Amanda Carter in the L.A.Z., life after zombies (2 page)

Chapter 2

“
I
knew it was a bad idea to send Amanda out alone,” Roy said. He was nervously pulling at his hair that had become hopelessly entangled in dreadlocks.

“You and I both know that this time, we did not have the luxury of choice,” Dr. Maryanne Albrecht said.

“I should have gone with her,” Roy lamented while shaking his head. Maryanne wondered if Roy would have any hair left by the time he finished yanking on it.

“We’re nearly out of water, gas for the one remaining vehicle that we have is too low to make it to Blythe, and we ate our last meal this afternoon. In short, we didn’t have a choice,” Maryanne said with her level of frustration clearly evident in the tone of her voice.

“I should have gone with her,” Roy repeated with a final tug on his hair before his hand slipped down, limp, defeated. He hung his head, shaking it back and forth. “She’s always been there for us, and now no one is there for her.”

“How much help do you think you would have been with three broken fingers and healing up from that dislocated shoulder?” Maryanne asked. “You wouldn’t have been any help, Roy, not in your condition. You’d be a liability to her,” Maryanne said this stoically even though she felt terrified for Amanda and terrified about their survival prospects if Amanda did not make it back to them.

“And then there’s Jason,” she said, looking to her husband who was lying a few feet away, sick, dying of an infection from an injury he had sustained on their last run.

“I know,” Roy said, following her eyes.

The wind slapped and snapped the tarps up above their head. Roy made a note to himself to check the integrity of the tarps when he pulled them down for the night. If not for the tarps, the brutal desert sun would cook them like hard-boiled eggs.
At least that, I’m capable of doing
, he considered, feeling more helpless than he had ever felt before.

“Conditions are dicey out there on a good day,” Roy muttered, hoping it was a good day and not a bad day for his friend that was out there risking her life for them, “what with the raiders and the creepers.”

“I volunteered to go, and everyone, including Amanda, was dead set against it,” Maryanne said. “So there really wasn’t a choice. Amanda, of all people, knows the risks. Hell, she’s been out on almost every run since we settled out here months ago. She’ll be fine. She knows what she’s doing. Try to trust that, okay,” she said, wondering if it was Roy or herself that she was trying to convince. But one thing she knew was that if Amanda did not make it back, the chances of survival for their small group were slim. In this intolerable heat with their bodies losing water with their sweat, they wouldn’t last past tomorrow.

Maryanne brushed her oily red hair out of her face, but the wind blew it back. She was in her early forties, and according to the standards of the society that had existed before, beautiful—with deep, almost jade-colored eyes, hourglass figure. She had spent a lot of time and money being sure to look fashionable with her clothes, fingernails, skin, and hair. She had never been camping a day in her life before the world had changed. Amanda was right to not want her to go out on the run. She was a city girl, gone survivalist out of necessity.

Maryanne scratched at a bug bite on her forearm, before noticing what she was doing. She stopped herself, not wanting her dirty fingernails to cause an infection that there was no medicine for. She looked to her husband and sighed.

Her friends, if they were still alive, which Maryanne very much doubted, would not recognize her today even if she were standing directly in front of them. She wore filthy clothes that were tattered and stank from body odor. Her fair skin that she had so faithfully preserved was brown from sun and caked with layers of dirt. There wasn’t enough water to waste on bathing or clothes washing. The one saving grace for her was that everyone stank of humanity gone wrong. She had blisters on her feet from hiking boots that were too big for her. Additionally, she had not hazarded a good, long look in a mirror for many months.

Maryanne’s husband, Dr. Jason Albrecht, a doctor of clinical psychology, though older than her by ten years, had been a handsome man with his expensive haircuts, finely tailored suits, and brand-name informal wear. He had had few wrinkles to show for his years, but that had changed. Before, he would have never gone a day without a close shave, but now his beard was full and gray. Now he had deeply etched crow’s feet around his eyes, and his hair was filthy and wild looking. His pearly white teeth were yellowing, and his lips were constantly cracked and bleeding. He had prided himself on his fit physique from daily trips to the gym, but now he lay there wasted and thin.

Blythe, California, wasn’t really Maryanne’s choice of cities. It bordered Arizona and was nothing but a small speck on a map that few Southern California citizens even knew existed. It was a place of agriculture, melon crops, lettuce, and cotton. By and large, the majority of its occupants were living below the poverty level, but for the most part, people were happy to work and raise their families; violent crime was low, minus the domestic disturbances. Alcohol was a staple, and the cost of living was much lower than many other Southern California cities. Jason and Maryanne had purchased their house for a song, with Jason convincing her that the move would help him save enough for early retirement.

