Finding Hope

Chapter 3

It had been a rather uncomfortable night sleeping on the old coffee shop floor where all the dust sat. There was a room in the back with a very old couch, but it was the best Lorelei could find for her two older kids to rest on. She sat in an office chair that could recline backwards, so it wasn't that bad.

She pushed the old recliner into the main room, keeping that door open so she could see her kids. She sat in it and reclined it back. Thankfully the baby would sleep soundly wherever she was, and the spot that made the most sense was right on Lorelei, swaddled up for security.

The woman laid there, the coffee shop in full silence, slightly rocking to keep Hope comfortable. Everyone was safe and asleep, but here she was.

She couldn't rest knowing that outside would be more dangerous. She knew that door would hold until the morning, and they would have to be on the road again. More bad stuff was always around the corner.

Honestly, she was terrified to think about going back out there. They barely made it inside as it was, with force of course. She was paranoid and exhausted about it all.

She needed to keep them safe. That was her utmost responsibility as their mother, to help raise them so they grew up into amazing adults. But now add survival in the mix?

Whatever confidence she had in herself was slim and she couldn't be confident that she could do this. 3 kids, an infant and two young children. She was way in over her head here. This would be too much.

The aching in her shoulders and back consisted, thanking her with the slightly comfortable position she was in now. She drew a long, heavy breath like she could still feel the weight of that backpack she was forced to carry. If you tripled that weight, that was the pressure and fear she felt at the moment.

She thought about John and how his phone cut out seconds before everything else in the world went dark. How he was supposed to take the kids for a whole week. If he had, would they be alive? Did John ever have what it took to take care of them in a world like this?

Yeah he was scrawny and tall, but she wasn't talking about physical strength. She meant more mentally. Willpower. The determination of a mother to do anything to keep her babies alive.

Maybe in a way it was good that she ended up here with them instead of John. He would've surely had a mental breakdown.

She wished he were here with her. And not somewhere unknown where he could be dead or alive. Sure, they had differences and it drove them apart before. And all she wanted was to be held by him and told everything would be alright.

His deep, gravelly voice rang in her ear from when they would wake up together and have coffee and just talk. About life, everything in between. She missed that.

Now all she had were memories, hopes, dreams to remember him. And sadly, for now, that had to be enough for now. His memory, her willpower.

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Then the morning came…

Lorelei had to wake the kids up as dawn was breaking through the cardboard covers on the windows ever so slightly. She wanted them to get rest since so much happened yesterday, but sleeping too long would mean not getting a headstart.

A head start to where? She couldn’t figure that out quite yet, but one goal she had in mind was getting out of the city. Finding somewhere to stay that didn’t have dead people knocking on the doors. That seemed like a pretty good plan.

One by one she got the kiddos up, and opened up a can of spaghettios for each, that would have to be their breakfast. She used the kitchen knife she grabbed from the apartment before she left, pretty luck to have grabbed that.

She never realized before that she would need a weapon, and not just for opening canned goods. For defending herself. And soon enough, they would have to learn too. She sat on the floor with the kids as they ate, asking them a question.

“How’d you sleep last night? Alright? Bad?” Emily yawned into her spaghettios and shrugged her shoulders. She swallowed her bite and answered tiredly, “It was okay. Not that comfortable though.” She glared at her brother as if maybe he had partly to do with that.

Chris grumbled under the glare and retaliated in sleepy annoyance, “There wasn’t a lot of room! I had to put my legs somewhere..” He huffed and stuffed his face with food.

Emily rolled her eyes in disbelief and shot back at her brother, “Your feet were practically in my face. I kept having to move them away so I could have enough room to fall asleep!” Lorelei frowned a bit at her tiredly arguing kids and decided to intervene, she felt bad that their sleeping conditions were reduced to an office chair and very old sofa, they needed more than that.

But right now she had to show them to be grateful for what they were given, because it wasn’t much but it could’ve definitely been a whole lot worse, “Hey guys, the couch wasn’t that big to begin with so you knew you would have to squeeze in and make do.” She sighed softly and sympathetically, “I know it’s not ideal to be staying in an abandoned building. But after we leave, who knows if we’ll be as fortunate?”

Chris had a worried look on his face, his can being set on the ground, “D-Do we have to leave though….?” Emily wondered the same thing, any irritation she had washed away into anxiety.

