Surviving The Aftermath (Book 1): The Dead Linger (7 page)

“What’s wrong? Do you see zombies?” Casey asked appearing from nowhere, but very concerned, seeing Jill’s face grow pale. He was ready to the raise alarm at the look on her face. But she had no words, only raised her arm and pointed out.

“What the hell is that building?” She asked her hand shaking. Casey gazed over to where she was pointing.

“It’s a high school.” Casey said, almost as if questioning her sanity. It was very obviously a high school, the track with a football field, the buildings and tennis courts. It was probably a pretty kick ass high school at one point.

“Are you guys nuts? All schools were used as Evac centers when all this shit went down.” Jill now getting very agitated, what was with all these people? Was there no common sense left in the world? And how dare he question her sanity. “Are there people still in there? Because you know they aren’t people anymore. What happens when they break out? Is this place equipped? Where do we go? What do we do?” Jill now just rapid firing questions as random, panic scenarios racing through her mind.

“Relax, honey, we already checked the place out, it’s empty. Either it was never set up as one or the people were smart and left when this all began. Trust me, I might be an asshole, but I’m not a stupid asshole.” Casey said trying to stay calm with this WOMAN, a newbie at that, questioning his mad skills.

Jill now much calmer and feeling a bit silly.

“It’s just, I’ve seen lots of the schools and the after math. I’ve been chased by the new school inhabitants a few times before, I guess it still unnerves me, you know seeing a school.” Casey sitting down, trying to be understanding, but not really having had to survive outside these walls much in the past year made it hard for him to fathom what she went through, the roaming style of surviving.

“My name’s Casey by the way, your Jill right?” She nodded her answer. “What are you doing up here?’ He changed the subject. Casey wasn’t really into talking about pasts and exchanging stories, sometimes he listened, but he never shared. Just better that way, it was bad enough he had to live with his guilt, why burden others.

“I just couldn’t sleep anymore, thought I would get some air and check the place out. I can’t believe how quiet this place is around here. It seems unnatural not seeing a zombie shuffling around.” Jill said with a face of disgust.

“This won’t last, it never does. They will all be back. It’s like they hit us in waves. A couple days on, couple days off. You’ll get used to it.” Casey said with a shrug.

“So that means your inviting me to stay I take it?”

“Every able body helps, you and that kid will make 114 able bodies.” Casey said and offered her a chair. They sat in companionable silence until Jill spoke, having all sorts of questions about the integrity of the place, wanting to know what was reinforced where and giving her own  ideas in the mix.

“Do you guys have all these stores connected?” She indicated the long strip mall like buildings.

“Only on the roofs, we built platforms going to each, so you don’t have to run down and back up every time you change a position.”

“What else do you guys do here?”

“Now that the weather is nicer, we go on supply runs, try to stock up on meds, food, water, fuel, pretty much anything. We do some searching in the winter too, it’s actually safer. Zeds tend to freeze when it’s cold enough, we were having a problem of our own. People getting lost in storms and vehicles getting stuck” Casey explained.

“You should invest in snow mobiles. Do you ever find people when you go out?” She asked quietly.

“Snow mobiles are actually on our “to do” list as well. We use to find pockets of people, but not for a long time now. Sometimes we’ll see stores that have picked over when we make a return trip, so we know there are others alive out there, but they never find us.

“Do you search?”

“Use to. A lot. Everyone here has someone they are looking for, and it was very chaotic trying to get organized when all anyone wanted to do was go and look for their family. So we’d send out search parties, every day we did this, started sending out maybe 30 people, everyone wanted to help. But then as the months went by and our numbers dwindled with causalities people stopped wanting to go as much.” Silence descended now.

“I think some people just gave up hope.”

“I haven’t.” Jill stated. “I know my family is still out there, they are strong and smart, we’ve been planning our survival years before this happened.” Jill chuckled to herself thinking back about all the mock scenarios they talked about over and over again. “Unfortunately I happened to be out of town when this all went down.” Jill played with the little gravel pebbles on the roof. Casey made a loud scoffing sound at this statement.

“What?” She looked up incredulously.

“Your so naïve, how did you manage to survive this long? Your family is dead, just like mine, just like everyone else’s here.” He replied with sheer disgust.

“Aren’t you just a happy ray of sunshine? Excuse me for having hope and not wanting to think of something happy once in a while.”

“I just don’t want you diluting yourself and then you end up dead because you were careless.”

“Whatever.” She said turning away from him.

“So have you ever thought of expanding to those apartments back there?” Jill asked quizzically.

“Gee no. Is that what that dwelling is over there?”

“Don’t have to be a dick. A simple no, would do.” Jill said. Both Casey and Jill continued to look everywhere but at each other in the now pregnant silence that has befallen them.

“I’m not sure we have the man power, and not knowing what’s in there seems risky.” Casey said, being the first one to end the long silence. 

“Well I don’t think you should rule it out. You have plenty of people. I think you just have to make sure they can handle themselves.” Jill was saying as she rose from her chair and went to look closer at the surroundings of the apartment building. “If you could fence that in somehow you’d be set.”

“Yeah that’s the key.” Casey said now standing next to her.

Finally feeling tired again she turned to Casey.

“Well I’m going back to bed. You have a good night Casey.” Jill said and limped off to the stairs to take her back down to the ground floor. Casey didn’t reply, just watched her go. I guess she’s not that naïve, maybe one day he would change his opinion of Jill.

Jeff stood by one of the new made watch towers that had been added to the already existing wall. He was talking to woman whose name he couldn’t remember but hoped to have a good night with anyway. All he wanted was some information and to get laid, but she wouldn’t stop talking about her little pet dog she had to leave behind when she came here. She was practically crying.

