Lost in the Apocalypse (8 page)

“What?” He said. “You got a better idea?”

“Yeah, dumbass,” she pulled the handle and the door swung open. “This is small-town America. Nobody locks their doors here.”

Butter looked surprised, but didn’t say anything as Emily slid in the car and reached for the ignition. No key.

“Move over and let me work,” Butter said, but she held up a hand once again.

“Wait,” she said. She felt around the console and reached behind the visor. Finally, she opened the little hold-it drawer in the center of the car and fished out a key.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Butter said. “What’d you even need me for?”

“Muscle,” she said, nodding behind him. Butter turned just as an Infected started wandering into the bank parking lot. It began growling loudly when he turned, though it still moved fairly slowly.

Type one.

Butter picked up his bat from beside the car and charged at the Infected, nailing it square in the face. It immediately went down, but despite the fact that he hadn’t used a gun, the sound resonated in the silent town.

“Time to go,” he said, hopping in the passenger side of the car. Emily turned the key and the engine roared to life, filling the town with loudness it probably hadn’t heard in a month. The tires squealed as she drove quickly out of town, stopping at the edge to load the group’s bags into the trunk. The rest of the gang managed to fit in the backseat with Kari laying across their laps, and then they were off.

“That was fast,” Neil commented.

“I’m very efficient,” Emily said plainly. She drove down the road in silence for a few minutes. They passed the house where they’d been earlier that day and Emily turned down the road. A few zombies wandered out of the house into the yard as the car passed, but few followed it.

They probably didn’t know what it was.

She drove for a few more miles, passing several random farmhouses as she did. She made a few turns, but nothing stood out yet. Most of the area seemed to be either miniature forests or open pastures. Neither option was particularly homey.

“Wait,” Neil said suddenly. “Slow down.”

They were approaching an old, two-story brick house surrounded by trees.

“This one,” he said. “Pull in here.” She turned into the driveway and killed the engine. Emily stepped out of the car and left the keys in the ignition. She probably should have pocketed them, but what if they needed to get out of there in a hurry? Yeah, vagrants could come by and steal the car, but it was more likely that they’d be overcome with zombies and need to make a quick escape.

Butter eyed the keys, but said nothing. No one else seemed to notice.

They got out of the car and stared at the house.

“We could fortify this,” Neil said hopefully. “We could make a life here. Close to town, easy to get supplies. Lots of abandoned houses,” he commented, looking around. “Trees. Plenty of trees. Not a busy road. We could be safe here.”

“You really wanna stay in Podunk, Kansas, boss?” Kari asked warily.

Neil looked at the house, at the car, and then back at the group.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “I really do.”

“Start unpacking boys,” Kari said. “Daddy’s home.”

Neil stared at the house while his crew swarmed it to clear out any lingering Infected. He hoped, for the sake of everyone, that this one was empty. How nice would
that
be? Finally find a place to settle down, not have to clean up a shitload of blood, not have to deal with wandering creatures who just wanted to bite him.

The truth was that Neil was tired.

He was tired of death and tired of traveling and tired of not having a place to call home.

Ever since he had joined the military, he had been pushing himself. He had been Airman of the Quarter more times than he could count. He had been recognized for his dedication to his job constantly. He had deployed numerous times. He had been the perfect airman.

He had never turned down an assignment, never missed a flight function, never skipped helping a fellow airman train or study or finish their duties.

And then his mother had gotten sick.

And everything had changed.

Neil wasn’t sure when his carefree attitude disappeared, but he wanted it back. Was it too far gone to reclaim? Was the world too lost? Was he too broken?

He had been pushing himself all month. He had been trying to be the leader of this little band of survivors he had found. He had tried to guide them, to help them, to push them.

Was he really doing all he could?

Neil was tired.

He grabbed a duffel from the trunk and headed up to the house. Three steps up to the wraparound porch. Fuck. If this wasn’t the most gorgeous house he’d ever laid eyes on, and not just because he was really, really tired of moving around. Not just because he wanted someplace to kick off his boots. Not just because he wanted home.

Oh, sure, it could use a new coat of paint, but the two-story farmhouse was classic. All blue with white shutters, a huge porch with chairs and a swing, and several outbuildings that were likely full of tools and farm equipment.

It was perfect.

The road out front was gravel, but the driveway itself was paved. Unusual, he thought, but maybe that was normal for driveways out in Hickville. He’d have to ask Emily about that. Emily knew everything.

