It didn’t take long for the rest of them to set down their phones and stare listlessly into the dying fire.
“What are we supposed to do?” Vanessa asked. “Why bother doing anything, we’re all dead, it’s just a matter of time.”
This was one bet Murray would have gladly lost but he’d had hours to wrap is head around their situation. He had sincerely wished he were dead more times than he could count so he knew how some of them were feeling. They had a chance, though. They were lucky to be where they were, isolated from big population centers and surrounded by a strong fence. Now they had to get over their grieving for friends and family. They didn’t have time to be despondent over the death of the world. He had to get them talking, get them to join him in saving knowledge before it was gone and fortifying the park if it needed it. He spoke quickly, told them they didn’t have time to be sad, they could do that next week. He laid out his argument, expounded on their need to be fast and urged them to help him gather everything they would need to start rebuilding.
“Does anybody have a credit card?” he finally asked. “We can buy a bunch of prepper eBooks.”
No one did.
“Aren’t there websites about that?” Harper asked. “Just get it for free.”
“Loads of them.” Murray said. “I’ve been scouring them for the last couple of hours, my phone is almost full, but it’s only bits and pieces here and there and it takes time to find good articles. Time we don’t have. We need to buy every book on Amazon about gardening and making tools and fixing machines and first aid. We need to download them and make copies and save them, it’ll be the only thing that prevents us from reverting back to cavemen.”
They were all wide awake now and realized what he was saying was probably true. Most of it, anyway. They wouldn’t be swinging clubs, grunting at each other and wearing rough furs if they didn’t get all the information he was ranting about but while it was available, they should try.
“Okay.” Cody said. “In the office is the main computer, I don’t know how big the hard drive is but it’s got to be bigger than all of our phones combined. You want to take charge of that, Murray?”
“Find me a credit card. It might be the only thing that can save our lives.” he said dramatically and wheeled off.
“There’s probably a purse or wallet laying around outside.” Swan said. “I’ll go look.”
“I’ll help.” Vanessa said and followed her out. “We’ll find one, don’t worry Murray.”
“I’ve got to milk the cow.” Cody said. “She’ll start bawling if it’s late, I guess it hurts her or something.”
“We’ll figure out something for breakfast.” Tobias said and his twin sister nodded.
“Oh yeah, if one of you want to come with me, we can get the eggs from the chickens.” Cody said and Harper volunteered.
As Cody worked methodically filling the pail with warm milk, he considered what else they had inside the walls of the sanctuary. There was a generator and the fifty-gallon fuel tank for it they used for the meat lockers in case of a power outage. The electric golf carts had solar panels on their roofs as trickle chargers for the batteries but he knew from experience if you forgot to plug one in at night, the little solar charger didn’t really do much. One of the carts had a cigarette lighter on it that could charge their phones, the panels could probably keep those in power.
There was a hand pump in the kitchen that pulled water from the old well. It still functioned as it was a part of the historical tours to let people see how water was drawn from the ground when Piedmont house was first built. He didn’t know how good the water was but it had to be better than drinking from the Mississippi.
Donny met up with the girls and searched everywhere, even in the bathrooms, but the only purses or wallets they saw were laying out in the parking lot. The undead milling around the front of the park went crazy when they saw them and slammed into the bars, hands reaching, faces pressed hard and tried to squeeze through. They slipped back behind the snack shack so they were out of sight and the keening died down a little.
“Did you see the lady in the hiking outfit?” Swan asked with a little shake in her voice. “The one near the ticket booth?”
Donny and Vanessa peeked back around the edge and saw the one she was talking about. A woman with filthy cargo shorts, a shredded plaid shirt and a rugged leather satchel slung over one shoulder.
“You think that’s her purse?” Vanessa asked already figuring out what the other girl had in mind.
Swan nodded
“We have to get it.” she said. “We have to. They’re depending on us.”
The other two agreed and they started trying to come up with a plan, taking occasional peeks around the corner to make sure she was still there and trying to force her way through the steel. Donny pointed at one of the golf carts and mimed his idea. The girls made horrified faces but it would probably work. And it was a lot less dangerous than anything else they’d thought of.
