My Beautiful Mother, Her Ugly Cancer

She tells my grandma what the doctor said

She had been given the date she will expire

She cries because of sores inside her mouth

She never has temptations to the fridge

She sadly says, “I’ve aged ten years in one,”

She sees the truth behind my lying eyes

She prowls the magazine to find a wig

She wants a shorter style to keep it tame

She asks her husband, crying, “Shave it off,”

She hopes the hair grows back before too long

She fights now mentally and outwardly

She looks to God to calm her troubled thoughts

I see her humor and her strength and will

I have her now and that is all I need

Chapter Six

He starts the car and swerves around the corpses. We sit in silence until we are off of the park property.

“Where are you going, Zoe?”

“Home?” I am confused.

“You mean your house is still okay and you decided to leave?”

“Yeah, Tom, it’s complicated. I needed to get away. Mom, never mind.” His gaze on the road softens. I don’t always open up to him, but he has known about my mom being sick for years. He always tries to be silly and cheerful when he comes over.

I venture, “Why were you in the park?”

His eyes remain on the road, “I was on my way to go check on my grandma, and my car was running low on gas. Every station I passed was swarming with zombies, so I kept going until I ran out. I started walking and figured cutting through the park was safer than walking the main roads. Then I heard your music.”

“Oh,” I pause, “I’m sorry. Thank you.” Then I remember, “Tom?”

“Yeah?”

“Your grandmother, well, she’s passed away,” I say softly. I look at him, and I feel a tear in the corners of my eyes. His face noticeably drops, looking defeated. “I’m sorry. She was a great woman.”

“Yeah, she was,” he replies.

There is silence until we pull into my driveway. I sit with my hands folded in my lap looking out the window, not daring to look at Tom. I hope to God they moved his grandmother’s corpse on to the pile with the rest. Last I saw she was rotting away on our front door step.

I step out of my car and he hands me the keys.

“Do you want me to drive you home tomorrow?” I ask.

“No.”

“No?”

“Well I have no means to make it to my Dad’s in California, and my Mom… Well, I was hoping to stay with my grandma.”

My throat tightens. “I’m so sorry, Tom. You can stay with us,” I look down at the ground. “You’ve always been a welcome guest here.” I hug him, but he doesn’t hug back. He says nothing to me and just begins walking, and I take the lead to show him to the gate instead of the front door.

He looks at the front door; Mrs. Shoe’s body is gone. He gives me a questioning look.

“Had to barricade the front door. We can probably still get in the back,” I gesture with my hand around the house.

I was right. Even though I have been gone for hours they left a small corner big enough to crawl through the back hole where our glass door had once been not boarded up. As we walk in front of it Carl pokes his head out with a shotgun aimed at us.

“Zoe! Tom! Get the Hell inside!” He ducks back inside just like a Jack in the Box.

We crawl through the hole. The house is dim. The sun was almost down when we pulled in the drive and now the few cracks in the windows only show a few gray lines and there are candles every so often on end tables, counters, and the kitchen table.

I only see Carl and Brian as I stand up inside. I can see worry in Brian’s eyes; they are wide and red like he’s been crying. He starts checking me up and down, and looking into my eyes with a flashlight. When he sees that I am all right other than dirt from my fall out of my car he hugs me so tight that my feet lift off the ground. Despite being sober now he smells my breath.

“You got drunk? You ran off and got drunk at a time like this? Are you stupid? I thought you were smart.” He turns to Tom, “Why didn’t you talk some sense into her since you two are so close?”

I’ve never seen Brian look angry with Tom before.

“Brian, I found her like that. She would probably be dead if I hadn’t found her,” Tom says with his arms crossed defensively. He looks just as shocked as I am that Brian would turn on him.

“I’m sorry.” That's all I can say, “I needed to get away.”

Brian’s look turns from anger at Tom to anger in general.

“You got cigs on you?” He asks Tom.

He nods. Brian kisses me on the forehead and says, “I’m glad you’re safe.” They both crawl out of the hole leaving Carl and me alone in the kitchen.

“So, you’re a dumbass, Zoe. Mom’s been freaking out for hours, and started lecturing me instead. Speaking of which, you should probably go let them know you are home,” Carl says leaning on the kitchen counter.

“I know,” and I sigh. This is just going to end badly. “Are they upstairs?”

