Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Sanctuary (39 page)

*
* *

“What do
you think?” 

We were
lying in our tent, whispering. With all the survivors crowded inside the fence,
the area was more cramped than anyone liked.

“I think
I want us to have a real bedroom with nice thick walls.”

I
smiled. “And Lizzy in the next room. Just imagine.”

She
giggled. I could barely see a thing, just the faintest shadows and her outline.

“She’s
always entertaining, but really, we’re packed in tight here. Some privacy would
be nice, and Eric said it’ll take a couple months.”

“He said
faster probably,” I corrected, “if we can get into
Chadron
and bring back the materials in short
order. That’s the hard part. If we don’t go there, we’ll have to search all
over the state and get stuff piecemeal.”

She
squeezed my hand. “Maybe the zombies will have wandered away. It’s time for us
to have a good luck moment.”

“Finding
Julie dead may have covered that.”

“Be
nicer than that Jacob. She was evil and crazy, but she’s gone now.”

I ran a
finger across her bare ribs, lightly tickling her. I didn’t want to argue with
Briana.

“Don’t
make me laugh.” She pushed my hand away and snuggled up close.

“Eric
also said he saw some loaded trucks, recent shipments that were never unloaded,
and Alec thinks he can get them started. That way we can just bring them right
on in. We’ll probably have to load other stuff still, but they would be enough
to get the work going, cut down on any delays in the meantime at least.”

“Think
we can drive those over the service road and then the meadow?” she asked.

“Probably.
It hasn’t rained in several days, and the ground is dry and hard.”

“Ah,
let’s discuss the word hard.”

“Is this
the fun definition or the ‘Jacob, you will be doing something difficult’ sort
of thing?”

“I was
thinking fun, but now that you mention it, I have something for us to do tomorrow
instead of prep work for the construction. And it will be hard, for you. I’ll
be supervising.”

We
planned on beginning the project the following day and hitting Chadron the one
after.

“And
what is it you want to do?”

She
smiled, I think. I couldn’t really tell in the dark.

“You
find out in the morning. For now, you get to give me a backrub.”

Briana
flipped over onto her stomach. We’d been lying on top of our blankets. We were
going to have to get real sleeping bags soon, before the weather changed, but
blankets atop a foam pad worked well enough at present. It was definitely
easier to get up in the middle of the night to use the facilities.

“Now?”

“Of
course now. Come on. Get to it.”

I ran my
hand down her bare back and grasped the elastic waistband of her silk panties.

“I said
a back rub, not a full body massage. It’s my back that’s sore. My feet too. You
can massage them next.”

“So
unfair,” I muttered.

“What’s
that?”

“Nothing,
sweetie.” I gave her a kiss on the cheek, pondering the value of asking for a
massage in return and discarding the notion. It would be pointless.

*
* *

The next
day of the wondrously terrible zombie apocalypse – I never get tired of
reminding myself that it really is the end of the world as we know it – that
came to us straight from the lower bowels of a Hell suffering indigestion
turned out to be miserable. Briana was good to her word, keeping close watch
while I, and a few others, suffered through the horror that was rounding up
livestock. I know that I’ve previously said this was something we intended to
do. Honestly though, I never thought it would be that difficult.

While
most of the people stayed behind and began digging ditches for the wall
foundation, or whatever other preparations Eric needed, Briana and I, along
with Lizzy and Mary, and Alec and Steph, a rather cute redhead who’d been among
Eric’s group, drove out. Lois hadn’t been feeling well so she stayed behind.
Steph’s inclusion was based on her familiarity with farms and farm equipment.
Additionally, Dean promised to have some fencing in place by the time we
returned, to serve as a corral.

“Woo
hoo!” said Mary. “We might have fresh chicken soup soon, not the canned stuff.”

“You’ve
actually made chicken soup from scratch?” asked Steph. She’d quickly taken to
the radios.

“My mom
did,” replied Mary. Her tone softened. “It was way, way better.”

“No soup
for you young lady,” said Briana sternly. “The chickens are for eggs and eggs
only, until we get more of them. We need those for baking, and they’re full of
protein and nutrients and cholesterol.”

“Eggs
are good,” agreed the teenager. “We’ll need more frying pans, and butter.”

“We’ll
see how much you like butter once you have to churn it,” commented Steph. “My
grandmother lived on a farm until the day she died. I made butter the old
fashioned way lots of times. It was even fun, for the first five minutes or
so.”

“Then
why keep doing it?” asked Mary.

“Arguing
with an eighty year old woman who could, and would, whack you on the head with
a yardstick wasn’t worth it, not when she still had a strong arm.”

“At
least you know how,” commented Briana, readjusting the rabbit pillow about her
neck. She’d been using the thing on and off since taking it from my house back
in
Denton
. “Do we need special equipment or
anything?”

“We need
refrigeration for it to keep, but making it is easy. We could even do it daily
like they used to. Probably just have the kitchen do that along with baking
bread each morning. It’ll be standard.” She sighed. “I miss the smell of fresh
bread baking.”

“And
donuts,” added Mary.

“Not so
much,” laughed Steph. “I need to mind my figure. I’m determined to think that
almost starving in Chadron was not all bad.”

“You’re
almost as thin as me!”

“Mary,”
said Briana, “no one is as thin as you, and I hate you for being able to eat so
much and not put on weight.”

“Nyah,
nyah,” she giggled. “I’m more special than you.”