They picked out a four-seater and Swan took the wheel since she’d done a little kart racing and then Donny climbed in the back, ready to snatch it when they got close. Swan circled behind the row of buildings that housed the nurse’s station and gift shop then lined herself up beside the fence. The cart, like the rest of those is the park, was electric and silent. She gave the horn a short toot when they were in place and Vanessa stepped out from behind the snack shack and waved her arms. The undead surged harder against the bars as she came closer. They snarled and snapped their teeth, stretched out hungry arms and reached for her with blood crusted hands. Swan floored it and steered close to the gate, scraping the fiberglass body and steel framed windshield support along it. She gritted her teeth as pieces of the cart broke and flew off. She nearly screamed when she hit the first outstretched arms, breaking them with a horrible chicken bone snapping sound. They twisted in a way no arm was supposed to bend and she slammed the brakes right in front of the hiker woman. Donny reached through the bars and grabbed the satchel and tugged but the strap didn’t break. Twitching, broken hands tried to grasp at him. Fingers pawed but were unable to grip. They clasped weakly on his arms and he opened his mouth to scream a silent scream. The cold flesh grabbing him was revolting, it was clammy and disgusting and he was going to throw up. The girls were yelling at him to hurry and he was trying but every time he jerked on it, the woman just slammed harder into the bars. An arm snaked up from the ground, one of the crawlers being trampled by the others, and grabbed at Swans ankle. Another misshapen hand tangled itself in her hair, reached for her eyes. She screamed her own scream then and mashed the go pedal. The hand on her ankle was strong and would have pulled her out of the cart if she hadn’t had a death grip on the steering wheel. Donny managed to get a double grip on the satchel as they lurched away from the bloody, mangled horde and watched with horror as the strap finally slid up over her head. It caught her neck, snapped it and nearly jerked him out of his seat.
Swan didn’t stop until she was back at the main house and then just sat there shaking, her fingers white in a death grip on the wheel. The others came running, they’d heard the commotion and her screams. Donny threw the satchel on the seat and sprang out, running for the bushes to throw up. The feel of those clammy dead fingers scrabbling against his skin was the most vile and disgusting thing he’d ever felt in his life. It was like cold spiders creeping over him and trying to burrow their way in. When he rejoined the group, Vanessa was triumphantly holding up the wallet and a half dozen credit cards.
14
Cody
They helped Cody with the rest of the animals and when they gathered for the late breakfast the twins had whipped up, they were feeling a little better. Even though Donny and Swan thought they’d never be hungry again, it smelled too good and they dove in like the rest.
“Any updates on the computer?” Annalise asked as Murray rolled in and took his place. “Any new news?”
They all turned to him and knew the answer before he
shook his head then spoke softly so they had to strain to hear him.
“Nothing. I mean nothing official. Not overseas, not here in America, not any news channel, not any blog. There were some new twitter posts but it was from people like us. I answered all of them and a few answered back but there isn’t anything from anybody that’s in charge. Just people spread out all over, all alone and with zombies surrounding them. Nobody knows anything, really.”
Nobody had anything to add to that dour news and they ate in silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t like it was a big surprise but they had almost managed to forget when they were taking care of the animals.
Cody broke the quiet and started talking about his ideas to free most of the animals, to let them run wild in the open areas. They could pretty much take care of themselves. Some they would need to keep penned in, the farm animals from the petting zoo and the predators like the panther, the bears and the wolves. They would need daily care, they would have to be fed and watered. The meat lockers would last a little while after the power failed but after the generators exhausted their fuel supply what was left would spoil quickly.
“That will be a problem.” he told them. “None of the hunters know how to be wild. They were all raised in captivity and we can’t just set them free. That would be cruel. They might do okay here inside the fences, all the antelope and gazelles are trapped, but outside they’d starve to death. The panther would lick a rabbit to death before he tried to eat one. The polar bears probably couldn’t catch a fish out of a kiddie pool.”
“Can we do that?” Tobias asked? “Teach them how to be wild again?”
“Can we adapt them?” Harper cut in “I mean, can we claim one as a pet? I love Bert, I’d take care of him.”
Cody hadn’t thought about any of them wanting to take any of the animals under their wing and be their protectors like he was going to do with Otis. He’d thought he might have an argument on his hands trying to get them to help with their care and feeding. He should have known better, they had all been on a field trip to the park on a Saturday instead of playing video games or watching movies. It was because they all loved the animals.
“Um, okay.” he said. “Me and the bear are old pals but you guys can take any of the others, make them your pets.”
“I prefer to call them my spirit guides.” Swan said and everyone else chimed in with terms like partner, companion, helper and a few others.
Cody held up his hands. “Okay, okay. No offense intended. You’re the caregiver though. They’re your responsibility but we’ll have to share the workload for the rest. Some of them are too old to be turned out and probably wouldn’t want to leave their pens anyway. Teddy the buffalo is almost twenty and mom has him on supplements to keep him healthy and Mille is blind in one eye and can’t hardly see out of the other. There are some others that need special care but I think most of them will be okay running wild.”
The talk of the animals took their minds off what was just outside their gates, the fact that none of their families had come to try to rescue them and the realization that they were alone.
The panther and the wolves needed meat as their primary diet but there was plenty in the cooler for now. Otis and the polar bears were a little more flexible since they would eat virtually anything. There was plenty of pellet food for most of the park animals as well as a loft full of hay for the winter months. The grass hadn’t started to die off yet so grazing was still good and if they turned them out now, the bagged food should last them through the winter. They’d worry about getting more when the time came, they had themselves to think about too.