“Yeah,” he flips open a pocket knife and begins cleaning under his nails, offering me no moral support. He’s pissed at me, too, though Carl isn’t one to argue or cry about it.

I trudge up the stairs at a slow pace. I swallow a lump in my throat at the top of the landing; guilt doesn’t go down easily. I knock on their bedroom door.

Mom answers, Dad is sitting on the bed’s blue comforter behind her.

“Have your fun, Zoe?” Dad says. His face is red, and his eyes are bloodshot and tired. His four words are scarier and more hurtful than anything Mom is about to say and she looks like she is about to blow; her eyes are bugging out despite her tired, sunken sockets. I almost wish I could turn and run again to hide my shame of running away when the family is under struggle. I should be tough enough not to freak out over a fight. I should be braver, stronger, but I just want to be a weak teenager, a little girl once more. I want my biggest problem to be my algebra homework. I’m tired of fights with my mom that may just be the last fight.

Mom steps out of the room into the hallway and closes the door behind her. It strikes me as menacing, like she wants no one else to hear the things she is about to say to me. She has a candle in her hand and she holds it by her face as she begins. The light exaggerates the creases in her forehead that were not there a year ago.

“Did you think that was funny?” Her lips shut tight with a snap when she finishes her sentence. I can see them twitching as though the next sentence is ramming against the inside of her mouth wanting to come out.

“No,” I say, trying to keep eye contact, but I can’t stop blinking.

“Zoe, I was so worried I was nauseous,” and here comes the guilt she has become so good at delivering. I feel my sorrow turn to fury in a split second for reasons I cannot even fully grasp. I should be sorry, but I feel nothing but anger. I can’t figure it out, and I can’t control it.

I doubt that was why she was nauseous, but I keep my mouth shut, and instead focus on the red lines in her eyes.

“Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again, especially now. That was one of the most selfish, idiotic things I have ever witnessed in my life. Am I really that bad, Zoe? You are sarcastic and rude and mean to me, and when I try to talk to you about it, you run away?”

“You were not trying to talk to me about it, Mom.” I am speaking too quickly, snippy.

“You deserved to be yelled at, Zoe.”

“You tried to hit me. I’m 18 years old, and I had a damn opinion,” I say as monotone as I can manage to stop myself from screaming.

“You are such an ungrateful bitch!” She lowers the candle by her side and begins to shake in anger. Temper lost already.

“Yep, love you, too, Mom.” Wrong thing to say, but it’s been done, I walk down the stairs to escape, she makes to follow me, but then we hear Tom and Brian talking in the kitchen.

“By the way, Mom. Tom is here. He needs a place to stay,” I say over my shoulder.

That has her mouth shut fast. She walks down behind me and enters the kitchen with me.

“Hi, Tom,” she smiles. “Thank you for bringing Zoe back. She decided to be an idiot,” she says. She sets the candle down on the counter rougher than needed.

I have had it with these comments. I am not the only person to get stressed out. I snap.

“I get it! I was wrong. I was stupid. Sorry is just never good enough in this house anymore,” I shout. I grab the same candle Mom was using off the counter and walk up the stairs as fast as I can without blowing the candle out. I’m just going to stay in my room until everyone decides to stop being an ass to me. I slam my door and blow the candle out. I take all the knives out of my pockets and off my belt. I get under my covers and pull the gray comforter up over my head and focus on my breathing.

In about an hour Brian enters my room. I hear him lay his handgun down on the nightstand by my bed. I keep my eyes shut, pretending to sleep like I did when I was a child, and I didn’t want to be scolded for being awake. He lays down next to me and whispers in my ear, “I’m glad you’re safe.”

I roll over and nestle in his arms.

“What’s wrong with me?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m a horrible person. I am a rotten daughter.” My words are coming out dry. I can’t cry anymore today. Once again this makes me feel heartless.

“No, babe. You’re not a horrible person. I love you because you’re a good person. You’re kind and strong.”

“You sound like a broken record, Brian. This isn’t some sappy novel where you tell me everything will be okay and on the last page you were right. She’s dying and I’m making the last years she has on this Earth crap.”

He is quiet for a minute, “I remember when my grandma died. I was really little. She had a stroke and was in the hospital for weeks before she passed away. I was only seven, but I remember my parents going out in the halls of the hospital with my aunts and uncles. There was a lot of yelling, a lot of hate spewing, but you know what? When she finally passed away we were still a family, we all cried together. So I don’t think you are that much different from the way most people react. Your mom knows you care, and if you want to make better memories, try.”

