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

by Jo Lee Auburne

  Sam glared back before rolling her eyes and looking away.

  The truth was that they were all miserable right now. They were packed in tightly underneath the shelter of the tarp, sitting in dirty water, and both Maryanne and Amanda had a hangover—though Maryanne was better at covering hers up than Amanda was.

  Roy was doing his best to mind his own business. He had his eyes closed, back pressed up against the boulder. It was possible that he was sleeping, but Amanda thought not, considering the bickering that was taking place in such close quarters.

  The temperature had dropped, offering a large measure of relief, but the humidity had increased. With so many people packed so closely together, she could see that Jason’s glasses were fogging up. Also, the smell of their combined body odor, added to the humidity, was giving the place an oppressive feel.

  “I’m going for a walk,” Amanda said, feeling the need to escape. She crawled out from underneath the tarp, standing, letting the water sluice over her.

  She could see Red now. He wasn’t afraid of the thunder or the lightning. Red was sitting in the middle of the camp, with his face turned upward into the large drops. It looked to Amanda that he was savoring the moment. She felt the urge to do the same.

  Now that she was out in the downpour, she couldn’t believe that she had ever entertained the idea of seeking cover from it. Unlike the winter storms that could chill you to the bone between the cold water and the icelike wind—this was pleasant, like a room temperature shower on a hot day.

  The lightening show was intense. Too bad there are few people left to enjoy it, she thought as she watched long white-hot arcs aiming for the ground several miles away. There was the danger of being struck by lightning, but of all the fates in the LAZ, that was one of the more pleasant ones, she considered as she thought of some of the ways that those she had loved and cared about had died.

  Feeling primal, Amanda went and hopped up on one of the boulders. From here she could oversee the light show and watch as water rushed down a nearby riverbed below her with such crushing force that it would carry away all but the most deeply rooted of the vegetation. She imagined that most of the desert life had already sought higher ground, waiting for the storm to pass. From her vantage point, it was a beautiful sight. It was as if this was the desert’s way of cleansing itself.

  Amanda looked down to see that dirty water was streaming off of her and onto the rock, being washed away down to the dirt. She felt a certain kinship with the harsh desert land, realizing that she too was being given the opportunity to be cleansed. She knew that from high atop this boulder in the middle of a lightning storm, she was tempting fate; but in this moment she didn’t care. There were worse fates, and she tempted those all the time by simply existing on a planet that was no longer humanity-friendly.

  She felt compelled to strip out of her soggy, dirty clothes, all the way down to nothing. She had no worries of being seen because from here, those under the tarp could not see her. And knowing them, they would not come out until the thunder and lightning had stopped. Maryanne was a cautious woman and would not want any of her family out in this. Roy had appeared to be catching some rest. With the exception of Red, she was alone, alone to let the skies cleanse her too.

  Amanda took her once-white tank undershirt that was now stained brown and wrung it out several times. She watched the dirty, brown water fall away from it. There wouldn’t be too much she would ever be able to do to make it white again, aside from melting its fabric with a heavy dose of bleach.

  She began using the tank shirt to scrub her body. She started with her face. She scratched the cloth repeatedly over every square inch of her face, being sure to wash her ears and behind her ears. Next she began to move down the chin and around the neck, holding up her long hair away from the back of her neck and scrubbing well there.

  Amanda stopped to hold the tank up to the heavy shower and then wring it out again before moving on to below her neck. Her body was thin, and she could feel each of her ribs as she worked the cloth down her chest and to her abdomen. Her arms were the most difficult to clean, having been exposed to the dirt and grime with less covering them. She found, after scrubbing so hard, that her skin had turned pink, that she was not as audaciously tan as she had believed herself to be. Once she had finished washing her body—though her naturally olive-toned skin would never be pale—it was a full two shades lighter.

  It wasn’t just her skin that looked different. She felt different after having washed away all that dirt, and it was a good feeling. Even though it wasn’t true, she felt as if it was the first time in her life that she had been totally clean. She wanted to let out a scream to release the primal being that had just turned human, but she refrained, not wanting to frighten the others and send them all crashing out here upon her very naked and private moment. Instead, she tasted the rain and breathed in the fresh air that was swirling around her. It felt good to be alive today, in this moment.

  The thunder and lightning was receding off into the distance, miles away, but the black clouds remained. It seemed as if Mother Nature wasn’t finished yet, and that was fine by her. Before slipping back into her wet clothes, she scrubbed them on the boulder, stone-washing away months of accumulated dirt. Even though they occasionally did articles of laundry when water permitted, the clothes never seemed to become very clean. As she slipped on her soaked underclothes, she felt that she could trust that she had gotten her clothes as clean as they were ever going to be.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Maryanne asked, startling her.

  “You have to try this,” Amanda said, turning to her friend, wearing only her underwear and white tank shirt.

  “I have to try standing around in the rain in my underwear during a thunderstorm?” Maryanne asked, incredulous.

  Amanda could only imagine what her friend must have been like back in college, hitting the books while her peers were partying it up.

  “No, that’s not what I’m asking you to do,” Amanda said, releasing a laugh.

  “Oh, good,” Maryanne said, sounding relieved.

