Rosemarie and Georgi unloaded the rest of the stuff from the car. Alex was in charge of making sure Murphy didn’t run off after a rabbit.
The women unpacked the car and sprawled the bulk of their luggage across the front porch. Finding an opportunity to take a break from the heat, they decided to explore the cabin. They felt instant relief as they entered.
Georgi stopped just inside the door to allow her eyes time to adjust to the light. It had been years since she had entered this place. Tiny streams of sunlight poured through the cracks around the boarded up windows. Dust motes danced through the air landing on cobweb coated piles of stored junk.
The front room had a stone fireplace to one side that hadn’t seen use in many years. A small room at the back of the house might have been the master bedroom. A steep staircase fitted with a door led to the upper floor. A dirty, junk filled a loft that had been a place for the children to sleep.
Alex stepped to the middle of the room with her arms pressed around her. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“No bathroom. There is an outhouse,” said her mother.
“Is there spiders?” she asked.
“Uhhh...there might be. I’ll help you check.” Georgi said stepping near her and putting an arm around her shoulder.
“Make sure you get them all,” Rosemarie said from the door. “or we’ll both be screaming every time we have to go.”
Alex giggled nervously. Her eyes shifted around the room searching each crevice and crack for the insects.
“Let’s go clean up the outhouse, then we’ll clean up stuff in here.” Georgi took her hand and led her outside.
After they’d finished with that chore, they began the exhausting process of getting the cabin into shape. As they moved stuff outside, Randy wandered back stinking like weed.
His bloodshot eyes scanned the inside. “Can I make a suggestion?”
Rosemarie put her hands on her hips. “I don’t know, can you?”
“Stack that stuff along the sides of the cabin,” he said, ignoring her comment. “When the zombies come, they’ll knock it over and the noise will wake us up.”
Rosemarie’s face had you gotta be kidding me written all over it. Zombies always zombie, she thought.
“As good a place as any, I suppose,” Georgi said.
They moved the junk outside and lined it along the walls, as Randy had suggested, and set up the tents inside after the main floor was clear.
"I told you buying both tents was a good idea, just like I told you there were zombies." Randy said as he walked back outside mumbling, "I was right."
Georgi rolled her eyes and continued unrolling the sleeping bags. “This’ll be like camping,” she said to Alex.
The little girl smiled and said, “Yes, and I don’t have to worry about the spiders.”
Rosemarie threw her arms up in the air. “Praise be!”
Well at least she’s keeping a light mood, Georgi thought. “Alex, are you hungry?”
She nodded.
“Okay, I think we’d better make something to eat,” Georgi said.
She and Alex rummaged through their stuff looking for the food supplies. She had packed quite a bit, but much of it had gotten left behind in Rosemarie’s car. She was glad to see that both ice chests made it to the cabin. Inside were a few things that wouldn’t keep well in the Alabama heat.
Finding one of the bags of beef jerky, she handed Alex a piece and a bottle of water to keep her until dinner.
“Rosemarie,” she called out, “What do you think we should eat tonight? Peanut butter sandwiches or leftovers? I don’t feel like cookin’ and we don’t have all the pots with us anyway.”
“Leftover what?” said Rosemarie from inside her tent.
“Ramen.”
“Ramen sounds good to me” Rosemarie said coming out of her tent.
Georgi passed her the Tupperware. “If we were gonna stay here for any real length of time, we’re gonna have to go get more food. We’ve got about one week's worth and that’s including the stuff we left in your car.”
"Thanks to me!" Randy yelled from outside.
"Dear lord," Rosemarie started massaging her temples. “How does he do that?” she whispered.
“Heaven knows,” Georgi answered.
The food that Randy was claiming responsibility for, was freeze dried emergency food that he'd put in ages ago for an alien invasion or something like that.
Georgi liked to plan, but not like Randy. She planned for more realistic things like hurricanes or power outages. Sometimes she'd forget what she was planning, so she kept a journal for her ideas.
She pulled it out of her backpack and thumbed through it.
"Water distillery," she said to no one in particular. "That's what the Plexiglas and copper tubing were for..."
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