“I am trying. I feel so emotional all the time, yet when I open my mouth I say the wrong thing. What if I can’t protect her and she dies, and it’s my fault we fought, or worse something else gets her, and I was too weak to stop it.”

“It will be fine. Go to sleep, Zoe.” Maybe he’s right.

I say a silent prayer. God, now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Thank you for letting me be alive. If there’s one small miracle you’ve given me, that’s it. The world is falling apart and here I am still praying. Isn’t that faith? Shouldn’t you bless my family, my friends Lila and Emily? I think you should…God, thank you. Let Mom one day live a cancer free life. Amen. I fall asleep, and when I wake up I keep myself busy. I check the boards, organize the food, and help Mom when she gets sick.

In the next couple days there is a lot of euchre and solitaire played. Brian and I against Carl and Tom is usually an unfair round of euchre, as we make a near unbeatable team since we’ve played together so many times in homeroom and at parties. So we mix it up every once in a while with the teams to make it fair. Mom has much of her strength back now, well as much as is possible. She will play me in double solitaire and we will laugh at how extreme that game can get. For one match all six of us play extreme solitaire. Both Dad and I end up bleeding on the fingers from getting scratched.

During the next few days I watch some of the neighbors pack up and leave from my watch duty upstairs, their minivans loaded. I am not sure where they are going. Where is there to go? I see the Smith’s leave with an ATV hitched on their trailer; they have a cabin a few hours up north towards the tip of the state, in pinky of The Mitten if I can recall correctly. I wonder if they will actually have a place to ride and have fun up there; it must be deserted. Some of the neighbors are bolder than us and are out in their yards cleaning up, whether it is a few corpses or even gardening. The only time we go outside is to kill the occasional zombie that manages to stumble over our fence. Even then it is usually only Carl; me if he is on watch. Mom wants to go outside and work on her gardens, “before her strength fails,” as she tells us, but Dad will not hear of it. The remaining houses are quiet like ours, either abandoned at the start or held up clinging to the hope that the next morning they will wake up to their old lives.

I am on watch on Wednesday afternoon, looking out my window to the street below. I know which houses have been vacated, which ones have people holed up inside, and the ones that haven’t stirred since the start. Those are the ones with zombies inside.

The sun is high in the sky when Brian comes up to take my spot, “Your dad made lunch, babe. Go eat.”

I push myself out of my crouched position. It hurts. My knees crack as I get out of the position I’ve been in since before dawn. I head to the stairs and pass Tom on his way up to trade with Carl at the end of the hall for the backyard duty. I raise my hand and he gives me a high-five as we pass.

In the kitchen Dad and Mom are sitting around the countertop. I see two pans on the stove. I walk over and look down into the copper-bottomed pots: black-eyes peas and watered down instant mashed potatoes.

“I think you’re losing your touch, Dad.” I spoon some black-eyed peas onto the top of my potatoes.

“Running a little low.”

I set my plate on the countertop, opposite of my parents, and stand as I stir my food together. “Maybe we can go raid the empty houses. I’m sure they couldn’t have taken everything when they packed up and left.”

Carl walks into the kitchen. “I’m game. I hate black-eyed peas. I could smell them on the stairs.”

“I think that’s a little dangerous, kids,” Mom pipes up.

“Naw, I’ve been watching the neighbors leave. I know which houses are empty, Mom.”

She thinks for a moment, looks down at her potatoes, no peas for her, and back up at us. “Well, okay.” It must take a lot for her to say that. I’m a little shocked she isn’t arguing. She’s always so over protective.

Carl shovels his food into his mouth standing at the stove. No plate, and with a mouth full of potatoes he says, “Okay, I’m done, lets go.”

“Geesh, go get some bags we can fill up while I eat.”

And my brother takes off upstairs in a few leaps. He is back as I take my plate to the sink and set it down. He looks at me impatiently. I pat my pockets to be sure I didn’t leave any of my knives out this morning when I got dressed. He is already crawling out the hole by the time I double secure my throwers. Impatient. I roll my eyes and head out myself on my hands and knees.

He hands me one of two trash bags on the other side. I stuff it in my back pocket as we head to the gate.

