Sequel to CARLA’S STORY

“Dad! Dad. I…”

“Andrew, we’re leaving. Get in the van.”

“But what about mom?”

“We’ll see her again. I left a note. She’ll know we’re over at your Grandmother’s house. Now grab your bag and get in the van.”

“But, Dad, I…”

“You did what you had to do son,” he gives me a hug. “Thank you for that. But we have to move. Now.”

No duh! I was deadly! Boba Fett on Coruscant couldn’t have pulled off the shot I did. And with my dinky little .22. What would it have looked like if I shot that guy in the head with the carbine? That would have been awesome! Go ahead Dad, you’ve gone back into “War Machine” mode, but even you know I did good back there.

I look back once at the first man I’ve ever killed.

An old lady has run out into the street and is crouched over the body. Bending over it- a zombie? Is she gonna eat him?

No. She’s lifting him. Holding him to her chest.

She’s crying.

It’s Perry, the lady who lives with Mr Turing. No, not lives. Lived. What will she do now? I don’t like her much. She yelled at me when I cut across her lawn on my bike.

She’s crying.

“Dad, we can’t leave them behind.” I follow Dad back into the house. Suddenly I want to run, to hide. To crawl away somewhere.

Dad doesn’t even look at me as he talks. He checks the radio, turns some dials and listens to it. It doesn’t make any noise. He puts it in his knapsack. Now he’s grabbing a few last packages. “We can’t take them with us.”

“They?”

“His girlfriend. His kids. They might want revenge. We can’t trust them. Now grab your bag and get in the van.”

“But dad-”

“Get in the damned van!”

He yells at me. That bellow he has when he’s really angry. It’s like a wall of noise.

I grab my bag, the one he had me make up two days ago with my clothes and stuff. As we jump into the van to go who knows where, I pull out my journal. In bumpy

handwriting, I scrawl ‘I shot a man today’.

It’s hard to stay steady as dad weaves the van around wreckage and debris. The tires are screaming. I have to blink away tears. Why am I crying? I’m not hurt. I’m not the one lying in the street. I stare at the letters. They stare back at me. Accusing.

I scratch out ‘shot’ and write in ‘killed’.

###

JOURNAL-

It’s been three days since this started. Three days since I came downstairs, wondering why Dad was calling for me. Wondering why his voice sounded funny. When I got down to the living room, I started wondering why he was watching a horror movie. He likes war movies, all the stuff on the military channel or the science channel. He hates horror movies. The special effects on this one are totally awesome but I don’t recognize it. I try to figure out how I never heard of this movie before.

It took me a couple of minutes to realize it wasn’t a movie. Dad went all quiet after he told me I wasn’t going to school. We watched the news together for what seemed like forever. I never watched the news.

I’ve never seen him scared before. I noticed it, even when he started barking out orders, sending me down to the basement to get nails, hammers, plywood. Even while he started loading up the guns. He loaded up every magazine of every gun, then had them all lying on the sofa, except the pistol in his holster. That was kind of cool.

He had me bringing out more nails as he nailed boards over the outside of the windows. That was when he shot the first screamer. He didn’t act like the guys in the movies. He looked scared when he shot the screamer. Scared when he reloaded. Scared when the bodies got back up again.

I don’t like him looking scared.

That was when he went into War Machine mode. No goofy jokes, no long boring stories. Always watching. Quiet. You can tell he’s thinking. Each time he looks at me, I can tell he’s thinking. I feel like he’s checking me out. Seeing if I measure up. If he talks, it’s a command or a lesson. All “remember this…” or “Get me that..”

Where’s Mom? She should be home by now. Dad said she was coming back from work. I wish she was here now, even if it was to yell at Dad for pounding all those nails into the house and the mess he was making.

She should be home by now.

Once all the windows on the first floor were boarded up, we loaded the van with stuff. Canned food from that big pile Mom and Dad keep in the basement. Candles, camping gear, all sorts of wierd stuff Mom and Dad keep. The first lesson in War Machine mode. “If you want a snack, get it out of the refrigerator or the freezer. Do not eat any of the canned stuff.”

###

DAY ONE

“Why?”

“We’ll probably lose power in the next couple of days. When that goes, all the refrigerated food will start to go bad. We want to eat it before that happens. Save the canned food for when the power is gone.”

“Like, I can eat all the ice cream I want?”

That breaks his War Machine mode for a second. He smiles. It’s stupid how good that makes me feel. “All the ice cream you can eat, son. Just like with tonsils.”

I fix myself a big bowl of ice cream as he locks up the house. We’re going over to Grandmas’ house to drop this stuff off. Somehow, I just really need ice cream. It’s like my head is stuffed with cotton and i can only think of one thing at a time. It’s kind of hot. I just concentrate on the ice cream, even when we are driving over. The streets seem funny. Like, I don’t know, like people are driving bad. Dad yells a couple of times. He has the guns beside him. He gave me the .22 because I’ve fired it. Nothing happens.

