walkers the survivors (17 page)

    
The other woman put out her hand.  "I'm Angie, I have some medical knowledge but mostly I was an animal vet.  That isn't  much good now, but I can learn to do other things.  I want very much to leave this horrible place as soon as possible.  The kids though may have other ideas and they won't take much guff.  They took it from Burly but he was just plain mean.  I wouldn't blame you if you refused to take me with you but I sure wish you'd reconsider."  I shook her hand and resisted the urge to wipe it on my pant legs, but just barely.

    
When Mason came back in, he brought everyone with him.  "Seems that Sid and Andy have it in their heads to stay.  We can take whoever wants to go to our place because, if anything, we can teach you the security end of things so you can take care of yourselves.  Sid and a couple of the others are concerned that if they left, the place would become the property of someone else and they would lose the chance to stay, in case they don't like the cabin.  So, Clint, Flynn, Randy and I have decided to spend the night and let them sleep on it.  It's not too smart to go back after dark anyway.  Riley is topside calling Duke to let him know we'll be back tomorrow sometime."

    
They all nodded like it was a good idea, then the women started to fix dinner for the children.  While they were doing that Nevada took my hand and led me around the warehouse.  Each child had made a fort out of cardboard boxes, complete with carton beds, tables and chairs.  Each one had personalized their home and I was impressed with the results.  Nevada's 'room' had been lined with butcher paper and she had painted landscapes on the walls of mountains and beaches complete with palm trees and crabs on the shore.  I was suitably impressed.

     
She looked up at me with the bluest eyes I've ever seen and said, "We've made a home here and even if it was hell, it's still our home.  Now that Burly's gone it'll be better. I don't know but out there is scary, in here is safe.  Please don't be mad if we don't want to go with you.  You saved us and we'll love you forever, but this is our home and we really want to stay."  She then threw herself against me so hard I had to take a step back to keep from going down.

    
Well, hell.

    
So we spent the night in the trucks and awoke the next morning to coffee.  The place had been scrubbed during the night, and the smell reminded me of bounce dryer sheets.  I noticed most of the kids were missing and when I asked, the women smiled and pointed to the roof.  I guess they had small plastic swimming pools all over the roof, full of water.  The sun heated the water during the day and the kids could bathe in the evening.  They were up there doing just that, getting cleaned up for us.

    
We had a pow wow when we managed to get all the kids together.  Shinning red faces looked at us with those huge eyes and it was hard not to make them go with us.  A couple of them offered to go just to see if what we was saying was true.  Nearly everyone wanted to help load Tommy, the young boy that died,  into the trailer and after stopping at Walmart and picking up some supplies, we headed back to the cabin.

    
Tommy would be buried in the local cemetery.  Sid and Andy came with us to check things out and Randy offered to stay behind to watch the kids.  We would return in a few days to see what the others wanted to do.  It was a nervous, fear filled couple of days of emotional ups and down.. When we pulled into the parking lot in front of the cabin, I nearly cried from relief.

                                                                     
CHAPTER 17

     "I wish we could just load them all up and make them come here."  I said to Masons shoulder, "That way I wouldn't have to worry about them."

    
"We can't and you know it.  They feel safe there, it's their home.  Besides if we make them come here and they don't like it,  they'll just sneak back."  He was rubbing a place on my shoulder while we thought of ways to help the kids.

    
"Where the hell are all these kids coming from?  I've seem more dead walking kids than live up to now so to see all these live kids has me stumped.  Well, doesn't matter really, we have to figure out a way to help them.  With us or without."

    
"Yeah, I know.  I just want to save them all."  I watched the curtain move gently in the slight breeze that was with us most of the time.  I could hear Bubba barking in the background along with kids laughing and squealing as they played.  "If they did come to live here we'd have to make some kind of living arrangements for them.  More campers or maybe a mobile home or build another cabin or something.  They'd need their own rooms because to a certain extent they've had their own rooms made of cardboard."

    
"I'll give it some thought.  If we could talk them into living here, they could be trained and when we leave we'd know they'd be ok."

    
"How are we going to talk them into it?  We have a few days to convince Sid and Andy that this place is better for them than a warehouse.  I don't know if that's enough time."

    
Mason turned in my arms and kissed my nose.  Cupping my check in his hand, he smiled.  "It's hard for me to see you hack a walkers head to mush then see you all concerned about kids.  You're like two different women, but I love them both.  Don't worry, brat, we'll figure out something."  Then he kissed me gently at first but it changed into something else entirely and we ended up being late for breakfast, again.

    
When we finally managed to arrive for the coffee I'd been smelling for over an hour, Lacy and Sarah was cleaning up the kitchen.  "Where's everyone at?" I asked, as I poured some creamer into my mug.

