Amanda Carter in the L.A.Z., life after zombies (17 page)

Chapter 30

O
nce in the truck, Amanda wasted no time putting it in drive and punching the truck forward. The grate pulled out of the wall and clattered to the concrete and then slid across the asphalt as the truck drove out into the center of the street and halted.

“That was noisy,” Sam said, sticking her finger to one ear and wiggling it around.

“Sorry, but it couldn’t be helped,” Amanda said, preparing to jump from the truck. “Why don’t you stay here while I take care of them?”

“No way, man,” Sam said. “I’ve got your back, remember? I’m ready for this.”

“Suit yourself. You were probably the kid that wanted to be thrown into the deep end of the pool to learn to swim, huh?”

“Something like that,” Sam said, jumping out and slamming the truck door.

Two creepers were already slowly making their way out of the shop, tripping over the debris, looking pathetic.

“Are they always this slow?” Sam asked, almost as if seeing them was a letdown.

“Just the ones that have been turned for a while, the newly turned are fast,” Amanda said, answering her question.

Amanda had left the truck running with the air conditioning blasting, and as she had figured, Red was alert and attentive to the goings-on outside. It was almost as if there were a third person in their party now to help with the runs.

“The noise could have drawn some more, so keep a watch, down both sides of the street,” Amanda said, feeling a blast of hot air blow into her, bringing with it some sand that made her eyes water. She reminded herself to grab her shades from the truck when they had finished here.

Amanda waited until the creepers had crept closer, before she sprung. She moved forward quickly without hesitating, kicking the one closest to her to the ground. This left the other one easy to dispatch on its own. Before the one on the ground could get up, she plunged her knife into its temple, calming it immediately.

“Look out!” Sam said, running to Amanda’s side and cold-cocking a third one in the head with a devastating blow that nearly dislocated its head.

The creeper’s legs slipped out from under it with a soft thud, like a marionette whose strings had been cut, officially dead.

“Well, that’s one,” Sam said, apparently serious about wanting to keep a count of her creeper kills.

“Thanks, kid, that’s what a good lookout does,” Amanda said, a little breathlessly.

Chances were good that had she been alone, she could have handled that one too, but she didn’t like to take unnecessary chances and was glad for the help because the alternative was unthinkable.

“Ready?” Sam asked, surveying the area one more time before nodding toward the shop.

“Is it still all clear?” Amanda asked, taking the time to look around herself. She hoped that she could be forgiven for not entirely trusting a first-timer with the job.

“All clear,” Sam said, not seeming to notice that she had been checking up on her work.

“That’s surprising. This much noise should have drawn a lot of them down on us. That fire must be creating a much bigger distraction than I had thought,” Amanda said, looking puzzled as she looked over the deserted street and then back into the shop.

The shop was lighted only by the sunlight; therefore she could only see a little of the way inside, but all was quiet. She didn’t want to assume that there would be no more creepers hiding out in there, but the chances were good that unless they were stuck behind a closed door somewhere inside, there wouldn’t be any more of them. The noise would have drawn any of them out that were able to move toward them.

“Ready?” she asked Sam as she began making her way inside.

Amanda knew that she was running a risk of getting the truck stolen, should she remained parked there with the doors unlocked and the engine running too long. Hopefully, Red would help to guard it. She decided that working quickly provided their best opportunity to keep the truck safe, and she wasted no time entering the shop and taking her first really good glance around inside.

“Rockin’ cool,” Sam said. “Let’s do it.” And she followed her mentor inside.

Inside, the shop was hotter than it was outside, and it smelled bad. The smell got worse the farther they ventured, until they were standing at the counter.

“I see what you mean about a lot of musical equipment,” Sam said, scanning the walls where the instruments were neatly displayed.

Amanda didn’t answer. She was taking a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light. She listened, and there wasn’t a sound aside from the howling of the wind and the distant sounds of the destruction that was being caused by the fire.

“Can I have a guitar?” Sam asked, looking at a wooden one that was hanging on the wall, complete with a shoulder strap.

