“We’ve had gangs here.”
She shook her head, “Not as bad.”
I nodded and tried to imagine what it might be like in other parts of the country and the world–particularly in the cities.
“This squash and spinach came from the garden?” she asked. “From the seed packets we had?”
“Uh…yeah. Those tomato and pepper seedlings we had before you left are about waist high now. The tomatoes are blooming. The sweet potatoes are doing well too.”
“What about the millet? Did you plant it?”
“No,” I said. “There was a lot of winter wheat growing at different farms. I collected as much of that as I could a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I wasted a lot. Still, I got enough to fill a fifty-five gallon barrel.”
She shrugged, “Maybe we can figure out how to make bread out of it. I miss bread.”
“If we can’t, I’m sure the chickens will like it,” I said.
“Are they still around?” she asked. “I haven’t seen them today.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I keep hoping to find more on my supply runs, but I suppose that all of the chickens that have survived thus far have escaped and lived in the woods away from their former homes. I haven’t seen any living chickens anywhere except for the two here.”
When the light began to fade we lit candles and moved into the living room, each of us carrying a bottle of wine and a glass. I wanted her to talk about Grant and the others, but she avoided the subject. She did talk about her time in Biloxi, but she shied away from any mention of Grant, even though I knew he must have been a part of some of the stories she recounted. I didn’t know if she was staying away from that for her sake or mine, and I didn’t want to bring it up if she felt uncomfortable. Eventually, she would have to. Eventually, I would press the matter, but not that night.
I couldn’t quit staring at her, and I did so unabashedly. In the past, I would have looked away when she noticed me, but I wanted her to know that I enjoyed looking at her. She even blushed a couple of times under my gaze. I remembered her standing in this very room months before making me blush with her advances. I wanted to follow through with what she had proposed on that night, but I didn’t know if this particular night would be appropriate.
She was in the middle of one of her stories. “…I looked in the closet and found this garbage bag full of money...” I was only halfway listening. I was so caught up in her being there. My outlook on living had changed since that morning. I felt so full of hope for how things could be.
“Was that thunder?” she said.
“Huh?”
“Listen.”
There was a faint rumble. I stood and went to the window. Off to the west, I saw the flicker of lightning.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “It is. Maybe it’ll rain after all.”
“See,” she said. “God doesn’t stay mad.”
I nodded, still looking out the window. Then I remembered...
“Hold on a sec,” I said. “I’ve got something for you.”
I went upstairs, opened the closet and pulled down the gift from the shelf. The red wrapping paper had dust on it. I blew it off and carried it downstairs.
“Here,” I said. “I got you something.”
“What’s this for?” she said, smiling.
“Just because,” I said. “You had a birthday while you were away. It could be for that.”
She ripped into the package and her smile widened.
“Yertle the Turtle,” she said.
“It’s an old copy,” I said. “Kids marked in it.”
“I love it. Thank you.”
Thunder rumbled again, and I looked out the window.
“Have you moved my things out?” she asked.
I turned to face her, “No. Your room is as you left it.”
“Good,” she said, standing. “I’m ready for bed.” She wobbled a little because of the wine and put a hand out to steady herself.
“Need some help?”
“I’m okay,” she said.
I watched her go upstairs then I went around and made sure all of the doors were locked. Then I took the two empty wine bottles into the kitchen, grabbed a lit candle, and went up to my own room. The thunder was louder. It was getting closer. We needed more than a storm; we needed two or three days of steady rain, but I would take what I could get. A single downpour, if long enough and hard enough, would refill the cistern and rain barrels. I heard the first, fat drops hitting the roof as I removed my boots. I fell back into bed and was asleep almost instantly.
I woke up to the sound of crashing thunder. I opened my eyes. The room was dark. Lightning flashed bright followed quickly by another crash. I didn’t know what time it was, but the storm was right on top of us. The wind made the house groan, and the rain beat against the windows. Lightning lit up the room again, and I saw Sara standing in the doorway.
“Are you awake?” she said, almost in a whisper.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Can I get in bed with you?”
“Uh…yeah.”
I could see her only as a shadow, but I could see that shadow was undressing. I swallowed hard. A brilliant, blinding flash filled the room, burning the image of her unclothed body into my brain. Then the deep boom startled me. She crawled in and scooted close to me. She was warm. I breathed her in. She smelled good like a woman. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t think of anything.
“I’m glad this is finally happening,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 7
The next morning, I opened my eyes and looked around. It was later than I normally wake up. The light in my room was much brighter. There was this noise that I couldn’t identify. I was alone. I wondered if it had all been a dream. I pulled the sheet away. I saw that I was naked, and I grinned. It hadn’t been a dream.
There was the noise again. I stood and went to the doorway.
“Sara?” I said.
“Downstairs,” she called out.
I put on some jeans, strapped on my pistol, put on my boots, and went down to join her. The noise was someone yelling.
