Why Garden, Mother?

Branches bend with bloom

Nature’s calm affects the world

Breeze carried scents cleanse

Chapter Nine

The neighborhood looks the same as we pull into the driveway. The house is perfectly still, and Mom’s front gardens, though full of thick, short, dark green weeds, are a beautiful array of colors that reach tall toward the sky. We all step out onto the driveway and slam the doors shut. It is at that noise that I hear a sudden frenzy of barking, Persistence, I smile. I haven’t smiled the entire car ride, as a matter of fact none of us have. None of us spoke on our failed journey home.

Persistence suddenly stops barking, and I see Tom’s head poke out of the top floor window in my bedroom. He waves and gives his normal happy-go-lucky smile. Things must have been calm here. I step out of the side door and stretch my legs. We all walk to the side gate.

In the backyard I no longer smell rot. Instead I smell smoke. Tom burned the pile of corpses while we were away. A small pile of ash remains next to an empty can of gasoline from the garage. I am not sure if this sight is more or less depressing than the corpses. We all climb through the hole to the kitchen one by one, starting with Carl, and stand inside waiting for everyone else to join. Mom is second to last with Dad bringing up the rear and giving Mom a little help up when she finally makes it through the hole. Persistence runs up and greets each of us in turn as we stand in the shadowy kitchen.

“Good boy,” I praise as I get down on my knees to pet him behind the ears.

Mom heads off to bed with Dad shortly behind. She hasn’t said a word since we left the city. For lack of a better word, she’s been acting like a zombie.

“I’m taking backyard watch,” Carl says at the doorway.

I rummage in the kitchen through the small selection of canned foods to make dinner. I decide on the palatable combination of corn and cream of mushroom. Carl crawls back out of the hole and whistles for Persistence to join him. The little ball of black fur scrambles past my feet and slips out into the yard.

Brian comes up behind me as I set the cans on the countertop and slides his hands around my waist. He kisses me by my ear and says, “I’m going to go take front watch, babe. See you for dinner.” His hands slide off my waist and he heads up the stairs to my room.

Tom sits down in the tall stool at the counter island and lets out a deep sigh.

“I’m so glad you guys are back. I was really worried, Zoe.” He smiles, “What happened? No one seems happy.”

“It was overrun. Mom got some good pain pills, but that’s it.”

“You look tired. Sit down, Zoe. I’ll cook.”

I smile at him and back away from the stove. I watch him cook. I feel the cross under my shirt. I send out a silent prayer that God watches over him, too, as well as gives Mom a miracle. I spot a lighter on the countertop and get up to light the few scattered candles on the counter. With the windows boarded up, cooking in the shadows can be a strain on the eyes.

“Brian has seemed a bit more protective lately,” Tom says, trying to be nonchalant.

I sigh. “I know. I think he’s having a hard time. His parents didn’t die. They left him, and I know it’s getting to him. He’s been weapon happy, and well, defensive.” I think of their fight in the laundry room. I remember the words, messed up your little flirting routine.

This world is changing all of us. Brian is headed down a bad path, Mom’s may end too soon, and I have no idea where I am headed. Tom finishes cooking, and even makes everyone’s plate, giving Mom a smaller portion and a bottle of water. I leave the kitchen to avoid any more conversation with Tom about the failed escapade and tell everyone dinner is done. Everyone eats in the living room that night quietly. There is a sense of disappointment and depression in the room.

The week goes by fine; there is no disturbance on our end. Although when I listen carefully enough in the silence I can almost imagine I hear screams and gunshots miles off, but nothing concerning to us…yet.

Mom has a burst of energy for a few days when the sun is behind the clouds. She puts on gardening gloves and a huge sunhat, despite the shadows and the two giant maple trees we have in the front yard, and crawls through the hole independently.

Carl is keeping watch out the front window in case Mom’s gardening should be disturbed. Brian and Tom both lay napping in the living room, and Dad is off checking all of the window boards for weak points. I crawl out of the hole to occupy my time, and Persistence follows me out. His tail wags from side to side and hits both walls of the hole on his way out. He is double the size from when I found him, and full of energy as puppies should be. He looks up at me and looks like he is smiling as he pants.

I kneel down next to Mom and begin pulling weeds in the front. She looks up at me under her huge hat and smiles. It is a weak smile, but genuine.

