by Siara Brandt
“And that bothers you, Hanna?”
“I already told you. There are children in the house. They need to grow up with some kind of normal boundaries.”
“Normal?” Catra echoed. “Is that what you call the rules around here?”
“You do understand that there are good reasons for the rules?”
“Good reasons? Why don’t you call it what it is? Repression based on outdated, ignorant pre-conceptions.”
Hanna suspected that Catra resented being rejected by Grey.
“Grey is doing what he thinks is right for the group,” she told Catra.
“Are you speaking for him then?”
“I don’t have to speak for him. He can do that for himself. I am giving you my opinion. You don’t agree with the rules?”
“Do you?”
“Yes, I do,” Hanna answered her honestly.
“Well, I don’t think that the same rules should apply to everyone. After all, are we supposed to follow the same rules as the children? Does that make any kind of sense to you?”
“What does make sense to me is that if someone decided to break the rules, that could endanger everyone. Besides, I think you do just as you please in spite of the rules.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Your morning worship as you call it, you do just what you want. Even though to other people your way could be considered offensive.”
Catra’s lips curled into an unpleasant smile. “Do you find me offensive, Hanna?”
“Some of the things you do offend me. The blatant nudity, for one thing. And your overt sexuality for another.”
Hanna was surprised when Catra actually laughed. “Isn’t that a bit like calling the kettle black?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Catra flipped her short hair back with a toss of her head. “You mean to tell me that you’re sleeping next to a man like Grey every night and you haven’t- “
“That’s my personal business,” Hanna interrupted her. “I’m not going to talk about it.”
“Are you really so repressed that you are afraid to even hear the words?”
“What goes on between a man and a woman should be private. Special. And not every relationship has to be based on sex.”
Catra narrowed her gaze shrewdly. “Apparently in your case there isn’t much that does go on.”
“Believe whatever you wish to believe, Catra. But we would all appreciate it if you would keep your special activities to yourselves.”
Catra wasn’t fazed in the least. “People are always afraid of what they don’t understand. But I understand you, Hanna. Very well. You don’t have it in you to think beyond the repressive attitudes of your past. And you’re afraid. Afraid that Grey will soon get bored with that very rigid attitude that you hold onto so dearly.”
“My attitude is not rigid. Nor is it repressed.”
“Really. Perhaps you see it that way. But the world has changed. Dramatically. Maybe this is a new dawn of enlightenment.” Catra’s smirk was so hostile that Hanna battled the urge to slap it off her face.
“Well, here’s some enlightening for you. I can assure you, Catra, that Grey isn’t bored. Not in the least.”
Hanna turned and left the attic. She couldn’t help smiling at Catra’s surprised gasp behind her. And she kept smiling. All the way downstairs.
Somewhere Amanda had come up with some crayons and coloring books. Her children, Miya and Caleb, were sitting at the kitchen table coloring.
Hanna walked over to the table and looked down at the pictures they were working on. “That’s very good,” she told them.
Miya beamed up at her. “Would you like to color with us, Hanna?”
“All right.” Hanna sat down at the table and started coloring. Everyone had talked about the importance of continuing the children’s education. They agreed that, in spite of what was happening, the children were the future. They needed to know how to read, write and do math. At the very least. Grey had added one more subject. History. Coloring seemed like a good way to get them used to some classes. Hanna looked up when Grey walked into the room.
“Hanna’s coloring with us,” Miya giggled.
“I see that.”
“Do you want to color too, Grey?”
He frowned, automatically looking for an excuse, but then he thought, why the hell not.
He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. Miya slid a book toward him. It had fairies in it.
“I’ll bet you haven’t done this in a while.” Hanna slanted a glance over at Grey and felt her face heat up. She suddenly remembered what she had said to Catra earlier.
“You would win that bet,” Grey grinned as he flipped through the pages.
Without looking up, out of the clear blue, Miya asked, “Is Grey your husband, Hanna?”
Grey’s pages stopped ruffling.
Hanna didn’t look up from the page she was working on, but her hand had stilled for a moment. And her cheeks had flushed again till she was sure they were almost the color of the crayon in her hand.
“No, Miya. Grey isn’t- my husband.”
“Would you like to be married to him?” Miya asked without looking up from her coloring book.
When Hanna didn’t immediately answer, Miya said, “You sleep together. Isn’t that what people do when they’re married?”
Could the color in her cheeks deepen any more?
She didn’t know how to answer Miya‘s innocent question. Grey wasn’t saying a word either. He was- coloring. Like he was totally absorbed in the picture. But Hanna had the impression he was waiting for an answer, too.
“We sleep in the same room, Miya, because we all share the same house. There is a difference. There aren’t enough rooms for everyone to have their own.”
And then Hanna decided to make a joke out of it. “You’re silly, Miya. Can you imagine Grey getting married and marching down the aisle in a camouflage tuxedo? And combat boots?”
Both children giggled at that.
“Like he was going to fight a war?” Caleb asked.
Hanna nodded. “Yes, he might look at it that way.”
