As they drove up their hidden drive, Rosemarie could see the treehouse in the dimming light. Randy had cleared away some of the overgrowth to allow the cars to be pulled up to the cabin.
She cleared her throat. "Could we...um...not tell Randy about..."
"Yeah," Georgi agreed. "Alex, can you keep that to yourself for a little bit?"
The little head nodded. "Was that man okay?"
"Um...he had something wrong with his head. Something that might make him dangerous. We need to be really careful outside. Okay?"
"Yes ma'am." she answered.
They sat in the car for a moment looking at how vulnerable they were.
“We might want to think about expanding into the trees,” Rosemarie said.
“Yeah,” Georgi said, opening the door to get out. “Wish we had a wall around this place to protect us from...” Zombies. Georgi wasn’t ready to say that out loud yet.
“Like a wall around fort? It would take awhile, but might not be such a bad idea,” Rosemarie's voice was shaking.
“That would be a palisade," Randy said, stepping out of the woods.
The women jumped at his sudden appearance.
“Hi, Daddy,” said Alex. She scooted out of the car to give him a hug. “You stink.”
“We buried Uncle Levi," blurted out Georgi.
“Was he a zombie?” asked Randy.
“NO! He wasn’t. He was just dead. Old people die,” Georgi said as she grabbed Alex's hand, pulling her towards the cabin.
Once inside the relative safety, Georgi started checking and rechecking supplies. The panic was rising inside of her. She could feel it in her chest. That sick feeling you get when you know you have done something wrong.
She looked through the food and guns, and then she looked again. She grabbed her notebook and wrote down all the things that they had and did calculations. Many, many calculations.
She came up with the answer that they were screwed. They had enough food for a few days, thanks to whoever broke into Rosemarie's car. Jerks! And their water was going to run out even faster.
What were we going to do? How were we going to survive? she thought. Her stomach hurt. The nausea was rising. Her breathing became erratic. She felt like she was going to die. She had to make this sick feeling go away.
“Hey Georgi, take a seat and calm down,” Randy ordered.
She glared at him.
“No,” she said. “Things need to be done.”
She needed to make sure were they going to be fine. She needed to know that Alex would survive. Her brain wouldn’t let her rest. It kept going to the bad place. Remembering all the mistakes she had made. Remembering all the bad things.
Alex didn’t make a sound as she laid her head against Georgi’s arm. Her mother pushed her panic down. Fat tears started to form in Alex’s eyes. Georgi’s daughter needed her to be strong. She sat down wrapping her arms around Alex and pressed her face to top of the girl’s head. She muttered, “You are my good baby. Did you know that?”
Alex looked up at her through watery eyes and said, “Yes, Momma.”
“Everything will be alright. We will just have to be resourceful like Survivorman,” Georgi said calming down.
“He says don’t drink pee,” Alex giggled.
Georgi snorted and hugged her closer. Her kid knew how to make her laugh.
“Could I make a garden?” Alex asked.
“Of course you can. And I will help,” said Rosemarie as she sat down next to them.
“We'll need buckets, soil, seeds and a way to water,” Georgi said, glad to have a project to think about.
“We’ll need to get supplies,” said Randy, “We’ll get them from your uncle’s house.”
He tried to put his arm around Georgi. She flinched.
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