Next, Sue moves three aisles over where Cory is working on the large, fat zucchinis that will be used to make breads which will be frozen; or cut up fresh for pasta dishes; or baked with carrots and potatoes mixed with fresh rosemary and thyme; or Grams’s famous zucchini soup.
“This honker is huge!” he exclaims as Sue gets closer. She works behind him on the eggplant that will be used for Ratatouille and diced up to be frozen for winter use.
“Yes, they can get quite large, huh?” Sue says as she picks a rich, dark eggplant. She remembers back to when she’d gone to a fancy Italian restaurant with Derek when they’d first started dating. It was the kind of place he probably couldn’t have afforded on his military pay. But he’d always been good about making special date nights with her when he was home. She’d ordered eggplant parmesan, and he’d marveled at it. He’d never had anything with eggplant before. His mother had worked and knew her boys liked their meat and potatoes and, of course, pizza, so she’d never really pushed new foods, especially not vegetables. But in the end Sue had forced him to try it, and he’d been hooked at first bite. Funny the things a person remembers when the world goes to Hell in a hand-basket.
“I like the zucchini Grams makes. It’s weird how I never thought about where food came from before. We just ate whatever mom made or brought home from a restaurant after she got off work. I never even liked salad before and now I do,” his voice automatically lowers when he speaks of his mother. Em is still too far away in the aisle with carrots and cauliflower, but he is cautious around her. He’s told her that she cries a lot at night and crawls into bed with him.
“Yes, I know what you mean. Grams always put a big garden in when we were growing up, but after Derek and I got married and had our own place I didn’t have anywhere to put my own garden in. So I got the same way. Just bought everything from a store. But then this is so much better for you eating this way. And it tastes better, too,” Sue says as she plucks another rich, purple eggplant from its vine and wipes a bead of sweat from her brow. “They put a smaller garden in after we left home when it was just the three of them. Reagan was at med school, and they didn’t need as much. But, thank God, we put in a good size garden this year. And you guys came and we were able to still put plants from the hothouse in the ground. Next year, we’ll probably go even bigger.”
“I’ll help, too, Miss Sue,” Cory offers eagerly. He’s trying to prove himself, which is unnecessary.
“I know you will,” Sue tells him tenderly and places her hand on his. When he looks at her, his eyes are shy, guarded- just like any teenage boy’s. “You’ve been a great help around here. You and Kelly and Em are a really valuable asset to our family, Cory. We’re glad to have you.” Cory looks away, and Sue takes her hand back.
“Well, I’m glad we’re here. This place is cool. It’s like Little House on the Prairie or something. We had to read that crap in school,” he says with a scoffing laugh.
“Yep, and you fit right in,” Sue jokes. She notices that his black hair is getting unruly again. He will be a looker someday. Heck, he is good-looking now, for a teen. He doesn’t seem like he is going to get quite as big as Kelly, but he isn’t going to be a whole lot smaller, either. He is already about six feet or maybe even a bit taller if Sue had to guess. But he doesn’t have Kelly’s width yet. A couple of years on this farm might change that, though. He blows hair out of his eyes again. Hadn’t Grams just cut it for him? Time flies when you’re having a baby, tending a one and a half acre garden, fighting off assassins and trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic new world.
“We just need to give you an acre, a mule and find you a good old-fashioned Laura to marry,” she teases further with the Little House comparison. He laughs.
“Geez, thanks. But I think I’ll just take my chances,” he says.
“What? No Laura? You’ll find someone someday that turns your head, mister,” Sue tells him half serious. She knows from talking with Kelly that his brother didn’t have a girlfriend. He’d dated a few girls, played sports, went to school dances and had an old muscle car that he’d been restoring. His life had been that of the all American teenage boy. He had wanted to follow in Kelly’s giant footsteps and go into the military. But he’d always been kind of an engineering nerd, a whiz to hear Kelly tell it. Cory had wanted to design new military vehicles and possibly even new weaponry.
“Who? A zombie? There’s not exactly a whole lot of choices left, Sue,” he says reflectively.
