Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (21 page)

Alice was confused.  She and her Daddy only put ice cream and milk in theirs.  “What else
can
you put in a milkshake?”

“We put in bananas,” Judy told her.

“My mom adds chocolate sauce,” Paul also chimed in.

“We just happen to have both of those.”  Mrs. Lou found the items.  “You can put almost anything into it, Alice.”

“Can we put in peanut butter?”  Alice loved peanut butter, but she didn’t even know if the day-care had any because one of the Joes was allergic.

“If I can find some.”  Mrs. Lou handed Paul the chocolate syrup and Judy a banana and let them put in the ingredients themselves.  Judy knew how to peel the bananas by herself and was very good at it.  Mrs. Lou then looked through the cupboards.  “You’re in luck.  We still have some.”  She pulled out a mostly empty container of peanut butter that sat on a really high shelf.

She gave Alice the peanut butter and Alice started emptying it into the blender.  She would have to tell her Daddy all about this when he came to get her.

“None of you spontaneously got a nut allergy recently, right?”  Mrs. Lou was smiling again.

“Noooo.”  The kids giggled.

Mrs. Lou found some honey in a squirt bottle shaped like a bear.  “I think that’s enough of your ingredients.  I’m going to add one of my own to top it all off.”  She squirted some honey into the mixture.

“Honey is gross.”  Judy scrunched her face.

“Not when mixed into a milkshake,” Mrs. Lou told her as she put away the rest of the ingredients.  “Are you ready to blend it up?”

The three kids cheered.

Mrs. Lou poured some more milk in before securing the top.  The children counted down and then she pressed the blend button.  They watched the mixture of treats spin and spin.

A knock sounded at the door.  Mrs. Lou went to answer it and Alice looked over hoping it was her Daddy.  The other two hoped as well for their own parents.  Judy was the winner this time.  Both her mom and her dad entered the room.  Unlike the other two boys, Judy stayed where she was and let her parents come to her.  Her mom rushed over and hugged Judy tightly.

“We’re making milkshakes!” Judy told her happily.

“So you are.”  Her mother had a strange expression on her face that Alice couldn’t identify.  It was sort of like fear, but sort of like happiness too.  She saw it once before on her Daddy’s face when she was younger and had to go to the hospital because she had a very bad cough.  Something the doctor had told him made him look that way.

“We’re staying long enough to have some, right?” Judy sounded fearful about the possibility of not getting to try their creation.

Judy’s mom looked back at her dad.  Judy’s dad looked like he might be sick.  He was pale even though it was summer.

“Sure, why not,” her dad smiled.  Alice thought it was a fake smile.  Adults did that sometimes.  It was
as if they were having their picture taken or something.

Mrs. Lou got out plastic glasses for all of them.  When everything was blended
, she turned off the blender, and poured an equal amount into the glasses.  Alice was hesitant to try hers.  It didn’t
look
very good.  She watched the adults try theirs and they seemed to like it.  Still, adult taste buds were weird.  She waited until Judy and Paul also tried theirs.  Paul loved it and Judy seemed to think it was okay.  She said the honey made it not perfect, but Alice didn’t mind honey.  She took a sip.  She thought it was delicious.

After Judy and her parents finished their glasses, Judy said bye and they left.  Now it was just Alice, Paul, and Mrs. Lou.

“There’s still some left.”  Mrs. Lou looked into the blender.  “Would you two like another glass?”

“Yes!”  Paul thrust out his glass.

“Yes, please.”  Alice was far more polite as she held out her own glass.

Mrs. Lou filled each of their glasses one more time, and then poured the tiny amount
that was left into her own.

When they had finished, and Mrs. Lou was putting the glasses into the sink, another knock came at the door.  Alice knew it had to be her Daddy this time.  There was no way she would be the last one to be picked up.  Mrs. Lou opened the door to reveal Paul’s mom.

“Hey, Pauly.”  Paul’s mom was nearly in tears for some reason.  Paul ran to her as she crouched down, and they gave each other a big hug.

