Zombies in Paradise (Love in the Age of Zombies Book 2) (6 page)

Driving along these barren stretches of road, Doc recalled a Christmas morning a few years earlier. It was long after his divorce, but after his reconciliation with his adult son and daughter.

Later that day I’d be seeing my son and grandkids, but at eight-thirty in the morning I didn’t have anything in particular to do and couldn’t go back to sleep.

I turned on the Christmas tree lights and stood outside on the front porch, watching my breath swirl and fade in the morning cold. On a whim I cranked up the Jeep and drove around the back roads, more or less sightseeing. It wasn’t a white Christmas, just a typical cold, gray Michigan morning. Some of the houses were ornately adorned with Christmas lights. I thought about the scenes inside: kids tearing open presents, bleary-eyed parents resolutely drinking coffee and trying to wake up. Maybe the Christmas ham or turkey was already in the oven.

In that forty-five minute drive on Christmas morning, I didn’t pass a single car, although I did pass one middle-aged jogger wearing a jaunty Santa hat. The air was so still I saw a trail of breath following the man as he puffed along.

It was eerie in a comforting kind of way, knowing I was surrounded by families gathered together in celebration and revelry. Some houses had four or five cars parked in the driveway, and I could both see and smell the wood smoke rising from chimneys. In a couple of places, I could even tell what kind of wood they were burning; I smelled hickory and oak.

Today, however, was different. The few houses he passed were dark and probably vacant. No smoke rising from chimneys, no traffic, no joggers, only an occasional zombie stumbling through the fields. That Christmas morning he had felt alone but surrounded by people. Now he was alone and surrounded by zombies. He wasn’t the kind of man who needed to be constantly surrounded by people, and indeed often felt the need for solitude, but he enjoyed the company of his friends, and occasionally a woman spent the night with him. Now his only friends were still hours away and he hadn’t seen another living person in months.

Before his retirement, he dreamed of escaping to the cabin just to get away from all the stress and constant demands on his time. Now that he’d been alone for nearly six months, he felt an uncharacteristic craving for human company. He found himself filled with happy anticipation at being with Kevin and Michelle. He passed a stretch of wildflowers and trilliums in bloom. His thoughts returned again to an even earlier day, over fifty years ago.

Paige and I were young lovers, headed towards marriage, parenthood, and an ugly divorce. We only had eyes for each other, and our bodies were constantly hungry for each other. I’d gone for a drive on a day like this. The warm weather and newly-budded trees made everything serene and romantic. As we drove along, Paige snuggled up against me on the bench seat of my Impala. we both started to feel amorous and began to touch and squeeze each other through our clothes.

We searched for a good place to pull off the road and indulge ourselves. Finding a two-track headed into the woods—barely more than a trail—I eased the Impala along, checking my rear view mirror until I could no longer see the road.

I parked the car and we made out for a few minutes, getting more aroused and hungry for more. “Let’s go out in the woods,” Paige suggested breathlessly between kisses.

I got the emergency blanket out of the trunk. We walked a little way from the car until we found a clearing, then lay down together to continue our explorations of affection. Within a few minutes, Paige was on top of me, moaning as we made love. Her blouse was open and she wasn’t wearing a bra. The sunlight on her breasts and nipples was lovely. I wanted to look at her forever.

I heard Paige gasp and tense up. She stopped moving. I was afraid we’d been caught, but when I followed her eyes I saw a porcupine a dozen feet away, blinking at us stupidly before turning its back and waddling away with a grunt. We both laughed and Paige said my quill was the only one for her, then we kept going until we snuggled breathlessly on the blanket, sated. It was a scene we would laughingly talk about for years, until things went bad. Once everything fell apart, our only communication was through attorneys at two hundred dollars an hour.

Thinking about it filled him with a new kind of sadness. Not because he missed Paige—although he missed how it was in the early years: their friendship, the passion they shared and the way their lives dovetailed together. No, he didn’t miss her, although he felt sad that she was likely dead or one of
them
.

