Only The Dead Don't Die | Book 4 | Finding Home

by Popovich, A. D.

  When she was done brushing her teeth, Twila tiptoed to the small playroom across from Dean and Luther’s room where she spent most of the day coloring and trying to connect with Zac. Sometimes Ella and Mommy came by to say hello. But she had to be ever so quiet. Someone was always sleeping in one of the rooms upstairs.

  “Can you come out and play now?” a raspy voice pleaded.

  Twila couldn’t wait another minute. She rushed to the room’s balcony. “I’m coming, Katie,” Twila silently answered. “See the ugly brown house next door?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Go to the gate in the backyard. I’ll open it for you. But you have to promise to come all by yourself,” Twila insisted.

  Katie pouted. “But I don’t want to go by myself.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s scary-scary.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you,” Twila said. She focused in on the little girl in the tattered blue dress. She sent her a blast of happy energy. Katie scrunched her mouth and tried to smile, but her mouth didn’t want to work.

  “Katie, we have to hurry. My mommy will wake up soon.” Suddenly, Twila decided not to tell Mommy until after she healed Katie. It would be a surprise.

  “Do you have any toys?” Katie asked.

  Twila dashed to the toy box in the playroom. “Ooh, here’s a fairy doll in a sparkly dress. She even has purple hair.”

  “Okay, coming!”

  Twila tucked her shirt into her pants and then stuffed the doll down the front of her shirt. She was excited to start healing again. Shari and the Silver Lady had taught her a lot. But she didn’t have any healing crystals. She only had her innate healing abilities to work with. Was she strong enough yet? Shari and the Silver Lady had said she needed more practice. But how could she practice if no one let her practice?

  Twila stepped out onto the playroom’s balcony and watched for Katie to find the gate to the house next door. What’s taking her sooo long? But Twila understood. It was hard for Katie to think and walk at the same time. She hoped Katie didn’t have any gum. Grandpa Dean said the sick ones couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time.

  Trying to be patient, Twila watched from the balcony. Finally, Katie shuffled toward the gate. Twila waved until Katie looked up at her on the balcony. “Coming.”

  Now for the emergency ladder. Grandpa Dean had put one in each of the upstairs rooms in case they were trapped upstairs like they had been at the lodge. That had been way scary even for a zombie-lover like her. It had been such a horrible day. Grandpa Dean hadn’t forgiven himself for leaving Mindy and baby Starla behind. Twila felt bad for them too, but she couldn’t tell if they were dead, undead, or what.

  She had gone down the ladder yesterday when Grandpa Dean had insisted they do “evacuation drills” before he left. She double-checked the ladder’s frame like he had shown her; it connected firmly to the balcony’s railing. She took a deep breath of courage before lowering the rope ladder, praying Uncle Luther wasn’t heating water on the barbecue grill on the patio below.

  Dangling from the flimsy ladder, Twila just knew Mommy would be flipping mad if she saw her at that very moment. Once her feet touched the smooth patio floor, Twila ran to the fence. A patio chair was already next to the fence and a table was on the other side of it. All she had to do was straddle the fence and then jump onto the table without ripping her clothes. She’d get into big-big trouble for that.

  Once she made it to the other side, she hurried to the gate. She jumped up until she unhooked the gate’s latch. She opened the gate a teensy bit. “Meet me in the backyard.”

  Not sure if Katie would be nice, Twila raced back to her side of the fence. She stood on the chair and peered over the fence and waited for her.

  Katie finally made it to the table, snapping her teeth all the way. And she did not stop.

  “Katie, I can’t practice my healing and play with you if you want to eat me.” A sudden thought told Twila this was a very bad idea. Don’t be such a scaredy-cat, she told herself.

  Katie went into a whimpery growling fit. “I’m starving.” Sometimes Twila forgot the sickness made them crazy-hungry. All the time. Katie looked up at her with pain-killing eyes. “Why aren’t you afraid of me like everyone else?”

  “ ’Cause I understand. But you have to stop snapping your teeth.” That did scare her. She couldn’t go back home with bite marks. She’d get in big trouble for that, too.

  “I can’t!” Black anger sparks shot out from Katie’s root chakra.

  “You have to try very, very hard.” Twila went on in her speaking voice. “Don’t you want to get well? I’m the only-est person in the whole wide world that can help you feel better. Then, we can play together all the time. You can even be my sister.”

