the door of the house and draw my gun as the Z fell backwards and onto its back. It scrambled up faster than I had ever seen a zombie move, then raised its hands over its head as it yelled, “Don’t shoot!”
I stared hard for a second, not believing I had just heard a zombie speak, then lowered my gun. It was Carl Witry, our acting coach and resident zombie impersonator. “Jesus, Carl! You’re gonna get shot walking around dressed like that!”
Carl wiped off his rags. “Tell me about it. You’re the fifth person to throw down on me since I came to get Trevor.”
“What’s up?” I asked, holstering my SIG.
“Nothing. Trevor is late for training and Nate sent me to come get him.” Carl was upright again and none the worse for wear.
“Alright, I’ll be at home if anyone needs me.”
“Righty-ho,” Carl said as he knocked on Trevor’s door. As I walked away, I heard, “Don’t shoot!” coming from Trevor’s house once again. I laughed and hoped Carl would survive his errand.
Back at home, Sarah and Jake were waiting for me. I laid down on the floor and let Jake crawl on me while I played Daddy monster and made him giggle. I told Sarah what Trevor had told me and she just shook her head.
“You know, when you think about it, what we have here is pretty much the best we could hope for. If the government had won, we’d be virtual prisoners of the state, forced into slavery, threatened with the possibility of being turned into a zombie or torn apart by them if we resisted,” Sarah said.
“That’s what I was thinking, too. As rough as life has become, all it would have taken for it to get rougher would have been the government getting involved,” I said, tickling Jake on his tummy, eliciting a squeak of protest.
“Change of subject,” Sarah said.
“Go for it.”
“When are we moving?” she asked.
I smiled. “Been talking to Rebecca, have you?”
“Can’t help it. We’re women. Besides, Charlie is much less resistant to Rebecca’s charms than you are to mine.” Sarah slid down on the floor.
“Guess you’ll have to just work harder,” I said, wiggling my nose into Jake’s.
“Answer the question,” Sarah said, taking a turn tickling Jake.
“Probably at the end of the week. Charlie and I have to find another boat so we don’t deprive the community of one and we have to make sure we have everything packed and ready to go. I want to be firmly established before the fall comes and I want to make sure we are able to survive the winter. Plus, Charlie and I need to secure the area as much as we can.”
“Anyone else coming along?”
“Not that I know of.” I had spoken to very few people about our plans as I wanted to avoid any conflicts, but I was starting to feel a bit crowded in our current community. I know Charlie felt the same way, which was why he had asked to come with to our new home.
I broke the news at the next council meeting. I didn’t expect a lot of resistance, but there was a lot of ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Did someone offend you?’ ‘We still need you.” and so on.
“I appreciate the sentiments, I really do,” I said. “But in a strange way, I feel like my work here is finished and I need to move on, maybe help another community get things together. I will not fade from the scene entirely, as Nate knows, we have a final campaign scheduled for this coming winter and I will definitely be here for the fun. For right now, though, I am moving on.”
We finished the meeting with a few hours worth of planning for the upcoming offensive and as I left I felt the familiar pang of regret when I made a big decision. Was it the right thing to do, was it right for Jacob, etc. In the end, though, my gut told me it was time to move on. I had done what I had set out to do here, now I needed to see if I could do for myself.
32
The week passed quickly with a lot of well wishes from most of the community. We had a lot of supplies to load and I was surprised at the amount of stuff we managed to accumulate. It was a far cry from the beginning of my journey when I had packed up my belongings and my son on a bike and headed out into the zombie world.
Charlie and I were still looking for a boat after three days and it was becoming frustrating. We had found several small boats, but we didn’t want to take more than one trip. So we were looking for something a little bigger. I had suggested we try some of the boat storage facilities, but lacking a trailer, we had no way to get the boat to water. Which left us with searching many homes, usually finding bass boats and small fishing boats, but nothing useful like the boat we took to Starved Rock in the first place.
We were driving down 191 ^ st street, very close to the Condo Community we had started in Frankfort after we had left the school when I had a bit of inspiration. “Pull in here!” I shouted to Charlie.
Charlie cursed and hit the brakes, causing us to swerve slightly as the tires squealed in protest. We came to a stop and Charlie swore again.
“Dammit, are you trying to kill us?” he said, irritated.
“You’re driving, you’re the one who nearly caused an accident. I was just navigating.” I tried to sound contrite, but I didn’t think it would work.
Mollified, Charlie asked, “What are we stopping here for?”
I pointed to the small industrial park. “Sometimes the guys who own the businesses store their toys in their unused space. I remember a sealant company having a large boat in the warehouse owned by the same guys who owned the business back when I worked for a living as a kid.”
Charlie shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt to look, we’ve struck out so far.” He pulled the truck into the parking lot and cruised to a stop in a parking space. I smiled when I saw he had avoided the handicapped space.
Old habits never really go away, I thought.
We got out of the truck and I looked around. The little industrial park was laid out like a couple of squares with a road passing in between the buildings. There weren’t the usual signs of violence or infestation, so I took that as a positive sign. Across the road was an identical business park, but it looked like it had some problems. Several windows of the businesses had been broken into and there was an abandoned van slewed across the front of one area. I nodded to Charlie in the direction of the van and after a moment’s look he nodded. We’d keep an eye on that area. In our experience, a vehicle parked in front of a door like that meant someone was trying to keep something out.
I pulled my crowbar and went to work on the nearest door. It was a paving business and the door opened easily after some persuading. Taking a quick look around, I made my way past decorative piles of brick samples and to the back room. I knocked on the steel door and held my ear to it.
I heard nothing, opened the door and looked around. There were large pallets of bricks and other types of paving rocks, as well as barrels of tar and repair kits for driveways.
I met Charlie and shook my head. No dice on this one. We checked the next two in line and found nothing of interest. The businesses were actually interconnected, so one business could actually occupy two or three spaces. It also allowed us to access each business without having to go outside every time.
On the last business, we got hopeful. It was an insulation company and Charlie noticed a lot of stuffed fish on the walls. I looked around and saw a couple of family photos that showed several smiling people sitting on a largish boat.
“Maybe, maybe,” I said, working my way to the back door. I opened the door and shined my flashlight around. At first I didn’t see anything except piles of insulation, but tucked out of the way was pay dirt. It was a beautiful Bayliner Express Cruiser, thirty two feet long with twin engines. I moved over and climbed aboard. It had two cabins, one fore and one aft, a full galley, and a small dinette area. The deck had a nice U-shaped lounge area, and a low diving platform. It was, in a word, perfect. Well, almost. It had been christened “Wetter Dreams”, obviously by someone who thought they were being clever.
