Floyd & Mikki (Book 2): Zombie Slayers (Dawn of the Living) (15 page)

“Hey, that’s a great idea, Floyd, thanks! I kept the old radio charged up in the car with one of them cigarette lighter chargers, but now that we have the cabin, I can just plug it in and use it any time I want. Lucky I kept the wall plug charger, too, huh?”

Finally! A little ray of hope broke through the darkening gloom.

“Sure was lucky. Maybe you can reach Bob after lunch. If you have any problem with reception, just use the radio in the office. That’s the one Bob used to talk to you. I bet he’d sure like to hear from you.”

“Thanks, Floyd! That’s a great idea! I’ll do just that!”

They walked for another five minutes to get back to the campground. All the way, Floyd had the happiest smile on his face.

From the look on Floyd’s face when he came back, Mikki guessed the conversation had gone well. She was dying to ask him if Dave was going to start pulling his weight around here, but that would have to wait until later. Instead, she just smiled sweetly and announced that lunch was ready.

Dave smiled big and threw open the door to cabin one, yelling inside, “Chow time! Chester! Clean up all this dog crap out here.” Chester tried to protest in his nasal, whining voice, but Dave would have none of it. “I don’t give a shit. Grab that little shovel of yours, scoop up the crap, and bury it someplace away from where we’re eating. Got it?”

Chester did as he was told, but protested all the while. Floyd and Mikki were thrilled beyond words. They looked at each other and gave a silent nod. They would be discussing this after lunch, that was for sure!

They all had a very nice meal, but Mikki avoided corn this time. Dave told Babette and Chester, “You wouldn’t believe all the work these two do to keep this place running around here! It’s amazing. Thanks again for the tour, Floyd.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“So can I use that radio now, Floyd?”

“Sure, you know where it is. It’s already set to Bob’s frequency. He works in the communications room at NCH, so he should pick up the signal.”

“Great, thanks!”

Dave scampered off to the radio room while the rest of his family disappeared back into the cabin and shut the door after very brief expressions of gratitude for lunch. Mikki was a bit disappointed that, once again, no one offered to help with the dishes, but Floyd still had a big grin on his face. They scooped up the dishes and headed into the kitchen.

“Alright, spill it! What happened with Mister Obnoxious out there?”

“Well, I got him to clean up after his dog.”

“Yeah, that’s great for a start. Is he gonna help clean up anything else around here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think he took the hint that he needs to pitch in and help out.”

“Then why the hell are you all smiley, Floyd?”

“Because I think I sold him on heading out to New California Haven. Well, I didn’t exactly sell him on it, but I got him to call Bob, and I know Bob will sell him on it.”

“Bob? That’s your big idea? Leave it up to Bob? No offense, but Bob couldn’t sell a space heater to an Eskimo! Goddammit, Floyd! I want those people helpin’ or I want them outta here!”

“Relax! He likes Bob. They both get along. When Dave hears firsthand from Bob about the free housing, food, hospitals, and how much he likes it there, Dave’ll load up his family and head out of here in no time.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“If he doesn’t work, then he doesn’t eat. That simple. No more free meals. When he realizes he actually has to work, he’ll be gone. Trust me.”

“I hope you’re right about this, Floyd. I don’t know how long I can keep up this Miss Manners act.”

“I know, baby, I know. We’ll give it until morning and see what happens. If he hasn’t changed his attitude, I’ll change it for him in a more direct way.”

“Now, that’s my man!” Mikki said with a huge smile. Then she hugged him and gave him a passionate kiss.

They finished cleaning up the dishes and went outside. Bob was talking on the radio, while Babette and Chester were still holed up in the cabin. Floyd and Mikki dashed to their own cabin for a little quiet time away from the Rimmers. They laid down for a nap, cuddled up in each other’s arms, both determined to enjoy the current peace and quiet.

It lasted until just before sundown, when a knock came on their door. Of course, it was Dave.

“So what’s for dinner?” he asked.

“Actually, we ate all the fish and too much of the same thing gets boring after a while, so we have something new for you tonight.”

Dave’s face lit up like kid at Christmas, finding his presents under the tree. “Really? What’s that?”

Floyd handed him three packages, saying, “MREs.”

Dave’s face fell. He looked like a dog that had been kicked in the stomach when he was expecting a nice, juicy bone. “M R whats?”

“MREs. Everything you need for a great meal in one little package. There’s even beverage powder and dessert. Everything! They’re great!”

“Oh, yeah! They’re the best! Really yummy!” added Mikki, playing along.

Dave’s face showed he wasn’t convinced. “Well, if you say so…”

“Yup!” Floyd assured him. “Give ‘em a try. See you in the morning Dave! Thanks for dropping by!”

Dave’s mouth was open and he started to say something as the door slammed in his face. He stood there for a couple of moments, as his brain struggled to grapple with what had just happened. He thought that maybe he should be offended, but on the other hand, he had just received free food. Of course, it wasn’t any kind of food he had ever seen before, but it was still food…sort of. Eventually he turned and headed back to his own cabin. Floyd and Mikki could hear him yell, “Hey, honey! We got food!” just before he entered the cabin and shut the door.