  “I already have a sister,” Katie blasted her inner hearing.

  This was going way wrong. I can’t help if she doesn’t want me to. Katie only wanted to eat her. Why doesn’t she understand that she would feel better after the healing session?

  Katie’s growls turned into sobs. “Can you help my daddy and mommy? Your friends trapped them. I told them not to go inside, but they didn’t want to listen to me. So, I hid in a bush. Then—then I watched. That was so mean. No wonder they hate your kind! Now I have to live with these people I don’t know. They don’t even care about me.”

  “I’m so very sorry. I’ll think of a way to save your family if you promise to stop snapping your teeth. Please, Katie—let me help you feel better.”

  Snap! Snap! “Stop saying my name wrong!” Snap! Snap! Snap! “It’s K-a-t-y with a Y.” Snap! “And I hope you know I made it all the way to seven years old—before all the clocks broke. Now we are stuck in these same clothes forever and ever.”

  Ooh, she’s touchy about her name. Twila quickly changed her thoughts to K-a-t-y. “Sorry, Katy with a Y. My other friend spelled her name K-a-t-i-e.” The name had been written on the Laura Ingalls Wilder books Mommy had given her at the fun treehouse they used to live in.

  Katy grunted, “Wrong!”

  Oh, Katy. Compassion poured from Twila’s heart. Time to be brave. She sat on the edge of the fence, ready to jump down to Katy’s side. The next thing she knew, Katy jumped for her feet.

  “Katy with a Y, stop it this instant!” Twila demanded, her voice too loud.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”

  “If you think about eating people-food and not people, you will start feeling better. That’s what I had to do after I had the evil sickness.” Twila didn’t remember much from the days when she’d had the flu. The Silver Lady had said it was better not to remember her old life since she had a new life waiting for her.

  Katy whimpered on and on like a sad puppy. “You have to go then. I can’t make my hungry tummy go away.”

  “You have to be smarter than the sickness. So, I just became a vegetarian. Now, I hardly ever want meat,” Twila explained. It had been way harder than that, but she shouldn’t worry Katy.

  “Here, I saved my yummy cookie just for you.” Twila tossed the MRE cookie to the table.

  Katy with a Y put the whole package into her mouth.

  “Silly.” Twila giggled. “You have to take off the wrapper first. Don’t you remember?”

  “Uh-huh, but it doesn’t matter. All I want is meat.”

  “Like my mommy always tells me, and you should listen to her ’cause she is very, very smart. You have to discipline yourself to do the things you don’t want to do. Like brushing your teeth.” Twila would never-ever skip brushing her teeth again after seeing Katy’s cruddy teeth. She thought Mommy had made up the part about her teeth turning all black and rotting out.

  “Nobody makes me brush my teeth anymore.” Katy gobbled down the cookie, wrapper and all.

  Katy was going to have a bad tummy ache. Twila better start the healing session. She leaned over the fence for direct energy flow. Phew, Katy stunk. She needed a three-day bath.

  “I do not!” Katy yelled. “Y
ou are mean.”

  Oopsy, didn’t mean for Katy to see that thought. Twila was always getting in trouble for telling the truth. But she wasn’t supposed to lie either. Grown-ups had too many complicated rules.

  “My life is better than yours. I can do whatever I want,” Katy with a Y huffed.

  She would try one of Mommy’s tricks to get Katy to do something she didn’t want to do. “There’s a creek by the railroad tracks. If you are nice to me and take a bath, I’ll bring you a pretty dress.” Twila wasn’t allowed to wear the pretty dress in the closet since she had to pretend to be a boy. Twila imagined the pink and red rose dress in her mind, letting Katy see it.

  Katie gasped. “Do you mean it?” Katy’s black aura spun a little faster, but it was mainly old toxic energy.

  “Honest me.” It was going to take lots and lots of healing. Hmm, Ella’s special tea might heal her faster. All kinds of ideas ran through her head. This is going to be so much fun. But the dress wouldn’t match her yucky holey shoes. “Do your feet hurt?” A crippling pain took over Twila’s feet just looking at Katy’s shoes.

  “Kinda.”

  Katy was sicker than she thought. “Okay, so let’s meet here when it’s safe, and I will practice my healing on you. The first rule, you have to drink water. Lots and lots. It will make you feel better.”

