Savannah's Only Zombie (Book 2): A New Darkness (6 page)

Jeremy placed the Tupperware containers
of leftovers into the refrigerator. The fact that they had a working
refrigerator continued to blow his mind. They had electricity for that matter.
Sure, gas-fueled generators powered it, but they had freaking electricity.
Finding gasoline shouldn’t be too hard, seeing that not a lot of people were
driving around nowadays.

Lexx put the last of the dishes back into
the cabinets, as Tori wiped down the dining table and counters. When they were
finished, the three of them huddled in the kitchen.

“Okay,” Tori started. “Let’s kill the
elephant in the room. How long are we staying here?”

“Why should we leave?” Jeremy asked.

“Because we don’t want to wear out our
welcome. And because these people are going through some stuff right now. They
don’t need us around, getting in the way,” she said.

“These are good people Tori,” Jeremy
replied. “They took us in out of the goodness of their hearts. And we won’t be
in the way; they need us just as much as we need them.”

She leaned back against the counter.

“That’s not what I meant Jeremy,” she
said. “What I mean is they just lost a little girl. That’s hard to walk away
from. You saw the mom. She hasn’t spoken since it happened. The dad carries the
weight of the whole thing. The grandparents seem level, but I’ve noticed the
way grandma looks at Chris. I think she blames him too. I can just tell. Then
you’ve got the boy, who seems to be the only one that has his head on
straight.”

“What about Josh and his wife?” Jeremy
asked.

“Oh, please! Don’t get me started on
that!” She said, rolling her eyes.

“What do you mean by that?”

“What do I mean by that? Jeremy, she’s
fucking preggers,” Tori hissed through her teeth, trying her best to keep her
voice down. “What do you think is gonna happen when that baby is ready to come
out? Hmm? Do you know anything about birthing babies? Cause I don’t know jack
shit and I’ve got the right plumbing!”

Jeremy’s eyes shot to the floor, but
bounced back up to meet hers.

“People have been hav-”

“Having babies for thousands of years?”
She interrupted. “Yeah, and how many women died in child birth before modern
medicine? How many women still die in third-world countries? Please. Okay,
let’s just pretend that everything goes peachy and the baby comes out alright.
What then? Babies make a lot of noise. Noise attracts zombies. What happens if,
knock on wood, we have to leave this place? With a baby in tow? We might as
well strap fucking sirloins to our backs.”

Jeremy did not have an answer for her. To
an extent, she was right. The baby was going to make things difficult, whether
inside Laura’s belly or out. But Jeremy did not see that as a legitimate reason
to leave. This was still hands down the best place for them.

“So what do you want to do then Tori?” He
asked her. His eyes set against hers.

She turned away from his glare, looking
at Lexx for back up. He shrugged. She looked back at Jeremy.

“I don’t know.”

Silence.

“I don’t know okay?” She said. “I’m just
saying, this place isn’t all pros. It has its cons too.”

Jeremy thought about laying onto her
about giving him the verbal whiplash, but decided against it. He was tired.
They were all tired. He had come to know the woman enough to know that she
could get a little carried away. He smiled.

“I hear you,” he said. “Let’s sleep on
it. We have time to figure it out. We don’t have to leave tomorrow, do we?”

She shook her head.

“I didn’t think so. Let’s get some sleep
guys.”

They said their goodnights and Lexx and
Tori retreated to their bedroom upstairs. Jeremy was going to sleep on the
couch in the living room, next to CJ on the air mattress. The boy was sound
asleep, so Jeremy did his best to lie down on the couch quietly.

He pulled a blanket up around him and
stared up at the ceiling in the darkness. Tori’s words echoed in his head.

It has its cons.

It took him a while before he could
finally surrender himself to sleep.

***

Once in their room, Tori pressed Lexx on
the issues from downstairs.

“So, you were quiet down there. You don’t
have an opinion on any of this?

He looked up at her from the bed. He had
crashed onto the full-sized bed as soon as they entered the room. He looked at
her, taking in her body language. Her hip was cocked out to the side.

Not a good sign.

Her hand was placed on her hip, elbow
pointed out to the side.

Also not a good sign.

She stared him down, waiting for his
answer.

I should probably answer her
, he thought.

“Seemed like you had things under
control,” he said.

She sighed.

Uh-oh. Wrong answer, Lexxie.

He sat up and swung his legs around to
the side of the bed. He held his hands out towards her, motioning for her to
come closer. She seemed reluctant, but moved towards his hands. His hands found
their place on her hips and he looked up into her eyes.

“I agree with you one hundred percent. I
just think we need to give it more time before we jump ship.”

She sighed again, but differently than
before. This time out of relief, not exasperation.

“Plus, you were letting Jeremy kinda have
it and I did not want to jump in the middle of that,” he said with his boyish
smile.

