The Complex: (The Reanimates) (16 page)

             
“Are you talking about the zombies, Anna?” I asked.

             
She shook her head violently. “No. These are people. Really bad people. They saw our neighbor yesterday through a window, broke in, and killed her before taking all of her stuff. That's part of why we ran. Zombies are just hungry, they can be outwitted even if they are brutal hunters. These guys are worse.”

             
“Anna, I need to grab Joey, Tyreese and Trent. Trent is my husband. Joey and Tyreese are our security gurus. They need to hear all this too. I'll be right back.” I sprinted to where Trent was talking to Tyreese about the new people were and told them to meet me in medical. Then I ran to where Joey was chatting to Jody and asked him to come too.

             
When we were all together in the medical unit and the introductions were made, I asked Anna to tell the story again about the other people.

             
“They just take. They robbed our neighbor and killed her. I saw the whole thing. I think if they had known that we were there they'd have come to kill us as well. I don't understand it. There were dozens of empty houses that they could have looted but they must have seen Mrs. Jones in a window or something and that was who they targeted. They ignored the empty homes. They weren't infected and Mrs. Jones would have given them the shirt off her back if she was asked for it. There was no reason for this. She was a kind lady.”

             
Joey sighed. “I was wondering when the roving band of jackals were going to show up. Every disaster situation will have a band of marauders. It was just a matter of time. Anna, you and the kids are going to be safe here. We have good defenses and plans for upgrades. No one and no thing is going to get in here. We have room and you can stay if you like.”

             
Anna started to cry in that moment. Her relief was visible. “You have no idea how hard it has been since my husband went. I don't think I've slept for more than 20 minutes in a shot having been so worried about him being gone out there with the zombies and the marauders made it so much worse. You guys are amazing. I know that there has to be a lot of work to be done around here and I'll do it. I will scrub every toilet in this place with my toothbrush if that is what you need me to do. I am so beyond appreciative.” Anna was crying especially hard at this point.

             
“Hon, don't worry about that right now. You need to take care of yourself first. You are dehydrated, malnourished, and you are in serious need of rest. We'll set you up with one of the units. I have the perfect one in mind but we need to clean it out and then we'll have you all ready to go. There are a ton of beds around here so your family has a place to sleep comfortably when the unit is ready. Until then you can sleep in our place. Shouldn't take more than a day to get all set.” She cried harder in absolute joy. “Right now though, just stretch out right here on the sofa. We'll leave the windows open so a breeze will reach you.”

We left her to rest. I had Steven's place in mind since it was the only remaining interior facing apartment. When I approached the idea to the others they totally agreed and set to work making it a place for them. It was hard going through his things and putting them in an empty unit. It was so finalizing, as though the funeral had just been a blip. It helped that Mercedes was glad to have a neighbor again. I was sure that they would get along just perfect.

Creature Comforts

             
The next day we were able to move Anna and her family into the unit and she seemed to be settling in very well. She lent a hand where ever she could. She had been a homemaker before the zombies hit. She had married right out of school to her high school sweetheart.

             
“I'd never really been self conscious about my lack of training before. I was always so satisfied just being a mom, taking care of the house and laundry. I feel self conscious now, I don't really know how to do anything. I just want to be contributing somehow and I don't know what I can really bring to the table. You all seem to have some special skill set and I can see how you all contribute. I want to contribute too but I don't know how.”

             
I gave her a hug and said I understood what she was saying. I reminded her that raising kids was a full time job on its own sometimes and that I was sure there was something around here she could do. She thought quietly for a moment.

             
“Do you think maybe I could take in the kids laundry? That is something I am really good at. Silly to be proud of that, but I am. I could keep the kids in clean, mended clothes and maybe they'd feel like more was right in the world. I could do mending on the adults clothes as well if they wanted it.”

             
It had only been a little over a week since the zombies had struck and I don't know about anyone else but I knew Drew was going to be running out of clean underwear in the near future. I hadn't yet formed a plan on how to go about it. I totally agreed with her that the idea of clean clothes for the kids would probably go over really well. I just wished she had a washing machine. Doing the laundry for seven children was going to be a feat.

             
It hit me, like a lightning flash of creativity, that we totally could make a kind of washing machine. It wouldn't be super great in cleaning but any agitation had to be helpful and it had to work better than hand squishing a bunch of clothes in a bucket.

             
“Come on,” I said to Anna, with a gleam in my eye, “I have an idea.”

I think I was almost skipping over to the laundry room. I pulled out one of the washers and looked it over. I told Anna to hang out for a minute so I could grab tools. She nodded though I think she had to think I was a bit nuts. I got an assortment of screw drivers and set to work on removing the panels that housed the washer. After some doing I removed the washer drum and looked it over carefully. This was totally going to work. I went over to where we parked the bikes left behind in the evacuation and found the rustiest one. It was once a cheap kid sized bike that was just a single gear, the kind that you could run forwards and back. I couldn't imagine a better bike for the job.

“
What we need to do,” I explained, “is to take this back wheel and remove the rim and tire. I want to keep that center bit where it is because its set up with the gearing and the chain. We can put a belt on that and hook it to the post on the drum of the washer here. When the pedals turn the washer will too. We need to create a stand for the bike and a stand for the washer drum but that should be easy enough, right?”

