Seeking Sanctuary (Walkers)

by Davis-Lindsey, Zelda

  walkers

  Seeking Sanctuary

  Volume 4 of The Walkers Series

  Zelda Davis-Lindsey

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names and events are a work of my imagination. Most of the places in the book are real and placed here from my travels as an over the road truck driver.

  No portion of this book, whether in print or electronic format, may be duplicated or transmitted without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  All Rights reserved

  © 2013 Zelda Davis-Lindsey

  Published by Antelope Creek Publishers

  Utica Montana

  Cover Design by Zelda Davis-Lindsey

  Dedicated to my husband Howard and son Michael for without their love and support this book would have remained only in my memory. I'd like to remember my Unka Bill for all the encouragement he sends my way. He makes me feel like I could conquer the world.

  Chapter 1

  The screams were getting closer and louder so I cringed back against the wall of the cabin under the front porch trying to blend in with the wood. Trying to hold my breath, so no one would hear me panting like a horse in labor, I finally just covered my mouth with both hands and waited. The screaming continued coming from all directions at once. It combined with the pounding of footsteps above me and slamming doors adding to the noise. A dragging noise above me along with groaning told me not to breathe at all because that was the noise a walker makes.

  The walking dead or zombies had been with us for a couple of years now. I'd fought them for so long it seemed like second nature but I didn't have my crossbow with me so I hid out under the porch until I could figure out how to get inside the cabin without being seen. There was no shame in hiding. Really.

  When the noise slowly quieted, I chanced it and vaulted from under the steps, grabbed the railing, swung myself onto the steps, then ran across the porch, sprinting for the door. I ran into it hard enough to bounce me back a step, then I grabbed the knob, pushed my way inside and eased the door shut. My breathing sounded loud, even to me, so I covered my mouth , ran to the back of the dining room , jumped on the counter, slid on my butt to the other side and dropped to the floor. Like they do on TV. If I hadn't been so scared I would've been impressed. Slamming my sweaty back against the cabinet door, I brought my knees up under my chin while I listened to the screams muffled only slightly by the thick walls of the cabin.

  If the walkers couldn't hear you, you were OK, cause sound was a big draw for them. Their favorite noise was wind chimes. They'd stand around for days trying to eat a wind chime and I vowed I'd never have another one. I grabbed a tea towel off the handle of the stove in front of me and covered my mouth as I panted. I felt the panic attack closing in on me but was determined to keep it at bay until I could figure out another place to hide. Then I planned to have the best panic attack on record.

  I'd started having them when I found myself under a mountain, sitting on top of a nuclear bomb surrounded by walkers with no way out. Oh, yea, the lights went out too. If that doesn't do it nothing will.

  The screaming continued outside and I wondered if I'd ever sleep again. Sweat covered my body in a fine sheen. My clothes and hair stuck to my skin so I used the tea towel to wipe my face, shoving my hair back and probably making it stand up worse. I tried to calm down and was taking deep breaths when something hit the side of the cabin with enough force to vibrate the pictures on the wall and rattle the windows. A sissified yelp escaped me, so I went back to taking deep breaths again and resisted the urge to look.

  Running steps warned of another escapee as they hit the door, then opened it, ran inside and slammed it. I knew this wasn't a walker because the walkers couldn't run, or open doors, or use one word expletives. They just dragged their feet and moaned. Oh, and ate you if they got the chance. I winced as I realized the screaming horde outside might have heard the door, then braced myself as the runner came my direction. I took a deep breath as Mason, my better and worse half, collapsed on the floor beside me.

  “Have you ever heard so much screaming?" He said, as he panted and tried to talk at the same time. All I could do was shake my head.

  "My God, I can't believe it." I nodded, heaving great big breaths into my closed off lungs..

  The cabin had been our home since we'd arrived seven months before. We needed a home for the winter because our home in Montana had been destroyed by militants while we were out picnicking one day. We didn't have enough time to find another place, secure it and figure out how to stay warm let alone feed 17 people before winter set in. So we headed south and ended up here at the hot springs in central New Mexico for the winter. Some of our friends and family had elected to stay behind to find a new home so when we returned in June, we'd have a place waiting. We were about two weeks away from leaving.

  The back door opened and steps walked past our hiding spot, then they stopped and came back. Dukes head peered around the corner to look at us, then the rest of him followed as he came over and stood looking at us, smiling.

  "Hiding from the little children with water canons I see? Poor, little children just want to play and the big mean zombie fighters can't take it. Wait till I tell the others." He puffed himself up as well as a little person could but jumped a foot when the door opened behind him. Mason stood and helped me up while I laughed at Duke. He turned a wonderful shade of pink, matching the Hawaiian print shirt that was his trademark. Sarah came around the corner, saw us and shook her head. "I swear you guys are such wimps. A little water never hurt anyone." She went to the fridge and while she was getting a bottle of water, Duke brought his water canon up and pointed it at her.

