Lake Yixa (13 page)

     
Sarah could hear
the zombies smacking the fence over and over. The noise was starting to grow
louder.

     
"Come on,
where are they? Everyone has some," she said aloud. Then she saw them—a
pair of gloves sitting next to a chainsaw. She picked up the gloves
,
put them on
,
and
looked down at the chainsaw.

     
"Nah,"
she said aloud and ran outside. The fence was rattling and making tons of noise
along with the moans and other sounds coming from the zombies. She saw the
zombie on the ground almost next to the garage now.
She
moved past it to where the axe was and picked it up.

     
Thump
. The zombie on the ground stopped
moving. Sarah pulled and wiggled the axe free from its skull. She moved slowly
around the corner of the building and peaked out to see three zombies still
beating the fence. There was another two slowly making their way up to the
house from the town.

     
"Hey,
z
ombies,"
Sarah said just loud enough for the zombies to hear. They all stopped and
turned to look at her. She smiled and waved. "I'm over here." The
zombies turned and started toward her. Two bumped into each other while another
got a few steps ahead.

     
Sarah slowly
started to back up. The zombie closed the distance faster than the other two.
She swung the axe, and it hit hard into the side of the zombie’s skull. Both
zombie and axe crashed into the side of the garage. The body slid along the
wall and hit the ground. Sarah didn't have a lot time before the next two got
to her. She placed a boot right on the face of the
dead
zombie and
wrenched the axe loose just as the next two rounded the corner.

     
Sarah just barely
avoided the outstretched arms of the zombies. She moved back toward the car
with the zombies following after her.
Sarah
climbed up onto the hood of
the car
.
She kicked one of the zombies in the face, sending it
stumbling backward.
Sarah
spun the axe handle around to use the blunt
side
. She moved
around on the hood, metal buckling and popping as she did so.

     
The axe hit the
zombie in the elbow. A crack and a pop could be heard as the forearm dangled
from the elbow. She hit its temple hard, and the zombie crumpled onto the hood
of the car and stopped moving. She pushed it with one foot, and it slid off the
car.

     
The other zombie
had recovered and started toward her again. She jumped off the side of the car
onto the gravel drive. The zombie was easy to finish off as it tried to walk
over the dead one.

     
Sarah stood there,
breathing heavily, knowing she still had at least two more zombies to go. She
went to see where they were at.
The zombies were almost
up the hill. It
gave her a little bit of time. She returned to the garage and found a box full
of handheld garden tools. She had no idea what half of them did or what they
were called, but she picked one out.

     
"This should
work," she said as she picked up one with three sharp claws on the end of
it. She put the tool in her backpack and went outside, finding one of the
zombies almost had reached the top of the hill. The other one was right on its
heels. The hill made it easy to strike
the first zombie
down with the
axe.
The axe dug in deep. She let go of the axe,
pulled out the claw tool
from her backpack
,
and made sure the dead zombie was between her and the
other one. It stumbled over the zombie but didn't fall. That was all Sarah
needed to dig the claws of her tool into the top of its skull.

     
 
She freed her axe and walked back to the
garage. She cleaned the axe handle the best she could with the rags she found
.
She searched a little bit slower this time around
and
discovered
a
second set of gloves
. Sarah
ditched the ones
she was wearing
that were
now
covered in
blood. Sarah found a hammer in the box of garden tools and tucked it into her
belt loop. She opened up a few other boxes
, and
a smile crossed
her face.

     
"I may not
have a green thumb, but with this many seeds, I hope it doesn't matter."
She took the box outside to read the labels better—tomatoes, corn, green beans,
pumpkin, and so many more. She closed the box and grabbed the
canvas
bag.
Jeremy was right about this town
, she
thought.
It's a good town.

     
She opened the
door slowly, listening for any zombies. She didn't hear or smell anything like
a zombie. The house was dimly lit by the sun, but she could make out everything
just fine. She found herself standing in the living room.
Sarah
moved toward a
door
on the far side of the room. She hoped it led to the kitchen, but it was
the dining room, which was close enough.
The kitchen door
stood open. She
moved quickly
to find herself standing in a rather large kitchen. T
he sight of all
the cupboards and drawers
made her grin.

     
It was clear that
the people that lived there wanted to keep a stocked house. The first cupboard
she opened had tons of cans. She began to pull them out, reading the dates as
she went.

     
"Damn it!
Shit, yes! Damn it!" she said as she continued to pull cans. Despite the
full cupboard, most cans were bad. After about the fifteenth can, she started
to find more cans they could eat. The cans in the back probably had been there
longer
and most likely less processed than the newer cans
.

     
When she finished,
she had about eleven cans and one bag of rice, along with a bottle of hot sauce
she found on the counter where she had been stacking her good cans. She opened
the cupboard next to it to find dried foods.

     
"Oh, thank
God you're okay." Jeremy’s voice came from behind Sarah.

     
"Fuck!"
Sarah said aloud and dropped a box of pancake mix that scattered across the
floor. "What are you doing here?" she added, looking at him as she
dusted off the mix from her jeans.

     
"I heard
someone scream a little bit ago. I didn't know if you were in trouble," he
said, putting t
he
revolver
into his belt.

