VII
Nancy eventually moved Liz to the bedroom and she laid with her until she fell asleep crying. She came at around noon looking shell-shocked and sat across from me at the table.
"He's been awake for a long time," I said looking out the window.
"What?" Nancy said coming out of a blank stare.
"He's been driving all day," I said, and Nancy stayed quiet. "I’m perfectly content to let him drive,” a pause “Come here.” Nancy got up slowly and sidled up to me on the bench. I put my arm around her, and held her shoulder tightly.
We sat in silence for a moment. As the buildings thinned around us the road was less and less crowded with stalled cars or smoldering wrecks. Most of the morning had been spent on an empty two lane highway. I'd seen a few zombies outside, coming through the trees—maybe having heard our car—but they didn't pose any problems.
"We're going to be okay Nancy," I said.
She exploded into sobs, and hung her head over her chest. "What the hell makes you think that?" she blubbered.
"Hey," I said quielty, "Hey." I buried my face into her hair and kissed her head. "I know." She kept sobbing. "I know I was, whatever with the kids, but I loved them.”
"I know but—"
"I loved them. But what?"
"Nothing."
I wanted to know what the but was, but I couldn't push her.
A few minutes later, despite not having stopped crying she got up and started looking for things to make lunch.
"Nancy, let me do that," I said.
When I got to her she was pulling a thing of cheese and a can from one of the boxes of food. I took her hands and slipped the things from them. She stood up, breathing in deeply and moved back to the table. I looked at the cheese, which had spots of mold on it already; it was room temperature. The can was navy beans.
"We've got to use that cheese," she said, "it's going to go bad."
I scraped the mold of the cheese with a dirty knife and made us both cheese sandwiches. Nancy ate hers sedately when I brought it to her.
It was early evening when the whole trailer jumped. Nancy, who had dozed off on the chair by the door, woke up with a start, My eyes went wide as a box in the bedroom came crashing down, and the trailer rocked again as the road seemed to dip quickly. I crawled my way over the table to the window and threw the curtain aside. A tree trunk whipped past the window; not two feet distant. We were on a field of brown grass on the side of a hill. I looked back at the highway behind us and saw above it the sun was setting over the trees.
"We're just pulling off the road," I said to Nancy as the door opened.
"How's it look?" she asked.
I turned around, Liz was coming out of the bedroom. Her hair was scrunched on one side, and I could just see in the darkening trailer her eyes were bloodshot pretty badly. "Actually, it looks really good."
Nancy blinked the sleep from her eyes flatly, "I can go drive, Joe. You've been up too much lately."
"Well," I said turning around, "I think you should both see this."
The trailer pulled farther down the hill and stopped. I went to the door first and looked out the window; all clear. I popped it open and walked out with the crowbar ready. Nancy and Liz followed me, and my dad opened the door. The long barrel of his gun preceded him coming from the car. I could feel Liz recoil behind me, and hear her grip tighten on the baseball bat that had been Kimberly's.
"Why'd we stop?" Nancy asked.
"Didn't you guys see—
"Lets," I interjected, "show them." He nodded his head knowingly and gave me a weak smile that turned my stomach.
I led Nancy around the trailer by her hands. She gasped when she saw the sunset, which was orange and hot red blazing through the clouds. Liz's voice broken quietly from behind the trailer. I turned as she crossed from behind and saw it, her jaw dropped, tears welling in her eyes. Dad squeezed his arm around her and she let out a sigh as a tear fell down her cheek.
I went to Nancy and hugged her from behind.
"I thought this would be a good place to stop for the night," my Dad said.
"Pretty open," I said.
"Oh guys," said Nancy.
My dad turned around "I'll going to get a cup of coffee. Then I'll get up on the roof for first watch."
Nancy pulled out of my arms and said "I'll go with you and get some food."
"You don't have to, Dad,' I said. "I'll do first watch, you've been up all night."
"I'm fine," he said disappearing behind the trailer with Nancy. "Just need some coffee."
Liz gave me a severe look. She turned back to the sunset a broke out in another bout of tears. Before I knew what I was doing I cross the feet between us and put my arms around her. She hung her head over my shoulder and then looked back up at the sunset and gasped. I rubbed my hand over her back, and she shivered violently. "Sorry," she said.
Nancy and Dad reappeared from behind the trailer. She was carrying a bag of bread, some cheese, and apples. My Dad was sipping from a can of coffee.
"Help me up to the roof, Son?" my Dad asked.
"Yeah," I said retracting from Liz slowly, her crying had lessened some.
Interlocking my fingers I gave dad a boost onto the car. It seemed strange to me that Liz hadn't said anything about Dad being on watch when the kids were taken. Nancy handed me dad's gun, which she had been holding reluctantly and I passed it to him. After I passed him the coffee he sat on that side of the trailer looking east at the crest of the hill some hundred feet distant.
When I got back to the other side of the trailer Nancy and Liz had spread out the things and started making sandwiches. I bent down and picked up and apple and took a noisy crunching bite.
Nancy spun up and glared at me. "We've got to ration that Joe!"
She looked back down but put her hand out, palm up. I put it in her hand and walked a little farther down the hill in a huff.
"—take so long to get out of the city...Anyway," I heard Liz say as I walked out of ear shot.
