The house was buzzing with equal excitement and worry for the arrival of little Jaxon. There was a lot of preparing to do, and according to Christa, Aubrey, McKenzie and Dani, partying to plan. Don't get me wrong, I was all for celebrating; I mean things like that are things to be cherished, especially in the world we live in now. Having new innocent life spring in the midst of all the corrupt death was and, is a beautiful thing but, I couldn't help but worry that anything that could go wrong would.
"Hey, how are you?" Asked Jordan one day while I fetching Marla something to drink. It had been four days since she told me she was about to pop, and we told everyone else. Since then, everyone was waiting on her hand and foot while we made her stay in bed and, by we, I mean the women. We all took care of her in shifts and at that moment it was my turn to sit and make sure she didn't give birth and go crazy while being forced to stay in bed.
It had also been three days since the water in the house stopped turning on. So far, everyone was coping okay. We still had a huge storage of water bottles and people weren't starting to smell just yet. I knew our surplus wouldn't last long though, so I took note with Dani to make sure we become a lot stricter with the water and, to make sure we just used a lot of deodorant. At the moment people were still in high spirits about it.
"I'm good, you?" I replied with a small smile and grabbed a half full bottle of water off of the counter that had been marked as belonging to Marla from the day before.
"Yea good, hey I know you're busy and all with the baby on its way but, tonight when you switch out with someone and you have time, I want to show you something. That is, if you want and all…if it's cool… please." He gave me big puppy dog green eyes and I felt my insides erupt in butterflies.
"Yea, sure just come get me whenever past 8." I replied and brushed a loose strand of dark brown hair behind my ear.
"Okay, eight cool." He turned away with a wider smile and walked out to the backyard where Patrick and Josh were teaching Callie how to perfect her aim.
"Jordan…I like him, he's a very nice boy." Mrs. Marla smiled as she took the bottle from me.
I smiled and felt my face grow hot. "Yea, everyone does. He's awesome." I sat on the bed that used to be KP's next to the expecting mother.
"When I was a few years older than you….I was about 27. I had a friend who was head over heels in love with me. He was my best friend and I was totally oblivious to his affections for the longest time." She stopped to chuckle, and rubbed her belly nonchalantly. "At the time I had been dating Aubrey's father for over a year and we were very serious. We made all these plans together for the rest of our lives…or well, I did…I made most of them. Aubrey's father was very confused on what he wanted and we had problems…I started to notice- I started to notice him more, Leon was my friend's name, but by the time I knew what I- who I really wanted, I was already pregnant with Aubrey, and Leon found someone else. Then you know, Aubrey's father changed. That was five years ago and it hurts to not know where Leon is or if he's okay." Marla trailed off and stared and the floor, rubbing her belly.
My stomach turned, I wasn't sure what to say. I wondered if what Marla was trying to say was to go for Jordan or something. Either way, she'd had a rough last five years. I felt bad for her and Aubrey.
Night rolled around soon after that and McKenzie traded out with me, and Jordan found me.
"You ready? Come on!" He said, he gave a small clap of excitement and guided me to the backyard.
We walked outside into the warm night air. I shivered and looked around. The night was different in many ways. It was after nine p.m. and it was fairly bright out, as if it was still just setting around 7:30 or 8:00. Before I could open my mouth to say anything about it Jordan spoke first.
"Up here, come on." He smirked and started to climb up the ladder to the roof. I climbed after him and let him help me up by my hand. When I was fully on the room I looked over the edge to give a quick safety check. There were no Zombies that we could see on the ground. Over the past few weeks Jordan, Patrick, Josh, and Callie had done a wonderful job of clearing houses and keeping our street pretty clear of the infected.
"Right here." Jordan smiled as he guided me to a spot on the roof where he'd laid a blanket down for us to sit on. Also on the blanket, was a little basket that was covered with a cloth. I sat next to him as butterflies attacked my stomach again.
"The Sky…" I began as I looked away from Jordan's charming smirk and out into the neighborhood below us. The Sky, even though it was so late at night, was a deep orange and the thin clouds that danced across it were black and purple swirling tendrils. It was nothing I'd seen before. Beyond the sky, towards the city I could see rising of smoke from fires that were happening far off, deep towards downtown Shreveport. Below us in the neighborhood it was mostly quiet. The grass was long and wild in all the yards. Houses and, vehicles what were in the yards were starting to be completely overgrown with vines and ivy. Somewhere, far off was the faint sound of a car alarm and a dog barking, but it was nothing we had to worry about.
"It's beautiful in a…strange way." I breathed as I returned my gaze to the inky swirls that danced across the orange sky.
Jordan scooted closer to me a few inches and sighed. "Yea, it's been this way for a few weeks now. At first I assumed it was all the fires and shit burning across the city, but I know most of them have burned out by now…but."
"So whatever turned the sky, may have something to do with the infection?" I asked, opening my mind to the possibility of chemical infection, or some sort of bioweapon.
