Roxanne's Story - Vol. II: Survival In The Zombie Apocalypse
INTRODUCTION
The first publication of Roxanne’s Story (published in 2015) ended with her disappearance from an abandoned plantation in Louisiana where she and her small group of survivors had taken refuge for the winter. A search was made by her lover Lucky, her friend Brandon and pilot of the riverboat Jenny, and her faithful dog Mutt who had been her companion since the beginning of the second year of the zombie apocalypse. The search was abandoned as they ventured further into the bayou and knew that they were out of their element and could easily become lost.
Volume II begins with their return to the plantation without Roxanne and to report their findings to the rest of the group. If you have not read Roxanne’s Story of her travels, her attempts to secure a safe haven, her battles against both the dead and human dangers you will still enjoy Volume II. But you may not understand her attitude, her change in character and the core of her decision making process as compared to who she was before her abduction.
Volume II is my favorite journey by Roxanne. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it
DEDICATION
This is for my mother Georgetta Thir who passed away in August of 2016
AUTHORS APPRECIATION – VOL II
Special thanks to Brian Daniels in the UK for becoming my beta reader and offering suggestions to clarify the story; to Allen Hennigan for his assistance in designing the cover; and to Mark & Anita Gordon for their direction in self-publishing.
I apologize to my readers for the long delay in finishing Volume II. There have been so many disruptions in my life in the last 2 years with the death of my mother, moving to another location within Virginia and pursuing a change in career. There are more changes to come but I was overwhelmed with guilt that poor Roxanne had sat idle for so long, and my Facebook page was getting multiple hits by fans who were waiting for Volume II.
For those of you who are new to Roxanne’s story I suggest that you read both novels in order to connect some of Roxanne’s memories of her previous life in the zombie apocalypse before arriving in Louisiana.
I welcome all reviews, good or bad. You can find me on Facebook as “RoxannesStory2015”.
Chapter 1
Secretly Brandon was hoping that Roxanne had already returned to the Plantation. He wanted nothing more than to approach the home and see her standing on the portico, but it was not to be. As they approached the highway bordering the plantation everyone spotted them and started to run from the house toward them but slowed to a walk when they saw that Roxanne was not with them. Lucky threw his equipment over the picket fence then climbed over to pick it up and stalked off toward his cabin without saying anything.
Morgan saw Lucky’s reaction and asked Brandon, “Nothing?”
“I’m tired,” Brandon replied as he walked past Morgan carrying his backpack. “Talk to Smokey. Mutt, come.” Mutt followed but his walk was slow, almost labored.
Gretchen came up behind Caleb, Morgan’s son and put her arms around his chest pulling him back toward her to tenderly hold him there. “Anything at all, Smokey? Nothing? No signs of Roxanne at all?”
Smokey, a tall burly black man who they had picked up in New Orleans, looked at the group before him and wondered if he should be tender with them and tell the story slowly or to just blurt it out. “A lot of wrong turns, lost a lot of time.” He paused and looked down, not knowing how to proceed. “We found their first campsite. There was a lot of blood, too much blood.” Caleb gasped and Gretchen held him tighter. “Found some bloody bindings where she was tied to a tree.” He rushed the rest of it, “We never found a grave or a body and after the allotted time we gave up and came back.” With that he walked away toward the house, “What do we have to eat. I’m starving.”
In the weeks following Roxanne’s disappearance Caleb noticed that no one was talking to each other anymore. There would be mention of duties or reports of what had been accomplished or decisions on what needed to be done, but conversations were limited. They had stopped caring for one another as people but were still working together as a group. It appeared that everyone was withdrawing into their own world, afraid to grow close to one another again.
Smokey attempted to continue training Terry, a girl of about twenty years of age who Roxanne had rescued while scouting for supplies in Mississippi, on how to protect herself against zombies but Terry threw a fit saying, “What good is it going to do? We’re all going to die anyway.” Smokey watched her walk away and then approached Toby to remark, “I really don’t give a damn whether she lives or dies, to be quite honest.” Toby was captain of a tugboat and Smokey had traveled with him to New Orleans while Toby picked up stragglers along the Mississippi. It was Toby’s suggestion to seek shelter at the plantation after New Orleans was overrun with Z’s.
The dog Mutt changed his habits and began to avoid people. They would find him either under a shade tree at the picket fence watching the sugarcane field where Roxanne’s last scent ended, or in bad weather he would come into the house and sit at the large windows watching the same field. At night he would follow Brandon to the riverboat Jenny, but would sit on the levee watching the plantation and road in front of it. One rainy night it broke Brandon’s heart to see Mutt sitting out there but he would not come to Brandon’s voice. Brandon went out to the levee and tried to pick him up but Mutt returned the gesture with a growl. He did not go out hunting for rabbits anymore but would always show up at breakfast and dinner waiting patiently for someone to notice him. His coat became dirty and matted again as when they had traveled together across Tennessee but he would not let anyone brush him.