Jason had had a long daily commute to Palm Springs for work, and Maryanne, wanting to be close to the children and work her own hours, had opened up a private practice. Maryanne had been suffering through the experience in anticipation of moving someplace more vital and thriving, but now she was glad that they had been here when it happened. All the major cities had been hit hard, and the more populated an area, the more zombies there had been to deal with.

As a doctor, she was loath to use the word
zombie
, but in actuality, that is what they were. The infection had hit so fast and spread like a wildfire with all the fuel in the world, and nothing to stop it. She could not explain medically how it was possible, and yet it had happened; that fact was undeniable.

Roy was a man that preferred to listen rather than speak. He had lived across the street from the Albrechts, and he and the family had become close. Tammy and Samantha used to call him Uncle Roy, as if he were a family member. He and Jason had worked together on many projects around their respective properties, and the two of them were close. He was retired from the military yet would not speak of his time in the service. Even Jason, who knew him best, didn’t know what his rank or title had been. He was a black man, six feet, and lanky. He had come to Blythe to open a mechanic garage. There, he had serviced everything from vehicles to tractors and lawn mowers. No one in the group knew if he had ever been married. He was loyal and had been a valuable asset to their little group. Maryanne trusted him implicitly.

Sometimes, at night, when Maryanne would awaken startled, she would walk around their moonlit makeshift camp, looking at her husband and two filthy children and wonder if maybe she were dreaming and would wake from this nightmare soon. She could only wish that were the case because they had been living this nightmare every day for the past six months.

Samantha, at fifteen, was tall for her age, almost five foot eight inches. She had long straight blond hair, a cute face that still had the look of youth with some chubbiness to her cheeks, and a nose that turned up slightly at the end. Her body was built very straight up and down, and as yet, she lacked any of her mother’s curvaceous figure. She liked sports, was good at soccer, basketball, and running. In the LBZ, she was considered a “hot catch,” and the boys had been interested. She had left a lot of friends to move to Blythe and carried resentment over that, but she had also made a lot of new friends. Around the house, she had considered herself a champion of all things’ right—from animal rights, human rights, teen rights, you name it. School was more of a social event for her. She was much less concerned with academics. In a lot of ways, she was very different from both of her parents; so much so that Maryanne sometimes secretly wondered whose kid this is.

“Mother?” Samantha asked from her seated position on a little wooden green canvas–covered collapsible chair.

“Yes, sweetie,” Maryanne said, maybe too enthusiastically. She didn’t want her children to be too affected by her thoughts and worries, but now she worried that her oldest daughter could see right through her fake facade. “Your father’s sleeping, and I don’t want to wake him, let me come to you.”

Samantha gave her mother a pained expression.

“It’s more like Dad’s in a coma,” she said with her typical teenage sarcasm upon her mother’s arrival.

“That’s a terrible thing to say. Why do you insist upon saying hurtful things like that, Samantha?” Maryanne said in a peeved tone, but she couldn’t say that her daughter’s comment had surprised her.

Lately, it had been a whole lot of the same rotten attitude from her. Samantha was currently mad at the whole world for turning upside down, and Maryanne couldn’t say that she blamed her, but she would have to get through to her that taking her frustrations out on the people that she loved and those that loved her back was not the solution to the problem.

“Come on, Mom, really?” she answered, looking exacerbated. “I’m not stupid. I know what’s really going on here. It’s not like he’s actually sleeping. I mean, look at him,” she said, raising her voice and pointing to her father. “Dad’s dying, isn’t he?”

Maryanne wished desperately that she could shield her daughter from life’s pains, kiss it all and make it go away. But this would not be going away.

Tears had begun to well up in the teen’s eyes, instantly washing away any anger that Maryanne had begun to feel over her behavior.

“I could hear you and Roy talking, you know,” Samantha said. “The wind carried your voices.”

Maryanne made a mental note to pay attention to which direction the wind was blowing before she had any more private, grown-up conversations.

“Next time, I’m going on the run with Amanda,” Samantha said defiantly.

“Absolutely not,” her mother huffed. “What exactly has gotten into you anyway? Don’t forget that you’re still a minor, and I’m still in charge of you.”

“Mother,” Samantha said, matching Maryanne’s angry tone, “I’m fifteen, and it’s the middle of the zombie apocalypse, and you won’t let me do anything to help. You treat me like I’m just some little kid or something. I am not my sister.” She folded her arms. She regretted this posture immediately because it was just too hot to have body parts touching one another. She began to sweat more.