  “I’m asking you to strip down naked and take a shower in the middle of a thunderstorm,” Amanda said, watching the shocked reaction on her friends face. “It feels incredible. Look at how pink my skin is.” She said this, rotating her arms around for her to see what she was talking about.

  Amanda would have thought that after so much of the overbearing daily heat and being so filthy for so long, her friend would have readily embraced the idea. Instead, Amanda was getting a skeptical look.

  “Here, let me get dressed, and I’ll tell the others to stay under the tent while you bathe. I’m telling you, it’s a life-changer,” she said, flashing a smile.

  “I could use a shower, and it is raining real hard,” Maryanne said, nervously looking up to the sky as if she was expecting to be struck by a lightning bolt any second.

  “The thunder is off in the distance now. Don’t worry, you should have some warning if it’s coming back,” Amanda assured her.

  Amanda dressed quickly because it appeared that she had won her friend over and didn’t want to give her too much time to change her mind. She hopped down from the boulder and gestured for Maryanne to climb up.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll keep the others inside. Trust me, you won’t regret it. And be sure to scrub your clothes on the rock while you’re at it. My clothes are cleaner than they’ve been since we came out here,” she said, moving off toward the tent.

  Amanda was in no hurry to crawl inside the tent and muddy her clean clothes, so when she got there, she just peeked her head in to deliver the message. She stood sentry outside of the tent, feeling the soft squishy mud beneath her toes as she strapped the knife back around her thigh. She had turned her back on Maryanne to allow the modest woman some privacy.

  “Oh my,” Maryanne said, “this does feel good.”

  The doctor scrubbed her pale skin until it was a very real shade of pink. She was happy to be clean
but secretly worried that now she wouldn’t have those layers of dirt to act as a sunblock. By the time she was finished, she was visibly elated and giggling like a schoolgirl on the playground.

  “I can cross that off of my bucket list,” she said, coming to stand with Amanda. And like Amanda, she was not interested in crawling around in the mud so remained outside of the tent.

  “You actually had showering in the rain on your bucket list?” Amanda asked.

  “No, but it’s there now,” her friend said and then laughed.

  “What’s going on out there?” Sam asked. “You guys are having too much fun. I call, no fair.”

  “Life isn’t always fair, sweetheart,” Amanda said. “You can come out here now.”

  “It’s your turn,” Maryanne said.

  “It’s my turn for what?” Sam asked, crawling out to stand in front of them. “Whoa,” the girl said, looking both of the women over. “You guys are so clean.” Sam was eyeing them enviously.

  “Amanda had this crazy idea to shower in the rain, and it felt so good,” her mother said to her.

  “That’s not crazy, sounds good to me,” Sam said. “Anything beats being crammed in there sitting in the mud. Smells like BO, big time,” she said, crinkling up her nose in emphasis.

  “Go over there atop that boulder,” her mother instructed. “Strip down and scrub. Then make sure to wash your clothes.”

  “Already there,” Sam said, splashing through the water, making a beeline for the boulder.

  The rain lasted into the late afternoon, and before it had finished, everyone in their group, with the exception of Jason, had bathed and was wearing clean clothes. Amanda was so accustomed to seeing everyone so filthy that it felt odd to see them scrubbed and in clean clothes. It was as if they had all prepared to attend a formal function and had got dressed to the nines.

  “I can’t believe how much better I feel,” Maryanne said, running her hands through her clean hair. Even though she had had no shampoo, she had massaged her scalp and hair, letting the rain sluice through it, and in so doing, it had lost some of its heavy oiliness. “I could get used to this.”

  “Me too,” Roy said, fingering his black curly beard. “Makes me want to shave and cut my hair.”

  “I can help you with that,” Maryanne said. “I’m sure you’ll feel even better once we get rid of those heavy dreadlocks and you can feel your face again.”

  “I think I’ll take you up on that,” Roy answered. “I’m starting to feel like a human being again, might as well take it all the way.”

  Maryanne set up shop, scissor in hand, cutting hair, and for lack of a mirror, she shaved Roy’s beard for him. She wished that Jason could have partaken in the fun, but he had been sleeping since they had moved him hours earlier. He hadn’t said so, but she knew that he had reinjured his leg and must be exhausted from the pain. She had given him a big glass of water and a pain pill from their medical stash, and he had not woken, though his breathing and respiration were good.

  “I want mine to look like Amanda’s,” Sam said, coming to sit on one of the five-gallon buckets.

  They had collected nearly a half-bucket full of water apiece between all the buckets, and Amanda had consolidated them, leaving two empty buckets—which they had turned upside down to sit on. Maryanne had one bucket, and whomever she was working on had another. Jason was currently resting on their only chair. Amanda decided that it was time to remedy that, and the next run she went on, she was getting them some chairs.

  Maryanne had cut Amanda’s black, long, thick hair into a cute bob, just off of the shoulder, figuring that this would make caring for it easier and would help with the heat. Admittedly, Maryanne was no hairstylist, and a professional could have found fault with the job that she had done, but Amanda was pleased, and Sam was obviously covetous. So relatively speaking, she felt that she had done a good job.