One day Mutt was at the shade tree when he became agitated and began to run back and forth on the road in front of the sugar field, looking down each row. Brandon and Lucky noticed that Mutt was on alert and immediately grabbed their staff to run out to the road. They tried to keep up when Mutt took off running at high speed down a row of dried sugar cane where they could see a zombie at the end of the row. As it advanced toward the house Mutt grabbed its pant leg and pulled it down into the dirt. Growling, he did the same to this zombie as to the one that wore Roxanne’s headband around its ankle after her disappearance. Mutt proceeded to rip its throat out and toss the bloody organs aside.
For a brief moment Lucky and Brandon stood there mesmerized as they had the first time that they watched Mutt tear a zombie apart, and then they noticed two other Z’s approaching and snapped into defense mode. They separated and each circled a zombie until it was near enough to thrust their staff through its neck and penetrate the back of its skull. Becoming bored and complacent with the act of smashing a zombie’s skull they no longer wasted time on using a knife or axe to double-tap.
They watched Mutt walk off snorting and shaking his head to rid himself of the zombie’s blood smeared across his face and snout. “I’m worried about Mutt,” Lucky said. “I don’t know if he’s turning into a killer and will become dangerous to us, or if he is suicidal or if he is going crazy from eating Z’s.”
***
Roxanne was jerked awake by the pain in her back and realized that she was screaming. It felt as if her back was on fire. “I know it hurts, girl” an old woman’s voice said. “Can’t be helped.”
***
Brandon looked toward the woods after he and Lucky had killed the zombies. “I don’t understand why the Z’s are coming from that direction. That’s west and both the marsh and then the Waterway is in that location. They shouldn’t be coming from the swamp.” He checked the clothing of the Z’s and remarked that their clothes were dry then he checked to see if any of them carried a
possession of Roxanne’s. “I thought perhaps they were being led here by the people who took Roxanne.” He walked over to the one that Mutt had torn apart but did not find anything that the dog would have caught Roxanne’s scent on.
Lucky started to walk back to the house, “Just leave the bodies here to rot during the winter. The day’s aren’t hot enough to cause a stink and should be far enough from the house.” He was about to cross the road when Larry gave a whistle from the portico. Larry and his wife Gretchen had been part of Toby’s group in New Orleans. Looking up Lucky saw Larry pointing to the north and turned to see that five Z’s were advancing from the highway.
Brandon had heard the whistle and came running up behind Lucky. Larry left the portico to come down to join them and both Morgan and Smokey came running from the house. They formed a line of defense on the road and then fanned out to each select a zombie. Brandon missed with his first lunge at the zombie’s neck and it was able to grab Brandon's sleeve of one arm. He kicked it away before it could bite him and, becoming mad at himself, he drew his knife and stabbed the zombie in the head as it spun away from him. Larry had brought his bat and was beating his zombie about the head and shoulders, but it was slow in going down. Lucky tripped his zombie with his staff and quickly jumped away as it fell at his feet. He plunged the staff into its neck and then went over to help Larry. Smokey preferred to use a steel pipe and was able to shatter his zombie’s head into flying pieces of brain and gore on the first swing.
Morgan had missed his zombie three times with his staff and kept backing down the road to put more distance between it and him. Smokey turned and saw that Morgan had let a zombie get behind them which wasn’t good and against all their strategy and planning. He turned and walked over to the zombie and in one huge swing the zombie’s head exploded in both large and small pieces of skull, splattering Morgan. Morgan gasped and looked down at his shirt dripping in ooze. “Thanks Smokey” he said with sarcasm. Holding his shirt away from his body he began walking back to the house.
The group went around kicking the fallen zombies to make sure they did not move. “Should we put them in the pool?” Larry asked.
“No,” Lucky answered. “Just pull them through the field toward the marsh. We’ll let them decompose out there.”
“Wait,” Brandon said, looking over to the levee where he could see Mutt coming back from washing his face and snout in the river. Mutt trotted across the lawn, under the picket fence and came over to the dead Z’s. He sniffed each one from head to toe including their hands and then went over to his tree to sit down and watch the sugar field. He would not move from there until dinner or until another sighting of zombies in the field.
Toby had come out of the house and was leaning over the fence. “We are getting a few more each day. Nothing we can’t handle so far but I’m getting nervous about it.”
“You said we were safe here,” Terry said behind him. No one had seen her leave the house. “We came here because of you. We’ve been here a month and all you’ve talked about is moving on. What did you bring us here for if you didn’t see this as a permanent place?” she accused. Terry was nobody’s favorite because she complained about everything and had never adapted to losing life as she once knew it.
Toby turned to her. “I was hoping that we could spend the winter here. Any place where you can stay for three to four months is considered a permanent home now-a-days.”