“You know I don’t like it when you use that tone, missy,” Maryanne said, suddenly feeling old and tired. She had always hated it when her mother had called her missy. They stood almost toe-to-toe for a full minute or more, glaring at each other.

“I give up, Sam,” Maryanne said wearily, “but you’re still not going on any run with anybody ever.”

The teen shrugged her shoulders and seemed to give in. Maryanne became suspicious because it wasn’t like her to give in so easily. She could only wonder at what might be going through her daughter’s mind right now.

“Can I at least learn to drive and use weapons and stuff?” the girl asked, looking hopeful.

“So that’s what this is about,” Maryanne said, with a roll of her eyes. “You ask me to do something that you know I absolutely won’t approve of, we fight about it, you give in and then ask for something lesser, hoping that I will just be relieved and say yes.”

“Yep, that’s about it,” Samantha said, and at least her mother admired her honesty.

“Hey, Doctor,” Roy said, surprising both of them, “what do you say, I start teaching her how to drive?”

“Please, Mom, please,” Samantha was pleading with her hands clasped together.

“I suppose that couldn’t hurt,” Maryanne said hesitantly, hoping that she wouldn’t live to regret this.

“Awesome!” Samantha exclaimed, jumping up and down. “I’ll go grab the keys.”

“Samantha, you’re too much. I didn’t mean now,” her mother said with a groan.

“How about it, Uncle Roy?” Samantha said, before flashing a grin.

“I don’t see any harm in it. I need to check it out anyway because . . .” he said but didn’t finish his sentence.

They all knew what he meant, because if Amanda didn’t make it back, that was their only way to go get some water.

“All right, all right,” Maryanne said, “have fun and be safe. Don’t use too much gas.” “Remember the rules,” her mother said while feeling oddly like she was losing control of her daughter.

“I know,” Samantha said. “Always use the buddy system, never be without a weapon, and don’t be afraid to use it.”

“Don’t worry about us, we’ll stick close and keep it in first gear,” Roy said.

“What does that mean?” Samantha asked.

“Exactly my point,” Roy answered with a chuckle. “Come on, kid, I’ll show you.”

Chapter 3

A
manda heard the creeper crash to the floor below, having stepped out into the void that separated where she was now from the other side of the tunnel. She sprang up, flashlight clutched, quick to switch the beam on.

“Crap!” she exclaimed as she shone the light down into the hole in front of her, careful not to step too close to the side for fear of further collapse.

The earth issued another one of its moans. The sound reverberated through the tunnel system. One of these days, this tunnel too, like its sister below, would collapse. It wasn’t a question of
if
but
when
that would happen. She hoped it would wait long enough for her to get out.

To her surprise, there was nothing down below, not so much as lingering dust residue, that would have indicated that something had fallen to the floor of that shaft. She shook her head and then rubbed her eyes, realizing that she had been dreaming.

“It was just a dream,” she whispered to herself, suddenly noticing how very alone she was. “That was understandable,” she told herself. Being half a mile into a dark mine shaft alone could give anyone the willies.

The earth groaned again, and this time she could feel its vibration through her boots and into the soles of her feet.
Gotta go
, she thought, quickly grabbing the plank of wood that she would need to bridge the gap and suddenly feeling foolish for having sought sanctuary here.
These are dangerous times, what with zombies wanting to eat me and the earth wanting to swallow me alive and all
, she thought.

Amanda was just about ready to drop the plank in place to bridge the gap, when the earth shook again—this time so violently that it threw her momentarily off of her feet and into the side of the tunnel wall. The plank slipped from her hands, and gravity took it, sending it down. The wood thumped as it touched down below in the soft dirt, and she felt that she really understood the phrase: up a creek without a paddle.

She issued a pitiful moan herself, as the new state of her reality was registering. Some small pebbles, dirt, and rocks were beginning to fall as if it had started to rain. There wouldn’t be much time for her to cover all that distance out of here before the tunnel collapsed, if she had any time left at all.

Amanda defaulted to what she knew; she followed her instincts. Without wasting another second, she ran a little ways farther into the shaft, not caring to know what was there first because there wasn’t time. She then spun around, hoping that she had given herself enough of a running-start to be able to clear the gap. She ran forward, arms pumping, pack bouncing against her back, heart pounding.

It was difficult to see in front of her because the light from the flashlight was bouncing—floor, ahead, ceiling, ahead, and back to floor. With each split second that it illuminated the way ahead, she tried to catalog it in her memory. Timing when to jump the gap would be crucial, but she had no time to consider worrying about it. The tunnel began to shudder, and this time, it didn’t stop shuddering. She came to the gap and leaped. For a moment, she was flying through the air, wondering if she would clear the gap or if gravity would snatch her below, like it had the piece of wood. But then her boots touched down, already running.

