Alone No More (15 page)

“Charles...” Patty whispered.

“I know.” The dad chewed his lower lip as he watched his two beloved children play Yahtzee on the living room floor. Both kids were covered in blankets and only exposed one hand and their faces. Even from the kitchen he could see the faint white vapor from their breath. Their faces were starting to look gaunt, stretched. Too little food and too much stress in their short lives. He had a knot form in his stomach when he thought about what they’d look like next week, after they’d completely run out of food.

“Maybe we can go to the people at the high school. Maybe they’ll take us in. We can work, gather things. You still have the shotgun and a few shells, maybe they’ll trade for that or something?” Patty was talking absently, thinking out loud.

“No.” Charles looked back her. “The people in the high school have no need for us. You’re an accountant, and I’m a civil engineer. Abby has no usable skills and Randy will irritate them almost immediately. We’d be excess baggage to them. We would be extra mouths to feed. I’d hate to think what they might do to you girls too.” Charles face tightened in a grimace when he said that. He’d been having bad dreams for weeks now, waiting for the people in the high school to come knocking, looking to take his daughter and wife away. It was inevitable. He knew they ruled this town now, with their guns and their trucks. They knew where his family lived too; there was no hiding the smoke coming out of the chimney.

Patty stopped drying the dish and hugged her husband tightly.

*****

Charles rolled over onto his back. He couldn’t get any sleep on the damn floor, same as every other night. He’d lay there until he was exhausted, then pass out and get maybe 4 or 5 hours of sleep at best. His 50 year old back had no interest in hardwood floors, but his 50 year old body didn’t want to freeze to death either. Tonight there might not be any sleep.

It’d been two whole days since he and Patty had their private moment. It’d been over a day since they’d eaten. Earlier that day he and Abby had gone slinking house to house further out from home looking for food. It was a dangerous waste of time. Charles only had eight shotgun shells left and that was hardly enough if things got bad. There were far too many of the dead walking around and if they were cornered, he and his daughter would be fresh meat. If they were dead at least they wouldn’t worry about being cold any more. He wondered if all the dead people walking around were hungry, maybe that’s why they kept trying to eat everyone. Another couple days of not having food and the idea of eating someone would start to seem less outlandish.

He and Abby counted 30 of the dead people walking around that day. Moving slowly, bush to bush, house to house they’d avoided being seen. Charles was just as worried about the living lately as the dead. Even if he did fall asleep that night he’d still dread it. The nightmares kept getting worse and worse. Visions of rape, torture and worse would fill what little sleep he would get. At least exhaustion was tolerable. His dreams of late were not.

He looked at his lovely young daughter with only her face poking out of the blankets. She’d always be seven years old in his eyes. Even asleep she was scowling at the cold, and at the gnawing emptiness in her flat belly. He still envied her, despite the bleak future she seemed to have in front of her. Still young, still fit, still funny. She was still in the awkward, lanky portion of her life too, and in a few years he knew she’d blossom, and be just as beautiful as the wife sleeping next to him. He’d die for them if he had to. He was fully expecting to, possibly before Christmas.

Christmas. What a joke he thought. The season of giving has arrived, and there’s nothing left to give his family. They had even run out of wood to burn this week. Tomorrow night they’d be breaking apart furniture to stay warm, and after that, they’d have to sit in the car with it running to stay warm. Of course the noise of the engine would bring them in. The dead people.

Charles wiped away the tear at the corner of his eye and steeled himself. He wouldn’t sob in the dark. Despair would not tear him or his family apart. He distracted himself and thought about their options instead. The high school was not an option. He knew some of the people who were pretending to be in charge down there, and he knew how it would play out. The town selectman, a few asshole cops, city council members, and car dealership tycoons. All they were now was petty tyrants abusing their power. His family wouldn’t last down there and he knew it. He could take his family to the homes of his extended relatives, but that was a stretch. The only family that was close was Patty’s sister, and she had an apartment a few towns over that just didn’t make sense to move to. She was in a more heavily populated area, and just getting there might kill them all.

