Amanda Carter in the L.A.Z., life after zombies

by Jo Lee Auburne

  “You can thank Amanda for that,” Maryanne said, bringing the pills with a glass of water.

  “Amanda and who else?” he asked and then put the pills in his mouth and drank down the water.

  “Just Amanda,” his wife answered. “She got back just at dark last night, fully loaded with things we needed.”

  “Going to town alone?” he asked. “That’s not safe, you all told her that’s not safe, right?”

  “Sorry, Jason, but there wasn’t anything to be done about it. There were too many people on the injured players’ list, and we were out of water. You needed medicine. She went alone,” Roy said, coming to stand where his friend could see him.

  “I see,” Jason said, nodding his head. “I’m tired, think I’ll sleep.” It looked like he was out immediately upon finishing his sentence.

  “I’m going to the lavatory,” Roy said, grabbing a roll of toilet paper.

  “Where’s the laboratory?” Tammy asked, sounding excited that they would have such a place here at camp.

  “He said lavatory, honey,” her mother said, as everybody laughed. “It means the men’s room.”

  Amanda was glad to be back home, amongst what she considered to be her family, hangover and all.

  Chapter 12

  As happy as she was to be back to the place she called home, with the people that she loved, Amanda was ill content. All she had to do was to spend a couple of minutes, eyes roaming around camp, looking at their situation with a new perspective, to know that this was not what she had wanted for them. Yes, she had dragged everybody out to this location to get all of them away from the dangers closer to civilization. Yes, this place was defensible. Yes, it would not be happened upon by anybody accidentally because of The Trench. Yes, they felt safe to walk around, go to sleep, sit together, and eat. But to Amanda, that was not enough. She could not allow herself to settle into this makeshift life that they were living.

  There might not be a lot that she could encourage them to do about it today, but if they began, a little at a time, they could make this place a home. One day, they could live like human beings, instead of human doings, and this was the beginning of being able to fulfill the promise that she had so flippantly made Maryanne the night before in their drunken state.

  Because even though Maryanne had been in desperate need of breaking down and crying, which had been long overdue, she did have a valid point. The children needed an education. They needed to feel better about themselves, and that was not going to happen while they lived day to day hand-to-mouth. They were sleeping on top of filthy sleeping bags on the dirt. They were hardly ever able to bathe, and when they did, it was less than a thorough job. They were all thin and suffering from malnutrition. The food that they did consume was coming from what had been leftover in town. Food was no longer being mass produced for human consumption by anybody, anywhere. One day, the food would either run out or be unfit to eat, and either way, that did not bode well for their future.

  In the LAZ, it was typical for people to decide not to think past the moment, the hour, the day. But if they were going to help their species to survive and one day to thrive again, they were going to have to start answering some of the tougher questions that kept cropping up regarding safety, shelter, food, clothing, education, etc. And somehow, these questions would have to be answered in a way that did not present more problems for future generations.

  Though nobody had gone public with exactly what had happened to cause the initial infection, the speculation—which Amanda believed to be accurate—was that it was a biological experiment gone wrong. Had everybody in the past collectively thought that it was a bad idea to mess around with dangerous biologic and genetic material, then none of this would have happened, and their lives would not have been irreparably changed.

  If humanity were going to survive past their extinction, those that survived would need to figure out how their decisions would affect future generations before putting them into action so that there wouldn’t be a repeat of the event that they were trying to survive now or, God forbid, something worse.

  “Sorry, the coffee is a little weak, want to stretch it out,” Maryanne said, not realizing that there was no need to apologize because everybody in their group understood already.

  Amanda continued to survey their environment. Maryanne’s medical supplies were spread out neatly, organized, but without a proper way to store them to keep them safe from the elements. These types of supplies were much too difficult to find to be entrusting them to the harsh elements out here. She frowned. Jason’s IV bag was hanging from one of the tent supports that she had put up last night. Though creative, it was hardly a trustworthy solution should the winds pick up.

  She poured herself another tall glass of water, thinking of Roy and his visit to the lavatory. They had dug a pit in the ground to make do as their bathroom facilities, and though this was infinitely better than anywhere, anytime, it made using the facility awkward. The flies were bad in this area too, having free access to come and go, and though it was a ways away from camp, every time a fly appeared in camp, she couldn’t help but wonder if it had just come from The Pit. Ideally, she would like to have the necessary materials for them to build an outhouse, preferably a two-seated one with each seat separated by a small partition.

  With all the potential threatening situations that loomed in their future—running out of available gas, food, and water, it was imperative that they decide to make some changes. She had to present this to the group and make them see the necessity for it, or else, she didn’t believe that they would have much a future together, if at all.

  It would be a shame, she considered, if they had to leave this location in order to make these changes. She had grown rather attached to their camp, nestled in between the large boulders, high above the desert floor, and safe from prying eyes. She hoped that when she presented her thoughts, the others in the group would have ideas that she herself had overlooked, making it possible for them to remain this far out with no fear of running out of essentials.