Debris from the ceiling was falling in earnest now, showering her with dirt. One of her footfalls came down on a rock, and she nearly twisted her ankle but still she ran. Adrenaline was coursing through her, making her body feel invincible. The earth quaked again, sending her plowing into the right side of the tunnel. Thick debris fell, and now it was a deluge and not just a downpour. She still could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. She worried that perhaps the entrance had already collapsed.

Her lungs were filling with the thick dust-filled air, burning, as she continued to push them to work at full capacity, running despite the jostling she was taking. The beam from the flashlight was no longer strong enough to illuminate the way ahead; twice she bumped off the sides, becoming disoriented. Panic was threatening to take over, and she shoved the feeling down. “I will make it out of here,” she told herself, hoping that she would not be proven to be a liar.

There were more rumbling and loud sounds of earth collapsing behind her, but the way ahead was still traversable, though she had to slow because the debris across the floor was too treacherous to run across and risk falling or injury. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought that the murky air was beginning to be a bit brighter up ahead; she pushed forward.

The rumbling had stopped, and the silence of it hurt her ears that were still vibrating from the assault they had just received.
Yes
, she thought,
that’s the entrance
. This came as a huge relief, making her legs feel like jelly. She had probably run the equivalent of a two-minute and forty-five-second half mile, and it felt like she might collapse, but she pushed on.

Amanda arrived at what had once been the unobstructed entrance to the mineshaft, though now it was piled high with dirt and rock. The light she had seen was coming from a two- to two-and-a-half-foot gap that was clear at the top. She coughed and slipped out of her pack. Carefully, she climbed her way to the top of the loose earth and slithered out the narrow opening and down to the other side.

She stood on solid ground, with no more fear of earth to bury her alive. Her legs shook, and the strong wind blew some of the dust off of her. Amanda doubled over, placing her palms on her knees. She vomited and then stood and coughed out thick wads of dust-filled phlegm, reminding her that there are very few dull days in the LAZ—an acronym of life after zombies—that society had latched onto back when information could still go viral.

Now that she was back out into the world, alive, she considered the others back at camp, the horde that she had been avoiding, and the truck filled with supplies just sitting out in the open, waiting for someone to come and pillage it. She had a brief, fleeting thought that she should use her cell phone to call the others. She laughed, and it was a hoarse, dry sound that crossed her lips. She doubted that she would ever use another cell phone for the remainder of her lifetime anyway. But considering that the “experts” had been calling this an extinction-level event, it was possible that no one would ever use a device like that again, period.

Amanda plucked the binoculars out of her pack and slipped the pack onto one shoulder. She surveyed the desert. From here, she would not be able to see either the truck or the location that the horde had been, but she did want to know if there were any other troubles out there. She could see nothing out of the ordinary and hung the binoculars around her neck. Next, she adjusted her pack snugly on both shoulders.

The sun had continued moving along its path while she had been in the tunnel, and she judged it to be about four o’clock in the afternoon, though it would be impossible to say for sure.

Her fears over the possibility that the truck would be discovered by raiders helped to make her next decision for her. Rather than going back to the others first, she would double back to the truck and either get it started or carry as much of it as she could back to camp. It was conceivable that should the truck not start, she may be able to hide some of it just in case the raiders came. At this time, there were too many unknown variables; she wouldn’t know anything until she had returned to the truck.

She began to move, feeling a new sense of urgency that was different from being buried alive inside of an old mineshaft. This sense of urgency was for those that remained back at camp. They were depending upon her.

Her muscles felt tired but somewhat rested from the nap she had taken. It would have been better had she not had to sprint a half mile through dark, bad air, though.

Briefly, she thought of ice cream sundaes, a really good cup of iced coffee, ice water, cold celery sticks, chilled cucumber salad. The burning sun and harsh desert wind were a stark contrast to those cool images, and she was quickly snapped back to reality. The hot wind was blowing into her, pulling at her clothing, and she felt as if it was slowing her progress.

Amanda pushed on until she had begun to see stars dancing in front of her eyes. She stumbled and realized that she was about to faint. Fainting alone out here could have deadly consequences. She stopped and pulled the water bottle out of her pack and drank. Her teeth had a layer of tunnel dirt on them; she could feel it washing away and taste a strange bitterness to it. While she was stopped, she took her ball cap off, noticing that it was so dust-covered that she could no longer tell what color it had been. She held her breath, turned to the side, and shook it, watching the wind carrying away the dirt. Now she could tell that the cap was blue and white, though the colors were dingy. The wind caught her long black hair and blew it around in an unruly manner, making it more difficult to get her ball cap back in place.

