Adult men 15
Adult women 19
Teenage boys 3
Teenage girls 5
Children 9
There were more women than men, a constant for me since I left Texas. In this case the discrepancy was created in part by the men getting bitten or killed while trying to protect wives, girlfriends, and children, or in many cases complete strangers. On a side note, these numbers did not include anyone infected. The bitten only had another day or so left.
With the increase in population, we had to revisit our plans and modify them. The revised strategy was for Eric to build a stone wall five feet wide and twelve feet high. It would sink into the ground as well, utilizing concrete pylons as a foundation. I’m not really sure how that works, but I have faith in Eric’s abilities. The width seemed excessive at first glance, but it does allow for people to stand on top and use the wall as a firing platform. We intended to add some railings so no one would fall off.
The children, in particular, found the concept of a castle enchanting. It wasn’t going to be anything close to a real fortress, but I had no problem with them being excited about something. Most were suffering from serious depression. Among the worst was Michael. The poor child was a basket case, barely speaking and refusing to eat. Everyone was worried.
We also wanted to use the wood from the fence to wall off a parking area. It wouldn’t be as secure as the homes obviously, but it should serve to keep zombies away from the vehicles. Getting bitten while climbing into your car was a bad thing. Lots of those in our new world.
The housing was going to be somewhat strange. There simply wasn’t room within the wall we planned to construct actual homes. So instead, there would be a common hall with attached kitchen and pantry. This was the place meals would be served, school taught during the day, recreation in the evenings, and so forth. There would be a bathhouse with a boiler or heater – Eric said he could rig something up – so there’d be hot water. We were doing two sets of latrines, the larger one near the great hall with a covered walkway leading to it and another beside the gate. Then we would have Larry’s storehouse / armory.
The actual living units were going to be row houses constructed along one of the inside walls. The bottom floor would have a living room and washroom. The top floor, reached by a ladder pueblo style, would hold two bedrooms, both tiny. We were building seven of these. With fifty one people that meant roughly seven in each house.
Briana claimed the front room of the front corner house – she thought it would have the most windows – for the two of us. Lizzy, Lois, and Mary got the back room. I expected Mary to spend the occasional night sleeping downstairs.
But while the kids were calling it a castle, it would really look more like a concrete hive. The place was not going be pretty. Maybe we could paint it some garish color later. That would liven things up. Either way, Eric swore he could erect a cinderblock structure very, very fast, even with almost no one else understanding how to do it. We would have a secure, safe place to live, but maybe later we could make something nicer. I, for one, did not want to sleep in an eight by eight foot bedroom the rest of my life, even if Briana was in there with me.
* * *
“What do you think?”
We were lying in our tent, whispering. With all the survivors crowded inside the fence, the area was more cramped than anyone liked.
“I think I want us to have a real bedroom with nice thick walls.”
I smiled. “And Lizzy in the next room. Just imagine.”
She giggled. I could barely see a thing, just the faintest shadows and her outline.
“She’s always entertaining, but really, we’re packed in tight here. Some privacy would be nice, and Eric said it’ll take a couple months.”
“He said faster probably,” I corrected, “if we can get into Chadron and bring back the materials in short order. That’s the hard part. If we don’t go there, we’ll have to search all over the state and get stuff piecemeal.”
She squeezed my hand. “Maybe the zombies will have wandered away. It’s time for us to have a good luck moment.”
“Finding Julie dead may have covered that.”
“Be nicer than that Jacob. She was evil and crazy, but she’s gone now.”
I ran a finger across her bare ribs, lightly tickling her. I didn’t want to argue with Briana.
“Don’t make me laugh.” She pushed my hand away and snuggled up close.
“Eric also said he saw some loaded trucks, recent shipments that were never unloaded, and Alec thinks he can get them started. That way we can just bring them right on in. We’ll probably have to load other stuff still, but they would be enough to get the work going, cut down on any delays in the meantime at least.”
“Think we can drive those over the service road and then the meadow?” she asked.
“Probably. It hasn’t rained in several days, and the ground is dry and hard.”
“Ah, let’s discuss the word hard.”
“Is this the fun definition or the ‘Jacob, you will be doing something difficult’ sort of thing?”
“I was thinking fun, but now that you mention it, I have something for us to do tomorrow instead of prep work for the construction. And it will be hard, for you. I’ll be supervising.”
We planned on beginning the project the following day and hitting Chadron the one after.
“And what is it you want to do?”
She smiled, I think. I couldn’t really tell in the dark.
“You find out in the morning. For now, you get to give me a backrub.”
Briana flipped over onto her stomach. We’d been lying on top of our blankets. We were going to have to get real sleeping bags soon, before the weather changed, but blankets atop a foam pad worked well enough at present. It was definitely easier to get up in the middle of the night to use the facilities.
“Now?”
“Of course now. Come on. Get to it.”
I ran my hand down her bare back and grasped the elastic waistband of her silk panties.
“I said a back rub, not a full body massage. It’s my back that’s sore. My feet too. You can massage them next.”
