by Karen Carr
“Stop it, Trevan,” Lily said as she stood up. “Or we are leaving.”
“If you would like my suggestion,” the Professor said. “I would suggest the two of you meet me for some couples counseling. I have Thursday mornings open. But I do insist you try to remain sober in the future.”
“You want to put me in therapy?” Trevan asked.
“You did try to kill yourself,” I said. “And me. And Lily. And if you are going to stay here and live with all of us, you might as well try and get better. I don’t want to be around someone who is going to drink themselves to death or who is going to try and kill me again. We have enough freaks trying to kill us and you are not going to take us down with you. Sure, I only knew Huck for a couple of days, but he made a great first impression. Just like when I met you, my impression of you formed and hasn’t changed since.”
“Wow,” said Trevan.
The Professor smiled. I had a very strange feeling he enjoyed Trevan and Lily’s exchange. Maybe as bonkers as we all were, it made him feel a little bit more like we needed him. After that we went back to small talk, discussing the weather and the storms we witnessed since the apocalypse, the first snow, and what we were going to do in the spring.
“Do you hear that?” Lily said as I was enjoying my last piece of ham.
“Hear what?” Trevan asked, putting down his fork.
“Shhh,” Lily said. “It sounds like a soft waterfall.”
At first I thought Lily was trying to divert the attention from her relationship to Trevan to something else, but then I heard it too and it was getting louder.
“That’s not a waterfall,” the Professor said. He was on his feet and turning off all the lights in the house.
“What’s wrong Professor?” I asked. His hands were shaking so much that he had trouble turning the light off. I walked over and pulled the chain down for him.
The noise was getting louder. It no longer sounded like water. Instead it sounded like a rhythmic wop-wop. It became so loud it rattled the windows.
“It’s a helicopter,” Lily said, her face glowing with excitement.
“What are you doing old man?” Trevan stood up.
“I don’t want to be caught.” The Professor examined the ceiling like the thing was going to come down on top of us.
“Caught by whom?” Trevan put a protective hand on Lily’s shoulder. “Shit. Zombies can’t fly helicopters.”
“Your cameras, Professor.” I pointed to the window. “Can we see what’s going on outside?”
“Of course.” The Professor went to his laptop. “I have a camera on the roof.” He turned his webcam viewing program on and tabbed through several images until he found the one of the roof. We all gathered around the laptop to see what was buzzing over the green. The helicopter was large and painted in jungle green camouflage. In the bright blue sky, the camouflage stood out like a full moon at night.
“We’re saved,” Lily said. “Come on, let’s go. We need to flag it down.” Lily pulled Trevan toward the door.
“We’re not saved.” Trevan resisted her tug. “This isn’t Gilligan's Island. That’s not a taxi.” Trevan’s eyes assumed a fervent gleam.
“No, don’t leave,” the Professor said. His voice was filled with urgency. “That’s a Hind.”
We watched the large helicopter fly, low and fast, over the church.
“What’s a Hind?” I asked, not taking my eyes from the laptop. Goosebumps were covering my arms, even though it was extra warm in the Professor’s place.
“It’s a large helicopter gunship produced in Moscow. That’s in Russia,” Trevan answered. He was looking intently at the image, which was now moving away from the green. “They were popular in the seventies. They stopped making those years ago.”
“We’re just going to let it go?” Lily frowned.
Ignoring her remark, the Professor switched to another camera, this one looked like it was right at the entrance of the village. “They didn’t see anything. They would have circled.”
The helicopter flew toward downtown. The noise of the blades faded back into a soft waterfall and then into nothing. It was gone.
“Great.” Lily slumped down in the Professor’s therapy chair. “We missed our chance.”
“Our chance at what?” The Professor asked, turning away from his laptop. His eyebrow was twitching. “We’re perfectly fine where we are. We don’t need anyone’s help. We have enough people coming as it is.” His breath was coming in short bursts. “We won’t be able to take care of too many more. And get out my chair. Please. I’m sorry. I’m just upset right now. It’s my chair.”
Lily stood up. “Sorry, Professor. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just don’t agree with you. Hella, what do you think? Whose side are you on? What about building our community?”
My hair was driving me nuts. It kept falling in my face. I kept pushing it away and it would fall right back, covering my eyes. What if they found out about me is what I really meant. “The Professor is right. What if they find out about the village? We don’t want them here, taking over the place.”
“We don’t know who they are,” Trevan said. “Just because they have a military helicopter...”
“A Russian one,” the Professor interrupted.
“Just because they have a Russian military helicopter does not mean they are military, or Russian.” Trevan was eying his gun which the Professor made him leave at the door. “They probably took it from a military museum or surplus. Anyone who takes a helicopter with big guns like that has bad things on their mind.”
“How do you know?” asked Lily. “You need big guns to kill all those zombies.”
“Or make a new government,” the Professor said.
“What’s wrong with that? Maybe we need a new government,” Lily said.
“Well, the helicopter is gone, so there’s no use in arguing about it.” I said. “Do you think they’ll be back?”
“No, they were going somewhere,” the Professor said. “They’d be flying a different pattern if they were looking for something.”