“How are you feeling, Mom?” I ask.

“Tired, Zoe, tired,” she pauses, “I’m sorry we’ve fought so much. I just want to get everything set before I go. I don’t want to leave you kids and your father in a rut.”

“Mom, don’t say that. You’re going to be fine. Geesh, do you have to talk about that?”

“Zoe, look at me. I am dying. It will be even quicker now that I have no hospital access, but at least by knowing I am going to die I have time to prepare. It’s almost like a blessing.”

I can only stare at my mother, as much as I want to scream at her to stop; I know she needs to say things that may otherwise never be said. Even though I pray every night to make it stop, and I won’t discuss it with my friends much because of that small string of hope, I have to let her talk. If a dying person wishes to speak, you listen.

“Zoe, when I’m gone everyone will need your help. I’m not asking you to take my place, but I know you. You are the type of person that no matter what happens you do what needs to be done. You are a responsible and beautiful young lady. If the world stays a Hellhole, find happiness somewhere in it, and if things somehow get back to normal, follow your dreams. Just keep your father and brother close at hand.”

“Ok, Mom,” is all I can muster to say.

“Whew, I’m tired,” Mom wipes her forehead with the back of her gloved hand.

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“I’ll keep weeding if you want to go inside and rest.”

Mom smiles, “Wish we had a freezer right now, I could really go for a glass of iced tea.” She slowly gets up like her knees have been bent on the ground for hours even though she has only been working for thirty minutes at most. I smile up at her and turn back to the garden.

It takes me a couple more hours, but I finally finish the front gardens by the house and mailbox. I even edge the grass to outline the flowers nicely. If the weather holds, tomorrow I may do the back gardens. I call to Persistence who has been napping under the small maple tree about five feet from me. He looks up at me then lays his head back down to go back to sleep. I whistle this time, and he hops up with his tail wagging.

“Come here, you little rascal,” I say as he trots over to me. I rub his head as I sit cross-legged in the sun, and he crawls into my lap trying to lick my face. I push him off into the grass and haul myself up, brushing dirt off my knees. I walk toward the back fence and Persistence begins to follow. We get in the fence and I turn to shut the gate when Persistence begins barking. I turn to shush him before something hears him, and I see him sprinting toward my throwing tree. I look up to see two figures coming at a slow pained walk toward our house.

“Persistence!” Then I whistle. He comes back to me with his hair raised along his spine; I pull out my big throwing knife and walk toward the fence. The figures look female, but I can’t make out features well in the bright sun. One is supporting the other, which would be strange for a zombie.

Maybe it’s a conjoined twin zombie, the strange thought occurs to me. Still I raise my thrower and take aim just in case. I wonder why no one has shot from the back upstairs window yet. Someone should have checked that post recently, but then I realize my tree must be blocking the view of the two figures. The girl who is doing the supporting looks up and sees me. She waves with her free arm. They begin to hobble faster. I raise my knife just in case, despite a friendly wave. When they enter the shade of the tree I drop my weapon.

“Emily! Lila!” I race to the fence and jump over in one fluid movement. Their normally well kept hair is frizzy and ragged. Both are wearing old plain t-shirts and jeans instead of their usually fashionable appearances and both are dripping sweat.

“Hey, Zoe,” Lila says. Her face smiles, but there is pain behind her gray eyes.

“What happened to you guys?” I ask. “I can’t believe that you guys are both alive!”

“You think you’re the only badass to survive this apocalypse?” Emily says. “I can kick some zombie ass, too, you know.”

“Hey, I love this and all, but can I please sit down now?” asks Lila out of breath.

Emily sets her down in the grass, Persistence barks at the movement from the other side of the fence. “Hush,” I say, and he sits down content that his master is safe.

“What’s injured?” I nod at Lila.

“Twisted my ankle is all. Pretty badly though, it’s a bit swollen.”

“Need some Motrin or something?” I reach for her jeans to take a look.

“Don’t touch! It hurts, and no I don’t need Motrin, not yet anyways. I just need to stop walking on it. So when did you get the dog?” She nods her head at Persistence who is looking at us with that panting smile on his face.

“I found Persistence in a neighbor’ house. They were dead, and he was near death so I took him.

“He’s adorable,” Emily smiles since a sentence like mine is commonplace now. “Is it just you and your dog then?” Her voice is grave.

