Roxanne's Story (Book 1): Survival in the Zombie Apocalypse (32 page)

Martha paused to take a bite of her food and to pass Mutt a piece of spam. Roxanne smiled and said, “Martha I gave him a can of dog food this morning. You don’t need to feed him your breakfast.”

Martha reached down to pet Mutt, “Well, this is the last I’ll be seeing of him, so it’s my privilege. I’ll get across to my place before the rain picks up harder. It’s just a sprinkle now but it will pick up harder during the day and possible downpours during the night. By tomorrow morning you should be able to leave. And I have some packing to do” she said as she stood up.

“Packing?” Lucky asked.

“Why yes,” Martha answered glancing at Roxanne. “Roxanne and I had a little talk last night and she convinced me that a woman can’t go it alone anymore. I need to team up with someone so I think I’ll look up this Joe you were telling me about. He sounds like an honorable man who would have my back. Together I think we could protect his place, or die together attempting it. Regardless, it will be nice to have someone to talk to and bounce ideas off of.” She started for the door and then turned around again, “Oh….you don’t think he would object to that do you? A bossy woman coming in and telling him how things could be done better?”

Lucky shook his head, not missing the hidden meaning in Martha’s conversation, “No, I don’t think he would object at all.” He got up to hug Martha. “You tell him that we send our love.”

Brandon rowed Martha over to shore and went with her to check the house. He asked if he could help to load the canoe and she gave him directions on where things were and what he needed to pull down from high shelves. She wanted to put a tarp over the canoe but didn’t have the nerve to go into the shed where it was stored. Brandon didn’t blame her since the body of Bill was still in there so he went out, checking carefully that new zombies hadn’t showed up during the night. As he pulled the tarp off the shelf a long narrow box fell down with it. He opened it to see that it contained arrows. He looked around but did not see a crossbow however; he took both the tarp and the box into the house with him.

“Oh those were David’s,” Martha answered when Brandon asked her about it. “He had his crossbow with him when he disappeared. I had forgotten about those or I would have offered them to Roxanne. I saw her crossbow hanging up in her room.” She turned and looked at Brandon, “Just out of curiosity which one of you men was her lover?”

“Martha!” Brandon responded.

Martha put her hand on her hip, “Oh, please Brandon. Don’t play me for the fool. It isn’t both of you, is it?”

Brandon gasped and took a step back. “Jesus Martha, I know we looked pretty scraggly when you first met us but we haven’t fallen that low. No it is…..it was Lucky.”

“Past tense,” Martha said. “I figured that.”

“You had a talk with her last night,” Brandon said. “Is everything going to be OK? Roxanne is pretty well beat up right now, mentally and emotionally. She’s starting to take unnecessary risks, almost like a suicide mission, like she’s given up but will go down fighting for something or someone to make her death count for something. I think she’s staying alive just for Mutt. We all need something to cling to, some hope or vision of a better future. Getting down that creek is mine right now. I know it is a short-term goal but in today’s world we can focus on just one small achievement at a time to help stabilize us through another day. I get the feeling that Mutt is keeping Roxanne stabilized and she has given up on Lucky and I for support.”

Martha looked away and sat at her kitchen table as if deep in thought. “You asked me if everything is going to be OK. I think that depends on Lucky.”

While Brandon took Martha back to her house Lucky and Roxanne pulled the raft on board and began to stock it with supplies. They wrapped the rifles in plastic to keep them dry, added the few canned goods that they had left, put in the fishing rods but they would not put in their duffle bags until the next morning. They loosely tied the tarp over it to keep things dry but after putting in their gear in the morning they would concentrate on tightening it so nothing would fall out if it went overboard.

Roxanne looked up from the raft and tried to wipe the wet hair from her face. “We’ll tie the raft to the boat so it doesn’t go overboard without us. If Jenny hits the rocks and breaks up we should both try to get to the raft to cut the rope so it isn’t dragged under. I’m just not sure when I should tie Mutt to me. I don’t want us to become separated, but I don’t want to put him in harm’s way either.”

“Let’s get inside and towel off,” Lucky said.

Roxanne called to Mutt but he refused to leave the railing. He had been watching Martha’s house since Brandon took her over. Roxanne was afraid that when the boat started moving away from shore that Mutt would jump over and swim away from her to go to Martha.

As they walked inside Lucky handed her a towel. “I want you to have a life preserver on all day tomorrow after Brandon pulls anchor. I know that Brandon has been teaching you to swim but we will be in rough water and a strong current. Don’t worry about the raft. I’ll take care of that. Just hold onto Mutt and try to stay afloat until we can get to shore.” He chuckled, “Brandon would be so insulted to hear us talking about abandoning ship.”

Roxanne toweled off her hair and went over to her duffle bag to get a dry shirt. She removed the wet denim jacket and kept her back to him as she took off her t-shirt. She took a dry t-shirt out of her bag and added a long-sleeve man’s shirt over that since the denim jacket was wet and the only jacket she had. She hugged her arms and turned around, “I’m worried about this winter. None of us have the proper clothing for winter.” She continued to rub her arms.

Lucky picked up a throw that was lying across one of the benches and went over to put it around her shoulders. She pulled it across her chest as she shivered in the damp air. Lucky wanted to put his arms around her but instead he kept his hands on her shoulders, rubbing them to try and put warmth back into her body.

