“For what?”
“For stopping for us. We wouldn’t have made it much longer in that car, which means we wouldn’t have made it at all. You did a good thing today. You saved six lives.” I looked to Daphne and corrected myself. “Seven.”
Adam looked to his feet and kicked at an imaginary rock, his discomfort at the compliment causing his cheeks and neck to flush.
“I really need to get back to Jake and his sister before they get nervous,” I said.
I started back to Jake, turning around one last time. “I’m sure I’ll see you around,” I joked, and beamed a sincere smile at him before turning the corner.
One of the benefits of living the coastal life was that many big name stores and supermarkets, Target included, sat on waterfront property. Shoppers could drive up in their boats and tie up to do their shopping. The main advantage to this was it provided us with a defensible area. A cinder block barrier more than seven feet high ran from the back of the store to the water’s edge on both sides. The other side of the canal faced a row of homes. Our presence had not gone unnoticed, and the edge of land was lined with a horde of undead. With no chance they could reach us, the scene was less fear-inspiring than it should have been. Dead moans carried over on the breeze. I found myself sitting at one of the patio sets we brought outside. Lounging in one of the reclining chairs I gawked at the single-minded beasts.
It never failed. A new addition would push their weight into the foray and plop; the front line would fall into the water and get pulled under, to be carried away with the current. Sometimes, I pretended to cast a fishing line out and reel them in when they tumbled into the water.
We quickly fell into a routine. The soldiers would leave each morning at dawn to search for more survivors. Jake and I stayed back with Meg and the others, performing menial tasks around the store. The rotting meat section had started to reek like week-old roadkill in the dead of summer. Myself, along with Jake, Adam, and the Talbots took on the chore of emptying the molding deli section. After filling shopping carts lined with plastic shower curtains, we carted them out the back door where a second group waited to dump them in the canal. A third group wore painting masks and cleaned the shelves with bleach upon our completion.
Jake found it comforting to fall back on his military training and began taking shifts at the barricade. Meg put her psych degree to good use, providing an outlet for many of the survivors to process what horrors they had seen. We all suffered from post-traumatic stress in one way or another.
Another thing I noticed about Meg was that she spent a lot of time with one of the soldiers, a good-looking kid who was well-liked by the others. Will, she told me, was also twenty-one, and she really liked him. I don’t know where this generation got their slang for dating. I’d lived through terms like going steady, dating, boyfriend and girlfriend, but it seemed the new way to say it was talking. So Meg and Will were talking. Whatever that meant. She said she was keeping it casual, but this was no big surprise. She had always distanced herself emotionally from getting too involved with guys. Her first serious relationship began at the end of her senior year of high school and lasted through her first year of college. He wanted to get serious, and she didn’t want the hassle. Meg was gorgeous. Like all the Rossi kids, she had dark hair and big brown eyes. She was also pint-sized and had a perfect body. She invested a lot of time working out and staying in shape. I guessed she was probably the best looking girl left alive.
The center of the store became a tent city. People slept in groups for fear of being alone. Jake and I had set up our own tent on the fringe of the group. He avoided talking about his family. “I’m sorry I was such an ass about Daphne. I deserved that left hook.” He touched his jaw and pretended that it hurt. I slapped him playfully.
“At least you’re finally admitting you’re an ass,” I joked back. The realization that life as we knew it had been so severely altered, I forced my feelings of resentment to the depths of my being and made the conscious effort to forgive his cold betrayal.
His face turned serious. He gripped my face in his hand and drew me into a kiss. “I couldn’t bear losing you. You’re everything to me.”
“Me, too, baby.” I snuggled down with him. The store was dark. Lit only by an LED lantern at the center of our makeshift camp. Barely able to make out his features, I laid in his arms. Daphne snored softly beside us as we drifted off.
Nights were difficult for everyone. The sounds of people crying themselves to sleep haunted each and every one of us. Jake had taken the news of his parents hard. Instead of letting it out, though, he took out his rage on the undead that wandered too close to the barricade. He began spending more time on the wall than with me inside. I missed my easy-going, funny husband. I don’t know why I wasn’t falling apart, I just wasn’t. I put my limited nursing education to good use, caring for boo-boos the kids would get playing, and diagnosing dehydration on numerous occasions. Gabby had taken to following Adam around. His hesitation was obvious only to me, since he refused to talk about himself to the others. Our brief conversation had been the only time he had let his guard down.
Margie became the den mother of sorts. She corralled the kids and kept them out of trouble. Most of the kids were alone, families having perished in the initial outbreak. The first few search parties had rewarded us a total of twelve new survivors. Margie and the Talbots took on the role of welcoming committee, introducing the new arrivals to everyone and helping them get acclimated to the store. The survivors were zombies of another kind. Bodies emaciated from days without food. Wits frayed by all they had seen.
I spent the morning getting to know Finn and Noelle Jamison. Noelle was three weeks into the eighth month of her pregnancy. The couple got married the year before and this was to be their first child. Finn was a numbers and statistics guy. He worked for a small accounting firm in town and had the stereotypical rigidity expected from a CPA.
Noelle was the polar opposite. As a Kindergarten teacher, she was patient and easy going. The day of the outbreak, they were returning home from a prenatal visit. Twenty minutes after learning their first child would be a bouncing baby girl, they heard the news reports on the radio. As Finn leaned over to raise the volume, a woman ran into the street, and directly into the path of their oncoming vehicle. The pair wouldn’t, or couldn’t, elaborate on their experience. Finn was too scared that reliving the details would cause undue stress on Noelle and their unborn child. Clinically, I agreed. I did what I could to make her comfortable and kept a watchful eye on her.
Sandra, one of the newest arrivals, did nothing but cry. She turned down multiple attempts from the group to talk, or even just allow one of us to sit with her. Isolated to the farthest corner of the store, she remained withdrawn and emotional. Barely touching the food we brought to her, she looked like a rag doll in her oversized summer dress. On her sixth day with us, she stopped crying altogether and went catatonic. We took turns checking on her, careful to provide her with enough space.
The following day, the smell of shit hung in the air as I walked over to Sandra’s corner. She was laying in the fetal position, urine and feces puddling around her from under her skirt. Cautiously, I approached. Her back was to me and the last thing I wanted to do was startle her. “Sandra, it’s Emma. I wanted to see if you need anything.” The smell intensified the closer I got and I choked back a wave of nausea. Drawing on my history with code browns, I put the odor out of my mind and continued.