“Sure,” Amanda said, thinking that it might become a constructive hobby that would have some practical entertainment value for the group, if she were able to teach herself how to play it.

“Really?” Sam said, apparently expecting a different answer from Amanda.

The girl gently pulled the guitar down from the wall and slung it over her shoulder, careful to double-check the area after she had finished. Still nothing.

“What are you waiting for?” Sam asked, looking to Amanda curiously.

“I’m carefully scanning the shelves, making sure I don’t miss anything useful, like that power drill and bits over there,” she said, pointing to a cordless drill that had a black plastic case filled with fittings and bits. “There, can you grab that?”

“What for? It’s electric,” Sam said, as if Amanda had lost her mind.

“We do have a generator, and we may need it to help with construction, so grab it, along with that circular saw that’s sitting next to it,” Amanda said, sounding impatient.

“Okay, but why aren’t you grabbing anything?” the girl asked, more out of curiosity than disrespect.

“One of us needs to stay lookout and be ready to fight. We can’t both of us have our hands full,” she said, patiently.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Sam said, and by now she had loaded up her arms with the prizes.

“Good, Sam. Now follow me back out to the truck, and we’ll load this up and check on things out there. I’m a little nervous to have left the truck running and unlocked,” she said, leading the way past the aisles and back out into the street.

A piece of old-yellowed newspaper blew quickly, smacking her in the face, and she shook it off hurriedly, so as to take a good look around. Still there was nothing in the street—no creeper, no raider—nothing. It was giving her an unsettled feeling, seeing the town like this. It was like she and Sam had become the last two people on the planet. She shook off the feeling and went to the truck. She shut the truck off after cracking the windows for Red, apologizing to him as she did so.

Next, she went to the back of the truck and unhooked the chains from the metal grate and freeing them from the hitch. The chain made a rattling noise as she fed it back into the bed of the truck. She made a mental note that if there was time, once they had finished with the really important items that they needed and had procured the second vehicle, to come back and see about loading up the metal grate. It was possible that either this or the material from it would come in handy during their construction efforts.

“What are you thinking about?” Sam asked, having off-loaded merchandise. “I locked my side too.”

“Good, and I was just thinking is all,” Amanda said, releasing the end of the chain.

Without a word, the two women moved back into the store, careful to check that there were no surprises. All was quiet, and Amanda moved around to behind the counter.

“Look at all this cash,” Sam said, incredulously while staring at a rubber banded stack of bills under the cash register.

“A lot of good that’s going to do us now,” Amanda said with a huff.

“Right,” Sam said, looking at the other items under the counter. “What about this?” she asked, holding up an unopened can of beer.

“That’s a keeper. Now you’re getting the idea,” Amanda said, grabbing the double-barreled shotgun that the owner must have kept here in case of trouble.

Checking the shotgun, she found that it was loaded with two shots, and she began rummaging around the shelves looking for more ammunition.

Sam stuffed the can in her pack and grabbed a screwdriver, also shoving it into the pack, along with a flashlight and some D batteries.

“This is fun,” she said. “And it’s better than a scavenger hunt. I did one of those one time, and it definitely wasn’t as much fun as this.”

The girl was aglow with excitement, and Amanda was happy to discover that it looked like the girl would be a natural on the runs, and that would be very helpful, if the entire town didn’t burn and leave them nothing to run for. She frowned at this but dismissed it in favor of moving on with the search.

“Hey, I found a half pack of gum,” Sam said, holding it up. “I think its cinnamon flavor. Right on.”

She crammed this into her pocket and continued sifting through the piles of stuff under the counter. There were a lot of loose papers, office supply stuff, and wads of trash that someone had tossed back here. After a while, she was satisfied that she could discover no more and poked her head up.

Amanda had been keeping a watch and held the shotgun, knowing that it would make a great addition to their small collection of weapons back at camp.

“Ready to move on to the back of the store?” Amanda asked, peeking over an open counter that had a view of the back of the store.