  At times, there was talk amongst them to move and to keep moving until they found a safe place of refuge. It was on everybody’s mind that perhaps there were someplace on the continent that was not infected, a place of safety. Though after much discussion, not one of them could say that this was more than just a pipe dream that they enjoyed clinging to at times.

  As long as the news coverage had lasted, it had become apparent that the infection had breached all barricades, all cities. And then to make matters worse, there had not been any more broadcasts from anywhere with news of what was happening out there in the world. The unfortunate assumption was that there was no more organized society left to report anything. All had fallen, leaving only small bands of people scattered around to fend for themselves, and that was not going well, judging by the lack of people she encountered as time went on.

  The people she had encountered over the past few months were the entirely dangerous type that wouldn’t think twice about killing a fellow survivor if it meant a couple more cans of beans. Society had devolved into something hurtful and ugly. If a few of them could not step up and begin to set things right, this infection that had spread so very fast would become an extinction-level event, as was being predicted by the news reports before they went off the air.

  Amanda went and poured herself another cup of weak coffee and went back to sit down on her sleeping bag. She put a splash of rum in her drink and went back to her thoughts. It felt like there were wheels turning in her brain, gears grinding and spinning, as if she might just be on the verge of some solutions. Or perhaps the heat, in combination with her hangover, was simply playing tricks on her.

  “You look lost in thought,” Maryanne said, coming to sit beside her. “I see you’re spiking your coffee.”

  “It’s not so weak that way,” Amanda said, giving her friend a grin.

  “We don’t have anything to worry about, do we?” Maryanne asked with a straight face, a
nd Amanda wasn’t sure where she was going with this. “Are we going to have to hold an intervention and get you off to some meetings?” she said, continuing, but now she was laughing.

  “Ha, ha, doubt that would work. I think all the meeting halls are filled with creepers, and they’re suffering from an entirely different type of addiction,” Amanda said, realizing that her friend was only being humorous.

  “What’s on your mind?” her friend asked.

  “What we need is a sound infrastructure that can be put into place by a very few people with limited supplies,” Amanda said as an answer.

  “Sounds like you’re running for office or something.” Maryanne said. She was in a much better mood than she had been in the night before. “If you’re running for mayor of this town, you’ve got my vote.”

  “Ha, ha, lol, but I’m being serious,” Amanda said. She saw Roy trudging up the hill with toilet paper in hand. “Hold that thought,” Amanda said, getting up quickly to grab the roll from him.

  “Ah, I was going to go next,” Sam said, sounding disgruntled.

  “Better be quicker next time,” Amanda said, feeling a little guilty that she had just stolen bathroom time from a kid.

  Amanda had worked herself up into a foul mood by the time that she had made it back up the hill and into camp. She passed the roll off to Sam, who was shifting her weight from foot to foot to help with the urge while she waited. Definitely a two-seated outhouse, Amanda thought as she watched the girl dash away with Red at her heels.

  She saw that Maryanne had returned to the camp stove, cooking area, already preparing breakfast.

  Roy had taken a lot of time and care in making a “kitchen” area for them shortly after their arrival. He had brought a bag of cement from town and used it to hold the rocks together, making a three-feet tall two-sided ten-by-ten enclosure that’s back pressed up to one of the large boulders. In that way, the camp stove that they used had a windbreak, making heating food more efficient, saving valuable gas.

  The camp stove required propane, and that was another resource that would eventually run out, forcing them to use a wood burning fire ring. They would need to avoid that scenario because that type of fire would burn messy and send gray and black plumes of smoke up, easily announcing their location, sending the raiders to their doorstep.

  She liked what Roy had done for them. It was, she considered, perhaps their first step to becoming civilized here. The rocks had been naturally occurring, only requiring the time and the energy to go and collect them. The bag of cement, he had found in a storage shed behind a house that they had scavenged from, along with the trowel; he had found an empty bucket to use to mix it up in. The most difficult part of the project had been allowing enough water to be used for it. Altogether, it had taken them two days to construct it. After that, any home improvements had ceased around the encampment.

  During her wanderings around the desert, taking photographs in the LBZ, she had come across run-down settlements from the pre-1900s. One such settlement had built a rock house that still had three of its walls standing. At the time, it had been a great photo opportunity for her, and with a little research, she had discovered that it had once been a stagecoach rest stop. The stagecoach would stop over, giving the horses some much-needed rest, and the passengers could seek lodging for the night in the rock house. Not too far from that encampment, they had dug an eight-by-eight-feet trench at the base of a mountain. It was clear that they had used this to collect runoff water from when the rains would send it down the hill. If the people back then, with what little they had available to them, could make it work, than they could too, she determined.

  Amanda was excited to pitch her ideas to the group, but she saw Roy walking away down the hill and felt like it might not be possible for a while.