“I think Mom’s trusting us more,” I say.

“Yeah, it’s weird. I almost don’t like it. It’s like, well, stop me if I’m wrong, but it’s like she’s making herself trust us so she knows we will be okay without her.”

I’m quiet, letting his words sink in, and they scare me. “The Smith’s left the first day, packed up their minivan. Let’s try them,” I say.

We walk the three houses down on the right side. It is cloudy today but humid. If I were in school right now I would be staring out the window in a gray boredom. Lawns are all overgrown, a foul stench lingers in the air when the breeze stands still, but the flowers are in full bloom: yellow daffodils, red tulips, and purple pansies. Carl heads straight for the front porch of the Smith’s and tries the door. Locked.

“Did you really think it would be open?” I ask sarcastically. He gives me a dirty look, but I smile back at him. He moves to the left and tries the window. It slides right up. He pokes his head inside through the white curtain before hauling his body up and over. I follow. The window is past my chest. I end up having to haul myself in. I scrape my stomach as I flop inside, and my feet slam on the hardwood floor. I get another dirty look for being so loud.

We walk through toward the kitchen, which can be seen through the open floor concept of the house. Everything in the house is white or wood. It looks more like a show house than a home people live in. Surprisingly, it looks like they left quite a bit behind. There is even a bag of jerky and canned soup, and not the crappy cream of whatever, but delicious chicken noodle and beef vegetable. I start filling my bag from the cupboards. Carl heads to the pantry by the fridge.

“Help me,” comes a weak male voice to my left. I look up and see Mr. Smith holding his young nine-year old daughter in his arms from the entrance to their living room. She looks pale and cold in her bright purple sundress. “Help me,” he says again. He is shaking so hard his daughter’s body is moving even though she is passed out cold, or worse dead.

“Mr. Smith, we thought you were gone,” I say. I look at Carl whose eyes are bugging out at me telling me we need to leave.

“Riley, she’s sick,” he starts crying.

“I’m sorry for your loss. We gotta go,” Carl says.

“Loss?” He looks down at his little girl in his arms. “She’s not dead. She’s sick!”

Carl tosses his head at me, and we start to back away. Riley’s eyes open in her father’s arms. Her head sways from her father to us. She decides. In a flash she is out of his arms and running at Carl. Carl runs to the window we came in; I know he can just lift himself out no problem. He even tosses his bag of collected goods out before him. It will take me time. I go to the only place I can, up the stairs around the corner, hoping I can slow Riley’s corpse down with the steps. I run up as fast as I can to the second floor, and Mr. Smith follows me. I drop my bag hoping he will trip over it. I get to a room at the end of the hall. It is a giant playroom, painted orange, probably the only non-white room in their house. I turn around to shut the door, and at the last second Smith pushes on it to stop me. I feel his body slam against the wood at the same time mine does.

“Please! She’s sick! Help me!” I push harder to shut the door. He pushes back and then I see a screwdriver in the doorframe. He managed to slip it in before I could close the door.

“Damn it!” I scream. “She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead!” I yell at him. I feel tears coming to my eyes. I don’t have a gun on me and I am panicking. I taste sweat on my upper lip. I am using all my strength to keep the door as closed as possible. Every time I try to get at my knife he pushes harder, and I have to put both hands on the door. Then I hear it. The shrieking. Higher pitched on her young vocal cords, but still sending shivers down my spine. I expect it now, and I don’t cover my ears out of instinct, but he does. He drops the screwdriver, and I slam the door shut and lock it.

“Baby, baby girl,” I hear muffled through the door. Then screaming. His screams. There is panicked pounding on the door, and I see little fingers under the doorframe, scratching with blood dripping fingers. I look away. There are tons of stuffed animals in this room, a creepy, scary amount, all staring at me, but they are all centered around the only window in here. I run to it and look out. My eyes sting with sweat dripping into my eyes. I wipe it away. I look out and see Carl turning the corner of the house with his bag. He is circling the house. I try to open the window. It’s hard to lift when my hands are shaking. I finally get it open.

“Carl!” I yell. In a couple seconds I see him run back around the side of the house towards my voice. “Carl!” I yell again, and he looks up. It is a straight fall to the bottom. He drops his bag and walks under the window frame with his long, skinny arms outstretched.

