“Stop, JR! Wait until I find rubber gloves before you touch her. Remember what I told you earlier. Then be very careful to not get any of that gunk on your bare skin especially around cuticles, fingernails, or cuts and scratches.”
JR looked startled, then recalled what she’d been told about long-term contamination; she nodded. On one knee she addressed the child, “How old are you, Breyna?”
“Three, I’m three years old.” She looked around the room. “Where’s momma?”
Sam opened cabinet doors under the kitchen sink and found a pair of long sleeved, yellow vinyl gloves in the back among cleaning supplies. He handed them to JR, then watched her and the child approach the compact bathroom near the single bedroom. “Breyna, take your clothes off out here, and then I’ll give you a shower, so you’ll be clean and smell good.”
Sam interrupted, “You know this is dangerous, especially since I suspect you’re planning to take her with us.”
“What other options do we have? Leave her here standing alone alongside the highway in the dark to starve to death or be attacked by more zombies? No! She’s going with us, or you can abandon both of us and we’ll take one of these trailer rigs and be on our own.”
Sam huffed, shook his head, and raised his arms in defeat.
“Don’t stand there being useless Sam. Find the child’s clothing and gather all of it to take with us.” She smirked. “You always say we have to hurry, so get a move on. I’ll be done in about twenty minutes . . . and check outside to be sure we’re alone and no more undead are loitering about.” She put the gloves on and gathered Breyna’s soiled clothes and shoved them into a plastic grocery bag Sam tossed near them. “And make sure other survivalist aren’t stealing the goods we sat beside the vehicles and trailers to take with us. In fact, why don’t you load that stuff while I finish here?”
Sam searched a small bedroom and loaded the child’s clothing in a Disney character’s backpack with Donald Duck, Micky and Minnie Mouse, and Pluto on it. In the larger bedroom, he found cash in a jewelry box. Flipping through the one hundred dollar bills, he guessed there was several thousand dollars. While shaking his head he stuffed the currency bundle in a shirt pocket. Currency definitely wasn’t what he needed more of.
He laid an outfit on a table for Breyna to wear, told JR where it was, and took the child’s backpack of clothing out of the trailer. He muttered, “Damned woman, do this, do that. Acts like we’re married.” Then he smirked, grinned, nodded and got to work. No other humans were nearby as he walked around the caravan observing the open fields. Occasionally an approaching vehicle slowed to move to the left shoulder to pass, then zoomed again up to at least seventy MPH or more. Some swayed precariously at the high speeds as strong, gusty winds continued to blow unfettered across the open plain. He thought the winds should have calmed by the early evening hours; but they hadn’t.
Sam was deep in thought about the dangers the child brought as he approached the lead trailer of the doomed caravan. A zombie groaned as it stumbled around the front of the pickup, some fifty or so feet away, and lurched toward him; a scabby, longhaired female was close behind it. He judged both had been dead for at least several days and smelled rotten. Sam dropped the backpack and pulled the Glock. He shot as the male raised its arms, opened its maw, and advanced toward him with guttural growls. Its head exploded a second before the female’s did. He stepped past the trailer relieved to be alone. Cautiously he circled the convoy and then finished inventorying the confiscated items they claimed.
When everything was stowed he figured the trailer was about ninety percent full and probably well over the recommended maximum weight limit. The canned foods were packed in liquid and the cases were heavy. They would continue to travel at a safe and sane 55 MPH in spite of the crazies passing them showing their irritation with frowns and a single fingered indication of their I.Q.
It was almost fully dark when he jammed the padlock closed on the trailer’s side door and glanced around the area lighted by a thin section of moon casting a dim yellow glow.
He heard a sound to his right and palmed his gun before he heard JR speak.
“Breyna, this is Sam. He and I are together, and you can trust him.”
Sam knelt and extended his hand to Breyna. “Hi Breyna. You sure are cute, and your clothes are cool. I picked those clothes for you to wear. Are you ready to leave?”
Breyna clung to JR’s leg and stared downward. “JR said my momma and daddy are gone and won’t come back, and I can live with you and her. I miss momma.” Tears welled in her eyes and dribbled down her cheeks.
JR had a doll in one hand and clutched Breyna’s hand in the other. They got in the truck cab. Before Sam closed the door behind them, JR smiled. “Thank you.”
Sam nodded, then walked around the truck. He got in to drive, and JR kept Breyna’s attention on the doll in her lap as the truck backed a hundred feet from the carnage and then skirted the carcasses of her family or friends littering the highway.
As they entered Garden City, Kansas, the last light of day had shut down. They passed several fast food restaurants with bright lights set against the darkness. Seeing a Golden Arch’s sign ahead, Breyna said she was hungry. Sam parked on the lot at the McDonalds because he feared the camper was too tall to enter the drive-thru lane. When he returned with cheeseburgers, fries, and sodas