We drop off the stuff at Grandmas’. Grandma is really quiet but she hugs me really tight when we get there. Before we leave, Uncle Dale and Aunt Carol show up with their kids. Uncle Dale is in that old civil war uniform he wears to reenactments. He has four or five of those old time muskets and pistols. He and Aunt Carol are both carrying them. So is Cassandra, their oldest. She’s only a couple years older than me. Plus Uncle Dale has a shotgun, a modern one, not like the old muskets. Carol thinks I should stay with them. I can tell Dad is thinking about it. I think about Dad being out there all alone, like he was in the street when that guy ran at him. But what if one got behind him? Who’d see it?

“Dad, I’m coming with you. Someone needs to watch your back. I can do it. Uncle Dale is nice, but he thinks I’m a kid. I’m not a kid anymore. I can shoot those things.”

Dad looks at me and shakes his head. I can tell he’s not happy. But when he speaks, his voice is funny. “I saw kids younger then him in Iraq. Kids with AK47′s. I don’t like it, but he can fight. We need him to fight.”

Whoa. It would be so cool to have an AK47.

We’re driving back. I’m in the back of the van. I notice the streets are a lot emptier now. I see one guy running when two people jump on him. One is a kid.

I look away.

Dad yells. A second later we hit something, something big. The whole van rocks. I hear glass breaking.

A bloody face is shoving in through the broken window! Teeth so sharp! Screaming, my ears hurt, hands reaching for me, blood so much blood! Daddy! Bloody hands grabbing me, pulling me towards those teeth! TEETH! DADDY!

THUNDER.

I’m deaf! Oh crap I’m deaf! Flash in front of my eyes, deaf and blind, being thrown around. Dad’s driving like he’s crazy.

Has he gone crazy?

It’s like there’s an afterimage in my head of Dad shoving his pistol into the eye of that guy who came through the window. Flash. Thunder.

Wet.

I’m wet.

Red blood. On my hands, my pants.

I stink. I think I peed myself. I can’t tell dad that. I’ll have to change so dad doesn’t know I peed myself.

###

JOURNAL- Why didn’t I shoot that guy? I was so scared. I forgot all about my gun. It’s like I’m looking at myself. Grading myself. Great Andrew, just great. You screamed like a baby and yelled for Daddy. Then you wet yourself.

My head feels hot now. Do I have a fever? Sometimes when I think about how stupid I was, I wish I was dead. But I don’t want to die. Not if that is what dying is like now.

###

FIRST NIGHT

Dark. So dark. Dad has nailed blankets over the windows in his office, up here in the attic. He says we can’t let any light out. He’s working on his computer. Checking out stuff on the internet. More zombie stuff.

My skin hurts. I showered for an hour after we got back, scrubbing all the blood off me. I saw myself in the mirror before I went into the shower. My face was spattered with blood, like the time Danny Coogan and I were supposed to be painting and got into a paint fight. Blood soaked through my clothes too. Like it did with Danny Coogan.

He isn’t answering his email or texts. None of my friends are.

So dark.

There’s a thump. A bloody body sliding in through the window. Dad didn’t notice. It’s the guy he shot today. Half his head is still missing. He looks like Megatron from the third transformers movie, after his skull was blown away. Things are crawling in his skull.

I can’t move. I can’t speak. My legs won’t move. The zombie smiles with half his face. The half he still has. He leaps at Dad. He tears his head off. There’s a bloody stump where my dad’s neck was. I can scream finally, I jump, I have to grab the head, put it on, screaming, thrashing the zombie is on me crushing me. Covering my mouth…

It’s dad.

Dad’s alive. His head is back on.

He’s got his hand over my mouth.

He speaks quietly. “Shhhhhh. It’s okay sport. I’m here. It was just a nightmare. We’re okay. It’s all okay..”

There’s no zombie. There’s no zombie. Dad is okay.

“Say your prayers to Jesus son. Keep the nightmares away.”

Dad dozes off himself later. I go onto the internet then, looking for any of my friends. It’s dawn before I can sleep again.

###

SECOND NIGHT

The screams wake me up.

They sound like they’re right outside the house. Dad takes the pistols. He hands me the carbine. Finally!

It feels so solid. So heavy. This is a real gun, not like the little .22. I feel better just gripping it. Even the screamers outside don’t seem as scary.

We crawl out on the balcony. A bunch of screamers are throwing themselves against the house across the street. Bloodlust, just like in the video games. But the guys in the video games don’t have a carbine. Then I hear a baby crying. I whisper, like Dad’s been telling me to. “Dad! We have to do something. We can shoot them!”

