The Runaways

Chapter Five

Later that evening, around the time the sun began to sink over the horizon, we bunker down for the night. We made sure the boards we had nailed over the windows were still tight and strong, and then pulled curtains over them. I had to go downstairs and check to make sure the door leading from the back, covered porch to the outside world was secured as well. Then there was the basement-to-porch door, and the garage door as well.

Then Grandma gave Kat and I the task of nailing the wooden boards back over the front door. She inspected our handiwork and nodded her approval, and then ushered us into the kitchen. She handed us both some candles and a few matches.

Since zombies are attracted to sources of light, we have to shut off the back-up generator at night, to ensure they won't be crawling around near our house too much, if we can help it. Candles were our only options, as we could extinguish them at a moment's notice. Plus they were somewhat small and mildly compact, which was an added bonus.

"I'm headin' straight off to bed," Grandma declares. "Your mom's already sleeping. Don't make too much noise, ya hear?" she looks both Kat and me in the eye.

We nod. "Yes, ma'am."

She smiles, and then gives us each a kiss on the cheek. "Alright. Goodnight then, don't stay up too late. Charlotte Clavell's got some chores that need to be done tomorrow, and you know how she can't get around much anymore."

Charlotte's the neighbor next door to us, had known Mom when she was little in the World Before. Charlotte herself didn't have any kids, and she inherited the house next door when her sister suddenly died. She never married, so she's been living along for thirty years. She practically helped raise me, as she had to watch over me when Grandma and Mom had to make trips to the 7-Eleven, as well as overnight trips to the government-officiated market in the next town over. Charlotte was like part of the family.

Every time we tried to ask Charlotte if she wanted to move into our house, Charlotte would decline and claim she couldn't, or, rather, wouldn't, leave her sister's house for the zombies. No, she was going to live in that house until she was dead, one way or the other.

So it's up to us to look after her until then.

But I don't mind, and I'm sure Kat doesn't either.

"Ugh, she's gonna try to get me to go cold turkey..." Kat mutters irritably.

I'm positive she doesn't mind. Positive.

Kat and I sit on the covered deck (that leads off of the dining room, above the covered porch), using the moon as our only source of light. Kat's bundled up in a lounge chair in her hoodie, sweatpants, and her big, thick, army-green blanket she brought from her old home.

All I've got going for me is a ratty old sweatshirt and my pajama pants that used to belong to my dad. They're a little big, but they're a good length.

We dragged over a side table, and are now sharing a plate of stale cookies between us, figuring tonight might be one of the last night's that we can sit out on a deck, before the fall winds pick up and Jack Frost starts being a jackass to everybody.

Kat munches on a cookie, then looks at it for a second and chucks it out, over the deck railing.

I watch it hit the ground, and then hear a few collective moans escape the lips of zombies, hidden in shadow, scattered around in the back woods. Their feet drag through mud, dirt, and litter, up the hill.

I grab a cookie for myself, raising an eyebrow at her in the darkness. I speak in a low voice. "If you're not going to eat the cookies, could you at least not waste them?"

Kat looks at the plate of cookies disdainfully, and then she looks up towards the moon. Then she responds, in an equally low voice, "I hate Nilla Wafers, anyway. Your granny shoulda requested Chips Ahoy. Keebler's, even."

I pop a Nilla Wafer into my mouth. "I think they're good. Plus, they're cheaper than the Chips Ahoy and Keebler's and shit like that."

Kat sighs. "Always about price. Price, price, price. That's all anyone cares about."

"That's all anyone's ever cared about, I say, taking another cookie. "Not just now. Forty, fifty years. Even farther back than that. Way, way way farther back than that, y'know."

Kat is silent, and then she says (while tightening the blanket tighter around herself, "'Course I know that. But I mean, it's more strict. Life or death."

I let her words sink in, and I let the soft moans of zombies permeate my ears. "I suppose."

"Pssh, when our parents were kids, you could pick if you wanted a damn thing of Chips Ahoy or a damn thing of Keebler's. The price, for that single little splurge, really didn't matter...what mattered, was what you wanted," Kat fumes.

"That wasn't the case every single time. Sometimes people couldn't afford to splurge," I counter.

"Oh, I know," Kat responds. "But I'm sayin', just sayin', sometimes money didn't matter. When you went to a fair or a carnival, you brought enough cash to get any mindless thing you wanted..."

Her words make the world go blurry, as I let myself think about Grandma's and Mom's old stories; how carefree and fun life once was. How much all of that has changed.

I focus on L.T., lazily sleeping on the railing. His ears and paws twitch slightly as he dreams whatever it is that cats dream. The world shifts back into focus as I do so.

"...I guess," I finally respond.

Kat sighs. "I can only imagine what life's like in the city...you've got enough money to die happy, you have a dinner every night that's able to feed fifty people when only really meant for four..." Kat lets herself daydream.

I continue to look at L.T., not letting myself get caught up in her delusional fantasies. Only the rich in the World Before were the ones who were able to afford to live in the cities, and splurge on their hearts' desires. They were allowed to be delusional about the apocalypse. It was so far out of their minds, their kids and grandkids probably didn't even know it had happened.

Lucky bastards.