by T. L. Walker
Once he was loose Holden squirmed under the fence, but instead of bounding up to the house as he usually did, he waited patiently as Mike and I climbed over the metal gate. "Good boy," I praised, patting him on the head. I continued up the drive, Mike and Holden on my heels, only to reach the house and see that all of the curtains – and even the shutters on the bottom floor – were drawn and shut. Still, I persisted. I gestured to Mike to follow me up onto the front porch, where I approached the door and knocked softly. We waited several long moments; nothing.
"This is your mom's house? Don't you have a key?" Mike finally asked.
I snorted. "No. I used to, years ago...but I never needed it. I so rarely came down here...let's just say that I've never really felt like I 'belonged' with my family."
(I'd almost said that I was the 'black sheep’ – I just barely caught myself, in fact. As I'd aged I'd gotten better about not using certain non-PC terms, but until just then I hadn't really thought that someone might be offended by the idea of a white girl calling herself a 'black sheep'. Silly, right? I mean, who the hell has any right to care about something like this when the world's gone to such shit?
Or is it when the world's gone to such shit that things like that matter most? Damn, sorry, I'm probably getting too deep on you here. Moving on...)
I knocked again, a little louder this time. "Come on, mom," I called softly, stepping back from the door so that if she pushed the curtains aside on the windows she would be able to see who it was. "It's just me! Charlie! You know, your daughter?"
It felt as if at least another minute passed by before I saw a flicker of movement in one of the windows off to my right, but suddenly there was the sound of a bolt being turned, and finally someone cracked open the door.
"Charlie? Is that really you?"
What the hell? "Joey?! What are you doing here? Are you okay? Where's mom? Is she - "
"Calm down, Charlie. Mom's here, she's fine, she just...prefers for me to answer the door, these days." I saw the glint of a gun in his hand. "Who's that with you?"
"He's just a kid, Joey. His name is Mike, he's cool. I've got Holden too. Now will you please come unlock the gate so I can drive my car up and bring my stuff inside?"
"You're okay, right? You haven't run into any of...them?"
"Oh, you mean the fucking dead people walking around trying to eat me? Yeah, I've run into a few, but I'm fine."
"No bites?"
"Christ, no, no bites! Now come on, let's go get my car!"
"Just a second."
And my younger brother shut the door in my face. I pressed my ear against it and heard him talking to someone, then nearly fell over when he swung it open.
"Geez, Charlie, get out of the way. Come on, quick, let's go get the car. Put Holden in the house."
Holden didn’t need to be told to go inside; he rushed by me and disappeared into the dim recesses of my childhood home. My brother and another guy stepped out in his wake, shutting the door behind them. I heard the bolt click back into place – my mom must have been right there the whole time – but I was too startled by the presence of a random stranger to say much about the fact that my mother had just locked all of us out of the house.
"Who are you?" I sounded more disgusted than anything else, though I wasn't quite sure why. The stranger was...well, shit, he was cute. Tall and muscular with sandy blonde hair that fell over his eyes in a way that could only be called endearing.
"I'm Luke," he said, holding out his hand. I looked at it warily, but before I could shake it Joey interrupted.
"We can finish the formal introductions later. Let's go get your car – and fast." He brushed by me and began jogging down the long drive, giving the rest of us no choice but to follow. When we arrived back at the gate, he said, "Climb over and start your car. Drive through, stop, and let me lock this...then we'll all get in and you can park around back."
It was the work of a couple minutes at most, but Joey's tone and demeanor made me more than a little bit nervous. He had me hide the car behind the house, and once we'd gathered the bags I'd brought from home along with the few things I had left in it from my yoga retreat, he insisted that I lock it. The house was clearly boasting nearly fortress-like security, and after he'd let us inside Joey bolted the door behind him again. Only then did he seem to relax at all.
"Joey, what the hell happened here?"