“Son, if we start shooting, they’ll swarm us. They attack noise.”

That baby is still crying. Why won’t Dad do something? He’s got the pistols. We can shoot so many bullets! “Dad!”

He’s silent.

He’s testing me. What will I do? He’s been in War Machine mode all day, ever since he started sniping those shamblers in the street. He’s testing me, like a Jedi testing a Padawan.

“Dad!”

Nothing. The baby is crying. Is he testing my courage? Or my compassion? I have to decide. I have to. Our lives? The baby?

I aim and pull the trigger as fast as I can.

He starts shooting too, both his pistols, the world dissolves in muzzle flashes. My ears are ringing from the guns firing so loud. I keep firing into them.

I’m jerking at the trigger but my gun won’t fire!

“Get inside!” He’s ducking inside the house, scrambling.

The Screamers look at me, their eyes shining in the moonlight. They all see me! Why aren’t they dead! I know I killed some of them!

They scream.

I scramble inside as I see them rush the house. I’ve killed us. We’re going to die. Dad wasn’t testing us, he was trying to keep us alive, we’re going to die, I killed us-

Dad yanks me through the window.

He’s reloading his pistols, reloading his magazines. He barks at me. “Put in a fresh clip. You’re empty!”

He’s so angry. Because I’ve killed us. I was stupid. I was stupid pulling on the trigger of an empty rifle. I eject the old clip, slowly remembering what he’s been trying to teach me for the last two days. Real smart Andrew. He’s only had you do it a hundred times already. Then you forget.

I’m choking as i speak. It’s hard to see. I wipe my eyes. “I’m sorry Dad. I just, I heard that baby and..”

Choking. I won’t cry. I won’t cry. I was stupid. I won’t cry.

He hugs me. Crushes me to him. His voice sounds funny. He doesn’t sound mad. He sounds like he’s about to cry too. “I love you, Son.”

For just a second, it’s all okay.

We go downstairs to die. I won’t forget to reload. The door is shaking. They have to come through the door.

Dad’s looking at me funny. Wondering if I’ll freeze up again. I won’t. I aim, the second magazine in my hand.. Ready. Shoot them in the head. We can’t run. They’ll just chase us down.

Screaming. Howling. They sound so hungry. I’m shaking. I don’t want to die.

The door slams open an inch. Bloody fingers shove through the gap. They’re shoving back the barricade.

Where’s that light coming from? Someone’s honking a horn. Are they crazy?

It sounds like a demolition derby out there!

The fingers are gone. The howling is different now, farther away. Nothing is slamming against the door. Tires screaming like in a movie, out in the streets, more screaming, from farther away, someone is honking their horn so loud.

The noise fades.

Dad motions me to stay in place. He goes forward slowly. Looks through the cracks in broken windows. He waves me forward and whispers. “Cover me.”

I can see the street from the door now, as dad goes out. He’s holding my baseball bat. There are bodies all over the street. Screamers that we shot. We did kill some of them. They’ll come back as shamblers if we let them. Dad stands over one, raises the bat.

The second time he hits, it’s a wet sound.

Then he goes to the next.

I look away. I remember to keep watching with my rifle. Anything to keep from looking at what he’s doing.

One of the bodies is moving. “Dad!” I remember to whisper. Then I point. He nods. He even smiles. He stands over the body. It’s a kid, my age. Starting to move. Starting to moan.

The bat glistens in the moonlight as he slams it down on the kid’s skull.

A wet sound.

I hope he leaves that bat outside.

###

JOURNAL-The end of the world sucks.

I wish I had school tomorrow. I wish the dumbest, most boring TV show ever was on TV right now and I had to go to a boring day at school and eat whatever the cafeteria served and sit in my classroom. I wish Dad would tell me to take out the trash and clean my room.

I couldn’t stop asking myself what happened to that baby?

Dad finished busting heads out in the street and came back inside and washed himself off. He’s got a pile of bloody clothes in the basement now in a trash bag. He smelled like bleach. He re-stacked the barricade and then barricaded the stairs and we went to sleep on the second floor of the house.

He went to sleep. I couldn’t.

I wanted to. I was so bored. But the nightmares…

Where is Mom? She should be home by now! Unless she’s…

Where is she?

I wish she’d show up right now and yell at me for leaving dirty dishes on the floor of the living room or something.

Dad wouldn’t go and check on the house where that baby was crying. He looked at it for the longest time. He looked at it like it scared him. It was so quiet. Then he came back. “They must have been in that car. We bought them time to escape. Don’t worry about it.”

That’s what he said. I knew he really believed it. He doesn’t trust me. Not after I almost got us killed.

I had to find out.

I knew what I had to do.

