Sunrise (39 page)

Steve passed the bag to Rose. “How much more is left?”

“We’ve basically hit a gold mine,” Erik said, continuing to comb through the shelves. “We’ve got everything from Xanax to Oxycontin to generic Morphine in here.”

“Are we going to get all of it?”

“We might as well. Better we get it before someone else does.”

“Pew,” Rose said, shooting Steve with her index finger.

“No kidding,” Steve sighed.

“It’ll be a little while longer,” Erik said. “I don’t want to worry them, but it’s better we get what we can while we can.”

Rose said, “Hey, Steve? About Mary, Therese and what happened while I was on the boat. I saw hell and back over the last two months. I’ve seen people die, kill themselves, get eaten alive or throw themselves into the ocean to get eaten by sharks. I’ve had to kill people I thought were my friends after they turned and even when they didn’t, all because of this…this
thing
that’s happening. But you know what?”

“What?”

“It’s given me a second chance.”

“At what?”

“Life.”

“How so?”

“If this hadn’t happened,” Rose answered, “and the world hadn’t gone to hell, I would’ve been on the streets, spreading my legs so I wouldn’t have to be homeless for the night.”

“Shit,” Steve said.

“Shit is right,” Rose replied. “But despite everything that’s happened, I don’t regret any of it, because it’s made me the woman I am today. And I’m pretty damn proud of that woman.”

*

“They’re
fine
,” Dakota said, hoping to God that Jamie would quit pacing back and forth.

“They probably just hit the jackpot,” Desmond said. “Seriously, Jamie, nothing has gone wrong.”

“They said
an hour,”
Jamie growled.

“Don’t be mad at them,” Ian said. “Be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at anyone but that motherfucker Erik.”

“I’m the one who had them go out in the first place.”

Jamie shook his head in frustration. He stopped pacing and took the radio from the loop on his belt. “Jamie to Steve, Jamie to Steve. Come in?”

“Coming in crystal clear,” Steve said. “We’re almost back to base.”

“See?” Dakota asked. “Everything’s fine.”

“Peachy,” Jamie said, killing the radio before throwing a coat over his shoulders. “Come help me, Ian.”

*

It took all of them to pull the gate from its place in the ground. Slick with snow and nearly frozen to the ground, it first didn’t move, then groaned as though someone had just disturbed it from sleep. At one point, Jamie thought he would lose his grip on it, as Ian was even struggling to maintain his grip with his bare hands.

With beads of sweat rolling down their foreheads, Jamie and Ian gave one final tug.

The gate loosened and rolled back with hardly any further effort.

“You get it?” Dakota asked.

“We got it,” Erik said, throwing the backpack onto the floor. “You’ve got enough pills to last you through…well, through the winter, at least.”

“Thanks, Erik,” Ian smiled, bringing the lanky medic into a one-armed hug. “I really appreciate it.”

“My pleasure, Ian.  Happy to do it.”

“You guys run into any trouble at there?” Jamie asked.

“Two zombies,” Steve said. “I killed one and Rose got the other.”

Rose yanked her hair out of her ponytail. “Stupid motherfuckers.”

“Neither of you are hurt, I assume?” Jamie asked. All three of them shook their heads. “All right, Erik. I guess you and Desmond need to work together to make a list of what all we have.”

“I have most of the regular medicine down,” Desmond said from his place on the couch. “I counted by pill, too.”

“Which is exactly what you need to do,” Erik said, clapping the boy’s shoulder. “We doing a big family dinner tonight again?”

“Might as well,” Jamie said. “The boys haven’t met Rose, so I think it’s time for an introduction.”

“As do I,” Rose nodded.

Dakota smiled.

Things were going just as planned.

*

He rolled the crystal beads around in his fingers and tried not to think about his own father. Cold, alone, fixed to a life-support machine and filled with the greatest amount of hate that could possibly ever be imagined—he’d once been a great person, a man filled with power and the greatest words of God. How he’d fallen from such a place had and would always be a mystery to Kevin, but he couldn’t dwell on it. The only thoughts on his mind were his children, of the two remaining people in this world who needed him.

These beads were supposed to be Jessiah’s.

Family tradition mandated that the winter crystal rosary was to be passed down to the eldest Catholic son of each generation, but with Jessiah gone and Arnold now up to the bat, was it even proper to pass this down?

Would they care? Would they
really
care?

He’d never known his grandfather to be a judging man—his father, sure, but never his grandfather. And he was sure if his grandfather’s father had been bad and without proper faith, he would have known, but this…this was different. This was giving an unbaptized son a religious family heirloom.

“Do I need a sign?” he said to himself, bringing the crystals to his chest. “Do I really,
truly
need a sign?”

Closing his eyes, he bowed his head and clasped his hands together, shivering as the beads between his hands seemed to sweat with guilt.

God, please, if there is something I must do or something I must say, please answer me. Give me the sign I need to know what I have to do.

A knock came at the door.

“Dad?” Arnold asked, cracking the door open. “Can I come in?”

“Y-yes, of course,” he managed, making the sign of the cross over his heart. “Come in, son.”

The door opened. Arnold closed it behind him and frowned when he saw his father sitting in the chair. “Is everything ok, Dad?”

“I’m glad you came. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about, Arnold.”