Alice knew Paul’s mom.  She and her Daddy worked together at the police station.  Sometimes they were partners in the police car together.

Alice went and sat on the carpet.  She couldn’t believe her Daddy wasn’t there yet.  What was taking so long?

Mrs. Lou walked over and knelt down beside her.  Paul and his mom hadn’t left yet and were standing by the door
as if they were waiting for something.

“Alice?” Mrs. Lou sounded solemn.  Alice didn’t like that word, solemn.  She had learned it just last week.

“Yes, Mrs. Lou?”

“You’re going to go over to Ms. Weston’s house for a little while, okay?” Mrs. Lou sounded too nice.  It sounded fake, like their fake smiles.

“Why?  My Daddy’s coming here, isn’t he?”  Alice had been to Paul’s house before.  Ms. Weston, Paul’s mom, had babysat her a few times just as her Daddy babysat Paul sometimes.

“I wasn’t able to reach your dad.”

“You reached Ms. Weston,” Alice pointed out.  Ms. Weston was still in her uniform and everything.

“She happened to be at the station when I called, but your dad was out providing security for a concert,” Mrs. Lou tried to explain.

“But they have radios.  They can radio him.”

“Because of all the bad people, they’ve been having trouble finding anyone on the radios.”

“No!”  Alice’s eyebrows came together.  She could have a seriously hard set face for such a little girl.  “My Daddy is coming to get me here.”

“Ms. Carter.”  Ms. Weston had walked over and sat down next to Alice.  “Your dad is fine.  We just haven’t been able to get through to him yet.  He’s helping a lot of people right now.  I’m sure we’ll be able to contact him soon and he’ll come right away.  Besides, I have my own radio and know people at the station.  We can reach him much quicker than Mrs. Lou can.”

Ms. Weston often called Alice, Ms. Carter.  It made her feel grown-up and reminded her of her mom, even though she only had a tiny smattering of memories of the woman and most of those were because of photos.

“We can play Connect Four.”  Paul had also walked over.

Paul hated Connect Four.  He liked Battleship, which Alice didn’t like.  This was the nicest he had ever been to her.

“Okay,” Alice finally agreed to go with Ms. Weston
,  “but I get to be the red pieces.”

Ms. Weston smiled and stood up.  She took Alice’s hand in one of her
hands, and Paul’s in the other.  They stopped at the door and waited for Mrs. Lou to grab her bag.  She was going home as well.  Mrs. Lou turned out the lights, locked the door, and they all headed to the parking lot together.  Mrs. Lou said good-bye as she headed toward the back of the building, and Alice and the Westons got into the car parked right near the door.  Alice climbed into the backseat while Paul got into the front.  Ms. Weston got into the driver’s seat, put the keys in the car, and started the engine.

Mrs. Lou screamed from the other side of the building.

* * *

“Stay put.”  Ms. Weston was out of the car in a flash.  She was Officer Weston now.

Paul and Alice watched through the windshield as she drew her gun and ran around the edge of the building.  They didn’t hear anything for what seemed like a long time, although the clock proved it a very short span of time.  Then came the pops, like fireworks.  Alice huddled lower into her seat while Paul leaned more towards the glass.

“Judy!”  Paul leaned over to the driver’s door and opened it.

Judy had come running around the corner toward the car.  Her beautiful red hair had darker red, clumpy stuff in it, and her nice clothes were torn and dirty.  She jumped into the car and slammed the door.  She was babbling and crying, and Alice couldn’t make out what she was saying.  Something about her dad.

“Where’s my mom?” Paul asked her.  When Judy didn’t answer, he asked again.

Judy’s dad then came running around the corner.  Judy screamed and screamed as he ran at the car.  He was covered in the red gunky stuff too, and he had several holes in his clothes.  He was bleeding from them.  Alice then realized the red stuff was blood.  Judy’s dad jumped on the hood of the car and started banging on the glass.

“Make him go away!” Judy screamed.  “Make him go away!”

Paul leaned over and started hitting switches around the steering wheel.  The windshield wipers came on and a moment of triumph crossed his face.  It vanished when he realized they swept only once and barely did anything.