I took the carbine and slipped out of the house. I went out the back door and crossed the street. It was getting light in the east. Dad calls it “false dawn”. I knew I had to hurry.

It stinks more every day. Toilets overflowing. Rotting bodies. Woodsmoke was coming from somewhere. I moved quietly. I was like a ninja. Watching. Listening. Dad says that at night, you see with your ears. I didn’t hear anything.

I went around the houses, between the two houses on the driveway. I was really silent. I kept thinking that this is where the monsters always jump the guys in the movies.

The door at the back of the house was hanging open. Something was shining on the ground.

They were bones. Stripped white. Something wet, fleshy.

I almost died when I saw a bloody head staring at me, mouth snapping. It was a woman. The screamers had torn up everything below her things.

Torn up everything below her breasts. They were still there. Below them were bone and flesh and blood. She stared at me. She tried to bite me. Her breasts were covered with blood.

I almost missed the other thing. It was pink and moving. A baby.

One of it’s arms were missing.

It was still moving.

I so wanted to scream. To run away. To bash my head until I couldn’t remember seeing those things. I still want to. I’m afraid to sleep now because I’ll see them in my dreams.

I didn’t scream. I was shaking so bad. I could see it in my head. They tried to run out the back. Screamers were waiting for them. They tore them apart. All except the baby. They must have run off after that car.

The baby was trying to crawl towards me. The mouth was open.

I slammed my rifle butt down on it’s skull. It stopped moving.

That was when I threw up.

If one had come up then, I’d have died. I was ralphing up everything, two days worth of food I think. I felt like I was turning inside out.

I still have a bitter acid taste in my throat. The last of the throwup. I rinsed my mouth but it’s still there. I wish I could rinse my head. Rinse the memory away.

The baby stopped moving. But I wasn’t done.          I went to the dead mom. She was looking at me. Her breasts were swaying as she tried to bite me. I couldn’t stop looking at them. Then I heard her teeth click as she tried to bite me.

I slammed the rifle butt down on her face. Again and again. Till she stopped moving.

I snuck back into the house and barricaded the back door again. Then I washed off the rifle butt with bleach. I rinsed my mouth, then my hands. I scrubbed them till they were raw.

Dad was still asleep when I got back into the room. He’s sleeping on the floor. I’m on the bed. He woke up when I got into bed. I’m hiding under the covers when he asks “Hey sport, you want breakfast?”

I kept seeing crushed skulls. Seeing the eyes looking off in different directions. Will I look that way when I’m dead? The thought of food almost makes me sick again. I told him I wasn’t hungry.

DAY THREE

I put down my notebook and steady myself.

Dad stacked all the food and stuff in boxes in the back of the van, on the sides and in the back. I’m on a box in the center. It’s like a fort. I’m looking back. Dad says I’m the tail gunner, that I have to shoot anything that comes at us from the sides or back. Both rifles are with me. He made me wear one of his old army camo shirts with the big pockets. All the loaded magazines for the carbine are in the left bottom pocket. When they’re empty, I’m supposed to put them in the right bottom pocket. He’s in the front. He has all the pistols so he can fire one handed.

I brace myself as we move. I have the rifle ready to shoot. Most of the side windows are already broken out. We taped plastic over them to keep rain out but Dad said I should shoot right through them. Through the back window too if I have to.

Dad is cursing a lot. We slow down. I smell wood smoke. It’s like a campfire.

I turn to look.

Houses are burning. Lots of houses. They’re so close together, old houses made out of old wood. No fire department. “Dad, did the zombies set them on fire?”

“No.” He’s annoyed. Not really mad. “Some damned idiot had a cookfire inside their house and set the place on fire. They built these houses so close together, the fire will jump from house to house. These old houses will burn like matchwood. We’ll have to go around. Okay, look back son. Watch your areas.”

I turn to look. “What a bunch of damned idiots.”

“Son, I don’t like you to…Never mind.”

He doesn’t want me to say damned idiots? He said it. Why can’t I? It’s so unfair.

We jerk to a stop going down a street. “Oh shit.”

I’ll bet he’d get mad if I said that too.

We’re stuck in an alley. We start to back up.

I see three shamblers come out from behind a dumpster.

“Dad! Shamblers, at, uh, six o’clock!”

I remembered! I remembered what he told me. I aim, even as we roll backwards. “Shoot ‘em son! Shoot now!”

I aim. I shoot. The first one goes down. Then the second one. That takes two bullets. We hit the third one! Yeah! He goes flying, just like in the movies! The van jumps and bounces as we roll over another! I keep shooting, more of them are coming at us. My shots are going wild as the van whips around. It sounds like the tires are slipping on something. I hear tires scream, like in the movies.

WHAM!

