Rescue: 100 Miles, page 15
part #1 of Rescue: 100 Miles Series
They reached home in the early hours of the morning, with Donna and Zack yelling out at the gates and waving. As those gates opened up, their community rushed to greet them, stunned by the tanks and the many vehicles that accompanied them. This was the rebirth of the settlement. From that day onward, it would thrive.
Days passed by.
Already, the plans to start extending the fencing were being put into action. Each night as Donna lay beside Zack, she would drift off to sleep knowing the village was safer than ever before. Night brought with it the occasional gun shot that punctured the stillness as those on patrol took out wandering undead beyond the barrier. Time healed everything. Bones mended, bruises faded, wounds closed up. Life returned to the new kind of normal it had been before – but better. The community was larger and stronger and they were heavily armed and twice as protected as before. The place would never suffer such a devastating raid again. Dan and Zack ran the place together, with Zack covering the barrier work and Dan's people sourcing materials and adding to security. But even as life began to take on a sense of settled safety and a welcome assurance of what was the new normality, Donna still thought about them, those two girls, out alone on the road, setting off on their big adventure full of teenage dreams. There were no dreams to be had out there, everything ended badly for those on the road...
Donna's thoughts were firmly with Layla and Kaylee and that car that had saved everything on the day when all hope had almost been lost. She had been in the kitchen, as splashes of bright colour adorned the walls – paintings made by Alice. She paused in the middle of making dinner, looked around as from the garden, laughter carried in as Alice and two of her new friends scooped up fallen leaves and tossed them in the air, watching them dance on the wind. Donna's thoughts were back in that day at the house when she and Rex had sheltered from the storm and Layla had asked her a question:
“What did you do, you must have been really good at something?”
At the time, that question made had made her heart ache, swamped with memories of home and her daughter's colourful paintings. Looking into the eyes of her husband as they shared a moment of love that needed no words. Hearing the sound of Alice laughing in the garden as she played with friends. Family, she had thought, that's what I'm good at. Being a wife and mother...
Alice was still playing in the garden. Zack was over at Dan's place, discussing the plans to extend more of the barrier next week. And Donna was still thinking back to the girl with Zombie Killer tattooed on her arm, out there somewhere with her best friend, alone on the road. Had they yet found out how hard it was to survive? Were they even still alive, or had they run into trouble they couldn't get out of on the day they had sped off into the distance, thinking life on the road was one big adventure? They were both so young to be alone in the world. Layla was just a few years older than Alice. Donna felt sad every time she thought about them, out there alone, running into all the horrors that lurked in this new and terrible world.
And then she was shook out of those thoughts as the front door opened.
“It's only me, Donna!” called a familiar voice.
She smiled. It was Elise. Her friend hurried in, picked a fallen leaf from her windswept hair and greeted her with a smile.
“Rex said we have visitors at the gate. No threat posed. I know Zack is busy with Dan so I thought I'd send you over. I'll watch the kids.”
“Okay,” was all she said, and she left Elise to watch the kids and dinner while she took her jacket from a hook on the wall and then put it on as she left the house.
The wind was coming and going in light gusts, sending dry leaves scattering. Soon it would be colder and the trees would be bare. Before the undead threat had existed, Summer was thought to be the best time of the year. These days, Autumn and Winter were best, because bare trees meant lurking threats were easier to spot. When the snow fell, zombie tracks stood out a mile even to the untrained eye. This Winter would be warm, too. They had fuel, generators. And we have each other, Donna thought, her heart filling with joy at knowing she would be waking next to Zack every morning, with no more threat of attack, no raiders creeping in to tear apart her family. Sometimes she looked back on that hundred mile journey and wondered how she did it. Or she thought about that building and that top floor and the fight that had almost killed her. Mostly, she just thought about how she had taken out the gunman shooting at Dan and his men, then heard voices from beyond the closed door and realised Zack had maybe seconds left. With everything at stake, she had found strength she never knew she had to kick open that closed door... She thought on these things as she crossed a small bridge over a stream, then headed through the village square, glancing over at friends who acknowledged her as she made her way to the gates. The entrance was ajar, and Rex was standing there, holding on to his top hat as a gust of wind threatened to carry it off and leaves scattered about the entrance.
“You'll never guess who just turned up!” he said with a bright smile, and then he grabbed the gate and began to pull it open.
