“Remember that time I was exposed and spent a couple days in that cage?” I explained to her, as best that I could, about antibodies and antigens.
“He is of the opinion that I’ve developed an immunity, but I’m skeptical.”
“But still, if he’s right, you have the cure.” I wanted to remind her of the time I was held captive and treated like a lab rat, but I didn’t.
“Yeah, well, there’s nothing he can do about it at the moment. He’s going to need – hell, I don’t know, a lab and all kinds of equipment in order to synthesize a vaccine out of my blood. Anyway, it’s a boring subject. How was your day?”
“We had a great time. I don’t think Kate and Rhonda care too much for each other, but everybody played nice. Your son sure does like the girls.” I glanced over at him and grinned proudly. “And I had a long talk with the two nurses who came from the CDC.”
“Oh yeah? Mike and Mary, right?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“The woman sounds Jamaican. The dude talks like he's from up north somewhere.” Kelly laughed.
“Yeah, they met while doing missionary work. They’re really nice people, but that hasn’t stopped Cutter and Shooter from making a few snide remarks.”
“That figures,” I muttered.
“Anyway, they confirmed what Grant had said earlier about the vaccinations. All of the kids were inoculated.”
“What about the other kids down there, did any of them survive?” Kelly shook her head sadly.
“They said the zombies had cut off the upper floors from the lower floors. They’d killed so many the stairwells were completely blocked.” She shuttered. “It sounded horrible.”
And Grant is adamant about going back, I thought. I didn’t see any good ending to that endeavor.
“Bingo,” Justin said after he worked the portal open and took a sniff. I jogged over to the opening of the underground fuel storage tank he was inspecting. “Diesel,” he confirmed, “and it looks to be half full.”
It made sense; we were at a UPS hub Jorge had spotted a while back and they had a system in place to fuel up their delivery trucks. I motioned Sammy over.
“Take a sniff, but don’t inhale deeply.” He got on his knees and did so.
“That’s what diesel fuel smells like. It smells different from regular gasoline, right?” He nodded in understanding.
“Okay,” I said, pointing. “I need you to go climb up on the top of that truck over there and keep an eye out for anyone or anything, but don’t let them see you.” Sammy obeyed instantly, hustled over and climbed up the truck faster than any of us could. Justin chuckled.
“He’s catching on.”
“Yeah, he was a sickly looking kid when he first came here, but he seems to be doing a lot better now.”
Ruth got in our truck and Justin guided her as she backed the five hundred gallon tanker up to the open portal. Everyone watched as I dropped the hose into the tank and started pumping the fuel. Jorge emerged from the business and held up a torque wrench.
“They got some good tools in there, man,” he exclaimed. His father nodded in agreement.
“That’s great,” I said. “Anything that’ll trade, be sure and grab it.” Jorge and Josue needed no further prompting and were soon loading the back of the truck full of various types of tools. We were making a good team.
“It’s looking pretty good, so far,” Justin commented.
“Yeah, I hope this diesel is still good.”
“What else do you think we need for the rendezvous?” Justin asked.
“Anything that’ll be good bartering items,” I replied. “Besides food, fuel, and ammo, the biggest things will be anything that’s useful but hard to find. I don’t think I want to barter any fuel or ammo, we need to keep all we find.”
“Yeah, I agree. We have an abundance of corn and potatoes, but not much else.”
“Tonya’s little grow operation might bring in some trade,” Justin said. “She has an entire greenhouse dedicated to growing nothing but marijuana.”
“A true latent stoner,” Ruth quipped.
After we had taken everything we thought would be useful, we tied down our load and stood by the truck.
“It’s still daylight out,” Justin said. “But there’s no room left.” I glanced at Sammy. He was still perched atop a semi, dutifully scanning the area with my binoculars. I got his attention and waved him over. He climbed down, ran up to us and stood there anxiously in his loose-fitting tee shirt and jeans that were so long the legs had to be rolled up to fit.
“What’s next, Zach?” he asked.
“We’re all done here.” He looked dejected. No doubt he wanted to do more than just keep watch. I thought about it and gave the men a conspiring wink.
“Sammy,” I said, “have I ever told you about Tommy and Joe?” He shook his head.
“Who’re they?” he asked.
“They were two young men close to your age. Unfortunately, they died in a freak accident, but when they were alive, they were being trained how to be bad ass survivalists.”
