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KATE
I should be excited. After two days of hard clearance, we’ve managed to kill all the large packs of zombies on campus. After another four days of work, we’ve managed to relocate and install fencing between all the dorm buildings. And now, barely a week after we rescued him, Gary is conscious and well enough to meet all of us at Creekside.
And while I am happy about all these things, I’m too exhausted to feel real enthusiasm. Ever since the alpha attack, sleep has been even more elusive than usual.
I crunch on a few stale coffee beans, wishing for an intravenous injection of caffeine. A few people watch me critically as I pop the beans, particularly Ben and Carter, but no one says anything.
“Hey look,” Reed says with forced cheer from his seat on the couch. “It’s Shark Bait.”
I look up as Susan and Ash enter the main sitting room. Susan pushes a wheelchair in front of her, which Eric and Reed had found inside of a janitor’s closet a few days ago.
In the wheelchair is Gary. He’s pale and gaunt, but his eyes are alert. From the smell of things, he’s just had his first shower since getting attacked by a great white. His dark brown hair is still wet, sticking up at wild angles.
“Reed.” Jenna frowns at him. “Don’t call him that. Hey, Gary. Welcome to Creekside.”
“Hey, guys.” Gary grins at us, a good-natured smile landing on Reed. “It’s cool. I like Shark Bait better than Shark Food.”
“You’re in an awfully good mood for someone who almost died,” Ben remarks.
Gary is cheerfully unapologetic. “Thanks to all of you, my wife and I are alive. If that’s not enough to put a man in a good mood, I don’t know what is.”
“I like this guy already,” Jenna says.
“Yeah, I’m glad we risked our lives to save him,” Caleb adds.
“I know I can’t do much until my leg heals,” Gary says, “but I want to help. Give me a job to do. Maybe I can cook?”
The sudden silence that descends is like a wet blanket. The good cheer Gary brought to the room is snuffed out. Ben’s face darkens into a scowl.
No one has volunteered to cook since Lila died. Meals consist of someone picking out a bunch of canned goods from our supply room and heating them over the camp stove. My last meal consisted of warmed-up green beans.
Gary, sensing the shift, looks from us to Susan in confusion. “I said something. Whatever it was, I’m sorry.”
It’s not right to take out our collective sorrow on Gary. I throw back a few more coffee beans and cross the room to him.
“I’m Kate.” I shake his hand. “We’re glad you’re finally awake.” I make introductions, going around the room.
“Seriously, I owe you guys,” Gary says. “Thanks for everything. Susan says Ash worked day and night to fight off infection and keep me alive.”
Caleb flashes a proud smile at Ash. “She’s good at what she does. We’re all lucky to have her.”
I can’t tell if Caleb’s compliment has a deeper meaning behind it. I haven’t been able to figure out the extent of their relationship. As far as I can tell, things haven’t changed between them since Jesus died. They share a dorm room, but even when they sleep the door is always open. They’re never far from one another, but I have yet to see them touch.
“We are lucky to have Ash,” I agree. “If you really want to step up and be in charge of the kitchen, the job is yours.” No need to tell him we lost our previous chef to zombies. I don’t think anyone is ready to talk about it, least of all me.
“I’m in,” Gary says. “I was the cook for guests on our charter boat. I’m not a trained chef, but I can put stuff together that tastes good.”
Eric and Reed start coughing. Small smiles pull at the lips of my people. Even Ben shakes his head as though amused by the comment. It’s nice to feel the tension of the past week slacken.
“What did I say?” Gary asks.
“We don’t eat much that tastes great,” I say as diplomatically as I can.
“I’ll do what I can to remedy that. Just show me where the supplies are.”
*
WE LEAVE GARY WITH several boxes of food stores, placing them on the floor to make it easy for him to sort. Despite being confined to a wheelchair, he eagerly sets about going through them. The rest of us head outside, returning to the fortification of our home.
“For a man who almost died, he’s in good spirits,” I say to Susan as the two of us finish rolling a car into place in front of our fence. I’m so exhausted that all I want to do is sleep. Even Gary’s recovery isn’t enough to give me a boost of energy.
“He’s always like this.” A happy smile spreads across Susan’s face. “It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with him. He always got great tips from people on our boat.” She taps her fingers on the hood of the car. “Do you think we should pop the tires now?”
