Seeking Sanctuary (Walkers) (7 page)

             
Half way up the staircase I notice it wiggling a bit. I hoped it held together long enough to check out the office upstairs.  It was glassed in and overlooked the whole store.  It hung in the air and I guess it'd been there long enough that the thing was rusting away.  I'd take a quick peak and leave as quickly as possible. I don't know how I ended up upside down.

             
That's the way things happen with me. One minute everything is just a bit nerve wracking and the next minute the whole world is upside down.  In this case, however, I was the one upside down, watching Mason fight with a walker above me.  I watched in fascination as he fought it off.  Then he cleaved its head right down the middle with his handy dandy machete.  Upside down it looked a whole lot worse than it does right side up for some crazy reason.  The thing fell off the steel landing and hit the floor with a thud.  When it got quiet again I heard a noise and twisted around to find another walker coming at me from the ground.  He reached up for me but I was about six inches out of reach.  It was still too damned close for me.

             
“A little help here would be nice.”  I said to Mason as he jerked another walker towards him then bent double in a crouch to let it fall over him to the floor.  Looking down at me, he saw the problem and started down the stairs when they started to buckle.  The screeching of the rusty metal was piercing in the green room.  The noise, however, didn't bother the walker below me who wasn't interested in anything but me as it strained upwards.   If it jumped I was a goner and although I'd never seen one jump, my luck would have it jumping like a freaking kangaroo. As hard as it was straining though, I'd just die of a damned heart attack and get it over with.

             
From what I could tell, my shoe was caught in a metal crossbeam.  I couldn't get the traction to move it to get loose and at the moment staying where I was appealed to me more than what awaited me below.  Mason finally got off the staircase making it more stable so I breathed a small sigh of relief.  Now if he'd just kill the damned thing below me we could work on the problem of getting me loose.  Someone shot the thing in the head splattering me with gunk and goo.  Stinking gunk and goo and in the position I was in, it didn't take  much for me to upchuck. 

             
I saw a ladder coming at me before it disappeared behind me.  I heard water running somewhere and then I was getting my face washed while a hand struggled to free my foot. I was just too miserable to pay a lot of attention until Clint, Riley and Mason got a firm hold on me while my foot was released from above.  They gently lowered me to the ground but being upside down for so long made me dizzy and my knees weak.  Mason helped me outside while the rest cleared the room. 

             
Lacy was waiting for me on the boardwalk.  Since we're very telepathic, she'd been getting messages from Mason and Ken while I hung around.  Settling me on the top step, and leaning me against the railing, Lacy gave me a bottle of water and a small bottle of mouthwash.  I smiled weakly at her and used the bottle of water to my advantage.

             
Feeling almost human again, I went to the Dukemobile and used the shower.  It was the best of all the campers showers and the biggest.  When I emerged I found clean clothes on the bed and my nasty ones gone.  I didn't care if I ever saw them again.  When I rejoined the others the bodies had been removed and the gunk cleaned up.  Ken had returned to the air and wouldn't be back for a while.  The ladies were checking out the contents of the general store while the men watched the kids, and animals.  The hippo still munched on the clumps of weeds here and there in the street. He stopped a moment to look at me then went back to munching again.

             
“Don't even think about it, big boy.  I am so not in the mood.”  I mumbled towards him as I stepped on the boardwalk.  Ken stopped me in my tracks when he wandered into my mind,
We'll have to avoid the road out of town, the bridge is out and there's no way around it.

             
Fine with me, I'll check the map.
I continued into the store, limping a bit from my injured foot.   As a concession to it, I stopped in front of the end cap that once held Twinkies.  It was bare. 
Damn,
I thought and looked around for the person responsible.  I found Lacy smiling at me from the end of the isle.  Then she held up a Twinkie and waggled her eyebrows.  Squinting at her I limped her direction.  The world could end tomorrow but there would always be Twinkies, well, at least until they ran out.  I needed to find the recipe so Sarah could make them.  I loved Twinkies.

             
I sent her a smooch as I took the pastry and found a small stool where I could savor the moment.  It tasted a bit stale (probably been on the shelf a year or so) but was wonderful anyway. All I needed to make my day was a glass of cold milk.  Well, that thought was a waste of time.

             
“You're pathetic,”  Mason said, hands on hips.  “If a third world country captured you and demanded information all they'd have to do to get it is hold a cupcake in front of your nose.”

             
“Listen buster, a Twinkie is not, I repeat, NOT a cupcake.  Big world of difference.”  I stood up and brushed the crumbs from my shirt.  “Besides, any self respecting Twinkie eater wouldn't be caught dead in a third world country.  Not a Twinkie in sight.  So there.”  I patted his cheek and wandered into the back room, relieved to see the mess gone from the floor.   Repressing a shudder I saw everyone was oohing and arching over something in the corner where the rat had scared the crap out of me so I wandered over to see what the fuss was about.

             
It was a litter of kittens.  The mother was nowhere to be seen but the kittens looked to be around a few weeks old. Their eyes were barely open.  I don't know what the deal is with kittens but everyone was acting stupid.  They're so cute.  The kittens were healthy so mama had been feeding them well.  We decided to leave them alone while we finished messing around in the store.

             
I heard a loud crash and looked up to see Randy smashing out the windows high,   near the roof line.  It was so hot in there we needed some air circulating. We couldn't open the door cause you never knew what would wander in.  No one felt like guarding a doorway that may or may not need guarding.  I know this for sure.

