Chapter 12, Waiting

She could have showered in the jet of the space but that water would use manna to replace this water was free.

She hopped into her jet. Kristy was surprised to see Matty Reclining a chair in the jet with his comforter and a pillow.

"It's too bright outside to sleep." He explained why he came in the jet.

"I didn't think about that. It has always been daylight here." Kristy said.

"Is that good for the internal clock of the animals?" Matty asked her.

"I don't know, let me see if I can fix it." Kristy said and poked at the tabs for her space. "Space set lighting for dim night light from 6:30pm to 5:30am space time daily."

The timing of the space was always moving but the time they went back didn't change. "Space set a separate calendar with time notifications for each area in space and out. To update automatically.'' This will allow her to know when the piglets were weaned.

When Kristy was done, she reclined in a chair to sleep next to Serenity.

Matty noticed Kristy didn't have a blanket or pillow. He didn't have much in his apartment. His dad and sister were already using his spare blankets. He got up and covered Kristy with his comforter.

"Thank you Matty." Kristy said when she felt the warm blanket touch her.

"You're welcome. We can get more blankets tomorrow. I'm good for one night." Matty laid back down with his pillow and they fell asleep.

In Salt Lake City, Utah. Jacob's phone rang. He had been sitting on pins and needles for the last three hours worrying. He answered the phone quickly to stop the noise. His men were sleeping in different booths at the bar. "I'm here." he responded to the phone.

"Boss a VLJ was spotted flying into Portland towards the central west area. The jet did not pass our man on Dillsburg drive; it touched down in that area. None of our people are currently in that area for a visual."

"Good job, get some rest." Jacob responded. He now had an area of the city to search for Kristy; he could only hope she is ok till he finds her.

In the jet, Richard came out of the toilet with a weird look on his face and passed Brenda who was still sleeping towards the main cabin area. Matty and Kristy were both up Kristy picking up Serenity who was crying.

Matty, trying to read the directions on the back of the can of formula with a bottle of water and a baby bottle in front of him.

"Your self-cleaning toilets are convenient." Uncle Richard told Kristy.

She laughed. "The space picks up all waste to throw it away." This means she will never have to scrub a toilet ever again.

Kristy was about to have the space change the diaper. When uncle Richard took the baby. "Let's do it the right way this time." he proceeds to quickly change the diaper manually.

Well Kristy thought 'he had the benefit of experience.' "Space clean and dry baby clothes." She passed the now fresh outfit to her uncle to redress the little girl who was screaming like the world was going to end, again. 'The baby wipes cold maybe? Or she does not like her but wiped.'

Brenda groaned and pulled herself out of bed. How could she sleep when the baby was very unhappy?

Matty, who had finished shaking the bottle of formula, took Serenity from his dad; he was determined to be of help and be known as the cool uncle. Don't let the girls hog the baby.

Serenity was special; she was someone who could not fight; she could not even talk or walk yet. Someone small who brought out the protective instincts of them all.

"Ok." Brenda said "your little kitchen is not set up at all. And I need coffee."

Kristy willed all of them out of the space they had not packed up the kitchen last night. Brenda went to make Coffee; Richard was looking in the fridge for what to cook for breakfast. Matty Sat on his carpet in the living room to feed Serenity her bottle. And Kristy went to the Bathroom to brush her teeth with the running water. 'Oh, the bliss of working faucets.'

It was good to have Serenity come out of the space when it was safe to. So, she can still adapt to the rising manna in the air.

Richard was about to serve breakfast when someone in the hall smashed the tip of an axe through their door.

Kristy pulled a gun from her space.

"Keep putting holes in my door, I'll put one in your head." Uncle Richard yelled at the door walking to Kristy to take the gun.

The people in the hall heard this and I guess they moved to the next apartment. Because the axe didn't hit again.

In the real world it had been less than two hours since they killed off most of the zombies and the neighbors had started looting each other in the middle of the night.

