Emma said, “That was the kind of gun that I shot when I was about your age. My brother had one and used to target shoot with it all the time. It barely gave any kick at all and shot really straight. At least that was what he used to say. I remember shooting it and all I could think of was how loud it was. But even that wasn’t too horribly bad. I’m guessing that it needs bullets put into that clip, so why don’t you climb under there and find a box of twenty-two caliber shells. I’ll show you how to load it and how to fire it, but hurry up. There’s no time to waste.”
Chapter 19
As soon as his hands touched the small rifle, he felt different...special, like a grownup. But peering through the magnifying scope attached to the rifle stock, he felt powerful and fierce. When he focused his aim on one of the zombies banging himself to no avail against the simple shopping cart barricade, his heart quickened and his fingers buzzed as if he had just touched a live wire. He smiled, held his breath, and pulled the trigger. Click.
Emma patted him on the back and said, “That’s good, Danny. Now, when there is actually a bullet in the gun, there won’t be much kick but the sound might startle you at first. It sounds kind of like a big firecracker.”
“Cool.”
“Danny, you seem like a smart kid, so I don’t want to talk down to you, but I think I ought to at least say that this gun is a very dangerous thing and the present circumstances don’t change how dangerous this thing is. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Danny looked her in the eyes and nodded. He understood. He also understood that, even under the present circumstances, his parents would never entrust him with a firearm. He doubted that his parents would have one for themselves. They didn’t like guns and wouldn’t have one in the house. He’d heard them talk about that many times with friends, family, and neighbors.
Many of their neighbors kept guns in their houses; most were for hunting, but some kept them for home defense as he’d heard it put before. It just made sense to him that people would keep a gun in the house. He could never figure out why his parents had been so adamantly opposed to the idea. Why wouldn’t you want to defend your home against intruders...whether they were burglars or zombies? He just couldn’t figure it out and current events had encouraged him to question it even more.
There was the time when Mark Little got his dad’s gun down from the top of the bookcase. When he jumped down, Mark dropped the gun and it went off. No one was hurt, but he did kill one of his mother’s nice planters and a struggling Ficus tree. Everyone agreed that Mark was lucky and that his dad should have done a better job of securing the gun. And there were the stories in the newspaper that he saw when he was looking for some easy but juicy Current Events topics; stories about teenagers being prosecuted as adults in the shooting deaths of friends or suburban homes being robbed by thieves looking for guns to sell.
Regardless, when Emma handed him the ten round clip and he clicked it into position, he felt more like a part of the group than ever before. Now, he could contribute something rather than just always taking.
He was probably the most happy when Neil saw him standing next to the van. Neil saw the gun, wrinkled his brow and tilted his head and then gave Danny a thumbs up gesture. Danny was so proud of himself. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and stood next to the van as a guard while the others loaded the gear into the quickly diminishing space in the back of the van.
They all had jackets now, and the heavier coats were packed away for later use when the temperatures dropped further. They had food and water, more ammunition for their firearms, and some baseball bats for close-up protection.
Meghan surveyed all of this and then turned to Neil. “So, I guess that’s about it. We ready yet?”
“Almost. We still need some gas for the rig.”
Chapter 20
Unfortunately, the vehicles in the Fred Meyer and Burlington Coat Factory parking lots did not yield much gasoline. Most of the fuel tanks were close to empty or were bone dry. They were able to fill one five-gallon can and partially fill a second, but that was far from comforting for all of them.
When they got back on the road and started putting some distance between themselves and Anchorage, they’d need much more fuel, and the likelihood there would be filling stations between here and salvation was slim to nil. Unfortunately, the Tesoro gas station on the northwest corner of the parking lot was a blackened ruin. It appeared as if someone had already tried to pilfer the gas from the underground storage tanks but had actually blown himself or herself up in the process.
Meghan asked as they stood in the parking lot, “So now what? Can we make it with this much?”
Dr. Caldwell shook his head. “No. This might be able to get us out of town and maybe on our way to Fairbanks and the Interior, but we’d run out in the middle of nowhere and then be on foot. Doesn’t seem like the safest bet to me.”
Maggie stood on the edge of the discussion. She wanted to offer her suggestion but waited for the right moment. She didn’t want to sound too eager and arouse any suspicions. The conversation swayed back and forth, shifting between opinions and strategies. Claire even suggested that perhaps they should just find another hiding spot in Anchorage to ‘wait out all of this.’
All of the talk went back and forth until finally, Neil asked, “How ‘bout you, Maggie? You have any ideas or know where we can get some gas?”
Maggie smiled a little and looked over all of them at the eastbound Dimond Boulevard. “I don’t know about gas for sure, but I do know that there are dozens and dozens of cars that way...toward the Dimond Center. It looks like a parking lot just up the road. I’m sure with that many cars, you...I mean we can find all the gas that we need.”
“Are you sure?”
Maggie nodded her head and pointed. “Everything that you need is down that way.”
Jerry asked suspiciously, “What about...you know...them? Are there zombies down that way too?”
Maggie shrugged her shoulders, “Aren’t they everywhere now? I mean, they were in the store behind us and they didn’t seem to pose much of a problem for you.”