“Seriously?” I yell. He shakes his head. Then the shrieking is joined by a second voice now.

“I’m heavy!” I yell, and I jump.

My weight takes him down, but it breaks my fall. We both lay there on the ground just breathing. Then I start laughing, and Carl starts laughing. We laugh and laugh and laugh. It feels good. We laugh because we are alive; I jumped out of a two story window and I am alive and well.

The little girl must have broken through the door. I hear the shriek up above our heads and look up to the window I just leapt from. I see both zombies fighting for a look out. Carl and I scoot away on our butts. They are screaming and pushing against each other as they lean further and further out the ledge. Father versus daughter, corpse versus corpse. The zombies tumble out of the window together, and they land with a sickening crunch on their heads. I laugh again, this time as a nervous reflex. In its own sick way it is funny, but my nerves are on edge.

“Next house?” Carl asks after a minute of staring at the dead dad and daughter.

“Yep.” We heave ourselves off the tall grass. What else can we do except keep moving on? They may be dead, but we have our own to keep alive.

“You know, you really are heavy,” Carl says. I punch him playfully in the shoulder as a thank you. The Robinson’s next door is our target this time. Their front door is unlocked, and this time we yell into the empty house for a good five minutes before we venture inside. We find another trash bag and plenty of old canned goods and a gallon of fresh water and then head home with two bags full of supplies.

The next day we gather in the living room for a family meeting that Mom has called. Brian and Tom are upstairs on guard duty.

We sit in the living room. Carl and I sit on the floor with our backs to the kitchen, and I can feel a small breeze through our little crawl hole. Mom is in her blue chair that we flipped back after our patch job, and Dad sits on the rocking chair that people rarely use in the corner by the dead television.

Mom starts the conversation, “We can’t stay here much longer. You kids need to move on.”

“What do you mean, us kids?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

“It’s obvious I won’t be around much longer, zombies or not. Especially with my body as torn up as it is. I can only eat soft foods, I’m tired, and I’m slow. I have a chemo port in my body and no nurse to take it out. I would feel much better knowing my kids were safe when I pass away,” she looks somber. A permanent frown is on her face as she speaks. She sounds wise, but I think anyone in her position can sound wise when people stop to listen. They just rarely do, such as Carl and me as we argue back at her in a way to push the wise emotions away.

“Mom, that’s crazy. The six days are over; no one is going to be reanimated anymore so this whole thing will blow over soon. We can all make a trip to the hospital. The people there can continue helping you,” says Carl.

“Exactly, Mom. You’ll be fine. You’re tough, you just need more treatment until the tumor is operable,” I agree.

Mom looks down, that frown still etched into her face.

“You kids don’t get it,” Dad says. He somehow has managed to get the same exact frown on his face as he starts speaking. I am puzzled by this as I look up at him.

“He’s right. Zoe, Carl, even if things were normal I may only have a year or so left.”

“No, Mom. You two don’t get it. I know what the doctor’s said, but I also know if you think you are going to die then you will. I understand perfectly that they can’t remove a 13-centimeter tumor from a stage four patient, but worse things have happened and better things have occurred from dark times,” I say.

She looks at Carl and me with tears in her eyes. “Just promise me that you two will take care of each other when something happens.”

“Fine, but it won’t happen,” I say. I bite my bottom lip to keep from crying.

There is silence for a minute. Mom is still crying, and if my face twists any more I will, too.

“On a different note, Mom you are right. We can’t stay here forever,” says Carl next to me, monotone and dark. He has his arms crossed and is staring at the carpet so that his hair is hiding most of his face.

“It’s calm here now, but I’ve been hearing distant gunfire every night now for a while. Something bad is headed this way,” says Dad. Then we hear it, a plane flying low over us, the first one in days. I can literally feel the hope in the room.

“So Mom’s travel packs may actually come in handy then,” I joke.

Mom gives me an almost dirty look, but it’s half hearted through the drying tears.

“Why don’t we try and make it to the hospital this week. We have enough gas in the SUV, we have guns, melee, food, band aids. I even bet the hospital is up and running. They will be grateful to have a cancer patient instead of a bitten person,” says Carl. He looks serious when he does look up, a strange expression for his usually relaxed face.

I laugh, “Band aids? We have band aids, so we will make it?”

“You know what I mean.” He glares.

“Carl, you’re a zombie pro, in what movie has the hospital ever been a good idea?” I ask.

