Bastille

Between Wesley, Cassandra, and Valeria they had carried 12 cans of pineapples from the school cafeteria to their Tahoe SUV that was waiting in front of the gymasium on the grass. David was standing with some Army men by the entrance. He was smiling which seemed like a good enough sign for Valeria and her siblings. They loaded the cans of pineapple into the back of the long SUV with the rest of their belongings. It was already crammed with clothing, shoes, and boxes of ready to eat Army style meals. Valeria slammed the back door shut with a satisfying, ‘thud’. She ran a hand through her damp locks. The family had rushed to take cold showers in the gynasium locker room before departing, not knowing when their next shower may be. The wind had picked up since that morning giving the hint that winter was fast approaching.

David shook the hands of the men around him and climbed up into the driver’s seat of the white vehicle and started the engine. Valeria watched the streets pass by on their way out of the city, a tear shedding down her cheek. She was sure her mother had started crying as well from up front. Her hand was clasped in her husband’s tightly. They were driving West towards Atlanta, but not directly into the city. David had an idea to follow the river a ways and see if anybody was camped out in more rural locations. He was hoping to become part of a bigger group, or at least another family. He wasn’t entirely sure what his plan of action was. For the time being he was just watching the road ahead of him, scared to hit one of those things as they blindly crossed the road.

Valeria was sitting cross legged on the second row, right side seat with Cassie to her left. Wesley had chosen to recline in the back of the Tahoe where they had put down the third row of seats to make room for the things they were bringing along. His snores revealed he was sleeping soundly, lulled by the sound of tires on pavement. In any other instance Valeria would have found the car ride relaxing as well, unfortunately she wasn’t as quick to want to fall asleep. She wrapped herself up in a thick cashmere knit blanket and scribbled in her journal. It doubled as a sketchbook a majority of the time. Valeria liked to cover the blank pages in flowers and doodles of stars. It was relaxing on the long drive.

David had warned his youngest daughter against using her beloved iPod too much on the drive over. Cassie had just rolled her eyes and put the ear buds back in. Currently she was bobbing her head to Beyonce, from what little Valeria could hear coming from her earphones. She shook her head at Cassie and turned to the back of the vehicle. Wesley was now awake and staring out the window of the Tahoe at the passing trees and road signs.

“I spy with my little eye something small.”

Wesley’s mouth crooked into a grin. They had played this game often as children. He was actually the best at iSpy, not that Cassandra would admit it. He looked around the car for a second and pointed at Cassie, “Cassie’s brain.” Even David laughed from the front seat of the truck causing Cassie to look around in confusion while everyone else chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” she snapped with a quirked eyebrow. Wesley just shrugged and said to Valeria, “A pinecone?”

“Wrong! It’s not outside the car.” Valeria sing songed to her little brother who was deep in thought.

“Mom’s earring?” he said in question. Once more Valeria shook her head. Wesley was ready to admit defeat when he retorted, “Your necklace.”

That actually was the answer. Valeria nodded and reached her hand up to clasp the jeweled cross in her palm. The delicate chain was one that had been replaced over time, but the gold cross attached was over two hundred years old. It had once been her great great great grandmother’s who had come from Ireland in 1845 due to the potato famine. She never returned to Ireland, but instead married a farmer from Savannah. On their wedding day he had presented her with the same cross Valeria wore daily around her neck. She didn’t take the beloved piece of precious metal off unless absolutely necessary.

“You kinda make it too easy.” Wesley teased lounging back in his little space. He pulled a bag of beef jerky out of the box by his head and ripped it open. Valeria wrinkled her nose at the smell of the teriyaki flavored meat. She wasn’t a vegetarian by any means, but the confined space plus the smell of drid meat was making her nauseous.

She rolled down her window as she felt the need to throw up. She rested her chin against the interior window panel and closed her eyes. She must have fallen asleep because before she knew it the sky had darkened revealing a million stars. Valeria had always loved astronomy. She wondered if it was possible to live outside of this planet. Somewhere without dead people coming back to life and trying to eat her. Valeria stretched her arns over her head, rubbing her hands down her covered arms. The car had grown cold over the course of her nap. She looked out the window and realized they had stopped at an empty looking gas station.