“No, actually Carl, Tom, Brian, my mom, and my dad are inside the house.”

“Lucky bitch,” Lila remarks looking at her jeans. I’m not sure if her words carry spite or not. I choose to ignore it either way.

“So, shall we swap war stories or what?” I ask.

“You first, I kind of want to catch my breath for a bit. Lila is heavy as Hell.”

So I relay everything from the moment I left my last hour classroom. I leave out the details of how Tom rescued my sorry ass.

“What hotshot idiot was in charge of setting the hospital up for that kind of stuff?” Emily says, looking shocked when I finish.

“Not a clue, no one from around here according to that nutjob in the line. So how about you guys? How did you end up here?”

“Well,” Emily begins, “We both have English with Mr. Smith for 7th period, so when the chaos went down we were together. We were out in the hallway and booked it to my car since Lila’s was in the shop.”

“Was a piece of crap anyways,” Lila says as she bends down to rub her ankle.

“Yeah well, when we got to the lot all Hell was breaking loose. A group of freshie girls were screaming at a minivan their friend was in. Then somebody from the backseat ripped into this girls’ chest. Like literally ripped her open. One of the girls outside the van passed out and before her friends moved her because they were all too busy freaking out, Josh, you know the football one, was in his huge truck and ran the unconscious girl over. All I heard was the bones cracking in her chest. She woke up, and her face looked like she was screaming but her damn lungs were crushed. She closed her eyes only moments later with her friends screaming around her.” She can’t make eye contact with me as she gives this description.

“We bolted to my car after that. We were panicking. I remember hearing my heart in my ears. We got in and spent ten minutes getting out of the lot because of traffic. I was driving to go drop her off when out of nowhere, on the corner of Walker and Granger, some asshole T-boned me. He wasn’t going fast enough to kill us, obviously, but my car was screwed, airbags deployed and smoking. So we had to hoof it. The guy that hit me didn’t even check to see if we were okay before he sped off in the opposite direction, his front bumper was even sparking on the road.”

“We made it to Lila’s house in about an hour, the streets were packed with people leaving for God knows where. When we got there her dad hadn’t come home from work for over a day according to her mom. Then Ron, you know her brother, well he was packed and set out to go ‘save his girlfriend,’” She makes bunny ears for quotation marks in the air.

“He’d only dated her for a month,” Lila snarls at her ankle.

“Yeah, no offense, but I still think that was a dick move on his part, Lila,” Emily says. Lila stares at the ground. “Well, we held up there for the night because there was no way I was going to make it the ten miles to my house that night, and Jesus, I was sore after that crash. I mean nothing was injured, I just felt like I had done a workout for a week straight. I still have bruises. Her mom was going to drive me home the next day, but I guess some ass nugget siphoned the gas out of her mom’s car that night. So then literally as I was going to call home the power went out. Talk about bad timing. So we held up there for a couple weeks…then a few got in.”

“My mom was eaten alive, didn’t even have a chance to come back as one of those things. There wasn’t enough left of her.” Lila’s face is blank with wide eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Lila,” I say. Her mom had always been very nice to me when I came over, but I didn’t press for details of the incident, just as they hadn’t when I mentioned Tom’s grandmother passing.

After a quiet minute, Emily continued, “We didn’t really know where to go. We’ve been wandering around for a week or so. Most houses around here are abandoned now, plenty of food. We had a pretty bad brawl with a couple zombies last night. Lila tripped running away from them, thus the limp.”

“So anyway we were in the neighborhood and wanted to see if you were alive, I mean say hi,” Lila actually smiles.

“Well, I am. So you haven’t heard from your family at all, Em?”

“Nope, but I’m sure since I didn’t show up they packed up with the rest of the mad chickens. We have that cabin up north, less people, less zombies. So if I ever get a hold of a car that’s where I’ll go.” She is so optimistic I almost believe it myself that they are alive.

“Do you guys plan on wandering around like hobos until the Air Force starts nuking the planet, or do you two want to hole up with us?” I ask.

“Well since you put it like that…”Em trails off.

“I could definitely do with that Motrin now,” Lila stands up, using my shoulder as a prop.

We all stand up. I call Persistence out of his nap and we all trek in through the hole as the sun is beginning to set. God, I missed these guys. I say a quick thank-you to God for their safety.