  “You’re not so smart.” Katy scrunched her mouth into a ball. “We don’t have to drink water anymore.”

  No wonder they were so sick. Twila almost forgot. “Here’s the pretty fairy doll. Catch.”

  Katy with a Y clapped her filthy hands together. And missed. She snatched the doll from the ground. “Pretty hair.” Katy tried to smile.

  “Now, sit on the table so I can send you magical healing energies. Hey! You can’t eat the doll! Sit,” she said in Mommy’s bossy voice. Now she understood why Mommy got so poopy sometimes. Teaching was hard.

  “Okay. It doesn’t taste like anything anyway.” It took Katy several tries to climb the table.

  “She’s so pretty.” Katy glided the doll in the air.

  Twila decided to try sitting on the fence again. Just as she put one foot over the fence, Katy grabbed her foot. Twila jerked her leg back. “You can’t eat my sneakers, either. I’ll get in trouble. And if I get in trouble, I’ll never be able to see you again,” Twila tried reasoning.

  Katy looked up at her with her bulging, red-rimmed eyes and held up the shoe with a shaky hand. Twila snatched it back. Their fingers touched. Pain overtook every cell of Twila’s body. Poor Katy, how could she take all that pain?

  Twila threw the shoe to the patio. “Young lady, sit on the table this very instant! And play with the fairy doll. Oh, and tell me if you feel my healing energy.”

  “Okay.”

  Twila stood on the chair and peered deep into Katy’s etheric field. Her etheric body swirled with yucky energies. Anger tried to take over. No, I’m not supposed to get mad at it. She sent Katy strong blasts of sparkly-light energy as a test to see how much power she had today. Would Katy notice anything? Slowly, her dark murky etheric field turned gray. It was working a little.

  “Do you feel anything?”

  “I feel kinda different. Not so mad—about every single thing.” Katy went into a goofy fit of snorty laughter.

  A different voice interrupted Twila’s mind. Uh-oh. Mommy was looking for her. “Gotta go. I’ll call you when I can come out and play again. Maybe after lunch. Listen very carefully to my thoughts,” Twila said in her internal voice. “Bye.”

  Twila ran to the dangling ladder. Oopsy. She grabbed her shoe and then hurried up the wobbly ladder. Somehow, she knew Mommy would get mad at her if she knew about the healing session. So, Twila sat in the corner on the balcony and pretended to pick out a picture to color from the stack of coloring books.

  “Twila, I’ve been looking for you,” Mommy said in her scolding voice.

  “I’m right here. Enjoying the lovely day.” It was something Mommy would say.

  “Young lady, why is the ladder down?” Mommy started rolling it up with the wind-up wheel.

  “I was testing it.” Twila shrugged inwardly. It was sort of the truth.

  “Don’t do that again without an adult. Do you understand?” Jeez Louise. Mommy was about to get flipping mad.

  “Sorry.” Twila gave her cutest smile. It wasn’t Mommy’s fault she was in a bad mood. She worried for Zac and Dean and Justin. And all of hu-manity.

  Ooh, I can’t wait to do another healing session on Katy with a Y. She realized she shouldn’t tell a single soul about the healing sessions—until after she healed Katy. All by herself. They already thought she had mental problems.

  She thought about all the techniques the Silver Lady and Shari had taught her. When Mommy’s on guard duty, she’d sneak out a bottle of Mateo’s monatomic tea.

  Mommy is gonna be so proud of me after I heal my first one . . .

  Chapter 9

  Dean Wormer steadied his nerves as he inched Zac’s pickup closer to the bumper in front of him. “Must be dern near a hun-erd vehicles in front of us.” At that rate, they wouldn’t get to the Zhetto Market until noon.

  A jumpy Justin glanced from side to side. “I’ve never seen this much security.”

  “Think we should turn around?” Dean asked. “Tell me while I still have some wiggle room to turn around.”

  Justin squirmed in his seat. “We should be okay.”

  Dean pulled up another car-length. “You absolutely positive they don’t toss non-chipped citizens in the slammer?”

  Justin gnawed away on a hangnail. “Enforcers don’t waste time busting small-time Zhetts. Except the weapons dealers. They get huge kudos for that. Like, how do you stay so freakin’ calm?” Justin grated as if it were a bad thing.

