Amanda Carter in the L.A.Z., life after zombies Read online

  Amanda gave them some time to process this information, knowing that if she had been on the receiving end of it, she would want a few moments to think. She already felt full but finished off the last of the bread on her plate, not wanting to waste the taste of it.

  “How did you get away from them?” Maryanne asked, speaking of the herd.

  “Where did you find the dogs?” Sam asked.

  Roy chose to remain silent, listening, but the expression on his face seemed to echo their questions.

  “I knew of an old mineshaft not too far away,” Amanda began. “I was overheated myself and decided to seek shelter there, get some rest, wait it out.”

  “Isn’t it dangerous to be trapped in a shaft with that many creepers coming at you?” Sam asked, incredulous.

  “Yes, of course,” she answered, “but they hadn’t sensed me yet. The horde was crossing the desert with no apparent agenda. It wasn’t like they were after me. I boogied out of there before they even knew I was there, and though I didn’t watch them pass by, I assume that they just kept going.”

  “Where were they going?” Maryanne said with awe, once again raising one of the unanswered questions that was plaguing Amanda.

  “I went a long way down the shaft, over a board that crossed a hole in the floor, pulled the board up and crashed out for an hour or so, hoping that when I came out, they would have all passed,” she said.

  “Is that what happened?” Sam asked.

  “Almost,” Amanda said. She then recounted how unstable the mineshaft was and how it had begun to cave in even as she was running out.

  “That explains why you’re twice as filthy as when you left here,” Maryanne said.

  Amanda told them of the lone, crawling creeper that she had come across after her dash out of the shaft. They were intrigued about the dogs having led her to their master’s lifeless body.

  “That’s so sad,” Sam said when she heard that Amanda had to cover his body with stones before Red would leave.

  Lastly, she mentioned that there had at one point been a vehicle behind them in the far distance but that it had not continued on her same path. She told them of the two creepers in The Trench that the dogs had alerted to.

  “That means that we have some company out here,” Roy said, sounding disgruntled as if some unwanted neighbors had moved into a house next door.

  “What if the dogs bark at the wrong time?” Roy asked. “I hate to be the one to bring this up, but it’s also two more mouths to feed.”

  Amanda was glad that she wasn’t on the receiving end of the glares that both the other women gave him for his comments.

  “Whoa,” Roy said, “don’t shoot the messenger. It’s just that somebody ought to be the devil’s advocate here and ask the hard questions. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want them here.”

  “That little dog is curled up and sleeping with my six-year-old daughter. If she barks because something is threatening my daughter, then I want to know about it,” Maryanne said defensively.

  Red was sitting beside Sam, and she was scratching behind his ears.

  “He’s a wolf,” she said. “He won’t do anything stupid, he’s too smart for that.”

  “I tend to agree,” Amanda said. “The man that owned them obviously had them well trained. The three of them had helped each other to survive this whole time. They’ve already helped me to get back home safely, alerting me to trouble. I think they’re going to be an asset and not a liability.”

  “I agree,” Roy said. “I don’t have a problem with them staying. I just couldn’t help from stating the obvious.”

  Amanda busted out the bottle of rum, holding it up with a smile.

  “Anybody for a toast to another successful run and two new members of our group?” Amanda said.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Roy said, downing the last of the water in his glass and holding it out for some rum.

  “Where on earth did you find that?” Maryanne said, not expecting an answer. “That sounds like a lovely idea, it’s been a very long day.”

  “Me too,” Sam said.

  “You’re a growing girl, and there won’t be any alcohol for you in the foreseeable future, young lady,” her mother said.

  “It’s not like life expectancy is that long these days,” Sam said, rolling her eyes. “Who knows if I’ll even make it to twenty-one.”

  “Besides the fact that you’re a growing girl, it’s comments like that that tell me you shouldn’t be indulging in alcohol. Now, scoot off to bed,” her mother said sternly.

  Sam, who was very tired, acquiesced easily and left the group, with her new friend, Red, following her.

  “It has been a long day,” Roy echoed, watching the teen go.

  Roy was thinking of the day, how sick Jason had become, the heat that still lingered, and all the bickering. He had been a solitary man for many years, and there were times that living in a group really exhausted him. The Albrechts had been his neighbors, and he had enjoyed many a family barbecue with them. He and Jason had worked on projects together, but he had always had his quiet home to retreat to. He had no such luxuries here, and though he loved them, he desperately needed some alone time.

  “I’ll take mine to go,” Roy said, getting up after Amanda poured him a healthy portion.

  Amanda watched him grab a baseball bat, just in case, and a lantern. He walked down the hill toward the vehicles.

  “I’m afraid that we put poor Roy through the ringer today,” Maryanne said after he had left.

  “Don’t worry about it, he can handle it,” Amanda said. “You know Roy, he needs his privacy more than the rest of us do. He’ll be fine.”

  “Look at us, Amanda,” she said, shaking her head. “None of this is fine.”

  “I know,” her friend answered and then sighed. “I know.”

  “I had a career, a loving husband, two healthy and well-adjusted children, for the most part. We owned our own home, no mortgage payments. We were sacrificing a little to save for our future and our children’s future, and now look at us,” Maryanne said, and she had begun to slur her words.