“Come here and sit with me, Roxanne,” Lucky said taking one of her hands. She let herself be led to the bench but while he sat facing her she looked out over the room. “Do you remember that day at The Park when you climbed over the debris of that wreck and went to the other side of the field by yourself? And I happened to break through the fence as you were about to attack a zombie?”

Roxanne turned to look at him with a smile on her face, “Yes…..yes, I remember that day very well,” she said.

“I saw the way you looked at me that day, Roxanne. I saw something change in your eyes, a look of not only relief but that you were seeing me, the real me for the first time and an acceptance of me. I don’t know what was going through your head at that moment, but the look captured me. Roxanne, look at me,” she had turned away again so he cupped his hand under her check and turned her back. “Whatever you saw in me that day, I’m still here. I haven’t changed, although I am somewhat torn around the edges now. I have made mistakes, made some wrong decisions but nothing has changed in how I feel about you. You are the only hope that is keeping me alive through this. The dream that one day we can have a normal life together.”

At that moment Mutt started barking and although both of them wanted to continue the discussion Mutt’s barks were to be heeded. They went and stood in the doorway to stay out of the rain and saw that Brandon was rowing back after dropping off Martha. But Mutt was frantic, pacing back and forth along the railing barking at Brandon as if he had forgotten something.

They helped Brandon on board and as he was tying the rowboat to Jenny they asked if everything was alright at the house. “Yes, I checked everything when I first got there. No zombies inside or out. Helped Martha pack and load some things in her canoe.”

Mutt had stopped barking but he was still pacing the rail, watching the house. “This is breaking my heart,” Roxanne said. “I think he wants to stay with Martha.”

“Take control of your dog, Roxanne”, Lucky said. “If we left him with Martha he would be doing the same thing on shore as he saw us pull away in the morning.” Roxanne remembered him saying something similar to her when she was hiding her car at The Park and he had just seen her kill two zombies. When he walked up to her Mutt had stepped in-between them. “Call off your dog, Roxanne”, he had said. That was the first time he had put his hands on her.

She took Mutt by the collar and had to literally drag him into the casino. She grabbed a towel to wipe him down talking to him in a soothing voice. “It okay Mutt. Martha is going to join Joe. Martha will be leaving in the morning too.” She knelt down before him and held the dog’s face in her hands, “She’s going to Joe. Joe. You remember Joe, the good man with the stew.” Mutt looked at her as if trying to tell if she was lying. Whatever he saw in her eyes he licked her face twice and then went over to his food bowl.

That night they all wore their clothes to bed since Jenny was starting to lurch against her anchor. The gentle swaying of the boat told them that the lake was starting to fill and overflow into the creeks ahead. Mutt threw up his dinner but Roxanne found the swaying to be soothing.

Martha’s map showed two creeks leading off the southern end of the lake. “Make sure you take the creek on your right when you reach the fork. The one on your left will eventually go underground and you’ll be stranded,” she had said. Lucky was lying on his cot going over her instructions in his head when Roxanne came to his door with a blanket wrapped around her since her denim jacket was still wet. “Are you cold?” she whispered so as to not wake Brandon who was in the room behind her.

He shook his head and got up to get the blanket at the bottom of his bunk. “No, but you can have my blanket,” he walked over to hand it to her. She looked up at him and put her hand over his as he held the blanket out. “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” she said. “Can we go to Martha’s room with the double-bed and cuddle?” He smiled and kissed her on the forehead, “Sure”.

He took his jacket off before lying down, wanting to feel Roxanne’s arms across his chest as they lay there. He put one blanket across both of them but put the second one just on Roxanne to keep her warm. “I miss our cabin,” she said. “God how I hated giving that up. It was all too brief, that false sense that things were getting back to normal.” She put her arm across him and snuggled into his arm. She could hear his heart beginning to beat faster and hoped that he could be patient with her just a little longer.

“It will be alright Lucky. You see I had this stupid idea when we were running that we were like the Three Musketeers or something. Together the three of us could beat anything, outsmart anyone; that we would always be fighting side by side, watching each other’s back and if one of us fell that they would not be left on the battlefield.”

“Roxanne, I’m so sorry.”

“No, no it wasn’t your fault, Lucky. It was kid stuff, really.” He could feel her shrug her shoulders. “At the point when I was taken down I was so hungry and weak that if they had killed me it would have been a favor. I have never felt such despair as when we were on the run and like amateurs we became incapable of feeding ourselves. But the food just wasn’t there and the Ze’s were always behind us.”

She was silent for a moment and Lucky felt it best that he let her talk. He had to find out what was going on in her head, hiding ammo like that, packing her gear long before they had made plans to so do, taking booze to bed with her and always so silent.

“The worst was when they tore my clothes and I knew that you and Brandon were watching from the bushes.” He pulled her closer and put his hand in her hair, “Oh Jesus, Roxanne if I could just change that.”

“And you didn’t come,” she went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “I realize now that we would all be dead if you had, but when I looked over at the bushes and you didn’t come, I just looked back up at the sky and prepared to die.” He could feel the wetness on his shirt from her tears.

“Roxanne I can never make that up to you.”

“You don’t need to Lucky. I realize now that it was an impossible situation and that we had overlooked the signs that there were more of them in the gang. We had become sloppy, desperate for food and made a disastrous mistake. Mutt saved us all that day, charging out of the bushes like that and knocking two of them down so I could grab their knife. To be honest I don’t even remember the rest, just standing there afterward with blood on me and everyone dead at my feet. Then looking up to see both you and Brandon out of breath with blood on your knives too and realizing that I was still half naked.”