“Pretty day, huh?” he said.

It really was beautiful. The horizon was painted with pink, lavender and gold. The indigo of the night sky was fading to a clear blue.

Grandma didn’t answer.

“Grandma?”

Ken cocked his head to peer at the older woman. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was slightly open. “Hey, Grandma?”

The old woman remained eerily still. Gradually, Ken realized that her chest was not rising and falling with breath.

“Grandma?”

Afraid, Ken reached out and touched her hand. It felt cool to his touch.

“Grandma!”

Scrambling to his feet, he knocked his breakfast onto the ground. He grabbed the older woman by the shoulders and shook her.

“Grandma, please wake up! Please wake up!”

Lenore stumbled out of the RV. “What are you shouting about?”

“It’s Grandma! I don’t think she’s breathing!” Ken exclaimed.

Lenore’s forehead creased as she hurried over.

His fingers slid over the old woman’s wrist, searching for a pulse. He was trembling with emotion and felt like throwing up.

“Grandma?” Lenore leaned over and cupped her hand over the old woman’s mouth and nose. Resting her cheek against the woman’s soft white hair, Lenore squeezed her eyes shut. “Grandma...”

Ken fumbled with the old woman’s neck, trying to find a pulse of life. His thoughts swirled in a panic as he realized he had never learned CPR.

Lenore sat heavily on the ground, silent tears streaming down her face. Her thick fingers closed over her grandmother’s wrist as she leaned her forehead against the old woman’s knee. “She’s not here no more, Ken.”

Ken touched the old woman’s face lightly, his hand covering her mouth, emulating what Lenore had done. He was terrified that she would suddenly snarl and bite off his fingers, but he had to make sure she really wasn’t breathing.

“She’s gone, Ken!” Lenore shouted. “She ran out of her pills and she told me she was having chest pains. She’s gone!”

Slumping to the ground, Ken felt tears welling. Cher wandered over, flicking her calico tail, regarding them with interest. “What if she comes back?”

“She won’t. She didn’t get bit. That was what the radio said does it. The damn bite,” Lenore grumbled, her face contorted with emotion. “She ain’t coming back. She’s gone for good.”

As Cher curled around him, purring loudly, Ken stared at the old woman he had come to love so dearly. Now all that remained was him, Lenore and Cher. Tito and Grandma were gone.

“We’re going to have to bury her,” Lenore said at last, her voice rough.

“Then what?” Ken asked.

Lenore shrugged.

Ken rubbed Cher’s thick coat as he glanced toward the rising sun. Usually the sunrise filled him with hope, but today, it filled him with dread.

20.

What To Do Next?

Caked in mud, Lenore sat next to her grandmother’s grave and stared at the sunset. It had taken her and Ken all day to dig the grave. They had only one shovel, so Ken had grabbed a steel pot. On his knees, he had helped her all day long, sweat and tears mingling on both their faces. They only took breaks to go out into the trees to relieve themselves and to eat a cold meal of ravioli.

Now it was done, and Lenore sat in silence between her grandmother and Ken. The storms the night before had made their job easier by soaking the ground with rain, but now the humidity and mud made Lenore feel even more surly than usual.

In her hand were the hairpins her grandmother always wore in her hair. Lenore had carefully pulled them out of her grandmother’s bun and arranged her hair like a halo around her head. It bothered Lenore that they had to bury her without a coffin. A bed sheet had been her burial shroud. Yet that was a much better fate than most of the world had suffered.

Cher stretched out on top of the fresh grave and yawned. The calico usually kept close to the RV, afraid of the great outdoors. Ken had kept her inside his home her whole life and the cat would flee to the RV at the slightest sound. One of her favorite spots was Grandma’s lap. Seeing the cat resting on her grandmother’s grave was strangely comforting.

“What are we going to do now?” Ken asked in a sorrowful tone.

All day he had been asking the exact same question, and Lenore never had an answer for him. Their food supply was diminishing and they had barely any gas in the tank. Maybe it had been foolish to stay put, waiting in vain for Tito to return, but Lenore and Ken had truly believed he would make it back. Now it was clear he wasn’t going to and her grandmother was gone.

