Apocalypse Asunder (31 page)

“I think there are still all kinds of people.” she finally said, brush her musings about the zombies aside.  “Some people might have turned into zombies, and others might have died because of them; but there are still all sorts of people out there in the world.  Some of them are going to be the kinds that go around cleaning zombies up.  We’re not like that, so our job is to stay safe and do what we can when the opportunity arises.”

“What about Austin.”

“What about him?” Jessica asked as she found US-27 and turned the truck to follow it away from the town.

“He’s the kind of person who can kill a lot of zombies.”

“And . . . ?” Jessica pressed calmly.

“Maybe that’s why he’s not here yet.”

“You think he’s off on a zombie killing spree?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Oh God.”
Jessica thought. 
“I hope not.”

Candice smiled brightly, oblivious to the slight tensing of Jessica’s hands on the steering wheel.  “I bet he’s kicking a lot of zombie butt.”

“I just hope he’s safe.” Jessica said carefully.  “There were a lot of zombies back in Ocala, remember?  Maybe too many for even Austin to handle.”

“He’s tough.”

“Yes he is.”

Candice smiled.  “Maybe he’ll clean out all the zombies that could bother us.”

Jessica couldn’t help the slight chuckle she gave.  “Maybe, but let’s just hope for him to find us safely, okay?”

“Can’t we hope for both?”

Jessica shrugged.  “I have no idea.  But I know he can take care of himself.”  Ahead she saw a sign that proclaimed drivers were now leaving the city, with another on the opposite side.  She figured the other one was the ‘Welcome’ sign, and stopped the truck even with them in the middle of the road.

“Stay in the truck, but stay watchful.” Jessica told Candice, putting the transmission in park and setting the brake.

“What are you doing?” the girl asked, sounding surprised enough for some alarm to leak into her tone.

“Leaving a note for Austin.” Jessica said, rummaging in her purse for the lipstick and pen.  “So he can find us when he gets done kicking zombie butt.”  She already had a box panel from the pasta last night tucked in there, with a plastic bag to protect it against rain.  When she looked, she saw nothing lurked on the road or around it to threaten her, so she got out and bent over the hood to write her note.

“Austin, it’s us.  We’re in a place by the lake; same one Candice can’t say.  Quiet spot, it has no first floor.  I’ll check on this note every week or so, maybe add to it to let you know how things are going.  Jessica.”

Sealing it into the bag, Jessica put it in the tall grass at the base of the sign and found a rock to weight it down.  Then she defaced the sign itself with the lipstick, writing ‘Austin’ in big letters.  She was a little worried about rain, but the lipstick wasn’t very water soluble.  And she
did
plan on checking it to make sure it was okay.

Satisfied, and wishing for him to find it and find them without problems, Jessica got back in the truck and got them moving again.  The other town, Lewiston, looked bigger on her map; but when she got to its outskirts she realized that might be a trick of the layout.

The town, or at least the outer edge, was a sprawl of trailer homes, simple and small houses that mostly looked like they’d seen better days, and a fairly typical mix of small fast food restaurants and stores.  And the stores were things like “Joe’s Bait Shop” and “Sandscape Bike Rentals” and other vacation or tourist trap spots.  There seemed to be at least half as many motel room as there were actual places where permanent residents lived.

It was as quiet as the other one, both of zombies and people, but she again didn’t investigate too deeply.  As she’d told Candice, this was just a scouting trip.  Though, to be honest, she wasn’t sure how she’d go about serious scavenging yet.  If she could secure the house properly, leaving Candice there
might
be an option . . . but – as scared as the decision made her – she wasn’t sure if it would be worse to park the girl somewhere supposedly safe, but alone, or bring her along on where zombies and other problems could threaten more directly.

That one she could still push off at least another couple of days; at worst a week, but sooner or later she was going to have to figure it out.  Part of that would be securing the house.  She was reminded of that when she saw a work truck parked in the lot in front of a Wal-Mart.  Jamming on the brakes, Jessica dragged the pickup to a halt right in the middle of the road.

“What’s wrong?”

“That truck.” Jessica said.  “I want some of the ladders from it.”  She indicated the work truck, which had markings and gear indicating it had belonged to a painter.

“Uh, okay.” Candice shrugged.

“I’m checking the parking lot.” Jessica explained in response to the unasked question.

“Oh.  Um . . . looks clear.”

“Let’s be sure.”

Jessica took a long look across the lot, but it seemed inhabited only by a pair of idly wandering zombies well over on the far side, near and actually beyond the side of the enormous store.  Even if they noticed her immediately, she’d still have several minutes before either could shamble over to trouble her.

Decided, she hung a sharp U-turn and drove back to the last entrance to the lot and pulled in, skirted along the road side edge, then stopped next to the truck.  She looked around again, then set the brake and transmission.  “Sit tight in here, keep a good watch for me and use the horn if you see a problem.”

“Got it.”

Jessica checked the area again, got out and looked still again – including under the trucks and other vehicles – before venturing close enough to the painter’s truck to investigate it.

The ladders were just resting on racks that held them above the truck.  Lockers and cabinets were built into, and attached to, the back of the truck that needed keys; but the ladders were just laying up there.  It took her a minute to figure out how to work around her height and strength disadvantages; but eventually she climbed up into the back of the truck and was able to get want she wanted off and down to the ground.

She ended up having to sort of dig through most of the ladders to get at her selections, pulling many off the racks so they were out of her way, but the mess didn’t bother her.  The noise as they hit the pavement though – she had to sort of drop, almost throw, them down – was a concern, but there was nothing for it.  She got two into the back of her truck before the handful of zombies in the parking lot managed to notice
and
cover the distance to her.  Driving off with an extension ladders and a shorter platform ladder, Jessica decided to abandon any further scouting today and head back to see what she could come up with at the house.