The pebbles that she had dropped into her water bottle rattled softly against the plastic. She swirled the bottle around, listening to them as if they were playing a tune. Back when sports drinks and electrolyte-infused water were readily available, it had been easy to make sure that her body out here in this desert was getting the sufficient electrolytes and minerals that it needed to make up for all the sweat loss. But now, they accomplished that by swirling pebbles around in their water bottles. This would be similar to how the original settlers had stayed alive. They had built wells and water-catching basins at the base of hills and mountains. The water they drank had run off of the earth and over the rocks, giving them what their bodies needed without having to buy it from those who had fabricated and poured it into a bottle for consumption.

Watching the pebbles and thinking about sports drinks had caused her to yearn for an ice-cold drink. She wondered if there would ever be such a thing as a cold drink of water on a hot summer day for her again. She could only hope that their current rudimentary situation would change and that they would be able to improve their living conditions at some point in the conceivable future.

In the far distance ahead of her, the sun glinted off of something metal and shiny. “The truck,” she whispered, feeling relieved for no other reason than that she was getting closer reaching it.

There was a groan from somewhere nearby, accompanied by a scratching sound, like someone using a stick to etch words in the dirt. Senses alert, she followed the sound to her right. Startled, she quickly jumped sideways, scolding herself for not paying better attention. “There’s no excuse for almost stumbling across a creeper,” she told herself, especially one that was so obviously handicapped.

After she had recovered from her initial startled response, she felt pity as she watched it crawling and scratching its laborious way through the dirt.

Knowing what had to be done and not wanting to prolong its agony, she moved swiftly, releasing the knife that she carried on her thigh and plunging it into the creeper’s temple where it made a wet, squishing sound. Then there was the sound of suction releasing as she withdrew the blade. The creeper lay still at her feet.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” she whispered to the still form. She had killed many of them, so many that she had lost count, but she never took joy in it. It was simply necessary and the kindest thing that could be done for them now.

She knelt and wiped the blade off on what remained of the creeper’s light cotton, tattered, plaid shirt.

What had once been a man had been crawling along the desert floor. He could no longer walk because his legs were obviously broken in several places, and still he had kept going. Amanda thought that he might be a testament to the indomitable spirit of our species, but she doubted that he had been doing it with any conscious intent. The creepers were ruled by hunger and instinct, nothing more, she reminded herself.

Amanda stood and slid the large bladed knife back into its sheath. She always carried her knife strapped to her thigh, even when she slept. She kept a smaller backup knife attached to her belt behind her back. The pistol was in the pack.

She only used the pistol in extreme emergencies. Ammunition was too low, and the noise drew unwanted attention from not only the creepers but also the raiders. Dispatching the creepers quick and quiet was best whenever possible.

Over time and practice, blades had become her go-to weapon of choice. She had used a baseball bat, crowbar, hammer, and once, a piece of pipe; but all things considered, she preferred her knives. Every survivor these days had a preferred weapon, and some of the weapons she had seen were really quite creative.

Knowing that the creeper was no longer a threat, she raised the binoculars to her eyes again, and this time she could see the truck. She was close enough to see that from here, it appeared undisturbed, but she wouldn’t know that for certain until she was right up on it. A feeling of hope surged through her like someone had injected her with it.

She panned the binoculars around, looking for the herd. Just a few hours ago, she had seen something unprecedented out here: a herd or horde of creepers had been crossing the desert. Their numbers were staggering, and they were traveling down the dirt road on an interception course with her truck. The poor unfortunate soul that she had just dispatched must have been part of that herd, fallen and been trampled, breaking his legs. In the end, the creepers showed no mercy, even to one of their own.

Amanda panned the binoculars back to the direction where she had first seen them coming, nothing. She slowly moved them across the desert, looking for any sign of them. Chances were good that they had not turned off the road that led to their camp because when she had seen them, they were already past the turnoff. But she couldn’t be entirely certain that they had not invaded. These days, uncertainty was a fact of life that they dealt with on a daily basis. She could only hope that all was well with the others back at camp.

Where had they been headed?
She wondered. It made no sense to her that so many of them would be traveling together, moving with what looked like purpose through a bleak landscape that couldn’t possibly provide any sustenance for their insatiable hunger. But then she considered,
How am I supposed to know what a pack of creepers was thinking or if they could even think at all?
And what had motivated them to travel as one across such a barren desert? Well, that was a mystery.