more time on the floor: playing, watching television, being bored. I spent so much of my childhood on the floor. As an adult, I couldn’t remember the last time I had this view. But the carpet between my fingers wasn’t mine.
My eyes burned. Tears had washed all of my mascara in and out of my eyes, leaving them dry and on fire. The second I remembered why I’d been crying, my head popped up, and I took a quick glance around the dark room. The tornado sirens were blaring. They could be malfunctioning, or there had been a breach.
On my hands and knees, I quickly made my way to Andrew’s front door. The streets were still empty, but the sirens continued to wail. The church in Fairview crossed my mind, and I prayed the sirens would stop. The noise would draw every shuffler for miles.
I pulled open the wooden door, and pressed the side of my face against the glass of the storm door. My breath blew moist, visible air in quickly disappearing puffs, clouding my view. When I saw the first person running down the street, intermittently exposed by the street lamps, the breaths became a single gasp.
She was older, maybe in her fifties, but she was alive. Even from a block away, I could see the horror in her eyes. A few seconds later two men—one holding a child—and a woman appeared before they slipped into darkness again. Then five more, and then a dozen. Men, women, and children. At least fifty had passed before I spotted the first shuffler. I could only make him out because he happened to take someone down just under the street lamp. Not long after, several more shufflers became part of the crowd. The screaming slowly built from one or two intermittent cries to full-blown panic. The crowd seemed to spread out, but they were all coming from the same place; from wherever they were held with the governor, maybe. It seemed like the entire town was in the street, running for their lives. My eyes squinted, desperately searching for Andrew and the girls, hoping they would turn down his street from the main road any minute, but as the river of people thinned out, I began to lose hope.
Tears threatened to moisten my eyes once again, but instead I let anger take control. The helplessness I felt at not being able to get to my children sent me into a rage. I ran to Andrew’s bedroom and searched his closet. He kept a hunting rifle and a 9mm. Just in case he happened to come back here, I left the rifle and grabbed a backpack from the back, filling it with ammo. My movements were clumsy, both from the adrenaline pumping through my body, and because I hadn’t held a gun since before my divorce. I took a few cans of food. The can opener was in the silverware drawer, but I left it, hopeful that Andrew would remember to pack it if he wasn’t already on the road. I also took a plastic reusable water bottle.
Not until I made my way to the laundry room did I come across anything really useful: a flashlight, some batteries, a large screwdriver, and a folding knife.
I grabbed one more item, zipped the backpack, and then returned to the front room. I pulled some frames off the wall, and then shook the can in my hand. The aerosol hissed as I pressed my index finger on the trigger, my arm swaying with the silent music of my good-bye as it formed large, conspicuous black words.
I watched the paint drip from the letters, hoping that it was enough; that in the middle of this hell my children would remember the name of Dr. Hayes’s ranch, and tell their father how to get there. If Andrew was in that crowd running from the town hall, he would bring them here.
I let the can drop to the floor, and then looked out the glass column of the front door again, seeing slower, shuffling dead ambling down the main road, following the scent of the living. Andrew had gotten our daughters out somehow, before the breach. I had to believe that, and I had to trust that my next decision was the right one.
I gripped the straps of the pack at my shoulders and rushed out of the house, stupidly letting the screen door slam behind me. I paused, slowly turning to see a few of the shufflers to the west automatically turn toward the noise. I ran east toward my grandparents’ house, maybe even faster than before, knowing that before long, the sun would rise, and there would be no more shadows to hide behind.
Nathan
“ZOE, TRY TO SLOW YOUR breathing,” I said. Zoe was nearly panting, struggling to wrap her head around everything she’d seen, including telling her aunt Jill good-bye for the last time. I reached over and held her small hand in mine. “We’re going to be okay, honey. We’ll find someplace safe.”
“I thought the church was safe,” she said softly.
“Not safe enough. We need a place to stay for a long time. In the country, away from all the sick people.”
“Where is that?”
I paused, careful not to lie to her. “I’ll find it. Don’t worry.”
Zoe sat up tall and lifted her chin, seeing the green pickup truck idling in the road the same time I did. I let go of Zoe’s hand and raised mine to shield her eyes just as the man raised his gun to a woman lying in the road, in a puddle of vomit and blood. A pool of dark red was spilling from her beneath her soiled dress, too, almost like she was having a miscarriage, but I knew that wasn’t where the blood was coming from. She was emaciated, her skin a grayish tone except for the lines of red that drained from her eyes, ears, and nose.
A shot was fired to her head, but the woman didn’t move. As we passed, the man was blank-faced, scooping her up tenderly into his arms. He carried her into the cab of his truck, shutting the door behind him.
I lowered my hand, and placed it back on the wheel. Ten and two. “You have your seatbelt on?”
“Yes, Daddy.” Zoe was struggling to keep it together.
I wanted to pull over and hold her, to allow her time to transition to our new life of running for our lives and surviving, but we would never have enough time. If it was anything like the movies, life would be lived between near-death experiences.
“Good girl.”
Shades of pinks and purples bruised the sky, signaling the beginnings of a sunset. Without any houses in sight, or even a barn, I wasn’t sure if I should worry about shelter, or be comforted that we weren’t likely to run into a large group of those things—at least for a while.
Zoe was playing with the hem of her lavender dress, humming so softly I could barely make out what it was. Something by Justin Bieber, by the sounds of it. The corners of my mouth turned up. The radio had been silent since we started our journey. I wondered if we would ever hear music again.
Chapter Twelve
Nathan
LESS THAN HALF AN HOUR down the road, I noticed a small sign that read HIGHWAY 123. Another small two-lane, it ran all the way to Kansas. It was less than an hour away, and if I remembered correctly from my and Skeeter’s last hunting trip, there was only one small town between where we were and the state line. Beyond that was nothing but farmland and ranch land for miles. Maybe we could find an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere where we could set up camp. Maybe we would get lucky and it wouldn’t be abandoned, and the occupants, old or new, would let us stay.
My mind was drifting when I turned onto the highway, so it must have been instinct, or at least a choice on a subconscious level. Either way, Zoe and I were headed north.
“We’re not going back to get my papers, are we?” Zoe said. She didn’t try to hide her disappointment.
“I’m sorry, honey. I don’t think it’s safe.”
“So I’m not going to school tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Won’t you get arrested if you don’t take me to school?”
“Not if everyone else stays home from school, too.”
That answer seemed to appease Zoe for the moment, but I knew she would only form a list of more questions to ask at a later time. The end of everything was hard for everyone. Especially children. Even more so for children like Zoe that didn’t handle change well. My daughter had required a routine since birth. Rules and boundaries were her safe haven. I wasn’t sure how I could provide that for her now.
I watched Zoe’s head bounce subtly with the tune in her head. Once in a while the splash of freckles across her nose would move when she scrunched her nose to sniff.
“You’re not getting a cold, are you?”