  “I’m not on their Most Wanted list,” Dean reminded. Nor was he a new father. “They haven’t turned anyone away. I think we’re good.”

  At last, Dean pulled up to the parking lot’s guarded entrance. “Howdy.” He peered into the mirrored sunglasses of an Enforcer while another Enforcer scanned the pickup’s front plates.

  “Hand,” the Enforcer droned.

  Good thing Justin had chipped them. Dean held his hand out the window and awaited his fate. Meanwhile, the other Enforcer scanned Justin.

  “The vehicle’s registered to a different name. Sanders, search the back.” The Enforcer on Justin’s side drew his weapon and rushed the back of the camper.

  “Say, what’s all this ’bout?” Dean badgered, playing the disgruntled senior citizen.

  “How’d you obtain the vehicle?” the Enforcer demanded.

  Dean had an answer ready for that one. “Borrowed it from Mr. and Mrs. Padilla. We’re on contract to purchase food and supplies for Ghost Creek Hunting Lodge.” He sure wished he could see through those intimidating mirrored sunglasses. “Why the third-degree?”

  “Ghost Creek Hunting Lodge,” the Enforcer repeated to himself, scrolling through his cell-phoned size electronic device. “You’ll have to do better than that, old man. Says here, the lodge’s officially closed.”

  “Right, because,” Dean emphasized, “the lodge’s plum out of food. Look here, young man, if Last State spent as much time disposin’ hordes as they do hasslin’ senior citizens—why your granddaddy must be turnin’ in his grave.” Dean stopped, not wanting to overdo it when he caught Justin’s twitching smirks from the corner of his eye.

  The camper’s door slammed shut. “They’re clean,” hollered the Enforcer from the rear.

  “My apologies,” the Enforcer offered. “Since the Zoat fiasco, we tightened security.”

  “Reckon you’re merely following orders. By the way, has the Zoat breach been taken care of?” Dean might as well take advantage of the situation.

  “The inner Zones are locked down tight”—the Enforcer hesitated—“but we’re getting reports of small hordes scattered throughout the panhandle.” He doubled-slapped the hood and motioned them through. “Stay safe.�
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  By golly, Twila’s spot on. Dean reached up to tip his Stetson, only he had forgotten it had wound up a victim of his madcap escape from the lodge. He nonchalantly pulled into the parking lot.

  “Sweeet,” Justin purred.

  “I dealt with Enforcers on a daily basis back before they blew up Boom Town.” In fact, Dean thought he recognized the fellow. Chances were nobody would recognize him without his cowboy hat, duster, and worthless sheriff badge. About all the badge had been good for was getting shot at. Glad those days are done with, Dean reflected, swerving into the first vacant parking spot he came to.

  Justin strode to a mishmash of carts: Best Buy, Costco, Walmart, and the like. “I’ve never seen it this busy,” Justin exclaimed. “Grab a cart.”

  Dean nabbed the sturdiest cart within reach. “If for some reason we get separated, let’s meet at the pickup. And if that doesn’t pan out, we’ll meet up at the bunkhouse,” Dean said as they approached a line of people waiting to get inside the fenced-in market.

  “That fence is new. And freaky,” Justin jabbered on. “They really upped security. Probably for the Elites. They like slummin’ it, acting all suave and debonair.”

  From what Dean could tell, a shakedown slowed the line. He methodically scanned the surroundings. The flea market was enclosed in a ten-foot-tall chain-link fence topped with three strands of razor-wire. To the right, a hodgepodge of older vehicles butted against the fence line with FOR SALE signs on the front windshields. Primo spot. No one could miss them.

  The skoolie caught his eye. His buddy used to have one of those. They had camped in the renovated bus during their annual Oregon fishing trips. Whatever happened to ol’ Frank? His buddy hadn’t shown up for lunch that day—that horrendous day Dean had first realized the world had gone batshit crazy.

  “We should hurry,” Justin cautioned. “The cheap stuff sells out super-fast. When the Zhetto tour buses get here, they start price-gouging.” Justin stopped and gave him the once-over. “Hey, I told you to rip holes in your Dockers. You’re dressed too nice.”

  Dean brushed him off. It seemed a shame to debauch a perfectly good pair of pants, and under the current circumstances, he hadn’t wanted to wear military fatigues. They might make him appear more of a threat than the dowdy old-man persona that came easily to him.