“Yeah, taken in ones and twos we can handle them, but how many of them are there down that way?”
“We won’t know until we go there, now will we?”
Jerry didn’t like the way that she answered his questions without really answering anything. It was like watching a politician at a press conference coming clean about the latest scandal. She could talk and talk and never really say anything. He wanted to press her, but knew that ultimately it wouldn’t yield anything but more frustration. Besides, she was right. They had been handling themselves well lately.
Emma asked, “Maggie, you’ve got a bunch of gas in your trunk. Can you share some of what you have with us?”
“Find your own. I worked hard for what I got.”
“I’m sure you did, but doesn’t it make more sense for us to share what we’ve got and work together?”
“What do you mean share?” demanded Maggie, suspicion in her eyes.
“Oh, I don’t know. Like maybe, the food that we have that we’ve shared with you. And maybe the protection we shared with you last night at the park. You know, things we gave to you and did for you because it was the right thing to do.”
“I didn’t need nothing from you. Just because you gave me some of your food doesn’t mean that I didn’t have none of my own. I was doing just fine without all of you and now you want to take my gas.”
Neil interrupted, “Nobody’s taking anything from anyone.”
Emma wasn’t satisfied though. She continued, “Well what about Christian charity? Isn’t there a vestige of decency that is taught in your Bible?”
“How dare you question my faith! My belief in God is steadfast and loyal. How could someone like you know anything about faith anyway? Malachi has told me all about you and the poison that you spew.”
“Malachi told you about me? Well let me tell you a couple of things about your hero M
alachi there—”
Malachi jumped in to defend Maggie. “Shut your mouth you Jezebel! You’ve got no right to ask Maggie for anything. Why would she give gas that is fueling the Lord’s message to you...a non-believer just trying to avoid her fate.”
“Fate? Fate! Don’t go using pagan words that you don’t understand.”
Again, Neil interrupted the exchange. “Stop it! This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
Emma wasn’t through though. Even as Dr. Caldwell was pulling her away, she spat, “Your Malachi there? He’s a coward and a rapist. What does your goddamned book say about that? Huh? No amount of faith can change that. You disillusioned—”
Dr. Caldwell turned her and said to her, cutting her off, “Emma! This isn’t helping.”
Over his shoulder she shouted, “Hypocrites! You pick and choose what you believe from your book and then belittle the rest of us when we question your motives or your actions. You disgust me! And him, he belongs with those things over there. He’s a monster and doesn’t deserve to be wearing that uniform or that badge!”
With that said, she pushed Dr. Caldwell away from her and walked away. Danny, still standing next to the van, walked away too and stood next to her. By then, she was bent over at the waist and shedding hot, angry tears. She was so enraged she couldn’t see straight and was afraid that she was going to vomit at any moment.
She said quietly to Danny, “I’m sorry, Danny. I guess I kind of lost my cool.”
Danny didn’t say anything. He was thinking, however, that he agreed with Emma. Why wouldn’t Maggie share any of the gas she had? It just seemed like a safer thing to do. They could fill up both cars with what she had and then get moving. They could get away from all of this and leave it behind them. He wasn’t sure about the Christian charity thing that she had said. He didn’t remember a whole lot about that from church. He remembered coloring pictures and eating snacks at Sunday School. He remembered the stories about Noah and Job and the Garden of Eden. He remembered singing songs. That was about it for him. Maybe Christian charity was what the adults talked about while the kids were downstairs in the classroom.
He put his hand on her shoulder and looked over at the Fred Meyer entrance. Those things were still there and the buzzing in the air was getting louder. “I think we should get going again. The sound is getting louder so I think more of those things are coming this way.”
“What?”
“I can hear them. They’re coming.”
“Hey everyone, the kid...I’m sorry, Danny, says that he can hear them coming. We should get moving.”
Jerry nodded and agreed, “Yeah, I think he’s right. I guess I was hearing it too, but didn’t pay enough attention to realize what it was. Those three over there are probably acting like a homing beacon for more of those things.”
Without having resolved anything, the group split up and went to their respective vehicles. They were moving again without any real direction, but Neil was relieved that the confrontation was brought to a temporary close, if not to a more permanent solution. It felt good to be moving again and to put the parking lot and anger behind them.
Emma sat in the back and didn’t say much. She was still angry but she was quiet again. She kept looking behind her at the car following them. She imagined turning herself around in the seat and firing her pistol out the back window at Maggie and Malachi. In her mind’s eye, she could see their car swerve and veer off the road out of control. Her thoughts didn’t get any darker than that. She knew that her fury would subside and that these ugly musings were neither realistic nor healthy, so she closed her eyes and tried to let go of the hostility.
When she awoke, they were stopping near what looked like a parking lot but she knew that it was actually a street that cut through Midtown in Anchorage. She was unaware that she had dozed and woke feeling a little disoriented.
“What are we doing?”
“We still need gas,” Jerry replied.
Chapter 21
They sat for a few seconds in the stopped van without anyone saying a word. Danny lifted his new rifle from the floor in front of him and laid it across his lap. He was ready but it didn’t seem anyone else was.