  Sarah and Duke were husband and wife. Duke is short (no pun intended) for John Wayne. His last name is Many-horses, yep, he's also Native American on top of being a little person. Add to that the best techno geek and security man in the world and you an amazing person. Sarah, his wife, was a corporate lawyer from Atlanta and an average person who has a wonderful affinity for cooking, so she was our chef. She's tall at 5'9”, with short blond hair and the prettiest blue eyes you ever saw. They had a sweet daughter, Mandy, who kept our favorite and only pet, Bubba, company. Bubba belonged to Howard, our mechanic. If I knew them both, they were hiding somewhere also.

  Mason grabbed my arm and we inched our way past the counter, around to the other side and squatted down just in time for the screams to begin. It wrung giggles from me which Mason tried to cover as he put his hand over my mouth. When that didn't work he kissed me instead. That worked.

  Another scream parted us pretty quickly when a water soaked Sarah started after Duke who was the one doing all the screaming. He was a smart man cause he was running out the back door while the front door opened to admit Lacy and a bunch of kids. Mason looked at me and thought, Meet me at the cliffs in half an hour. I need some quiet.

  I nodded my head and started helping Lacy dry off the kids that were coming inside, laughing and sopping wet. Experience taught us to take the canons, empty them right away and put them away or there'd be another battle inside. The adults who were just as waterlogged, dragged themselves in soon after.

  The cliffs Mason was referring to is an open pueblo that contains 200 rooms and were carved over 700 years ago by the local indians. When we arrived here last year, ten year old Bobby and Sally, his six year old friend was using one of the rooms to sleep in. It was only accessible by rope ladder which he'd pulled it up at night for security. Mason and I used it now for the peace and quiet we yearned for after spending all day with 15 children.

  We'd accumulated the children in small groups until we had 15 of them. We had them arriving by twos, and found most
of them in a Sams warehouse. We had to talk them into coming out here to live because all they'd known was the warehouse. Shoot, we had to enlist Mandy to teach them how to play. I have to say she's done a wonderful job.

  The cabin hadn't been big enough so we brought in two double wides, set them as close to the cabin as we could get and made them into homes for the kids. It was constantly noisy, something me and Mason haven't been able to get used to so we ran to the safety, peace and quiet of the cliff dwellings whenever we needed alone time.

  The water fight began innocently enough but you know how that goes. Put a bunch of kids and adults who enjoyed playtime together with water canons and you've got a water war. It seemed to happen about once a week and the children were mellow, or as mellow as they could be, for a while after wards. But water and dirt doesn't make for clean kids, so they were being herded out to the several hot springs to play in the pools of warm water. Me and Mason spent that time to get our heart rates back to normal. We couldn't help ourselves. We enjoyed our peace and quiet and when those kids started screaming we started hiding no matter how many walkers we've destroyed in the past.

  I told Lacy where to find me, took a walkie and headed out the door, two bottles of water tucked in my backpack, crossbow in hand and a skip to my step. I'm a strong, red-headed, blue eyed twenty-nine forever kinda of girl. My chest is acceptable and I have a slim waist. My preferred dress style was jeans, tee shirts and white socks and purple Nike's. Lacy, my sister, says I have a strong personality but I think shes wrong about that. Mason says I'm a strong telepathic so that might be what she was referring to. I suppose that could be it, but I'm a pussy cat, not a push over.

  An hour later, I lay naked in Masons arms basking in the afterglow of love, watching the clouds slowly move across the sky above the cliffs across from us. He caressed my arm as he lay beside me catching his breath.

  "You ready for the meeting tonight?" He asked.

  "Nope. I love those kids like crazy but we can't make them go with us. I know we've taught them as much as we know about surviving but still to just leave them here will be tough."

  “Yeah, I agree but most of them were living in a warehouse before we got them so they've had some experience. I'll hate to leave Mikey behind but if he wants to stay I'll just deal with it. I'll sure miss him like crazy though and worry about him for the rest of my life." Mikey was a ten year old who'd shot me It was an accident but he'd been enamored of me every since. Mostly because I was the first person he'd shot who had survived. I'd become very fond of him too and leaving him behind was going to hurt.

  "Me too." I whispered.

  We'd heard from my cousin Ken last night. He and half a dozen others had stayed in Montana to find us a new home. He'd picked up a few others in the process and finally found a place. They had the perimeter lined with 53 foot trailers as fences, security cameras everywhere and even found a herd of cows so we were just waiting for the snow to melt off the roads before coming back. Since road departments no long existed we had to wait for the snow to melt and the road to become passable before we could go anywhere. Then we had to deal with bridges being out, collapsed overpasses, traffic pileups and buckled roads from all the earthquakes we'd been having. We'd be better off on horseback and covered wagons I think.

  Here in New Mexico, the roads were just fine. We'd had temps in the 70's for a while now and Ken said they'd had a lot of 50 degree days in May which was reasonable for Montana so we'd be leaving soon. In the meantime, we taught our kids everything we knew about surviving so when we left we knew they could take care of themselves. We'd be leaving two adults maybe three so it wasn't as if we were leaving 2 year old babies, still we were going to worry about them.

  The cabin was full when we returned. We planned to have the meeting after dinner so it was a quiet bunch who dined on venison stew that night. Tomorrow evening we planned a big barbeque but we had to get through this meeting first.