“They were flying low,” Trevan said. “And they wouldn’t want to use much fuel. Their camp must be close.”
By the end of our discussion we agreed that there was nothing we could do so it would be best to get back to Christmas. We figured if their camp was near, they would eventually find us and we’d have to deal with it then. I didn’t like the prospects of dealing with the military.
They would uncover my secret and keep me chained up in a cage. They’d probably hoist me up in the helicopter and dangle me out by my ankle, flying really slowly, to watch me kill all the zeroes. I suppose if I was feeling altruistic, I should just give myself up to the cause and become a military weapon myself. But I thought there must be a better way. I just hadn’t figured out what that was yet.
Chapter 15: Time Draws Blood
March 6th
Green, Oval Park Place
Haverlyn Village
The next couple of months passed with an uneasy tension. I spent my nights sneaking to Walmart to clear the aisles of zeroes. Trevan and Lily wanted to go on a road trip there, but I didn’t want them to see any of the exploded heads and think that Walmart was safe. I had stashed all the bodies in a storage room in the back and closed the door, hoping it was airtight. The smell would alert anyone to their location. We hadn’t seen any more military helicopters, which was a relief to all of us except Lily.
I didn’t speak to Trevan for several weeks after Christmas, but I did see him several times sitting in an abandoned car. He would sit in that car for hours, sometimes he would be staring in silence, sometimes the engine would be on, sometimes I would hear music, but most of the time he would just bang on the steering wheel and occasionally honk the horn. It really irritated me, but Lily had told me that the Professor thought he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, so I tried to bear it.
Lily and I met every morning and every morning she would ask if I had
seen signs of Huck. She knew I rose early every morning to check the road. I thought she was hoping I would say that I saw a helicopter or that an army was on its way, but I never saw anything except birds and squirrels.
Every once in a while, a flock of birds would swoop through the green as if they were startled by something, and I wondered if it was Huck. Every few days, a dog would run through the green, and I wondered the same thing. In fact, everything that I saw that didn’t fit in was a sign that Huck was coming, and nothing ever was for real. I was doomed for a life of hope and failure, or I was doomed to start living again without him.
Luckily I had Lily, and on days where Trevan was feeling better I had him too. On the days when I felt my worst, I had the Professor. Most of the time had been spent gathering food, canned goods, flour mixes, frozen meals that enabled us to survive through winter. But, the weather had begun to warm up and we wanted to start our farm. We were able to clean out the dead from the stores, the parking lots, the streets, and even more of the apartments. We had daily roasts of the dead in the parking lot until all the bodies were gone. The only place left to clear was the movie theater.
Lily and I found keys to over thirty of the residences along Oval Park Place and had been able to clear around fourteen condos. We also now had access to over a dozen cars. We found another solar building above a wellness spa. Lily and Trevan decided to move into it, which meant I had my building all to myself again.
I felt relief to have my privacy and they enjoyed their new condo, a three bedroom with a view of the green. Trevan began to use the wellness spa and was starting to look better. He had stopped drinking, mostly because Lily and I found the keys to the grill which housed all the booze and we made sure to lock the door.
It turned out Trevan knew how to garden; having grown up on a farm outside of Charlotte and Lily did too, being from Wisconsin she learned from her neighbors. They had talked about buying a small farm in the ag-burbs before all of this. I knew Walmart had a huge garden supply section, and we needed to start bringing it back to the village. Since the road to Walmart was relatively clear, we could take my Lexus LX 570 there and be back in less than an hour.
I drove over to their apartment where they were waiting outside. Trevan was wearing a brown bomber jacket which he must have found in their new apartment because I had not seen him wearing it before. We had agreed not to ransack people’s wardrobes, and seeing him in it made me angry. Trevan took the passenger side next to me and Lily got in the back. He had a list of supplies we needed in his hand.
“Does this thing have a tow hitch?” Trevan strapped the safety belt across his lap.
“Sure does.” I put the car in gear.
“Great, we can pick up a trailer. It’ll be easier to haul what we need,” Trevan said.
“I tried to hitch one up before and I couldn’t figure out how it worked.” I looked at my charm bracelet distractedly. The charms glistened in the sunlight, especially the silver key. I hadn’t noticed it had a little gem stone in it before, a red one, possibly a ruby.
“Country boy, here can help you.” Lily tapped Trevan on the shoulder.
I was excited about getting a trailer. The one I wanted was a long and covered so we would be able to pack lots of stuff in it.
“We’re going to need to take all the dirt we can, bags of it,” Trevan said. “We are going to need some lumber too. Do you think we can make it to Home Depot?”
“Lumber?” I asked.
“Yea, I thought we should do raised beds. It’s the easiest and most practical way to farm in a small area. Helps keep the weeds away too.”
“There’s a Home Depot in Chapel Hill,” I said.
“Yea, but it’s on the other side of that zero mountain we passed getting here,” Lily said. “Don’t forget there is a horde lurking out there somewhere.”
“Don’t bring that up, Lily,” Trevan said. Trevan clenched his jaw and furrowed his brow.
