Bastille

That night Valeria slept soundly, more soundly than she had in many weeks. When she woke the air lingered with sweetness. She rubbed at her crusty eyes and dragged her feet on the wooden floor to the kitchen where Lisa stood at the stove, the pilot light lit in one burner under a cast iron pot filled with gooey oatmeal thick with maple syrup. Valeria’s mouth watered at the sight.

“Mom,” Cassie’s voice sounded from behind Valeria who turned to eye her stumbling sister. She let out a yawn before stating, “You are a saint.”

“I am aware.” She laughed halfheartedly and started ladling oatmeal into separate bowls. She reached for the fifth before she stopped suddenly fingers dangling before dropping to her side.

“Please go wake up Wesley.” Lisa stated before turning to stand at the sink, her eyes trained on the window above. Her fingers locked on the counter edge. Her knuckles were tinged white. Valeria fled the awkward air in the kitchen with Cassie trailing behind. The bunkroom revealed no sign of Wesley, only the rumpled blankets of the bunk he had occupied throughout the night.

“He might be patrolling. He has been super uptight since Dad, you know.” Cassie whispered. Valeria paused to clasp her sister’s hand and squeeze. The pair made their way out the front door downstairs to look for their rogue brother. Valeria could just make out his form behind the shed that sat behind the cabin.

“Wesley!” she called out. He looked up and waved, beckoning her forward. She made her way to the shed where he stood. His eyes were red and droopy from lack of sleep. Dirt stained his white v-neck shirt that must have come from the closet of the bunkroom.

“You are filthy.” Cassie said in disgust, staying a good three feet away from the dirty boy before her. He rolled his hazel eyes and swept an arm through the air to direct the girls’ sights on the enclosed patch of weeds before him.

“It’s a garden.” He beamed with pride over the discovery. Cassie scoffed behind him and voiced her own opinion with a, “It was a garden. Now it’s just a pile of weeds.”

“Not just weeds,” he snapped in irritation, pulling a weed from the ground revealing an onion the size of a potato. Valeria stared at the vegetable for a long moment before saying, “Holy shit. That’s the biggest onion I’ve ever seen.”

“There are more here; like a lot more. I think mom would enjoy it. It would keep her occupied. Plus, look at this.” Wesley turned to pull open the shed doors. He stepped inside inviting Valeria in behind him. Cassie stood at the threshold just close enough to see into the humble sized building. Wesley grabbed a lantern that had hung on a pegboard behind a long wooden counter. When the room was illuminated Valeria could make out the entire row of tall shelves filled to the brim with baskets. Wesley grabbed the first of the end row and passed it. Valeria thumbed through the stack of tiny envelopes wondering what was so special about them. Written in tiny letters on the top of the white folded piece of paper was “Lycopersicon Esculentum”. She raised a brow at her beaming brother, “Just what is a Lycopersicon Esculentum?”

“It’s a botanical name,” he stated before ending his statement with, “for tomatoes.”

“So you’re telling me that this whole shed is full of tomatoes? In little envelopes.”

Wesley laughed and pulled the next basket from the shelf and said, “Allium Cepa, onion. They are seeds. A lot of seeds for different plants.”

“Wesley Lucas, you are a damn genius.” Valeria said in awe, grabbing another basket from the shelf and thumbing through the tiny envelopes inside. There had to be a thousand envelopes in all in that shed.

“I’m thinking this was some sort of horticulturist garden for study. Like agricultural science or something of that nature.” Wesley stated taking the baskets from his sister and leading the way out of the shed, which he locked with a chain and padlock. The trio trekked back to the cabin kitchen where their lukewarm oatmeal waited on the table. Since a majority of the family’s diet consisted of canned pineapple and beef jerky, Valeria’s taste buds were more than pleased. By her third bowl she was stuffed and reclining on the couch with her feet on Cassie’s lap. She wanted to nap, but duty called as the group went back out to show their mother Wesley’s discovery. Lisa had been delighted by the garden and had promptly started yanking onions from the ground to be grouped together in a basket to the side. Valeria pulled at the tall stalks halfheartedly joined by Cassie who talked excitedly about her morning shower, which had been “wonderful”. Valeria ignored her rambling and concentrated on pulling weeds from the ground trying to avoid tearing out the real plants concealed by the mess of overgrown greens.

“When I was a little girl, your great-grandmother would take me out to her garden and show me the different plants.” Lisa stated as she smiled down at her soil caked hands, “Turned out I had quite the green thumb. Before Valeria was born I had the biggest garden. I let it go once I got to be several months pregnant and it was difficult to keep up. This brings back good memories.”

“I’m glad, Mom.” Wesley said softly, patting her back from where he had lingered behind her on watch for zombies if they wandered over the shaded bridge. Wesley had planned to string barbed wire across with a swinging gate style mechanism which would keep unwanted guests out but would let the group come and go as they pleased. Valeria applauded his well thought out ideas. They planned a supply run for later in the day among the two of them, pulling weeds between conversations. Lisa remained in her own world humming under her breath and smoothing the soil with fresh-bagged fertilizer that had been unearthed from another shed.

“Mom,” Valeria said as she got to her feet directing the older woman’s attention from the garden to her oldest daughter, “Wes and I are going on a trip to town. Do you need anything besides the obvious?”

“I’m fine sweetie.”