“There there. I’m it sure got out, probably running around the countryside chasing squirrels.” He said.

“You really think so?” She uttered between sobs.

“Oh yes honey I know it. I just have this gut instinct.” He slowly put his arm around her and she put her head on his shoulder, when he noticed Jill and Casey up on the roof talking what appeared to be a serious conversation and then her hobbling back down the stairs. He’d eventually get to her, but tonight he already had his pick.

“So how many guns did you say this place had again?”

Waking the next morning feeling shockingly refreshed, Jill meandered outside and found Jack helping Beth’s daughter Meghan. They were loading bags of soil and fertilizer for the green house.

“Hi guys, how’s it going?” Jill asked brightly.

“Just fine. We are trying to get started on planting for some new veggies, with summer coming tomatoes should be a hot commodity around here.” Meghan said while continuing to load the pickup truck.

“Well good. Jack can you help me for just a sec.” Jill requested and made her away out of earshot from Meghan.

“What’s up?” He asked looking back.

“So are you enjoying babysitting?”

“Oh shut up. Why didn’t you just tell me she was a cutie my age? You let me think she was 10.” Jack said resting his hands causally on his hips.

“Now where’s the fun in that? Go finish your work, might I suggest asking her to have lunch with you later.” Jill added.

“Would you just go please?” Jack clearly a bit embarrassed.

“Ok I’m going.” Jill put her hands up in surrender and backed away and Jack returned to his task.

“So you guys aren’t related at all?” Meghan asked Jack when he came back.

“No. Why would you think that?”

“Just the way you guys act together.” She stated plainly.

“I did have a sister once. And a brother, but they didn’t make it. And my dad abandoned me, only a few weeks ago actually. Jill happened to come across me and we’ve been together since.” Jack continued to heft bags in the back of the truck. Meghan started closed the back deciding they were done. They went around and got into the cab of the truck.

“Ready for the next leg of the trip? Planting.”

“Oh boy my fav.” Jack replied sarcastically.

Over the next few days, Jack and Jill both spent time becoming acclimated to the work that was here and the place as whole in general. Both were fast learners and Jack was proving to have decent ideas about building weapons and added traps. Finally with someone backing Casey on some of his ideas and able to give visual drawings to them, people were excited. Jill met two other women during the discussions for improving the place, Lucy and Jane, they were very much into this stuff as well, they were hard, like had seen and done some things that should never be spoken out loud, hard. Lucy, she had lost her baby girl when this all when down, she was out for blood and vowed to kill every walker she saw. And Jane, was actually a Jane Doe, she woke up in the front seat passenger side of a station wagon in the middle of an intersection after obviously having been plowed into by another car. Whoever was the driver of the car she was in, was long gone, she still hadn’t regained any memory of anything before that first day when she woke up. She was always saying to people that she was fortunate not to know the loss that everyone else had.  They all worked together pretty closely discussing new ways to improve. A thought early on was to move the barbwire perimeter and fencing farther out. There were other stores on the other side of the parking lot closer to the road, the thought was to expand, get more room. But with supplies being what they were, the expansion plan would probably have to wait. Jill at the moment was helping take inventory. There was talk about a supply run getting ready to happen, and lists had to be made.

“Hey Cindi.”

“Hi Jill. So we’ll be working together today on this crap?” Cindi an extremely bubbly 19 yr replied. She had beautifully straight blonde hair that required absolutely no product, because there wasn’t much anyway.

“Yup, they gave us the boring stuff today.” Jill preferred being on watch, making or cleaning weapons or going over strategy. Counting was not her favorite past time.

“I’ll count you write?”

“Sure let’s go.” Jill noticed this seemed to be Cindi’s only jobs, that and working in the kitchen, maybe she just didn’t have the stomach for anything else. Cindi was Tom and Vikki’s eldest daughter of 19, she was once a cheerleader, shocking, a gymnast and a track star. Apparently according to Vikki she was very popular in school and had been accepted to a plethora of colleges all across the U.S.

“Where’s your tag-a-long buddy?” Cindi was referring to Jack. Everyone had noticed the two of them were together quite a bit.

“He’s over learning how to work the doors.”

“So what’s his story? He doesn’t talk much.” Jill was taken aback by this statement. Jack not talk? The kid was a motor mouth, some days you wanted to duct tape his mouth shut. But he meant well and would bend over backwards to help anyone.

“What do you mean he doesn’t talk? What sort of questions are you asking him?” Jill was now curious.

“Oh just the usual, how does he like it here, what sort of jobs he’s doing. He just gives one word answers.” While Jill knew Jack had a crush on Meghan, that didn’t mean he had to treat the other girls rudely, maybe she would just mention it to him.

“I think he likes here just fine, he’s never expressed interest in leaving, or even searching for his dad for that matter.” Jill said.

“His dad?”

“Yeah his dad left in find help or answers, who knows, but they had a working car and took off a couple weeks before I found him.” She wasn’t sure if she should be telling all this to Cindi, unsure if Jack wanted his business talked about so she clamped up. After a few more minutes of companionable silence Cindi spoke up again.

“Have you met that Tyler guy yet?”

“Yeah and his friend Jeff. Why?” Jill was super interested to hear this answer.

“I don’t know, just wondered what you thought of him.” Cindi tried to cover up her question with a nonchalant shrug, but she would need much more practice, because she was blushing too. Jill immediately worried where this conversation was heading.

“I think he’s dangerous and probably not looking for friends. You might want to think about steering clear of him, at least for now.” Hoping she didn’t push Cindi in the wrong direction Jill tried to keep short but yet on point.