“Should we open the gate? Let them out? They’ll eventually starve to death if we don’t,” Zahara said. Then she saw a zombie that was crawling around in the pasture. The lower half of him looked to have been trampled and so he was crawling with his arms. She shot him in the head and watched as Xander opened the gate and propped it open. That way, the animals could come and go if they wanted. They walked back to the house and Xander went up the steps. He knocked loudly and waited. She thought she heard something within.
“Maybe open the door and let whatever is in there out and you can do like you did with those other zombies, lead it away and shoot it.” Zahara lifted her Sig Sauer and waited. Xander nodded and knocked one more time.
“Hello? I’m going to open the door. If you’re a living person, we won’t hurt you. We killed the zombies that were out here, it’s safe.” Both waited but heard nothing but movement. Xander opened the door and both moved out of the way. Nothing happened.
“Hello?” Zahara called out. She could hear movement but didn’t know where it was coming from. Carefully, she and Xander went in. They went from room to room and found nothing. They went to the stairs and went up slowly. They opened one door after another. They found two empty bedrooms, a bathroom, and a linen closet. The last room at the end was also closed. She looked at Xander and he shrugged. As he opened the door, she swung her weapon across the room and saw nothing but an open window. Then something moved and she swung her Sig Sauer toward it.
“Shit, it’s a raccoon.” Stepping back, she slammed the door and looked at Xander and grinned.
“I think the place is ours. I’ll feed and water the chickens if you’ll start dinner. Power’s still on so maybe they have food in this place,” Zahara suggested.
“Hopefully they aren’t vegans,” Xander said and laughed. They went down stairs and looked around once more. There was a door in the kitchen and Zahara opened it. Steps led down into a dark cellar. She sniffed but didn’t scent anything, if there were any zombies, they’d have to make their way up the steep stairs. She shut the door and locked it.
“What’s that?” Xander asked.
“Cellar. Didn’t sniff anything down there. If you wanna look later for anything we might need. You know, like a radio, Wolfman, you can,” she said and sniggered. He shot her a look and they walked out to the truck. The door was open but Shay was nowhere to be seen.
Ž
Rose sat on the veranda fanning herself. It had been a hot and humid day. She was missing Shay and Zahara. She knew that Lauren was missing them as well for the girl moped about. She had taken the children out to the large garden and picked beans. Tomorrow they would can the beans and she would start on the children’s education for living simply. Ethan and Reggie were in the barn, going over Ethan’s new truck. They had also brought home a solar refrigerator, solar freezer, solar panels, converters and batteries. Behind each of the vehicles were large trailers that were packed with clothing for the children, books and other essentials. It appeared as though the men had gone to every store in the county and cleared them out.
The boys wanted to bunk with Reggie so Reggie had gotten bunkbeds for the room. The boys had squealed their delight. He’d turned bright red with pleasure and grinned. Rose had heard bits and pieces of Reg’s story and her heart broke for him. She couldn’t imagine losing her children. He had put up their pictures in his bedroom. She heard the men’s laughter drift from the barn and shook her head. She’d not imagined that her life would have gone in this direction. She saw Mike and Luke run to the tire swing and both squeezed inside and twirled around, their legs dragging in the dirt. She looked over as the men came walking toward the house and smiled.
“We’re going to reinforce the fence line tomorrow. We picked up several solar electric fence chargers and lines. We’ll see about runnin’ most of the outer perimeter but we’ll also make a smaller inner perimeter fence line. We got the bright yellow aluminum poly-wire so the kids will see it and stay away from it,” Reggie said.
“Looks like y’all got quite a lot done today and nice truck Ethan. Hope it didn’t cost too much,” she said and laughed.
“Naw, just a pair of shoes,” Ethan said straight face and Reggie sniggered, his face turning bright red. She looked at Ethan, but he only smiled.
“Thanks for the canning jars. We’re going to be cannin’ some of those green beans tomorrow. There’s a whole lot of them and I’d hate to see them go to waste. We dug up some nice sweet potatoes and I think in a few weeks, we’ll have lots of those to can as well.”
“My Marney used to love cannin’. She liked feedin’ our boys homemade,” Reggie said softly with a faraway look in his eyes. She looked at Ethan and he shrugged. What was there to say?
“Thanks also for putting the rice in the cellar. I’m not sure what we’re goin’ to do with three hundred pounds of rice,” she said dubiously. The bags of rice were stored in metal trashcans; Reggie had put a bead of silicon caulking around the lid and sealed the cans. They should keep for years, but she wasn’t a big rice eater. But now, things would be limited, perhaps she should look through her aunt’s old cookbooks for rice dishes.
“I know how to