Lorelei ran her hand through her hair and rubbed her face. They had no choice but to leave, they had food but it would be limited, and they were still in the heart of Topeka. They needed to get a distance away and hope the countryside was better off than this, “I’m sorry sweetie… It- might not be safe much longer… It’s better if we keep moving.”

It was clear neither of them wanted to leave the temporary protection of the coffee shop, but they listened. Finishing breakfast while also giving their mother enough time to breastfeed for Hope. After about five minutes, everything was together, the absurdly heavy backpack on Lorelei’s back.

But this time, she also had the kitchen knife in her hand. She and Emily got the chair off of the door, slowly opening it as quietly as they could. The door squeaked with age and she shielded her eyes for just a second from the sunlight. They were in that fully covered coffee shop all night so this was the first sign of light in over 6 hours.

She opened her eyes and let them adjust before getting the kids and her moving down another street. The dead people were gone from yesterday, she didn’t know where they went. But she was mostly glad for that. They were so freaky.

The three of them quickly walked, going towards the upper parts of the city. Being sort of stealthy but it was also hard with this many little bodies. She got them to the other end of the street without being spotted, her eyes constantly scanning the area with a sense of paranoia just to make sure.

There wasn’t anywhere to go yet, no building’s she could deem safe enough to hide in yet. She realized though, that they were coming up on John’s neighborhood. He lived in the upper part of the city because of his job at one of the offices. He did administrative work, made sure computers were running correctly.

She noticed the tall office building in the distance, they were getting close. She didn’t know if this would give her a chance to find him or to say goodbye. She hoped for the first option. They had to cross to the next street over, but were stopped by a dead person walking about, sluggishly not that far from them. She stopped the kids in their tracks and made them back up just a bit, holding onto each other.

She moved forward towards the dead person, her heart thumping against her chest. Her knife was the only way to protect Emily and Chris. And she would have to kill these things. If that was even the right word for it since they were already dead?

The decomposing corpse caught on to her presence and snarled, stumbling towards the smell of fresh blood and flesh. She still had no idea what to do. It reached for her, and she plunged the knife into the area right above the chest. It writhed and seemed to not really work. The knife was now in this person's collarbone, she didn’t understand why that didn’t do it. Why it was still moving and growling hungrily for her, like it wanted to eat her or Hope.

She had to keep it away from Hope by pushing her arm against its throat. Reaching the knife handle and yanking it out because she still needed it. It was actually quite exhausting to fight against this dead person, they were surprisingly strong even when dead.

Blood came out of the wound she caused, dribbling down and on the concrete below. She had to think fast because her kids were behind her and waiting fearfully for her to kill this- this zombie. That was what it reminded her of like in the movies.

She shook slightly as she made a quick decision to stab the zombie in the head, that being about the only option with where her arm was holding the zombie back from everyone she cared about. She used her free hand and made the final blow right into the forehead, and she pushed it back once more.

The zombie fell onto the concrete with the knife sticking out of its head, and she let out a laugh of shock and surprise. She did it, she killed it. She got the brain and that seemed to be what made it stop.

She leaned down and pulled the knife out of the skull, having to pull a little hard in order to get it out of the zombie’s face. She realized she had blood all over herself, the adrenaline coursing through her from the experience. She panted and looked down at Hope, there was a little blood on the swaddle, but she was okay and cuddled up against her chest still. She turned around in relief as both kids ran to her and buried their heads, she quickly crouched down and wrapped her arms around them.

She held them tightly and did her best to keep it together, she knew how scared they were, especially after she just killed someone that was dead and trying to eat her. She was quivering and her breathing was on the verge of an anxiety attack.

She soon let go of them and saw their tear-stained faces, “I’m okay. Are you okay? Not hurt?” Emily shook her head and Chris sniffled in response, so she stood back up with both of them glued to the hip. She looked back up at the office building…. They couldn’t leave the city without checking for John. If he was even in the city or alive, she had to know…

“Let’s keep going. We need to try and find daddy.” She tried to force confidence in her voice, to be strong for them, so they knew they didn’t need to worry about losing her. If she had to, she would kill millions more zombies. All for them.

And so they continued to move, John’s neighborhood being a block away. His home, where she imagined him waiting for them to come find him. Her entire being was focused on the fact that he would be waiting. She didn’t know what else to focus on right now, her anxiety was still threatening her. So she held Emily and Chris extra tight with one arm.