She playfully punched him in the
shoulder. He fell back onto the bed, clutching at his shoulder, as if nursing a
mortal wound.

“Stop that. I barely hit you,” she said.

“Oh, if only you knew your own strength!”

She jumped on him and grabbed his ribs.

“I’ll show you my strength, you wuss!”
she said, with a giggle.

She pushed her fingers deep into his
ribs, causing him to squirm and buck. He wrapped his arms around her, pinning
her arms to her side, and rolled over. She tried to wiggle her way out from
underneath him, but soon gave up. Their faces were only inches apart; their
breathing long and deep. He leaned in and locked his lips with hers. First
lips, then tongue, until finally he loosened his grip around her arms. He
placed one hand around the back of her head and the other over her fast beating
heart.

She sprung from the bed to the floor.

“Haha! I’m free!” She said, leaving Lexx
to wonder what just happened.

“Why you sneaky little-,” he started.

She raised her arms to flex her muscles.

“Ha, you loser. Typical man, always
thinking with his dick. I knew all I had to do was bide my time, maybe bat my
eyes a bit, and then whamo, I’m free.”

He just stared at her smiling. She had
outwitted him. Suckered him. And good too.

Fuck, she is so hot
, he thought.

Her smile quickly disappeared and fear
flashed across her face. Lexx shot up off the bed.

“What is it babe?”

She shushed him, holding up her finger.
He stopped moving and honed in his hearing, a skill he had worked on much
within the last week.

At first, it was just silence. He waited
a moment and was about to open his mouth when he heard it. It was faint, but it
was a sound he could not mistake.

A moan.

Oh, shit…

Tori looked at him, her finger placed
over her mouth, eyes wide. They continued to listen, waiting for another moan,
to hear if it was getting closer or further away. A few seconds passed, but
there another moan. This time slightly louder. And closer.

Tori walked over to the small table on
her side of the bed, picking her pistol up and loading a round into the
chamber. Lexx held up his hand for her to stop.

“Hold on a sec,” he said.

Something about the moan seemed off. He
listened patiently for the next one and did not have to wait long. There was
another, Followed shortly by another and then another.

“What is it?” Tori whispered.

Lexx leaned in closer to the wall. He
placed his ear against the drywall and listened. He could hear the moans much
better.

“Are they in the house?” Tori asked.

He chuckled continuing to listen to the
wall.

“Haha, no. They’re not in the house. It’s
not zombies Tori.’

He turned to look at her, his grin ear to
ear.

“It just sounds like somebody missed his
wife,” he said, placing his ear back on the wall.

She came next to him at the wall, placing
her ear against it as well.

Lexx was right. It wasn’t zombie moans
she heard. It was sex moans from Josh and Laura’s room next door. Tori felt her
body relax.

“Isn’t she already pregnant enough?” She
whispered.

“Ha. Wanna give ‘em a run for their
money?” He asked.

She pushed him away from the wall.

“Get away from there. I don’t need you
getting any more ideas,” she said, walking back to bedside table, setting the
gun back down.

“Aw man, c’mon. We can win. I’ve got
moves you haven’t seen yet,” he said.

She laughed at that. Kicking off her
shoes and stripping off her jeans, she climbed into bed.

“The only thing I’m in the mood for
tonight is a good night’s sleep Lexington.”

He looked at her, back at the wall where
a louder than intended squeal could be heard, and then back at her. His
shoulders dropped in defeat as he stripped down to his boxers.

“You play a hard game Victoria.”

He crawled into the bed and turned off
the light. She snuggled up next to him, placing her arm over his chest and her
head on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry. You’ll be glad I got my
rest,” she said, before planting a kiss on his cheek.

Lexx fell asleep with a smile on his
face.

Jeremy’s left eye cracked open as the early
morning sunlight breached the darkness of the living room. For a second, his
brain wondered where he was at the moment, the same way it did anytime he woke
up somewhere new. Once it registered, he felt his body relax.

He was safe. He looked around the large room in
the dim light, taking in his new surroundings. CJ was still asleep on the air
mattress. The boy was sprawled out; his feet hanging off the end of the short
bed. The house seemed so still as Jeremy sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
There was a small clink behind him and he spun around to see the source of the
noise.

Josh was sitting at the table with a large
coffee mug. He was writing on something that Jeremy could not see from his
seat. Jeremy stood up, buttoned his pants and walked over to the table. As he
approached, Josh looked up from his work and smiled.

“I didn't wake you, did I?” He asked, followed
by a sip from his coffee.

“No. The sun did. You got any more of that
stuff?” Jeremy asked, motioning towards the mug.

“Yeah, I think I left some in the French press
if you’re into that sort of thing, but I made a pot for the normal people as
well.”

