But the Children Survived (38 page)

“I think it was a Monday, wasn't it, when we came to the cavern?” Dani asked.

“Yeah, it was,” Jenny said.  She had been in a mood ever since she got a whiff of the clothes Dani had packed.  She threw them out the window and now had nothing else to wear.  The clothes she had on smelled bad too. 

Joe was looking for a motel; somewhere he could take a shower.  He saw a billboard showing the Shady Rest Inn coming up in one mile.

“Let's stop there,” Joe said.

“Let's stop at the store first,” Dani said.  “We'll have nothing to change into if we take a shower first.”  Dani was right.  Joe hated it when she was right.  He would have figured it out if she had given him another minute.

Joe turned into the consignment shop parking lot.  Dani hopped out of the car and ran to the door of the store.  She turned around and gave a thumbs up.  That meant the door was locked. 

Joe got out of the car and looked around for a big rock.  He found one in a clearing next to the consignment shop and threw it through the window in the door.  An alarm went off.  Dani took off her jacket and wrapped it around her arm.  She pushed the glass out of the way and was able to reach in and open the door. 

The store had the musty smell of used items that looked clean but still bore the markings of their former owners.  Joe ran to the back to find the source of the alarm.  Dani smiled when she saw the racks of clothes.  There was something for everyone. 

She hit the ladies rack while Jenny went for the juniors.  The alarm stopped, and Joe returned.  He was able to find some jeans and tee shirts as well as a good pair of boots.  Dani found jeans and tee shirts also, and was thrilled when she found bras still in boxes.  Jenny found new underwear, and she and Dani squealed with delight.  Jenny also found a pair of jeans that were a little big so she would have to find a belt. 

Joe looked through the bins of men's boxers and found some new ones in the bottom.  He also grabbed some socks that didn't look too worn.  When the girls saw his socks, they began rooting around for some too. 

Dani and Jenny then hit the shoe racks and found almost-new sneakers.  Jenny finally found a belt, and both she and Dani found new handbags.  Then they went behind the counter for plastic bags and filled them up with their treasures. 

“Where will we put them?  The car has that...smell,”  Dani said. 

“Oh, yeah.”  Jenny replied. 

“We could hang the bags out the windows.” Joe suggested.  “It's only a mile to the hotel.” 

Dani's eyebrows went up.  She smiled at Joe. 

“What, you're surprised I came up with a good idea?”  She patted his butt and they left the store.  Jenny held her bag out the window while Dani held the others.  She asked Joe to drive slowly. 

“I'm afraid of losing the boots,” she said.  They were the heaviest thing in the bags. 

Joe pulled into the hotel parking lot.  Before they brought the things in, they checked the hotel for bad smells.  There were none in the hotel itself, but when Joe went around to the back by the attached house, he smelled decaying flesh. 

When he came back, he told them to put the bags down until they checked out the room farthest from the house.  He also took the suitcases out of the back and dumped them by the side of the hotel.

Joe kicked the door open.  The room was far enough away from the house that it had avoided the awful smell.  They each took turns using the bathroom while the others waited outside. 

They had to take their clothes off outside and throw them away.  Dani held a blanket up while Jenny stripped and Jenny did the same for her.  Jenny looked the other way when Joe stripped, but Dani watched him.  She still got hot and bothered by the sight of him.  Despite their constant bickering, this was one area of their marriage that had always worked. 

When they were all dressed and felt really good, they decided to spend the night and walked into town to look around.  They’d been driving for three days and were about halfway home.  They looked in the store windows of the little town.  They hadn’t seen anyone, not even any bodies, and the town didn't smell too bad. 

Joe began to look for another car, one that didn't smell like death.  Jenny walked ahead because she thought she’d seen a library.  She thought a book would help her get through the trip.  Dani watched Jenny walk away.  She felt so sad for the girl. 

“What do you think happened, Joe?  Why did they all die?” Dani looked at Joe.  He knew she was thinking of Mindy.

“Maybe a biological weapon. Maybe somebody got so pissed off they just…” Joe used his hands to indicate an explosion.

“But everything is still intact.  This isn’t like a bomb going off.” Dani said.

