by J. Rudolph
It was one last house. I guess there must be some sort of law that says the last house was promised to have problems. The jinx started with the padlock that was in a place we couldn't see from our rooftop vantage point. They broke the gate down. It was just a wooden gate and with just the right amount of pressure the screws would pop right out of the hinges. A UCLA football scouted kid is just the right amount of pressure.
I could see that they were feeling really tense on this house. They moved like there was something not quite right but that was just right out of their reach to understand what it was. They moved a bit more quickly, wanting to be free from this house. They were loading the last can into the U-Haul when suddenly there was a large crash noise coming from one of the picture windows. It was then they saw it, the paper in the window next to the front door.
In the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, the CDC and the president urged those that felt ill or had been bitten to put a sign in the window of their home and to lock the doors. It was also suggested that they lock the doors and add something to make it a little tricky to get out that door if they converted. They were told to wait for help to collect them and to take them to a hospital for treatment. That was followed by so few people that it wasn't something that the guys even looked for. Besides, they had not planned on going inside anyway.
This house held a very hungry zombie. Before food showed up it hadn’t occurred to it to even try getting out the window but seeing food so close was the trigger it needed. It had taken a running jump and flew out that window, glass shards raining all around the zombie. It used to be a woman, I could tell. She must have just had a minor bite because despite being dead, she was in fairly good shape as compared to the other zombies. The summer heat had definitely messed with her decomposition factor and she looked kind of like a mummy from Egypt. She started to go after the guys.
They had just put the last can on the lift when she showed up. Trent ran up to the cab and jumped behind the wheel. The keys had been left in the ignition on the off chance that they may need to make a get away. The truck lit up on the first crank. The guys had jumped into the trailer and banged on the divider of the cab to let him know all were on board and to get the hell out of there. Tyreese was trying to get the last can on board but the lift was moving too slow. Joey shot the zombie right between the eyes with the crossbow and she went down.
There is something about the zombie moan that calls out to other zombies. DaWayne and Daniel were tying the cans into the trailer having located little tie hooks. They had gotten the other six cans secured right after they loaded at the other houses and were struggling to put the latest additions in securely. They got the two in and tied and were trying to wrestle in that last can. Trent had his hands full trying to drive through the zombie hoard. He hit several. The last one he hit though ended up under the wheel and it served as a speed bump. The can went flying off the lift and Tyreese almost went with it. Daniel and Joey were right there and grabbed him by the jacket pulling him back. For a couple seconds, the fate of Tyreese was uncertain. Trent hit the brakes and they all fell into the trailer.
They were finally on the way back and I screamed down to Jody to put the bridge down. She backed up the little car and the bridge went down quickly. It fell a little faster than it should have and hit the other side with a loud smack. I hoped against all hope that there was no damage from that fast drop. Alexus unlocked the gates after Jody yelled their combinations to her then ran the gate open just as they got to the bridge.
I breathed a sigh of relief as they went over the bridge safely and came in. Alexus shut the gate and relocked both bike chains and Jody drove the pull car forward to raise the bridge. The men were whooping it up. They were filled with adrenaline after that run and were cheering their success. They had gotten 480 gallons of wash water even with the loss of the last can.
Martha came over and looked at the cans. “These are not the 60 gallon cans guys. These are the 90. I thought that the 60's had been swapped out. My girlfriend had the 60's. Said they were dreadfully small and showed me the difference in design. These are them.”
A super loud cheer went out. 720 gallons of water was amazing. Each unit got a can full of water for their use, be it laundry, wash or toilet. Several of us topped off our tubs with the water so we could flush or wash. Erin found a can of spray paint and sprayed the apartment number that corresponded with the unit it belonged to.
We had hope. We were going to have a little more wiggle room where water was concerned.
Alexus woes
If only all our issues were as simple as getting water.
I had given Alexus watch duties to give Joey and Jody some time off to have a honeymoon. True it wasn't as though they had a ton of options on what they could do but they were excited that they were going to get together time. They had set to work on removing the kitchen wall. Jody and her kids were looking forward to more space. All three kids had shared the master bedroom and Jody had taken the small one. After the wall had been pulled out they got to reorganize. Jody moved in to Joey's bedroom, Abigail into the little room next to them. Liam moved into the small bedroom that was Jody's and Erin stayed in her room. When the baby was born it would stay in its parents room until it was older. Then they would move Abigail back in with Erin but that wouldn't be for a year or so. It. That word felt so foreign in my brain. Babies were girls or boys, thanks to ultrasound machines, not its. I started to drool over the idea of having an ultrasound machine, a ventilator, oooh a crash cart. There are just some things you are not going to find at a pharmacy.
Trent and I helped with all the moving of furniture and settling everyone in as no one really wanted Jody to do a lot of heavy lifting.
We didn't notice that food came up missing for a bit. Water too. We thought that we must have just used more with the wedding. We thought it to be an innocent miscount. It was easy to discount the first time. We must have done the count late, in the beginning of August. A month later though, in the beginning of September, when it was time to do count yet again we were short. It didn't make sense. The things that were missing were things that were odd. Mercedes had written down what we had when the count came up wrong last time so we knew exactly was missing this time. It was a few cans of spinach this time.
