“Ehsan and Fatima!” Andrew answered before Mateo could.
“That’s right,” Mateo confirmed with a suspicious glance at Andrew. “How’d you know that, Andrew? Were you sneaking around again?”
“I was going to the bathroom when I heard everything!” Andrew cried defensively.
Mateo laughed. “Okay, I’ll believe you this time.” He looked back to the two girls, whose arms still wrapped around his waist. “Girls, can you introduce yourselves to Fatima and Ehsan?”
“Oh, yeah,” the taller one said absent-mindedly. “I’m Ana,” she added with a smile and a friendly wave.
The other student struck a pose, as if trying to imitate a model. “I’m Estefanía.”
Ehsan chuckled. “Nice to meet you two.”
“Are you two married?” Estefanía asked without hesitation.
Fatima cringed. “We are siblings, actually,” she answered politely.
“Ohhhh,” Estafania responded. “Are you married to anyone else?”
Fatima shook her head. “I was too focused on school. And Ehsan was too focused on videogames,” she added with a playful nudge. Ehsan made a sour face, then laughed.
The girls giggled and nodded. “How old are you?” Estefanía asked Ehsan.
“Twenty four.”
“And I’m twenty seven,” Fatima added.
“Wow, you’re so old!” Estefanía exclaimed, her eyes wide and mouth agate.
“Oh my God Estefanía, you’re not supposed to say that!” Ana exclaimed.
“Heh, it’s fine,” Ehsan replied. “Just as long as I start getting my social security soon.”
The two girls gave him a blank look.
“How many zombies have you fight-ed?” Andrew asked before the girls could ask another question.
“We have fought a lot,” Fatima responded. “Probably over a hundred at this point.”
“That’s right.” Ehsan lifted his shovel. “I use ol’ Dragon Hair right here to fight them.” Andrew and Estefanía stared with mouths agate, but Ana looked lost.
“Isn’t that just a normal shovel?” Ana asked, confused.
“It’s a special one,” Ehsan replied. He brought it closer to the three kids, letting them see some of the drawings he’d made on it with sharpie ever since he found it at his old Costco. The shovel was still in decent condition despite everything it’d been used for. “See? Right here it says its name, Dragon Hair.” He then pointed to a drawing of a human-like rat with a large hat and baggy clothes. “Right here is a drawing of the videogame character who uses a spear called Dragon Hair, which is what I named this shovel after. Her name is Freya. She’s from a videogame called Final Fantasy Nine.”
“What does this say?” Andrew asked, pointing to writing near the head of the shovel.
Ehsan cleared his throat as if he were about to deliver an important speech. “It says: ‘don’t let them eat you, we still have so much time to waste. Signed, Miguel’.”
“Who’s that?” Estefanía asked.
“He was a friend of mine,” Ehsan answered, staring at Miguel’s handwriting. “My sister and I stayed at a Costco for a while. Whenever there was free time, me and Miguel liked to hang out. We always joked around and talked about games that we liked.”
“What happened to him?” Estefanía asked with wide eyes. Ana shot her a look as if she had just asked a rude question, presumably having guessed what happened.
“Zombies,” Ehsan answered with a grim smile. Fatima put her hand on his shoulder.
“Sorry to hear that,” Mateo said with a shake of his head.
Ana turned to Fatima. “What did you-”
Before she could finish, Estefanía started asking a question. The two speaking at the same time made it hard to hear what either of them had to say.
“Hold on, Estefanía,” Mateo said to her. “Ana was asking a question first. Make sure you wait your turn, okay?”
“Okay!” Estefanía replied with a small, energetic hop.
“What did you go to school for?” Ana repeated to Fatima.
Fatima smiled. “I went to school for psychology, which is about understanding how people’s minds work. I wanted to become a counselor for families who went through… hard times.”
“I bet that’ll come in handy once we’ve rebuilt everything,” Mateo commented.
Fatima nodded. “I hope so. My training was for survivors of child abuse and neglect. But I think focusing on survivors of this collapse will help a lot more people.”