             
Anna actually looked excited over this idea. “It's going to start to feel like we are getting near normal. If laundry can be done we are a step closer to rebuilding life again!” She let a little clap go.

             
It occurred to me that a laundry area near the garden would be the ideal location for all of this. Once the clothes are done we could tip the water used directly into the garden so no one would be lugging around a bunch of buckets of gray water. We also needed to build a clothes line. If my mother in law was around she would be doing her running commentary about how domesticated I was becoming. She knew housework was not on my love to do list, yet still she had persisted in trying to turn me into a housewife sort of person.

             
I went over to build to gather the materials I needed like boards and nails and some more assorted tools. Trent gave me an odd look and asked what in the world I was up to. He knew I wasn't much of a builder. I grinned my just wait and see sort of grin and went over to the garden to meet up with Anna, to where she had moved the drum over. I handed her the wire cutters so she could remove the spokes on the wheel. We had pulled the wheel off to make it easier to get the spokes and rim off. I set to building a stand for the drum. I figured an angle would be the best set up so the clothes would really splash. It was a V shaped drum holder so it would stay in there.

             
I put the drum on the stand and took a strip of a sheet and looped it around the post. Anna had already put the center of the wheel back on the bike. I quickly made a stand for the bike and set the bike on it. I jumped up and down on the bike to make sure my stand would hold the weight and it worked. I looped the other end of the sheet onto the post and tied the ends together. I climbed onto the bike and turned the pedals around a few times. It worked! The drum spun! It stayed in the V shaped stand just like it was supposed to! I ran up the stairs to the apartment, grabbed a garbage sack and threw in some of Drew’s jeans to try it out. While up there I also grabbed some laundry detergent. I went over to the water spigot and filled the bucket that we kept under it with water then went over to our invention.

             
“Are we ready to give this a whirl?” I asked.

             
She exclaimed, “Let's do this!” She seemed to be just as excited as I was, which I hadn't thought possible.

             
I felt a moment of absolute glee. It had to work, it just had to. Anna got on the bike and started to pedal slowly at first, then faster. The drum spun just like it was supposed to. I credit the stubs of bike spokes for how well it responded to the pedals, even reversing when she pedaled the other way. It had created great traction. She pedaled a bit longer and said “Alright then, now to see if this did any good.” We went over to the drum with anticipation.

             
The water that we dumped out was a gross black color. I knew Drew got dirty playing but I never expected that he collected that much dirt. It was amazing. Anna grabbed the bucket, went over to the spigot and filled it up. She took the jeans and splashed them in the bucket rinsing the soap out.

             
“Now we need a clothes line.” Anna reminded me. I wandered off to the maintenance shed, rummaged around and found some twine. When I came back I wrapped it around two trees. Worried that a single line would break I took the twine ball around a couple times and declared it good enough to try. Worst case it would break and we would come up with another idea. She hung Drew's jeans over the line which it held just fine. We would keep an eye on how much it seemed to bow with more weight as more laundry was washed, but for that moment we marveled over the accomplishment. We had just created clean laundry.

             
I don't think anyone ever was more proud of their invention as I was at that point. I felt like I had to have just invented a light bulb when all I did was take other peoples ideas, mashing them together to make a washer. It didn't matter though, I was on top of the world.

             
Trent had finished whatever project he was working on and wandered over to see what we had been up to. He scrutinized the stands and overall design. It wasn't done the way he would have but he was remarkably proud of us for figuring out a plan on how to get this working.

             
“Anna has offered to do the kid's laundry. I figured why not. It would help a lot to have someone take care of that. Now that we have a washer things should be easier for her to take on. We can probably work out a rotation for the adults to use the washer for our own clothes.” I mused aloud.

             
Trent totally agreed that the adults should do their own laundry and thanked Anna profusely for offering to do the kid's stuff. It took a weight off knowing that at least they should be happy and clean.

             
Life seemed to be settling in. Zombie attacks were fewer. We settled into our happy routine. It was almost like the zombies didn't happen, like we had moved on to a commune where things actually worked out.

             
Things were nice enough that Joey wasn't running around like a crazy person trying to keep us safe and seemed to have a little bit of time on his hands. He chose to spend his time with Jody. More than once I saw them sitting together holding hands or kissing. It was awesome to see life go on and that love could survive a world like this. Things felt good.

             
Things feeling good should have been our first clue that things were about to get bad. Very bad.

The Marauders

             
Anna had warned us when we first met her that there was a gang of morons preying on the survivors out there. She told us that there were things worse than the zombies. We should have listened better.

             
Our first encounter with the marauders was a week after we took Anna in.  We were hanging out in the common area enjoying an unseasonably cool June mid morning. It was just after 11 AM so we were starting to think about putting together lunch. We had been cheered by the sprouts coming from the garden and our clean clothes. Our solar panels were working well and only a couple times we drained the reserves of the system. The apocalypse was going to be able to be survived. More than survived, even, it would seem that there could be a chance of really living. We believed that maybe this was a reset that the earth needed to get us off of the path of destruction that we were on. Zombies didn't consume resources, well, beyond the people they ate. We mused over our overall good fortune in this world despite the losses we endured.