Why aren’t we moving? I keep shooting. My magazine is empty. The engine is making a funny sound. The van is shaking. I shove the empty magazine in the right pocket. Reload and keep shooting. We’re in the middle of the street. Zombies are coming out of everywhere. Dad’s saying terrible words now, cursing like the guys in the movies he doesn’t know I watch. We rock one last time, then he yells and shuts off the engine. He’s shooting now but they’re coming in from all sides. I keep shooting.

It suddenly reminds me of the last parts of the video games where they just come in from everywhere and there are too many to shoot.

I load a third magazine. They’re almost close enough to touch the van. I unstrap and crouch behind my walls of canned beans and beef stew and jars of peanut butter. I keep shooting. One bullet to each now.

Someone else is shooting. They’re shooting fast. Not like a machine gun but close. A different kind of rifle sound too. More zombies are falling.

A ladies’ voice. “Get out of the van! Come this way. I’ll cover you!”

“Get out Andrew. You heard the lady!”

“But dad, our food, our stuff-”

I find out a second reason why he made me wear his old army shirt. He grabs me by the collar and throws me out over the hood of the van like I’m a toy. This shirt is like a harness for me. He holds me by my neck so I drop feet first, then smacks the back of my head. “Run!”

I run. I can hear him behind me, glass crunching under my feet. I see the lady.

She’s standing in the middle of the street. She’s old. Not old like grandma, but old like mom and dad old. She’s dressed funny too, like she was going to church or something. Fancy clothes. Except for the rifle. It’s an M16. I recognize it from Dad’s army shows. She’s holding it up on her shoulder, firing.

Dad and I stand beside her. We’re a little circle now, all firing outwards. It sounds like a war movie. In a few minutes, we’ve shot every zombie in sight. We have the street to ourselves.

She’s reloading her rifle. She smiles at me. She has a nice smile, but there’s something wrong with it. There’s something wrong with all of us right now though, so it doesn’t bother me. “Hello young man. You and your father can go to my shop over there.”

She points to a little shop building. A sandwich shop. “The door is unlocked. There’s food and supplies inside.”

“Let’s go, son.” Dad slaps me on the shoulder. My neck is sore. We get to the door of the sandwich shop. I’m about to jump out of my skin. Dad stops me and looks back. The lady is still standing in the street. “Ma’am! You don’t need to stay out there to cover us. I’ll cover you now.”

“Just go on in. There’s fuel in the generator for a week. I have….something to do.”

Why is she just standing there? She looks like she’s waiting for the zombies to come.

“Ma’am! The door’s locked!” Dad rattles the door. Funny, I thought he opened it for a second. “I need you to unlock it!”

“I unlocked it. Go on in!”

“Sorry Ma’am, it must have re-latched! Do you have a key?”

I don’t know why I whisper when I say “Dad, just kick the door in!”

“Shhh!”

She slings her rifle like a soldier and walks towards us, digging around in her purse. It’s fancy, with pearls and stuff. Dad steps aside. She tries to unlock the door and it just opens as she grabs the knob. She frowns at dad.

He shrugs. He’s such a doof sometimes. “Sorry Ma’am, it much have been stuck. We better get inside. If some screamers come, they’ll see us in here and that’s all she wrote.”

Just then I hear a howl, like the screamers make. It can’t be more than a block away.

She looks at Dad like the screamer is his fault. Then we all go inside the shop and lock the door.

It’s nice. Not like a McDonalds, but nice with lots of old time stuff and little tables. Mom would love this place. Girly stuff like teapots and lacey napkins all over the place.

The biggest table has a body on it, covered by tablecloths.

Dad sees it and has both pistols aimed at it as soon as he sees it. The woman speaks. “Please stop pointing your guns at my husband. I already had to…had to…”

She looks like she’s about to cry. Dad puts away his pistols, blushing. “I’m sorry. It’s just been, you know, crazy. I’m sorry about your husband.”

“We thought we were pretty well set up for this.” She touches where the face is. Specks of blood are leaking through the tablecloth. “We had the emergency generator. My guns, the food, everything. Even each other. But we heard a noise last night and Truman had to go investigate. He had his pistol. But he forgot to take it off safe. A typical stupid boot mistake. One of them had broken in. By the time we killed the thing, it had bitten him twice. He fought the infection for hours. He was always so stubborn. When he turned this morning, I killed him.”

I give her a hug. She’s tall, almost as tall as dad. She wears a lot of perfume. She hugs me back. “Thank you sweety.”

“I’m Andrew. Andrew Simmons.”

She steps back and shakes my hand. “Pleased to meet you Andrew. I’m Jacqueline Bell.”

It’s weird. It’s like we’re all pretending this is some formal meeting or something. Dad shakes her hand and introduces himself. “You saved our lives. Thank you. That was some nice shooting out there.”