“Cassie?” she mumbled, looking throughout the car for her family whilst blinking the sleep from her dry eyeballs. She needed to take her contacts out. Valeria dug through the bag at her feet and pulled forth a long barreled flashlight and the purple Swiss Army knife she had previously used to mutilate Mrs. Peter’s. The knife was still stained with black blood around the handle even after several attempts to wash it. Valeria shrugged her white fleece jacket on over the rust colored wool sweater she wore before exiting the car, clicking the button on the flashlight making a beam of light erupt from the face illuminating the gas pumps near her door. She looked around making sure there were no biting dead people before sprinting across the lot to the actual store. She shined the flashlight at the doors which were boarded over, spray painted lettering spelled out, “Take what you need. God bless you.”. It made a shiver roll down Valeria’s spine. She grabbed a door and yanked at it. They opened without much effort allowing Valeria to step inside and see half full shelves that had already long since been ransacked. She could see the beams from other flashlights towards the back of the store. She made her way past a shelf full of school supplies. She paused and grabbed a pack of gel pens, slipping them into her pocket. For a moment she felt guilty for shoplifting as she had never felt the need to do it before now.

“Deperate times call for desperate measures.” She whispered out loud. She helped herself to a healthy stack of notebooks and reached for woodsearch books filled with other puzzle type games. She put the stolen items under her arm and directed the light down the aisle towards the giant floor to ceiling coolers in the back of the store where she could see Cassandra and Wesley standing.

“Thanks for leaving me in the car all alone, assholes.” She hissed, punching her sister in the upper arm with a fist. Cassie frowned and shoved her older sister in response.

“At least I had the curtesy to roll the window back up. We stopped for gas. Daddy is siphoning some, and I saw the sign on the doors. Might as well get candy.” She held up a plastic sack full of laffy taffy and skittles, “Daddy took some packs of drinks, bottled water, stuff like that. Are you really taking notebooks?” Casie snorted as she saw the items shoved under her sister’s left arm.

“Shut up.” She mumbled, leaving the two to stare at the cooler of drinks as she made her way to the desk. There was a rather large liquor section behind the glass counter top. She pulled a pint from the shelf and shoved it inbetween her skin and the waistband of her pants. That would come in handy eventually. A few slim jims and cans of chicken noodle soup later she was making her way back to the car. She unloaded her goodies into her backpack and practically vomited as a wave of stink invaded her nostrils.

“Oh my god.” She gagged, pinching her nostrils with two fingers and slamming the door shut. She let out a high pitched scream when she was shoved back against the door, a greying hand at her chest pushing and clawing as the mouth of the angry dead guy chomped at her face. She pushed the ugly biting scum away from her and made a run for it, making it all the way inside as the dead beat on the door. Deep groans spilled from his decaying lips. That was when she remembered the knife in her pocket. She fumbled to take it out and flip it open, breathing in deeply and closing her eyes.

“You can do it. Just stab him.” She said to herself, opening the door and flinging herself at the dead guy. She yelped in disgust as they landed in a pile on the cement, her hand holding down his biting face. She let her arm fly and stabbed him in the chest letting the knife slip from her fingers in satisfaction. She screamed when the dead kept coming up at her, actually pushing her from where she had been straddling his corpse. He pulled his mangled body towards her chomping all the while. There was no way she was getting her knife out of his chest without getting bitten. Just then, a hulking man came out of nowhere with a propane tank, bashing in the brains of the biter at her feet. Her jaw dropped as she froze in fear.

“What the hell was all that screaming?” Cassie was at her side without notice, her nose wrinkling from the smell of the nasty man at her sister’s feet, “Ew.”

“Ew is right.” Valeria said in disgust, getting to her feet and wiping the black gook from her face where brain matter had splattered upon impact. The hulking guy who had first hit the monstrous form was at her side, pulling her by an arm so he was in her face, “You need to quiet the hell down and stop your screaming. Don’t you know they are attracted by sound? Idiotic girl.” The man let her throbbing upper arm go as he pushed her away. His lip was curled upward in a somewhat snarl.

“Tim, leave that poor girl alone. If I was her I would have been screaming my head off too.” The second voice had come from behind the man who turned with soft eyes to speak quietly to her in return.

“Yeah? Well you wouldn’t be anywhere without me to find yourself in that situation, now would you?” he teased. Valeria watched as he grabbed the hand of a much smaller woman. Their size difference was almost odd to Valeria. She had a small round face with dimpled cheeks and rosy lips that tilted upwards into a smile. She was clothed in mostly black, a tank top and black jeans with a grey hoodie. The thing that stood out most to Valeria was the size of her obviously pregnant stomach. She was easily seven or eight months along and looked about ready to pop. A tiny hand came to rest on her bulging stomach.