She could see no movement, but it was considerably darker back there. They could either slide over the counter, or they could go through the door to the side of them. Both options had their own set of risks, so she chose to slide over the counter.

“Wait for me, I found a flashlight,” Sam said, turning the light on and slipping over the counter after Amanda.

Amanda had her own flashlight that she kept clipped to her pack, but now they had two lights shining around the back of the store.

“There’s a lot of laptops back here, drums, electric pianos, and look, a tuba,” Sam said, excitedly pointing to the big shiny instrument.

“Don’t tell me that you want to learn to play the tuba?” Amanda asked, not able to prevent a chuckle from escaping at the thought of Sam marching around camp huffing into the instrument.

“No way, but I used to watch them march with the tuba’s at football games, I’m just saying,” Sam said, and then she became suddenly quiet.

“Well, we have to finish up,” Amanda said after giving her a moment.

“Yeah, sure,” Sam said, lacking a little of her previous luster.

It was easy at times these days to grow sullen, remembering how things used to be, and this was one of those times.

“Over there,” Amanda said, pointing to a stack of three solar panels. “Grab those. I knew I had seen panels for sale once in a while here. I even bought one once and used it to charge a spare battery.”

At the panels, they could see that there was a card attached by a string with an item number, phone number, and name. It was sad to think that whoever John Summerset had been, he would not be coming back for these ever. Sam grasped the panels, and they weaved their way back outside into fresher air with the girl’s arms loaded.

Amanda dropped off the shotgun and the shells that she had found, and Sam stacked her items neatly in the back of the truck, except for the guitar that she put in the extra cab by Red, asking him to watch it for her. They headed back into the store. Amanda found it curious that this whole time now, they had been able to scavenge in the shop uninterrupted by anything or anyone. Even though it was a good thing for now, she took it as an ill harbinger of the fire that was wreaking havoc on the other side of town.

Both of the women were dripping sweat and red in the face already and their day had just begun. Amanda reminded herself that they would need to hydrate after this on their way to the housing complex that needed to be checked out.

“There, grab that,” Amanda said, pointing to a sports drink that was lying on its side on the slab floor in the back of the store.

“Awesome,” Sam said, picking it up. “It’s fruit punch flavor.”

“Make sure that the seal isn’t broken, and stash it in your pack,” she said, her eyes already combing the store.

“Seal’s intact,” Sam said with a note of happiness.

It was interesting these days, Amanda considered, that the simplest of discoveries could make your whole day brighter, like finding an unopened bottle of what had once been a prevalent commodity.

Amanda busied herself with unplugging a mini refrigerator from a circuit bar, before daring to look inside of it.

“Whew, yuck,” Sam said after Amanda had opened the door.

The mini fridge had rotten food that Amanda spilled out onto the floor, and the stench was horrible, but the fridge could possibly be run by the solar system that Roy wanted to connect for them, and it could be cleaned.

“It’s heavy, I’ve got it,” Amanda said, wrapping her arms around it.

“Look, I found a half case of those sports drinks,” Sam said, grabbing the cardboard beneath them and hefting.

“If your arms are going to be full too, then be prepared to drop that if necessary,” Amanda said as they made their way back out to the truck.

“I hope I don’t have to drop this,” Sam said. “It’s a variety pack with lemon lime and fruit punch,” she said, excitedly dodging some of the debris on the floor.

“If you’re not alive, you can’t drink it, so just remember that, okay?” Amanda said, leading the way out, hoping that she didn’t need to toss the fridge if there was trouble.

Chapter 31

O
nce outside the shop again, all was quiet; not a single creeper had noticed them, and indeed, there appeared to be none around, but Amanda knew that to be untrue because the town was filled with them. The noise of the fire and perhaps the bright visual effects had drawn them away toward the other side of town, so right now that was the most dangerous place to be. She made a mental note to stay far enough away from it so as to avoid getting caught up in a horde of them, and that meant checking in on the fire now and then.