Modifying the house, or at least its stairs, was critical; but she wasn’t exactly sure how to go about it.  One idea that occurred to her was to cut or destroy the stairs entirely; just take them out from the front porch so they didn’t lead up from the ground anymore.  It might take her a while with hand tools, but she figured she could manage it.  What she couldn’t figure out was how she’d secure the house if she left after something like that.

Getting up and down seemed easy enough; use the extension ladder.  Jessica was reasonably confident she would be able to rig up some ropes to guard against the ladder falling, and that she could use to help get it pulled up when in the house.  With it up and her and Candice inside, anyone or anything else wandering by would have to really want to get up to manage it.

But there was no way Candice would be able to hoist a long extension ladder up if Jessica left to go do things; the ten-year-old lacked the strength to make any sort of serious attempt at something like that.  And leaving the ladder in place was a risk that Jessica couldn’t take; any other survivors who wandered by would be free to come right up.  In fact, seeing such an obvious modification to the house would likely draw their attention.

Aside from Candice being at their mercies, it meant the house and its supplies would be free for the taking.  Not a plan Jessica was remotely happy with.

The other possibility that occurred to her was to not destroy the stairs; but merely modify them.  If she took out a number of the stair treads, she could maybe rig up some sort of ‘draw bridge’ with the ladders to span the open distance.  The problem with that was she knew she’d probably need to create at least a six or eight foot gap, and that was a lot of stairs to remove.

She was not terribly handy.  At least, not in the ‘fix and build’ things sense.  The treads could probably be attached to the ladders, but how to do so securely, and in a way that didn’t create a dangerous long inclined slope from one side of the gap to the other was stumping her.  The gap would have to be long enough to not be jumpable, and high enough for the house-side to not be easily reachable from the ground.  That meant it was critical for the ‘drawbridge’ to be stable for crossing, or she or Candice could get hurt if they fell.

Frankly, Jessica hadn’t any real clue how to go about it.  Or how Candice would manage the retraction that any better than she would trying to haul up a big ladder from the ground.  She was still mulling things over, wondering if maybe she should go back out and find a hardware store and wander through it looking for inspiration, when she got back to the house.

As she approached the line of vacation homes, her eyes sweeping automatically across the scene, she realized something was different.  Pulling herself out of her thoughts over the stairs, she looked again and realized the second house on the right had someone sitting on the front porch.

Jessica braked in surprise.  The truck came to a skidding halt, tires screeching a little on the asphalt, but the figure on the porch didn’t do anything.  It was a man – he had a pretty thick beard that was evident even from dozens of yards away – and he appeared to be just whiling away the afternoon in a wooden chair.

“Who’s that?” Candice asked.

“I don’t know.” Jessica answered slowly.

“Is he a bad guy?”

“I don’t know?”

“Well, how do we find out?”

A fair question.  Jessica saw the man was looking at them; or, at least, his head was turned in the direction of the truck.  As she watched, he lifted something in his left hand to his mouth.  A few moments later, he lowered that and lifted his right hand next.  She realized he had a drink in one hand, and was smoking something held in the other.

“We should ask him I guess.” Jessica decided.  “Stay in the truck and
keep watch
around us so nothing bad sneaks up, okay?”

“What are you going to do?” Candice asked.

“Talk to him.”

“Okay.”

Jessica eased the truck forward slowly, trying to keep from appearing aggressive, hung a U-turn so her side of the truck faced the house in question, and stopped at the base of the stairs leading up to it.  She checked around the area at ground level, then rolled her window down and leaned out some.

“Hello.” she called up.

“How’s it goin’ ladies?” he slurred back.

“He’s drunk.”
Jessica realized.  Aside from his speech, he was sitting slumped and crooked in the chair like gravity was taking a toll on him, had a pint bottle of liquor in his hand, and an open cooler with more bottle tops sticking up out of it on the porch next to his chair.

He wore a dirty and heavily stained t-shirt that looked like it hadn’t been washed in . . . ever, even though she was sure some of the stains were vomit.  His jeans were similarly worn, bearing dirt and frayed holes and no signs of care or cleanliness.  As she studied him, he lifted a fat cigar to his mouth and took a long, sloppy puff that included a cough, necessitating his needing to start the puff over, and a lot of drooling and dribble from his lips as he worked the cigar’s end to a cherry red glow.

“Surviving.” Jessica answered before she let the pause grow too pregnant.  “How are you doing?”

“Not bad considerin’ how fuckin’ fucked things are.”

“You staying here?”

“Hell yes.” he said, but without any sense of anger or offense in his tone.  Instead, he made the words come out like he was extremely amused by them.  “Where the fuck else would I be on a fine day like this?”

Jessica glanced around automatically as he gestured, then reminded herself Austin would be paying attention to everything and not just the guy.  But nothing and no one seemed to lurking about anywhere.  Or, rather, not that she could tell.

“You ladies movin’ in?”

“Kind of.” she answered, returning her eyes to him.

“Good.” he said with an air of definitive authority.  “Fuckin’ place could use some damn estr . . . estro . . . fuck, some damn women to pretty shit up.  You know, improve the view.”

Candice giggled from the passenger seat of the truck, and Jessica found herself smiling despite her disapproval of the foulness of the man’s tongue.

“You want a drink?” he asked, starting to hold the bottle out toward her.  “No, no, hang on.  Ladies don’t want none of that.”  He jammed the bottle down between his legs and reached into the cooler.  Glass clinked as he rummaged unsteadily through it, then he lifted out a different bottle; opaque with a colorful label.  “Here we are, proper lady’s drink.  Fruity and fit to gag on there’s so much damn unferm . . . unfe . . . fuck it, sugar in it.”