“They were?” he asked, wide eyed. I nodded with mock seriousness.
“Yep, and let me tell you, the training wasn’t easy.”
“What kind of training?”
“There was all kinds of stuff. Some of it was pretty challenging. I’d show you, but I don’t know if you’re big enough.”
“I’m big for my age,” Sammy retorted. “You said so yourself.” I scratched my chin as if thinking it over.
“Okay, fair enough, but, before we get started, there are things you need to understand. First, you’ve got to take your training seriously.”
“I will,” he said earnestly.
“And you have to be able to follow orders from your superiors, can you do that?” He nodded his head even more vigorously this time.
“Alright, let's start with a training exercise right now and we’ll see how serious you are about this.”
“Okay,” he said eagerly. I handed him a flashlight.
“We’re going to start with testing your resourcefulness.” I pointed out the business we had been in for the past two hours. “I want you to go in there and find three and only three items you can use as a survivalist. Whatever items you find, you have to be able to carry all of them out at the same time, so you must consider the size and weight, right?” Sammy nodded. His eagerness was still there, but it was tempered now as he tried to think through the challenge.
“Okay, there are a couple of other rules. As you know, zombies are attracted to sound and light, so you need to be super sneaky quiet and only use that flashlight when you have to.”
Sammy chuckled now. “There ain’t any zombies in there. You guys have already checked it out.” Jorge groaned and shook his head.
“We didn’t check everywhere, man. Those things could be hiding in a closet or crouched down in a dark corner somewhere.” Josue said something in Spanish and Jorge nodded. “My father said those things like to hide and wait until someone is alone and then attack. And they like to eat kids, man.”
Sammy’s grin disappeared and he was now looking a little frightened. Justin and Ruth were each holding their hand over their grins.
“Okay, don’t come out until you’ve found three useful things.” I glanced up at the sky. It was a little bit after noon and the sun was shining brightly. “You better get going, it’s going to get dark soon.”
“Vaya con Dios,” Josue said somberly and made the sign of the cross. I thought I was going to shit myself I was trying so hard to not laugh. Sammy walked hesitantly and looked back a couple of times before disappearing through the open door.
“You guys are devious,” Ruth said while trying not to laugh. “He watched us clear the business, he knows there’s no zombies.” I tapped my temple.
“Nothing like the power of suggestion,” I said.
“Did you do this with those two boys you mentioned?” Justin asked.
“Oh, yeah. We all had a hand in their training. Corporal Alexander was training them in soldier skills, would you be interested in doing something like that with Sammy and the other kids?”
“Sure, when they get old enough.” He looked over at the door Sammy had gone into. “I suppose ten is about the right age to start, depending on the kid. My dad taught me and my brother to shoot a little twenty-two rifle when we were about his age. Yeah,” he said, thinking. "Yeah, I think I'd really like doing that. We've got to teach the kids how to survive."
We chitchatted casually, mostly about the upcoming rendezvous. Jorge and Josue listened attentively.
“How's the progress going?” I asked Justin.
“I think we're ready to go.”
“So, this rendezvous, is it going to be good?” Jorge asked.
“I hope so,” I answered. Justin nodded in agreement.
“You think any women will show up?”
“There might be a few, it’s hard to say.”
“I hope so, man. Kate has a thing for Shooter, Kyra doesn’t want anything to do with me, and my balls are about to explode.”
“Kyra no Bueno,” Josue said and held his hands out as if measuring something. “Pequeño trasero.”
“What’d he say?” Justin asked.
“He said her ass is too small,” Jorge replied and shrugged a shoulder. “He likes women with big rear ends.” Justin and I laughed while Ruth shook her head in exasperation.
“Well, all I have to say is be wary of Janet. She’s no bueno.” Both Jorge and Josue nodded in understanding.
“He’s been in there a long time,” Justin finally remarked. I looked at my watch. It’d been about forty minutes. I thought he would’ve been out of there long before now.
“Yeah, maybe so. I’ll go in and get him.” However, before I could act, the door burst opened and Sammy emerged. He ran over and stood in front of us with his hands full and breathing heavily.
“Alright, show us what you got,” I said. Sammy held out his possessions.