Both Miya and Caleb laughed with Hanna who couldn’t hold her laughter back any longer.
“Do you think he would get married with his guns strapped to his legs?” Miya wondered.
“Probably,” Hanna answered her.
“Maybe he would come up the aisle in a tank,” Caleb said. Both children roared with laughter at that image.
“And then he could shoot the ring out of the barrel,” Caleb pounded the table with his hand and they burst out into another round of unbridled laughter.
Typical kids, they found the absurd hysterical. And they were on a roll. Grey frowned in their direction, but a rogue smile twitched at the corners of his lips.
“What if someone objected to the wedding?” Miya asked.
“Maybe he would use tae kwon do moves on them,” Caleb snickered.
Grey bowed his head for a moment, fighting his own smile. And then he gave into his own mirth and laughed out loud.
Hanna got a strange warm feeling inside at the sound of his deep, easy laughter. For the next half hour the four of them amused themselves with outrageous wedding scenarios involving helmet-shaped cakes, hand grenade bouquets and martial music.
Hanna realized she hadn’t laughed so much in a long time. And the children needed this, too. They all needed it.
Amanda came to the kitchen door. “What is going on in here?” She smiled, glad that her children could still be children even with the whole world falling apart. It gave her hope. It gave them all hope.
Hanna as his wife. The idea had lodged itself in his brain and Grey couldn’t seem to be able to shake it loose. He’d had a good time in the kitchen with Hanna and the kids. He wondered what it would be like if they had their own kids. Together. Would it even be fair to bring kids into a world like this? He didn’t have an answer to that. He doubted anyone did.
Miya and Caleb seemed to have been able to hold onto their innocence in spite of everything falling apart around them. Kids were resilient. Maybe they could teach the adults something.
He didn’t know what the future held. No one could know. Everything had been ripped out from under all of them in a matter of months.
He braced his hands on the window frame and stared out at the woods down below. He shook his head as a deep sigh escaped him. If this didn’t beat everything to hell. If this had to happen to him, he wondered, why did it have to happen during a zombie apocalypse?
Chapter 17
Makenzie opened her eyes and drew in a startled breath when she saw the man outlined in a vivid flash of lightning. Tate was standing over her bed. He was staring down at her. He didn’t say a word. He just stood there like a frozen apparition in the darkness.
“Something is trying to get at the horses,” she heard Mule yell from the other room. “Get the guns.”
Without saying a word, Tate turned and clumped out of the room.
To wake from a sound sleep and see someone staring down at you in the darkness was more than a little unnerving. Makenzie threw the covers off, got out of bed and crawled over to Daniela. They had both been sleeping on old mattresses on the floor. Makenzie whispered close to Daniela’s ear. “Wake up Dany. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Daniela was already awake. “I know. I don’t like the way they’ve been looking at us. And I saw him standing over you. I didn’t know what to do.”
Doors were slamming. Boots were stomping down the porch steps.
Daniela sat up. Makenzie was already jerking on her pants and pulling on her boots. “We need to get away from these men. And we need to do it now.”
“They might come after us.”
“Probably,” Makenzie agreed. “But I would rather have a fighting chance than to stay here with them where I know what is waiting for us.”
They didn’t discuss it further. It was obvious to both of them what the men had planned for them.
Makenzie went to the window. A storm was coming. Whether that would help them, or hinder them, Makenzie didn’t know. But she knew it wasn’t going to stop them from leaving. Lightning pulsed like an erratic heartbeat beyond the dark cloud masses that were rising up from the horizon. A peal of thunder rolled across the darkness, a low, ominous sound that lingered like the growl of a caged beast.
Ana was sleeping peacefully in her bed when she awoke and realized that something wasn’t right. She wasn’t alone in the room. She could hear breathing. The ragged, gasping breaths grew louder. She could hear a dragging, shuffling sound over the floor boards. How could a zombie have gotten into her room? Because she had left the door open. But where was everyone else?
Panicking, she realized the bedclothes were tangled around her body and she couldn’t reach her gun. She couldn’t move at all. The zombie was already leaning over her. She heard a vicious snarl and knew there was no way for her to escape. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came from her dry throat . . .
Ana bolted upright in the bed. Her heart was racing. Panic was surging through her bloodstream like a shot of adrenaline. She gasped for breath, even while she realized that it had only been a nightmare. For a while she couldn’t make the terror go away. She rocked as she huddled in the bed with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around her legs.
Gabe wasn’t in bed so she couldn’t snuggle up to him till she felt better. She got up and walked over to the window. A flash of lightning stabbed the darkness like a crooked talon. There was a lot of lightning out there. A gusting wind was aloft in the tree tops. There was a storm coming. From the looks of the sky, it was going to be a bad one.
Were there any staggers down in the yard? Did the rain bother them? She did an automatic sweep of the shadows down below the window, waiting for each bright flash of lightning. There was no one there. She tried to will the fear away, but adrenaline was still pumping through her veins and she knew it was going to take some time before she could get back to sleep.