Jeremy nodded groggily and made his way towards
the kitchen. After pouring the rest of the brown nectar from the French press,
Jeremy returned to the table where Josh had continued his work. He was drawing
and making notes on a map of Georgia with a black marker. There were small x’s
and circles all over the southeast portion of the map.

“Whatcha doin’?” Jeremy asked.

“I’m making note of all the blocked roadways we
encountered on our way here,” he said without looking up. “I want to know what
roads are open to us for when we go out.”

“Out?” Jeremy said.

“Yeah. For supply runs. Plus, if this place, God
forbid, ever gets compromised, we’ll need to know the best escape route.”

Jeremy nodded slowly. He did not want to think
about leaving the safety of the cabin. Last night was the best sleep since the
whole zombie apocalypse started. He was not ready to give that up yet. That was
something worth fighting for.

“That's pretty smart. What are those circles
for?” Jeremy asked.

Josh smiled.

“Those circles are some of my company’s job
sites. There are some real handy supplies that we can gather from them, that I’m
pretty sure my company won’t be using anymore. And if things ever do get back
to normality, I’m just as sure they would be glad I have them and not someone
else,” he said.

“What kind of supplies?”

Josh's smile grew.

“Well, there’s tools for one, but the first
thing I’m interested in grabbing are a couple of generators. You interested in
going on a run today?”

Josh’s smile was infectious, because Jeremy also
began grinning.

“Heck yeah,” he said, taking the final swig of
his coffee.

“Good. Once everyone else is up, we’ll get
going.”

“Is your wife going to be okay with you leaving
so soon?” Jeremy asked, raising an eyebrow.

Josh stood up from the table, taking his empty
mug to the sink. He paused for a moment. He turned back around to look at
Jeremy.

“Probably not, but I know the area better than
anybody, so she’s just going to have to get over it.”

***

“No.”

That was all Laura said.

She stared him down for what seemed like an
eternity in his mind. He seemed to anticipate this response from his wife,
because he didn’t seemed fazed by her tone or body language at all. She leaned
her back against the dresser, her arms folded across her chest. And because it
was Laura, tears welled in the corners of her eyes, despite her trying to fight
them back.

She always cries when she’s upset,
Josh thought.
Classic
Laura.

“Baby,” he started. “We’re gonna need supplies
sooner or later. It’s better to go now before our choices get slim.”

He reached out tenderly for one of her elbows,
but she yanked it away before he could touch her.

“You just got here,” she said.

He pulled his hand back and crossed his arms
across his chest.

So that’s what this is about,
he thought.

“I know sweetheart,” he said softly. “I know.”

She moved her right hand from her hip and placed
it on her ever-growing belly. Josh tried again to get closer to his wife. He
placed one hand over hers and the other reached up to brush her brown hair away
from her face. Their eyes met. She leaned her head into his chest and the two
of them stood there in silence for what seemed like forever.

As they stood there in their quietness, both
minds raced in thoughts.

Thoughts about the future.

Thoughts about their survival

Thoughts about the baby.

All of these things whirled like a cyclone of
unknown, but the words did not come. They would not come.

So, after an indeterminate amount of time, Laura
finally spoke.

“Just come back to me. To us.”

Josh gently pulled her chin up, looking into her
wet brown eyes.

“I will. I came back to you the first time,” he
said.

“I know,” she said, her eyes shifting downward.

“Hey,” he whispered softly.

She looked back up to him smiling.

“With everything I’ve put you through,” he said.
“I plan on making it up to you for the rest of my life. And I don’t plan on
that ending anytime soon.”

***

Jeremy was leaning against the truck when Josh
finally came out of the house. He came strolling down the stairs with a pep in
his step. Jeremy had been listening to Chris talk over the perimeter with Lexx
and Tori. Around the house and the yard area was a small, wooden fence. It was
mostly aesthetic, but could serve as a good last line of defense in case the
outer fences were breached. The outer fence was much stouter, but would also
need work. Its purpose had been to keep living people out. Living people would
have been deterred by having to climb over a four-foot high wood post fence.
Living dead people, not so much. While Jeremy and Josh were gone, the three of
them would work on the outer fences with what tools they did have. Josh stopped
at Chris to tell him something before making his way over to Jeremy.

“You ready to go?” He asked.

“Yeah. Do I need to bring anything else?” Jeremy
asked, holding up his machete.

“No. That should do just fine. I’m bringing one
of the hunting rifles just in case we run into a larger group, but hopefully we
won’t bump into too many out there.”

Josh turned around to motion to Chris. He nodded
and the three of them walked over to the back of the truck. There was a stack
of boards and fence posts nearby and they began to load them onto the back of
the truck.

“We’re gonna give them a ride to the outer
fence,” Josh said, as he began to climb into the driver’s seat.