“What’s going on?” I said as I walked into the living room.
She was standing at the front window wrapped in a blanket.
“It’s Grant,” she said.
I looked out the window. The red van was parked out on the road. Grant was hanging out the driver’s window shouting toward the house, but I didn’t know what he was saying. Then he got on the horn for one long, continuous blast.
“Shit,” I said. “He’s going to have every zombie for miles coming in.”
“I have no idea how long he’s been out there,” she said. “Maybe all night. I heard him honking a few minutes ago, so I got up.”
“He could have walked up the driveway and knocked,” I said.
“He can be immature.”
“Are Julio and Christine with him?”
“I haven’t seen them,” she said.
“Well, the gate isn’t locked,” I said. “If he wants to come up here, he can. Once the infected show up he’ll either have to leave or come in. It probably wasn’t a good idea to tell them the address to this place.”
“I’ll go out and talk to him,” she said.
“Is this going to be a thing?” I said. “Is this going to be a problem?”
“No,” she said. Then she stood on tiptoes and kissed me. “Last night was nice.”
“Yeah,” I grinned.
“You go make some coffee. I’ll talk to him.”
“No,” I said. “Why don’t you take care of the coffee and let me take care of him.”
“Don’t be like that,” she said. “I’ve had experience breaking up with boys. I don’t need you to do it for me.”
She left me and went upstairs. I was still standing at the window staring out at the van when she returned dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. There was a small, pink pistol sticking out of the back of her pants.
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“Cute gun,” I said. “Is that a toy?”
“I’ve made seventeen kills with it,” she said as she brushed past me to the front door. “How’s that for cute?”
She went out the front door and crossed by the front window on her way down the porch. Grant got out of the van and went up to the gate. Sara made her way down the long driveway without a word, and Grant stood at the gate and waited.
I looked out at the front of the property. The morning sun was turning the rain from the night before into steam. It was going to be an especially hot day thanks to all the humidity. The storm had knocked down a lot of leaves and small limbs. It looked like some of the cucumber vines had fallen down from the trellis I’d made for them. There were two empty plastic flowerpots in the front yard that had blown off the porch.
I didn’t make any coffee. I wanted to watch to make sure everything went smoothly between Sara and Grant. She stopped by the gate. Their voices were loud a few times, but never loud enough so I could understand words. Grant was angry. I knew he would be. I just hoped he wasn’t angry enough to harm her. I didn’t want to go out there and aggravate the situation.
Finally, Sara turned her back on him and started back up the driveway. He kept standing there, calling after her. When she got as far as the porch, he climbed back into the van, cranked it, and then backed away. He disappeared from sight, and I went out on the porch with Sara.
“He’ll be okay,” she said.
Then I heard the van returning, engine roaring. He came flying in, cut hard to the left, and crashed through the gate.
“Dammit!” I yelled. “It wasn’t even locked!”
His door opened, and he climbed out.
“It wasn’t even locked, asshole!”
“I’ve come to get her!” he yelled. “Sara, you’re coming back with me, baby!”
“Son of a bitch,” I stepped off the porch and went out to meet him.
“Don’t you hurt him, Grant!” Sara yelled from behind me.
“I knew this would be a thing,” I said.
“Sara! Sara, I love you, babe!”
“What the hell, man?!” I yelled. “You can’t open a friggin’ gate?”
“I don’t care about your gate, bro,” he said. We were closing the distance between us fast. “All I want is Sara.”
“You’ll care plenty when every zombie in the county shows up and–“ I looked out toward the road. “See? There’s one now. How long have you been out here making a racket?”
He stopped so quickly that he actually skidded in the gravel. He looked over his shoulder, his mouth hanging open, and stared out at the shambling creature by the mailbox.
“Dumbass,” I said.
He turned back toward me. His eyes narrowed. He took a step forward and hit me in the forehead. It was hard enough to make me stumble backward, but nowhere near as hard as I knew he was capable. He had hesitated. He wasn’t committed to the punch, and I figured he wasn’t committed to the fight. Or maybe he just didn’t know how to fight. I couldn’t say I knew how, but I had clubbed enough zombies to know that when you hit them, you should really damn well hit them.
“Don’t you hurt him, Grant!”
Dammit, I wish she would quit saying that.
“Show some faith, would ya?” I said mostly to Sara but also to myself.
Grant stepped in again and drew a fist back. I ducked down and ran forward, ramming my shoulder into his mid-section. He tried to keep his balance but went down onto his back. I straddled him like a kid on a playground and pushed the side of his face into the driveway. He kept slapping my head. There was nothing manly about either of us.
His eyes rolled up and widened. He said, “Dude.”
I looked up too, following his line of sight. There was a corpse clothed in brown, oily rags standing right there drooling down on us. I started to get up, but a dark blur came over my head. Then the creature was hit in the face with a hoe. Sara came in from behind me and took another swing. The thing fell sideways, and Sara beat its head to mush. I got to my feet and there were three more coming up the driveway.
