Breathless Bodies

by Brigit Levois

  "Well that was rude." Said Malcolm. He ate the piece himself and went to rouse the others.

  "Take your morning meeting and shove it where the sun won't shine!" That was Ragnar. I'm assuming something was interrupted. We heard a few more grumblings but eventually everyone filed out of the camper and warmed at the fire, drinking the coffee my mother and Bea had at the ready, munching elk, and trying to pet the dog. The old boy was still a bit timid so I sat and held him until it was time to start making a plan.

  "Alright Malcolm, what did you find that was so damn important?" Samuel rubbed his eyes and yawned.

  "I think I found the perfect spot to make a shelter. There's a river that cuts through that field over there and tons of logs. I think this used to be a logging town. Anyway, one of the rivers looks like it comes down from the hill over there. I want to go explore and see if we can find a place to make a base. So who wants to go with me?" Kato and Ragnar both stood up and agreed to go. They three went off to get the things they would need for an all day exploration. The dog stood up and started sniffing the air. He took a few steps and froze mid stride. We only had a moment's warning to grab our weapons before they came lumbering around the side of a burnt building. There were only six or seven, but they were fast. I barely had time to draw my knife before one was almost on top of me. I plunged my knife into the rotten temple and he fell to the ground. Samuel shot a bolt at an old farmer's head taking him out. Steven had pulled Liz behind him and was trying to back into the camper when a bone bag came up behind them. Jerking my knife out the zombie's head I tossed it. My aim was off and hit the throat.

  "Liz, turn around!" I shouted. She turned just in time to avoid being bitten. That's when the other three came out of the camper with guns drawn. They shot the rest within seconds, leaving the rest of us in shocked silence. That was until Liz started puking her guts out. I looked for my in-laws who had jumped into their truck to escape the attack. One zombie was still trying to get through the window. She had been young and pretty, judging from the daisy dukes and crop top shirt, now tattered and blood stained. As I walked over to the truck, I grabbed Malcolm's hand gun. She didn't even turn as I walked up behind her and shot, splattering the passenger side truck window. I could see the shocked face of Bea through the veil of blood.

  "Anyone else hungry?" Malcolm had returned to the fire and was busy cutting chunks of elk for the trip. I opened the door to help Bea stand as I answered.

  "Try feeding the dog. I want him to get comfortable everyone." While I got Ernest to a shaky standing position, everyone took turns feeding the dog. Eventually he stopped taking the food and just sniffed at hands and feet. When he had satisfied himself that no one was going to eat him, he laid down under the RV with a snuffle.

  "Okay, we're going to head on out. We all have radios so if you run into any more trouble just give us a holler." Malcolm walked over to me. "Are you going to be okay?" He rubbed my arms and I looked up to see him frowning. Why was he so worried about me? I nodded and told him I would fine.

  "Let's get going before it gets too late." Kato said from the road. Malcolm turned and walked away. I rubbed my arms and headed back to the fire.

  "Why don't you come sit with me sweetie?" Momma Bea was on a folding chair with another next to her. I grabbed a bottle of water and sat down with a sigh.

  "So how is Sean doing?" Bea asked me. I instantly felt guilty for not thinking of him for a while. Hell, I felt guilty for a lot of things, but not as much as I supposed I should. Bea chuckled.

  "Don't worry honey. I know you two haven't been in love in a long time." I looked at her in confusion. Was it that obvious?

  "How?" I asked her. She patted my hand and smiled.

  "How can you love a man that won't put his child being born before money? I don't know exactly what happened between you two but I do know that you love him. You love him for the children, to keep the family together. But you're not in love with him. It's not fair to the kids though. Do you want to see Lin go through the same thing? Loving a man yet not being in love?" She looked at me with knowing eyes and I felt an amazing sense of relief. Now I knew I wasn't completely wrong.

  "But let's not talk about such dreary things. Why don't we see what we can whip up with that elk? Maybe some smoked jerky or a nice stew. If only we had potatoes." She stood up and went to start poking at the carcass. I watched her but I couldn't help think about Sean. I did love him, but not in the way a wife loves her husband. As I sat there in my thoughts, Samuel came over and sat down where Bea had been.