  It was obvious to Amanda that Maryanne needed to break down a little and vent. She just sat by the light of the lantern, listening.

  “What kind of a future do we have now? I get after Samantha for saying things like that, but secretly, I understand her point,” she said, and now she had burst into tears.

  Amanda moved closer, wrapping her arm around her friend’s shoulder, hoping that all she really needed was a good cry, as if it were that simple.

  “I mean, look at me. I’m a wreck,” Maryanne continued. “My clothes are filthy, I’m filthy, my hair,” she said, grabbing a few strands and holding it out, “well, it’s awful. My fingernails are dirty all the time. I just can’t keep anything clean out here in all this dirt. My children are filthy, my husband has been knocking on death’s door, the kids aren’t getting an education, and I have no assurances for them. And this is all because something I can’t even fathom has happened to us.” She turned to cry on her friend’s shoulder, big, wracking sobs that had waited six months to unleash themselves; and now that the dam had busted, torrents were flowing out.

  Amanda could feel Maryanne’s warm tears wetting her shirt as she held her. She wanted to tell her friend that it was all going to be okay, but that would be a lie because she was right. In the LAZ, life had no assurances.

  “It takes a special kind of person to become a doctor,” Amanda said finally. “And it takes another special kind of person to be a good mother. You are both of those things. The world has become a messed-up place, but it needs you, and your children need you. I know that life has become hard, much harder than you could have ever imagined, but you still have your family, that’s more than many people can say these days. Let’s make every day count. We can work to figure out what happened to us, work to fix it, and work to educate our children in such a way that this never happens to us as a species again. It is up to us, the sur
vivors, to fix this and make a future for the children.”

  She could feel her friend’s head nodding into her shoulder.

  “Do you promise?” Maryanne asked, lifting her head to look into Amanda’s brown eyes. “Do you promise to help fix this?”

  “I do,” Amanda said, “with all my being, I do.”

  Chapter 11

  The promise that Amanda had made to her friend was still fresh on her lips when she stumbled off to fall onto her bedroll.

  It’s true that we’ve been drinking, she thought, and by morning with a clear head, Maryanne might not even remember having had the conversation. And it’s reasonable to think that they could both easily explain it away as drunk ramblings, should both parties remember, something like, “friends don’t hold friends to drunken promises.” But that isn’t the point, she thought, as her thoughts swam around a bit, making it difficult to collect them.

  The point was—she concluded after rounding up the meaningful parts of what she was trying to concentrate on—not just them, but the entire human race was in the biggest jam of its known history. The absolute truth was that humanity was facing extinction, and maybe that extinction is a well-deserved byproduct of our collective bad decisions, she considered. But maybe if enough of them, the survivors, could band together, they could stop it from happening and build a new humanity for themselves.

  Amanda fell asleep before she could decide on any clear course of action for “fixing” anything.

  The sun had risen much too early, it seemed to Amanda, as she opened her eyes to pinpricking pain that shot through her ocular cavity and into the back of her head. She moaned, rolled over, and tried to go back to sleep. No such luck, she thought as the heat that traveled with sun already felt oppressive, and she knew that she needed to start drinking a lot of water if she wanted to get through the day in any kind of shape. She sat up.

  “It’s official,” she mumbled, “I definitely have a hangover.”

  Even though she had not said it very loudly, Maryanne heard her from over in their kitchen area, where she already had water boiling, to be sanitized and coffee brewing.

  “You and me both,” the woman said, giving her a weak smile. “Thought I should let you sleep as long as possible, but coffee’s ready, if you want.”

  Amanda heard Tammy giggle and turned to the source. The child was using a stick to play fetch with the little dog, and they both appeared to be delighted by it. Red, on the other hand, observed their game, with eyes wise and a soul too old to be able to enjoy such a simple game.

  “Oh, good, Amanda, you’re up,” Roy said, walking up to her.

  “It depends upon your definition of up,” Amanda said, knowing that she sounded cranky, as she held both sides of her head, hoping that it wouldn’t split apart from the pain.

  Roy was wearing a big smile while looking down on her.

  “At least somebody is in a good mood around here,” she said glumly.

  “I need some help setting up the tarps,” he said, gesturing to his arm that was in a sling.

  “Sure, sure,” she said, “that’s exactly what I wanted to do first thing in the morning, pound stakes into the ground.” Just the thought of it made her cringe. “As my grandmother used to say, ‘There’s no rest for the wicked,’” Amanda said, pushing herself to her feet.

  It took her a moment on her feet before she could be sure that she wasn’t going to vomit. Her alcohol tolerance, she realized, must have become very low over these dry months.

  “The good news is that Jason’s awake, the fever’s low, and the swelling in his leg has subsided a little,” Maryanne said with obvious relief.

  “Do you think that you’ll be able to save the leg?” Amanda asked, knowing that she had been considering amputation.

  “I’m not sure yet, but the likelihood of saving it has just increased,” she answered, sounding more like a doctor and less like a wife.