The street sign said: Walnut Grove Av. This was the one, his street, where he would be. Everything started to look so familiar for her, the row of yellow and blue houses. The neatly cut grass and how every house had white picket fences in front for decoration. This was basically the rich part of the city where everything seemed a little too perfect and maintained. And the houses were huge, 2 or 3 stories tall.

Which made it a little jarring when cars were also scattered about and people were in the street. They were bleeding from their head at least, but she couldn’t tell if they died before they were a zombie or not. The skin didn’t look dull enough, but who knew. Those details were the only ones keeping the neighborhood from looking completely perfect.

She steered clear of that body anyways and walked on the sidewalk with Emily and Chris in tow, as his house grew closer. Four houses away, then three, then two, then one… And she bolted to the front door without a second thought, her mind wild, getting the door open and going inside. She didn’t notice the kids didn’t follow her through the house as she ran into the living room. “John?!?”

She yelled his name and went into the kitchen, passing a collage of photos right above the fireplace, all three children. Starting from when Emily was just a baby to when she won a reading award in 3rd grade, blue ribbon happily pinned to the girls shirt. Then Chris from when he was in diapers, then to his first day of kindergarten.

He had been so nervous that day so the photo looked like he was crying before it was taken. In the center of the collage was Lorelei and John when they got married, long flowy white dress and black and white suit. Looking so in love and happy with what their future held. Beside the main photo was little Hope, not that long ago getting newborn photos taken. 7 months ago to be exact.

Lorelei sped throughout the first floor and he was nowhere to be found. It made no sense, nothing looked even slightly moved out of place, it was like he was just here. He had to be here! She went upstairs and down the hallway, into his bedroom.

“John! Where are you?” She partly asked herself that as she checked his dresser drawers but they were full of his clothes. Again, like he never left. She didn’t understand… He wasn’t here… She couldn’t leave the room fast enough and was suddenly drawn in, a photo of them on his bedside table that didn’t escape her view. It couldn’t. She slowly picked up the dark frame, one hand going over her mouth as she looked at it.

She heaved back a sob. He was nowhere to be found here. He wasn’t home. So where was he? They were planning on getting divorced eventually since their relationship couldn’t be repaired, they had so many problems and different points of view. It didn’t matter to her. Even with the fact that they were separated and fought constantly, the hurt still rose up within her.

She fell back onto the bed holding the photo and just sobbed. Through everything, she didn’t expect him to actually be gone. He was already halfway out the door in her normal life, but it was like she needed him now more than ever. She could handle the kids, and this horrible world, but the one thing that kept her down was that she needed his help.

She shouldn’t have pushed him away like that, it sounded so stupid to her, how they ended. It should’ve been them against the world, not her and the kids against the world, without John…. Her eyes were flooding with tears as she slid off of the bed and to the floor. All that anxiety, fear, paranoia, seemed to come out in one big massive tsunami of grief. She was alone. She had her kids, but she was all alone. What was she supposed to do? What would John do? She tucked her knees close, an arm around where the swaddle was and rubbing Hope’s back with her free hand. The knife on the floor by the front door where she dropped it. The baby wasn’t even awake, but she needed to do something, a physical distraction from the emotional pain.

“Honey, just remember that you can do anything you put your mind to. You’re so strong and brave, don’t let anything put you down.” Was what her mind went to, his words. So comforting and soft and warm… If he ever made her upset, he would write her an apology letter. For her birthday one time he wrote a poem just for her. That was what he was good at. Not strength, or smarts, but… words. His voice hung over her head as she lifted it.

She gently slipped the photo out of the frame and put the frame back on the nightstand. Getting to her feet and shakily wiping her eyes, she knew this couldn’t be the end of their journey. Her plan of getting out of the city was still the best, even without John…

She took another long look at the photo, then put it in her back pocket where she could always have it close by. Her face was puffy, and she couldn’t hide the fact that she was crying. She went down the stairs slowly and saw Emily and Chris, their eyes glued to the photo collage above the fireplace. The one she helped put together and kept adding photos when something big happened. It almost made her be in tears again, but that was okay. She went up to the kids, crouched down, and looked them in the eyes. Sighing shakily, “Daddy isn’t here. I’m sorry…. I don’t know where…” Her voice cracked at the end.

They cried into her arms, and she held them as they did. She cried with them, knowing it wouldn’t go away so easily. The feeling. The loss. She wanted to hope that he was okay, but it was too hard to think about right now. She placed several kisses on their foreheads, and mumbled, “I think we’ll be okay…”