  "So now that we have some time, I'd like an answer." I looked at him questioningly and then I remembered.

  "Samuel, I'd rather not talk about that right now. We need to get a camp made." I pleaded to him with my eyes, hoping he wouldn't continue. He nodded and seemed to let it go.

  "So once they find a good place to fort up, how are we going to get those logs there?" He gestured to the other side of the road. It was only then that I noticed the stacks of trees. There were thousands of them of all sizes.

  "I guess we'll have to cut them down here and haul them up. Are there any tools that we could use over there or have you checked yet?" He shook his head.

  "I was going to head over there but we had some visitors." I glanced at the zombies still littering the ground. Sighing, I stood up.

  "Let's get these cleared up, then we'll go have a look. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky and there will be some already cut."

  As it turned out, we did get lucky. There weren't any logs cut into lumber yet, but there was a mill and a flatbed trailer waiting for us. We didn't see any point in wasting time, so we started cutting logs and loading them onto the trailer. By the time the trailer was loaded, the sun was high in the sky and we were both sweating. We tightened the ratchet straps and headed back to camp. On the walk there, we ran into the scouting party.

  "We found the perfect spot lil sis. It's almost totally flat with a stream running through it. There looked to be plenty of fish there too." Ragnar clapped me on the shoulder and sent me into a wave of pain. I gasped and he looked scared.

  "It's my arm, it still hurts. I was stabbed by your woman, kicked, beaten, and shot at, remember?" His face clouded for a second then cleared.

  "I'm sorry she did that and I'm sorry it still pains you." I smiled at him.

  "As long as she pulled her head out of her ass then we're fine. Did she ever tell you why she was so angry with me?" He shook his head and I shrugged. "Let's get our stuff together and get out of here. The sooner we start; the sooner we have a good shelter." We all agreed and headed back to the vehicles.

  The biggest problem would be what to do with the rest of the elk. After much debate, Bea and Ernest agreed to put it in the back of their SUV if it was wrapped in a tarp. Malcolm and Samuel would take my truck off of the tow dolly and pull the flatbed of lumber. Before we had left the bunker so very long ago, I had had the sense to put a few boxes of nails into the truck so we could at least start building something right away. What we would build, I had no idea.

  Kato was driving the RV up an almost nonexistent road when the radio sparked to life again.

  "Please, I'm the last one left. If anyone can hear me I'm in Silverthorne." I snatched the handset and started talking.

  "We can hear you. We're in Hartsel. I repeat, we can hear you and are in Hartsel." We sat at the galley table and waited expectantly for response.

  "I can hear you." The voice sounded like they were about to cry. If I had been alone for this long, I would too.

  "Please help me! I have no idea how to survive out here." I looked at the faces around me. Niobe spoke first.

  "No, I don't think anyone should be going after them. We have enough things to get done here and we can't spare anyone." She made a good point.

  "Okay but how do we save them?" She shook her head at my question.

  "How do you know if you
can even trust them?" I looked at her and wished she didn't make so much sense.

  '"At this point in time, every hand is needed." Kato spoke from the driver's seat. I looked at Steven and Liz. She stretched next to my brother and sprawled on the couch.

  "I'm happy with having more hands. Maybe this person used to be a farmer or weaver. You never know." Liz said.

  "The end decision is yours Alex. You're in charge here" Niobe said. The voice on the radio was asking if we were still here, panicking.

  "Please answer me." I lifted the handset

  "We can't spare anyone to save you, but you are welcome to join us. We are heading into the mountains west of Hartsel to build a shelter. Follow the tire tracks by the log yard." There was a long pause as the radio crackled. Finally, a response came.

  "I have a golf cart. I'll be there as soon as I can. Who am I talking too?"

  "My name is Alex." I said. Before I could ask them, they replied.

  "I'm Michael. See you soon Alex" I replaced the handset and leaned back on the sofa. Wordlessly, my mom passed me a flask and I took a swig.