“Make them go faster!” Alice suggested from the back seat.

“I don’t know what I hit!” Paul panicked.

Judy, still terrified, climbed into the foot well.  She was sobbing and shaking.  Paul took her place in the driver’s seat and hit more levers.  He hit a particular one and the car jolted forward.  They were moving.

“Stop the car!” Alice cried in the back.  She grabbed her seat belt and put it on.

“Judy!  Hit the brake pedal!” Paul called down.

Judy didn’t move.  She was too scared to move.  Judy’s dad continued to smash at the window.

“We’re going to crash,” Alice sobbed.

“No we’re not.”  Paul grabbed the wheel.  They were headed for the chain link fence at the back of the parking lot.  Paul pulled the wheel hard to one side.  Despite the fact that they weren’t going very fast, the tires still squealed.  They now were headed for the fence at the side of the parking lot.

“Get him off!” Alice yelled.  “Go away!” she yelled at Judy’s dad.

Judy curled up deeper into the foot well.  She pressed on the gas pedal a lot harder.  The car shot forward toward the fence.  Judy’s dad nearly fell off with the sudden acceleration but he managed to hold on.

The car hit the fence at high speed and plowed right through it.  It scraped Judy’s dad off the hood of the car.  On the other side of the fence was a street.  Paul pulled hard on the wheel again and they swung out onto it.  Alice held on for her life, thinking the car might tip over.

“We’re going to die!” she screamed.

“No we’re not!” Paul yelled at her.

They shot off down the street, with Paul behind the wheel.  He tried to control the vehicle, but they swerved around crazily.  Alice held tightly to the seat between her knees.

“Judy, brakes!” Alice yelled up front.

Judy had no response.

“No, we don’t want the brakes,” Paul corrected Alice.

“Why not?”  Alice could think of nothing but stopping right now.

“We need to go to the police,” Paul said.  “Judy’s dad got hurt and when someone is hurt, you call 911.”

“That’s a phone number, not an address.”  Alice was confused by Paul’s logic.

“I think I know how to get there.  I got to go with my mom a few times.”

The car continued to bounce down the street, swerving from side to side, hitting off obstacles along the side of the road.  It was amazing they hadn’t completely crashed yet.

“We should stop the car and ask a grownup for help,” Alice put as much command as she could into her voice.

“No.”  Paul wasn’t going to listen to her.  He looked like he was actually having fun.

“I wanna go home,” Alice whined.

“Do you know where your house is?” Paul said it like she wouldn’t know.

“It’s that way.”  Alice pointed forward.  She remembered the route to day-care from both sitting in the car when Daddy drove, and from walking there with him on nice days.  Daddy was a much better driver than
Paul was.  “I wanna go home.  I want my Daddy.”

“They don’t know where he is.  He’s probably dead,” Paul shouted at her.

“Don’t say that!” Alice cried back.

“He’s probably dead just like my Mommy probably is.”  Paul burst into tears.

“I want Shoes!” Alice screamed.

“Fine!”  Paul gave in.  “We’ll go to your stupid house with your stupid dog!  Where do I go?”

Alice sat up on her legs so she could see, but kept the seat belt across her chest.  “Go down this road until I tell you.”  She was glad to have won that fight.  She wanted Shoes.

The car zoomed down the street with Judy still huddled on the pedal.

“That street there.”  Alice pointed ahead.  “The one with the big tree at the corner, past that guy.”

There was a man in the street wearing barely any clothes.  He was trying to get into a car that Alice assumed was his.  He was having a hard time of it.  The car pulled to one side and scraped alongside another car.

“Stop hitting stuff!” Alice yelled at Paul.

“Shut up!  You try driving!” Paul yelled back at her.  He pulled on the wheel but over-corrected.  They swung over to the other side of the road and hit the cars on that side.  Alice screamed as she watched the man in his underwear roll up on the side of the hood.  Paul screamed as well and pulled the car back across the road once more.  The man fell off and disappeared.