Savannah's Only Zombie (Book 2): A New Darkness (24 page)

I
glanced over at Hailey, who is laying out individual outfits across her bed. I
yelled for her to hurry up. She huffed something and picked up her pace only
slightly. My alarm clock said it was a quarter after four. I finished packing
in fifteen minutes. My football grabbed my attention, but I remembered my Dad
saying, “No toys,” and that I have another football at the cabin.

I
walked back into Hay’s room, and she was still pulling out her outfits. She
looked at me and gave me another “Aunt Laura” look that asked, “Well, are you
going to help me or not?” It made me smile.

“Does
it matter how your clothes go in the suitcases?” I asked, as she raced between
the closet and her bed.

“No,
bubba. Just, can you, can you keep them together?” she insisted.

“Sure,
Hay.”

It
took us another fifteen minutes to finish packing my sister’s things. She
wasn’t too thrilled about the whole “no toys”-thing, despite the fact that she
could bring a few. She stuffed a couple of coloring books into her suitcase and
some crayons into its front pocket. She stared for a minute at the line-up of
stuffed animals spread across her bed. After a Moment or two of serious
contemplation, she finally decided on a pink bear. I felt a little bad for her.
Her stuffed animal collection was always growing, and now, it had to be reduced
to one single bear.

“C’mon
Hay,” I said, ushering her to her bedroom door.

She
started to cry.

“What’s
wrong?”

She
sniffled and tried to stop the sobs long enough to respond.

“I,
I just, I just feel like I won’t ever see my room again.”

Her
words floored me a little. The thought that we’d never come home again never
even crossed my mind. Dad only said we’d be gone for a few weeks, but we were
packing like we were never coming back. I only thought Hay was crying because
she had to leave her toys behind. She is just like Mom and Aunt Laura. It
doesn’t take too much to get tears out of our girls. They were all highly
emotional.

One
look at her face is what changed my mind. Her cheeks were red and her nose
runny. This was not fake crying, which I have seen plenty of. No, these were
her genuine tears.

“Hey,”
I said, as I wrapped my arm around her. “It’s all gonna be okay. We’re just
going for a little while. We’ll be back.”

“But
why, Bubba?”

I
paused.

“I
don’t know why, but Dad wants us to. We need to just trust him, okay?”

She
nodded and wiped her snot on her sleeve.

“That
is so nasty,” I said.

She
giggled and proceeded to try to wipe it off on me. I quickly grabbed her bags
and ran. She chased me down the stairs. For a Moment, everything seemed normal,
like we were just messing around and having fun. Dad was standing near the
bottom of the steps. For the first time this afternoon, he smiled.

“Be
careful you two. You don’t-”

There
were a few knocks at the door. After a second’s pause, it opened. It was G-Dad,
G-Mom and Aunt Laura.

“Oh
my goodness! Traffic was terrible!” G-Mom said.

“Well,
I’m glad y’all got here safe,” Mom responded.

They
talked for a few Moments about the traffic. It was normally busy this time of
day, all the people leaving work in the city and heading home. They made
mention of a few news reports, but then started doing that thing where they
pretend not to talk about certain stuff in front of me. It gets kind of
annoying, because I know they’re hiding things from me.

“Have
you heard from Josh yet?” My Dad asked after a Moment of silence.

Aunt
Laura shook her head no.

“Not
yet,” she said.

My
Dad began to pull on his goatee, something he does while he thinks.

“Well,
we should start to pack up what food we can,” he finally said.

They
began to shift into the kitchen, when Aunt Laura’s phone rang.

“It’s
Josh,” she said excitedly. “Hello? Hold on, I’m going to put you on speaker!”

She
pushed a few buttons on her phone.

“Hello?
Can you hear me?” My uncle asked through the phone’s tiny speaker.

“Yes!
Yes, we can hear you! Where are you?” My aunt responded.

There
was a brief buzz of static.

“Work
sent me to Brunswick late in the day. Had to pick up-FZZT- ladders and to-FZZT-
no reception and trying to-FZZT- safe but-FZZT- will be on the way soo-”

The
phone went dead.

“Hello?
Hello?!” Aunt Laura screamed into the phone.

Nothing.

G-Mom
and G-Dad moved over to her and held her as she began crying. We stood there,
soaking in the silence. My uncle worked for a plumbing company where he
delivered supplies to the job sites. He had to drive out of town a lot of
times, sometimes to the other side of Georgia. From what I could understand
from the phone call, he had to leave late this afternoon, putting him in
Brunswick, Georgia right now. He was about an hour south of us.

“It’ll
be ok Laura,” I heard my Mom say. “If anyone knows what to do now, it’s Josh.
He’ll get back to you.”

“I
know,” she said through sniffles. “I just wish he was here. And I wish we were
all at the cabin.”

“Ok
then,” my Dad said. “Well, let’s get started packing. The sooner we finish
that, the sooner we can get out of here.”

***

Everyone
was quiet as we packed the vehicles with the food and supplies. We had our SUV,
and G-Dad brought his pick-up truck, so there was plenty of room for cargo. Mom
and G-Mom worked in the kitchen, packing up food and cooking utensils. I
carried the boxes out to G-Dad who was cramming them into every nook and cranny
he could find. Hailey was coloring at the table, out of the way, but I noticed
that Dad and Aunt Laura had slipped away from the rest of the family.

After
taking a box outside, I went back in and said I had to go to the bathroom. Mom
nodded and told me to hurry. I went towards the bathroom, but kept going and
went into my parent’s bedroom. I heard voices in their bathroom.

Aunt
Laura and Dad were talking quietly.