He was afraid, on some levels, that he was becoming too attached to her, just as he was definitely becoming too attached to the rest of his group, but Neil wasn’t sure he could help it.

They were his family now, and crazy or not, they looked out for each other.

“Hey Cowboy,” Emily’s voice brought him back to the present. He looked up to see her leaning in the doorway, legs crossed at the ankles. She had a cowboy hat on her head, tipped low. She looked like the perfect picture of country bliss.

“Yes, darlin’?” He asked, playing along.

“Why don’t you come inside and rope me up some grub?”

He laughed, wrapped her in his arms, and kissed her. She felt good and warm and comfortable against him. She felt safe.

She felt perfect.

She felt like coming home.

**

Kari screamed. Footsteps sounded from the house as everyone ran to find her. She had gone into the basement to clear it out, but she wasn’t screaming because she had found an Infected.

She was screaming because she had found the hot water heater.

“You guys,” she whispered. “Look.” She pointed. The pilot light was still lit.

“After all this time?” Emily asked. “Is that even possible?”

“You know what this means, right?” Kari looked up at eager eyes. Oh yes, they definitely knew what it meant.

“It’s gas,” Emily said. “Even without electricity, there should be hot water in the tank. Hot showers, even if it’s just for today.”

No one had to tell anyone twice. They practically ran upstairs to the bathrooms and started on the showers. Five minutes apiece, Neil warned, and sat outside the bathroom with a timer. It was silly and a bit juvenile, but ensured each person actually got to experience something they hadn’t felt in a month: hot water.

When it was Emily’s turn, the water felt so good she thought she might float away. She didn’t want to get out. Neil knocked to give her a one-minute warning that her time was almost up, so she quickly shampooed and conditioned her hair, but when her turn was over, he had to pick the lock and drag her out of the room.

He tossed her on the bed and left, laughing, as she lay against the soft blankets of her bed.

She hadn’t felt this clean in a month.

She probably wouldn’t feel this clean again for a long time.             

**

The house was easy enough to tidy up. It was empty, save for rotting fridge in the food, so it didn’t take much time to clear out and make it livable. Robert found a bunch of plastic trash bags and passed them out. The group got all of the crap out of the house, then burned the trash in the back yard. Unhealthy, to be sure, and it carried the risk of attracting attention, but they put the fire out quickly. It was better to burn the garbage than to simply bury it and hope wild animals didn’t come digging around.

Where there were animals, there were Infected. The Z’s weren’t picky about their meals.

After the first day, they realized they would have to venture out for supplies. The car had a bit under a quarter tank of gas, so they couldn’t go far, but they should be able to get the basic items they would need to survive for awhile.

“Make a list of stuff you want,” Neil told Kari and Emily.

“What? Because we’re the women?” Kari asked, placing a hand on her hip. She looked like a scolding mother of five: not a 27-year-old airmen.

“Fuckin’ right you’re women,” Robert said, strolling into the room. He bit into an apple. He was obviously feeling smug after discovering an apple tree on the property. It only had a dozen good apples, but he intended to enjoy the hell out of them. “You think men can survive on their own? Come on.”

Kari laughed and grabbed a pen. Situation diffused, she began writing down what they would need. Emily threw out suggestions on occasion. Really, Emily thought they should just go around and take as much as they could from the surrounding houses. Who knew when they would need first aid items or blankets or clothes? Wouldn’t it be best to just accumulate as much as possible?

But Neil didn’t seem to think they’d be able to go out frequently. He was worried about running into other groups of survivors. Emily didn’t see that being a particularly big problem in this area of the country, but she went along with it. He was “the leader,” after all.

She started writing things down.             

She needed bleach, towels, more plastic bags, food. Any kind of food, but especially canned stuff so they could start storing up for winter. Like a group of squirrels, she thought with amusement, but kept her thoughts to herself.

“Water bottles,” Kari said, ticking items off an invisible list with her fingers. “Nail clippers, tweezers, blankets, rope.”

“Knives,” Neil commented. “Write that down.”

“Anything we can use as a weapon.” Robert added.

“Oh!” Emily said. “A bucket!”

Everyone turned to her.

“We’re in the country,” she said. “This place probably has well water. We should look around and see if we can find one.”

“As in, fresh-water-we-don’t-have-to-haul-bottles-forever?”

Em grinned. “Some of the places are connected to the city’s water tower, yeah, but most still have wells. We’ll need a bucket if we’re going to haul the water out and we’ll probably have to filter it somehow, but yeah.”

