When we all woke up in the gym, the lack of the zombie noise outside was still strange to us. Dad checked under the curtain again, but nobody was there. It was as if they got bored and moved on.
He took one step outside, peering around every corner to see if it was safe. It took about an hour of checking behind corners and everywhere, but it was safe, leading Connie, Cody, and I to wait outside to look around at the surroundings.
"So, for this fence, we'll need wooden logs... or I guess we could just move the fence from over there and then put it into the ground right here. Anybody good at cutting trees down?" Dad asked the crowd of men.
They all seemed to have an affinity for everything, never admitting they weren't good at something, and trying it whether or not it was beneficial or detrimental. I admitted that I tried doing this too, and wanted to help cut down trees because it was just like this was a video game.
"We don't even have axes, and I highly doubt that an Elementary School would have weapons like that. Maybe the janitorial office has something like that, but an axe is a longshot," Papa said. He used to be a janitor before he worked at a dealership. His extensive knowledge of various tools was unmatched, so I trusted him the most with cutting down trees.
"Isn't it kind of crazy that we can just... build the wall? That's going to take a while, is it not?" Niko asked. That was confusing, since he was one of the first people who wanted to work on this fence to keep the zombies out. A fatal electrocution would stop zombies, or people. Either or, I was still afraid of it.
"Let's get to work then! How about the women and children start to focus on gardening today? We'll figure out the fencing. Who knows, maybe all of them are gone and we don't even need it," Dad said.
I left with Mom, Gammie, Mary, and the others to move onto the greenhouse. This is where we kept all the seeds, watering cans, different thermometers for measuring the temperature, clocks, and calendars that track the days between growth.
Different seeds had sheets of paper marking the time it takes to produce vegetables or fruit, and my cucumbers were still ready to be picked.
"Right over there! There's my cucumbers... my sugar peas never made it though," I said in disarray, watching the dried up dirt and the failed plant stick out like a sore thumb.
"Well, we do have the cucumbers, and that's something to be grateful of, we can't only count our losses," Mom told me. She always had great advice, or a great rebuttal at the very least. I like to think that I get my wits from her.
"So, the little that I remember about gardening is that we have to make sure the dirt is always watered and properly fed nutrients, and let the plant do its own thing. It knows how to grow on its own, so we just leave it be, and then one day it starts making cucumbers," I said. I knew a little bit about the technicalities, but I liked explaining it simply like that. Like giving sentience to the plants, they grow when they're comfortable.
Every garden plot that isn't occupied by seeds is what we'll plant today, and then we'll focus on maintenance tomorrow. Sound good?" Mom asked me. I nodded, and got to work planting more and more vegetables.
The day was actually pretty boring in memory, but near the end, I saw the first of many logs put up into the ground, with a chain-link fence on the opposite side facing the road dug into special spots on the logs. That's where I assume Niko would set up his electrical death trap.
"Good work today everybody, let's have a good meal in the lunchroom, yeah?" Dad asked the entire group as we all coalesced near sunset. After he asked the entire group, he did his rounds with everybody individually.
Dad and Connie talked a lot about the zombies and their details. I would often see Mary, Bob, and Connie hovering around Dad while he explained things that took a ton of concentration on his part, and usually were focused on a nearby map by one of the gym tables as well. I wondered how Connie knew so much, and wasn't afraid after seeing Henry die right in front of her.
Could it be that the zombie show itself desensitized her? How is she not affected by a dead person? Is she even acknowledging it? I wanted to ask a million questions, but I was afraid that it might remind her of what happened.
When Dad completed his rounds with Connie and her family, he visited me right after, rubbing my head and walking with me.
"So, you know that wall? Something funny happened, Papa claimed to be this all-star at building, but when we made an axe for him out of some makeshift, dull machete parts, he broke it in one swing. Isn't that unbelievable?!" Dad asked me.
He got a small laugh out of me, right after I was finished thinking about how Papa was the best bet.
"I thought you guys were good at a lot, what happened to being the pros?" I asked him while eating an orange. Oranges were my favorite fruit, and Dad liked them even more than I do, enjoying one with me while we sat down.
"We're just grown up kids Leon, we have things we're good at, and things we're bad at. Doesn't make us any less important, does it?" He asked me. There he was, asking me those thought-provoking questions yet again. I thought for a moment before answering him again.
"Well, maybe so... but if we all only knew how to garden, that would make for quite the fence, wouldn't it?" I asked him in return, putting another orange slice in my mouth to chew.
"Does the quality of the fence matter that much if we're good at gardening? Do you think we could find somebody apart of another school, for example, who knows how to build fences, and we just focus on the farming and come together? Do you think being friends with a ton of people is important?" He asked me next.
"Well, yes I think so. It's our job to make friends, I want to be friends with everybody, so I would want to be friends yes," I told him in a repetitive tone.
Right as Dad was about to leave after teaching me another lesson, I asked him what I had been thinking.
"Hey... why is everybody so calm about everything? I mean, Henry died yesterday... and it's like everybody isn't even acknowledging that it happened. As if he didn't even die. And Connie... she watched him die right in front of her, and she doesn't even show that it affects her. Is that a part of that zombie show as well?" I asked him.
Dad took a deep sigh, looking over at her, and then back at me, keeping his voice down lower than usual.
"I don't think it's caught up with her yet. I think she's probably trying to forget that it happened in the first place, so we have to leave her to handle that on her own. I don't want to pry and ask either, I get where you're coming from, so we should be sensitive about the topic until she's ready to discuss," He told me.
"And, what about you? Are you ready to talk about that one zombie you killed? Do you think Bob is ready either? Or is that another thing you never move away from? Like, being a grown up is just being an old kid," I asked Dad. I thought I did a good job, bringing a previous point he talked about into the current conversation.
"What Bob and I did was to protect the ones we love. It's a lot easier to deal with thinking of that fact, that I protected others. Henry was going to attack Connie, and Bob protected her. That's our jobs as fathers, to protect our children, and the ones we love. You'll understand one day, I know you will. Does everything I said make sense to you, Leon?" Dad asked me. I studied his face for a moment blankly while thinking of my answer.
"It's important to make friends and to protect the ones we love. You know, I hope I'm helping protect people by sharing what I know with planting crops and everything. And, I hope we get the opportunity to make friends as well, you know, with everything seeming like its dead and all," I told Dad. He nodded, knowing I got the point, and rubbed my head as he got up and walked away.
I had to be sensitive about Connie's situation... I could do that. All I have to do is pretend that it never even happened. Or, I could respect his sacrifice by respecting other people? I don't know, I guess I had a lot to think about.