Woods are on our right, field and playground on our left. The school is built into a slope and is made up of two connected structures: a round white building on the lower level that houses the cafeteria and gym, and the upper building that houses the classrooms and offices. Both levels have a small parking lot out front. We enter the lower lot, stop at the sidewalk outside the round building, and exit the truck.
“I never thought I’d be looting my elementary school,” Clara says. She went here, though Holly and Jesse lived in another neighborhood when they were young. They didn’t meet until middle school, when the Winters moved to this part of town.
“I prefer the term plundering,” Holly says, and they giggle. I do my best to hold in my sigh, though Rose eyes me as if I haven’t.
There are several doors into the cafeteria, and all are locked. I lift the prybar from Rose’s emergency kit, set it between the door and metal frame, and motion for the mallet. A set of irons, like I used in my volunteer fire department days long ago, would be easier. Almost nothing stops a halligan and axe.
Sam pounds once. It’s loud, and the once-straight prybar is now warped. I hold up a hand. “This thing’s a piece of crap. We’d be better off breaking the glass with all the noise we’d make.”
“Fuckers,” Rose grumbles. “Those kits were expensive.”
The windows are five feet tall and wide enough to get through sideways. I pull a flattened roll of duct tape from my coat pocket. “I’ll tape the glass to keep it from falling.”
Duct tape comes in handy more often than not, so I took it from my house when we left for Rose’s. Sam helps tape the glass top to bottom and in an X. The kids and Mitch face outward, watching the big unfenced field behind the school. Only one house is visible past the school grounds, but there’s an entire neighborhood behind that house.
“That’s about as good as we’ll get without wasting all day here,” Sam says.
I raise the prybar and give the glass a solid thwack. A few pieces fall, but most remain stuck to the tape. I widen the hole and pull out a chunk, then work on the next piece. Rose helps, her leather gloves protecting her fingers, until we’ve emptied out the frame.
When nothing appears at the window, Rose steps inside then opens the nearest door with its push bar. “Seems quiet,” Sam says.
“Stay here and watch,” I order the kids. Holly and Jesse turn to the field and lot. Clara does the same, though with an attitude. Rather than admonish her, I follow the others inside.
The cafeteria is seventy by thirty feet. At the far end of the room, past lunch tables folded against the wall, the serving window is open. We peer inside. Two doors—an interior door and an exterior door—let in light, though the kitchen remains gloomy and gray.
“It’s not very big,” Mitch says.
“It was always a small school,” I answer. Mitch would complain, probably because this place was my idea.
Rose lifts a knee to the steel counter and climbs through to unlock the inside door. I glance out the cafeteria windows and see the kids’ backs, still doing as they’ve been told. I follow Mitch and Sam from the cafeteria into the gymnasium, where we enter the kitchen. A large stainless-steel freezer and two refrigerators take up the back wall. Two rolling steel tables sit in the center of the tile floor, and the right side and rear are all cabinets.
Rose opens a cabinet and makes a happy noise. “Beans, enchilada sauce, canned fruit.” Another door reveals granola, pasta, and small containers of cereal. She lifts the top package of a stack of tortillas and inspects its contents, then crouches by several large bags. “Oats and beans from Crest Mills. They’re that stone mill by Junction City. Too bad we’re not by them. It’d be a good place to plunder.”
Sam hefts a bag of red potatoes onto a counter. “You can plant potatoes, but damned if I know how.”
“Once they sprout at the eyes,” Rose says. “It’s supposed to be easy, but mine were the size of marbles and tasted horrible. I’m sure I’d murder these, too. We should just eat them.”
Sam shakes his head sadly. “I raised an Irishwoman who can’t grow a potato. Where did I go wrong?”
Rose drops her head back and laughs, her body going limp the way it does when she surrenders to hilarity. Which is far too often, especially in a situation like this.
The refrigerators and freezers are a total loss. Vegetables rotted to a soupy mess, meat gone soft and greasy. Mitch opens an individual-size container of milk and groans. The smell of it all combined is pungent, and it fills the room although we shut the doors quickly.