The mini fridge squeezed in nicely to the last empty slot in the back of the truck. Until they went to collect the other truck that Amanda hoped was still gassed up and waiting for her, they would have to put whatever they collected in the extra cab. This had long been a problem on the runs—not having enough room to put things—thus cutting the run short when they could have brought back more. She would remedy this problem today by adding the additional truck and having Sam drive it. With as fast as the town was going up in flames, they would need the additional storage space to scavenge as much as possible on this run.

She grabbed the binoculars from the truck, noticing that in just the fifteen minutes that the truck’s engine and air conditioning had been off, it was already heating up inside. She apologized to Red for this, but they should have another ten minutes or so before they had to worry about it becoming dangerously hot for him in there. At least the wind was blowing, and though the air was hot, it was still better than when the desert became still in the summertime. The high winds were feeding the fire and driving it faster, but she supposed that high winds or not, the fire would burn through most of the town, it would just happen faster on a day like today.

They could smell the acrid scent of smoke, and as she looked in the binoculars, all she could make out was the roiling mass of black and gray smoke ascending heavenward. From here, she could spy no flames, and that was a cause for relief. She sighed and stashed the binoculars back inside the truck.

“Oh, I wanted to look,” Sam said, sounding disappointed.

“There’s nothing to see but smoke,” Amanda said, issuing a dismissive shrug of her shoulders. “Let’s go back in and finish up so we can get on to that housing community I wanted to check out.”

“Okay,” Sam answered. Seeming satisfied, she followed Amanda back inside the shop, being sure to turn her flashlight back on.

“I think I saw more batteries in the back,” Sam said when Amanda suddenly halted in the front part of the shop. “What gives?” Sam said, nearly running into her.

“Call me crazy, but grab that little flat screen television, will you,” Amanda said, pointing to a twenty-two-inch screen TV.

“Really, tre cool, but what are we going to watch, it’s not like there’s cable television anymore,” Sam said, wasting no time grabbing it. “Hey, look,” she said, rotating it so that Amanda could see the backside of it. “It even has a remote. How styling is that?” The remote to the television had been taped to the back of it by some conscientious person.

Amanda had been spending a fair amount of time thinking about Maryanne’s breakdown that she had had the other night. She wanted to do some things to institute some normalcy to their lives, things that would provide a chance to unwind and entertain, like the guitar that Sam had picked out. But chances were good that should Roy be able to hook them up with some power, they could have a couple of family movie nights a week. She was hoping that doing this would help to boost morale and lower tempers amongst the group.

She scooped up a DVD player and made sure that the connections and power cord were there before she loaded up all the DVDs that she could carry.

“Oh, I see,” said Sam, watching Amanda grab the movies.

Amanda was careful to place the screen side of the television up against the clothe of the backseat so as to help protect it, whereas the DVDs needed no such protection, and those she dumped on the floorboard of the extra cab. Red watched her, serious. Somehow it seemed that he knew how important this trip was to them, maybe sensing it because of the threat in the smell of the air or picking it up from them. It was impossible to know how he knew. Amanda rubbed him behind the ears to reassure him that he was doing a good job, before once again locking him inside.

“This time we go straight to the back of the store,” Amanda said, wiping the sweat from her brow. “Grab those batteries that you saw and anything that you think we can use,” she said, moving her way back into the store with Sam following.

Amanda knew that she needed to stay sharp even though the town appeared to be deserted, because letting her guard down could get them both killed if she became too complacent about trusting that nothing was coming for them.
Hell
, she thought,
we have a raging out-of-control fire coming our way with all the town’s creepers
. Also, somewhere out there would be a fair amount of displaced raiders too. And that was enough to put a little spring to her step, sending a small course of adrenaline through her body that heightened her senses. That was better than complacency; she was satisfied.

Once in the back of the store, Amanda grabbed a two-gallon mop bucket by the handle that was already loaded with spray bottles of cleaning supplies. This she knew would help with getting that disgusting mini fridge cleaned up. She also tossed a medium-sized box marked as a first-aid kit. She didn’t want to take the time to look inside the box, but she presumed that it still had medical supplies because when she shook it, some items thumped around inside.

