WILLA, стр. 9
Uncle Jamie looked directly at Mom when he said the word “everyone.” She merely glared at him.
“How long do you think we’ll have to be down here?” my mom’s Uncle Ray asked.
“I have no idea. If we’re lucky, this outbreak will play itself out in a few weeks. If not, we have plenty of ground to defend. If we don’t panic, that is. Our safety depends on all of us staying levelheaded. I can’t stress that enough. I know we are in a scary situation. I know we’ve all seen at least one movie or television show about these creatures, so we know how dangerous they can be. We are probably some of the lucky few who made it to a safe place. Now, we have to keep it safe.”
“What do you want us to do?” my second cousin, Amelia, asked.
“For right now, just get some sleep. We’ve had a lot going on these last two days. Tomorrow, we’ll start brainstorming different ways to keep this place safe,” Uncle Jamie said.
“I also recommend everyone stay off their phones, laptops, etc.,” Uncle Carson said. “We know it’s bad in many places out there, but for at least a few hours, let’s be ignorant of what’s happening. I think that would help calm our nerves.”
“Bullshit,” someone called out, but I wasn’t sure who.
“Maybe, but I think the less we freak ourselves out over this, the better. Remember, we are safe here,” Uncle Carson said.
No one else spoke up, but as a whole, everyone started talking amongst themselves. A few people turned off their phones or at least turned off social media and news sites. Most didn’t. I guess I couldn’t blame them. Uncle Carson was right that it would help those easily scared, like my mom, stay calm, but the rest of us needed to know what was going on in the world. We needed to have an idea of when the zombies would be on our doorstep.
I didn’t turn on my phone when Mom directed me to our cots. I was too tired to hear any more about the outbreak. Besides, Mom was ranting about me going upstairs, and about my uncles and Grandma being careless with my life. I didn’t even bother to correct or argue with her. I didn’t have the energy.
All I could bring myself to do was pull the bag that had my nightclothes and toiletries in it out from under my cot and get what I needed to dress for bed. The basement had a tiny full bathroom and a large sink next to the washer and dryer along the farthest wall. Someone had hung curtains from the ceiling to block that area from the rest of the cellar.
No one, thankfully enough, was in the bathroom, so I peed, brushed my teeth, and changed clothes, knowing that in a day or so, we’d have to come up with a routine for everyone to shower, go to the bathroom, and dress. Sure, those brave enough could go upstairs and use one of the bathrooms on the first and second floor, but even with three bathrooms, we were going to have problems with as many people as we had in the house.
That was a crisis for another day.
Mom was still ranting when I returned to my cot.
“Mom, go brush your teeth and change for bed,” I said, not caring that I’d interrupted her.
She looked at me, surprised for a second before her expression changed to confusion.
“Your stuff is under your cot. I brought a basket for our dirty clothes. I’m sure we’ll have to take turns washing clothes, but we’ll probably have to wear things a few times before washing them.”
“I need to shower,” she said.
“Okay. Go. The house has three bathrooms. I’m sure one is open for showers. Just pray that you have hot water.”
Mom gaped at me, again, as if she hadn’t thought about that aspect of living in the cellar. Of course, she hadn’t.
Before she could say anything else, I grabbed my phone, which was only fifty-percent charged, and opened a word game that I’d been playing. For half a second, I pondered at how odd it was not to see any notifications for phone calls or messages from my friends.
The thought of calling my father for the millionth time also crossed my mind, but I didn’t. I was scared for him. A knot of worry in my stomach warned me that I might never see him again, but I knew I’d make myself sick if I kept calling and texting him without receiving a reply. I had to put thoughts of him out of my mind for the night.
I barely made it through one game on my phone before I was asleep. I didn’t even hear Mom come back to her cot.
A gunshot woke us all the following morning. More than a few people ran for the stairs to see what was happening. I tried to be one of those people, but Mom snatched me by the shirt.
“What the hell do you think you are doing,” she hissed in my ear as she pulled me to a dark corner of the cellar behind a row of food shelves. Most people in the basement had the same idea.
“I was going to help.”
“No, you were not. You let your uncles take care of that,” she said, pointing to the ceiling.
“We can’t let them do everything,” I argued.
“There are plenty of other grown men who could help.”
The glare she gave the males in our general area would have shamed me into coming out of hiding if I’d been one of them. As far as I could tell, no one moved. Don’t get me wrong. I felt their fear. I didn’t want to be upstairs fighting against those creatures, but what I wanted didn’t have anything