“So unfair,” I muttered.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing, sweetie.” I gave her a kiss on the cheek, pondering the value of asking for a massage in return and discarding the notion. It would be pointless.
* * *
The next day of the wondrously terrible zombie apocalypse – I never get tired of reminding myself that it really is the end of the world as we know it – that came to us straight from the lower bowels of a Hell suffering indigestion turned out to be miserable. Briana was good to her word, keeping close watch while I, and a few others, suffered through the horror that was rounding up livestock. I know that I’ve previously said this was something we intended to do. Honestly though, I never thought it would be that difficult.
While most of the people stayed behind and began digging ditches for the wall foundation, or whatever other preparations Eric needed, Briana and I, along with Lizzy and Mary, and Alec and Steph, a rather cute redhead who’d been among Eric’s group, drove out. Lois hadn’t been feeling well so she stayed behind. Steph’s inclusion was based on her familiarity with farms and farm equipment. Additionally, Dean promised to have some fencing in place by the time we returned, to serve as a corral.
“Woo hoo!” said Mary. “We might have fresh chicken soup soon, not the canned stuff.”
“You’ve actually made chicken soup from scratch?” asked Steph. She’d quickly taken to the radios.
“My mom did,” replied Mary. Her tone softened. “It was way, way better.”
“No soup for you young lady,” said Briana sternly. “The chickens are for eggs and eggs only, until we get more of them. We need those for baking, and they’re full of protein and nutrients and cholesterol.”
“Eggs are good,” agreed the teenager. “We’ll need more frying pans, and butter.”
“Then why keep doing it?” asked Mary.
“Arguing with an eighty year old woman who could, and would, whack you on the head with a yardstick wasn’t worth it, not when she still had a strong arm.”
“At least you know how,” commented Briana, readjusting the rabbit pillow about her neck. She’d been using the thing on and off since taking it from my house back in Denton. “Do we need special equipment or anything?”
“We need refrigeration for it to keep, but making it is easy. We could even do it daily like they used to. Probably just have the kitchen do that along with baking bread each morning. It’ll be standard.” She sighed. “I miss the smell of fresh bread baking.”
“And donuts,” added Mary.
“Not so much,” laughed Steph. “I need to mind my figure. I’m determined to think that almost starving in Chadron was not all bad.”
“You’re almost as thin as me!”
“Mary,” said Briana, “no one is as thin as you, and I hate you for being able to eat so much and not put on weight.”
“Nyah, nyah,” she giggled. “I’m more special than you.”
I tuned out their banter and turned down one of the agricultural roads crisscrossing the region. The farm up ahead would be the second we checked. The first had been empty of animals, but the back of Alec’s pickup was full of canned food and several cases of homemade preserves.
“I see a cow!” declared Briana happily, both to me and the others on the radio.
There was indeed a cow in the pasture, several of them actually. We’d spotted plenty over the past month. Of course, the day we go out looking, they all seemed to vanish. Damn things were probably conspiring in a futile effort to avoid being placed back in bovine slavery.
“Okay everyone,” I said, after parking fifty yards out, “me and Lizzy and Briana will check the house.” It was a two story affair. “The rest of you stay by the trucks and keep an eye out until we clear the structure. Then we’ll do the barn.”
“I want to come,” protested Mary. “I never get to do anything.”
“You stay put,” snarled Lizzy. “Don’t move, or I’ll hold you down while your sister beats you.”
“Be nicer to Mary,” said Briana.
“I am nice.”
“Your tone isn’t nice, and you are way more aggravated than normal. You eat something bad like Lois did?”
“Not that,” explained Mary. “Lizzy’s pissy cause it’s that special time of the month for her.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” said Alec. “New topic please.”
“I concur,” I added.
“You men are such babies,” sighed Briana.
I stared into her lovely green eyes. “Yes, we are.”
Her lips parted in a smile.
“Come along Lizzy,” I said, getting back to business and waving her forward, “if you can walk upright with the cramping.”
“I have a gun.”
“You love me way too much to shoot. Besides, maybe we’ll find something good.”
We found something quite dreadful instead. I know that seems to be a recurring theme, but it is what it is.
The downstairs was empty, back door open. As with many of the houses we came across, there were signs that animals had been inside, but we didn’t see any. The basement was also bare. We did find a gun case in the den and plenty of books, quite a few of which were on history and the military. We’d grab some of those for Cherie’s classes and our library before we left.
A lot of people wanted something to read in their free time, and there weren’t many books in the settlement. I wasn’t about to share the favorites, mostly signed first editions, I’d taken from Texas, at least not until things were better organized. In fact, they were all still sitting in a box in the back of the Jeep buried under all our other supplies and gear. So we offered to gather up books as we found them, temporarily storing them in an empty car. Later, we would put some bookcases in the common hall or something.