Serenity had finished her bottle and burped. She was placed for some tummy time in the center of their group. Richard sat facing the door to the apartment with the pistol placed on the floor on the opposite side his body from Serenity for easy emergency access.

"We have five more hours till you promised to clear the apartment with John and Sam." Kristy said not seeing a point in taking everyone in the space as time would stop here.

"We need to loot a store." Matty said "we need more clothes, blankets, a baby crib, junk food and soda we don't want to run out of. Maybe an ice cream maker since we have plenty of milk."

"We need to finish clearing the area so we can bury mom and Aunt Carol." Brenda said tears falling down her cheek.

"Do we want to bury them here of all places?" Matty said "Kristy, can we move them to the space?"

"They turned into zombies; the space would cremate them." Kristy looked at them. "Do we want to cremate them so we can keep them with us?"

"Keeping them with us sounds nice." Uncle Richard replied they were all crying now.

Bang! Bang! Crash! someone had broken down a door. There were screaming and fighting among people that could be heard from down the hall. Someone was being robbed.

They were pleading to be left alone and it sounds like they were getting beaten up.

"Let's finish this and get the hell out of here." Brenda said suddenly feeling it was safer with the zombies outside.

Kristy stood up and went to the window. "Find two temporary storage things to hold ashes." Kristy said as she threw open Matty's living room window, stuck her hand outside and dropped all the zombie ash from her space.

She only wanted to keep her aunt and her mom. No one else needs to be in the urn, or flour and sugar jars which were what Matty and Brenda found. They dumped the food into Ziplock bags and were washing the containers.

Richard got up and dried the jars with his wind manna. To ensure the ashes didn't stick to the sides of the jar, they wanted to get them better urns later.

Brenda picked Serenity up off the floor.

Uncle Richard carried a body wrapped in one of Matty's sheets over and unwrapped it.

It was Kristy's mom. For Kristy it had been over five years since she saw her mom. When the apocalypse happened last time she never went back to Portland. Kristy was crying and she bent down to remove her mother's jewelry which she placed in the flour jar then she touched her mom and she disappeared. Kristy waited a minute then reached over the jar and willed out the zombie ashes again.

Matty put the lid on the jar, and handed it to Kristy who moved it to the space.

Then they did the same for Matty's mom only Richard removed the wedding ring crying badly now. Richard was not the type to show weakness but he didn't hold back Infront of his family they all accepted that this hurt.

Kristy finished the cremation and placed the jar in the space next to her mom's. In the jet on the counter.

Even Serenity could tell there was something wrong with everyone she started crying to in sympathy. Then her short cries became loud wails, because she didn't know why she was crying.

Kristy pulled a bikini from the space it was one that was supposed to be stocked on the shelf. Kristy opened the package and was about to give it to Serenity when Richard took it from her and washed it in the sink first.

'Noted thought Kristy just because it is in a sealed container does not mean that it is clean. Just like the bottles baby toys should all be washed before use.'

Kristy went to the kitchen and emptied it out. She made sure to place the coffee maker in the jet's kitchen.

Matty walked through the apartment again while Kristy was cleaning up the kitchen and came out with his bathroom supplies.

Kristy pulled aside the tooth paste and pulled out two brand new toothbrushes for Brenda and Uncle Richard. She put the rest in the space.

The apartment was empty other than their promise to clear the apartment with Sam and John there was nothing keeping them here. Matty took the baby from Brenda so she could brush her teeth.

"I won't make promises again." Richard commented realizing what a big waste of time it was to wait here.

Kristy pulled out some paper, pens and Matty's dining table and chairs from the space.

"Let's plan" Kristy said "everything we need from Walmart. Since it is closer. On this paper Home Depot on this one. And the last is for places we still need to go: Uncle Richard's house and my mom's on the list we want keepsakes and photos. Brenda wants to check on her guinea pig."

"I wonder where the Pepsi warehouses are. I want a large supply of soda." Kristy was doing what she did best, talking to distract everyone.

"Are those even in Portland?" Matty asked. He asked google. "Pepsi is made in North Carolina and a few other places but raiding their warehouse sounds impossible." Matty was getting into this now.