"Here? Not much. We ran into a bit of trouble with the neighbors a couple of days after we arrived...but other than that it's been quiet. Charleston, however..." At this, he glanced at Luke.
"You live in Charleston too, then?" I stuck my hand out to finish our exchange from earlier. "I'm Charlie, Joey's awesome older sister. How do you two know each other?"
Luke shook my hand. “Yeah, originally from Charleston. Just moved back there from Jacksonville a few months ago, after I got out of the Navy.”
Joey interrupted me just as I opened my mouth to reply. "We're just friends, Charlie."
I raised my eyebrows. "And yet you ended up here, together? All the way from Charleston? During the...zombie apocalypse, or whatever this is?"
Joey rolled his eyes. "Charlie, Luke is straight."
"Ah. And you, dear brother, are decidedly not." I turned and wrapped my arms around him. "I'm glad you're here. And safe."
"It's good to see you, Charlie. I tried to call, before the phone lines went dead...mom told me to come here, but neither one of us could get a hold of you...where have you been?"
"I was at a yoga retreat in the mountains for a week." I blushed, because in that moment I realized how stupid that sounded. "No phone, no Internet...I didn't even know what was going on until I left there...and I still don't know, not really." I hoped he would take the hint, but instead Joey just glanced at Mike.
"And Dave?"
"He was gone when I got home yesterday. Left Holden there for God knows how long, no food or water. I gathered up my things and left this morning. Ran into Mike here on the way out of the city. He had nowhere to go."
"Same with me." My head snapped around; it was Luke who'd spoken, and he'd also taken a step toward Mike. "Though Joey did know me before...all of this."
My brother chuckled. "Yeah well, Charlie is known for taking in strays." I punched him in the shoulder. "Ouch! No offense, uh, Mike."
"It's all right. She saved my life. I'm just...glad to be safe."
"Shit!" I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. "I brought a few things, but please tell me you guys have some real food here."
"You may want to say hi to mom first, but yeah, we collected eggs this morning. Not sure how much longer the chicken coop will last, though. We're thinking about killing them and freezing the meat, just in case. Mom made bread yesterday, and you know her with the canning and jam making and all that. If it's just the five of us, we're good for a while."
"The five of us, and Holden!" I chimed in. "I brought some dog food with me, but it won't last very long. Maybe a week if I'm lucky."
Joey grimaced. "That dog better earn his keep."
I cocked my head. "I’m sure he eats a hell of a lot less than your friend. No offense, Luke, but I'm still at a loss as to who you are and why you're here."
"You're one to talk!" Joey jerked his chin in Mike's direction.
"Let's not have this conversation now, I guess," I relented, glancing at Mike. The poor kid had been through enough; the last thing he needed was for us to make him feel like he was a burden. "Anyway, safety in numbers and all that, right?"
"Right." It was Luke who spoke up, but I refused to look at him. If he thought that he could get in my good graces by agreeing with me, he had another thing coming. My brother wasn't known for choosing the best people as his friends, and I had a feeling that he barely knew Luke at all. Unlike Mike, Luke wasn't just a kid...and he's certainly not as harmless, either, I understood. Something about this guy seemed dangerous, to me; even though I couldn't quite place why, I knew that it would be best to keep him at arm'
s length.
"I think I'll go find mom. You ready to meet her, Mike?"
"I guess..."
"Don't worry." I gave him a small smile. "She's a bit old school, but she's not that bad." Please be nice to this kid, mom. An introvert to the core, my mother didn't seem very friendly when she first met people – and being a southern woman in her mid-fifties, she had some...interesting...ideas about race. We'd all been shocked that my father was more understanding of the fact that Joey was gay – my dad had been quite the hard ass – and as I led Mike up the dark stairway to the main floor of the farmhouse, I couldn't stop thinking about my mom's reaction to that situation. She hadn't talked to Joey for months...when he’d come home for Christmas last year he’d ended up turning around and leaving because of the way she was acting.
