My Zombie Summer (Book 1): The Undead Road (8 page)

Sam tipped her head and smiled at him. “A little military training could do us a world of good.” Her eyes shifted back to Mom. “There’s little need for nurses, but I’m sure the elderly will appreciate a new face. They have no idea what’s going on. I’m keeping it that way.”

“Do any of us know what’s going on?” Dad asked.

“No,” Mason said. “Unless the Doc can figure—”

Sam gave Mason a warning look, and he stopped cold turkey. “Doctor Sanders is using what medical resources we have to understand what these things are and why they’re so hard to kill—using blood samples and such. Think of it as our little Center for Decease Control, if you will. Hopefully he’ll find us some answers—maybe a cure.” Sam had a strange expression on her face now. She was holding something back. “Having you around might get us what he needs.”

Sam held her hand out to Dad.

He looked at it and shook it. “You still want my kids to give up their guns?” he asked.

Sam gave him a brisk nod. “That’s the price of admission.” She then turned to the girls. Her blue-steel eyes lingered on Jewel. Despite the warm evening, a chill ran down my back. I wasn’t sure why, but Sam truly gave me the creeps. “What about you three? What can you do for this compound? This is no playground.”

“I thought I saw one around the corner,” Jewel said. Some people laughed at that, including myself. My sister can be quite the comedian when she wants to be.

“Are we allowed to have any weapons?” I asked.

“Well, we can’t exactly stop you from carrying something like a bat around.” Sam winked at Kaylynn. The unexpected sweetness in her voice made me shiver. Just then, Kaylynn was staring at my hand, holding Jewel’s. She looked sad. I didn’t know why at first. Then it occurred to me that she had no one’s hand to hold, no one to look after her—just a homeless retriever. Being alone had to be the worst feeling in the world.

I could fix that.

Sam held her hand out expectantly, waiting for me. I knew what she wanted. Reaching in my pockets, I gave up my .40 and .45. In turn, Dad reached into his window and handed Jewel’s new rifle over to Mason.

He then opened the back and allowed the others to see our collection. I was about to go for my backpack, but then stopped. Besides Dad and me, no one else knew what was inside my backpack. Dad glanced at it with a slight headshake. He did the same for Jewel. She was about to go for the .22, but she pulled back and whistled. My heart was at ease. Whether we needed them or not, we wouldn’t be completely defenseless.

A woman in her late forties stepped out of the crowd and neared Sam. She was wearing a summer shirt and an old sun hat. “There’s a vacant house right next door to mine. They’re welcome to it.”

Sam agreed. “That will work fine. Thank you, Candice. Mason?” She waited for the sheriff to turn around. “Take the children there. I’ll show our headquarters to the—what’s your name?”

“Barnes,” I said. “We’re the Barnes Family.”

She gave me a warning look. “I’ll show the
Barnes Family
our headquarters.”

“Thanks all the same,” Mom said. “I would like to stay with my children.”

“You care if I have a look, Honey?” Dad asked.

Sam smiled, but it was more like a full grin, hidden with secret intentions. “I’ll have him back in no time.”

Oddly enough, Mom changed her mind. So would I if a guy was being an obvious flirt to my girl—if I had one—but I knew Dad’s obliviousness would save his butt. The thought of Mom and Dad being away from us unsettled me, but I didn’t want to act suspicious. I looked forward to sleeping easily that night. Hopefully, we would move on soon and head for the cabin again.

I mean, that was our original plan.

I hate deviating from the plan.

Grabbing my backpack, I loaded it with as many snacks as I could carry. Jewel kept her pillow and blanket over her .22, and then she gathered everything else. Dad made sure to close the car doors before he locked the Explorer with his remote. Mom told us to mind our manners and do what the deputy said.

As our parents entered the health care center, Candice and Mason guided us to a sheriff’s car. Mason drove us a short distance to a single-story house, painted sky blue. Flowerboxes full of parched flowers hung from purple windowsills. More than half a dozen pink Flamingos and a few red-capped gnomes decorated the edge of a once well-kept garden.

Cozy setup—so long as the gnomes stayed put.

We opened the gate of a white picket fence and passed under an arbor overrun by ivy. On either side of the front steps was a fountain that doubled as a birdbath; it would have been idyllic if both fountain and bath weren’t filled with foul-smelling brown water.

I wondered if the place used to be the house of someone’s grandma. The door wasn’t locked, and Mason opened it. The orange shag carpet and floral wallpaper reminded me of the 1970’s. I took a big whiff and gagged. Yep. It was definitely a grandma’s house.

“Who lived here?” I asked.

“Jessie Cunningham,” Mason said. “She was the first to turn.”

Okay—maybe it was
more
than a grandma that I smelled. Was she a Vector inside the house? A nasty sensation, like bugs crawling over my skin, made me want to sanitize the place. Good thing Kaylynn was outside showing Chloe the front yard. No need to look like a lunatic in front of her. The deputy left us and went into the bathroom. The bath turned on. They had running water? If you think going without a shower after a few days is bad, try a week. Make that three weeks. I was in serious need of a nice, long shower.

I called first dibs.

“Hey!” Jewel cried. “What about
ladies first
?”

I tousled her brown hair. “That’s for ladies.”

She knocked my hand away. “You big jerk.”

A minute after the water stopped, Mason came back, walked out the front door and went to his car. He opened the trunk and pulled out a box, and then he came to the porch and left it on the last step.

