Chapter 1: The one thing I didn’t think I would need

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I stared down at the tiny bundle in the old laundry basket and sighed.  I needed to go out and get a few things, things I had never thought I would need. I hadn’t stockpiled anything for babies, hadn’t given any thought to what allowing other people in here would mean to my hoarded supplies.  Now I needed to.

I sat back on my heels and pondered just how the hell I got here. A few months ago everything had been normal.  I was shopping for the perfect dress for prom, Brad was taking me in a limo that he had rented for just the two of us.  I was getting my nails done and bitching about my measly 100$ a month allowance.

Then the unthinkable happened.  I wouldn’t have survived if it hadn’t been for the weird old guy across the street.  He saved me, and a few others.  But now they were all gone and me and this tiny, tiny baby were all that was left.  Shaking my head I decided I didn’t have time to sit there and re-hash old memories.  Someone was counting on me.  She needed me. And I didn’t know the first thing about babies.

My family had been fairly well off, not rich, but comfortable.  I had never babysat, and I was an only child (and something of a surprise to my folks who were in their 40′s when they had me).  Now I had to figure out how to feed and change and whatever else a baby. All by myself.  But I couldn’t risk taking her with me, what if I dropped her?  And I didn’t want to leave her alone.  But if I left and didn’t come back she would starve, and if I didn’t go, she would starve.

I decided my best course of action was to put the basket on top of one of the old crates, and drag Anna’s body outside.  Then I could take the old red truck Sarge had left me and drive to that little daycare about a mile up the road.  While I was out, maybe I should try to figure out how to operate the swing bridge to the island.  If I could do that, I could leave it open and I wouldn’t have to worry about any of those things walking here from the mainland.  Maybe not, I would have to stop at the library too and grab some baby books.  Assuming they had any.  There might not be time, how long can you leave a newborn alone anyway?

Well thinking about it was not going to get it done so I put the basket-turned-cradle up on one of the big shipping crates where the things couldn’t get the baby if they got in while I was gone.  After checking to make sure the coast was clear I dragged Anna’s blood soaked corpse outside and dumped it the huge pit that Sarge had dug. I hopped in his old truck, carefully steering around downed trees and corpses.  Some of the corpses were up and walking around.

My first stop was the library.  I had worked there every summer since I was fourteen and I knew that there was a spare key hidden on a nail behind the “returns” box.  It was still there and getting in was no problem.  While I was there I loaded up about ten old Wal-Mart bags full of books, mostly baby books, but I got some books about guns too.  Sarge had left me an old handgun when he went out for supplies and never came back.  But I didn’t even know where the safety was, let alone how to turn it on and off.  I knew guns needed to be cleaned, I mean bad guys are always cleaning guns in the movies, but I didn’t know how.  I also grabbed some of the urban fantasy books I liked to read.  There was one series about a mechanic who was a werecoyote that was my favorite.  The library trip was mercifully uneventful.  No corpses here.  I knew I’d have to drive through a residential area to get to the daycare though.  And that scared me.

I drove slow and careful down Lighthouse Road to get to the daycare. In the last 5 weeks Sarge had cleared all of the abandoned cars off the main roads on the island so I didn’t have to worry about that.  The last storm had left a lot of tree branches and trash in the road though.  There were also at least twenty ambulatory corpses between the library and Rainbows End Daycare.  I tried not hit them, I was worried about hurting the truck.  The only thing I knew about cars was how to drive and pump gas.  If something broke, I was screwed.  I ran over one though.  I didn’t see him at first, I was to busy trying to watch all directions at once and then Kevin Anderson popped up from in the tiger lillies at the edge of the road and I ran right over him.  Before he had died I had HATED that kid.  He was the most annoying 4 year old in the world.  Always filthy and covered with snot, he was always crying. Like, constantly. Non stop.           I hadn’t wanted to hit him though, but his tiny body disappeared beneath the hood before I could hit the brakes.  The truck rolled over him lurching a bit, like a speed bump, I thought with a shudder.

There was one corpse shambling around the small parking lot in front of the obnoxiously purple building with the cheerful rainbows, now splattered with old blood and darker things.  I got out of the truck, raised the crowbar up, and walked straight towards it.  It was Mrs. Moody, my 9th grade art teacher.  She had two kids that went to Rainbows End while she was at work. I hit her in the head. Really hard, so hard the shock reverberated up my arm.  Her head crumpled like an empty soda can.

The doors were locked, so I wrapped Mrs. Moody’s gory sweater around the crowbar and broke the glass with as little force as I could.  I had to hit the window five or six times, each time I did I cringed inside at the noise.  The dead were attracted to sound.
It took me hours to get everything I thought I needed from the daycare and I had kill almost a dozen of my former neighbors before I was done.  By the time the sun was setting and I climbed back into Sarge’s rusty old red truck I was covered in dark brown blood and bits of skull and brain.  It was disgusting.  And I smelled like a dead cat left out in the sun for three weeks.  I was really looking forward to getting back to the old warehouse on the docks.

There were no more dead people walking around outside when I got “home”.  But the baby was crying, high, thin wails.  It sounded almost cute.  She sounded kinda like that dolphin from the stupid old tv show my mom had liked when she was a kid.  I took a lukewarm shower before I fed the baby though.  Sarge had rigged up these weird black bags that we refilled when they were empty.  He said most soldiers carried one.  I don’t know what they were called or anything, but they worked. It was just hard to get the sun to warm them enough through the windows.   But there was electricity from an honest-to-god waterwheel that the old man had rigged in our first week here.

I realized how lucky I was when I was scrubbing the caked on ick off my skin.  I had had a cast on my right arm when the world “went to hell in a handbasket” as Anna had been fond of saying.  Sarge and the group of four other adults had done pretty much everything without a whole lot of help from me.  They had made this old shipping warehouse on the docks rather nicely livable.  But one by one they all died.  From stupid things too.  Billy had gotten cut up feet from the rocks while he was out fishing.  His feet got infected and he died.  Mr. Rice went to the vet’s office to get medical supplies and came back with two dog bites.  He also died from infection.   Martha had an asthma attack that we weren’t able to help her with and she died.  And Ms. Giles hung herself.  After three weeks it was just me and Sarge.  And then two weeks later he went out and never came back.  That was almost a month ago.  Anna had shown up in the middle of the night three days ago when her little boat washed up next to the dock.  The sound of her banging on the doors had almost made me pee my pants.  She had never told me how she wound up all alone, pregnant on a boat in the middle of nowhere.   But I was really lucky to have a roof over my head, running water, and tons of stockpiled food.  Not to mention electricity to cook it with.

After my shower I curled up on the couch with the tiny baby and fed her a bottle, carefully following all the direction in the “Your Newborn and You” book.  It was a lot harder than it looked.  But the baby was quiet and small and so cute.  Even if her head was shaped really funny from the birth.  I stared down at her and sighed again.  How the fuck was I supposed to protect her from crazed flesh eating corpses, winter storms, and everything else?