Feeling it was now safe, the two Zombie Hunters/farmers/campers/custodians burst out laughing. Floyd locked the deadbolt on the cabin door. They were not about to leave for any reason until morning.

It was way too early for bed, and they had just had a nice nap, so they broke open an MRE to share and ate it at the little table in their cabin. After that, they played about 10 games of Go Fish to pass the time. It was amazing how small the cabin seemed when you felt trapped inside it, but they didn’t worry about it. One way or another, things were going to change tomorrow.

And they did. Did they ever! When the two arose, there was no sign of the Rimmers. Neither Floyd nor Mikki felt really hungry, so they just grabbed a couple of apples and water bottles before heading off to the lake. Mikki was getting more comfortable in the boat, although she still didn’t really like it. Floyd pretended to fish but his heart wasn’t in it today. He was content to lean back in the boat and watch Mikki stare up at the sky from the bow.

Neither one broke the silence, alternately gazing at each other and at the clouds above. Occasionally, Mikki or Floyd would say a cloud looked like a spaceship or a dragon or some such thing, and the other would comment on it. Other than that, they simply enjoyed each other’s presence and the scenic beauty around them.

Eventually, they decided to head back and get some real food from the kitchen. This would be the real test. They hadn’t been around to give Dave his complimentary continental breakfast, and he should have had plenty of time to reach Bob on the radio.

Floyd and Mikki planned to make lunch just once more, and Dave and his family
would
help clean up this time. Unless their prayers had been answered and the Rimmers had already left for NCH. Unfortunately, they both knew Dave would never leave without personally saying goodbye, but they could still dream of finding a note saying, “Thanks for the hospitality. Had to leave.”

Oh, yes, they could dream. That dream, too, was about to be irrevocably shattered, however.

“That don’t sound right,” Mikki observed, as they approached the camp.

“No, it doesn’t. The Rimmers are loud, but they aren’t that loud. Sounds like…more people!”

The two looked at each other briefly, then practically ran the rest of the way to the campground, eager (yet afraid) to find out what was going on. They arrived at the campground to find six more people standing around, whooping and hollering and having a grand old time with Dave and his family.

“Floyd?”

“Yeah, Mikki.”

“I’m gonna need more than one cabin grenade.”

Floyd and Mikki tried to size up the newcomers as best they could before making themselves known. There were four men and two women. Three of the men were armed with minor weaponry such as pistols and knives. One of them was slouching with a shotgun on his shoulder. The two women (if you could call them that), were trailer park rejects. They had missing teeth, an abundance of tattoos, piercings in places that shouldn’t be pierced, and overweight bodies crammed into short-short jeans and skimpy tops like a Vienna sausage. It seemed the Jerry Springer Road Show had come to town.

Still, everyone seemed friendly enough. These were no Raiders. They were all loafing around telling zombie stories, each trying to top the other in the Zombie Kill of the Century contest. From what they were saying, just one of Floyd and Mikki’s adventures would have topped them all.

Then a thought dawned on Floyd. A terrible, horrible thought that made him sick to his stomach. The thought that this was all his fault.

“I don’t think I should have let Dave use our radio,” he said, quietly.

“Oh, don’t beat yerself up, Floyd. That’s my job. Besides, he has a radio of his own, remember? Whoever these folks are, he obviously been talkin’ to ‘em for a while now. Well, I guess we better go say hi.”

“I reckon so.”

Mikki sighed out loud and said, “Put on yer happy face, Floyd.”

They walked into the inner circle of cabins and were spotted by Dave right away.

“Hey, guys! Here they are! Floyd and Mikki! In person!” he announced.

“Bullshit!” said the man with the shotgun.

“No really! This is them, just like I told you!”

“Well, damn my hide!” said one of the women. She smiled a really sweet smile at the two as they approached. At least, it would have been a sweet smile, if she had a few more teeth. Mikki had a sudden urge to go back to the cabin and brush her teeth again. Floyd and she had great teeth because they brushed and flossed regularly. Good dental hygiene was important when there were no living dentists around, and this group was proof of that.

“We sure heard a whole lot about you two!” said the skinny, unarmed man. He had all his teeth, but they were grey and ground in half. Whatever he like to chew on had not been kind to his molars.

Dave introduced everyone, who all seemed nice enough. The women were Belle and Baby Doll (Baby Doll being the bigger of the two), and the men were Jackass, Runner, Gabe and Skinny Slim. Skinny Slim was the unarmed one. Dave explained they had been in contact for months over the radio. They knew where the campground was from Bob, so when Mikki offered her invitation to stop by, they decided to all meet up there for the first time.

Now it was Mikki’s turn to feel sick. “So y’all are on yer way to New California Haven together, are ya?” She was desperately looking for a ray of hope.

Surprisingly, she found one when Skinny slim answered, “You bet! Can’t wait to get there. I had me enough of running from zombies to last me a lifetime.”

His point was not lost on either Floyd or Mikki. No matter what, everyone in the camp was a survivor. They may not look like the best or the brightest humanity had to offer, but they were alive while nearly everyone else was dead or undead. Begrudgingly, one had to give them credit for that.

