Containment (14 page)

Danny’s favorite time of the night was when his uncle brought out the fireworks he’d brought with him. Of course Danny’s mother immediately went into “worried parent” mode when she envisioned the pyrotechnical injuries that were sure to follow. Uncle Justin assured her over and over that nothing would happen and then shot her a concerned look when Sydney burned her finger on a hot sparkler. That just about ended the fun, but then Uncle Justin brought out the big rockets and Roman candles and whatever else he had in the wooden crate filled to overflowing with colorful cardboard packages.

Danny’s mom was much more comfortable with these items because Uncle Justin was the only one who handled them and lit them, allowing everyone else to stand back at a safer distance. The red and blue and green and purple fiery flowers that raced into and then blossomed in the sky were spectacular and seemed to go on and on.

When the evening ended, Danny said a very tired good-bye to his cousins and Uncle Justin. He and his dad then sat down in front of the television to watch some of a movie before Danny was sent off to bed.

He missed his family and Romie more than ever, but it was nice for the memory to visit him. He looked over at Jules. She was sleeping again. She seemed to sleep an awful lot lately. And when she was awake, she was always tired and yawning.

It was about then, with Jules snoring peacefully and Danny remembering wistfully, that Emma looked into the rear view mirror and noticed a trio of ghouls emerging from the Fred Meyer entrance from which they had just departed. Once again, Emma was amazed at the clarity of Neil’s foresight.

He had instructed Art and Jerry to move some of the shopping carts into a kind of barricade in front of the doorway. And now, those carts formed an excellent barrier behind which the fiends were trapped. They banged themselves repeatedly against the shiny metal rolling baskets but lacked the necessary problem solving capabilities to realize that they could just lie themselves over the carts and pull themselves free. For that matter, if the three of them were to work in concert, they could probably move the carts far enough away as to make a large enough opening through which they could all shuffle. Neither appeared to be forthcoming though as they merely banged into the carts futilely, spun in a hopeless circle, and then banged into the carts again.

If she weren’t so disgusted by their appearance and behavior, the scene might even seem comical.
Next on America’s Funniest Zombie Videos
… She doubted Fox had the sense or the taste to realize what a bad idea that would be. With the right marketing though, anything’s possible. Just look at
American Idol
.

She lifted the radio and said calmly, “Neil, we got some friends caught up on your shopping carts over there. Nice idea by the way.”

There was a pause and some electric snow that was suddenly broken by a concerned voice, “Are you all right? We’re on our way back out.”

“Relax. They seem to be pretty well contained right now, but I’d say let’s not dawdle. No point in pushing our luck. Just get what we need and get back out here.”

“Give us five minutes.”

“For you sweetie, I’ll give you seven.” She set the radio back down next to the silver pistol on the console between the seats. “Danny, wake Jules will you? And then you better get your hands on a gun yourself. I know it’s a lot to ask you, but two guns are better than one. And I think I know just the one. Why don’t you get into the back there and start grabbing some of the guns from under the seat. I want you to get a rifle. It’s kind of small, but it’s definitely a rifle.”

Danny shook Jules awake and then followed Emma’s instructions. He reemerged from the back with a very trim camouflage-colored rifle. It had a fairly short stock and a very narrow barrel. On the bottom of the rifle was a stubby clip magazine. The gun was exactly the right size for him. His eyes were wide and slightly dazzled.

Emma said, “That was the kind of gun that I shot when I was about your age. My brother had one and used to target shoot with it all the time. It barely gave any kick at all and shot really straight. At least that was what he used to say. I remember shooting it and all I could think of was how loud it was. But even that wasn’t too horribly bad. I’m guessing that it needs bullets put into that clip, so why don’t you climb under there and find a box of twenty-two caliber shells. I’ll show you how to load it and how to fire it, but hurry up. There’s no time to waste.”

As soon as his hands touched the small rifle, he felt different...special, like a grownup. But peering through the magnifying scope attached to the rifle stock, he felt powerful and fierce. When he focused his aim on one of the zombies banging himself to no avail against the simple shopping cart barricade, his heart quickened and his fingers buzzed as if he had just touched a live wire. He smiled, held his breath, and pulled the trigger.
Click.

Emma patted him on the back and said, “That’s good, Danny. Now, when there is actually a bullet in the gun, there won’t be much kick but the sound might startle you at first. It sounds kind of like a big firecracker.”

“Cool.”

“Danny, you seem like a smart kid, so I don’t want to talk down to you, but I think I ought to at least say that this gun is a very dangerous thing and the present circumstances don’t change how dangerous this thing is. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Danny looked her in the eyes and nodded. He understood. He also understood that, even under the present circumstances, his parents would never entrust him with a firearm. He doubted that his parents would have one for themselves. They didn’t like guns and wouldn’t have one in the house. He’d heard them talk about that many times with friends, family, and neighbors.

Many of their neighbors kept guns in their houses; most were for hunting, but some kept them for home defense as he’d heard it put before. It just made sense to him that people would keep a gun in the house. He could never figure out why his parents had been so adamantly opposed to the idea. Why wouldn’t you want to defend your home against intruders...whether they were burglars or zombies? He just couldn’t figure it out and current events had encouraged him to question it even more.

There was the time when Mark Little got his dad’s gun down from the top of the bookcase. When he jumped down, Mark dropped the gun and it went off. No one was hurt, but he did kill one of his mother’s nice planters and a struggling Ficus tree. Everyone agreed that Mark was lucky and that his dad should have done a better job of securing the gun. And there were the stories in the newspaper that he saw when he was looking for some easy but juicy Current Events topics; stories about teenagers being prosecuted as adults in the shooting deaths of friends or suburban homes being robbed by thieves looking for guns to sell.