She smiles. Her voice sounds a little different. “It’s been a while. I’m glad I haven’t lost my touch. I was Airborne Rangers for eight years. Jumped into Grenada and Panama.”

“Wow. I didn’t know they let women in the Rangers back then.”

She laughs at that. I wonder what’s so funny. But she looks sad suddenly. “I left to marry Truman. He was the only man I ever knew who accepted who I was. And now he’s gone.”

She smiles, but it’s a sad smile. Then she gets all brisk and professional, like a teacher on the first day of school. She starts shoving bullets into the magazines she emptied helping us. “I’m going to go out and put a few marks in the scoreboard in his name. See how many of those things I can get. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like. There’s plenty of food. We fixed the broken window where that shambler came through. There won’t be any more.”

“Wait!” Dad’s voice suddenly sounds calm. Too calm. Calm voices sound wrong now. “Ma’am, we’re grateful for the help. But I need to get my son to his grandmother’s house. It’s forted up and hopefully his mother is there by now. My van has a broken axle, we have to cross half the city and I would really appreciate your help getting my son to his grandmothers. I can’t make you help us. We have no claim on you. But we could really use your help.”

She looks at me. There’s an odd expression on her face. She’s quiet for a couple of minutes. When she talks, her voice is very quiet. “We always hoped we’d be able to adopt, but there were always so many forms and so many people we had to talk to…How old are you, Andrew?”

“I’ll be 13 in march.”

She sighs. “I’ll help you. But when we get him to his grandmother’s, I’m done.”

“Deal. You wouldn’t happen to know where we could boost some transport, would you? It’s a long walk.”

“Truman worked at a pharmacy about two blocks away. He had the keys and they had a delivery van.”

JOURNAL

Getting to the pharmacy seemed to take forever. We couldn’t start until Jacqueline had picked out new shoes. She said we might have to run and have you ever tried to run in heels? Whatever that meant. But she’d been wearing high heels when we first met her and she was shooting zombies. Girls are strange.

We shot a few zombies getting over there but not many. The pharmacy wasn’t a drug store. I’d thought about drug stores I knew with comics and game cards in them. I figured if we could take their van, I could get some serious “World of Warfare” cards. You know, it wouldn’t be like stealing if this is the end of the world. This drug store, though, had small windows and no comics or magazines. No candy section either.

Dad went to check out the van. Jacqueline said we should stock up on medicine and she began going through the bins in the pharmacy. She seemed to know them really well. I guess because her husband had worked there. She was checking a book when Dad came back. She’d given me a couple of cloth grocery bags, the type they say are green, full of bottles of pills. I could tell right away he wasn’t happy.

“An addict?” He said it that way, quietly. Like he didn’t believe. Then he asked Jacqueline why she was grabbing those drugs. He spoke real quiet at first.

She kept sorting. She said she we would need antibiotics, that the zombie plague wasn’t the only problem we’d face. Dad didn’t believe her at first.

DAY THREE-AFTERNOON

“The antibiotics are in these bins over here. What are you going through those bins for?”

“It’s personal.”

Dad stepped forward and grabbed her wrists. I look away. Where was a zombie attack when you really need one?

“Jackie, are you on drugs? I’ve seen what they do to people in the field. You don’t need this” He looks at one of the bottles. “Premarin? Estradiol? Estrogen? What the hell?”

Dad sends me to check out the van and put the bags of pills in it. He says to wait for them. I ran to the van. It’s just too much. I know there’s going to be a big fight. Except both of them are real quiet when they finally come in. Dad’s face looks really funny, like he was bonked between the eyes with a rubber mallet or something. Jacqueline is almost smiling. She looks kind of relieved. Both of them are carrying bags with big bottles of pills in them.

Jacqueline yells “I call Shotgun” even though she’sa holding a rifle.

Dad has me open the back door of the van and cover him while he opens the garage door to let the van out. Then he jumps in the van. Just as a screamer comes around the corner.

I shoot it three times with the carbine. It goes down. I jump in the van. Dad guns the engine. I feel the bumps as we drive over it.

I can’t see much in the back of the van. There’s a bunch of medical stuff there too, but no seats. I have to brace myself as dad drives. I still bang my head when dad stops suddenly. He and Jacqueline jump out as he calls “Hop out Andrew! Be ready to shoot!”

I was just getting used to the darkness in the van. The daylight is blinding. It takes me a minute to see we are parked by our broken minivan. Dad threw open both the side doors and started chucking the boxes of supplies out of our van and into this van. “Want me to help, Dad?”

“Cover your flank, Andrew.” Jaqueline spoke. “Don’t look back. Think of us as in the middle of a circle. You watch your half of the circle, I’ll watch mine and your dad can concentrate on getting those supplies.”