“I got a hammer, a Bic lighter, and a water bottle,” Sammy held out his possessions tentatively. The hammer was a standard machinist’s ball peen hammer, the Bic lighter was almost completely full, and the water bottle was one of those plastic ones you bought at a Target store and put in your school backpack. I nodded thoughtfully, somberly, as if making a serious evaluation of his treasures.
“Explain why you picked those three particular items.”
“The hammer is for protection and hammering nails and stuff. The water bottle is so I can carry water around with me, and the lighter is for starting fires and for Aunt Kate and Aunt Kyra to smoke their cigarettes.” Everyone laughed.
“Alright, good job.”
“I passed?” Sammy asked. I looked around.
“Let’s see a show of hands of those who think Sammy passed his first training lesson.” Everyone raised their hand. Sammy grinned proudly as we slapped him on the back.
I had to drive slowly; we were heavily laden and the roads were rough.
“Roads are shit,” Josue commented from the back seat.
“Yeah,” I answered, “Unfortunately, they're not going to get any better either unless we start repaving them ourselves.” I found myself chuckling at the memory of Big Mac driving one of those huge paving machines home one day. Justin glanced at me but didn’t say anything, which was good. Jorge broke me out of my reverie.
“I have a motorcycle back at the barn in our old house,” he said. “I'd have no problem riding around on these roads."
“Oh, yeah? What kind?”
“It’s a Suzuki dirt bike. It’s a two-cycle, so it’s a little loud.”
“Still, it’d be good to have around, let’s go get it.” I started to make a detour toward their old home, but was stymied by the sudden appearance of over a dozen infected, standing in the road. I stopped suddenly. They were about three hundred yards away, not walking, just standing in a huddled mass in the middle of the roadway. Justin grabbed the binoculars and scanned them over.
“They’re looking this way,” he says, “but I’m not sure they know what they’re looking at.” He stared at them another ten seconds. “They look terrible, I’m actually seeing exposed portions of their skulls on some of them.”
“Any kids?” I asked while squinting at them.
“Maybe one or two, hard to tell without getting any closer.”
“They’re too far away to catch up to us, but I don’t want to get any closer.” I looked at everyone to see what they had to say.
“I don’t want to mess with those things, man,” Jorge exclaimed. Sammy, who was sitting beside him, nodded in wide-eyed agreement.
“No bueno,” Josue added.
“Yeah, with the truck full of stuff and pulling that tanker, we won’t be able to make a quick getaway.” I shrugged dismissively. “We’ll try for it later then.” I steered the truck toward home.
“Maria is really sweet,” Kelly said.
“What did you guys do all day?” I asked. Kelly pointed over at the full clothesline. Judging by the amount of clothing hanging, they’d been doing laundry all day. And I doubted they did them all by hand, so the batteries were probably drained.
“She’s going to come back tomorrow and pick up all of their clothes.”
“That’s great,” I replied “How were the kids?”
“They played together and even napped together. Little Jose really likes Macie. Maybe they’ll get married one day,” she said with a mischievous grin.
“You never know,” I replied with a chuckle. “Where’s Janet?” I asked.
“She rode with Sarah to find a bed,” she let out a small sigh. “The woman is a little hard to get along with.”
“Yeah, that’s for sure. I’ll keep her in line.”
“Anyway, the girls stopped by.
“How’re they fitting in over there?” Kelly grinned.
“Kyra told me Kate and Shooter have their own room now. His real name is Simon, by the way.”
“Heh, that’s great.” One less mouth to feed, I thought. “What about Kyra?” Kelly shook her head.
“She can’t stand Cutter. By the way, his real name is Theodore.” I chuckled.
“
Cutter,”
I said derisively. "Theodore is a better name than Cutter. Heck, one of the best presidents we ever had was named Theodore.”
“She doesn’t seem interested in Jorge either. Maybe this rendezvous will bring in some single men who’ll catch her eye,” she added. “Anyway, she has her own room, which she likes, but Tonya micromanages and keeps assigning her latrine duty, which she hates. She’s already said she’d like to move back in with us.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. She said while everyone else is working their asses off, Tonya walks around under the pretense of supervising.” I laughed.
“That sounds about right.”
I gave her a rundown of our adventures of the day, Sammy’s little test, and about the finding of the diesel fuel.
“What are we going to do when we can’t use fuel anymore?” she asked. I shrugged.