The boy seated himself in the sole office chair. “What is it?”

“See this?” Kevin asked, raising the ice-blue beads in front of him. Arnold nodded. “These beads have been passed down through our family for the past eighty years. Each generation, the holder gives the beads to his oldest son after he has been baptized under the Catholic faith. Son…I know this is hard for you to imagine, and I know the pain you’re going through because I feel it just as much. Now that Jessiah’s gone, you should be the one who holds the beads.”

“Dad—”

“Let me finish,” he said, waiting for his son to close his mouth before he continued. “I know I’ve neglected taking both you and your younger brother to church. That was my fault, and still is. You and your brother haven’t been baptized, and while I’m not of the opinion that you won’t go to Heaven just because of what I’ve done, I’m guilty of not teaching you what it is to believe in God.”

“It’s ok, Dad.”

“No it isn’t, Arnold. It isn’t at all.” Kevin reached forward. Beads entwined within his fingers, he took his son’s hands in his own and enclosed Arnold’s fists around the beads. “Pray with me?”

“Dear God,” Arnold said, bowing his head.

“Please hear my plea,” Kevin continued. “I have been wrong in not baptizing either of my children in Your holy light, in Your great water. Please, if You are listening, and I know You are, because You hear everything, please cast my sons in your light. Please, allow us sanctuary, and please, allow us truth. Amen.”

“Amen,” Arnold echoed.

Kevin slipped his fingers out of the beads. They fell neatly into his son’s hands.

“They’re yours, Arnold,” Kevin said, “along with this box and the Bible within it.”

“Are you sure, Dad?”

“I’m certain,” Kevin said. “Now go. Get your brother. We’re expected for dinner tonight at the Marks’.”

When Arnold left the room, Kevin closed his eyes.

Thank you, God
.
Thank you for giving me a sign.

*

They sat around the table with smiles on their faces and contentedly full. The dining room was aglow with lantern light and cast in shadow by the softly-falling snow outside, Dakota raised his eyes to look at the men and the one woman around him, smiling at each and every one of them as he caught their eyes and held them with his gaze. From Jamie at his right, to Rose directly across from him and to Steve at his left, and everyone in between, he felt warmth in his heart for each one.

This is it
.
Our own little family.

“Our own little us,” Dakota said quietly to himself.

“What’d you say, babe?” Jamie asked, setting an arm across his shoulders.

“Don’t mind him,” Steve laughed, setting his arm directly over Jamie’s. “He talks to himself. Huh, kid?”

“Sometimes,” Dakota smiled.

The boys snickered. Even Kevin, whom Dakota hadn’t seen show an ounce of happiness since he arrived, managed a slight smile.

He’s lost so much,
he thought.
We all have.

Friends, family, pets, jobs, communities, television, music, fast food, radio, the internet, the connection of one another in the very small but obviously-big world—through it all, they’d lost the normalcy of everything.

But this is it. This this is what it means to be alive.

“What’re you thinking about?” Jamie whispered, kissing his cheek.

“Us,” Dakota said.

“Us?” Erik asked.

“Yeah. Us. Together. As a family.”

“We sure are a family,” Rose said when she overheard Dakota. She raised her glass of water before her. “Shall we toast to ‘us,’ everyone?”

“To us,” Ian said, raising his glass. “To the people who helped me realize that there can be second chances in life.”

“To us,” Erik said, “to the people who help me get past the fear of the future and help me escape the pains of my past.”

“To us,” Kevin then said, “for helping me and my children realize that life does exist beyond today.”

“To us,” Steve agreed.

“To us,” Jamie said, locking his hand even tighter around Dakota’s shoulder.

“To us,” Dakota concluded.

Together, they clinked glasses in the cozy room as the snow continued to fall.

The following morning, Dakota rose from the deepest sleep he’d had since the zombie apocalypse had begun and walked to the sliding glass doors. Naked, save for the blanket around his shoulders and the undershorts hanging from his waist, he stepped out onto the balcony and looked out at the world.

So cold,
he thought,
yet so… so…

“What?” he whispered. “So…what?”

“Warm?” Jamie asked. Dakota jumped. Jamie laughed and wrapped his arms around Dakota’s waist. “Sorry babe.”

“Don’t be,” Dakota said. “I was just waiting for the sunrise.”

Jamie bowed his head into Dakota’s shoulders. “Is it coming?”

“Right now,” he said.

Jamie looked up.

Above the mountains, near where a jagged, snow-capped peak merged into a sea of black shrubbery, the sun began to rise. Like a newborn infant just entering the world, it took its time, first peeking its head over the mountaintop, then slowly pushing itself forward, toward the new world and heralding a new day.

Just like us,
Dakota thought.

The sun thrust itself over the jagged peak and began to brighten the world with its radiant light, casting away any and all darkness and whatever it had to hide.

“Jamie,” Dakota murmured, closing his eyes as the sun’s warmth began to take him over.

“Yeah?”

“Are we gonna be ok?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…us…the future…everyone here. Are we going to be all right?”

“I know we are,” Jamie said, tightening his grip on Dakota’s body. “You know what I think, Dakota?”

“What?”

“I think we’re going to be just fine.”

With that knowledge firmly implanted in his mind, Dakota opened his eyes.

Together, they watched the sun rise.