  Almost every morning, Roy would disappear down the hill to the vehicles. He had not yet given up hope that somebody would be broadcasting news on one of the radio stations. There was a time when Amanda had held out the same hope, but it had been five months since anybody had heard anything but static on all the stations across the band, both AM and FM stations. She was glad that Roy had not been deterred from checking because she had lost patience with it, and somebody ought to be doing it. It was a little annoying when Roy would make the run to town with her and spend the entire trip flipping through static. They had made a deal: he could flip through the stations on the way into town, and Amanda could listen to music on the way back.

  It was possible that one day, he would come running back up here all excited because he had heard some news, but she wasn’t going to hold her breath waiting around for it when it might never happen.

  Thinking of those last few broadcasts that she had heard brought up memories from the not-so-distant past. When the outbreak was just beginning, she could remember passing the tabloids while in line at the grocery store. The tabloids had been the first to report it, sensationalizing the zombie angle, mentioning all the scattered reports. At the time, she had flipped through the magazine and returned it to the shelf without giving it much thought. Not long after that, the stories had been picked up and were being run on television news broadcasts, radio, in printed newspapers, and of course, all over the Internet.

  Once people had realized that it wasn’t just sensationalized hoopla, panic had begun to set in, with people not showing up for work, afraid to leave their houses. If they did go out, they became convinced that they must have contracted it when somebody coughed in their vicinity. People had rushed to the stores for any type of facemasks, not realizing that it wasn’t an airborne virus. Riots had occurred in major cities, fires, and looting—long before the world had turned, leaving the survivors as the minority instead of the majority.

  The last broadcast that she and Roy had sat in his Jeep listening to had come from a man in St. Louis, Missouri, five months ago. He had cleared the creepers out of the station, barricaded it, fired up a generator, and began to get news from his area out over an AM band. The news had not been good. The hospitals had been overrun first, the military presence second, and now the city was almost completely turned. He spoke of food shortages, lack of medical supplies and personnel, and killing in the streets amongst the survivors. He spoke of attempting to get him and his son out of the city and to someplace safe and how he didn’t know where to go. They had only heard him for a few hours one time before he had signed off, but she remembered the broadcast clearly and how it had affected both her and Roy as they had sat there, feeling helpless while listening to it.

  Amanda decided that her head was filled with far too many ideas that kept colliding with one another and mixing with her memories. Until she could get some of those thoughts out and on to paper, she felt that she didn’t have any room for new ideas. Feeling distracted, she got up and headed down the hill to grab a notepad that she kept in the truck.

  Roy sat, with the Jeep idling, flipping through the stations, looking for a signal. It was apparent that he had not found anything. He was so intent upon his task that he had not heard her coming and only noticed that she was there when he heard the truck door slam. He gave her a nod and went back to the dial.

  Chapter 13

  Sam’s screams alerted them to the fact that something was wrong—that and Red’s warning barks. Amanda and Roy were still back down with the vehicles. Sam was either still at The Pit or she had gone back up top, and either way, something was wrong because she was definitely not the kind of teen to issue such ear-piercing screams without good reason. Despite the heat, Amanda felt her blood run cold in her veins for just a second as she dashed up the hill, directed by the sounds.

  She could hear Roy cursing and then his heavy breath coming up behind her. Sam was still at The Pit, and Amanda could see that Maryanne was running down the hill, carrying the baseball bat that Sam should have taken with her. Still following the barking, because the screams had turned to muffled sobs, Amanda wondered how a creeper could have gotten past The Trench, past Roy, and up as fa
r as The Pit. It didn’t make any sense to her. The dog had stopped barking. This was more worrisome than when he had been barking.

  Amanda had her knife out and ready when she came upon Sam and Red. Roy came huffing up behind her, carrying the shotgun, and Maryanne ran past all of them to grab her daughter. She hoped that someone had told Tammy to stay put up top. Many scenarios had played out in her head as she had run up here, but this one had escaped her imaginings. She could see no creepers and no raiders, and at first, it was a mystery as to what had upset them both so much as to make such a big fuss about it.

  Amanda could see that Sam was standing not too far from The Pit, and Maryanne had her arms around her while she cried. Red was not much farther away and was too busy with something to acknowledge their presence. Curious, Amanda and Roy both moved in closer, weapons at the ready.

  Sam looked over to them with puffy red eyes, breaking free from her mother’s arms.

  “Snake,” the girl said, pointing toward Red, “really big snake.”

  “Did it bite you?” Maryanne asked, looking her daughter over.

  “No, it’s just big. It coiled up on me. I thought it was going to strike, but then Red started distracting it, you know, intentionally getting its attention on him. He might be bit,” Sam said, crying into her mother’s shoulder.

  At first, Amanda found it hard to believe that Sam would become hysterical over seeing a snake, but it was making more sense now as she considered that the girl had almost been bitten and was worried that the dog had been bit.

  “Snakes are more your thing than mine,” Amanda said, standing her ground and looking to Roy.

  “You got that right,” Roy said, knowing that snakes were one of Amanda’s least favorite living things.

  “Mommy,” Tammy said, having walked down the hill with the little blond dog at her side. “Daddy needs to know if everyone’s all right. He sent me.”