“Don’t use your guns,” she said. “It’ll just make it worse.”
I ran over to the fence for the garden and grabbed a rake that was propped up there. Sara was already on her way out to meet the others, and Grant was right beside her, unarmed. He reached over to touch her shoulder, but she jerked away.
“I’m really mad at you right now, Grant!” I heard her say.
He stopped, but she continued on. When she was close enough to the nearest zombie, she swung her hoe. Grant ran over and got into his van. I thought he was going to leave us, but instead, he backed over the other two creatures. Then he pulled up farther into the driveway and got out again.
“Hurry!” he called out to me. “Let’s put the gate back before more get in!”
I ran over and helped him pick up the gate while Sara held off the closest zombie. Several more creatures were coming down the road. They would continue to trickle in for a while. The gate was bent, but we were able to prop it up across the opening then pull the van against it to brace it.
“It should hold,” I said. “When they move on, I’ll fix it properly.”
We all stood next to the van breathing hard, sweating, and staring at the undead on the other side of the gate. There were twelve of them right there, but there were more coming in.
“Nice,” I said. “I haven’t had problems out here for a while. Way to go, Grant.”
“Stop it,” Sara said. “You said the gate would hold. Let’s just go back to the house and sort this out.”
“What if it doesn’t hold?” I said. “What if they break through and mess up the garden? What then? Grant?”
“Stop it!” Sara said.
“No,” I said. “We’re going to have to be quiet and out-of-sight for a while until they leave. How am I supposed to tend the garden? How am I supposed to do anything? It’s like a thousand degrees, and we have to stay cooped up in the house!”
“Don’t be such a baby,” Grant said flippantly.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled. The creatures all answered me with howls.
“Enough!” Sara yelled. “We’ll sort it out inside!”
She stomped off toward the house. Despite my anger and even though I knew she was angry too, I couldn’t help think about how great she looked walking away. The grip of that pink pistol poking out of her jeans just made it even more adorable. Grant must have been thinking the same thing, because when I looked over at him, he had this silly grin on his face.
“Get in the house, dumbass,” I said.
Grant followed Sara up to the house. I stopped in the garden to re-tie the cucumber vines. I wanted to eat some breakfast, but I planned to come outside right after that to pick the vegetables that needed picking. The creatures were out there, and they would continue to come in for a while, so I didn’t see the harm of doing it at that time.
I came in the house about fifteen minutes later. I didn’t see Sara, but Grant was slouched in my favorite chair looking through one of my Playboys. I frowned at him and went upstairs to wash up in my basin and find a shirt to wear. I walked past Sara’s bedroom and found her sitting on her bed, her arms crossed, and staring at the floor. I stopped in the doorway.
“Do you want some breakfast?” I said. “I’m going to eat something.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I shrugged, “Not your fault.”
“Grant left Julio and Christine at the cabin without a vehicle,” she said.
“Why the hell would he do that?” I asked.
“He planned to go back after he got me.”
“Why didn’t they come with him?”
“He didn’t tell them he was leaving.”
She didn’t come out and say it, but I knew she wanted to go back for them. She wanted me to be the one to bring it up.
I sighed, “They’ll be fine.”
She stood, “What if they need to ge
t away quickly? How will they do it?”
“They’re right on the lake,” I said. “Aren’t there any boats nearby? We’re probably in worse shape than they are.”
“But–“
“We can’t leave, Sara. Our exit is blocked thanks to your boy down there.”
“I thought we might be able to cross the pasture in the back and cut through the woods to that other farm. Maybe we could find a car over there.”
I shook my head, “The infected have come through that way before. I have the fence fixed back there, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t in the woods right now trying to find a way across. I’m sorry, but Julio and Christine will have to fend for themselves, at least for a day or two.”
“Christine should get her period tomorrow or the next day for sure.”
I looked down at the floor then back at Sara.
“I’ll probably get mine about the same time,” she said.
“Shit.”
“We need to go now while we can,” she said. “Or…I need to go. Julio and Christine don’t have enough supplies for a long stay inside that cabin. We stored a lot of our supplies in the van, and Grant didn’t unload it before he left. There haven’t been any infected out there that we’ve seen, but they might start showing up when Christine gets her period. If I stay here, it’ll get bad here. You know that.”
“We’re not in any danger here,” I said. “Not now. I’ve fortified the property. I have plenty of supplies spread all over in every building. We’re okay here for a couple of weeks at least so long as we don’t run out of water.”
“What about Christine and Julio?”
“They know about the menstrual thing, right? They’ll know to go someplace safe for a while. They’ll probably get out on the lake–a houseboat or something.”
“Grant said he was willing to go with me.”
“Grant’s an idiot,” I said. “That’s not jealousy talking. He really is an idiot. I don’t see how he’s made it this long. I don’t want you going anywhere with him.”
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