Neil high-fived her and sent Butter and Robert out to see if they could find a well. There was no telling whether it would still be useful or not, but it gave Emily a small trickle of hope that maybe living here wouldn’t be so bad.

She finished her list of “wants” and went off to wander the house some more. The two-story farmhouse was big and spacious: much bigger than her little cabin had been. While there wasn’t a typewriter to be seen, she found a notebook and a pen in a little roll top desk in the living room. Emily carried the supplies upstairs to the room she had claimed as hers and settled in on the bed.

There were four bedrooms upstairs: two on each side, with a bathroom in the middle at the end of the hall. Kari and Cody claimed one room, Emily had her own, Butter and Robert shared, and Neil had the last one. Though Robert said he was sleeping with Butter, Emily had a feeling he would spend most of his time sleeping on the pull-out couch on the first floor. Robert liked to keep watch over the rest of the group, reminding Emily of a well-loved guard dog.

Emily opened up the blank notebook and began writing. The pen felt heavy in her hand. How long had it been since she’d just had time to write? She didn’t even know where to begin. Normally, she wrote romance novels about princesses and brave knights. She penned stories that would whisk her readers away to far-off places. She wrote stories that made people feel good.

She didn’t write about death or sadness or pain.

Yet somehow, after being surrounded by nothing else for the last few weeks, that was what came out. Emily wrote about her journey to Melanie, about finding her sister holed up in a dorm room, about gently prodding her out of the building.

She wrote about finding the safe house in Grimsby.

She wrote about Susan getting bitten.

She wrote about shooting them both.

By the time Emily finished writing, her hand was cramping and her writing was getting crooked. She only had a few more blank pages and she didn’t want to waste them. Who knew how long it would be before she got more paper? Maybe she should write that on her “wish list.”

Wanted: notebook paper.

Neil came in the room after awhile and sat on the bed. He didn’t say anything. He just held Emily’s hand in silence as they both thought about how they’d ended up in such a strange, unusual situation.

“How are you doing?” She finally said. She knew it was a bullshit question, but she felt uncomfortable with the silence. She felt like she should say something, even if it was a remnant of a more polite world.

“As good as can be expected, I suppose,” he said. “The guys are still out looking for that illusive well. They found an old barn in the woods. No well yet, though.”

“So much for an endless water supply, huh?” Even though the power was out, there was still some water left in the water tank. They could actually flush the toilets if they wanted to, at least for now. Still, none of them wanted to risk it, so they’d still go outside to take care of their business.

“At least we found a place. We could potentially fix the place up and stay here for quite awhile. Maybe add some fences, maybe even a little moat.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t a bad idea. If nothing else, it would keep the Infected away while they slept.

“You guys really don’t have anywhere else you want to be?” She asked. “Me? I’m from here. I have no family left. I have no parents. Melanie was my only relative and she’s very, very dead now.” She cringed at her bluntness, but kept talking. “Why do you guys want to stay in Kansas? Why not move on? You’re all talented, and-“

Neil finally pressed a finger to her lips and shushed her.

“Yes, we’re airmen,” he said, finally. “But I have no idea what started the outbreak. I have no idea how to fix the government. I have no idea what the world is like out there anymore. There could be a new system of government in place. Maybe the old airmen have all sworn allegiance to a new president. I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

“But you want to be here?”

“But I want to be here. I want to be safe. I want to start a new life. It won’t be anything like what I had before, but I don’t really care. I’m here with you, with my crew, with my family. That’s all that matters.”

“How did you guys all meet, anyway?” Emily had pieced together the basic story, but she wanted to hear it from Neil.

“We were all on base. Kari and Robert lived in the same cul-de-sac and were home for lunch when the first reports started coming in. The base went into lockdown. No one got in or out. The first thing they did was head to the daycare, but it was already too late.”

“Too late?” They couldn’t get their kids?

“The CDC was close to the main gate and it had been breached. Honestly, it didn’t take long. I’m guessing someone was already through the gates who had been infected when the lockdown went into effect. Cody was at lunch, too. He was trying to get back to the CDC at the same time Robert and Kari were. They sort of grouped together from there.”

“That’s insane. Wait, so Robert and Kari both had kids?”

“Had.”

She let it sink in for a minute.

“What about you and Butter?” She asked. “How did you guys meet up?”

“We all knew a lockdown was bullshit. None of us wanted to be sitting ducks when the Infected overran the base. Large areas were under construction, so the perimeter wasn’t as secure as it should have been. Plus, lots of gates, lots of military spouses going in and out all day. It wasn’t as easy to secure as people liked to think.”