soon need to survive.
Dad doesn’t bother with the front entrance like we did before; instead he drives around back where we’d been forced to escape the Walmart zombies, and he puts the truck into park. I look around. The snow is undisturbed back here, and the steel door is still securely shut. The semi is still here too, covered in snow. It kind of looks like a giant white centipede. I pull my eyes away from the truck and pull my gun from my hip.
We wait for my dad to give the all clear before getting out of the truck. The cold air nips at my face and makes my lungs shrivel, and I have to choke back the urge to cough. Ryan looks at me funny when I make a slight gurgling noise, but I just shrug and ignore him.
Jack strides up to the door and pulls it, but it won’t budge. “I don’t think we’re gonna get this door open,” he says as he runs his hand along the seams. “Not even a hinge is exposed to help us; it’s a high-grade security door.”
My dad actually laughs and, of all the crazy things, unzips his coat. We all stare at him, wondering if he’s finally cracked, but he doesn’t strip down to his underwear and run across the parking lot like I think we all secretly feared. He pulls a key from a chain around his neck and fits it into the lock.
We all gape at him. “What the hell man?” Jack asks, looking impressed.
“After we nearly lost the cabin to the zombies, I started carrying certain things around on me at all times,” Dad confesses. “This key is one of them.” Dad looks around at each of us individually, and I can’t help but wonder what else he has hidden away. “Be ready,” he warns us, and we nod.
Last time we were here, we’d barricaded shut the door that connected to the shopping part of the store, but someone could have broken it down, or maybe the zombies finally did…
We all snap on flashlights. Then, Dad throws open the door and we wait for the ravenous attack. It doesn’t come. Jack pans the flashlight back and forth, and the beam lands on the door across the room, still secured.
“Keep on your toes; we never explored the whole warehouse,” Dad warns, but despite his words, I’m feeling optimistic.
We enter the darkened room, and Dad locks the door behind us again. Which is a little creepy, but I see his point. He probably doesn’t want anyone else, human or zombie, following us in here.
Even though we aren’t outside anymore, it’s still freezing in the warehouse. My fingers ache against the metal flashlight and the handle of my gun. I want nothing more than to put on a pair of gloves, but I’m too scared of not being able to pull the trigger.
“Let’s clear the room so we can make a plan,” Jack suggests, and we all agree. We spread out a bit and begin searching every nook and cranny, staying close to each other. There are so many crates stacked everywhere, it’s a security nightmare.
I round a crate of diapers stacked higher and wider than my own body and come face to face with a zombie. Its rotting face is pulled back into a snarl. Its right cheek has been peeled away from the bone and is hanging from its chin by a thread of skin. I can’t hold back the girly shriek, even as I raise my gun. My fingers are slow and clumsy against the trigger, but I finally get my shit together. My bullet lodges into its brain, the shot echoing loudly in the metal building, even with the silencer.
The zombie doesn’t fall like I’d expected, and I raise my gun for a second shot when my dad grabs my shoulder to stop me. “It’s frozen, Jane!” he shouts at me, and for a minute my adrenaline-fueled mind can’t comprehend what he’s saying. It’s his demeanor that reaches me finally. He’s way too calm. I just encountered a zombie that appears to be un-killable, and he isn’t even freaking out. He isn’t joining me in the fight. He’s just standing behind me gently squeezing my shoulder.
I stare at the zombie, like really stare at it for the first time. I look past the fact that it’s a terrifying monster and finally notice something I probably should’ve noticed the first time. It isn’t attacking me. In fact, it hasn’t moved a muscle.
“Damn, Jane, you just iced an already frozen zombie,” Ryan says with a chuckle, and I’m stunned. It’s so weird to be this close to them and not be fighting for your life; it feels unnatural. I know everyone told us about the frozen zombies, but it’s another thing to actually see one yourself. I turn to look at Megan and see that she’s just as speechless as I am.
I turn back and look at the zombie. “Is it dead?” I ask, and Ryan actually laughs.
“Well, this one is for sure,” Dad says, apparently also finding humor in the situation. I lower my gun and stare. Megan reaches out and pushes the zombie over, and it la
nds against the concrete with a loud thump. I stare at her in horror; she just touched it, on purpose
“Now I’ve seen everything,” she mutters, and I can’t help but agree.
“It freaked me the hell out too, the first time I saw it,” Jack admits, and his words finally break me from my trance. I tuck my gun back in the holster at my hip. There might be zombies in here, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to be any threat to us.
Frost bite is the more real threat. I blow on my hands to try and warm them up and then slip my gloves on. My fingertips have started to turn white, and the more they warm up, the more they hurt. Regg has been drilling the dangers of frostbite into all of us, and I’m pretty sure I just came close.
The irony strikes me, and I have to smother a twisted grin so the others don’t think I’m losing it. It’s always some kind of bite you have to watch out for.
We move through the warehouse and find six more zombies. Six! I shudder thinking about the last time we were here in the dark and there were six zombies we didn’t know about just shambling around with us. They weren’t frozen back then. I can tell by the look on my dad’s face that he’s thinking the same thing. None of the others were with us that first time.
“What are we going to do with all this stuff?” Jack asks with a whistle as he pans his light around the crates of food and supplies that fill the warehouse floor.
“Maybe we should just move in here,” Megan suggests. Her idea has some merit, except that it’s so cold now we would freeze to death. We might be able to burn the pallets, but they wouldn’t last very long—we’d never be able to heat this whole warehouse.
“It isn’t practical to move off the mountain; it’s the safest place for us,” Jack tells her, and everyone else nods in agreement.
“I was thinking, we should try and get that semi outside started and filled with supplies,” Dad suggests, and everyone’s face lights up at the idea.
“Why don’t I go take a look under the hood?” Jack suggests, and it makes sense since no one else is very mechanical, my dad included.