GreatI. Now she was going into War Machine mode too. Still, it made sense. I scanned with my rifle, like some kind of security bot from Star Wars, even imagining myself as a robot- until I saw a shambler come around the corner and look at me. It was a boy, younger than me. The front of his shirt was covered with blood. A little girl came after him. Her clothes were bloody too. They began walking towards me. They didn’t say anything. Their faces had no expression. So slowly. I almost wished they were running.

“Two of them over here! Do I shoot?”

Dad is sweating a lot. He’s kind of fat now. Not skinny like he was when he came back from the Air Force. I never thought about that before. He was just Dad. He drops another crate of food in our new van. “Take ‘em Andy.”

Okay I tell myself, aim. He’s not watching. He knows you can do this. He’s doing his job and trusting me to do mine. This must be like it was to be one of his buddies in Afghanistan. Aim. Squeeze.

Down it goes. It’s always a surprise when the gun actually kicks. It takes two shots to drop the little girl. I have to wipe the tears from my eyes after the first time I shoot her. Why am I crying? It’s just a zombie. In a torn pink nightie.

Jacqueline is firing. One shot, then two. No hurry. She’s so cool, like she was a soldier herself. “Ted, we’re drawing attention. Try to hurry, okay?”

A door slams. “Got it. Everybody in. Andy, you left behind the Ruger. Don’t do that again, okay?”

“Okay Dad.” He tosses me the Ruger. I sling it. The magazines for it are in my upper pockets. I’d forgotten about them.

I jump back into the van. There aren’t any windows except in the back doors. Huddled in the darkness, I’m glad there are no windows. Nothing I can see here.

It’s funny though. As the doors shut and we begin to move, I actually get a good feeling. It’s like we’re on a team or something, the three of us. If only Mom was here. Then it would be complete.

Jacqueline looks back. It’s hard to make out her face from the darkness, the way the sun outlines her. “Good work back there, Andrew. You are one strak little man.”

I don’t know what “strak” means, but the way she says it, it sounds good.

I’m so tired. I almost panic when we hit someone with the van again. Something goes thump against the back of the van when we stop. “Andy, shoot through the back of the van. Now!”

“How many shots?”

“Give it a full clip! Shoot!”

I shoot at where the thump sound came from. The bullets go right through the metal of the van. They just leave dinky little holes. All the holes are dark. Then suddenly, light is coming through them. We’re moving faster.

We stop a couple more times. Just for a minute or two while Dad and Jacqueline shoot stuff. I get ready but they tell me to stay put. When I try looking out the bullet holes I made, I can’t see anything. That’s starting to bug me.

JOURNAL

The last time we stopped, Dad and Jacquelinedidn’t do anything. Dad shut off the engine. We all just sat there for a second. I was getting this horrible feeling that something was wrong when Dad turned to face me. When he said “We’re here. We can get out.” I ran out of the van really fast. We were back at Grandmas.

It seems so quiet now. A big highway runs by a block away and grandma always complained about the noise. I guess it wasn’t there when Grandpa built the house. But there’s no highway noise now. It suddenly seems so quiet, under the old shady trees. The house always seemed old and clunky before, so big. Built out of those funny old bricks. Dad told me once that Grandpa built it himself. The tall chain link fence around the yard alway seemed ugly before. Now it seems so nice, so safe. It’s heaven.

My cousins came out with Uncle Dale. I thought they’d be happier to see us but they were all sad. Uncle Dale and Dad hugged each other after a moment. Uncle Dale isn’t wearing his civil war uniform any more. He’s carrying one of the old rifles though, with a bayonet fixed on it. It doesn’t look silly anymore. My cousins didn’t say anything as we all grabbed the boxes and took them inside. Once we were inside, Cassandra whispered, like it was some secret, that Grandma died while we were gone. It was a stroke, not a zombie bite. Cass said Dad and Uncle Dale are trying to decide how to get rid of the body.

Cass asks me who the old lady is. I told her she wasn’t an old lady, that she’d saved our lives and she has a real army rifle. Cass and I got into an argument then because I was mad she called Jacqueline an old lady and she yelled that at least we’d been outside and not stuck in this house surrounded by zombies. Then she asked me where Mom was and was Jacqueline going to take her place. I almost hit her then and we got into a real bad fight. Dad and Uncle Dale grabbed us both. They were really mad at us.

They’ve taken out all the old board games. Dad was teaching me a game called Risk back at the house. I guess we’ll learn all these, since the power is gone. It’s like we’ve gone to a whole new world.

DAY 3- EVENING

“Andrew, you and your Dad can go in and pay your respects to mom. Your grandmother, I mean.”

We go into Grandma’s room. There are pictures of her and Grandpa on the walls. Some when they were younger. Grandma is so still.

Dad looks a lot like Grandpa used to.