Brenda was holding Serenity, having Richard fill the page for Walmart with all the baby supplies she would ever need till she is an adult.

"What about raiding restaurants instead?" Matty asked.

"What do you mean?" Kristy asked.

"Well, I have a friend who works at a restaurant. Those soda dispensers are fed a syrup from a big box in the back. I assume you can gather the boxes of the syrup. It will be easier than looting all the stores nearby because the one box is a couple hundred cups of soda." Matty explained his thought process. "And people will be going to the grocery stores, didn't you say to avoid the crazy people."

"I did but I'm not sure how we can avoid them and still get the spices and condiments we need. Do you know how to make ranch?" Kristy asked

"We can look it up." Matty and Kristy spent the time downloading recipes on how to make all the food they could think of from scratch.

Richard moved on from baby supplies to solar panels and generators from Home Depot. They added all the seeds they could find to the list.

Then they mapped their way through Portland making sure to hit every place with a soda fountain they could think of on their way to the houses.

Although there were blankets at Walmart, they still added a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond at Kristy's Request she said using the same blanket for so long was unsanitary and they will wish they had more pillows and a fresh mattress later.

"We need a bigger house." Brenda requested. Thinking of living for so long in the jet plane did not sit well for her.

"Where are we going to get a house that can be put in the space?" Matty made fun of her.

"Well, we could go to a prefab home display." Richard thought.

"What is that?" Kristy and Matty asked at the same time.

"It is where they display a home that can be bought shipped to the right spot then put together on sight. Most of the house is already built. They are put together like Legos after so I'm sure Kristy can handle that with her space. It will also give me somewhere to attach solar panels to." Richard enlightened the kids.

Brenda stuck her tongue out at Matty for making fun of her.

Richard looked up directions "we can go to Urban Cabins on Lovejoy Street or America's best homes on Pine Street both are closer than the third option to the houses we were going to. But we would have to pass over highway 84 to get to America's best."

"We already have to pass the 205 and the 5 to get to my house." This is a lot of highways. Richard was not looking forward to it.

'What would have been a 25-minute drive will take longer clearing zombies and stopping at every restaurant and gas station in sight.' Kristy wanted to grab as much chocolate candy as she could.

"So, we can each get our own house?" Brenda asked excitedly.

"We still need farmland to grow crops. However, the weather does not change much so the barn we build won't need to be too big. We also need fences to keep the animals out of the crops." Kristy explained.

"Can't you just ask the space to limit where they can go?" Brenda asked.

"I could but it could be exhausting. To explain, say we were fighting zombies and going in and out like earlier but the fruit has ripened in the farmland the bunnies are interested in it. So, they keep jumping and the space moves them every time." We could run low on space energy from throwing zombies in to burn to jumping ourselves; it all slowly takes power to use. Even the ongoing waste cleanup is a slow draw on my space power. Think of it like a subscription allotting a certain usage automatically. We might not have a chance to meditate all with something that could have been avoided by a fence."

Kristy explained while they ate their second breakfast as Matty called it since they have been busy for hours waiting but it was not morning yet.

"The space does not lose things if I run out of power. However, I cannot access the space. I don't know if the orders I gave the space would still work while I can't control it. But I don't think they will since they take power to run." Kristy explained her thought process. This too was a power and could run out.

'What happens to Serenity and the animals if some living zombies are released before they can be burned. Since the manna flow for fire is not used automatically in combat. This could happen if she runs out of space manna. She vowed to try her best to never run out of space manna.'

Richard's phone vibrated for the alarm he set. "Time to go meet up and clear the complex." Richard looked at them and they had made a lot of plans.

Brenda handed the now sleeping Serenity to Kristy who hopped in the space to tuck her in bed. She came back out, picked up the lists and directions they had planned and moved the table and chairs back to the space.

Then she gave a handgun and a machete to everyone. Matty swung the machete a few times and frowned. "Hey Kristy, would it be weird if I said I was more comfortable with my crowbar?"