“I loaded us up on batteries,” Sam said, indicating that her pockets were stuffed with them.

“Good, now check those upper cabinets and see if there’s anything useful,” Amanda said as she rummaged around in the lower ones.

Amanda pulled out two one-gallon jugs of water that had the seal intact, a one-gallon bottle of bleach that was half full, and an unused bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

“Score,” Sam said, dropping several cups of instant Ramen noodles in her pack, along with three candy bars, two cans of soda, an unopened bag of barbecue chips, and two small packets of cookies that boasted a vanilla crème filling.

“Do me a favor,” Amanda said. “My hands are full, and I really wanted to grab that metal tool box behind you. I think Roy will be happy to have that. Maybe there are some tools in there that he doesn’t already have.”

“Will do,” Sam said, happily hefting the box by the handle. “It’s heavy,” she exclaimed, letting it pull her right arm down lower than her left.

“I think that we can officially say that breaking in here was a big success,” Amanda said, pleased with the amazing haul of goodies that they had found.

“Maybe there could be some other things,” Sam said, panning the light around slowly.

“There might be if we really make a long and thorough search, but then again, we might have already found everything, and I don’t want to waste any time. There’s still a lot to be done, and we’ve barely begun our day, so I vote that we move out. Besides, the trucks been heating up on Red,” she answered, already beginning to move back out, fully laden.

“Good idea,” Sam said, following.

She was eager to see what more of the town that she had left looked like and what other exciting things they could find. To her now, this was an amazing adventure, one that she had been waiting months for. With every time that two of them would head out on a run, she would spend the time imagining how awesome that would be and longing for the day when she could go too. In her opinion, it was definitely the coolest career that had been created by this new world.

“Same rules apply, kid,” Amanda said, walking carefully and trying not to drop any of the items that she was barely managing to hang on too. “Any trouble, and you drop that toolbox.”

Sam had managed to keep the bat in at least one of her hands the whole time; now she grasped it easily in her left palm. She was secretly longing for another chance to kill a creeper because that would bring her count to two kills, and that, she regarded, was infinitely better than saying she had killed one of them. The girl didn’t tell Amanda this for fear of what her friend might say about it.

O

“Please, honey, will you stop checking,” Jason said, sounding tired as he watched his wife step onto a boulder to survey the canyon entrance, looking for the return of the vehicle.

“There’s no way that they would be back yet, even on the best of days,” Roy said as he sharpened his machete. “Hell, they’ve barely made it to town by now, let alone been able to gather up anything,” Roy continued, knowing that that was a bit of an exaggeration.

“Yeah, Roy’s right,” Jason said. “Loading up the water alone takes half an hour, and that doesn’t include the searching for supplies or the driving time around town or the time it takes to drive back here.”

Maryanne sighed and climbed back down the boulder. Today, since she had awoken too late to see them off, had already been a long day.

“I just don’t know what I should be doing with myself,” she said, nervously wringing her hands together. “I just feel so ooky inside.”

“Is
ooky
a real word, Mom?” Tammy asked with a giggle.

“Sure, honey,” Maryanne said absently, not paying too much attention to her.

“Ooky, ooky, ooky,” Tammy said, laughing and running around in a circle, kicking up dust.

Maryanne finally turned her eyes to her youngest child, and it was impossible not to notice how filthy the girl had become in just a few short days. Dirt was streaked across her face in patches and had stuck to the leftover chocolate that she had eaten two nights before. Suddenly, she felt like a bad mother—not only for allowing her oldest daughter to go into that zombie-infested town that they had had to escape from, but for allowing her youngest daughter to look like she did. The good news was that now she knew what she could do to keep herself occupied for a little while, anyway, but it was going to seem like a much longer day than she had imagined even.

“It might help if you try sticking to your routine, honey,” Jason said, kindly trying to help her through the situation.

“You’re right, Jason, but first I have something else to do,” she said with determination. “Tammy, come here my love, we’re going to get you cleaned up.”