Different times, I told myself. And Mike's just a kid who has nowhere else to go.
Shit, the world may be coming to an end and I'm worried about introducing a black kid to my mother. Priorities, Charlie...
I eyed Joey and Luke before maneuvering past them, around the corner and through the living room and into the kitchen. "Mom? You gonna come say hi to me, or what?" I called out.
I heard the rustle of pages as she set down a book. "Coming, Charlie." She sounded so damn nonchalant that when she appeared in the doorway from the sun porch that I wasn't surprised at how put together she appeared. "Oh, Charlotte. Your hair."
"Good to see you too, mom."
"When did you do that? Have your hair chopped off? And who did such a horrible job with it?" She approached me and touched my messy cut.
"I did it last night after some dead person got hold of it on the street near my condo. Figured it was better if they didn't have anything to grab onto."
She sighed. "Well, I suppose I can fix it up a bit. Let me get my scissors." She made to step around me, but I caught her wrist and stopped her.
"Good to see you too," I said. "I'm glad you and Joey are here, and safe."
"Well, why wouldn't we be?"
"Mom. You've got to be kidding me."
She withdrew herself from my grasp. "Whatever this is, I'm sure it won't last."
"Well I'm glad you're sure of that," I replied, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
"I see you've brought a...friend...with you."
I knew that she was just trying to change the subject, and this time I decided to give in and let her. Eventually she would have to face the fact that something very strange was happening, but if I let her have her way just now there was a chance she’d be a bit kinder to Mike.
"Yes, he’s a friend...of a sort. Mike, this is my mom. You can call her Cheryl. Mom, I met Mike on the road today. Holden insisted that I bring him along." I was trying to make light of the situation, but my mother didn't find my explanation quite as amusing as I'd hoped.
"Just like you to credit your choices to your dog." She shook her head. "But you're here now, I suppose...and I expect you're hungry?"
"We are, yes."
"I'll cook something up. Power is out, but Joey and Luke can keep watch while we cook on the grill."
"You don't have power here? I still had it in the city..."
"I'm surprised at that." I hadn’t heard Joey return from downstairs and almost jumped out of my own skin when I heard him speak up. "Most places lost it days ago. The cities..."
"Enough of that talk just now. We'll have some dinner, and then we'll need to make sure that we're closed up for the night." Our mother's tone brooked no argument, so we set about following her orders. At least we'll get to eat.
Joey gathered up one of our dad's rifles from the dining room table and handed Luke the sawed-off shotgun that my mother had inherited from her father. Mike was watching them with wide eyes.
"You sure you boys know how to handle those?" I grinned at Mike. "I don't think I've ever seen Joey here even touch one of our dad's guns."
"Come on now, I don't think you've used one of them since what, high school?" Joey pointed out.
"Fair enough. But what about Luke here?"
"Oh, you don't need to worry about me. Former military, remember?"
I opened my mouth, shut it, opened it again. Way to go. What are you, a fish? The problem was that all I could think of were sarcastic responses, and I knew that right then I should have been glad that my brother had made it home with some ex-military guy in tow. Who better to have around during the zombie apocalypse, right?
[In most cases] There is strength in numbers.
*******
"Listen, don't talk too much or...well, don't be too loud in general while we're outside. The grill and the cooking are bad enough. Yesterday we couldn't even finish heating things before..." Joey trailed off.
"Before...?" I prompted.
"Let's just say we had a lukewarm dinner."
"Why don't you use the generator and just cook inside?"
"We don't have much fuel. I convinced mom that we should conserve what we do have in case things don't get better before it starts getting really cold."
"Why don't you just drive up to the gas station? It's what, three miles away? Four?"
"I drove by it on my way in. There were cars everywhere...we'd need to pick our way through them to get to the pumps, and there are a lot of...those things...around. I thought it was probably too much for Luke and I to handle alone."