We hadn’t even started and the mood was wrecked. They didn’t have to worry about zeroes as long as they were with me. I considered telling them again, but I still wanted to protect myself. Who knew what the future held, there could be people willing to use me as a weapon, and I didn’t want to be used that way. I valued my freedom too much.
I drove out of the village and made a right toward Walmart.
“Why are you going so slowly?” Trevan asked. His voice was now agitated.
“I can’t drive that fast. The road is still littered with vehicles and the path to Walmart is filled with turns. I have to cross the median, back and forth.” I considered driving faster, but I knew it was better to drive slowly than risk an undead attack. I kept going at my slow pace, even though Trevan was markedly more uncomfortable. I looked at Lily in the rear view, her face was peaked too. She was looking from Trevan to the window to the sky.
“First stop guns,” Trevan said through gritted teeth. “Then booze,” he added.
“Trevan,” Lily began.
“Come on, give me a break,” Trevan shot back.
“What should we grow first?” I asked, hoping to take Trevan’s mind off of being eaten by zeroes.
“Beans,” Trevan said.
“I’m pretty tired of beans,” I said. “They give me gas.”
“Strawberries,” Lily said. “Write that down, Trevan. I don’t want to forget. It’s the perfect weather for strawberries.”
“Tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, potatoes…” Trevan rattled off the list. “And strawberries.”
“We can have real fresh salads,” I said, my mouth watering in anticipation. “We’ll need onions too. I want to make sure I get some pecans and cranberries, vinegar and olive oil—extra virgin—for the dressing.”
“Do you think the cups of fruit things are still good?” Lily asked. “I’d love to get some of those mandarin oranges.”
“Spinach and celery,” I added. “And onions, lots of onions.”
“Did you get that Trevan,” Lily asked. “And any herbs we can find. I want an herb garden.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said. “We can use the plant boxes in front of the pizza parlor for that. This is going to be fun.”
Trevan smiled briefly. “Where is the main garden going to be?” he asked me. “Since you are mayor, you should decide.”
“The green, of course,” I said. “We can use the stone stage to store everything since it’s covered. It has a natural bush barrier so that it will keep the wildlife out.”
As if on cue, a herd of deer passed rapidly in front of the Lexus. Lily and I screamed, and Trevan grabbed the dashboard. We were only going five miles an hour, so we had no chance of hitting them.
“There are so many of them,” Lily said.
There must have been at least ten, which automatically made me think Huck was chasing them out. “They are too fast for the zeroes,” I said.
Another group of five or ten leaped out from the same direction.
“I don’t like this,” Trevan said. “Get going.”
We were almost there, so I drove a little faster into the parking lot and parked by the trailers. I knew we were safe enough, but the deer were troubling. It seemed like something was chasing them out of the woods; Huck wouldn’t chase all those deer, so that something could only be one thing. If the zeroes made it to the road before we were done shopping, it would be littered with corpses on the way back. We might not be able to drive through anymore. Furthermore, there might be hundreds of zeroes in the woods and knowing they were so close made me uncomfortable.
“Let me drive so I can back it up to the trailer,” Trevan said.
I got out of the truck and Trevan moved over. He turned it around and backed up behind a nice sized white trailer. He had it hitched in no time and drove it over to the entrance.
“Guns first,” Trevan said again.
I had cleared the gun section of bodies a few weeks ago and hoped it was still clear. We each grabbed a shopping cart and ran over to the
guns. The display cabinets had already been smashed, and most of the guns had been taken. Knowing there were others out there, taking guns, left me a prickly sweet sensation, but none of us said anything about it.
Lily and I looked around to make sure there were no zeroes in her case and gangs in mine. There weren’t any more bodies on the floor, I was thankful for that. By now, Trevan and Lily recognized what an exploded head looked like and I didn’t want to have to explain why one was found here, out of the protective range of the village.
“Trevan grabbed a bunch of bullets, loaded three guns and handed one to me, and one to Lily, keeping one for himself.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” I said, looking at the heavy shotgun in my hand.
“Take it anyway,” Trevan said. “Lily can show you.”
I looked at Lily. “You know how to shoot?”
“I grew up in Wisconsin, remember? Lots of wild animals up there.” She tapped her holster which still held a pistol.
Lily loaded my gun and briefly showed me how to take the safety off, how to aim and how to pull the trigger. She said something about backfires, or misfires, I wasn’t really listening. I was too distracted by the big heavy gun in my hand.
We decided to go to garden supplies next. We had parked right by the garden area, so Trevan and Lily went outside to start loading the dirt and the newly acquired stash of weapons into the trailer. That left me to get the equipment and supplies we needed from the inside. There was quite a list; I didn’t think Walmart would have it all. I sensed a run to Home Depot in our futures.
I walked slowly down the aisle, carrying the heavy shot gun on my shoulder. I felt very much like a new pioneer, struggling as they did in the Wild West. When I turned into the aisle that housed the garden supplies, I was startled to see a pair of legs sticking out from the next aisle. They were certainly zero legs attached to a zero body. This news wasn’t good. Even though I knew I was safe from zeroes, I didn’t like the idea of them still wandering around the Walmart. They must have come in through the door I left open by wedging a shopping cart in it.