He looked over at Jerry and Claire, and then to Emma and Kim. They all looked exhausted, like his mom and dad did every Christmas morning after all the presents had been opened.
Claire asked no one in particular, “So we have to do this, huh?”
“No,” Neil said flatly. “We don’t have to but we’ll probably be on foot soon if we don’t. What do you prefer?”
She didn’t need to answer and neither did anyone else. Regardless of the need, there didn’t seem to be much enthusiasm in collecting the gas. Their failed attempt to siphon gas from the collection of vehicles at the Fred Meyer parking lot didn’t inspire much confidence. Of course, there were a lot more cars here and a lot more possibilities.
Jerry finally said, “Okay, let’s get going. We work in teams again?”
Dr. Caldwell said, “Yes. Two teams of three. One spotter, one siphoner, and one toter.”
Neil said, “Okay, how about—”
Dr. Caldwell cut him off. “How about you stay with the van this time. You can find the bungee cords in the back and get the top ready to load the full cans. Meghan, you stay at the wheel in case we have visitors and have to get out in a hurry.”
Neil started to protest but his fatigue caught the words in his chest and buried them beneath his momentary relief. He felt guilty about sending folks off on an errand of his choosing, but even the guilt couldn’t find a voice.
Malachi was out of Maggie’s car and joining the group as it formed next to the van. Dr. Caldwell began, “Okay, how about Emma, Malachi, and I...”
Emma, still not ready to be near the police officer challenged, “Yeah, that’s not gonna work.” She could have outlined all the reasons why, but she didn’t feel the need to open that argument again; at least not there on the street.
“Okay, how about Jerry, Emma, and me. And then Kim, Art, and Malachi. We each take a couple of the large and a couple of the small cans with us. There’s no messing around out here. We get what we need and we get the hell outta Dodge, okay?”
Everyone nodded his or her head. Malachi nodded his head too, but he shot a concealed sneer over at Emma. Since his wife, he didn’t think he had ever had the same feelings of animosity toward anyone that he harbored toward Emma. She dug at him every time she could and he was getting tired of it. He hoped there arose a time in the future where she really needed help...his help, and he would just turn and walk away. He hoped that she begged for him to save her. He could see her surrounded by reaching, grabbing, clawing hands and hear her voice calling out to him to save her, but he wouldn’t. He would smile down at her and revel in her desperation. The thoughts made his head swim for a moment and he teetered on his heels a bit.
Dr. Caldwell asked, concerned, “Malachi, you okay?”
“Yeah, just tired I guess.” He looked over at Emma who was walking away and was relieved that she didn’t see him start to swoon.
Each group walked up to the closest cars and, of course, there was no fuel in either. The same was true of the next and then the next pair of cars. Several cars later, Dr. Caldwell found a tank that was nearly full, based upon the fact that they were able to siphon out enough gasoline to fill two of the five-gallon plastic containers and start on one of the smaller three-gallon jugs. As he looked around the car, he noticed that there were no keys in the ignition, while in the previous cars there had been keys.
He called out to the other group, “Hey, look at the ignitions of the cars. If there aren’t keys there, then we stand a better chance of getting gas.”
Art nodded as he looked into the next driver’s side window. He wasn’t expecting the spectacle in the front seat that he saw. There, sitting slightly hunched over into the passenger seat, was a decaying corpse. Clutched in its discolored right hand was an automatic pistol.
“Jesu
s.”
Kim asked him as she walked up, “What? What’d you find?”
Art just stood there looking down at the dead body. It was a woman who appeared to have been heading to work based upon her professional dress. She still had a cup of Kaladi Brothers coffee in the cup holder on her dash. On the seat next to her lifeless hand was a wallet opened to a family photo and next to that was a cell phone.
Kim looked in the window and gasped, surprised that after all that she had seen, she could still be startled. “Do you think she could be one of them?”
Art was already shaking his head, “No. I think she did it to herself.”
Malachi was standing there now, but was not offering any comments. He was looking around at the other cars and trying to stay focused on the task at hand, which, for him, was becoming increasingly more challenging. Staying moving as he was seemed to be helping, but there were cracks in his reality that were separating him further and further away from everyone else, including his new friend Maggie.
Kim asked, “Why do you think she did it?”
“It could have been anything, given the situation. Maybe she was trapped and scared. Maybe she was already planning on doing it and it just seemed like the right time. Maybe she was on the phone with the family in the photo and heard those things getting to them and she couldn’t bear it. Hell, does it really matter?”
“The keys are still in the ignition, so she’s got nothing for us.”
Kim looked at him in disgust. “That’s a little cold isn’t it?”
“Would you like me to say a prayer for her and for every corpse we come upon? That’s a lot of praying.”
She thought about it and responded, “No. I guess not. I just...I’m just afraid that the longer this goes on, the less sense of humanity we seem to be holding on to.”
“I get what you’re saying, but I guess I’m just more interested in being alive than in retaining something like my humanity. When we’ve gotten through this I promise to say a long prayer for all the people that we come upon but until then...”
Containment Page 11