"I don't think it's weird, the weight and grip are different." Kristy handed the crowbar to Matty. And put away the extra machete.

"Let's go." Richerd said and we moved out of the Apartment.

As they walked down the hall to the stairs again, they heard screaming and growling. It was the group with the Axe they had successfully robbed three apartments and found zombie kids in the fifth apartment they went in.

The little zombie children decked in birthday party supplies swarmed in the hall following the men who broke down the door for them.

The Kids were not as strong but they were small, and there were many, they had a size advantage.

Two of the men were bitten quickly. The man with the axe was swinging it everywhere three others had tripped over their feet screaming and running from the zombie baby.

Zombie children are smaller to the ground making it easier to balance the dead flesh so the speed issue with the smaller size is not as noticeable because these zombies have better balance.

And babies can move on all fours increasing speed by twice.

Matty and Brenda froze, even Richard hesitated.

Kristy walked over calmly and slammed her machete into the baby's head. "There is no such thing as a baby zombie, just a baby size vessel for the virus. There are smaller sizes too like rats and cats. Try not to let it distract you."

She started cutting into the heads of the small zombies.

Kristy's words snapped the others out of their frozen state and they assisted her in cutting down the zombies.

Three adult zombies came out of the apartment; they were missing arms and parts of their stomachs and legs.

They had survived the change only to be eaten alive by zombie children; their missing broken limbs were the reason they had not succeeded in ripping down the door earlier.

Even at one and a half times the strength of a small child is not that strong. Birthday party from hell.

Most of these children were around ten but there was the baby and another toddler close to three. Maybe the younger siblings of the birthday boy.

The birthday boy was easy to spot as his party hat was marked.

They cleared the apartment and continued to the sixth floor to knock on Sam's door.

"Who is it?" Came from the door from who they assumed was Sam's wife, the Earth user.

"It's Matty, Richard, Brenda and Kristy. We were clearing the building with Sam and John last night and were here as planned if they are ready." Matty answered awkwardly, feeling weird talking to the door like this.

The door opened. "Please come in." a cute slightly overweight blond girl with blue eyes told them.

"Thank you." Brenda responded to her words. They went into the apartment and found John checking his weapon. And Sam putting on his boots sitting on the couch.

"Was beginning to think you were not coming." John said, smiling at them.

"There was an issue on the fifth floor." Richard told them about the group of robbers who eventually broke into the zombie birthday party.

"Not sure how much of the apartment still needs to be cleared if there were more people like them on the other floors." Matty piped in.

John looked disappointed when he heard people were beaten and robbed. "You're strong, why didn't you try to stop them?"

Kristy was irritated. "I don't like people." This surprised Sam and John as they looked at her. "My other power is fire. Losing my temper is worse than doing nothing at all. We help others by killing more zombies and clearing. where not responsible to make sure they keep their humanity. A lot worse will be happening out there than robbing. Some will lose their lives to other people some will be raped. Some people will go insane. People are scarier than zombies and the only people willing to listen to another person will be those that want protection from them. I have no intentions on babysitting deadweight sorry." Kristy was very blunt.

"We have planned a route to clear, to get to my house. we will store what we need in the space and use it as a base as Kristy is more uncomfortable with the living than the dead." Richard told them our plans.

"Don't blame her, she has lived through hell before this." Brenda told them.

John nodded. "Ok, I know leading people is not for everyone. I'm sorry for judging."

"I'm a dead weight." Sam's wife whispered on the couch looking depressed.

"You can change that." Kristy said and took her hand, surprising them.

"I can't tell you how we know about this any more than I can tell you how I got all my weapons but we know that the manna is rising on earth. The zombies will get stronger in one month."

Sam and John were looking at her now.

When they get stronger there will be a crystal in their heads. Zombies prefer to go to the stomach to get what is our crystal core. If you meditate you can feel it. yours is earth, right?"

"Yes, I can move the dirt." She looked at Kristy bewildered by what she just told her.