It was the world he missed, the world he had both loved and loathed. It was still hard to fathom that it was gone forever. He knew intellectually that there might still be good times ahead; there would be times of triumph and likely times of great despair, but the world he had known and taken for granted was gone. He and the world had divorced.

He’d looked forward to teaching his grandson how to fish, looked forward to spending time with friends he’d known all his life, friends he’d only recently gotten back in touch with. He missed his adult children as they grew older and more mature. He’d looked forward to retirement and having the time and resources to do the things he’d been putting off.

Thinking back on how it felt to be the father of school-age children, his eyes misted over. How he missed those days, before the divorce and the struggle to stay involved in their lives. There was a long period of time when his kids’ problems were simple enough for him to solve. A skinned knee? Come get in my lap, let me take a look. He could take care of a booboo. Have a bad dream? It’s okay, come get in bed with us. Shh, shh, stop crying, it’s okay now. Struggling with math or English? Let’s sit down and figure it out.

He was sorry to see those days slowly eclipse into teenage angst and hormones. Solving a child’s problems wasn’t too difficult; but how do you solve a sixteen-year-old girl’s self-image problems? He knew he wouldn’t be able to help her navigate that minefield. All he could do was love her and watch as she struggled to grow accustomed to her budding breasts and having guys stare. He felt more qualified to help his son, but his advice was obviously not welcomed. Any help he could offer his kids would not only be in vain, but would be resented. By then his marriage was falling apart and during the custody battle he’d been accused of doing and saying horrible things and of being a horrible father and person. He’d learned the hard way that in the court of public opinion, even an accusation was enough to sully a reputation, even among friends he thought would always defend him.

He couldn’t understand why Paige felt compelled to sabotage his relationship with his own children. Why tell them lies, why tell them his worst, most shameful secrets? How did it help her to have his kids lose respect for him? It wasn’t like he’d ever abused her or cheated on her. He didn’t deserve to be betrayed so terribly. It wasn’t only his fault their love withered and died.

Doc traveled the back roads in silence. His pace was slow, having to drive around and sometimes over fallen trees, branches, and zombies. His heart was filled with misgiving and regrets. He hadn’t been the father he wanted to be. Paige made sure of that. Like a lot of dads who fight in court for equal parenting time, he lost. He was only permitted to be a weekend dad. He knew his kids would tell him he was a great dad before the divorce; he’d made time to go to their ballgames and school productions and recitals. He’d told them bedtime stories and tucked them in. They always knew he loved them, even when he had to get tough. He did his best to give them a long enough leash to explore their surroundings while still using him as a safety net. And yet he was filled with regret at his limited role. He fell far short of his own ideal of a very good father.

As the hours passed and the sun began to sink in the western sky, he realized he needed to snap out of it and decide where he was going to spend the night. He didn’t relish the thought of breaking into a house; he knew he was likely to find zombies or the stink of dead bodies. He may even find himself on the receiving end of a thirty-aught-six. These remote parts of Michigan were filled with men and women who chose to be self-reliant, mistrusting of strangers. Some of them were right-wing militia types, some were tree-hugging eco-terrorists, others were simply survivalists who’d seen too much civilization and had chosen to withdraw.

Anyone who lived a mile away from their nearest neighbor did not expect or even want help. Sometimes even offering help was taken as an intrusion. These were the type of survivors he was likely to encounter if he randomly picked a house to break into. Some survivors would readily shoot first and ask questions later.

In the end, he figured he’d spend the night in the cab of the Jeep. It might not be comfortable, but at least it would be safe.

As the shadows on the road began to stretch longer, he started looking for a good place to pull off. Eventually he spied an overgrown two-track path that looked promising. He put the Jeep in four-wheel drive and headed down the trail, going slow to avoid bottoming out in low spots of the small hills. After driving for ten minutes, the path veered left and before him lay the small Tittabawasee River.