“I think it’s time for us to move on,” Lenore said at last. She didn’t want to die. For a while she had convinced herself that staying put was the way to survive, but now she wasn’t too sure.

“Where will we go?”

“Hell if I know.”

Getting to her feet, Lenore walked to the RV. Cher’s cry of protest behind her informed her that Ken was following in her wake clutching his cat. Stepping into the RV, she lit a candle and set it on the table. Ken followed her in, set Cher on the bench and shut the door.

Lenore retrieved a map from the glove compartment. Spreading it out on the table, she studied their location. Tito had marked it with a small X before he had left. Ken slid into the booth and pet Cher while Lenore hunched over the map.

“Should we go to a big city?” Ken wondered. “Or to Fort Hood? Wouldn’t there be lots of soldiers there with big guns?”

“Lots of zombies, too,” Lenore mumbled. “Nearest town is Ashley Oaks.”

“Can we make it there?” Ken peered at the point on the map where her dirt-encrusted finger pointed.

“Not sure. We could try to go the other way to Emorton, but I think it’s too far out. We might make it part of the way to Ashley Oaks. Then we’d have to walk the rest of the way.”

“Walk?” Ken’s voice cracked with fear.

Lenore’s stomach was roiling with the mere thought of being out in the elements, but she didn’t know what else to do. “Well, we stay here and starve, or we try to go get help. Maybe we’ll find another car or a gas station before we run out of gas.”

Ken tapped his fingers on the table in a nervous staccato. “I don’t want to get eaten, Lenore.”

“Me neither. I like my parts where they are. I don’t want to be a zombie barbecue. But we can’t stay here. We need to go before it gets any worse for us.” Lenore scanned the interior of the small mobile home. “So what do we have in here we can use to help ourselves?”

“Revolver, a crowbar, a knife, and a frying pan,” Ken said. ticking off each item on his fingers. “We also have a CB that doesn’t work.”

“Tito said we’re out of range up here,” Lenore reminded her friend. A thought slowly formed into an idea. “We could maybe try to get into range. Call out for help. There has gotta be people still out there alive. This is Texas.”

“Yeah, the rednecks are probably doing great!” Ken’s grin pushed the fear out of his eyes. “We can call for help. Maybe the military will find us!”

Frowning, Lenore’s tired mind attempted to formulate a plan of action. It felt good to be at least thinking about doing something other than sitting around waiting for either Tito to miraculously appear or for the zombies to find them.

“How much ammunition do we have?” Lenore asked.

“Enough to kill eighteen zombies if we hit them in the head the first time,” Ken answered honestly.

“Then we better hit them in the head the first time.” Lenore tried to measure on the map with her fingers, estimating the distance to Ashley Oaks. They were definitely going to run out of gas on their way. “You ever been to Ashley Oaks?”

“Uh, yeah. The stupid ex would take me there for their Peach Cobbler festival. It was like this huge deal in that town.” Ken kissed the top of Cher’s head and cuddled the cat.

“Think anyone there might be alive?” Lenore wiped the sticky, dirty sweat from her forehead and rubbed her hand on her jeans.

Ken answered with a shrug.

“Do you remember there being any gas stations or anything like that?”

“Uh, no. But I don’t pay attention to that stuff. I usually read in the car.”

It would be a huge risk, but all that was left to eat of the food they had brought with them and Mr. Thames’s camping wares was pancakes and a few cans of soup and ravioli. Could they really just sit here and die? Neither one of them knew how to hunt or grow food. Lenore just couldn’t see what else they could do. Guilt ate at her as she wondered if she could have saved her grandmother’s life if they had tried to leave earlier.

Of course, they could be leaving the safety of their isolated haven to die somewhere out in the world of the dead. Lenore shivered.

“Are you sure we should do this?” Ken asked in a soft voice. He had been staring at her face, probably reading her thoughts. She hated it when he was so insightful.

“We probably should have done this earlier,” Lenore groused. “But we kept waiting on Tito. And Grandma seemed happy up here.”