  By the time Maryanne was finished, loose strands of multicolored hair had blown around the camp, despite her best efforts to contain it. But nobody seemed to mind this, as it had been a spa day around the camp and everybody with the exception of Jason was freshly scrubbed, wearing clean clothes and had had a haircut. Amanda had declined to do Maryanne’s hair, seeing that Sam was anxious to try her hand at being a beautician. Amanda had even given the dogs haircuts, and they both seemed appreciative.

  Chapter 16

  By early evening, all the clouds had cleared out, leaving the sky blue and clear. The wind persisted, though not with the same gusto as it had earlier when the storm had hit. High winds were looked at as a nuisance around camp, but tonight, it was a welcome guest because it was whisking away the pooled-up puddles of water, and there was a chance that they might be able to sleep on only wet earth as opposed to lying in an inch or more of water.

  Amanda was glad that she had had the presence of mind to set the empty buckets out to catch the rain because as a result, they would have a little over twelve gallons more of water for the week, and that worked out to about two gallons more per person, not counting the dogs. This reminded her that she needed to enlist some help in digging a basin for water runoff, and that help would probably come in the form of Sam because Maryanne had her days full with the day-to-day tasks of doctoring, cooking, cleaning, and sanitizing water. That left her and Sam as the only other able-bodied persons amongst them.

  Amanda had come to know the desert well in the years that she had lived out here before the LAZ. She knew it to be a wildly unpredictable and hostile place that was not in the habit of showing hospitality to the living. The storm today had been evidence of that, having sent powerful torrents of water down into the washes. She had discovered many old-timer stories that told of people, horse drawn carriages, and later on, vehicles, being washed away and either never found or found miles later. Standing atop the boulder, she could still see that the washes were flooded; they would be camp bound until the excess water could dissipate, and that would probably take a day or two.

  At this time, they were trapped by nature. In the past, when things like this would happen to her, she had felt restless and eager to be released. She and her boyfriend had had the presence of mind to seek high ground during a flashflood and had needed to make camp overnight and into the next day as a result of it. Another time, the waters had eroded the road so badly that after their tires had crossed over a section of the road, it had eroded behind them, leaving them to have to make camp for two days while they dug another road with a collapsible shovel that they had kept in the vehicle for emergencies.

  They had mistakenly got the truck caught up on a deeply rutted section of road before and had to dig and shovel into the night to release the frame of their truck and get the tires back onto the ground where they could have traction again. Another time, shortly after she had come to the desert and before having found her boyfriend, she had been introduced to the “sugar sand” the hard way. The “sugar sand” looks like regular sand but is so fine and deep that it instantly traps anything with any weight to it. All the adventurous townspeople knew about the “sugar sand,” what to look for and how to avoid it. But for the out-of-town off-road enthusiasts, becoming stuck in it was a given. It had taken her five hours or more to dig her way out of that mess by herself.

  Later on, she had gone to El Centro to look up land records and deeds, hoping to buy a piece of property in one of the more remote locations, where property could be picked up for about a thousand dollars an acre at auction. A woman that worked in the records office had warned her not to actually go out there to look the land over without a police escort or a local expert because it was such a dangerous place. The woman had given her a shocked look when Amanda had told her that she had already been living out there for two years. But the lady had been correct; the way out parts of the desert both on the California side and the Arizona side were brutal and required intelligence and survival skills to negotiate safely or in their case to live out in it. Their task of surviving was hindered even more by the fact tha
t there was no civilization left to get back to, and that is why she felt a close association with the original settlers of these lands, both the Native Americans and the ones that had come from the East Coast later on.

  Sometimes the winds could blow so fiercely that large tornados would form, swirling and funneling their way across the desert floor, picking up sand and ripping apart any structures that happened to be in their way. Most people didn’t know that the California desert had so many of these twisters because in the way out parts, there was typically no one there to see them—though one had swung through Palo Verde once and dismantled a number of mobile homes and demolished the “Welcome to Palo Verde,” sign in the process. This event had barely been a blurb in the news because there were no fatalities and that town was twelve miles from Blythe and boasted only about two hundred residents.

  Amanda had been forced in the past to stop and seek shelter, either in her vehicle or in one of the many mining shafts, while twisters played themselves out. There were also a number of times that she had been trapped in a “brown out” during her adventuring. The “brown outs” occurred because high winds would at times carry the sand with them, obliterating visibility and sand-blasting anyone that was trapped out in it. Though the “brown outs” weren’t known to be lethal, they could scratch eyes, leave abrasions on exposed skin, and cause fits of coughing.

  Her boyfriend had been a natural desert outdoorsman and had lived in the area for years before ever having met her. She missed him a lot but tried not to spend too much time thinking about it, especially considering that he had turned right in front of her, forcing her to put him down right there in the motor home that they had shared their life in. She had used a kitchen knife that had been sitting on the counter.

  Amanda shuddered as she stood there on the boulder, feeling the wind grabbing at her clothes and looking for miles across the desert. In the LBZ, she had secretly wondered how many bodies had been buried out in these wastelands, never to be discovered by anyone. But these days, thoughts of surviving the LAZ took precedence over those types of musings.