    
"The guys are showing Sid and Andy around. They plan to take them hunting in the morning but today they want to show them the ropes."  I had no idea what 'ropes' she was talking about but I knew the kids would be ok with the guys.

    
We were throwing around ideas about how to provide more sleeping quarters when we heard squealing coming from the area of the turkeys.  Running out we soon discovered, several eggs had hatched and we had baby turkeys.  Quickly gathering up whatever we could find to plug the holes in the fence, we trapped them all inside.  Now we needed to figure out how to feed them but Sarah came through when she grabbed one, tipped its head in the water and rubbed its throat to make it swallow.  After a time, the turkeys were drinking water and eating what they're supposed to.  When Lacy asked Sarah where a corporate lawyer learned to take care of baby turkeys, she just smiled and went back inside.  We hounded her for hours but she never would reveal where her talent came from.

    
Later that day we heard another commotion and when we stepped out on the porch we saw the guys coming back leading a cow.  Her calf was trotting along behind her balling its head off.  Sid and Andy had the biggest smiles on their face but all I could think of was yippee, fresh milk.  I think Mason was a bit jealous that he wasn't in on the rodeo, but he enjoyed the telling of the capture as the boys acted out the whole story.

    
When things died down a bit I stood. "I have an idea."  Everyone stopped what they were doing and prepared to listen.  Ah, that's so nice.  "I was thinking we could bring in some mobile homes and attach them to this building.  We could make the homes into just bedrooms and build some kind of covered walkway between them and this building.  Since this is the kitchen/dining room we wouldn't need the kitchens in the homes and Duke can plumb them like the campers are now."

    
"That has merit but we can barely get the 53 foot trailers down that hill let alone 70 foot trailers."  This was from Howard.

    
"That's true, Howard, but some double wides aren't that long and I don't think we'd have that much trouble."

    
"Yep, girl, that would work but does anyone know where there's a mobile home dealership?

    
"I've already looked several up and have the directions so when we go back to town we can check them out."

    
"That might work, but what if the guys don't want to move out here?"  Andy said, as he got up to get him some more coffee.  He really liked the stuff and always had a mug in his hand.  This one read "Dead Heads."  I'm not sure what it was referring to.

    
"Well, we have to take that chance.  The way I see it, since we are leaving in June, you only have to put up with us those few months while we teach you all  we know."

    
"Yeah,"  Clint said, "and they know a lot about survival.  If you're here you could learn a lot easier than if you're in town."

    
"What else do we need to learn?"  Sid said.

    
"Well, when we went hunting this morning, you had no idea how to gut the deer...hell, you've never eaten venison before today and you don't know how to process it or how to make jerky or can..."

    
"OK," Sid said throwing up his hands, "you make a great point.  I see the advantages of living here with the little ones growing up in the fresh air and sunshine.  I'll see what I can do to talk them into it but don't count on anything."

    
I looked over at Mason who smiled and winked at me.  I'd just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best.

    
The guys made plans to leave in the morning to find a couple of double wides.  At least four of them would have to leave and then they'd have to find four trucks to move them.  We wanted to have them in place and ready to move into by the time we brought the kids back.  I elected to stay home.  I let Sid and Andy go in my place to see how to secure the area so I guys could acquire. 

    
Sarah put a large roast in the oven, and made bread while I sat on the porch and listened to Lacy talk to Randy on the phone.  I'd told her a head of time no phone sex and she grinned cute  and winked at me.  Before I could ask what that meant, Randy called and I'd listened to sweet talk for the past ten minutes.  Finally, I went back into the dining hall where Sarah, Mercy, Sam, Melody and George was talking at the table.  I'd already seen Sandy out with the kids and after a head count saw that everyone was ok. I wondered briefly when I would stop counting heads but I didn't figure it would be anytime soon.

    
After a long hen session, we went outside and tried to decide just where the homes would be located.  In order for them to be hooked to the house it would be best to use one of the windows so it could be made into a door to the new place.   They'd have to position them into a V shape to the house because one of the hot springs was in the way.  So we pulled bushes, moved rocks and repositioned one of the campers so the way would be clear.

    
The first of the houses arrived just after lunch.  The guys pulled up one behind the other and we stood around looking silly while we tried to figure out how to get the two halves lined up into one whole.  An hour later, the other two halves of the other house arrived, lining up behind the other two and Clint and Flynn joined the fun.

    
"No one thought to see if the dealership had instructions on how to do this."