We had finally caught a rabbit that was making trouble in our garden just that day and we had planned on cooking it up with the spinach. The spinach was not a highly requested item so it shouldn't be missing. We wandered over to the water unit to find some of the gallon jugs were missing again as well. This was just strange. We asked around the complex to see if anyone knew anything or maybe had just grabbed it to feed their family with. We made sure we said no one was in trouble over it just that we needed to do inventory control. With each person I laughed and said it was making my OCD act up and everyone giggled back and said they didn't know anything.
I worried about this. "Trent," I said one night as we were in bed, "what if those marauders are breaking in?"
"I don't think that those guys would just take a couple things and leave everything else, right?" Trent reasoned. "It's probably someone like Anna who is worried that she'll be in trouble if she took something while Mercedes wasn't there. Just something simple like that. You know, baby?"
I thought hard about that. It made sense. Those guys from the gate weren't the type to just grab a couple cans here and there. They would take it all. "Am I being obsessive babe?"
"Yeah, a little bit. We'll keep an eye out of course but it's probably nothing." Trent said.
I turned over and went to sleep. I dreamed of people breaking in and zombies eating spinach, can and all.
For a few days Tesla had been incredibly agitated over something. She kept running down to the back wall and barked her self silly. We would try to redirect her, distract her but she had this almost obsession that there was something to bark at there. I climbed up on the roof to see what on earth it could be and didn’t see anything other than zombies in the
wash. I heard movement of other zombies in the trench. It didn't really make sense but nothing ever did.
We took her home one night and she wasn't acting well. She stumbled around a lot, almost acting drunk. I wondered if she had gotten into something like antifreeze, though there was nothing on her fur that lent any proof to that effect. I'm not a vet, that’s for sure and I was not figuring out what was wrong with the dog.
During the night the dog had a seizure and died. I was worried that the dog somehow had been infected but she never was warm. Whatever she had gotten into killed her. Drew's heart was broken. It was a shared feeling all around the complex when we broke the news over breakfast. Most of the kids cried and so did some of the adults.
We buried Tesla in the garden cemetery. It was sad and quiet. Mercedes read “The Rainbow Bridge” and the kids said goodbye to the dog with heavy hearts. Alexus was on watch for the funeral which was nice of her as she never did bond with the dog. It made it so everyone who wanted to be there could be.
A couple days later Drew was looking really intense, bordering worried. He was clearly looking like there was something on his mind but when I asked him about it he said it was nothing. Drew was not a good liar. I loved that about him. "When you're ready to talk about it baby I'm here. I'll listen."
"OK, mom."
The next day, Drew was ready to talk. "I just wanted to see it happen one more time before I said anything."
I nodded my head to encourage him.
He took a deep breath then said, "Mom, Alexus does weird things." That caught my attention, my first thought was she had managed to find drugs here. "She keeps disappearing behind the shed in the garden, where the zombie that got Steven came from. She stays there for a few minutes then comes back. She doesn't see me see her. She usually looks around real quick, pulls a couple weeds then walks away. Then the other weird thing is when we're down by the wall playing paper airplanes she comes down with paper for us. She always pulls a sheet from the middle of the stack folds it up and tosses it. Mom, every time she does this the plane goes over the wall. She says she has rotten luck with these things flying right and Liam and Kyle think it's probably her design but mom, it always goes over. I watch how she builds it there is no reason for it to go over every time. I made one with her yesterday and she didn't know but I copied every fold she made. I told her we should have a race and I stood next to her and we both threw it at the same time. Mine went straight and hers went over the wall."
Drew paused for a bit to see my reaction before adding another thought. “Mom, at first this was about trying to find out who killed Tesla. I know that dog had to have been drugged. I wanted to blame someone over this right way but now I think its more than that.” I was trying to make sense of what he was saying. I was almost certain she was using again. Between the disappearing act and crappy coordination it had to be drugs. Drugs could also account for the dog's final day. My head hurt thinking that what if we have something sinister going on.
“Kiddo? I'm going to look into this. I believe you when you say that she isn't acting right and I'm going to find out what's going on. You have my word on that. We are going to keep this between us for right now, then I'll bring in dad, Joey, and Tyreese if I find out anything, and even if I don't. I believe you when you say something is weird right now.”
The next day I found things to do in the garden area, but not quite in the garden. It was Jody's day for laundry so I offered to do it for her while I watched Alexus. I saw her go behind the shed just like Drew said she did. She was gone for about ten minutes, and just like Drew said, she came out and pulled a couple weeds. She took a fist full of dirt in the process. In what was supposed to look like a dusting of hands she ground the dirt in, like she was trying to look more dirty than not. She walked up the path towards me. I had to say something.
"Heya, Alexus. Whatcha up to?" I tried to keep my tone light and friendly.
"Oh taking a walk." She held up her hands, then added, "found a bunch of weeds so of course since the garden was where I started I had to pull them. Old habits." She laughed a little.