  When we finally got around to sitting down, no one knew what to say. We just looked at each other and it seemed they wanted me to be the one to start it so, I sighed the big put upon sigh and started to stand. Mason grabbed my hand and thought, I don't think you need to stand if it makes you nervous, just sit next to me. I squeezed his hand and began.

  "As you all know, we'll be heading back to Montana soon. We have to make a couple more trips to town and the first one will be tomorrow but by the end of the month, we'll be leaving. I know almost every one of you plan to stay and that was our agreement back almost six months ago?" I looked around me and got several nods so I continued, "and it's still all right with us but we wanted you to know, if anyone wants to go with us we'll sure take you. I'm not going to tell you about Montana unless you plan to go back with us. That way no one is influenced. So, if any of you want to go, talk to us later and we'll answer any questions you have."

  They looked at each other and when no one jumped us and ran to us I was disappointed to the max but I knew they'd been thinking about it so I could wait them out. Flynn stood up to get another cup of coffee and said, "I need to know who's going into town with us tomorrow so we can brief you. Also, there will be another drill later to test the new security system Duke and Sid's developed. If this meeting is over, I'll meet with tomorrows detail now, the rest of you can go."

  We all nodded, then I squeezed Masons hand and moseyed out to the porch. I had a knot in my stomach cause Mikey hadn't acted like he was going with us but I knew he had to do what was best for him. They all did. I'd managed just fine to survive the major disappointments of this savage new world, I just refused to like it.

  Sitting in my favorite chair, I watched the sky darken into dusk and rocked, thinking back to Montana and the lodge. I'd watch the stars come out there too and thrilled at the falling stars I made wishes on. Mason would come out and sit with me and we'd just rock and enjoy. I'd be glad to get back home but I had a feeling it would be more Kens home than mine cause he found it but I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

  When the door opened I thought of Mason but it was Lacy instead. "How ya doing, kiddo?" She'd had a miscarriage a few months back and it knocked her for a loop but she came out of it just fine. Still, I always asked how she was. I couldn't help it and she finally gave up being angry by it, knowing I did it out of love.

  "A little sad. I hate to leave the kids behind. Mikey has become the child I never had and I'll just hate it if he decides to stay with the others. But I can't make him go, he'd end up hating me and I couldn't stand that. How do you do it?"

  "Do what?"

  "Stay so detached from them."

  I looked at her as my mind tried to process what she'd just said.

  "Detached?"

  "Well, that's the way I see it."

  "Well, I'm not 'detached' as you put it. I'm just not going to influence any of them to go with us, Lacy. It has to be their decision, that's all."

  Before she could reply, the door opened again, and Mikey stuck his head out.

  "JD, can I talk to you a minute? That is, if it's OK with Lacy."

  Lacy smiled, winked at me and went back inside, ruffling his head as she walked by. I heard her say something to someone before the door closed. Mason slipped into my mind and back out just as fast and I smiled. What a duffus.

  "What's up, Mikey?"

  He walked over to me and put his hand on my knee.

  "I want you to tell me about Montana. I can't decide if I want to go till I know all about it. You said we have to make a 'formed' decision and I'm not 'formed, so..." I tried not to smile but failed, so I reached over to a chair, slid it over to me and motioned for him to sit. Then I began to tell him about Montana. It took longer than I thought it would but I enjoyed every minute. I could almost smell the sweet air, and see the eagles by the time I was through. He nodded, then rose from the chair put his hand lightly on my knee and went back inside.

  Soon Mason came out and leaned against the porch railing. He'd stayed for the meeting.

  "
Well, there's a bunch of us going tomorrow, were you going to go?" I smiled. I'd been bitching about being left behind without being asked so many times, that he made sure he asked now. It also seemed as though if he left me behind I somehow got hurt. I don't know why, it just worked out that way. Mason felt better about me going to keep me healthy. So far it worked.

  "Na, I think I'll stay here and take a ride. You wouldn't want to go for a ride just for the hell of it?" The young ones had gone out one day and came back with several horses. A couple of them still had saddles on and their backs were a mass of sores, so our resident vet, Lucy, went to work on them and had them fit as fiddles in a couple of months. I'd learned to ride and enjoyed it more than I thought I would, so when I got the chance, I was on a horse.

  "You know, with the crew that's going tomorrow I don't think they'll miss me at all. You're on, brat. I'll go tell Flynn. Oh, and Sarah wanted me to tell you brownies are for dessert if you're interested."

  I smiled, yep, I'm interested. He smiled back at me, offered me his hand and we went in to chocolate up.

  Chapter 2

  I awoke in the dark. I lay there listening to somebody or something walking on the roof of our camper. I followed the movement with my eyes while I tried to elbow Mason awake. The something in question chose that moment to jump up and down a couple of times which had a much better effect of waking Mason than my pointed elbow did.

  "What the hell,” he said, as he sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. Right then the walking overhead turned into running. It sounded like someone was simply running back and forth,willy-nilly. “What IS that?” he asked, as his head followed the movements hither and yon.

  "I don't know? That's why I woke you up.” Our heads moving back and forth with the movement now. He looked at me then unbelievably said, “Can you read it's mind?”