“Then it would be some kind of poison.”

Dani put her arms around Joe’s waist and pulled him close.  They stood there for a long time. 

“I wanted to tell you something,” Dani said.  “I’m very proud of you.”

“Why?” Joe asked.

“I know you haven’t had a cigarette since the cavern.”

“It hasn’t been easy,” he said.

“Why?  I mean, you’ve had plenty of opportunities to grab a pack.  What made you stop?”

Joe thought about the question. 

“It just seemed like the right time.  I don’t know.  Not having them for three days, then seeing all those dead people…I wanna live.”

“Well, I’m glad you did.  I want you to live, too.”  She kissed Joe passionately, and he responded.  Then she took his hand and they continued to look for a car.

Jenny found the library.  It looked really small from the outside, but it had books and maybe she could find something to distract her. 

When she opened the door she noticed it didn't smell bad in there.  She began to think that this town had somehow survived and the people were all in church or something.  But why would they leave the door of the library open? 

Jenny headed to the bookshelves and found the fiction section.  She noticed a kids section to the left.  Then she heard someone giggling.

Chapter 47

Jenny waked over to the kids section.  She peaked around the corner and saw three little boys playing a board game.  They hadn’t heard Jenny come in.  She kept watching them.  She then tiptoed to the front door and quietly exited the library.  Dani and Joe were holding hands and looking in a store window.  Jenny ran over to them.

“Hey guys.  Listen, I found three kids in the library,” said Jenny.

“Oh, no!”  Dani looked like she would cry.

“No, no,” Jenny said, “they're alive.”  She looked from Dani to Joe. 

“Kids, live kids?”  Joe sounded skeptical. 

“Yeah, live kids.  Why would I make something like that up?” 

“Let's go,” Dani said as she dragged Joe towards the library.

 Jenny went in first and tiptoed to the kids section.  She saw three boys sitting on the floor.  When Joe and Dani came in, the boys looked up and saw Jenny.  Then they looked at each other.  They got up off the floor and ran over to Jenny, encircled her with their arms and jumped up and down.

“Thank you God, thank you, thank you.  A grown up.  YAY!”  The boys were chanting as they held onto Jenny. 

Jenny looked up and saw Dani.  Jenny looked like a frightened deer.  One of the boys spotted Dani and Joe and ran over to them.  He grabbed Dani's legs and hugged her tightly. 

“Another grown up,” he said.  The last one ran over to Joe.

“Whoa, let's just shake hands,” Joe said.  The boy took Joe's hand and pumped it up and down.

“Mister, we are so glad to see you,” the boy said.

“Yeah, we're almost out of food,” the boy holding Jenny said.

“Who are you kids?”  Dani asked.

“I'm Larry, this is my brother Barry, and that's my brother Gary.  We're triplets.” 

“I can see that.  Okay.  So, you're running out of food.  We saw a store a few blocks from here.  Have you been there?”  Dani asked.

“We were afraid to go too far.  Zombies you know.  We figured with a church on the corner they wouldn't come too close,” Barry said.

Joe pressed his lips together hard.  Ever since he’d heard their names he had been stifling a giggle.  Dani elbowed him, and he lost it. 

“Are you laughing at us?  We don't like it when people laugh at us,” Larry said.

“No, I wasn't laughing at you.”  But Joe couldn't stop and he ran outside. 

“Forget him, kids.  He's had a rough couple of weeks.  So you've been here alone for a while, huh?” Dani said. 

“We woke up one day and our parents...and everybody else too.  Something must have happened in the middle of the night to make them all zombies.  We moved here because it doesn't smell bad,” Gary said.

Dani's heart went out to the boys.  They looked to be about ten years of age.  They looked so dirty and uncared for.  She thought about the fear they must have felt being all alone, thinking zombies were just down the block. 

“Would you like to come with us and have a bath?”  She asked them. 

“Not really,” Gary said.

“Well, I think it would be a good idea, especially if you want to come with us,” Said Dani.

“Why, where're you going?”  Barry asked.

“Florida.  We live there.  Jenny’s coming with us, too.” 