“It’ll definitely give you job security,” Ehsan remarked. Fatima looked at Ehsan and scrunched her face in mock disapproval.
“Alright, Estefanía. What did you want to ask Miss Fatima?”
Estefanía looked at Fatima with wide eyes and a nervous smile. “Umm, I forgot!” She jumped and hid behind Mateo.
“No need to worry. You can ask me when you remember, alright?” Fatima suggested.
Estefanía nodded. She and Ana started walking around the library, occasionally doing cartwheels.
“Okay girls, you should go back to reading,” Mateo told them. He turned back to Ehsan and Fatima. “By the way, I forgot to introduce Julie.” He waved toward the woman sitting by the window, who up until that point had remained quiet. “She was a student teacher here before everything went down.”
She waved to Ehsan and Fatima, and they did the same.
“Nice to meet you,” Julie said softly.
“Likewise,” Ehsan responded with another, smaller wave.
“She’s super nice!” Estefanía told Fatima. “She helps Miss Torres!”
“How kind of her!” Fatima looked back to Julie. “Sorry for interrupting, it was nice to meet you.”
“It’s okay,” she replied, still smiling. “It was nice meeting you, too.”
Ehsan, Fatima, and Mateo walked to the exit. “Alright, so that’s Miss Julie and the second graders,” Mateo said to Ehsan and Fatima. “We’ll go meet Miss Torres and the older kids next.”
“I’d rather stay here,” Ehsan joked as they reached the door. “Y’know, with other people at my reading level.”
Fatima grinned. “You think you read as well as them?” Mateo laughed while Ehsan scrunched his face and shook his head at his sister.
“So what happened to those kids’ parents?” Fatima asked after leaving the library.
Mateo shrugged. “Good question. All we know is that they never showed up.”
“What a shame,” Fatima said, crossing her arms. “But in a way, it is nice that there are only a few of them here. I’m guessing most of the kids got picked up?”
“Yep,” replied Mateo, pursing his lips. He looked at the ground. “Though… some of the kids might’ve been better off here.”
“What do you mean?” Ehsan asked.
“Well…” Mateo paused and sighed. “Well, we used to allow the kids near the gates. That way, they could see us defend against the zombies trying to attack us. The idea was to get ‘em used to seeing it from a safe distance. We did that for the first few days, until they started to… recognize some of their classmates.”
“Oh my God,” Fatima gasped. She put her hands over her mouth. Ehsan shook his head somberly.
“Yep,” Mateo replied grimly. “The thing about the suburban families around here is that they didn’t know how to handle everything. We kept trying to reach out to ‘em so we could all work together, but they thought if they just focused on themselves and their kids, they’d make it.” He shrugged. “Most just isolated themselves and their families. It didn’t end very well for any of ‘em.”
“That’s a shame,” Fatima remarked.
“Yep,” Mateo agreed. “That’s why we gotta stick together. And teach our kids the importance of sticking together. The bigger and better the group, the bigger and better the stuff we build, and the better chance we have of making it through.” Mateo paused and rubbed the back of his head. “Anyway, enough about that. Let’s go visit the older kids. There are three of
‘em, too, just like with the youngers. One is another student whose parents never picked him up. The other two are Manuel’s kids.”
They continued walking away from the direction of the field. Soon they came to a small courtyard filled with benches and trees. Ehsan noticed something he hadn’t noticed when they first entered the school: a bunch of storm drains had been built to redirect rainwater towards some of the plants. Buckets stood all over the place with random objects placed on top of them. Mateo explained that they covered the water buckets to keep out insects.
A voice came from a room on the other side of the courtyard, its door ajar. Ehsan could tell by the tone of the voice that it belonged to a teacher talking to her students. The three of them walked in to see a Latina woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties giving a lecture. Her long black hair was tied into a tight, immaculate bun, and her makeup looked perfectly applied, which Ehsan thought would pique Fatima’s interest. She had an unbelievably upright posture, strong cheekbones, and wore black slacks, a lime green blouse, and a black blazer.
“Hey Cecilia,” Mateo said to the woman with a wave. “Sorry to interrupt. We’re showing some new people around, so we thought we’d pop in to say hi.”