Regardless, when Emma handed him the ten round clip and he clicked it into position, he felt more like a part of the group than ever before. Now, he could contribute something rather than just always taking.

He was probably the most happy when Neil saw him standing next to the van. Neil saw the gun, wrinkled his brow and tilted his head and then gave Danny a thumbs up gesture. Danny was so proud of himself. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and stood next to the van as a guard while the others loaded the gear into the quickly diminishing space in the back of the van.

They all had jackets now, and the heavier coats were packed away for later use when the temperatures dropped further. They had food and water, more ammunition for their firearms, and some baseball bats for close-up protection.

Meghan surveyed all of this and then turned to Neil. “So, I guess that’s about it. We ready yet?”

“Almost. We still need some gas for the rig.”

Unfortunately, the vehicles in the Fred Meyer and Burlington Coat Factory parking lots did not yield much gasoline. Most of the fuel tanks were close to empty or were bone dry. They were able to fill one five-gallon can and partially fill a second, but that was far from comforting for all of them.

When they got back on the road and started putting some distance between themselves and Anchorage, they’d need much more fuel, and the likelihood there would be filling stations between here and salvation was slim to nil. Unfortunately, the Tesoro gas station on the northwest corner of the parking lot was a blackened ruin. It appeared as if someone had already tried to pilfer the gas from the underground storage tanks but had actually blown himself or herself up in the process.

Meghan asked as they stood in the parking lot, “So now what? Can we make it with this much?”

Dr. Caldwell shook his head. “No. This might be able to get us out of town and maybe on our way to Fairbanks and the Interior, but we’d run out in the middle of nowhere and then be on foot. Doesn’t seem like the safest bet to me.”

Maggie stood on the edge of the discussion. She wanted to offer her suggestion but waited for the right moment. She didn’t want to sound too eager and arouse any suspicions. The conversation swayed back and forth, shifting between opinions and strategies. Claire even suggested that perhaps they should just find another hiding spot in Anchorage to ‘wait out all of this.’

All of the talk went back and forth until finally, Neil asked, “How ‘bout you, Maggie? You have any ideas or know where we can get some gas?”

Maggie smiled a little and looked over all of them at the eastbound Dimond Boulevard. “I don’t know about gas for sure, but I do know that there are dozens and dozens of cars that way...toward the Dimond Center. It looks like a parking lot just up the road. I’m sure with that many cars, you...I mean we can find all the gas that we need.”

“Are you sure?”

Maggie nodded her head and pointed. “Everything that you need is down that way.”

Jerry asked suspiciously, “What about...you know...
them
? Are there zombies down that way too?”

Maggie shrugged her shoulders, “Aren’t they everywhere now? I mean, they were in the store behind us and they didn’t seem to pose much of a problem for you.”

“Yeah, taken in ones and twos we can handle them, but how many of them are there down that way?”

“We won’t know until we go there, now will we?”

Jerry didn’t like the way that she answered his questions without really answering anything. It was like watching a politician at a press conference coming clean about the latest scandal. She could talk and talk and never really say anything. He wanted to press her, but knew that ultimately it wouldn’t yield anything but more frustration. Besides, she was right. They had been handling themselves well lately.

Emma asked, “Maggie, you’ve got a bunch of gas in your trunk. Can you share some of what you have with us?”

“Find your own. I worked hard for what I got.”

“I’m sure you did, but doesn’t it make more sense for us to share what we’ve got and work together?”

“What do you mean share?” demanded Maggie, suspicion in her eyes.

“Oh, I don’t know. Like maybe, the food that we have that we’ve shared with you. And maybe the protection we shared with you last night at the park. You know, things we gave to you and did for you because it was the right thing to do.”

“I didn’t need nothing from you. Just because you gave me some of your food doesn’t mean that I didn’t have none of my own. I was doing just fine without all of you and now you want to take my gas.”

Neil interrupted, “Nobody’s taking anything from anyone.”

Emma wasn’t satisfied though. She continued, “Well what about Christian charity? Isn’t there a vestige of decency that is taught in your
Bible
?”

“How dare you question my faith! My belief in God is steadfast and loyal. How could someone like you know anything about faith anyway? Malachi has told me all about you and the poison that you spew.”

“Malachi told you about me? Well let me tell you a couple of things about your hero Malachi there—”

Malachi jumped in to defend Maggie. “Shut your mouth you Jezebel! You’ve got no right to ask Maggie for anything. Why would she give gas that is fueling the Lord’s message to you...a non-believer just trying to avoid her fate.”

“Fate?
Fate!
Don’t go using pagan words that you don’t understand.”

Again, Neil interrupted the exchange. “Stop it! This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

Emma wasn’t through though. Even as Dr. Caldwell was pulling her away, she spat, “Your Malachi there? He’s a coward and a rapist. What does your goddamned book say about that? Huh? No amount of faith can change that. You disillusioned—”

Dr. Caldwell turned her and said to her, cutting her off, “Emma! This isn’t helping.”

Over his shoulder she shouted, “Hypocrites! You pick and choose what you believe from your book and then belittle the rest of us when we question your motives or your actions. You disgust me! And
him
, he belongs with those things over there. He’s a monster and doesn’t deserve to be wearing that uniform or that badge!”

With that said, she pushed Dr. Caldwell away from her and walked away. Danny, still standing next to the van, walked away too and stood next to her. By then, she was bent over at the waist and shedding hot, angry tears. She was so enraged she couldn’t see straight and was afraid that she was going to vomit at any moment.