  "So we have someone else coming to join us. How do you expect to feed them?" My mom asked. I looked over at her.

  "When we get to the spot I have a special task for you, Liz, and Steven." Steven perked up and asked if he had to do any work. Lazy bones.

  "Yes, you still have to work. You three get to start working on where we're going to be planting. Choose a plot of land and start clearing out weeds and such. There are some tools in the truck and we can go into a bigger town if need be. It's still spring so I want to get things growing, a lot of things that can be preserved against winter. I don't know about you guys, but fresh veggies sound amazing to me." A round of groans told me that I might be the only one who missed my broccoli.

  The camper came to a stop and we looked out the windows. A flat parcel, about three acres total, surrounded by trees gently sloping down the hillside. A small stream ran along the northeast side of the clearing so digging irrigation furrows would be easy. All in all, that place looked perfect. I grinned and shook Kato's shoulder.

  "You guys did amazing." He gave a small smile at the praise and opened the RV door. Malcolm was driving the truck to the uppermost area of the clearing. After they parked, he and Samuel came over to the rest of us and we stared at the area. Bea, Ernest, and the teenagers parked by the trees and joined us.

  "Well, let's get some fishing poles." Ernest said. Scott and Daniel followed him to the tow behind and grabbed the things they would need. As I watched them walk to the stream, I shook my head with a smile. Even in the straights we were in, some people never change. I looked at Beatrice and she was watching her husband with loving, misty eyes. They had been married for a little over fifty years and still acted like newlyweds at times. I sighed again and went to start planning the building with the boys.

  Chapter 17

  At the end of the day, we were exhausted but very happy. We had a plan for a watershed to be started immediately. My mom had found wild carrots to throw into the elk stew Bea made so we ate heartily. Full bellies and happy thoughts lulled some into passing out around the fire. I went to my truck and grabbed my wallet. Sitting in the passenger seat, I took out the picture I had of our family. It had been taken a few weeks after Kendrick was born. We had gone to Morro Bay in California as a weekend vacation, one of the happiest times of my life. I could remember it almost like a movie in my head.

  Lin was playing in the surf while I sat on a mound of sand. Kenny was close to my chest and sound asleep, his soft baby scent mingling with the tang of the ocean. Sean was out in the deeper water where the waves broke. I was gazing down at sleeping son when I heard a garbled scream. I looked up in fright and couldn't find Lin.

  "Lin?" I called, standing to walk to the water. I couldn't find her so I walked closer to the sea. She bobbed up about twenty feet to my right in water deeper than she was tall. I ran in her direction but before I got to the water, Sean came up right behind her and lifted her onto his shoulders. I sank to my knees and took a deep breath. Kenny had slept through it all, lucky little stinker.

  We went back to our spot on the beach and dried Lin off, wrapping her in our arms and an oversized beach towel. The love I felt in that moment for our family was bigger than the moon. A man with a camera came walking by and wanted to take our picture, for a small fee of course. That was the last day I had felt that we were a family. When I looked up from the picture, the sun had sunk into the trees. It was serene and peaceful and I never wanted it to end. Then Malcolm walked up to the truck out of breath. He hunched over his knees and gasped out a sentence.

  "Headlights coming this way." I left everything on the seat and headed for the others.

  "Wait. I think it's that guy with the golf cart." I stopped and turned to him. He motioned for me to follow so we walked back the way he had come.

  "It's going slow, so I don't think it's a car. I'm not sure though." At the top of the trail we could see the headlights as they stopped moving. Through the twilight there came some significant cursing and a loud thunk, followed by more cursing. In the dimness a figure was struggling up the trail, following the tire tracks.

  "I think that might be our guy." I said as the figure walked towards us. It took the person about ten minutes to reach us and another two to get their breath back.

  "Well, I'm sure glad you folks are a patient lot. The name's Michael" He held out his hand and we shook all around. He was a little taller than I, but three times the girth of Malcolm. Not all in muscle, mind you. With fawn colored hair and dusky blue eyes, his baby face made him seem harmless.