The teacher’s stern body language softened ever so slightly. “Yes, absolutely.”
“Hello everyone, my name is Fatima.” She nodded to the kids and they waved in return.
“And I’m Ehsan.” He waved and they waved once more.
“I am Cecilia. Or Miss Torres, as they know me,” the woman said as she motioned to her students. She turned to them. “Would everyone like to introduce themselves?”
“I’m Gustavo!” one said proudly with a mischievous grin and no hesitation. He had Manuel’s wide face and large eyes. “I’m in fort grade!” he added with a heavy accent.
“I believe you mean fourth grade, Gustavo,” corrected Cecilia. Gustavo feigned a look of indignation, the mischievous grin never leaving his face. “Thank you for introducing yourself.”
“Hi, I’m Sebastian,” another student said with a polite wave. “I’m in fifth grade.”
“Thank you, Sebastian.” She looked over to the last student, a girl much taller than Gustavo, but who otherwise looked almost the same. “How about you, miss Natalia?”
“Natalia,” she said without making eye contact. Her accent was even thicker than Gustavo’s.
“What grade are you in, Natalia?” Cecilia asked.
“Fit grade,” she answered with a nervous smile, still looking down.
“Yes, fifth grade. Thank you, Natalia.” She turned back to the three standing at the door. “It was nice meeting you two. I have to resume class to avoid falling behind, but we shall talk soon.”
“Absolutely,” Fatima replied. “Nice meeting you, too.”
Ehsan waved goodbye and the three of them walked back into the courtyard. Mateo motioned toward one of the stone benches decorated with blue tiles and the three of them sat down.
“She looks like a serious teacher,” Ehsan commented.
Mateo smiled and nodded. “Yep, she doesn’t mess around. She’d been teaching here for over a decade when everything went down.”
“No wonder she looked like she knew what she was doing,” Fatima commented.
“No kidding,” Ehsan commented as he looked back toward the classroom. “So who else haven’t we met?”
Mateo paused and looked up, seemingly trying to collect his thoughts. “Let’s see, you’ve met all of the kids… our teachers Cecilia and Julie… Deon and Manuel at the field… Josue, Ryan at the front… You’ve actually met most of us. There’s only Deon’s cousin Marcus, who worked at a pharmacy before everything went down, and Sarah, who was a manager at Big 5.”
“That placed that sold sports stuff?” Ehsan asked. Mateo nodded.
“Where are Marcus and Sarah now?” Fatima asked.
“Marcus is probably cleaning, though I’m not exactly sure where. He hurt his ankle the other day, so he hasn’t been able to do much other than organize our medicine stash and clean the school.” He scratched the back of his head. “As for Sarah, she could be basically anywhere. She’s not really the type to sit still.”
“So what does Sarah do for a job?”
“She’s one of our scouts. She and Deon go on missions for us to gather supplies, track zombie movement patterns, stuff like that. She told us she’s loved running ever since high school, so she was a perfect fit. She originally got her job at Big 5 because she just wanted the employee discount for running shoes.” He looked at one of the nearby buckets of water. “Speaking of Big 5, everything she learned about what’s good for the outdoors has been a life saver. One of the first things she did when she joined us was gather a bunch of those reusable water bottles that have filters built into ‘em, that way we could grab ocean water and drink it without worrying. It also lets us use more of the rain water here for gardening.”
“I would have never thought of that,” Fatima commented.
“Yep, she’s full of good ideas,” Mateo replied with tangible admiration in his voice.
“So do Julie or Miss Torres work extra jobs?” Ehsan asked.
“Yep, they both do. Everyone here cleans, but Julie is the point person for it, along with Deon’s cousin Marcus. Cecilia is our reserve security person. She’s a judo black belt, so she can toss around zombies like nothing. She’s been teaching me some of her throws, and I’ve taught her a few of my favorite fighting moves, too.”
“Wow, no wonder she looks so tough,” Ehsan observed.