"If that's so then it's in the air and we all should be infected. From what we've seen, the infection is only passed through bites and I'm assuming other bodily fluids so it must be some sort of virus? I mean, Elliott didn't come back after being beaten to death." Jordan thought aloud with me.
"Perhaps a man-made weapon- bio weapon that was injected or ingested, then passed through bodily fluids after that, but that would never create the sky to be like this… heck…could be biblical." I pondered.
Jordan shrugged. "Don't know." He mumbled and we stared in silence at the dark swirled sky, lost in our thoughts.
"Oh! I almost forgot!" Jordan exclaimed suddenly, which made me jump and forget about my random thoughts. Jordan pulled the cover off the basket and pulled out a bag of pretzel M&Ms, and placed it in my lap. It was one of my favorite types of candy.
I smiled and looked at the bag of sweets I'd all but forgotten the existence of.
"When Josh, Patrick, Callie and I went on a small scavenge a few days ago I found this, perfectly unopened." He gave a shy smile and leaned a little closer to me.
"Thank you. I thought I'd never taste candy again." I said in a dramatic voice and opened the little blue bag.
Jordan touched my hand before I could raise an M&M to my smiling lips. His eyes moved nervously to mine and he pulled his glasses off. I gulped as he leaned in closer. His nose brushed my cheek and moved up to meet my nose.
"I've been trying to find or, create a perfect moment for this. I'm pretty sure I suck at being creatively romantic." He whispered and finally just closed his eyes and pressed his lips to mine.
My heart felt like it was going to burst through my chest, and my stomach turned with butterflies- no eagles. My stomach turned with eagles as his fingers traced my jawline and his lips moved against mine. Eventually I pulled away to breathe and I giggled all loopy as Jordan wrapped his arms around me and held me close to him.
"Hey! We don't have time for ya'lls mushy bullshit! There's a baby coming!" We hard Callie call from the backdoor and, we jumped up and raced to the edge of the roof.
When the both of us had made it down the ladder Callie had already ran back inside. I cracked the backdoor open and was immediately greeted with a howling shriek from who could only be Marla and a bunch of other angry chatter coming from the Master bedroom.
Before entering the bedroom I ran to the kitchen and, quickly washed my hands and arms with a mixture of water from my water bottle, some Disney Princess soap and, emergency Germ-X. As I entered the bedroom I was greeted with more panicked yelling by McKenzie and Dani while Marla was being held up in a squatting position with the help of Christa and Callie on either arm.
In the corner nearest to Marla was a shocked looking Aubrey who started to cry in the middle of all the confusion. Dani was on the floor next to what I could only gather as being the fluid from Marla's water breaking. She was yelling at Josh to grab more than one towel. Christa was utterly silent, cringing in pain as Marla death squeezed her hand and, Callie was gagging and laughing at the same time while trying to encourage Marla to relax. I calmly pushed past McKenzie who was coming in to pick up Aubrey and kneeled beside Dani, in front of Marla.
"Okay Momma today's the day. Give me a push. How do you feel?" I asked and, placed a few towels that Josh returned with on the floor, between the hyperventilating pregnant woman's legs to soak up the fluids already spilled and any that would be spilled during and after the birth.
"I'm terrified and am in immense pain!" She replied and gripped Callie and Christa's hands tighter.
I gave a nervous chuckle as I felt sweat begin to bead across my forehead and under my nose. "Well, I'm no Doctor but, let's go ahead and give a push, okay?" I suggested and turned back to tell Josh to ready a room temperature bottle of water and wash cloth.
Marla gritted her teeth and began to push. She'd stop every few seconds to breathe and let Callie wipe sweat from her head and neck and then cuss out everyone in the room for anything and everything. It took over thirty minutes of her breathing, pushing and, cursing for me to finally start to see the top of a mucus covered baby head.
"Okay, Finally!" I yelled and readied my shaky hands to help the baby out.
Marla gave a few more big pushes and I heard Jordan and, Patrick make sick noises behind me and, Josh start to laugh at them. Dani let loose an excited squeal as Callie and Christa tried not to puke everywhere.
Baby Jaxon was pushed out to his stomach and, I took that as the perfect moment to help gently pull the rest of the dangling infant out. When he was freed from Marla's womb I immediately brought him to my chest and wrapped him in a blanket. The baby's wails filled the room and Marla fell backwards onto the bed and began to cry tears of Joy. Josh brought me bottle of water and towel so that I could clean the baby up and Jordan, as sickly as he looked, helped me cut the umbilical cord with his pocket knife. After Josh and I finished cleaning little baby Jaxon, while Dani, Christa and McKenzie helped Mrs. Marla get cleaned and fixed up, we handed the little healthy bundle to his mother to hold and breast feed when she was ready.
A few hours later after everyone had a good rest we let Aubrey in to see her mother and new baby brother. We also had a little celebration that evening with a cake that we baked in the gas powered stove, some Kool-Aid and, gave little gifts of oversized diapers and baby clothes that had been taken on some scavenges. We all laughed and held the baby and marked his birthday on the calendar, happy for our new member of our family.