“In what zombie movie have you ever had your Mom needing a cure for cancer?” I don’t know what to say to that. I stand with my mouth agape.

“Kids, stop. Zoe, maybe he’s right. We can go check it out. Things are really calm around here, maybe things are up and running,” says Mom with a gleam of hope in her voice, and no one argues with her because no one wants the hope to disappear.

“Let’s leave tomorrow,” says Dad.

“Two days, I need to pack just in case,” Mom says.

“Pack? Ruth, why do you need to pack? We each have a back pack already.”

“Those are emergency packs. This is a trip, not an emergency. We will save those, and Brian and Tom need one.”

The family disperses, except for Mom. Dad brings her a yellow blanket and she remains on her blue couch and falls asleep, exhausted from so many emotions in one sitting. I swallow a lump in my throat as I look at the contrasting colors. Happy yellow and sad blue, it makes me sick.

I go upstairs to let Brian and Tom know about our plans.

I find Brian guarding the front through my bedroom window. He holds up a hand as I come up behind him.

He aims my .22 and fires. The shot echoes throughout the neighborhood.

“You actually found one?”

“First all day. It was alone.”

“Oh, so I guess the family is going to the hospital in town. Are you going to join us?”

“Are you guys coming back?” He turns around and gives me a blank stare.

“Hopefully, we need to get Mom help.”

“Yeah, I figured that was what your meeting was about. How do you think she is doing?”

“Hard to say. She wants us to leave her if we need to,” I say to the floor more than to Brian.

“Babe, I…” He trails off, not sure what to say, like most people.

“So you never did answer my question,” I snap a bit too quickly to avoid the silence.

“That sounds like a suicide mission. You guys will probably need my help. So I guess I’ll most likely go,” he smiles in a sadistically cute manner, which usually gets me to laugh, but it is half hearted today.

I look at him for a second and manage a small smile at his attempted joke. Most likely.

“I’m going to go find Tom,” I say after a moment of silence. I back out of my room, shutting the door behind me.

Tom is guarding the backyard out of the window at the end of the upstairs hall. I find him smoking a cigarette out of the window. He offers it to me as I approach.

“How many do you have left?”

“Last one.”

I shake my head at it. It almost sounds nice right now, but smoking Tom’s last cigarette during a zombie apocalypse will be horrible for my cardio and our friendship, I’m sure of it.

I sit down next to him, crisscross on the hardwood floor.

“We are going to try and make a trip to the hospital for my mom.”

“The hospital? Uh, Zoe, no offense, but you’re nuts.”

“I know, bad idea, but we need to try.”

He looks at me with understanding after a second, like the reason why didn’t click the first time.

“Are you going to go with us?”

“You’re not coming back?”

“Same thing Brian asked,” I laugh and his face falls a little. “We are planning on coming back, yes.”

“Hospitals are usually a bad idea, Zoe.” He sounds as apprehensive as my stomach feels.

I shrug and give a half smile. I pat my hands down on my jeans and push myself up on my legs to stand, “You don’t have to decide right now. We aren’t going to leave for a couple days.”

Tom remains silent, like he doesn’t want to seal his fate with a single word. “So, how are you holding up about your grandma?” I ask.

He sighs, “I’m doing alright. I just wish I had spent more time with her, ya know? She was unique in a crazy kind of way.”

I smile at him. He is still trying to be funny. “She was unique Tom. I miss her, too. Let me know if you need to talk, or if you decide to join us.” He is quiet. I lean over and hug him. He hugs me back harder, and I hear him sniff back a tear. I understand and walk downstairs. I don’t want things to be reversed soon, with Tom comforting me over Mom.

I spend the rest of the night helping Mom pack by running around the house finding whatever objects she decides we need, which feels like everything except the kitchen sink.

I go to bed that night feeling numb. There is no point in fearing something you have to do. I say my prayers that night, asking for something other than an overrun hospital, and of course for my mother to one day live a cancer free life. Brian is on watch again, offering me more rest, as I struggle to fall asleep alone.

The next day Mom sends us out to the neighbor’s houses that have been silent for the past week. Carl and I decided against telling anyone about the Smith’s house and how I almost died. Tom and I go to the Bales’ where we got the wood and the horde came from the first night. Brian and Carl go to Tom’s grandmother’s home. It doesn’t exactly seem fair to send Tom over to her house now.