“Florida, you mean Disney World?”  Gary was beside himself. 

“Yeah, Disney World, zombie Disney World,” Jenny whispered to Dani. 

“Yes, Disney World.  But you have to bathe if you want to come with us.  The hotel has bathtubs.  Gather your things and come with us.” 

“We don't have anything.  We left it all at home,” Larry said.

“We can take you there if you want.”  Dani looked from one boy to the other.  They looked at each other.

“No, my parents are zombies now.  They will eat us because they don't know any better.  We'll get new stuff.”  Gary and his brothers followed Dani and Jenny to the hotel. 

While they each took a shower, Dani walked to the consignment store and picked out some new clothes and underwear for the boys.  She got enough so they would have something new to wear for three days before they needed washing.  When she got back, they were laying side by side on the queen size bed.  Jenny was telling them about the cavern.  After a while the boys drifted off to sleep. 

Dani and Jenny left the room and tried to break the door open on the room next door.  Joe had just given the other one a good kick, but the women just didn't have the strength to do it. 

Meanwhile, Joe had found another car parked in a garage of someone's house.  It had the keys in it and it didn't smell.  It also had GPS installed and a third row in the back to seat extra people.  When he drove up, Dani told him they were taking the boys, who were now asleep in their room, and they would have to break into the one next door.  Joe obliged them by kicking that door in. 

There were two beds in this one, and Jenny immediately lay down and fell asleep.  Dani and Joe got into the other one.  Dani turned her back and Joe put his arms around her.  For the first time in a long while, Dani was beginning to feel close to him again.

*****

The boys came into the room and woke up the grown-ups.  They jumped on Joe, Dani and Jenny.  Joe nearly threw Gary across the room, but Dani stopped him.  Dani told the kids to get dressed in the new clothes she got them right now or they would be left here.  The kids, still convinced that zombies roamed the town, obeyed her. 

Joe grabbed another shower and Dani looked to see if there was any food available for breakfast.  They would have to visit a food store before taking off. 

Jenny rolled over and began to fall asleep again.  Dani gently shook her and told her she really had to get up.  Jenny rolled over onto her back and stretched.  The boys came back in in various stages of dress and Jenny sat up.  Dani helped the boys straighten their clothes.  All in all they hadn’t done too badly. 

Joe was finally out of the shower and Jenny went into the bathroom.  Dani went next door to take care of herself.  In an hour they were loaded up and on the road to the grocery store.

Larry, Barry, and Gary wouldn’t get out of the car.  Dani told them they were at her mercy and would have to eat whatever she picked out.  They said that was okay since the store was in zombie central.  Joe said he would stay and protect them while she and Jenny went shopping. 

The store was locked.  Dani looked at Joe.  He got out and looked for a big rock.  He found a semi-big rock and threw it overhand into one of the picture windows.  It shattered into little balls of glass, leaving the window wide open.  An alarm went off, and Joe ran to the back of the store to see if he could turn it off.  He found the breaker box and stopped the alarm.

Dani and Jenny climbed over the sill and entered the store.  Dani opened the sliding doors and grabbed a shopping cart.  Fortunately, no one had been in the store before it opened the day of the tragedy.  There were no bodies in here. 

Dani filled the cart with non-perishable food and bottles of water.  Jenny took another cart and did the same on the other side of the store.  When they were done, they grabbed a handful of plastic bags to take to the car.  It was easier to fill the bags in the back of the car than to carry them out already filled.  When the food was safely stowed away, Jenny got in the middle row of seats while Dani got in the front passenger seat.  The boys were wrestling in the third row.

“If you boys don’t stop, I’ll blow my zombie whistle and pull you out of the car, understand?!”  Dani yelled.  The boys stopped and sat down.  They dared not move.  They didn't know Dani well enough to know if she was bluffing. 

Dani played with the GPS for a while, but this one was different and she was having trouble figuring out how to set it.  Joe told her to leave it because he had the direction pointer in the mirror and he would just keep going east. 

Dani decided not to pick on Joe and to let him have his way.  She believed he was really trying, considering all the responsibility that had been thrust upon them.  They would have to be allies in this, or they might just kill each other.