They got in the pickup and Butter headed toward town. Though they’d been in the house for a few weeks now, they had only explored other houses: never the nearby village.
“Why town today?” She asked.
Butter shrugged. “Might be a hardware store,” he said gruffly, but she suspected there was a deeper reason than that. Butter had never been much of a risk taker, not that she’d seen. Still, she didn’t press him. He was a good man, as far as she could tell, and he didn’t need her giving him crap today.
He slowed down as they approached the town. A faded wooden sign read GLENOAKS, POPULATION 2,452.
“I doubt there’s a post office,” Emily rolled her eyes. “Much less a hardware store.”
“You’d be surprised,” Butter said as he drove down the deserted main street. “Little towns are resourceful places.” They passed a bank and three different churches. A few houses sat between official town buildings. There was, in fact, a post office. Next to it was another church.
“Only a few Z’s,” Emily commented, staring out the window as they drove by. If the town was this empty, she imagined most of the houses were full of the Infected who had been here. Either that or they had already wandered off. They only saw a dozen or so before they reached a real, honest-to-goodness farm supply store. “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said, looking at Butter. “How did you know they would have one?”
“Didn’t,” he said, and hopped out of the truck. He slammed the door shut and she cringed, but Butter didn’t seem worried. There were a few Infected wandering around nearby, but none of them were moving quickly .
“Want me to stand guard?” She asked, but he shook his head.
“Let’s get what we need and get out. No point in going on a shooting spree and wasting the ammo.”
The front door was locked, but he tossed a rock through the glass door and reached his hand through to unlatch the deadbolt. Butter pushed the door open and they walked in. It was a supply store, not a hardware store, but there were plenty of things they could use. Emily found rolls of barbed wire and carried it out to the truck. An Infected was only a few yards away and she grabbed the baseball bat from the bed of the truck and swung. The bat connected with its head with a large thud and, to her surprise, the head of the Infected rolled right off.
“Must’ve been an old one,” Butter commented from behind her. He carried a wood pallet and tossed it in the back of the truck before heading back inside. Emily trotted behind him, looking for other things they could use. Most of the items in the dilapidated store were things like feed and range cubes.
She found an area with medical supplies and took some of the heart medication. Then she grabbed some equine antibiotics. Obviously, they’d have to modify the dosage if they wanted to use the penicillin designed to treat horses, but it was the same main ingredient. She carried her find outside and tossed the bottles in the truck.
“About done,” Butter said. He had found more fencing materials, along with gloves and a sun hat.
“Nice hat,” Emily commented.
“Fuck you. I look good,” Butter grunted. Emily laughed and ran back inside. She grabbed a bag of newborn chick feed and brought it back out.
“Chick feed?” Butter glared at the bag.
“I remembered,” she said. “There are antibiotics in baby chick feed. If anyone gets sick,” she shrugged. “It could be an option. Better than crawling around a hospital filled with Infected.”
“I wouldn’t go near a hospital if you paid me,” he slid into the driver’s side. “But I’d definitely pay you to try to get Kari to eat baby chicken feed if she needs drugs.”
Emily rolled her eyes. She got in the car and closed her door.
“Wanna explore before we head back?”
“Why not?” She was surprised at his suggestion, but she was game for anything. They didn’t have anywhere else to be. They had a little under a quarter tank of gas. It was enough to drive around town for a bit before they headed home. Soon they’d need to think about finding other transportation, but for now, it was fine.
He turned down one of the side roads that led to a residential area.
“Surprised there aren’t any survivors here?” She asked, raising an eyebrow as she noticed the sad state of the houses.
“Nope,” he said. “Small town America is resourceful, but no one coulda been ready for all that.”
“You mean everyone accidentally turning into flesh-eating monsters at the same time?”
“Well, yeah,” he said. “Places were overrun too fast to do much about it.”
“Is that what happened on base?” Emily asked, raising an eyebrow. None of the airmen had spoken much about that day.
Butter sighed, but kept driving. Emily rolled the window down and let her arm dangle out of it. Careless? Sure. She could die at any time, though, and the air felt great.
“Just a normal day,” he began, and she stared at the houses they passed. A blue one, then a red one. What a strange color for a house, she thought. Most people wanted something neutral, something that allowed them to blend in with the world around them.
“Stop,” she said, and he pulled into the driveway. They sat there for a second, then he killed the engine. “Sorry,” she said. “I just…this house is so weird. Let’s stare at it while you talk.”
He chuckled, but obliged.
“I was at work,” he began again.
“On base?”
“On base. I was working at an office near the back gate when we started hearing reports of a weird-ass virus. Everyone started checking their social media at the same time, but the news was all about it. It didn’t say the dead were walking. It didn’t say ‘zombie.’ We all knew, though. What else could it be?”
“You hadn’t gotten the vaccine?”
“Nah,” he shook his head. “I was supposed to, but I had a cold. They sent me home. Said it wasn’t safe to give me while was sick. What about you?” He asked. “Why didn’t you go running to get your shot?”