"How is that fix in the wall behind the shed doing?" I asked with a slightly raised eyebrow.
"You saw me go back there?" She asked. She didn't really sound like she was asking me but it didn't sound like a challenge either.
"I did." I said simply.
"You probably wanna know what I was up to?"
"I have to admit I am a bit curious." That was about as nice as I could think to say that. I really didn't want to tip my hand with my suspicions.
"I smoke. Daniel doesn't know I didn't give that up too when I got clean. Plus I don't want the kids to see me be a bad example. You know?" She looked slightly ashamed. "I found a lighter in a pack of smokes the other day. I keep it down to one or two a day but that's a vice that's just really hard to give up, especially in light of everything. "
"I totally understand. I smoked for years myself. No worries, it's on you to tell Daniel, or to quit. Either or."
Her smoking story was so plausible but something didn't sit right with me. I just couldn't put my finger on it.
I relayed the story that night to Trent as we laid in bed together.
"I'm surprised by you." He said.
"Huh? Why?" I asked.
"Well, cause you have a sensitive nose ever since we quit. You could smell smoke on a person for hours after they had one."
I looked at him with wide eyes. "Oh. This is true. I don't get it. Why am I not smelling it this time? Oh God. She's lying!"
"Well, no. That's not what I'm saying. Maybe the constant smell of the dead all around us, both the ones burning in the trench and the ones in that dry river bed behind us is masking the smell. You also said she got dirt on her hands. Maybe it masks the smell too. All I'm saying is maybe we shouldn't just close the case because she had a decent cover story. You know what I mean?"
I did.
"Besides Cal, we are just talking food and a little extra water. Remember she was the last of us to be out there. She was probably getting pretty hungry and thirsty. If I had been out there wide exposed like that I bet I'd be looking to prepare for a return to that, stocking food and water stores. I'd be taking what I didn't think anyone would notice for our family. We got it pretty good here. We were crazy enough to see this going down but how many people actually prepared mentally like the way we did? To add to playing devil's advocate, she didn't know if we were going to let her in given her history. You know that people going through addiction issues tend to be judged more heavily on things like smoking and caffeine. She barely scrapes her way into here and still is addicted to substances. What's stopping any nonsmoker from coming up to her and getting in her face that if shes still smoking she must still be using her drug of choice. If this one person gets a big enough following then next thing she has to worry about is getting kicked out, again needing the food and water that got lifted. I'm still not saying she's innocent of anything. I am saying there are a lot of variables. We need to watch and see. You know?"
Damn, I thought. He made a really good point. I didn't know what it was like out there. I didn't have a clue what it was to not be behind the safety of the wall, not knowing what hid around the corner. I promised to be more sensitive about that sort of thing, that others have been fighting tooth and nail against the zombies.
"So what should we do then babe?" I curled into his side and felt his arms wrap around me pulling me close.
"Be mindful is my take. Keep an eye out but not be obsessive over it." He replied.
"Hey Trent?"
"Yeah?"
"Drew is asleep in his room tonight." I raised my eyebrows suggestively.
"Oh, trust me. I noticed." He kissed me deeply.
"Hang on love." I checked to make sure Drew was all the way asleep and closed the door. Trent was waiting for me when I came back and I fell into his arms. For a while everything else fell away. There was no Alexus, no zombies, no cares in the world. There was ju
st us.
Security Woes
When Tyreese came off watch he seemed a bit off, irritated about something. I wasn't used to seeing him like that. Tyreese was always cool and collected.
"Cali!" He called, "Do you know where Trent is?"
"Yeah. What's up?"
"Get him. I'm going to get Joey. Meet me in the unit under mine?"
"On my way. Ty? What's the problem?"
"Later. Just get Trent."
I jogged up the stairs to get Trent. He looked as perplexed as I felt. He threw on a t-shirt and laced up his boots. We both walked over to where Tyreese said to meet, running into Joey on the way.
We walked in the door and Tyreese said immediately, "Guys we need to talk. We have got something really weird going on and my gut says it's nothing but a storm of hurt is getting ready to rain on us. Shut the door."
Trent and I looked at each other with long glances.
"Y'all know we have blind spots. A big chunk of our spots have to do with the wall and a bit of the dirt piles. If you get right up on the wall you're invisible to everyone on the inside. The trench was supposed to fix the issue of zombies getting right up against it, and it has. On the sides that the trench goes all the way up and hits the wall, its impossible to hide out unless you're in the trench but all last night I saw something on the back wall. It looked like a person, maybe people, but it only came in patches like a shoulder glimpsed here and a tuft of hair there. God help me cause I know this is crazy but I know deep in me that they are not zombies. I never saw anything proving it but I know it. My biggest clue though is when zombies stumble in our blind spots they stumble out. These things stay put."
"But how did they get to the back wall? Yeah there is that ledge between the wall and the trench back there, couldn't get a good angle with the back hoe there. How would anything have slid through the lots around us or in the wash with out us seeing it? The blind areas aren't that big, are they?” Trent was truly confused over this. I was too.