***
Roxanne could feel something tickling her face and tried to turn away but it was persistent. She lifted her right hand and was surprised at what little strength she had. She touched what felt like fur and froze in place, afraid to open her eyes. “Leave the girl alone Cowboy,” she heard an old woman’s voice say. She felt assured that someone was in the room and slowly opened her eyes to see the face of a coyote looking back at her. It was the coyote’s whiskers that had been touching her face. The animals head blocked her view of anything beyond that but Roxanne stayed fixated on the coyote not knowing whether she was going to be attacked. The coyote stopped sniffing her face and continued to stare at her. Looking into her eyes it licked its chops making a slurping sound. “Cowboy! What did I say?” The animal moved away but before Roxanne passed out again she was able to see the back of an old woman at an iron stove mixing something in a pot.
***
The weeks continued to grow colder and the pile of Z’s continued to get bigger. The last group that came through consisted of twenty and it was hard to handle that many at one time. Larry had been forced to shoot two of them thus reducing his ammo down to just four bullets left. And Mutt had become a hindrance as well as an asset because he would not let the Z’s pass unnoticed while everyone hid in the house.
“It’s as if his sole purpose now is to kill Z’s,” Lucky said as he watched Mutt go around to each of the twenty bodies and inspect them. “He smelled the campsite that we found. Surely he knows that it was humans who took Roxanne.”
“But he also remembers finding Roxanne’s scent on the zombie’s ankle. Perhaps he’s trying to pick up another scent,” Brandon said. “And this was my fault. I think Mutt wanted to herd them to the marsh but once he attacked and killed that one zombie the rest were getting too close to him and I couldn’t stand by and watch them kill him.”
“The groups of Z’s are coming closer together now,” Toby said. “This group was only five hours behind the group of ten that was here earlier today. And Smokey saw two groups pass in the night. Thank goodness that Mutt stayed on the levee and didn’t show himself to them last night. I think the dog has gone rogue and may need to be put down.”
Brandon quickly turned on him, “No one is putting Mutt down! I’ve been trying to let him work through his grief, leaving him alone. I’ll take more interest and action and start commanding him again. Maybe he’ll fall back into his habit of being a team player. In the meantime, let’s start dragging these bodies to the field.”
***
Roxanne felt someone put their hands behind her shoulders in an attempt to lift her. “Sit up girl. I can’t keep you alive much longer on liquids. Gotta’ get some solid food into you.” Roxanne opened her eyes to see an old woman with long grey hair attempting to spoon feed her. Her lips were so dry that she wanted water more than she wanted food. “Water,” she managed to croak from a parched throat.
“Well, that’s something,” the woman said, putting the spoon down and reaching for a bottle. “First word you’ve said yet, but I don’t think your stomach is gonna want water. I mixed this with Hichi to help your body make blood. The fever is gone, but we gotta’ get some solid food in you.”
Roxanne took a drink and found it to be bitter. The liquid hit her stomach causing her to immediately roll over to the side and throw up. “No, don’t pass out on me again girl. We’re in serious trouble here. Done all I can to help you but you gotta’ help yourself now.” She picked Roxanne up from the floor into a sitting position again and Roxanne yelled out from the pain in her back. “Here. Hold this in your teeth but don’t swallow.” Roxanne had a piece of meat shoved into her mouth and did as she was told. She found that sitting up exhausted her and that her breathing was labored but she took the opportunity to study the women whose voice she remembered.
She bit down on the meat and let the juice roll down her throat then she started to chew. The old lady watched her. “Good, good your stomach is settling now. Chew slowly and then you can swallow.” Roxanne was having difficulty focusing on the woman and could feel something pulling at her cheek as she worked her jaw muscles. She reached up to touch her face but the woman caught her wrist, “No! Not yet. It’s a poultice of Aloe and Bear See Root. I don’t want you pulling it off since I finally reduced the inflammation. Your back is the same, but more severe and I had to use Obolaria for that. Thought the fever was going to take you a couple of times but luckily I still had some Hohshish for that. But now, now you gotta’ eat and I can’t do that for you,” she put another piece of meat in Roxanne’s mouth
.
Roxanne had not taken her eyes off the woman since she sat up. She looked to be well into her 80’s with only a few teeth left and long grey tangled hair that she did not bother to tie back. She wore a long granny dress with a leather jacket over it but strangely enough she wore red glitter slippers. The old woman saw Roxanne staring at her shoes and began to chuckle. “Have a fetish for glitter shoes, I do. I put my boots over them when I travel the bayou to the market and take the boots off in the pirogue so I can wear my red shoes in the store. Got the nick-name of ‘Shoes.’ And what be your name, girl?” she asked as she reached over to put a boiled potato in Roxanne’s mouth.
Roxanne stopped chewing and stared at her. Name...name? She swallowed the potato and tried not to panic but felt her heart speed up with fear and confusion. She closed her eyes and began to gasp for air. “Whoa,” Shoes said sliding across the pallet on the floor that she had used as Roxanne’s bed. She put her arm around Roxanne who winched from the contact to her back. “Don’t go fainting on me. We still need to eat some more. Don’t worry about the name for now. Don’t push it. It’ll come. You’re still in a bad state right now.”