Donna stood there, staring in disbelief. It was Layla and her best friend Kaylee. She stepped forward, greeting the two teenage girls who stood there side by side.
“It's so good to see you again! How did you get here?”
“We had a bit of trouble after we last saw you,” said Layla.
“We ran into a horde,” Kaylee added, “But we drove through it. Just like you did.”
Layla pushed her dark hair off her face as the wind ruffled it.
“We figured if you can do a hundred miles out there, so can we. So we turned the car around and here we are. Had to hit a lot of zombies on the way. Car took a few scratches.”
They both stepped aside, as Donna caught sight of the once gleaming sports car. A few scratches? The windscreen badly cracked, the side window was missing. The car was splashed with zombie blood, covered in heavy dents and a wing mirror was gone. As the wind blew in a gust through the gateway, the vehicle rattled and the driver's door fell off. Layla and Kaylee exchanged a glance. Layla looked back at Donna.
“I'm a good shot. I can hit 'em between the eyes. Like you said, I'm a zombie killer.”
“I don't waste bullets either, I always hit them first time,” added Kaylee.
Layla stepped forward, spelling out what really needed to be said.
“We need to get off the road. It's not quite how we thought it would be. It's hard out there! Do you have room for two more?”
Donna started to smile as she nodded.
“Welcome home, girls!” she said, and hugged Layla tightly.
As she let go, Donna felt the last of her fears finally lift. Here they were, safe and unharmed.
“What a beautiful car!” exclaimed Rex, looking keenly at the smashed up heap of junk that sat outside the gates, taking a step outside to look closer.
“It's wreck!” Layla exclaimed.
“There are no wrecks in Wonderland!”
Donna gave a sigh, taking Rex by the arm and steering him back inside.
“No, no, what did Dan say to you?”
“Something about not going outside. But that was Rex, not Hatter!”
“It applies to you both!” she reminded him.
Kaylee had just fetched bags from the car as Layla waited by the gate. And a lone figure stumbled towards her, dragging steps up the road with a look of hunger in its dead eyes.
“Watch out!” Donna called.
“I've got this,” Layla said calmly.
Kaylee lifted the bags from the car, glancing casually over at the zombie staggering closer as Layla ran over, reached through the broken window and took out a rifle. She aimed it steady, fired and hit the creature smack between the eyes with a clean shot as it fell to the roadside.
“Sorted!” she said, and then walked back through the gates with the rife in hand as Kaylee followed with the bags.
As the gates closed, Rex was speaking again, warmly welcoming the girls to the village. Donna stood there, watching the locks slide into place, blocking out the lurking threat beyond the barriers. For the first time in a long while, everything felt right – as right as it could be in a world gone to shit. As long as they were safe behind these walls, it was enough.
She left Rex talking with Layla and Kaylee and started on the walk back through the village. For the briefest time, she thought back to the one hundred miles she had travelled, fired up by the refusal to give up on her family, driven by sheer will to find them, and on recalling that journey, her bones ached and her muscles felt sore, as sure as the pain arced around her head at the memory of that fight with the gunman as her head smashed against a wall. But that was in the past now. They really are home, I really did all of that. I did it for them, ran though Donna's mind as she opened the gate and went up the path and entered the house. Soon Zack would be back from his meeting. And Alice would come in from the garden and then it would be dinner time. This place was a home once more, because her family was in it. Every mile of that hard journey had been worth it...
After Elise left and the kids went home and Alice went to wash her hands before dinner, Donna glanced at the time and realised Zack would be home soon, they would have dinner together and it would be another day they were blessed with everything that mattered in life. In that moment she paused to reflect, with thoughts no longer crowded with fear or desperation, because the journey was over. Now she only felt at peace, and thankful, as despite the hordes beyond the gates and what the world had become, they still had each other and that was all they really needed:
It's the small things that make life worth living, Donna decided, because they are the big things, too. Family. Love. Togetherness. All worth fighting for. Reasons for living.... Donna was feeling it again, all around her were the reminders that she really had taken that journey and overcome the odds to bring her family home. This house was a home again. Sometimes it felt like waking from a strange dream, to recall what had happened, but then she would remember it was real because she still carried the scars. Zack had just arrived back from the meeting as Alice ran into the hallway and called out, Daddy's home! Donna smiled, now reflecting not on the journey but its conclusion:
Reasons for living. I have plenty of those... I have my family back.
End
Riva, Aline, Rescue: 100 Miles