    
"Well, someone can go back or maybe there's something online."  Everyone turned around and stared at Duke.  He threw up his hands, turned around and stomped into the cabin to do his magic on the computer.  The women climbed around inside the houses, oohing and ahing.  They both had furniture and appliances, yea. 

   
Duke came through on the instructions of connecting the two halves so the remainder of the day was spent, putting one house together.  A lot of cussing and yelling accompanied the process so the women found ways to stay out of sight.  Well, you know me, I sat in the yard, under the shade of a pine tree, sipping my raspberry tea and enjoying the show.  They finally quit when the plastic was removed from the middle of the home.  It was a log cabin wanna-be but somehow it fit right in.

    
The men barely had the energy to clean up and eat that night and after a long night of listening to Mason snore, the next day was a repeat of the day before. I was bored quickly so decided to make lists.  Lists for Christmas, lists of food stores, clothing, medicine, books for the new school we'd need.  By the end of the day, we had one broken toe (Howard) and numerous scrapes and cuts.  We'd be able to go back the next day and bring back the kids and start the long process of emptying the warehouse.  I was looking forward to it.

    
Sid and Andy was pretty excited about the move.  I don't think they were too keen on it when they first decided to do it.  But after spending some time outdoors, hunting and exploring they'd decided it was great.  They'd both picked up some color along the way and put on some weight.  The change was noticeable.

    
We left early the next day, with Lacy going along with us.  She really missed Randy if  she was venturing out of the relative safety of home.  I'd tried to explain what she was going to find but I guess she couldn't imagine it, so she decided to find out for herself.  I'm pretty sure Randy had the place cleaned since we left so she'll never see the horrors we did.

    
I was right about the place being cleaner.  Nevada met me at the door, throwing her arms around my waist and hanging on.  I looked over at Mason and he was smiling like crazy.  I stuck my tongue out at him as Nevada took my hand and led me to her 'room'.  The kids ran  all over the place to the extent that there seemed to be twice as many of them.  Someone had cleared a space in the middle of the warehouse and hung ropes making a huge swing set.  Cardboard mats almost a foot deep lay underneath the swings in case someone fell, cushioning their fall.  I had a feeling Randy had a part in this. 

    
A shrill whistle sounded sending every child in the building towards the break room.  Ah, meeting time.  I noticed right away the bed had been removed.  Some chairs had been placed there instead and Clint, Mason, Lacy and Randy sat in the chairs while the children were gathered around Sid and Andy.  They were extolling the virtues of the cabin.  The children were hypnotized as the boys explained hunting, fishing and swimming in the hot springs. The new houses were described along with the cabin and the big kitchen and food in the freezer and the cow etc. 

    
A small hand would go up every once in a while but otherwise they just listened.  Sid motioned me over before the idea was put to a final vote.  I stood awkwardly in front of the small audience wishing like hell, I been notified before hand of this speech.  Mason looked at me, smiled and nodded.  That's all the encouragement I needed.

    
"This place would be your home, not ours.  We plan to return to Montana in June, so we wouldn't be there very long at all.  We'll help you learn all you'll need to survive on your own."

    
"Like what?"  The little blue eyed girl asked.  I couldn't remember her name.  My bad.

    
"Well, how to sew, can your own vegetables, sew  up a cut, how to skin a deer, forecast the weather, when to plant, how to fix the solar panels.  There's lots of things you need to learn.  You can play in the yard, chase the turkeys and in general enjoy being a kid.  It would beat living inside this tin can.  We even have brand new homes made for you so you can each have your own room and decorate it any way you want."  I looked at Nevada and she smiled at me and gave me a thumbs up. 

    
"We'll leave you alone to decide.  Come on Mason, I want to try out those swings."  We all trooped out of the break room, my heart in my throat, as I pretended to ignore the scene taking place in that small room.  It's a good thing I had Mason swinging me or I'd of eavesdropped.  Soon we heard clapping and yelling and I knew they'd made up their minds.  Nevada came running up and I nearly drop kicked her before I got the swing stopped and she threw herself into my arms.

     
"We all said yes.  I'm coming to live with you and play with the turkeys."  She tilted her head back and looked up at me with tear filled eyes.  Oh crap.  Not tears, I don't do well with tears.  I tried to smile back at her and then I just hugged the stuffing out of her.  She jumped back, grabbed my hand and said, "Come on.  Help me pack,"  and off we went to her room.

    
It all the hustle and bustle I hadn't noticed the two women sitting in the corner till Nevada pointed them out to us.  I walked over to them and asked.  "You're packed already?"

    
"No, we don't have anything that we really want to take."  Lucy, I found out later had arrived with the clothes on her back and judging from the sweats she was wearing, this was all she owned now. They were clean anyway.  Her friend, Angie, was in the same fix.