“Not as much as we hoped,” I admit. So much of it was frozen, now thawed, and there’s likely less due to spring break. I hadn’t considered that until now.
“Still, this is great,” Rose says. “Good idea, Tom.”
I pretend I’m not pleased at the praise. “Maybe we should get one of your cars, too. I can go.”
“I’ll go with you.” Rose raises her eyebrows in rebuke, though her smile teases. “Don’t you know you shouldn’t go alone?”
The reference to this morning doesn’t tickle my funny bone the way it does hers. I know she’s trying, and somewhere inside I want to try in return, but I can’t get past the stumbling block of annoyance, of anger, that seems permanently lodged in my chest. It’s been there for years, but it’s doubled in size in recent weeks, threatening to choke me once and for all.
“Can you run?” I ask.
“I can run for three minutes on the treadmill. After that, I’m zombie food.”
Mitch laughs, and Sam says, “I’d rather we don’t split up. Let’s see how this fits first.”
I head outside through the kitchen’s exterior door, pushing it wide so that it locks open. Rose follows me to where Holly, Clara, and Jesse stand. She touches Holly’s coat sleeve. “You okay, sweets?”
I notice Holly’s pallor, the way her eyes shift quickly from side to side. “Yeah, I just don’t like it out here.”
“You’d be crazy if you did,” Rose says. Holly responds with a slim smile. “We’re going to start loading. Yell if anything comes, and we’ll leave it. Nothing here is worth dying for.”
“Okay,” Jesse says. He’s a solid kid all around. Has some muscle and might actually be handy if Rose ever stops coddling him.
I walk past a square gated area that contains dumpsters and a small trash compactor, then hop in the truck and start it up, wishing it weren’t so damn loud. I go easy on the gas to keep the engine low, but I’m nervous as I take the grass around the compactor area and pull to the kitchen door.
“We’re good to start loading,” Mitch says.
Rose climbs into the bed of the pickup and holds out her arms. Mitch deposits a giant bag of oats in them, which Rose sets in the truck. Sam is out next, arms laden. I go inside to help with any last gathering. When I come out a minute or two later, Clara is in the truck with Rose. Holly and Jesse stand by the window, watching the field and lot.
“My mom made good enchiladas,” Clara says while she stacks a can of enchilada sauce. “Maybe I can make some one night.”
Rose takes the potatoes from Sam and sets them on a few large cans. “That would be great. I remember your mom saying she liked to cook, but only certain things.”
“She said she made five things well and the rest sucked.” Clara takes Mitch’s latest load and deposits the boxes behind her before she summons a small smile. “But she tried.”
Rose tucks a stray lock of Clara’s hair behind her ear, returning the smile, and my edginess turns to a pounding in my ears. Clara is supposed to be with Holly and Jesse, not reminiscing about her mother to Rose, of all people.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice too loud. They were murmuring, and my annoyance is plain in my tone and volume.
“Helping?” Clara says slowly.
“Sounds like chatting.”
“All I said was that Mom—”
“I heard.” It hurts to hear talk of Sheila, it hurts to see Clara get comfort I ca
n’t give. Comfort I want, too. “Maybe your mother would’ve tried harder if you’d bothered to come home more often. Or at all.”
After I say it, once my pulse stops its frenetic beat, I know it’s bad. I know by Rose’s shocked expression, the way she turns to Clara as if I’ve fired a shot and she’s trying to stanch the blood.
Clara’s eyes fill. Spill over. She stands, and Rose stands with her, hand on her arm. Clara pulls away. “It’s fine.”
It’s not. Her sob makes that clear as she walks toward Holly and Jesse. Rose watches for a moment, torn on whether to follow, and then sinks to her knees. She doesn’t look at me, only holds out her arms for the next load.
Mitch climbs into the bed. “Here, I’ll help. You guys hand it over.”