“Let’s wait until we’re finished getting all the cars in place.” We’re two-thirds of the way finished with this phase of the fortifications. “Come on, let’s go get the silver Mini Coop.”
I plod beside Susan, steps heavy with fatigue. I have a few more coffee beans stashed in my pocket. I crunch on them as we walk a short way down Granite Avenue to the Mini Cooper.
“Are those good?” Susan points to the beans.
“Honestly? No. They’re stale.”
“So you’re eating them because you’re so tired you could fall asleep standing up?”
“Is it that obvious?”
Susan nods. “No one would be upset if you took the afternoon off and napped.”
Like I could nap even if I tried. I shake my head. “My place is out here with everyone else, making sure our home is safe.”
Susan gives me a sidelong look but doesn’t say anything. We reach the Mini Coop. The doors are all locked, something we’ve run into more times than I can count. Susan pulls out a large rock wrapped in a T-shirt, which hangs from her belt; our official tool for our task of breaking into cars. She smashes the window and unlocks the doors.
A few minutes the later, the Mini Coop is in neutral and the two of us are pushing it up the road.
Three hundred yards away, a small pack of zombies stumble into view. Eric, Johnny, Caleb, and Ash stop what they’re doing and fan out to eliminate the undead. From the haphazard resistance the zombies put up, it’s clear none of them are alphas.
After our initial clearance of the campus right after the attack, we haven’t run into too many zoms. It’s nice to know our destruction of the library and dorms wasn’t for nothing.
“We owe you our lives,” Susan says as she watches our people. “I’ve never properly thanked you for what you’ve done for me and Gary.”
“Let’s see,” I say, attempting to make light of the situation. “When we met you, your husband was unconscious from a shark attack. The day after you arrive at Creekside, we’re attacked by alpha zombie hordes and are forced to blow up some buildings.” I make it a point not to mention the wake, or the burial of our friends in the rubble of College Creek. “Then I make everyone relocate fence panels and reinforce them with cars. Oh, and somewhere in between all that, your husband wakes up.” I smile at her through the open car window as we continue to push the Mini Coop. “You’ve had a lot on your mind.”
Susan shakes her head. “I could say thank you every day for the rest of my life and it still wouldn’t be enough. Can you steer at little to the left?”
I adjust the steering wheel. The Mini Coop slides neatly into place between two cars.
Carter and Jenna roll up a few minutes later, pushing a beat-up Ford Mustang between them. Susan and I guide them into place.
The Mustang completes the section of the wall around the Juniper and Creekside dorm buildings. I survey the barrier, knowing I should feel satisfied. All I feel is exhausted.
“Good work,” I say. “Let’s try and finish this next section of the wall today.” I gesture to the gap between Fern and Laurel dorms. “I saw more cars down in the parking lot of the Jolly.” The Jolly is a big common area that used to be frequented by students.
“So you and Gary ran a commercial fishing boat?” Carter asks as the four of us walk together down the road.
“A charter boat. We took people out for fishing, whale watching, and kayaking. We were on our boat with two tourists from New York when the outbreak hit. One customer started eating his friend. Gary tried to separate them, but couldn’t. At the time, we didn’t know the guy was a zombie. We thought he was just some rich prick who bought some bad drugs.
“Anyway, Gary ended up hitting him in the head with a fire extinguisher. He only meant to stun him, but accidentally hit him too hard. The other guy, the one who was bitten, bled out on the deck of our boat.
“We were so scared. We thought we were facing manslaughter charges. We threw the bodies overboard. Our plan was to stay in the boat and sail down to Mexico before the authorities caught up to us.” Susan lets out a long sigh. “We hadn’t gone far when we heard about the outbreak on the radio and figured out what was really happening. No one was using the zombie word, but all the news reports talked about people going berserk and eating other people. We decided to stay put and live on the boat until everything blew over. You know how that worked out. And now here we are.”
I try to imagine what it would be like to watch the world end from afar. It occurs to me that Susan and Gary haven’t spent much time in the world of zombies. That makes me appreciate their willingness to help and be a part of our community even more.
I suppose there is some brightness in this fucked-up world.