I feel sudden fear. What if her eyes open up. What if she opens her mouth? What if she starts moving?

Someone is whimpering.

It’s me.

Dad walks right up to her. Dad! She’s dead! What if she-

“Come here, son.”

He touches her cheek. Then I see a piece of metal in her ear, with some blood around it. It’s the head of a nail. A really big, long nail. But to be there, they’d have had to pounded it into her….

“I’m sorry son.” Dad puts Grandma’s hair back in place, covering it. “It was the only way they could keep her body from becoming one of them.”

Then I can touch her. She’s cold. I can’t cry. “It’s not her, is it dad? It’s just the shell. Like when Grandpa died. Just the empty shell left behind.”

“That’s right.”

I’m glad she’s not here anymore. She was so afraid the last time I saw her, when we dropped off the supplies.

We leave the room.

Jacqueline has given her M16 to Cassandra. She hands her the bag of magazines too. She still has a pistol, an old time army pistol, but won’t she need the rifle still?

She walks into the back yard. I remember there’s a gate in the fence there. Looking through the fence, I can see a couple of dead bodies lying outside.

Dad tells me to go inside. He runs to catch up with her.They’re both silent until I leave. Once I’m in the house, I run to the bathroom. I can hear them through the window from there.

“You promised. You seemed to understand back in the store. Don’t get in my way.”

“Yes Jacqueline, I promised. But we still need you. We need everyone who can help now.”

Her voice sounds funny. Like she’s trying not to cry. HIt sounds a little deeper too. “You have Andrew. From what you told me of your wife, you probably still have your wife too. She’s a lucky woman to have you. I didn’t fit in the world very well before this all happened. I fit in even less now. Truman was all I had. I want to be with him.”

“I don’t think you want to die. Someone who expected to die wouldn’t have grabbed all those meds back at the pharmacy.”

“Reflex. I was running on reflex.”

“I don’t think you want to die, Jacqueline. I think you’re still looking for a reason to live.”

“Go back to your son, Ted. He needs you. Your wife will need you too. I’m done. Please, have enough respect for me to let me decide.”

I can’t see, but I can hear Dad leave. No! Dad, stop her! I run out the back door of the house. She’s standing at the gate, getting ready to open it. She’s checking her pistol.

I run to her and hug her. Her perfume is really strong now. She was looking kind of ragged when we came in but now I can see she’s put on new makeup. “Don’t go Jacqueline!”

She hugs me back. She even laughs. “Don’t go, Shane!”

“Huh?” I step back. I’ve heard this once before, on the Venture Brothers, but it didn’t make sense. “Who’s Shane?”

“It’s a great movie. Before your time, Andrew. Did your dad send you out?”

“No, I swear. He’ll probably beat my butt for doing this. But I don’t want you to go.”

“You have your dad and your mom, Andrew. You don’t need me.”

I look out at the nearby houses. Yards are bigger here. A couple of houses have burned down. I don’t see any zombies nearby but I can hear gunshots in the distance.

I hear a screamer in the distance.

It’s like this everywhere now.

“Jacqueline, you and dad protected me to get me over here, right? You kept me in the van. Dad kept me in the back, even when I was doing dumb stuff.”

“Yes. That’s what a dad does. Andrew, please, start calling me Mrs. Bell.”

“Okay, Mrs Bell. But you and dad and my mom, you’re all good with guns. What about parents who aren’t? Or who don’t have guns? They’ll still protect their kids, even if it means they die. Right? Parents do that too.”

“Any parents who are worth a damn.”

“Mrs. Bell, there are going to be a lot of kids whose parents weren’t like my mom and dad. A lot of kids who don’t have parents anymore. They’ll need someone to take care of them. Didn’t you say you and your husband wanted to adopt but you couldn’t? Those people who kept you from adopting, they aren’t around anymore. But the kids will be.”

Jacqueline- Mrs Bell- looked at me. She gave a sad smile. “You’re a very smart little boy, aren’t you Andrew?”

“I’m not a little boy. I’m 12.”

She smiles. Really smiles this time. “Of course.”

People are talking at the front of the house. Up by the gate. Loud voices. Something’s going on. I take my carbine off safety and run towards it. Dad’s up there. My cousins. I have to…

I turn and look back. Jacqueline has put her pistol away. She’s sitting down on a chair inside the gate. She shakes her head. “Go up there and see Andrew. But I don’t think you’ll need your gun. Take your time. I’ll be here when you get back.”

I run. Something’s going on. I round the corner of the house. The first thing I see is a dark little girl. She looks at me but doesn’t say anything. I don’t know her. Then I see my Dad and Uncle Dale and Cassandra and..

I’m running forward.

I throw my arms around Her.

Now I’m crying. Like a dumb little kid. Her arms around me, holding me. So safe. So warm.

Mom.

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