We are all gathered around the kitchen table in the morning sunlight. Dad counts the shells in his pocket before heading upstairs for watch. We are running low. Mom begins throwing away the empty cans of hash we ate for breakfast. The rest of us load up with weapons and stuff empty garbage bags in our pockets before heading out.

Tom and I don’t bring any guns with us, just melee. We have been watching this house since the break in and have seen nothing, not even a curtain stir. Still we enter each new room cautiously. In the living room I see where they must have spent their last few hours as humans. The couch is flipped on its side like some sort of makeshift defense fort; a bloodstain is on the left hand armrest, almost blending in with the red fabric. The curtains are torn down and strewn on the floor for some unbeknownst reason to me, but I picture someone clinging to the curtains as they cling to life before they pass away with the fear of coming back as one of them. We leave this room as quickly as we enter.

It’s strange being in their house when they are gone when I was never in here my entire life before, so searching for the bathroom is a bit of an adventure in itself. We finally find the bathroom on the second floor next to a linen closet. In the bathroom’s medicine cabinet we find the mother load: ibuprofen, Advil, Tums, hydrogen peroxide, and even gauze. Mom will be pleased to say the least. On our way out we stop in the kitchen. It is where we entered, as their home is set up like ours with a kitchen and big glass door leading to the back yard.

I go into their walk-in pantry. It’s fancy compared to what we have. We don’t have a walk-in anything in our house. However, as soon as I open the door I smell something horrid inside, not so fancy. I look down and I see some sort of feces and urine on the floor. I begin to back up, and then I hear a soft whimpering. I pull my shirt up over my nose, and I bend down and see something hiding under a bottom shelf past cans of vegetables.

“What’s that?” Tom says from behind me.

“I think it’s a dog,” I say, not turning my head and speaking through my white t-shirt.

“My grandma mentioned them getting a puppy or something. I didn’t know they got it already. Is it alive?”

“I heard it, Tom.”

“Well, I don’t hear it now.”

“Don’t kill this dog before it’s dead, Tom,” I shake my head. Sometimes people can be so thickheaded.

I step around the mess on the floor. The bag of dog food is torn open and scattered all around the ball of fur under the shelf. The massive water dish is empty now. I reach my hand in and the lump doesn’t put up a fight. A black lab puppy is looking up at me as I drag the scruff ball out. He must be about 12 weeks old, and he is burning up from dehydration.

“Oh my God! Tom, he needs water!” I feel tears welling up in my eyes. He is thin enough that I can see his ribs through his black fur. His coat is dull and his eyes look at me with anything but puppy-like energy.

I pull the puppy into my lap gently, and Tom goes to a box of water bottles under their kitchen table. He pours one into a bowl he finds in the second cabinet he opens and sets it on the kitchen floor. I place the puppy right in front of the bowl. He starts lapping weakly at first, but then furiously after a few seconds. Thank God. He seems tired, but he can’t have been without water for more than a couple days or so judging by the giant bowl that is as big as him and the fact that he is still alive.

We finish gathering up a few boxed goods and throw everything into a couple black trash bags. I gather up the spilled dog food and put it into a couple Ziploc freezer bags. Tom carries the dog food and a trash bag full of supplies, and I carry the other trash bag and the puppy, wrapped in a pink towel due to the fact that he is in dire need of a bath, back into our yard. He is large enough that he overhangs on my arm, and palm, but he is light and I can prominently feel his ribs through the towel.

Mom goes into Mega Mom mode when she sees the puppy. She goes to the attic and brings down old blankets and finds two bowls for him. Within 20 minutes the dog has a nicer room than me. We used all the water in the bathtub up a few days ago. The only water we have left is bottled water we have scrounged up from empty houses and our own supply in the garage. I use wet wipes that Mom has had for years in the cars to clean the puppy. He sits calmly for the duration of his bath.

By nightfall the puppy is acting more puppy-like than the ball of tired fur he was earlier. I sit on the living room floor with one of Dad’s old work shirts and play tug-o-war with the scruff. He gets tired-out after about 20 minutes, but I can’t blame him after being so dehydrated. He eventually falls asleep with his head in my lap. The warmth from him is comforting. I need to name him; after all I found him so I should get the privilege of naming him. I look at his black fur and resting eyes. By this time Mom and Dad have gone up to bed hours ago, Carl is on watch, and Tom and Brian left me about 20 minutes ago when they realized I wasn’t interested in any conversation unless it revolved around the puppy.