“Josh
probably will assume we went to the cabin, but just in case he comes here to
check and see if we’re here, this note will point him in the right direction,”
I heard my Dad say.

“Yeah,
I know he will probably come here first before heading out west or trying to
head in town,” Aunt Laura answered. “At least to see if we made it out. With
the house empty, he’ll know where to go next. What’s the safe passcode?”

“3836.”

“Got
it. You think-”

She
paused.

“You
think he’ll use it?”

“I
doubt it, but I’d like for him to have the option, just in case he gets in
trouble.”

“Yeah…
trouble…” Aunt Laura trailed off.

“He’ll
be fine, Laura. He’s probably already got his hands on a machete. Heck, I’m
surprised he doesn’t already walk around with one!”

I
heard her laugh half-heartedly, which I felt was my cue to walk into the
bathroom.

“Do
you have any boxes I can take?” I asked nonchalantly.

“No,
CJ. We’re good in here. C’mon let’s go finish in the kitchen,” my Dad said,
pulling me out of the bathroom.

I
had enough time to catch a glimpse of the note they were talking about. Written
in lipstick on the mirror was:

Gone to cabin.

Safe code: 3836

I love you

Ps- don’t leave me to do
this by myself

Don’t die on me

What?
Don’t die on me?
I
thought.
What does she mean?

My
brain began to race. I had no idea why everyone was so worried and talking in
ways where I couldn’t understand them. I had no idea why we were packing
everything up and leaving to go to the cabin. I had no idea why I was carrying
my gun around and I had no idea why Aunt Laura was afraid of Uncle Josh dying.

And
why do they keep saying they wish he were here? That’d he know what to do?

Uncle
Josh was good for a lot of things, don’t get me wrong, but they were mostly
related to video games or movies. If I ever needed to know where to get a
certain Pokemon, Uncle Josh was the guy to go to. But serious things? The only
serious thing I ever heard my uncle talk about was the Bible.

My
Dad looked at me. He knew that I was trying to piece things together, despite
how much I tried to play it off. He could always see right through me.

“What’s
going on Dad?” I asked, very cool and grown up-like.

The
adults all looked at each other. I could tell they were “telepathically”
arguing about whether to tell me or not. My mother’s and grandmother’s eyes
both screamed no, while G-Dad simply shrugged. My Dad looked back at me.

“I’ll
explain once we’re on the way, Son. Promise.”

I
nodded. My father always kept his promises. I’m sure there was a reason why
they weren’t telling me. A reason on why they were acting all weird. I went to
ask when we were planning on leaving, but didn’t get the chance to, because a
gunshot was fired in the distance. Another two shots were fired, then silence.

***

“What
was that?” Aunt Laura asks, as everyone move towards the back door.

“Sounded
like gunshots,” said G-Dad.

Dad
turned to me.

“Keep
your sister in the house, CJ.”

He
then turned back and walked outside with the others. I looked at Hailey, who
was still coloring and now had her headphones back in. She didn’t hear the
gunshots. As if she knew I was thinking about her, she looked up and smiled,
but went back to coloring.

Dad
said I had to keep her in the house. Ok, done. I crept closer to the back door
to try and hear what was going on out there.

The
adults were all standing at the bottom of our driveway, which sloped at almost
a forty-five degree angle down away from our house. I could see one of our
neighbors talking with Dad. He lived next door to us on our little circle. From
where I was standing, I could barely make out what they were saying. I edged a
little closer to the door, trying my best to stay out of sight.

“Did
you hear it?” The neighbor asked. “Where did it come from?”

“I
don’t know,” Dad answered. “But it sounded close.”

The
neighbor mumbled something, but I still couldn’t hear him from my closer
position.

“I
don’t know,” I heard Dad say again.

He
went to say something else, but was interrupted when another man walked out
from behind a house on the far end of our circle. He was holding a
police-special style revolver in his right hand.

“Don’t
worry y’all! I got ‘em! Sorry for all the alarm,” he yelled.

“What
do you mean? Are they here already?” Our neighbor asked.

His
question and this new man’s arrival seemed to agitate the small crowd of
neighbors who were now gathering near the end of our driveway.

“No,
I think it was just one of them. Must have wandered into the neighborhood
somehow. Not sure how he got past the Parkside though,” the man with the gun
answered.

Our
neighborhood was split into two sections. Parkside was up near Highway 21 and
was called such because the neighborhood clubhouse and park was located within
it. Our half of the neighborhood, Lakeside, was filled with tiny little lakes
scattered around the landscape. The neighborhood wasn’t split like this on
purpose though. It was originally supposed to be developed more, but was never
completed. Dad said when the housing market dropped (whatever that means), the
plans to build more dropped too. Which was a bummer, because there were plans
to build a grocery store and a shopping center towards the front of the
subdivision. It would have been cool to ride my bike up there and get a snack
or something. I inched closer to try and hear what exactly wandered into our
neighborhood.

Maybe
some kind of animal,
I
thought.
No, they keep referring to them in the plural.

“What
are we going to do?” Someone asked.

“I’m
getting out of here.”

“Me
too!”

Everyone
started talking about leaving and arming themselves with guns and other
handheld weapons. My thoughts on the probability of it being an animal were now
very low. Unless of course, it was a pack of rabid bears or something. But I
seriously doubted it was a pack of rabid bears.

I
noticed Ms. P standing at the edge of the group. She was dressed in a bathrobe
and slippers. Her hair was dry, so maybe she was fixing to get in the shower
when all the commotion started. She noticed me staring at her and forced a
smile in my direction.