"When the zombies get stronger, they too will have a crystal. it will be in their brain they can make powers stronger. If you find one that matches your power use it once you get one hundred of them not before or it is a waste. The others can be used for trade. Meditate or sleep to refill your manna. Meditating is faster than sleeping."

"With the manna rising as long as you can feel the burn of exercising your body will absorb the manna in the air even someone who has not awakened a power yet can get superhuman strength and speed with continuous exercise."

"Every human has powers just like every zombie has powers. They awaken differently for each person like your own key; you just need to find it." Kristy was speaking to them.

"The zombies don't need to stop moving or sleep, they never get tired, their dead flesh is constantly exercising, they will eventually be stronger than humans at this rate, and there are way too many of them." Kristy took a breath.

"Never stop trying to fight, they will pass us in strength but if you keep going, we will be only one step behind them. You have unlocked a natural weapon practice with it. Prioritize your safety, but don't let the safety cage you like a bird. Be careful of getting comfortable in this world till the zombies are gone. This could take years. even longer if they open a base and fill it with people too scared to fight. If they don't fight, they won't get strong."

"Imagine the zombies always getting stronger and a can of sardines too weak to fight back must look pretty good to them." Kristy said. "This is all I can tell you. I hope it can be of some help."

Sam leaned towards Richard "was she locked up for experiments with zombies?" He whispered but everyone heard it.

"For five years." Brenda commented. "She knows better than anyone else still alive." Brenda had given Kristy the title of lab experiment to hide her time powers.

"I would hate people too." John commented getting mad for the supposed experiment that put this young girl close to the zombies. For so long.

"My first power was my space. It was non-combat so I didn't know that I could fight. This is why my space is so big. My strength is not high because I was less important to send to fight. But my space is bigger than all the new powers. Now the lab is gone but the world has started to change. The lab did not cause this; they just predicted it and sped up the process in a controlled environment to see what would happen."

"The base was destroyed and if I didn't have my space ability, I would be dead too. I don't think the information learned was spread, but it could have. I now have fire power and the world just started to change since I have an idea what is going to happen, we're preparing for it." Kristy lied out her ass but she hoped they listened to her.

"Zombies don't want our brains; we want what is in theirs strange isn't it?" Kristy thought out loud.

Sam's wife laughed. Kristy simultaneously brought up the mood that the conversation had changed.

"I don't want to be a weak bird. I have a gift. I need practice to get stronger. I want to go with you to clear the building." She looked at her husband.

"While my instinct is to stop you and keep you safe. With this new information, stopping you will put you in more danger later." Sam was holding his wife worried for her.

"Tip for you, fighting can awaken more than one power. Zombies only get one. They are stronger physically than us but we can be more powerful than them if we keep fighting. Most awaken their powers on the verge of death though, I won't say the trip will be easy." Kristy told them

"On the way here, I found a level one zombie." Kristy lied again to give them helpful information. "It must have eaten a power user because the base was a controlled environment that didn't happen there. If you find one that has three times the strength of a normal human and can walk or run without jerkiness, break open the head when you're done killing it. It is nasty but the crystal is worth it." Kristy told them to look out. The zombies will get stronger in a month but some are already there.

"Here, you weren't here when this started?" John asked.

"She jumped out of a plane to the roof." Richard told them. "She arrived last night, that's why we cleared zombies in the middle of the night."

"I got here as soon as I could." Kristy apologized for waking everyone up with guns blazing. She pulled the last three machetes from her space and put them on the table.

"When the zombies reach level two regular metal and guns won't work on them anymore, find a metal power user to craft you a weapon. The manna in the metal will be to the strength of the metal user. So, a level two medal user can craft a weapon that can cut level two and some level three zombies before breaking. This allows you to continue to fight zombies. Otherwise, the only weapon you have is your powers and you don't want to run out of that while fighting manna exhaustion is worse than getting tired." Kristy warned them she couldn't think of any more lifesaving hints to give them.

"Let's go." Sam said, picking up the machete. We nodded and the seven of us left the apartment to clear the building.