My face burns with shame. That stumbling block is gone, and what it concealed—regret, sorrow, pain—bears down on my chest and strangles my throat. I’ve held back tears for two weeks, but they’re here now, fighting to get out. I stride to the tables, grab a few large cans of pineapple, and set them in Mitch’s arms. She looks at me squarely, judgmentally, as she takes them. I deserve the judgment, and I take it in return.
The stacks grow taller. Smaller things on the bottom so they stay put. Larger things over top. Rose is pale, her lips tight and colorless, and she keeps her eyes on the food. She can’t dislike me more than I dislike myself, though. To put that on Clara was unforgivable. It’s possible even Sheila wouldn’t forgive me that.
Rose and Mitch get to the ground, and we fill in the bed with what’s left. In the truck, it looks like more than it did inside, which would be great but for the heavy pall that has descended over our group.
I’ve given in to my anger one too many times. In the back of my mind, I always suspected the day would come when I went a step too far. Where the damage wrought was irreversible. But, then again, I didn’t really believe it, not enough to stop. I wish with all my heart I’d heeded that warning.
“I just realized they’ll have toilet paper inside,” Rose says. “And teachers always have those antibacterial cleaning wipes and baby wipes. Maybe we should grab them.”
“My butt says yes, please,” Mitch says, and Rose grins. I’m jealous of their friendship. Jealous of Clara’s friendships. Hell, I’m jealous of Sam for being so beloved.
“It should only take five or so minutes.” Rose looks to Sam. “Are we good, do you think?”
“I think so. I’ll take Jess to check the road before we pull out.”
“I’ll come with you,” I say to Rose. “I know my way around.”
Her shoulders tense, but she nods. I follow her inside, where she hands me a flashlight and a bag. She sets a cardboard box of paper napkins on the counter to grab on the way out, then walks through the double doors of the gymnasium.
“The first bathrooms are right behind that wall,” I say.
“I’ll take the girls’ room.”
She says nothing else. I want to apologize, to ask for help with Clara—help with me—but I don’t know how to broach the subject. I don’t know what to say. Sheila always came to me when I screwed up. She made it easy, laughed it off whenever possible. Here I am, criticizing Rose for coddling her son in the zombie apocalypse when Sheila coddled me like a big baby for most of my adult life.
Rose enters the door marked Girls, and I step through Boys. The stalls have several rolls of toilet paper each. I pop the plastic case off the stall walls and toss the rolls into the bag. Move to the next. A bang comes from outside. It’s muffled, and I can’t tell from what direction it came, only that it sounded like a gunshot.
I race from my bathroom to find Rose running from hers. “What was that?” she asks, breathless.
Before I can answer, she runs for the cafeteria. I catch up quickly, and we skid to a stop at the sight of walking bodies outside the open door. Rose whimpers as she creeps forward. The truck is in the same spot, and it’s surrounded. Mitch stands on the food in the bed, screaming into the distance, “Stay there!”
The window to the left shows at whom she screams—the kids and Sam, who stand in that fenced area on top of the compactor and dumpsters. Clara and Holly hold hands, each with a knife in their free hand. Two sides of the same coin, Sheila used to say, as Clara is right-handed, and Holly left.
There have to be forty zombies if there’s one. They rock the pickup, hoarse groans echoing. They pull at the fence. Rose looks to the right, across the field, and her face goes whiter than I thought possible. Another pack makes its way down the slope and across the grass toward the school. As long as these make noise, more and more will arrive.
“We have to draw them away,” Rose whispers. “Are you coming?”
Her eyes are fierce. That she thinks she has to ask is comment enough on my behavior, but that can be examined another time. I’d die for Clara without a second thought—it’s the one area I’ll never fail her.
“We can go out the upper doors by the classrooms,” I say. “We’ll call them up the hill and lead them to the intersection.”
Rose nods and sticks her flashlight in her pocket, then draws her knife from her coat. We return to the gym. I grab a few whistles hanging from a wall hook before we travel through the gym doors to the upper level’s courtyard between classrooms. The concrete is stained with brown blood, the murals on the walls splattered with the same, and the plants in the center garden trampled flat.
