“It’s nothing.”
“Melissa, how far away is your house, where the bus is, from the school?” I said.
“Ten minutes. Fifteen in heavy traffic. We’re pretty close. About three miles out on McCarren Street, by the hospital,” she said.
By the Hospital meant nothing to me. Ten minutes, three miles. That I understood. “How long have Gene and Andy been gone?”
Robert was outside. Had he re-animated? Was he a zombie now?
Dave looked at the clock on the wall by the door to the freezer. “An hour.”
An hour. “That’s not bad. Roads are littered with disabled vehicles,” I said. Getting from 9-1-1 to my kids had been a journey, as well. “It took us, what Dave…days to go just over fifteen miles.”
“That’s right, it did,” he said.
Melissa smiled. It was like she wanted what Dave and I implied to be an acceptable reason for why Gene and Andy weren’t back yet. It wasn’t. Not really. “I told him not to get out of that car. You remember. So it may just be taking a bit longer for them to get to the house. Once they get there though, he’ll be back in minutes with the bus. It’s just a matter of getting out to the house. That’s all.”
“I’m sure it is,” I said. “And I can’t wait to see this thing!”
This time, Melissa lit up. “It really is spectacular. When he was building it, I’ll admit, I did a lot of eye rolling. I mean, we work hard. We’re still a paycheck to paycheck kind of couple. He just would dump any extra pennies we had into making this bus. But I never told him to stop. It was his thing. It made him happy, so I just let him. I even helped building it, from time to time, too.”
Alley coughed.
I looked at her. Stood there motionless for a moment before I ran to the side of the counter. Kia took a step back. She pursed her lips at me. Not quite a smile. She looked about as apprehensive as I felt. This was going to be touch and go. Alley would need some prescription strength drugs to fight any infections that are associated with amputation. At least that was what I was thinking.
“Alley?” I said. “Allison?”
She coughed again. It sounded like her throat was filled with phlegm. I turned her onto her side. She faced the doorway to the cafeteria where Charlene still stood.
I patted Alley on the back. “It’s okay. We’re here. We’re with you.”
“Dad,” Charlene said. “Dave, grab my dad.”
I looked up from patting Allison’s back. I was behind my girlfriend.
Dave came at me. He didn’t question my daughter’s command. Part of me knew what must be happening. There was something I couldn’t see from where I stood. “Char?” I said.
Dave took me by the arms and walked me away from Allison. It couldn’t go down this way. Not with my daughter and not with Allison.
I saw Charlene come forward. She’d drawn her hunting knife. “Char, wait. Wait, Charlene!”
My daughter cupped her hand behind Allison’s head and thrust the serrated blade into her skull. I heard the knife saw through skull. With both her hands being used, my daughter could not wipe away her tears. Her lip trembled as she tugged and pulled until her knife came out of Allison’s head.
I’d done nothing. I didn’t save her, couldn’t save her. Cutting off her arm, having her pass out--it prevented me from spending last moments together. It stopped me from telling her I loved her. I never got to thank her for…for everything. I failed you, Allison.
My daughter should not have been the one to end it. That she was strong and brave enough was not lost on me, but the fact that she had to did not make it any easier. I continue to fail you, Charlene. Continue to fail you.
Ah shit. I dropped to my knees. Just, shit.
Chapter Twenty
1518 hours
While the others gathered supplies we could load onto the bus and stacked it by the door in the rear of the kitchen, I sat on a table in the cafeteria and just stared at the things on the opposite side of the glass. Dave didn’t think it was a good idea. The screaming that came from the kitchen the last few hours had stirred the zombies into a frenzy. I didn’t notice any cracks in the glass, but didn’t think it made much difference. If those things wanted in badly enough, they’d break through the doors. They just didn’t seem to realize that yet. Yet!
I was done underestimating the things. For whatever reason, they were getting smarter. They were learning.
Or remembering. Or, was it plausible to suspect…getting better?
“Can I sit with you?”
I turned away from the grotesque and animated death that faced me and smiled. “Of course, you can.”
Charlene sat on the table next to me. “How do we keep doing this? I miss my mother and Cash. My God, how I miss him.”
I laid an arm around her. She snuggled in close. “I miss him, too.”
It felt like weeks, months, but it had only been days since his death.
She cried. Hard. Her shoulders shook. “It’s going to be okay,” I said.
“It’s my fault. It’s all my fault,” she said.
I wanted to look her in the eyes. I moved away from the embrace, and lowered my head so that we were at eye level. “What are you talking about, honey? None of this is your fault. None of it.”
“You left me in charge of Cash. He was shot while he was with me,” she said. It took her a while to get it out. Her sobbing made it difficult to talk.
“We’ve talked about this, Charlene. You know we have. That was not your fault. And Allison was with you. Others were with you. There was a gunfight, and he got caught up in the crossfire. That is not something you can blame yourself for. You have to know that. I need you to understand that,” I said. I spoke sternly, but with a soft tone of voice. I didn’t want her to misconstrue the words I said by how I said them.
“And Allison,” she said, without pausing, without letting anything I’d just said sink in. “Allison wouldn’t be dead. You wouldn’t have had to cut off her arm, she’d still be alive if it wasn’t for me. If it hadn’t have been for me. That was my fault. Her getting bitten, her turning into a zombie…”
I was thankful I hadn’t seen it, her turning.
“Charlene…”
“I ran out there, outside. You and Dave and Allison, I put all of your lives at risk--”
“Charlene,” I said. This time, I used a tougher tone. I needed her to hear me, to listen. “You ran out there to save Robert. We came out to help, too.”
“You tried to stop me,” she said. “You wanted Dave to stop me.”
That was true. “Because I didn’t want you hurt. We’d all still have run out there to help Robert. You were right. You did the right thing. You weren’t putting yourself or your own safety first. What you did was selfless. I am not mad at you for that. I know Dave is not mad at you. If Alley were able, she’d tell you the same thing. You were not wrong to run outside and help. Not wrong at all. There is no blame being cast. Not by anyone in that kitchen, and honey, sure as shit not by me.”
She stared at me. Our eyes were locked. Both of us had tears. “I want this all to be over, Dad. I can’t keep on going like this.”
Fourteen, and she was at the end of her rope.
Then again, so was I. “We can do this, honey. We’re going to make it through this.”
She used the back of her wrist to wipe away the tears. “I just don’t know if I want to.”
# # #
It was not a super expensive restaurant. I’d made reservations, though. The idea of hitting a Red Robin for gourmet burgers and bottomless fries appealed more to me, but I figured I’d better step it up just a bit. While I’d done a bit of dating since Julie divorced me, nothing lasted beyond a few dates, or a month at most. I’m sure it was my fault. Plenty of the women had psycho issues. Red flags popped up like fireworks for many of them. Still, a lot of the issues rested on me, my shoulders.