  "Well come on, let's show you the rest of the camp. Do you have any skills?" I asked him. I was hoping he did construction but that was highly doubtful.

  "I'm a plumber. Darn good one too if you ask me. I can plumb just about anything. I remember this one time I got a call about this woman's son shoving her good towels in the toilet. He flushed a good seven or eight of them before she found out. Anyway I get there and there's water everywhere and this little boy is as happy as a hog in slop. I figure he's about four so he can give me a hand snaking this thing out. Well, that was a bad idea. When I went out to my truck to get my snake, this little brat takes a few of my tools and flushes them too!" I looked at Malcolm as we walked back to camp and I think we both had the same thought about our new rambling friend.

  When we got up to camp, Michael was still talking about the boy and caulking was now involved.

  "Hey there buddy, you want a bowl of stew?" Malcolm cut him off with a bowl of food under his nose. His eyes went wide like he hadn't had a decent meal in years. Almost as soon as he took the bowl, the stew was gone. He belched loud enough to make it echo around the clearing.

  "Pardon me." He said, blushing a bit. "I've been living off of chips and snack foods so it's been awhile since I had good food. My last good meal was the night my wife tried to kill me. She made the most amazing meatloaf I had ever had. I think she was going to ask for a divorce though. She never went out of her way to make a good meal. Anyway, I was wiping my mouth when she came back inside from getting a few beers. I thought she had had a few without me but then I noticed her left arm was missing." He looked at the ground with raised eyebrows and pursed lips. "Ah well, we're all better off. Could never get the damn woman to shut up." He let out a laugh and clasped Malcolm on the arm. "At least you got yourself a pretty one." He nodded and smiled then went to the fire for more stew. I glanced at Malcolm and he grinned boyishly like he just got a new puppy. Before he could say anything I cut him off.

  "Don't.... just don't." I shook my head and walked away while he laughed.

  I headed to the truck to see if we had any spare tents. With our group growing larger by the day, it was becoming a bit of a challenge to make sure everyone was comfortable. While I shifted things around, I thought about what Darius had said. It was goi
ng to get difficult to support everyone. I couldn't expect everyone to follow me blindly, but Darius did. I'm not him though.

  With the commotion of the new comer, everyone had wakened and were standing around greeting him. I walked into the group and cleared my throat. Everyone turned and looked at me.

  "I know it's getting pretty late but I think it's time we established a chain of command. Like our own little government. I don't really know how to do this sort of thing so does anyone have any ideas?" As I looked around, Bea stepped forward.

  "First we should figure out what positions we are going to have. I don't think we need a whole government." We all gave a small chuckle at that.

  "I think we should take a vote on what positions we need. That way we all agree on things. But as for tonight, does anyone have objections to Michael sleeping by the fire?" Malcolm looked from person to person and we all shook our heads. Michael put a knuckle to his eye.

  "I sure do appreciate this, folks. It's been so hard being on my own, I can't tell you how it feels to me to be welcome again. And not by people that want to eat me." Daniel went to pat him on the back only to be enveloped in a bear hug. The big man shook with happy tears until Daniel choked out a need for air. Michael let him go and sat down.

  For the rest of the night, we sat around the fire eating the elk stew and figuring out what positions we would need. I, for some odd reason, was appointed leader. Ragnar was second in command, then Malcolm. Kato and my mom were in charge of provisions and Samuel weaponry. We got to know Michael, who had a never ending supply of optimism. He fit into the group very well and seemed to make everyone brighten up a bit, even Niobe. The dog seemed to like him as well, sitting in Michael's lap for almost an hour. When the moon was high, we finally called it quits for the night. Kato and Malcolm took the first watch while the rest of us rested. I gave my mom the bed in the RV and decided to chance the outdoors.

  I was walking back to the fire with my sleeping bag when I overheard Niobe and Samuel inside the camper. I couldn't hear them very well over the sound of mom snoring so I stepped closer a window, careful to not make noise.