“I’m allergic to eggs,” she shrugged. “I can’t even get the flu shot. Figured I’d take my chances.”
“Guess you got lucky.”
“I guess so. What’d you do when you saw the news?”
“Everyone left to go get their kids,” he said. “I didn’t have any, so I waited around. Then the phone started ringing. I was the only one in the office. I picked up my boss’ phone. They didn’t wait for me to say who I was or anything. They just started talking. Said the front gate had been breached. The phone went dead before they could give orders.”
“You ran,” Emily said, noting the way his shoulders slumped a little bit as he told the story.
“Like a coward,” Butter admitted.
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
“What’s being alive worth if you didn’t do anything to save anyone?” He got out of the truck and Emily followed suit. “The world is worth what we make of it. If you never save anyone, never risk anything, it’s not a very good world to live in. Come on, now. I know you’re dying to explore.”
The front door was locked, but they hopped the chain link fence in the backyard and found the spare key.
“Fucking small towns,” Butter grumbled, holding the key up. “You people,” he muttered, shaking it at Emily, then he unlocked the door. There was no car in the driveway, so she suspected the house was empty, but it wasn’t.
A little kid, probably five or six, sat on the couch staring at the black television set. He turned to them and growled, then ran toward them. Butter stepped back and closed the door before it could reach them.
“Not gonna do it,” he said, looking at Emily, waiting to see what she would say. Could she do it? Could she kill a little kid? It wasn’t a kid anymore. She thought it over and over again. He’s not alive, not really.
But the truth was that when she saw a little boy, all she thought of was Melanie.
She had already killed her sister. She had already killed enough to l
ast her a lifetime. A cool-looking house wasn’t worth exploring if you had to murder a child to do it.
“Let’s go home,” she said.
They went back to the truck and got inside, but when he started the car and pulled onto the road, he cursed under his breath.
“What?” She asked.
“Fuckin’ trouble is what.”
She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw them. Dozens of them. More than there should have been. More than she could have imagined.
“Punch it, Butter,” Emily complained, her eyes glued to the scene unfolding behind them.
She had lived in the country for years and thought she had seen just about everything she could possibly imagine, but a stampede of infected cows was not one of them. They were big, they were fast, they were sick, and they were barreling toward the car.
Butter drove faster and they both silently prayed it would be enough.
Chapter 14
Neil yanked open the door to one of the outbuildings. It was a little shed, not even big enough to park a car in, but it was filled with rusty tools.
Cody came up behind him and peeked in.
“Anything good, boss?” The kid asked, peering around Neil. The two of them stood, side-by-side, eyeing the assortment of gardening tools and farming equipment.
“I don’t even know,” Neil said. “We need Butter or…”
Cody smirked. “Emily. Yeah, I know. She knows everything.”
Neil didn’t protest. Cody was absolutely right. Emily was smarter than any of them, he reckoned, and they’d probably be already dead without her guidance. No, she wasn’t the bravest or the best shot, and she took unnecessary risks sometimes, but she was quick on her feet.
And in a world of undead, you needed that.
You needed someone to depend on who could be fast, who could be quick, who could be witty. You needed someone who could help you think and keep you focused. You needed someone who believed in you even when you didn’t believe in yourself.
You needed a partner who could help you keep moving forward when you thought you might just die.
“An axe,” Neil said, eyeing the equipment inside. He pulled it out. It was heavier than he expected, but then, he’d been a soldier: not a farmer. What did he know about axes? “Maybe Butter will want it,” he said.
Cody nodded. “Looks like a good one to me. Not a lotta rust or anything.” He took the axe from Neil and set it aside. They could clean it up later. The blade had only a small amount of rust and the handle seemed sturdy enough. The house had a fireplace and come winter, they’d want to chop wood for fires.
Then again, Neil thought, maybe they should start splitting logs now. They had plenty of time on their hands and plenty of trees. He didn’t want to go out in cold weather to cut firewood. They could do it now. He pulled out another axe. This one was in poor condition, but perhaps it would still work. He set it beside the first one and kept searching the shed.
**
Kari looked out the kitchen window at the men exploring their new haven and smiled. She turned back to the room and wiped her hands on a dishtowel.
“How fucking domestic,” she muttered under her breath, but she wasn’t sad or regretful. No, for the first time in a very long time, Kari felt hopeful, happy. For the first time in a long time, she thought that maybe, just maybe, things would be all right.
Sometimes it felt like forever since her baby had been killed, the daycare overtaken. Sometimes it felt like forever since she and Cody had managed to escape, but the guilt still weighed heavily on her heart. She needed to learn how to cope with the loss. They all did. Though most of the time, Kari thought everyone else was doing a good job handling their pain but her.
Cody had been with her that morning, spending his break making out with her on the pavilion at the lake. They had been necking like a couple of teenagers when the alarm sounded, when they had hurried back to the CDC, when they had realized it was too late.
Cody was the one who held her back as she screamed, who pushed her into the car before an Infected could sink its teeth into her. Cody was the one who had saved her.