The mood in the house lightened. The highly adaptive nature of kids had pushed aside last night’s fears. They weren’t going to get torn apart, they had a safe place to stay and they had a basic plan to stay alive. While they’d been busy with their tasks all morning, Murray had been on the computer downloading all the free books he could find and deleting files that were useless to them now. Forty gigabytes of accounting information, tax records and old invoices were no longer deemed important. The credit cards had bought all the important information that could be downloaded and he wanted to get more. He wanted the classics and histories. He wanted every book ever written that would tell them how to do something, solve a problem or fix a machine. He wanted knowledge and he knew anything he didn’t save could very well be lost forever.
Resolve settled in that they were on their own and a sense of excitement seemed to spread through them. Each still harbored sadness for their families but there wasn’t time to sit around and mourn. They had things to do if they didn’t want to join them. Murray gave them a sense of urgency about the preparations they needed to make and Cody gave them the excitement of having something wild and exotic as their very own, an unthinkable thought yesterday.
Cody talked as they ate, filling them in everything he could remember about the Park. There was wild game inside the fences: a lot of rabbits, squirrels and raccoons. They flourished without any natural predators. The river had fish and as gross as it sounded, they’d grow fat and plentiful with all the dead bodies that were probably floating in it. Unfortunately, the carnivorous animals had never needed to stalk their prey, it was always scooped into a dish for them. Cody was certain that they still possessed the predatory instincts of their ancestors. They just needed to be awakened. They could teach them. As they talked of the animals and gave Murray lists of books they needed, Cody leaned back and took it all in. He tried to see the big picture, not just the day to day things they were talking about. He tried to see where they’d be and what they’d need by Christmas when the snows could be a foot deep and their only heat was the fireplace.
He looked at their clothes and mentally inventoried the human food stores. Mostly junk food in the gift shop and souvenir store. He’d helped unload the delivery truck for the snack bar and knew there would be cans of chili and nacho cheese, frozen cases of hamburgers, french fries and hot dogs but all of that would spoil if Murray was right and they only had a few days of power left. They’d have to cart it all over to the meat storehouse but even then, they’d only have another week before the diesel ran out. They needed canned goods. Soups and veggies and things like that. They’d have to go into town sooner or later. They’d have to make a supply run for food and clothing but he didn’t even want to think about that.
Water was abundant thanks to the hand operated pump in the old house, unless the pipes froze. Too much, there’s just too much that can go wrong and leave us helpless, he thought.
Winter was coming. Everyone was dressed for early fall. Shorts and hoodies, tennis shoes or high tops. They needed thick clothes, heavy jackets, good boots, gloves and hats. There were a few items in the gift shop, like sweat shirts and animal themed blankets, but nothing that would sustain them through a long Iowa winter.
Cody needed some fresh air and a reprieve from the excited chatter. He pushed his chair back and stepped outside. The morning was still cool and brisk but the sun was up and the day would be pleasant.
He stared at the gate in the distance, nearly hidden from view by the snack shack. They were still there and still wanted in. He would have to come up with some way to deal with them. The things knew they were inside, he supposed they could smell them or something but they just kind of swayed back and forth. They didn’t go into a rage unless people were visible and then they went nuts.
Cody wasn’t from Putnam, they had lived a few miles out, but he was certain that he recognized some of the shambling monsters from his trips into town. One looked like the girl from the pizza place and he was pretty sure the old man in the mechanics clothes was the guy that changed the oil in his mom’s car. It was hard to tell, most of his face was gone but the gray hair looked familiar. They liked to bunch together, he noticed. Every time one came shuffling down the road, it would hear the crowd and come join them. They would have to figure out an easy way to kill them off. He didn’t want the horde to keep getting bigger and bigger. If it got
to be in the thousands, they might spread out to the weaker chain link parts of the fence and be able to tear it down.
15
Cody
The days passed. They fell into a routine. No one came to rescue them and they knew no one would. They stopped sneaking glances to the parking lot every chance they had. They stopped straining their ears listening for a convoy of soldiers come to help. They were on their own. Their parents were gone. Their friends and family had all fallen before the unrelenting tide of undead. Some adjusted quicker than others. They all shed their tears in private or with faces buried in animal fur, breaking down while stoking their chosen companions. Cody, too, while he spent an afternoon with Otis, trying to teach the bear to grab fish out of the water. He let it all out and the big Kodiak took it all in then licked his salty tears with a rough tongue. He tried to be strong, not show any weakness around the others. He was the oldest and they were counting on him. Looking at him as a leader and not a boy in the shadow of manhood, just as lost and confused as they were. He finally stopped his sniffing and feeling sorry for himself, sighed and leaned back into Otis’s massive frame as they reclined near his pool. The afternoon sun felt good on his face, but the brisk fall wind prickled at his skin. It was already October, getting colder day by day and the only jackets they had were blankets from the gift shop with holes cut in them to make ponchos. He readjusted his so it covered his arms and whiled away the rest of the afternoon enjoying Otis’ warmth and musky bear smell.
True to Murray’s prediction, they had lost power on the third day. That was okay. It was enough time to get everything any one could think of downloaded. The lights had flickered once and darkness enveloped them. The twins were ready with the candles and dinner continued but there was a hush to the conversation. They knew the power would never be coming back on.
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