He followed the track along the shore until he saw an aluminum canoe laying upside down atop two sawhorses. The canoe was covered with leaves and a broken branch leaned against it, so he knew it hadn’t been used in a long time. He parked near it and got out, stretching his stiffening muscles and hearing his back pop. He took a closer look at the canoe and saw two paddles resting inside atop the sawhorses.

It occurred to him that the safest place to spend the night was not in a strange house or cabin and not in the cab of his truck. The safest place would be on the river. Squatting next to the sawhorses he checked the inside of the canoe. A rope dangled down from the last crossbar, and giving the rope a quick tug Doc confirmed there was an anchor hidden under the accumulated leaves. He checked the interior carefully, looking for any light coming through the bottom or sides of the canoe. If it leaked light it’d leak water. After brushing off an old dead wasp nest he decided the craft looked watertight. He went back to his truck and rustled around until he found his sleeping bag and a couple of blankets, then grabbed them and headed back to the canoe. Midway there he stopped and returned to the Jeep to retrieve a few beers he’d stashed, picking them up by the plastic rings where other cans used to be. The beer was only slightly cool, but beggars can’t be choosers. He also grabbed a spoon and a can of baked beans with a pull-top, then put everything in the bone dry floor of the canoe. He took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his pant legs, and waded into the water while pushing the aluminum canoe ahead of him. The water was very cold, and if he capsized he’d be fighting hypothermia within just a couple of minutes.

When the water was calf high, he gingerly stepped into the canoe and used the paddles to shove off into deeper water. He paddled upstream for a few minutes to ensure the location was safe, and scrutinizing the banks did not see any sign of people or zombies. He floated with the current partway back, then dropped the anchor into the water. He estimated the water to be about twenty feet deep, more than enough to keep him safe from zombies. As he floated in the slowly moving river not far offshore, a flash of inspiration struck him; he reeled in the anchor and paddled back upstream again, then as he floated back to his point of origin he tied the beer to the anchor and lowered it into the water. He felt the anchor touch bottom and secured the rope.

He assembled his makeshift bed on the floor of the canoe and took a look around. On the far side of the river, barely visible among the trees, was a small hunting cabin, weathered and deteriorating. He saw no movement and concluded it was likely abandoned. A slight mist was rising from the water, moving slowly across the dark surface. He watched a few bats dart about and wished he’d brought his fly rod, especially when he saw a few trout rising to feed. But at this point, he didn’t feel like going to the trouble of paddling back to shore, finding his rod and flies, and paddling back out. He was tired; it’d been a long day, the most active day he’d had in months. He was also somewhat emotionally worn down by his ill-timed reverie while traveling.

After twenty minutes or so, he reeled in the anchor and pulled loose a beer. It was cold enough to enjoy, and after lowering the anchor back into the water, he popped the tab. The
snick!
echoed off the banks. He took a long swallow, the bite of cool carbonation sliding down his throat. As he usually did with his first drink of beer, he sang
God bless Charlie Mopps, the man who invented beer, beer, beer, tiddley beer, beer, beer.

Floating safely on the river, drinking a cold beer while feeling the anchored canoe move slightly with the current, he was content. He propped the pillow against the bench and lay his head down. Bit by bit the stars began to appear. He hadn’t seen much of the stars for a while; the pines around his cabin obstructed most of his view. He finished his beer and fished out another, resting it on his chest as he gazed at the stars. He did his best to name the constellations as well as a few stars and even Venus. He saw a couple of shooting stars over the course of an hour and was surprisingly thrilled when a satellite slowly arced across the dome of the sky. He wondered how long the satellite would stay in orbit.

Several hours later—he didn’t know exactly what time—he awoke to the sound of some creature crashing through the underbrush downstream. Of course he couldn’t see what it was, but a few moments later he heard the rasping sound he’d become familiar with and knew it was a zombie. He heard it stumble into the water and then slowly head back ashore where it crunched into the underbrush. After a few minutes the sound stopped. It didn’t die away; it just stopped. He hoped the zombie would stay in one spot until daylight.