And now here she was: a kept woman. And she didn’t hate it nearly as much as she should have.
Why couldn’t this have happened before? Why couldn’t they have admitted their love, moved in together, or run away? Why couldn’t he have had a chance to be Dillon’s dad? Why couldn’t they have been a family?
She bit back tears as she started thinking about her baby again and wrapped her arms around herself. Her body heat wasn’t enough to stop the cold that had seeped into her skin. Nothing was. Nothing ever would be enough.
No matter what Kari did, no matter how far she ran, she would never stop missing her baby.
But she needed to learn how to face her new reality.
No good ever came from dwelling. None. Kari had a lot of pain, but she had something to keep her going. She had Cody. She had herself. She had Dillon’s memory. She wouldn’t have wanted her baby to give up if she died. He wouldn’t want that for her, either.
Taking a deep breath, Kari turned back to the food splayed out on the counter. She promised to cook dinner, so she needed to decide what they were going to have. She had already cleared out the cupboards in the kitchen and arranged their canned foods by type and expiration date. They would eat the oldest things first. Now she just had to cook them.
The good thing was that cooking required her to focus. She didn’t want to leave things on the stove too long, didn’t want to use more of the propane than they needed to. She didn’t want to burn anything or ruin a pot or make a huge mess. She wanted to make the most of the food they had.
She turned her attention to cooking, finding peace in the realization that there was no time for daydreaming when she was standing in front of the stove. She grabbed a box of matches and lit the range. The propane still worked in the house, but she had to use a math to get the burner lit since this stove had an electric ignition. Lighting the stove was easy, but she always had an unbearable image of herself blowing up the entire house.
It was always a relief when she was finished with that part.
She pulled out a can of corn and one of beans. She had even managed to find some canned chicken. It wasn’t good, by any means, but she could cook it on the range and they’d have a hot meal. They had all gotten over eaten fancy foods. Now every meal was plain, but she did what she cook to spice things up.
Mostly, she thought with a smile, she added lemon pepper.
Lots and lots of lemon pepper.
Chapter 14
“Where did they come from?” Butter asked. Emily just leaned back against the seat. What the actual hell? Zombies, she could deal with. Cranky airmen? Sure. But infected cattle? Really? That was what her life had come down to. Fucking cows.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe there was an auction. Maybe a fence got knocked down from the storm. Who knows?”
“Any ideas?” Butter asked, glancing over at her again. He was driving quickly down the paved road. He had passed the turnoff for their new home. For that, Emily was grateful. She didn’t have to tell him to stay away. If they were going to be chased by rabid, infected farm animals, the last thing she wanted was them following her home.
“They’ll stop soon,” she said. “Just keep driving.”
“How can you be sure?” Butter asked, eyebrows raised, obviously wondering how much Emily really knew. The truth was that she knew more than she should. No, she hadn’t been raised in the country, but she’d learn a lot while residing in the rural farmland surrounding Howe. She’d been especially social with her neighbors and they’d given her plenty of information. Whether they did it to be featured in one of her books or simply to be neighborly, she didn’t know.
“Look,” Emily turned back and peeked out the window. Two dozen, maybe. Maybe a bit more. The cows were all ages, though there were only one or two bulls, and running down the road. They pounded, their hooves heavy against th
e gravel, but she could tell they were beginning to slow. “Even zombies can’t last forever. They’re getting tired.”
“They need a distraction,” Butter said, but they didn’t have one. They had a truck weighted down with the equipment for Butter’s fence. They had water and feed and nails and wood, but a distraction?
That they didn’t have.
“We need to hurry and turn off,” Emily said. “Or we’re going to run out of gas. If they swarm us, they won’t be able to get into the truck, but they can wait us out.” She had the mental image of being trapped in the truck, surrounded by infected cows. How long until she shot herself? How long until she got so hungry that death seemed like a viable option? How long until she decided to risk it and run through the crowd of cattle?
How long?
Butter frowned as he peered at the gas gauge and turned off on the next road. Gravel sputtered beneath the tires and popped up and bounced, hitting the side of the truck. Best of all, it hadn’t rained in a few days, so his speeding kicked up a thick layer of dust that would inevitably make them temporarily invisible to their pursuers.
Butter drove for a mile, then turned into an abandoned driveway and parked, killing the engine quickly. They waited. They didn’t have to for long.
The dust hadn’t even settled when the cows began barreling by: a stampede of the undead, a horde of Infected.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Butter looked shocked it had worked. They didn’t even slow down, didn’t even turn to wander into the driveway, didn’t even meander through. They just kept running.
“Well, it wasn’t a distraction, but it beats being trampled to death,” Emily murmured. When the last cow had vanished, they waited. Butter would never admit being scared, but Emily suspected he was just as nervous as her about starting the car again. The idea of infected cattle sounded ridiculous, but the truth was that heifers were huge: much bigger than either of them. Who knew what kind of damage they could cause to two little humans?
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