It made a lot of sense to go to Abby’s school. His daughter said the man that rescued her had killed a lot of the dead people that day, and that meant it might be a lot safer. Charles was trying to remember what the campus looked like, thinking of how safe it’d be. He knew it was rural, miles off any real road. He knew there was a large cafeteria, likely left alone when the shit hit the fan. He remembered you had to cross a bridge to get there, and that seemed excellent. And from what Abby said, this man had several guns, and was really quite good at using them. Charles wasn’t sure if that was good news or not. 

He looked over at the face of his son Randy. Little Randall was a hellion, every bit the precocious 12 year old he could be. Randy struggled to make friends, and was very awkward socially. He'd talk at length about silly childish things for hours, and then get angry if you didn't engage him. Frequently they spent all day trying to keep him occupied so he didn’t go off wandering, trying to elude the dead people for fun. Even in his sleep the haircut he prized dropped down low, covering one eye. Trendy kid that one. Charles got a quiet laugh out of that. His wife Patty stirred against him, and he pressed himself against her warmth. She felt like the only warm thing in the world.

The roads to Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy might be terrible Charles thought. It was hilly, and mostly in a valley that turned into a collection bowl for bad weather. It could be awful driving to get there. But if Abby was right, safety was there, and possibly some food. At this point, staying here wasn’t an option Charles could consider for his family. Their home would not become their tomb. Tomorrow he would break the news that they were leaving. 

In a world empty of gifts to give, he would give his wife and children the gift of hope. He would try and give them one more chance for survival.

*****

“We leave tomorrow. On Christmas kids.” Charles finished his speech with a grin on his face a foot wide. All night he’d gone over the details of his plan, and all these hours later, he was sure of it. For the first time in three weeks his daughter danced for joy. She leapt off the couch and strut her stuff around the living room silently. They didn’t dare make much noise today. For some reason a few of the dead people had wandered down to the end of their cul de sac and were just outside. Abby tore her little brother off the couch and got him dancing with her. It was the first time he’d seen them get along since everything changed.

He looked over at his wife Patty and saw the quiet satisfaction in her face. She agreed with him earlier when he told her his idea for the trip to the school. Together they tweaked the details and the plan was set. Tonight they would pack everything they wanted to take with them. Only the things they could carry would go. Everything else stayed behind. At dawn they would load the station wagon Abby got from the school the day the world went to shit. It was all wheel drive and would give them the best chance of making the trip. It was also inside the garage, which meant it could be loaded safer.

Charles would drive. They’d leave as soon as they could in the morning and head straight to the school, taking the route all the way around town to avoid driving anywhere near the high school. The last thing Charles wanted was to drag those bastards behind him. Fucking lampreys were all they were in his mind now.

They would drive the same route back to her school that Abby had taken to get to the house that day. She had already given them detailed information on where she had seen clusters of the dead people, and where she had seen some car accidents. There had been a lot of car accidents since the world ended Charles thought. People driving scared are dangerous animals.

He savored the celebration of his children for a minute, and then headed upstairs to begin packing his things. Patty waited a minute longer, then followed suit. 

*****

In the garage the next day the engine of the station wagon turned over immediately. Charles was intensely thankful for the engineering prowess of the man who designed the car. He, his son Randall, his wife Patricia, and his daughter Abigail all sat in the car, excited and scared that they were finally leaving the home they’d taken to calling a prison. Charles waited a minute for the engine to warm up, and then he hit the switch for the garage door opener.

Nothing happened. 

Patricia reached up and hit the switch again as Charles looked out the back window, perplexed. He’d put the garage door opener in this car just last night. He’d even put new batteries in it just in case.

“Dad,” Randall said in an irritated tone as he brushed the hair out of his eye. “There’s no electricity, duh.” He exchanged ludicrous looks with his sister. Parents. So stupid.