  Amanda looked at her grubby hands that she was about to rub her face with and thought better of it. She was tired of going to bed dirty, tired of sleeping in dirt-encrusted, sweat-stained clothes, and tired of her oily, long black hair. She wondered if maybe she should cut all her hair off. It made sense, but she had formed, over the years, an emotional attachment to it.

  “Here, grab that,” Roy said, handing her a string that was attached to a tent stake. He held the aluminum pole up to steady it.

  “I need to find the hammer first,” Amanda said, looking around and finally seeing it lying at Roy’s feet. “Oh,” was all she said, feeling foolish.

  She was surprised to find that her head was still intact upon her shoulders by the time she had finished pounding in all the stakes.

  “Remind me again why we don’t just undo the string and leave the stakes in for the night?” Amanda said to Roy, already beginning to feel a new layer of sweat beading up on her skin.

  “When we leave them in, they loosen up in the soft dirt and the wind rips them out,” Roy said. “Besides, wasn’t it you that did a face plant one night, tripping on them when you got up to use the facilities?”

  “Yep, that was me,” she said, remembering.

  “If it’s any consolation,” Maryanne said, “you brought us enough water that we should all be able to pick a shirt to wash this week and a pair or two of underwear.”

  “Oh, goody,” Amanda said, feeling like maybe she and Sam had switched places in the night. Is this what it felt like to be a teenager? she wondered, massaging her temples.

  “Have a cup of coffee and a glass of water,” her friend said, delivering both to her. “It’ll help.”

  “Thank you, sorry, I’m in such a completely rotten mood,” she said apologetically. “I bet you’re happy to have your husband awake?”

  “I can’t even tell you what a relief it was to hear his voice this morning, as weak as it sounds, even. I think he’s fallen back to sleep now, but he seems to be rounding the bend,” she said, appearing to be delighted.

  “You don’t suppose that there might be enough water for us to wash some of this grime off of our bodies, do you?” Amanda asked of Maryanne because she was the keeper of the water.

  “It depends on when you’re planning to head back out on another run, I guess,” Maryanne said thoughtfully. “We pushed it too close last time. We had less than a half gallon left when you rolled in, and that’s life-threatening close.”

  “I gotcha, I’ll leave again in a couple of days, maybe we can get stocked up with runs a little closer together,” Amanda said, not choosing to mention that soon there would be a problem with having enough gasoline for the trips. She would rather mention that in a group meeting than so early in the morning when they were all so happy that Jason was doing better.

  “I’d be more than happy to get some dirt off of me,” Roy said, flashing a white smile. Amanda secretly wondered why he was the only one that seemed to be able to keep white teeth around here.

  “In case you forgot, Roy,” Amanda said, jokingly, “you’re a black man. The dirt doesn’t show.”

  “How about me?” Maryanne asked, “Can you see the dirt on me?”

  “Honey, you have very fair complexion,” Amanda answered. “In your case, I’d suggest leaving some of the dirt on you to shield you from the sun.”

  The three of them got a good laugh out of their playful banter. Amanda realized that it had been far too long since she had really, honest to God, laughed. It might have been the glass of water, she doubted that it was the coffee. Most likely, it had been the laughter, but she felt better. Her raging headache had subsided into just an annoying headache, and she was feeling very thankful for friends.

  “Amanda?” Tammy asked, coming up behind her friend and poking her in the back. “What’s for breakfast?”

  “You know Amanda can’t cook,” Sam said, coming up from down the hill, with her arms laden with supplies.

  “Thanks a lot,” Amanda said, “even though it’s the truth, you don’t have to be so blunt about it.”
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  Sam gave her an odd look, and Amanda laughed to let her know that she had been feigning offense.

  “Tammy, is that you?” came Jason’s voice, low, weak.

  “Daddy, you’re awake,” Tammy said, running to where her father lay.

  Jason gave an audible wince as Tammy dropped onto him, locking him in an embrace. Maryanne went running after her to collect her from atop her husband.

  “Ouch, that hurt, I bet,” Amanda said, wincing herself at the thought of being that injured and having a child, even a small one, pounce like a cat.

  “No climbing on daddy until further notice, he’s still sick,” her mother said breathlessly, picking her youngest daughter up and standing her beside her father’s bed.

  “Oh, sorry,” Tammy said, looking as if she might cry. Her little face was puckered up, and she had raised her hands to her eyes.

  “It’s okay, piglet,” Jason said, using his nickname for her.

  This elicited a look of disapproval from his wife who had asked him repeatedly to stop using it. He coughed from the effort and stretched out a hand to brush her arm.

  “You know I don’t like you calling her that, Jason. It’s a terrible nickname,” she couldn’t help but say to her husband tersely.

  “Piglet’s in Winnie the Pooh, and Daddy says that Piglet’s adorable and smart,” Tammy said, reaching out to clasp her father’s hand.

  “That’s right, honey,” Jason said, “and don’t you forget it.”

  “Oh, I give up,” Maryanne said, throwing her hands up in the air. “You two are too much.”

  Maryanne went to her medical stash and popped a pill out of a bottle then another pill out of another bottle.

  “Since when did we turn into a hospital around here?” Jason asked. “We have a pharmacy and everything. How on earth did you find the IV fluids?”