“You don’t have to be scared, I hardly have bad enough mood swings to hit ya.” She teased to Valeria reaching out a hand to shake, “I’m Barb, this is Timothy.”

“Valeria and Cassie. Olson.” Valeria replied with a weak shake of the girl’s hand. She didn’t seem to mind the speckles of blood that had littered Valeria’s palms from the biter at their feet.

“Are y’all alone?” Barb asked in concern, looking at the large vehicle they had arrived in. Cassie shook her head and answered, “Oh no, we are with our parents. They are searching for gas. My brother and I were inside.”

Wesley still lingered in the doorway from where he had been watching with guarding eyes ready to intervene if the strangers tried something with his sisters. Barb let her eyes shift to him and smiled brightly, nodding at the boy who was too busy giving them the stink eye to return the smile.

“Not much gas to get around these parts, I’m afraid.” Barb paused in her sentence to rub her taunt stomach, “we’ve been through it all siphoning for our boat.”

Wesley was intrigued by the sentence, “Boat?”

“Yes kid, boat. Never heard of one? It’s a metal thing used to skim across water?” Tim hissed at the boy, only regaining his silence when Barb’s tiny hand came up to smooth over his rumpled t shirt. She patted the spot over his heart and smiled up at the towering man.

“Ignore Muscles, he likes to let the testosterone get to his brain.” Barb teased before continuing, “We have a house boat just about a mile down the road at the bridge. We actually came from up the river a way before running out of gas. The current is really slow here so we’ve just been bobbing about for a day or two.”

Valeria was stunned at what this little pregnant woman had said. Not only was she living on a boat, but they were traveling down river on it while she was eight months pregnant. Valeria vaguely knew of what river they spoke having been to one or two parties outside of Haven at the docks near the bridge. Lots of fisherman used them to load and unload their flat boats. Teenagers often went there to make out. So they hadn’t made it far at all. Valeria let a sigh escape her lips. She opened her mouth to speak when beams from another flashlight came to rest on the group of five surrounding the dead body in the doorway.

“Holy shit. I’m gone for ten minutes and you guys have all the fun?” David said in surpise, dropping the full gas can at his feet and looking over the blood spatter that started at the doorway and ended all the way to the car window. The bloody propane tank was laying not too far away, dripping onto the cement staining the ground black.

“You must be their parents,” Barb stepped forward with that trusting grin of hers once more for a handshake, “Barb and Tim Hughes.”

“David and Lisa Olson. And yes, those are my kids. They make this mess or did you?” Valeria could tell he was joking with the tiny pregnant blonde. She was absolutely amused by the statement and giggled behind a hand before rubbing Tim’s chest once more, “No. That would be my macho man. Your girl was in a bit of a spot so he decided to give her a hand. Didn’t you, honey bear?”

“Yes,” Tim said with a frown, “She was stabbing it in the chest. You have to aim for the head. They don’t die like normal people.” Tim put a foot to the biter and leant down to pull the purple knife from it’s chest. He wiped the metal blade on the dead’s shirt and handed it to Valeria who nodded in thanks. She stuck the trusty knife back in the pocket from which it came.

“Like I was telling Valeria and Cassie, we live on a houseboat down the river. We’d love if you came and ate dinner with us. It won’t be much, but Tim is incredible with a fishing pole and we have enough fish to go around. It’s been awhile since we have seen any others. I need some company.” Barb was practically begging, the need to socialize obvious in her blue eyes. Lisa took in her lump of a stomach and spoke for the whole group with a bright smile, “I don’t know about the rest of my family, but a fish fry sounds better than beef jerky and refried beans to me.”

Valeria wasn’t about to disagree so she remained quiet, only smiling at the beaming Barb who let her hands clap together in joy, “Great! Oh and one last thing, we have hot water.”

The Olson’s could barely get to their car fast enough, ready to squeeze in the two extra people into the vehicle. Barb tucked in beside Valeria, her stomach pressing against the younger girl. Barb frowned and patted her stomach, “Now now, Henry. Behave yourself. I’m sorry, I just can’t handle him sometimes.”

The Olson’s laughed. Lisa’s eyes met Barb’s in the rearview mirror and they shared a smile. David finished up with gas tank and got behind the wheel and cranked the engine. Valeria held her cross as they pulled out not even sparing a glance back behind them to the blood stained cement parking lot.

God did bless them, indeed.