"I'm here now. Let's all three go. Not today, maybe, but tomorrow?"
Joey glanced at our mother, then at Luke. "I'm...not sure that's a good idea, Charlie."
"She may be right," Luke pointed out. "We could salvage more than just fuel, and with at least the three of us..." He shrugged. "I don't think it would be all that difficult."
"I'm glad you're so confident, but I don't think it's a good idea." Joey leveled his gaze at Luke. I watched the two of them for a moment, once again wondering how they'd met and how long they'd known each other.
"You boys can go back and forth about this for as long as you want, but the more time that passes the less likely it is that we'll find any gas or food or, well, anything at all, there."
I could see Luke watching me out of the corner of my eye. He grinned. "Once again, your sister has a point, man."
"If I'd known you would start taking her side on things as soon as she got here, I wouldn't have brought you along," Joey mumbled.
"I don't think he's so much 'taking my side' as he is listening to reason, but hey, you don't have to come along if you're that scared,” I grinned.
"Charlotte, stop trying to press your brother's buttons. In fact, all of you be quiet while I cook this. Keep an eye on the fields – I would prefer to eat a proper meal this evening."
We were silent while my mom fried some eggs and grilled zucchini and squash from the garden. "We got lucky today," she said quietly, as Joey covered the grill and Mike and I helped her carry the food inside.
"I think we should eat this early every day," Luke suggested.
"Why?" I couldn't help but ask.
He glanced over his shoulder. The sun had just dipped below the tree line, but it was still very bright outside. "The darker it gets, the more active they are."
"I've seen plenty of them during the day."
"Have you been out at night yet?"
"No..."
"Trust me, you don't want to be."
I turned away from him and slammed the platter of food down on the kitchen table. "I'm really tired of no one being willing to tell me anything specific. What is this, 'protect the little woman'? I made it here on my own...I can certainly handle y'all telling me what you know. What you went through to get here. When all of this started, and how - "
"Damn, Charlie, calm down a bit. We'll have plenty of time to talk after we eat and make sure the house is locked up," Joey promised.
"If you say so." I refused to look at him and instead slid into a seat at the table, spearing a thick slice of zucchini with my fork and stuffing it into my mouth before I could say anything that I would regret.
<
br /> The quiet that descended as the five of us ate our meal was awkward, yet in a way also welcome. As always I felt out of place here, to the point where I'd already begun to wonder how long I would be able to stay. And if I felt as if I didn't belong, I could hardly imagine what Mike was thinking. I knew that we were at least relatively safe here on the farm, but I also wondered if perhaps he and I would be better served finding our own way. Clearly my mother and brother and this random friend of his had their own situation figured out, and if they wouldn't even talk to me about it, how was I supposed to know where I factored in?
Or if you factor in at all.
I pushed the egg around on my plate. They'd only served me one – conserving food, I assumed – but it wasn't quite cooked all the way through, and I'd never really enjoyed runny egg yolks.
"Stop playing with your food, Charlie."
"Yes, mom." I rolled my eyes, but I did force myself to swallow the last couple of bites. As much as it pained me to actually obey her, I knew that I'd need my strength for our trip to the nearby gas station in the morning.
That, and I assumed it was best if I stopped acting like a petulant child, myself. Doing so probably would have been more amusing were we not in the midst of the zombie apocalypse, anyway.
While mom used a bucket of water to wash the dishes, Joey and Luke led Mike and I from window to window and door to door. Though the curtains were all drawn, there were stacks of plywood and boards set close to anything that could be a way into the house, all with crude latches or hooks attached that allowed them to essentially be locked into place.
"When did you guys do all of this?" I was shocked that mom had allowed it at all, but I kept that observation to myself for the moment.
"Few days ago. I think I said that it's been mostly quiet here, and it has...but only after we dealt with the neighbors." Joey grimaced. "That made for an interesting evening, and when it was all said and done we decided to keep the house boarded up as much as possible."