     
"Oh, yeah,
sorry. I didn't see a zombie on the ground, and I fell over," Sarah said
sheepishly.

     
"You didn't
see a handful of zombies?" he asked in a voice that made Sarah confused.

     
"Huh?"
she said before it clicked in her brain. "Oh, yeah after I screamed a few
more zombies came over. There was only one at the time."

     
"I see,"
he said.

     
"Look what I
found," Sarah said with a smile, holding up a rather bulging bag.
"All good food to eat," she said, setting it down with a thump onto
the table. "Where are the kids?" she added, noticing they were not
with him.

     
"I told them
to stay in the car back at the campsite."

     
"Oh, well, we
can come back to this house. We have enough food for now," Sarah said as
she picked up the bag of cans. She followed behind Jeremy as she went out and
down to the car.

     
"Do you mind
carrying that box?" she asked as she stopped by it.

     
"What's in
it?" he asked.

     
"Seeds, all
kinds," she said with a grin.

     
"I don't
think we really need seeds," Jeremy said, looking at her.

     
"Why? We can
find a nice place and set up a permanent camp."

     
"We are going
to try and find a refugee camp somewhere. We will be traveling a lot. It's a
dumb idea to carry around seeds we won't use."

     
"Well, they
may need seeds," she said in defiance. Jeremy didn't say anything.
"Fine, you carry the bag of food then," she said, pushing it at him.
He took the bag. Sarah took the box under one arm and held the axe in the
other.

     
"Let's
go," she said, a note of anger in her voice.

     
The two walked
back to camp almost the whole way without talking. Finally, Sarah spoke up
about the seeds again.

     
"I don't
think it's a dumb idea to bring the seeds with us," Sarah said. "I
mean, how else will a refugee camp feed people? We can't find canned food
forever. Sooner or later, we will have to grow things."

     
"Fine, it's
not a dumb idea. It's just added weight," Jeremy said.

     
"Added
weight? We don't have anything on the cart as it is now," she said rather
loudly. "And they are seeds. They don't weigh anything. Why are you being
so stubborn about this?"

     
"We already
found a good amount of canned goods, and that was just from one house you went
in. We are most likely going to find a lot more and will not have the space.
Plus, we are toting around your damn cat and his food," Jeremy shouted
back.

     
"What?"
Sarah said, taken aback by Jeremy's anger. "The kids love the cat. I
thought you liked him. Plus, I tried to leave him behind, but he wouldn't stay.
You're being a real asshole," Sarah said, walking past him.

     
Jeremy stood there
a moment, looking after Sarah as she pushed her way through some small bushes.

     
"Sarah,"
Jeremy said, calling after her. "I'm sorry. I'm just hungry. I haven't had
much sleep lately. I don't mean to be an asshole," he said as he came
through the bushes into the camp. He started to say more when Sarah stopped
him.

     
"Where are
the kids?" she said, looking at him. Jeremy rushed over to the car and
looked inside. It was empty, and one of the doors stood open.

     
"Matt!
Zoe!" Jeremy shouted. He called again, this time much louder than before.
Part of Sarah wanted to tell him to be quiet or the zombies would hear him, but
they were his kids after all. He started to search the small campsite and the
area around it.

     
"Where are
they?"

     
"We will find
them. They will be okay," Sarah said despite the knot growing in her
stomach. "I will go check the road."

     
"Okay,"
Jeremy said, not paying attention as she moved toward the forest. Sarah made it
to the road. She looked up and down but didn't see any kids. That's when she
spotted Matt running through a grassy field.

     
"Jeremy! Over
here!" she shouted as she sprinted toward Matt.

     
She made it to
Matt, and both were breathing heavily. "Where’s Zoe?" she asked
between breaths. Matt didn't say anything but pointed. She looked to where his
finger was pointing. A school sat at the bottom of the hill. She could see a
small kids’ playground down there but no Zoe.

     
"She
's
at the
school?"

     
"Yes. We were
playing on toys when some weird monster came out of the field. Zoe screamed and
ran inside the building. The monster didn't see me and went in after her."

     
"Go back to
camp and tell your dad," Sarah said just before turning and setting off at
a dead run toward the school. “Please be okay. Please be okay," she said
over and over to herself as she ran. She ran through the opening gate and
across the playground toward the double doors that stood open.

     
She stopped just
outside and peered in. The hallway was pitch black. Stepping just inside, she
waited for her eyes to adjust a little.

     
"Zoe?"
she said in a whisper. "Zoe!" Only silence returned to Sarah.
Damn it, Zoe
, she thought as she started
to move along one side of the hall. She could now make out doors and lockers on
the wall. She moved along slowly, trying to limit the amount of noise she made,
the whole while still calling out for Zoe. She reached the first door and tried
the handle. Locked.

     
She peered into
the window. She could see desks lined up in a row and kids’ drawings on the
walls. She moved across the hall to the next door and tried it. Again, it was
locked. She continued to move up the hall and tried two more doors before
coming to another hallway. She looked down it and saw more closed doors.
Sarah
wondered if Zoe would have entered one of the rooms or continued on.