             
They had a small clothing department so we cleaned them out of nearly everything.  I was sweating so bad that I could see another bath fairly soon but I wasn't the only one. When I passed by the door to catch a breath of cool air, the smell of roasting meat caught my attention so I changed course and wandered over to the fenced in area the kids had been playing in.  It seemed to be a small park and it had picnic tables set up along  with grills.  Sarah, Duke and Clint had some meat grilling along with what looked like potatoes.   Sarah pointed to the lot next door and I saw a volunteer garden.  She'd been busy.  I gave her a thumbs up, grabbed a bottle of water and watched the Monster and Bubba playing in the shade of a tree.

             
Okay,
Ken thought at me,
I have a route that might work, I'm heading back now.  Is there anything to eat around there?

             
Yeah, we're heating up some protein.  

             
Great. Protein.  I can't wait.
 

             
I laughed at him and hurried to help Jill sit at the table. Taking Tony from her, I talked nonsense to him while he made funny baby noises.  He had his father features except for Jills small nose.  I'd never wanted a child for myself.  I didn't think I'd make good mama material and never felt maternal except towards Lacy. I was happy and content with my lot in life most days.  The rest of the time I yearned for stupid sitcoms and telephones.  Some people are never happy, so I considered myself lucky.  Well, except for the hanging upside down part. 

             
I'd had my close call with walkers for the day.  Seemed like every day I had some encounter of some kind.  I knew I was accident prone, always had been, even my birth was an accident according to my mother so I wasn't surprised about a lot of the strange things that happens to me.  So condensing them down to once a day was okay by me if the fates decided to do it that way.

             
Still, a person has to know their limitations.  I know, I really do.  Its the walkers that haven't figured it out.  Yet.

                                                        Chapter 6

              It was hot.  I mean hot as hell kind of hot.  The temperature was probably around a million degrees or at the very least 99.  I was sweating in places I know had no sweat glands.  You're probably wondering why I wasn't in a nice air conditioned room somewhere sipping an ice cold mint Julep, listening to soft music and getting my feet rubbed.  Well, so was I.  Instead I was sitting in the crotch of a tree in the roaring hot noon sun, sweating buckets and waiting for the brood of walkers below me to go to hell.  Oh wait, we're already there.

             
Actually, I was waiting for Mason to return with ammunition.  Have you any idea how hard it is to hit a mans head from above him?  Well, I have a very good idea and it's damned near impossible. When Mason found a nice clear spot he jumped down and ran away followed briefly by a few ambitious walkers but they soon returned when they were outdistanced.  I would've followed suit but I hurt my foot yesterday while hanging upside down in the back of that store a million miles down the road.  So I'm hanging (upright)around today in a tree although what kind I have no idea.  I was wondering if it had any edible parts but only briefly.  If it took Mason that long to get back it'll be too late. 

             
Lacy would be all over the history of the tree.  Something about it being the state tree, (it was) you could eat some part of it (pinon nuts are fought over by the locals and birds) and it was fast growing (right again).  I knew that for a fact cause I could feel it growing under my fanny.  Actually, I couldn't but until I heard the gunfire, and the first of the horde below me began to fall, I had visions of my skeleton melding with the wood of the tree to form some grotesque bird feeder.

             
When the walkers did began to fall I knew I had been rescued.  It seemed weird to see them fall and not hear gunshots but I found out later they were using silencers.  I lost some skin from my backside on the bark of the tree when I was helped down.  Mason was gonna carry me back to the RV but I talked him into helping me limp through the bodies instead.  I knew there was a cold bottle of raspberry flavored tea waiting for me cause Lacey 'told' me so.  I settled back against the cool seat, savored the tea and the cool air pouring from the vents.

             
It had started out as another typical day in the long monotonous trip back to Montana. The heat had been relentless, slowing man and machinery alike.  It seemed all we did was break down, mostly because we'd resorted to driving the dirt roads.  The paved ones had buckled and the bridges were a shambles after months of neglect, so we drove the secondary roads.  You'd think they'd be a mess too, but the locals took better care of them than the government did and we made pretty good time although it was just a dirtier, longer drive.  The dust clogged up the air filters and two vehicles had to have their radiators flushed not to mention visibility at times was non existent.  Taking turns driving at the head of the line everyone had a chance to spend some part of the day dust free.  I was looking forward to my turn.

             
It was during one of the change overs that we noticed a small town in the distance.  It was more out of a need to do something different than the need for any supplies that we decided to investigate. It turned out to be a Cantina, like a small tavern.  It had several out buildings, a large barn and a couple of houses.  We checked out the everything but the barn and when we were satisfied we'd done as much damage as we could to the other buildings we started that direction.  Bad move.  The one thing you always have to remember is to be on guard all the times.  Always.  There are times you have a tendency to forget that rule.  This was one of them. 

             
We'd been laughing and joking about some nonsense and just flung that barn door wide open like we knew what we were doing.  It must have been where the locals were keeping the walkers.  All the walkers.  They poured out of there like a dam had burst making us scatter to the four winds.  All I could do is a running, limping kind of thing, stopping occasionally to fire off a shot.  When I managed to get my senses about me, I realized there was no where for me to go.  The land spread out in front of me like a plate, waves of heat radiating off it making the distance look like a lake. I saw a large tree not far away to my right and headed for it.  I had no other choice. 

             
Mason passed me like I was standing still, sprinting for the tree and climbing it like a monkey.  When I got there, out of breath and limping badly,  he reached down, grabbed my hand and yanked me onto the lower branch.  After a minute he helped me climb to the next limb about three feet above us.  When we got settled I was amazed at the amount of walkers below us, grunting and wheezing.  The noises they were making was natural for walkers.  They didn't even sound out of breath.  I shot one just for that alone.