The upstairs is where we found the newest terror. There was dried blood in the hallway and master bedroom. The closet held both male and female clothing, so we assumed one changed and then bit the other before the pair wandered away. The zombies were definitely long gone, aside from the little one in the nursery, the tiny, tiny one sitting in a crib.
“This is worse than the pregnant gal,” said Lizzy, turning away.
“What pregnant gal?” stammered Briana. A hand was over her mouth, and she was shaking.
“Remember a few days back when I got sick on the road, puked all over, back when you found that girl’s diary. Lizzy and I went off to kill the zombie that was approaching. It turned out to be a pregnant woman. After she was dead dead, well, the baby inside, another zombie, was still moving.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Sums it up,” agreed Lizzy. “You know, we seem to use that word a lot.” She shook her head. “You deal with this one Jacob. I’m taking Briana outside before we both start puking.”
I gave a slight nod and waited a few minutes before I took care of the matter. The baby couldn’t have been more than three or four months old at the time of reanimation. It lacked the strength and coordination to stand up, much less climb out of the crib. The thing – I didn’t know if it was a boy or girl, didn’t want to know – stared at me hungrily, the toothless mouth opening and closing.
Afterwards, I closed the door and went downstairs. We would have to come back inside – there was too much good stuff that we’d need to take – but no one should have to see this. As it was, I knew I’d be having nightmares of how a zombie, once a loving parent, picked up a newborn, bitten off a precious miniature hand, and left the screaming innocent to bleed out.
* * *
“Jacob! Briana and Lizzy are both sick, and they won’t tell me why.”
Briana was bent over the flower bed beside the front porch. I put an arm around her shoulders and handed her a handkerchief.
“Thanks,” she muttered.
“It was a bad one Mary. How are you doing Lizzy?”
“Didn’t puke. Almost never do. Feel like crap though.”
“What happened?” asked Steph.
Mary edged in closer, as did Alec.
“We found a zombie upstairs,” I explained, “a little one, very little.”
“Oh.”
“Come on Lizzy. We need to check the barn still and then load everything up. I don’t want to stay here long.”
“I’m not coming back after today.”
“Not if we can avoid it,” I countered. “Briana, stay with Mary. Steph, you can come along with us.”
The woman looked doubtful.
“Don’t worry. You get to stay in the back and mostly just watch where we tell you to watch. It’s pretty straightforward. We like having a third to help keep an eye out.”
“All right Jacob, I suppose I can handle that.”
The barn was devoid of zombies, but with all the noise we’d made any should have come out long before. We did find a big Ford pickup along with a horse trailer however. I set Steph and Alec to getting the truck running. Briana and Mary kept a constant lookout while Lizzy and I went back into the house and started carting things out. We finished loading the bed of Alec’s pickup, using a tarp to tie everything down. We also filled most of the backseat of the new one.
“It runs,” announced Alec. He was using an old rag to wipe some grease from his hands.
“Took you long enough,” joked Mary. “You’re very slow for a mechanic. I was getting worried that we wouldn’t be able to take all stuff Jacob and Lizzy piled in there.”
“I’ll try to get better, so I can meet your exacting standards,” he replied, dryly.
She giggled. “Good that
you know your place.”
“They have extra gas too,” he added, “lots of cans of it, probably for farm stuff. There’s a generator also.”
“Can we cart that back?” I asked. “Eric will be overjoyed being able to use power tools. I know we can get generators in Chadron, but it might speed things up.”
“I want a television and blu-ray player,” said Mary. “I want movie night on something other than a laptop.”
“They did have a flat screen inside,” pointed out Lizzy, “and plenty of DVDs.”
“The trailer has two sections,” said Steph. “The front is for supplies. It’ll fit in there, no problem, along with the gas cans and feed and other stuff. We can put the cows in the back portion.”
“Will the cows hurt each other with their horns?” asked Briana.
“Not likely. We just need to move slow and steady, especially when we’re crossing the meadow. That’s going to be the tricky part. I’d like to empty them right into a corral, so it’s best to try at least. The four here are all ladies, the little ones their calves. They’ll fit easy too, with lots of room.”
“And lots of milk for us,” added Mary.
“You can milk these, sure,” confirmed Steph, “but they aren’t dairy cows. You won’t get as much. We’ll need a bull from somewhere too, at some point.”
The next hour was spent maneuvering the heavy generator into the trailer along with the television, which we wrapped in blankets, the movies, and anything else that looked worthwhile. The work was done quickly and without incident, aside from Mary attempting to sneak upstairs to see the zombie baby. Lizzy caught her and proved, much to the girl’s shame, that she wasn’t too old to be tossed over a knee and spanked. Bear in mind that Lizzy is no weakling, and she struck Mary as hard as she could, screaming the entire time about how she wasn’t going to let the little blonde spend the rest of her life having nightmares, followed by comments as to how Lois would probably do worse when she found out.
Mary didn’t say a word after that, not even as we struggled to get the irritable and skittish cattle into the trailer. It was Steph who finally managed to entice them in with some treats, sugar or something. I’m not sure what she used.
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Sanctuary Page 33