Her mother hadn’t said much else, going back to her jungle. Valeria and Wesley walked to the cabin with Cassie in tow. She whined about not being invited along. Wesley turned to his twin and put his hands on her shoulder, looking into her eyes, “If anything, Cassie, you have the most important job. I trust you to keep Mom safe. I know you can make sure she doesn’t hurt herself.” They shared a long moment where they just looked at each other before Cassie had nodded, smacking his shoulder with a palm before retreating back to the garden behind the cabin. If anything her head was held a little higher than before.

Wes led the way up the tall set of stairs to the second story deck, “I have an idea for all these windows downstairs. We really don’t need the doors or the windows, so I’m thinking we can cover them with sheet metal so they’re less likely to shatter if one of those things comes around. Taking the deck steps down would be my ideal renovation, but I don’t want it to be hard for Mom to get in and out with the garden and all.” He explained his plans for the cabin with such authority and wisdom. Valeria blamed it on the years of war games he had played locked up in his room.

“Well,” she started, looking down at the stairs, “I guess we can, like, tear them off halfway down and maybe fashion a rope ladder to climb up? Or see if we can find one at a hardware store?”

“I knew there was a reason God gave me sisters.” Wesley teased, shoving the older girl on his way in the door. He waltzed up the stairs two at a time leaving Valeria trailing behind him by a few paces. By the time she had joined him on the upper level, he was already dragging the bows out of the now glass less safe.

“Are we just going to carry them?” Valeria stated as she grabbed her red compound from her brother, considering how to sling it around herself to make transporting it easier but still accessible.

“Yours is tricky, I was just going to carry the cross since it’s lighter. We might need to ghetto rig a strap for yours.” Wesley said eyeing the bow in his sister’s grasp. He reached down starting tugging his belt from the loops of his jeans and handed it to his sister, “We’ll strap it to your pack with this.”

The belt was cloth and had a large seatbelt type buckle on the end that would be super easy to undo if need be. Wesley really was brilliant in his thinking. They easily sawed holes parallel to each other and wound the belt through on her backpack, tightening the belt as tight as it would go to hold the now buckled in bow in place. It was heavy on her back, but Valeria was relieved not having to drag it about in her hands. The pair exited the cabin and headed for the car, zooming through the covered bridge and down the gravel drive spewing dust behind them.

A journey in the opposite direction reveals just what Valeria had hoped for which was a Feed Store dubbed Verlin’s by the faded sign that hung above the door. She was eager to enter, not even paying attention to her surroundings before exiting the car. Wesley snapped at his eager sister in frustration. He rolled his eyes as the woman continued into the building, a long knife pulled out in case of surprise visitors. No undead were around the building, so Wesley followed his sister into the musty store coughing slightly as dust tickled the back of his throat.

It was obvious that the store was a popular raiding site. The display cases by the registers were shattered, glass splayed across the cement floor cracking under his sneaker-clad feet. He checked the displays in disgust seeing boxes and packaging from bullets and knives but no real ammunition in sight. He went around the counter and pulled out the cash drawer in the register. Even the bills inside had been taken which made him chuckle weakly. Money was so useless now, what was the point of stealing it? He shrugged it off and picked up the tray that was divided into sections for various bills and coins. A black handgun stared back at him making him smirk, “Dumbasses.”

The gun made its way to his waistband. He walked around the counter after the sound of Valeria’s footsteps. She was busy digging through a bin of canteens and didn’t see the dead person coming up from her side. Wesley called her name and raised his bow letting an arrow fly straight into the person’s forehead. He fell with a clatter making Valeria jump in fright.

“Holy crap, I hit him. I actually fucking hit him!” Wesley was saying loudly in disbelief getting closer to pull the arrow from the decaying brain of his downed zombie. Valeria was staring down at the dirty man in disgust, “Good lord, they stink so badly.”

“Well, they’re decomposing so I mean.” Wesley said just as grossed out by the stench of rotting flesh under his feet. The pair shoved several canteens into their packs before continuing to the next aisle. Valeria pressed her face up against one of the wire cages standing tall in the center of the space, “Oh my gosh, Wesley.”

He could hear them before he saw them. They were shrieking pitifully when they caught sight of Valeria with her face against the wire. His heart dropped in his stomach seeing the bodies of little fuzzy chicks strewn across the confined space. He counted them in his head: twelve. Only 2 were alive in the space, eyes crusty and mouths screaming. He searched the area for a box to put them in, grabbing a broad cardboard box from the top of a shelf that held bones of various sizes for dogs. He poured them to the floor and opened the cage to free the baby birds, scooping them up in his bare hands. Their claws scratched lightly at his hands but for the most part they remained still. Wesley could tell that they had got to them just in time for they wouldn’t have lived much longer. He settled them down in the box.

“What do chickens eat exactly?” he questioned his sister who was already searching the aisle of sacks for chicken feed. She yanked a twenty-pound sack off the shelf and shrugged, “I have no idea. This says chicken food, so I’m assuming something like this.”

The sack was thrown over her shoulder before they started for the car. Valeria tossed the heavy bag into the trunk and closed it, “Mom is going to have a cow.”

Wesley shrugged, “Let her, we’ll have a chicken.”

His sarcastic comment made his sister chuckle as she opened the driver’s side door. Wesley sat down on the passenger side with the chirping box on his lap, his heart warm with purpose. Valeria peeled out of the lot leaving nothing but a cloud of dust in their wake.