And really, were Floyd and Mikki that much different? God knows there were more than enough people that had judged them in the past. People who were now long gone. Besides, having more people around would give Dave someone else to play with. That might make him somewhat less annoying.

Everything seemed fine until Dave piped up and asked Floyd and Mikki, “So what’s for lunch today?”

There was an awkward moment of silence as all eyes turned to the pair, who had nothing to say. They had been taken quite by surprise.

“Well, we didn’t really expect so many guests, today,” Floyd finally stammered.

“Ah, shoot, you didn’t tell them we was comin’?” Gabe scolded Dave.

“Yeah, man! What the hell’s wrong with you?” Runner added. Where’s yer manners?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise!” Dave tries to explain, weakly.

“Well, it sure was that, Dave,” said Mikki, seizing her chance to scold him and thrilled that his friends seemed to have enough sense to do the same.

“Aw, hell, we all got food, ain’t we?” Gabe asked the group.

A chorus of
yeah sures
went up and everyone started digging in the bags they carried, pulling out whatever passed for food. As expected, it was mostly camping gear stuff and canned or prepackaged food appropriated from assorted grocery stores. They started piling up whatever they had onto the picnic benches, sharing whatever they had.

Mikki sidled up to Dave before he sat down and asked, “So Dave, tell me, how did all these friends of yours get here?”

“Oh, I called ‘em on the radio.”

“No, no. I mean, how did they get
in
here? How did they get through the barricade.”

“Oh! Floyd showed me how to open that up, so I let them all in. We already pulled some of it down.”

“Yeah, we don’t need that anyway,” Runner added, overhearing the conversation.

“You did, what?” Mikki asked, incredulous.

“Yeah,” Dave explained proudly. “No need for that. It just keeps people out.”

Mikki’s rage meter was spiking to dangerous levels. It was already higher than she could remember. She tried to speak but her brain was temporarily disengaged. She opened her mouth but no words came out. Eventually, one word did emerge.

“Floyd!!!!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Everyone stopped whatever they were doing, as if they had all frozen in time. Floyd ran over to her and asked, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Skinny Slim asked, “Are you OK, ma’am?”

Mikki still couldn’t make words form. She looked around at all the eyes that were fixed on her, then her brain finally clicked back into gear. She gave a very big, very odd, very disconcerting smile. Through tightened lips she asked, “Would y’all excuse us for a bit. I gotta talk to Floyd. Y’all have a nice time!”

She very slowly but firmly walked to the cabin, latched firmly onto Floyd’s arm. She squeezed so hard, Floyd thought it was caught in a vice.

Once inside, Mikki shut and locked the door. She froze. She didn’t move. She didn’t blink. Her breaths came in deep gasps.

“Baby?” Floyd began, but she snapped up a hand, palm out and facing him, stopping him from saying a word.

Very slowly, in hushed, intense words, she said, “You…showed…Dave…how to…open…the barricade?”

She made sure no one outside the cabin could hear her, but also made sure Floyd fully comprehended the full vehemence of her anger. She needn’t have worried about anyone listening in. They all laughed and whooped it up when she dragged Floyd into the cabin, like a schoolboy about to get a whuppin’. The gang outside was already eating and carrying on and having a grand old time getting acquainted.

“Well, yeah,” Floyd admitted, sheepishly.

“And why, in the name of Zombie Freakin’ Hell did you do that?!”

She could barely contain herself, and Floyd knew it. But he had a good defense. As quick as he could, he spurted out, “Because I wanted him to know how to
leave
. He couldn’t leave unless he knew how to get out through the barricade!”

“Well, great, job, Dumass! He opened the barricade all right! He opened it up and let all his bubba friends in. And they’ve already started tearing it down!”

“What?”

“Yeah, tearing it down! That dumass Runner guy said we don’t need it anymore, so they started tearing it down!”

“But we do need it!”

“No shit, Sherlock!”

“Well, how was I to know Dave would call a bunch of friends? And why the hell would I ever think they’d be stupid enough to tear down the barricade?”

“I don’t know, but thanks to you, our one line of defense around this one little spot on earth we could call home has been blown all to hell!”

“Well, what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you! None of them would even be here if you hadn’t invited them!”

“I didn’t invite them!”

“The hell you didn’t! If I may quote, ‘Well, if you ever get in the area, y’all stop on by.’ That was sure as hell an invitation!”

“Well, I was just bein’ nice. I never thought anyone would ever actually stop by!”

“And I never thought anyone would invite a bunch of friends over who were stupid enough to tear down a barricade!”

The two stood there, fuming at each other in total silence. The thought dawned on both of them simultaneously that they had both been wrong, yet they had both done nothing wrong. No one could have foretold the recent chain of events. They couldn’t be mad at each other for not being fortune tellers or mind readers.

The anger slowly dissipated as they stood there. Neither one spoke. Neither one knew what to say. Eventually, Floyd stepped forward, wrapped his big arms around Mikki, and said, “I’m sorry, baby.”

“I’m sorry too, Floyd.”

She melted into his arms.

Holding on to him tightly, with her head buried in his shoulder, Mikki asked, “So what the hell do we do now?”