Jeremy nodded and made his way to the other side
of the truck cab. After he climbed in, there was a banging on the side gates, signaling
that the trio in the back were ready to go. He looked through the back window.
Lexx was crouching down next to it, and when he saw Jeremy looking, made a
weird smile baring all his teeth.

Once they dropped off Lexx, Tori, and Chris, the
two of them pulled out onto the old Georgia highway. They rode in silence for a
few minutes, before Josh switched on the radio and began flipping between
stations. Every single one filled with the same noisy static. Josh switched off
the radio.

“All these radio stations play the same crap
nowadays,” he said.

Jeremy chuckled.

“Yeah they do,” he added.

A few more beats of silence.

“So, is the zombie apocalypse everything you
thought it would be?” Jeremy asked.

“Ha. No, not really,” Josh said with a grin.

The grin faded quickly however.

“You could say I was a pretty die-hard zombie
fan before, but I wasn’t ever one of those people who wanted it to happen. It
used to bug the crap out of me to see bumper stickers that said, ‘The hardest
part about the zombie apocalypse will be pretending that I’m not excited.’
Seriously? If you were excited about the dead coming back to life and eating
your family members, then you didn’t understand the freaking zombie apocalypse.
At all. I didn’t have stickers all over my truck. ‘Zombie hunter?’ Please.”

“Yeah, or ‘Zombie Defense Squad,’ Jeremy said.
“When I first left my house, I saw a small group of kids with t-shirts that
said that. They were actually pretty efficient. They just didn’t account for
the truck that jumped the curb and ran them over.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. All the
people who thought they were prepared for the end of the world. They had the
supplies, the guns, the t-shirts, but you know what they didn’t have? Common
freaking sense. I’m one hundred percent positive that is one reason things went
so bad, so quick.”

“So, you didn’t have a plan?” Jeremy asked.

Josh smiled his boyish smile.

“Of course I had a plan. But you know my plans,
simple. I didn’t start stocking up on MRE’s, ammo, and water purification tablets.
The plan was this: Get out of the city. Get away from the highly populated
areas of the world and keep a low profile. Groups are good, but small groups
are better. Of course, I thought it would be just my family, but having the
three of y’all with us will be a great asset to have.”

“Thanks,” Jeremy said. “We really are thankful
for you taking us in.”

“Not a problem.

Jeremy turned his head to look out the window.
There was finally a break in the trees and acres of cotton fields covered the
landscape with white. It almost looked like snow. Jeremy wondered how much
money in cotton they were passing. And none of it would get picked. It would
just stay there and do whatever cotton does when it doesn’t get picked. Rot.

How many other crops are going through the same
thing? There has to be some farmers still alive. But how much is just going to
not be harvested and just left to decay? If things ever get back to normal,
will there be any food left? Or anything left to farm for that matter? Or
anyone left to farm for?

Jeremy tried to not be a pessimist, but when
everything around you seems to fall apart, it was kind of hard not to. It was
something he developed in the past few years of life and more so this past
week. If his parent’s marriage could fall apart, his dad become a royal douche,
and for undead monsters to rip apart his mother in a feeding frenzy, why
couldn’t America’s farmland take too much of a hit where it couldn’t recover?

“You alright?”

Josh’s question snapped Jeremy out of his
downward spiral of thoughts.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I guess. Just thinking,” he
stammered.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?”

Jeremy thought about whether he should share
everything he was thinking about.

“Do you, do you think we’ll make it?”

“Depends,” Josh said, as he turned onto another
road. “Do you mean us personally or like humans in general?”

“Um, both.”

“Well, as far as mankind goes, I don’t think
this is the end for us. I’m a little rusty on my Eschatology-”

“Your what?” Jeremy interrupted.

“Haha, big word for Bible end times prophecy. But
I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in the Bible about this. Doesn’t mean it could
be getting near the end, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”

He paused.

“As for us, I don’t know.”

Jeremy was surprised by his answer. Josh
normally seemed so sure of his answers. Even if he was wrong, he still seemed
to stick to his gut reactions. Like with leaving Lexx.

“You don’t know?” Jeremy asked, adding extra
emphasis to the word “you.”

“No. I don’t.”

More silence passed.

“Um,” Jeremy started. “Would you like to expand
on that a little more?”

Josh never took his eyes of the road.

“It’s just that… I was so sure we would be fine.
Between me, Chris who was an Army Ranger and my father-in-law, I thought we had
a great chance. And our girls are pretty resilient too. But… But with losing
Hailey, I just don’t know. It just seems to have impacted everyone on such a
deep emotional level, that I’m worried about them losing hope.”

“Do you still think there is hope?” Jeremy
asked.

“Of course I do. The whole Christian faith is
built on hope. We place our hope in the fact that Jesus overcame death and sin.
And I’m pretty sure that means the kind of death we’ve been dealing with as
well.”