“Well, zombies have their benefits, too. They aren’t expensive on dates- they can eat road kill! And you don’t have to pay for a movie- ‘cuz there aren’t any theaters left. And you don’t have to take her shoe shopping or to the mall and they don’t talk your ear off. Might bite it off, though,” she says and he laughs wholeheartedly. They spend another five minutes weighing the pluses and minuses of zombie girlfriends until Sue’s ribs hurt from laughing. It feels strange to find joy so soon after their neighbors’ tragedy, but to find any joy at all anymore is a priceless commodity. And she isn’t about to take it away from him. Arianna and Em soon join their cluster and then Justin. It doesn’t take long before they are all making zombie jokes. Grandpa even chuckles once.
“The guys are back!” Hannah calls out in her airy soprano voice from the open window above the kitchen sink.
“She’s better than a Rottweiler,” Grandpa jokes. It’s good to hear him make light of anything.
“You got that right. Our own built-in security system,” Sue agrees, and they look at each other and smile. Grandpa squeezes her hand, and she leans over to kiss his soft cheek with the prickly white whiskers of stubble peppering them. Together they all walk back to the house. She can hear the men inside- noisy, talking loudly, going on adrenaline alone. Reagan is sitting at the bar, eating an apple from the cold storage part of the basement.
“Hey, little Doc,” Kelly addresses her, and Reagan looks up at him and then back out the windows over the sink again. “Um, don’t get mad, ok?”
“‘Bout what?” Reagan asks tentatively with food in her mouth. Her hair is a tangled mess. She wears black shorts and a black tank top and that’s it. She’s obviously just awakened.
“Well, I sorta’ got stabbed last night,” John admits.
“What? You’re just telling us? Why didn’t you tell us last night?” her little sister fumes and is off the stool in a blur.
“We were kinda’ busy, you know?” John tells her sheepishly. “It’s ok. I stuck some bandaging on it when we came back here, before we went back over to the Reynolds place.”
“Stuck a bandage on it? Are you stupid? It could be infected. Where is it?” Reagan demands and grips her apple un-ladylike with her teeth as John pulls his shirt down a smidge over the back of his shoulder.
Grandpa has overheard the conversation and has entered the kitchen, too. Both of them are trying to look at John’s wound.
“Remove your shirt please, John,” Grandpa requests patiently.
“Yeah, dumbass, we can’t see what we’re looking at. All I see is shirt,” Reagan complains.
“I didn’t wanna’ make you swoon from the site of my manly body, boss. But, here goes...” John quips and gives her sister one of his full of charm and humor, white teeth showing smiles. Grams laughs. Hannah even giggles behind her hand, and Sue sees the faintest flicker of a smile on her grandfather’s mouth.
“Don’t be an ass,” Reagan complains at him.
“Reagan...” Grams warns, which earns her a roll of Reagan’s eyes. She’d best be careful, Sue thinks and shakes her head. Grams is working with a rolling pin on some dough, not smart on Reagan’s part.
John whips the black tee over his head, revealing a bronzed chest and rippling stomach and dried up patches of dark blood. He’s put on weight and bulky muscle like Kelly since coming to the farm. All of the men have. It is a good sign that they are persevering, that life is still moving forward.
“Hm, this is going to need sewn up, John. I wish you wouldn’t have gone over there before we cleaned and sewed this. It could infect. It’s pretty dirty,” Grandpa tells him, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “Were any of the rest of you injured?”
“No, sir. The rest of us gets a paper cut like that, we just ignore it,” Derek jibes at his brother. Kelly and he bump fists, and Grandpa chuckles softly. Reagan rolls her eyes at them, too. Her snide personality is equal opportunity and knows no bounds. Sue gives her husband a disapproving look.
“Come on, moron. This is gonna be fun,” Reagan says to John with an evil gleam in her eye.
“Uh... I don’t think that’s being very professional, little Doc,” Kelly jokes. “Want me to hold your hand, John? Get you a lollipop?”
“Thanks. Some friend you are,” John says and frowns. He follows Reagan and Grandpa from the room.
“Let’s do this in the shed. The lighting is good there, and I have it set up better now for this sort of thing. We won’t have to use Hannah’s room again,” Grandpa explains as they go back out through the kitchen door.
“Hey, sweetie,” Derek says and enfolds Sue in a comforting hug. He smells like sweat, dirt, gun powder and a few things she doesn’t want to think about. But it doesn’t matter. She’s in his arms again and he’s safe. They don’t embrace more than five seconds before Isaac wails from the other room. Derek chuckles.