She braced her hands on the window sill and continued to stare down into the yard below. She gave a little gasp. There was someone down there near the barn. She saw a man flattened against the whitewashed wall. He had been concealed by the bushes, but he was now on the move and she could see him clearly with every flicker of lightning. It was just like watching someone in a strobe light. He was definitely not a zombie.
She wasted no time. She threw on her clothes and flew down the stairs. “There’s someone out there,” she panted, still buttoning her shirt.
“Yeah, we saw two staggers by the barn,” Grey told her.
“No, there’s a man. I saw him from my window.”
Everyone that was awake looked at her.
Ana was still out of breath. “He needs our help. He’s not a stagger,” she insisted.
“Are you sure?” Grey was on his feet now.
“I saw him in the lightning just as plain as I’m seeing you.”
Grey peered out of one of the lookout holes they had cut in the plywood that was covering the windows. “I see staggers out there. More than one.”
“That’s why we have to help him.”
The whole house was awake now. Grey was squinting out another lookout hole as he
strapped on his holster. He automatically checked the load in his pistol.
Hanna was already out of bed, waiting to help in whatever way she could.
“She’s right,” Grey said grimly. “I saw someone. He’s definitely not a stagger. He was by the barn, but he’s by one of the sheds now.”
Everyone was at the windows now, peering out.
“Anyone who can shoot, Gabe, Ana, Jake and Hanna, you four come with me. We stay close together. No one, and I mean no one, wanders off alone. We strictly follow the procedures I taught you.”
Patch and Gun said, “We can help, too.”
“Close the door after us. And let us in when we come back.”
The boys nodded, taking the responsibility that had been given to them seriously.
Another peal of thunder rolled ominously out of the darkness. And then, just as Grey opened the front door, it started to rain.
Hanna was skirting the thick clump of bushes by the barn. Grey’s arm shot out. He grabbed her arm and dragged her close to his side. He silently, but firmly motioned her to stay close to him.
With her back flattened against the barn wall, Hanna turned her head to look around.
She shrank back, startled, when a flash of lightning suddenly revealed a stagger hidden in the bushes only a few feet away from her. She grabbed Grey’s arm and silently pointed.
Grey immediately pulled her across his body to the other side. He took the stagger out with one shot. But there were more staggers suddenly coming at them from out of the rain-slashed darkness. After they were taken care of, Grey pointed two fingers, indicating the small shed just ahead of them. The others covered Grey as he closed the short distance to the shed.
There was no door on the shed. There was just a gaping hole of blackness. And no way of knowing if there were staggers inside.
“Stay back behind me,” Grey ordered. His gun was drawn and centered on the black void of the interior of the shed. He gripped his gun firmly in both hands, prepared to fire in an instant.
Something was in there. Grey’s instincts were kicking into high gear. He braced himself - these things could move fast - and flipped the switch on the flashlight.
As Grey focused the narrow beam of light, they all saw what he saw. In the middle of the shed was a man. A soaking wet, ragged, desperate-looking man blinded by the flashlight, but ready to swing a baseball bat.
Dru hadn’t eaten any decent food in a long time. For days he’d been living on a handful of wild berries and a few ears of corn. Hanna brought him a plate of biscuits, and rehydrated beef with gravy and mashed potatoes.
“Thanks.” Dru didn’t stop eating. “I have been hungry for a l
ong time. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so good.”
Hanna knew what it was like to be hungry. They all knew. “We have powdered milk and apple cobbler for dessert.” She smiled at Dru’s reaction.
“You’ve survived out there by yourself all this time with just a baseball bat?” Grey asked.
“Pretty much,” Dru answered. “I’ve had some close calls. Mostly I’ve been hiding in houses and barns. When I saw your lights, I knew there must be people here. I mean regular people.”
“We have a good group here,” Grey said. “We’ll set you up in a room. I imagine a soft warm bed with clean blankets and pillows sounds better than spending the night out alone in a shed in a thunder storm.”
Dru’s look spoke gratitude, but he was also desperate for information. “I tried to get back to my apartment after I was attacked, but those things were everywhere. Do you know what’s going on?”
Chapter 18
“I’ve got food and water enough to last us for two or three days,” Makenzie whispered. “And we’ll take the guns.”
“Will we be safe in the dark?”
Makenzie didn’t answer right away. Traveling at night was something they never did and she was afraid, too. But right now they didn’t have any choice. The junk would help conceal them in the yard, but what was out there?
“What about- Laith?” Daniela was clearly torn. “He’s not like they are.”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s outside somewhere. Maybe he’ll want to come with us.”
They didn’t have time to think about it, or discuss it, any further. There were a few shots outside. And then only the angry sound of the thunder.
Without hesitating further, they left the trailer. Daniela was doing her best to keep up with Makenzie. A zombie appeared out of the weeds before them. And another. But the two women didn’t stop. They continued to run as fast as they could. Luckily the junk kept the zombies from getting to them.
A man loomed up suddenly right in front of them. Close enough to grab them both. Startled, Daniela cried out and fell back.