“Goodnight, Persistence,” I say to the sleeping lump. I move slowly and pick Persistence up under my hands. He wakes up, but nestles against my chest just as quickly as he stirred, tuckered out from all the play. I blow out the few candles in the living room. I lay him in his bed in the kitchen and cover him with a blanket.

I sneak out of the room quietly. I need to find Brian and Tom; I am not sure if they are leaving on the hospital mission with us or not. I have no idea where they went, but I assume they must be in the garage, or the laundry room. I hear rain hit the windows as I turn down the hall. Then I hear whispers.

“Are you going to go?” I hear Brian down the short hall.

“Why does it matter to you?” replies Tom.

“Whoa, what’s with the attitude?”

“Oh, you know everyone I care about is dying. I don’t want Zoe to be next,” Tom says.

“You don’t need to go with her. Actually you have no ties to this family whatsoever. I’m not sure why you’re still here.” Brian’s voice is deeper and more menacing than usual, almost inhuman.

I am hidden just around the corner. I grate my teeth at their immaturity. What the heck is going on? Brian and Tom are friends, or at least since I’ve introduced them they have been.

“I’ve known all of them for years before you ever came into the picture.”

“Before I came into the picture? And did what? Messed up your little flirting routine?”

“You don’t deserve her,” Tom snarls.

Scuffling and a shove. I make my footsteps on the floor known. I hear them break apart as I turn the corner.

“Hey, Zoe. Did you finally put the puppy down to bed?” Tom laughs, but I can see the crumples in his shirt where Brian must have grabbed him.

“Yeah, he finally tired out. So, what brings you two to the laundry room?” I force myself to make eye contact with each of them in turn, hoping I look authoritative.

“Just watching the rain out the cracks in the boards,” says Brian, “Not much else to do.”

Then there is a flash of lightning in the distance. I begin to count in my head, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi. The sound of deep thunder. It is soft and rolling.

“Well, I came to find out if you two were going with us tomorrow.” I say, raising my eyebrows.

More lightning.

“I’m going,” Brian says, quick and terse. His eyes are burrowing into Tom’s red plaid shirt like he can set fire to it that way.

This time the thunder cracks loud enough to shake the house. I hear Persistence wake up and begin to whine.

I look at Tom, who seems he is about to reply similarly to Brian out of this testosterone combat, “Tom do you think maybe you could stay here and dog sit? I know it’s not a daring zombie adventure, but I would really appreciate it.”

He looks slightly crestfallen for a split second. Then his normal happy-go-lucky smile is back.

“Sure, Zoe. Well, I better go relieve Carl, my turn to watch,” and he walks out of the room with only the slightest shoulder bump between him and Brian.

“And Tom!” I yell down the hall. He stops walking. I stare into Brian’s eyes. “I hope you two know I’m not a toy.”

That night I pray next to Brian. He doesn’t seem to mind my strange position on my stomach with my hands folded. He must know. This week has been the first that we have ever slept through a night together in the same bed, but so far he has been respectful of my nightly routine.

I inaudibly mouth, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Lord, bless this trip with safety for all of us. Give us guidance, and let your ability to heal my mom be upheld with this trip. Let the hospital be up and running. Let Emily and Lila and my relatives all be alive and well. Take the drama out of all of this. Finally, God, let my mother one day live a cancer free life. I mean it. Amen.”

I roll back over onto my back. Brian is already asleep. The phrase, “You don’t deserve her,” runs through my mind. Where did that even come from? Tom and I have always been close friends, but I never told him when my relationships were tough. How could he know about our problems? About how I feel like a lamp around him at times instead of the girl he kisses?

I curl up on my bed. Brian rolls over and pulls me closer to him. I feel a smile slide across my face as his warmth spreads to my center and his sweet scent fills my nose. It is so easy to sleep with him here; he feels strong even in his sleep. Is that why we are still together and in love? Because we find each other comforting, attractive? Do I have an appealing scent like some gag worthy Twilight moment? Or is it because the guy I met cares enough about me to listen and make me laugh? Maybe I should have never gotten into a relationship. Perhaps I was wrong and should have spent more time at home.