Canned stew and baked beans, more than enough food to keep us afloat for a day or two.

“That should do for now,” Mason said. “You’ve already met Candice. She’s your area warden. She’ll visit you in the morning, give you a tour of the town, tell you how we run things here. You may hear gunshots at night. If you hear a lot, head for the healthcare center.”

“Okay,” we said. Jewel followed that up with, “Thank you!”

Mason tipped his hat and headed for his car. I liked him. I entered the front yard while Jewel went back inside. Chloe was sitting on a patch of tall grass beneath a willow tree, and Kaylynn was cleaning her bat on the lawn. It was just us three, at this house. I didn’t know how long it would be before Mom and Dad came back. If Kaylynn planned to stay with us, then this was my chance to get to know her—to ask the big questions.

I hadn’t taken two steps when Mason called for me. He was waving a book over his head. “You’ll want to read this.” He threw the book at me like a Frisbee. I caught it and was about to read the title, but it was upside-down. “It’s practically scripture around here. Everyone’s had a chance to look at it. So should you.” He climbed into his patrol car, turned the engine on and looked at me again. “It might just save your lives.”

The deputy left.

Scripture?

Maybe I didn’t want to read the title . . .

“Hey,” Kaylynn said. I don’t know how she snuck up on me. “Mind if I take a couple cans of stew?”

This surprised me. “Where’re you going?”

“I don’t know.” She nibbled on her lower lip, a habit that was, in a good way, driving me crazy. “I need time to sort a few things. Clear my head, you know?”

“Our chances are better as a group.”

“Your dad trusts me. You should, too.” Kaylynn raised her bat and let it rest on her shoulder. Her eyes held me like a prisoner. “Promise you won’t follow?”

“You think I’m some kind of stalker?”

She smiled. “The quiet ones always are.” She went to the porch, snagged two cans from the box and called for Chloe. She obeyed without delay. “Take care, Jay.”

A moment later, she was gone. Again.

Every part of me screamed to
go after her, don’t let her leave your sight, lock her up if you have to
! But I couldn’t.

If we had one thing left as a human race, it was our choices. Who was I to take that from her? Although I wanted to know why she preferred to be alone, and what she had to clear her mind of. Like it was my business to know. I was too willing. I had to cool my jets, let nature take its course. She was a fighter. She wouldn’t go far. I knew I’d see her again. I went back, picked up the box and left the food in the kitchen.

Shower time!

I went to the bathroom door and gave the handle a turn. It wouldn’t open. I jiggled the handle to no avail.

Just then, the water turned on.

“Hey! First dibs, Jewel. I called first dibs!”

She was singing
Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows
.

“You little jerk . . .”

I hunched to the floor, pressed my back to the wall and made myself comfortable. Like at home, I had no doubt that Jewel would take her sweet time in the shower and steal all the hot water. If there was any.

I finally took a look at the book’s title:
Surviving Zombies: How to Outlive the Undead
by Maximilian Booker.

A satire book? Was Mason serious or joking?

But for entertainment’s sake, and because I had nothing to do, I opened the book and gave it a read.

Candice knocked on our door the next morning while I was enjoying a breakfast of cold instant oatmeal. Dad let her in, and she wanted to give us a tour of the compound when we were done. The mid-June morning had a slight chill, even with summer about to officially start. I had to admit, as we looked around, the precautions these people had taken impressed me. They had a system of rigged propane tanks set to blow if Vectors tripped their wires. They even used cars, buses, plywood and other houses to form a barrier around an entire quarter of David City.

My interest came to an end when Candice pointed at the school. “That’s where the children go during the day,” she said. “Nothing should stop an education.”

School? At the end of the world?

She had to be kidding me.

But she wasn’t. While the grownups scavenged for stuff during the day, they put the kids in class so they would have a sense of normalcy and something to do. I played along. For a meal and a comfortable place to sleep, I could be a perfect pupil for a few days. The couch in the front room was like a king-sized bed compared to the backseat of our Explorer. Still, deep in my gut, something was off about this place. It wasn’t the undercooked bowls of cracked wheat, either.

Dad would go with the scouting parties and come back to teach self-defense and firearms training to the locals. Mom used her nursing skills at the healthcare center. That left me all alone with Jewel. Once again, between spending time with some kids and feeling defenseless, I was reduced to the role of a babysitter.

I didn’t like their way of staying safe. They had Jewel’s rifle. And they had my Berettas. I hated the hiding, the secrets, and false sense of security. Above all else, I was worried about Kaylynn. I hadn’t seen her in three days. Mom thought she’d left the compound altogether. She had, but I knew she was still in town somewhere. Not having a clue bugged the crap out of me. The few times I’d bumped into Cody, he wanted to know where she’d gone to. Like I would tell him.

I had to know if Kaylynn was safe, but I had to keep an eye on Jewel. And keeping my guard up with dozens of strangers around wasn’t exactly easy.

Everybody in the Compound strolled around with their heads high. When I pressed them with questions, they wouldn’t answer me. Sometimes they had fear in their eyes. One night, Dad said he couldn’t get a straight answer from the men he was with. And Mom had her doubts, too. One door in the healthcare center had a guard stationed there, at all times. Without a doubt, these people knew something that we didn’t. Their guitar-strumming, front porch sitting, lemonade-drinking charade left me with only more questions. Someone had to know something about Sam and why she had a guarded room in the healthcare center.