I picked up Clara and Jeremy here many times. I grew teary-eyed at their first days of school. Attended parent-teacher conferences where I was told my kids were bright and friendly and a pleasure to have in school. And still I treated them as though they set out to displease me. To disappoint.
The doors to the parking lot are open, locked into place the way they do when pushed wide. They were closed when we arrived. I noticed it, looked for it. People took refuge in here, turned, and then something caught their attention so that they pushed on the doors and headed for my daughter.
I peer around the corner of the building. Two hundred feet away, zombies clamor for the kids. As of now, they’re safe in their enclosure, though one section of fence is beginning to sag. I hand Rose a whistle. “We go to the far end of the lot. Blow the whistles until they’re coming, then head up the hill.”
We run across the upper parking lot, not bothering to hide, and then stand together in plain sight while we blow the whistles again and again, until a few zombies in back hear over the hisses of the others. Rose waves her arms as she blows, her face pink with effort.
Sam and the kids turn our way. I raise a hand and lower it, palm side to the ground. “Get down!”
Sam shouts and points to his feet. One by one, Jesse, Holly, and Clara disappear below the top of the fence. Sam follows. Maybe Mitch will get the picture and can find some way to hide under our supplies.
I blow my whistle, shout along with Rose. This time, with nothing more interesting in front of them, the entire pack spins our way and starts across the lower lot. When the first few reach the closest edge, I take Rose’s arm. “Let’s move up.”
We back along the upper lot, biding our time, and then step onto the grassy incline beyond the school. Behind us is still clear, though I don’t expect that to last—the whistles will call everything in range.
The first of the pack hits the upper lot and pours onto the asphalt. They’ve grown in number with that group from the field. Rose breathes heavily beside me, and my breath is no better. This many coming for you is enough to weaken your lungs.
We walk backward, glancing over our shoulders. When all but one have reached the upper parking lot, the pickup appears from behind the cafeteria and rolls toward the enclosure with Mitch at the wheel. The kids and Sam climb onto the compactor, then step over the fence and into the bed.
The pickup reaches the parking lot exit. Rose sobs once, her hand to her mouth, and moves a few more steps. I release my pent-up breath and take her arm again. “Let’s go.”
We run uphill through an opening in the chain-link fe
nce, where what we couldn’t see behind the trees comes into view: zombies on the road, more coming from the woods, and all moving our way. The pickup sits at the school entrance as if waiting for us, and I wave it in the direction of the house. The truck turns right almost reluctantly, but Mitch does as asked.
“We’ll go up and find our way around,” I say. Rose’s eyes are huge, but she begins to jog, slowing when ten appear in the intersection at the top of the rise. I keep my grip on her arm. “Straight to the stop sign, then veer right. We can get through.”
It’s not a lie. It’s not the truth, either. It’s a maybe. But the sounds behind us have grown into a softer version of that hum we heard in town, and it’s our only option. Rose puts on a burst of speed, and I match her on legs slick with sweat.
At the top of the hill, I yank Rose right. She stumbles, shakes me off, and shoots diagonally across the intersection. There are fewer zombies, but I shout when she barely dodges the hand of a snarling man. I plow through behind her, pushing first a woman and then the man from my path, and reach Rose’s side as four more appear from the trees. I lift my knife, but I only have to shove them again. There are too many to kill. If we stop, we’ll be surrounded.
The road ahead is clear, though the woods aren’t. Bodies break through brush on their way toward the school. Rose glances that way and keeps running until we round a bend and stop short. Thirty, forty, are in the road, feasting on something. Maybe a deer. Maybe a human. The woods here—our shortcut to Rose’s house—are full of crashes and snapping branches.
We back up and hide behind a tree. “We need to get inside somewhere,” Rose whispers.
There aren’t side streets here in the country. The nearby houses might be full of zombies, but I know of one that’s empty: mine. Though it’s the last place I want to go, I say, “My house.”
Rose jogs in the direction we came. We have time to make it before the zombies do, if we get a move on. Our boots pound the asphalt, and we turn into my driveway as the first few of the large pack appear down the road.
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 18