“I should ask her for lessons,” Fatima remarked. “It would be nice to be able to throw around zombies.” She turned to her brother and nudged him. “Not to mention Ehsan when his jokes get annoying.”
Mateo laughed. “If you don’t mind my asking, then, have you made up your mind? It sounds like you’ve already decided.”
Ehsan knew he had. He looked to Fatima, who nodded.
“I think so,” Fatima answered for the both of them. “We would be happy to join you.”
Mateo’s smile grew even wider. “Awesome. The more the merrier.” He stood up from the bench. “Wanna see the rest of the school, or do you want me to show you to your room first?”
Ehsan and Fatima looked at each other. Ehsan nodded to Fatima, indicating that she could decide.
“I think seeing the rest of the school is probably a good idea,” she decided. “But first, what sort of jobs would you like us to do? I think we should probably establish that before anything else.”
“That’s a good point,” Mateo agreed. “We have four basic jobs: gardener, scout, lookout, and teacher. There are more, though, depending on what people can do. Like with Deon’s cousin Marcus, who used to work as a pharmacist before the outbreak. Whenever any of us get sick, he’s the one we go to now. He can even disinfect a zombie bite if it’s shallow enough.”
“He can treat zombie bites?” Ehsan repeated, stunned.
“Yep, but only if they don’t draw too much blood. It also has to be done within about ten or so minutes after the bite.”
“That is impressive,” Fatima remarked, her eyes wide with disbelief.
“Yep. Luckily he hasn’t had to save anyone here yet, but he apparently saved Deon before,” Mateo said. He grimaced. “Though he did say there have been times that the treatment didn’t work, even when the bite wasn’t that bad and got treated quickly.”
“Welp, guess I’ll have to take getting bitten off my list of things to do, then,” Ehsan joked.
“Still, good to know that a bit is not an automatic death sentence,” Fatima pointed out. “Anyway, getting back to jobs, I would love to be a counselor for people who are here. I think it might be good for everyone.”
“That’d be nice,” Mateo agreed with a smile. His smile turned to a grin. “Good lucking convincing the ones who need it most, though.”
Ehsan cleared his throat. “I could help with security.”
“Awesome, we can always use more
people on lookout duty.” He looked back toward the direction they’d come from. “Well, now that we’re on the same page, I’ll show you the rest of the school.”
The three got up from the bench and walked past the library. Once they reached the blacktop, Mateo pointed toward the back of the school to some classrooms just before the beginning of the second, larger, emptier field. “Behind the library are the classrooms we’ve turned into our bedrooms. The rooms we use are all grouped together for safety reasons. We have enough for each have your own room if you want. I’ll show you after we’re done checking out the rest of the school.”
Ehsan and Fatima nodded. Mateo motioned toward the other side of the school, the area they hadn’t yet been to. “Over there is the garden and chicken coop, which we’ll check out right now. There’s also a kindergarten playground that’s smaller than the playground by the field.” He grinned. “If you ever get bored, but feel too scared to get on the monkey bars on the big kid playground, this place is always open.”
“Only if she’ll push me on the swings,” Ehsan said, nodding toward Fatima. She pushed him away playfully.
Mateo laughed. “Better not let the kids see. If they catch you pushing him, then they’ll all want a turn.”
The group walked across the blacktop. To their right, Manuel and Deon worked in the field at the front of the school. Both clearly knew what they were doing, but Manuel in particular impressed Ehsan with how effortlessly he handled the plants. His hands, large and calloused, glided smoothly from one bush to another. It felt like watching a master painter’s brush strokes, somehow both carelessly wild and meticulously precise at the same time.
After crossing they blacktop they found themselves at the beginning of a wide stone path. About halfway along the stone path to the left was their destination, from which Ehsan could hear chickens clucking. Straight ahead on the stone path was a small courtyard with classrooms, a playground that at its highest stood only a few inches taller than Ehsan, and a waist-high chain link fence. The kindergarten area. Beyond it was the baby blue metal gate that separated the school from the outside world.
As they approached the entrance to the garden he could also hear zombies grunting in the distance. It sounded like they roamed just past the chicken coop.
The Human Spring Page 3