I tuned
out their banter and turned down one of the agricultural roads crisscrossing
the region. The farm up ahead would be the second we checked. The first had
been empty of animals, but the back of Alec’s pickup was full of canned food
and several cases of homemade preserves.

“I see a
cow!” declared Briana happily, both to me and the others on the radio.

There
was indeed a cow in the pasture, several of them actually. We’d spotted plenty
over the past month. Of course, the day we go out looking, they all seemed to
vanish. Damn things were probably conspiring in a futile effort to avoid being
placed back in bovine slavery.

“Okay
everyone,” I said, after parking fifty yards out, “me and Lizzy and Briana will
check the house.” It was a two story affair. “The rest of you stay by the
trucks and keep an eye out until we clear the structure. Then we’ll do the
barn.”

“I want
to come,” protested Mary. “I never get to do anything.”

“You
stay put,” snarled Lizzy. “Don’t move, or I’ll hold you down while your sister
beats you.”

“Be
nicer to Mary,” said Briana.

“I am
nice.”

“Your
tone isn’t nice, and you are way more aggravated than normal. You eat something
bad like Lois did?”

“Not
that,” explained Mary. “Lizzy’s pissy cause it’s that special time of the month
for her.”

“I don’t
want to hear it,” said Alec. “New topic please.”

“I
concur,” I added.

“You men
are such babies,” sighed Briana.

I stared
into her lovely green eyes. “Yes, we are.”

Her lips
parted in a smile.

“Come
along Lizzy,” I said, getting back to business and waving her forward, “if you
can walk upright with the cramping.”

“I have
a gun.”

“You
love me way too much to shoot. Besides, maybe we’ll find something good.”

We found
something quite dreadful instead. I know that seems to be a recurring theme,
but it is what it is.

The
downstairs was empty, back door open. As with many of the houses we came
across, there were signs that animals had been inside, but we didn’t see any.
The basement was also bare. We did find a gun case in the den and plenty of
books, quite a few of which were on history and the military. We’d grab some of
those for Cherie’s classes and our library before we left.

A lot of
people wanted something to read in their free time, and there weren’t many
books in the settlement. I wasn’t about to share the favorites, mostly signed
first editions, I’d taken from
Texas
, at least not until things were better
organized. In fact, they were all still sitting in a box in the back of the
Jeep buried under all our other supplies and gear. So we offered to gather up
books as we found them, temporarily storing them in an empty car. Later, we
would put some bookcases in the common hall or something.

The upstairs
is where we found the newest terror. There was dried blood in the hallway and
master bedroom. The closet held both male and female clothing, so we assumed
one changed and then bit the other before the pair wandered away. The zombies
were definitely long gone, aside from the little one in the nursery, the tiny,
tiny one sitting in a crib.

“This is
worse than the pregnant gal,” said Lizzy, turning away.

“What
pregnant gal?” stammered Briana. A hand was over her mouth, and she was
shaking.

“Remember
a few days back when I got sick on the road, puked all over, back when you
found that girl’s diary. Lizzy and I went off to kill the zombie that was
approaching. It turned out to be a pregnant woman. After she was dead dead,
well, the baby inside, another zombie, was still moving.”

“That’s
disgusting.”

“Sums it
up,” agreed Lizzy. “You know, we seem to use that word a lot.” She shook her
head. “You deal with this one Jacob. I’m taking Briana outside before we both
start puking.”

I gave a
slight nod and waited a few minutes before I took care of the matter. The baby
couldn’t have been more than three or four months old at the time of
reanimation. It lacked the strength and coordination to stand up, much less
climb out of the crib. The thing – I didn’t know if it was a boy or girl,
didn’t want to know – stared at me hungrily, the toothless mouth opening and
closing.

Afterwards,
I closed the door and went downstairs. We would have to come back inside –
there was too much good stuff that we’d need to take – but no one should have
to see this. As it was, I knew I’d be having nightmares of how a zombie, once a
loving parent, picked up a newborn, bitten off a precious miniature hand, and
left the screaming innocent to bleed out.

*
* *

“Jacob!
Briana and Lizzy are both sick, and they won’t tell me why.”

Briana
was bent over the flower bed beside the front porch. I put an arm around her
shoulders and handed her a handkerchief.

“Thanks,”
she muttered.

“It was
a bad one Mary. How are you doing Lizzy?”

“Didn’t
puke. Almost never do. Feel like crap though.”

“What
happened?” asked Steph.

Mary
edged in closer, as did Alec.

“We
found a zombie upstairs,” I explained, “a little one, very little.”

“Oh.”

“Come on
Lizzy. We need to check the barn still and then load everything up. I don’t
want to stay here long.”

“I’m not
coming back after today.”

“Not if
we can avoid it,” I countered. “Briana, stay with Mary. Steph, you can come
along with us.”

The
woman looked doubtful.

“Don’t
worry. You get to stay in the back and mostly just watch where we tell you to
watch. It’s pretty straightforward. We like having a third to help keep an eye
out.”

“All
right Jacob, I suppose I can handle that.”

The barn
was devoid of zombies, but with all the noise we’d made any should have come
out long before. We did find a big Ford pickup along with a horse trailer
however. I set Steph and Alec to getting the truck running. Briana and Mary
kept a constant lookout while Lizzy and I went back into the house and started
carting things out. We finished loading the bed of Alec’s pickup, using a tarp
to tie everything down. We also filled most of the backseat of the new one.

“It
runs,” announced Alec. He was using an old rag to wipe some grease from his
hands.