“I’ll get him, Sue,” Kelly offers kindly. “You hit the showers first, and I’ll keep an eye on the little guy.”
“There’s a bottle in the fridge, Kelly,” Sue tells him and follows her husband to their second floor bedroom suite. When they are alone in the bedroom, Derek locks the door.
“Wanna’ shower with me, grubby girl?” he teases. It’s not exactly an insult. She’s covered in dirt from the garden.
“Sounds good to me,” she returns, and they embrace and share a weary kiss. Like everyone else in the house, they shower quickly. There is no such thing anymore as a long, hot shower. But at least they have short, hot showers. Probably not a lot of people can still say the same anymore.
“I’ve been thinking that maybe we should talk to Herb about building a small cabin out in the back. You know, past the paddocks? We could clear some of the trees out there. That spring is out in that area, too, so we’d have water. It’s just a thought, but it would give us privacy and we’d feel more like a family with the kids. It wouldn’t put such a burden on the house, either.” Derek says while he pulls on clean lounge pants and a freshly laundered muscle shirt from his drawer in the antique dresser where they store most of their clothing. If she’d known they would live for, most likely, the rest of their lives at the farm she would’ve brought more clothing for them both and the children. Kelly and John have it much worse, though. And so did Em and Cory. They are forced to rotate their only three or so sets of clothing all week long. The women have lent Em as much as they could find in their own wardrobes that would fit the little waif.
“I don’t think Grandpa thinks we’re a burden,” Sue corrects him. She pulls on an elastic waist skirt and a clean button down shirt. It won’t be much longer before she can fit into her old jeans.
“No, I don’t think he does, either. But it would ease up on stuff like showers and laundry, and it would give us privacy as a family again.”
“That’s true. I don’t feel like we don’t have privacy exactly. But I know what you mean. It’s not our place. And it probably would be good for the water situation at least. I think the kids like living here, though,” she says.
“For now they do until this place gets more crowded as the kids get older. If Hannah and Kelly have kids...”
“Wait a minute! What? What are you saying?” Sue exclaims in shock. Her mouth is literally hanging open.
“Shh, geez, Sue,” Derek scolds as he runs a comb through his hair.
“What? Nobody can hear us, Derek. These walls are thick. Trust me. What do you mean if Hannah and Kelly have kids? Did I seriously miss something?” she asks and takes the brush he’s offering and runs it through her damp hair. She swiftly ties it in a bun at the base of her neck.
“No, I mean, it just seems like...” he stammers. “I don’t know. Just seems to me like that’s where that situation is heading.”
“Has he talked to you about her?” she asks and sits on the bed while he looks out the window with binoculars. All of the soldiers in the house are this way. They don’t relax- ever.
“We don’t exactly sit around talking about our feelings, Sue.” His snarky remark irritates her, so she harrumphs at him. “I’ve just seen him lookin’ at her. You know- that look.”
“I only know that look when you give it to me. And I know you don’t sit around talking like hens. It’s just that I was noticing stuff, too. She was really weird last night when he came back with Wayne, and we found out everyone was ok. I think she held her breath for the whole four hours you guys were gone,” Sue tells him.
“Well, there you go,” Derek says as a matter of fact. He’s always been this way. Her man of few words. Maybe they are all this way. The bright sunshine comes through the side window in their bedroom and kisses his profile, bathing him in warm light. His brown hair has been lightened slightly from so much outside farm work over the summer. His biceps look huge, more filled out. Though he has a muscular, solid build there is a slight paunch in his stomach. It’s just one more, sexy feature in Sue’s opinion. His lounge pants hang low on his slim hips. How had she ever managed to get this man to notice her?
She leaves her downy position on the bed and crosses the room to her husband, wrapping her arms around his midsection. Peering over his shoulder, she can see the kids are back outside playing, and Cory is riding bareback in one of the smaller corrals. Sue kisses Derek on the neck; his skin is still damp. He rolls a shoulder and leans into her.
“Sore, sweetie?” she asks.
“Just getting old, I think,” he answers. But she knows that the last twenty four hours have been back breaking and incredibly stressful. Sue allows her hands to skim up over his pec muscles. “We were able to use their tractor with the loader bucket to dig holes, but it was still a lot of work hauling the bodies.”