Charles kept the sternest face he could muster and gave his son the evil eye. Inside he was laughing at himself. His wife covered her mouth to stifle the smile on her face.

“Well then kids. Seatbelts on?” They nodded in response.

“Merry Christmas!” Charles put the car in reverse and punched it. The beige garage door blew off the tracks with a loud, cold shriek. It flew up and over the car as the wagon hurtled out into the middle of the cul de sac. A handful of the dead people were milling about around the car as he spun the wheels to straighten it out into the road. Two of them got close enough to grab at the window as they sped off.

“WOOOOOO!!!!!” Randall yelled as he gave one of the dead people the middle finger. His older sister Abby stabbed two powerful middle fingers up as a sign of solidarity with her brother. They high fived each other as Charles weaved around the other dead people in the road. He didn’t want to risk running over one and blowing a tire now. There wouldn’t be a second chance right here.

At the end of the cul de sac was the wrecked truck from a few days ago. The assholes who thought they were the new militia had crashed one of their lifted up Chevy trucks during a chase for the dead folks. Something had gone wrong, as was so often the case and one of the trucks had flipped over against a street lamp. Charles gave the truck a wide berth. Several of the dead that had flocked to the scene of the accident were already headed their way as they sped past.

The roads were a mess. Snow and ice were covering the streets in moderate amounts, but it was just enough to make driving the car feel loose to Charles. Every time he turned the wheel to go around a corner he felt the ass of the car sway a little further out then it should have. To avoid a spinout he kept the wagon at a steady and manageable 20 miles an hour.

Getting out of town turned out to be a piece of cake for them. They only encountered maybe 30 or 40 of the dead people walking around, dragging furrows in the snow as they went. Most of them were so bogged down by the few inches of snow they posed no threat to the family in the car. Charles actually thought to himself several times that if he had a good bat or an axe, he could clear most of the town out all by himself. That wasn’t the priority though, and he got the car and his family out of town and onto Route 18, the most direct route to Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy.

*****

It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as he’d expected. The roads were bad, but as long as he stayed slow, it was fine. It helped tremendously that there was no traffic. In fact, they never saw another moving car, or a human being the whole car ride. For that, Charles felt like he was given an invaluable gift that Christmas day.

The car ride was initially nerve wracking for the whole family. They hadn’t been this far outside of the house in months. In fact, most of the trip they spent squinting from the harsh glare of the sunlight. They’d avoided going out during the day almost entirely, and they’d put those trash bags on their windows to block the dead people from seeing them, and to try and keep in the heat. Their seclusion made their eyes weak to the bright daylight. After they’d left the house once they realized the dead people were spaced out enough that they could drive around them, and that the assholes from the high school weren’t following them, everyone’s demeanor dramatically improved. It almost turned into a driving version of ‘catch me if you can.’

What should have been an hour’s drive turned into a multi hour marathon. The slow speed Charles had to drive at combined with the constant need to go around crashed cars, downed power lines, broken tree branches, entire fallen trees, and the occasional walking zombie made things move at a snail’s pace. About three and a half hours into the drive Patty noticed that Charles had gone very quiet. She noticed he was gripping the steering wheel tighter than he had been, making his knuckles go white, and he kept looking down at the dashboard every few seconds. Patty waited until the two kids in the back were half asleep before she said anything to him.

“Chuck hun, something wrong?” She put her hand on his thigh, the typical comforting measure she took when he was driving stressed. Mostly it happened in heavy city traffic.

Chuck smiled and laughed at her, “Well I’m fine. It’s just this little light here has been on for about ten miles now. It’s right next to the big fat E on the gas gauge.” 

Patty’s stomach dropped. They were easily 5 miles from the school still. And right on cue, the car coughed a few times, and the engine went belly up. Charles wrestled with the wheel and they drifted slowly to the edge of the road where the car died. They were out of gas.