Chapter Fifteen: New Beginnings (pt3)


By the time everyone else in the building was finally up, it was already about eleven thirty in the morning. After they had gotten all of the kids back down into the daycare, Kathy took charge -something that she'd always done- of the preschool and had the kids following their usual routine despite the shit show occurring outside. The older kids and Kathy's daughters -both of whom were fairly traumatized by the events of the day before- were delegated babysitting duties and were in charge of helping Ashley and Marcy take care of the cranky toddlers. Juno, on the other hand, was going to be helping clear the streets outside with Marie, Danny, and John.

They'd equipped themselves with rubber dishwashing gloves and bandanas to cover their lower faces-to help try and mask the rank smell coming from the bodies. Juno had her trusty Ruger thrown over her shoulder once more and extra ammo in her pockets, Marie was carrying the lighter fluid and matches in her side bag and John had helped her retrieve a wheel barrel from the basement to help transport the bodies. Danny had his own firearm strapped to his back to help with protecting them from shamblers, and Hank was going to be providing some aerial support from his apartment while Alice was going to be in the "command room" keeping her eyes on the monitors of the preschool as a precaution.

They'd all gotten their own walkies this morning to keep them connected and Juno had gotten in contact with the Kim's earlier that morning. Hyun-Bin and Eun-Hyool would be making an appearance at one to help them out, but they had to get their work done at the farm first. Hyun-Bin had told her that they had begun fortifying their barn the previous night to ensure the safety of the farm animals they had, and that they were doing the same to the main house where his parents lived with his youngest siblings.

The Georgia sun was hot and unforgiving as usual and it seemed to have made the bodies rotting on the street cook even more, the smell was truly gag-worthy and the bandana was only vaguely useful in keeping flies away from her lower face. Juno only cursed once under her breath when she'd gotten her first whiff before she stopped breathing through her nose.

"Damn, it fuckin' stinks." Danny murmured in disgust as he looked around.

Marie groaned, her face pale and beads of sweat collecting on her brow, "Let's not talk about the smell..."

"Deal." John snorted as he let the wheel barrel stop in front of one of the bodies, "So, how we gonna do this?"

Juno surveyed the area. It would be best to burn the bodies away from the dirt -lest the area become contaminated- but not close to the preschool. She'd read that the smell of burning flesh was an unpleasant one and she didn't want that particular scent hovering near her apartment. "We can start moving the bodies towards the Brigade building and burn them in the parking lot."

"Hmm, well, let's get started then." Danny grunted before grabbing the shoulders of one of the corpses, "Help me with the legs will ya?"

Marie bent down and grabbed the man's legs before helping Danny lift the body into the wheel barrel, Juno exchanged a glance with John before the duo started doing the same. They were able to fit four bodies into the wheel barrel before it became too difficult to balance them. John wheeled them to the Brigade building with Danny's help while Juno and Marie started dragging two more bodies behind them.

They piled up the bodies in a solemn silence, only speaking when they needed help. It took a little over an hour to get all the bodies piled up in the parking lot... and it had been much harder to move the broken bodies of the children Juno had once babysitted, but she refused to let herself think about it for too long. It wasn't the time to contemplate such thoughts. There were things that needed to be done.

That was when they began to gather the necessary materials to start a bonfire, by collecting dry wood and leaves while the two men of the group gathered some rocks to create a pit. Juno and Marie made a dry bed with leaves before dragging the first corpse face-first into the large pit. Juno gestured to the lighter fluid in the other woman's possession and then back to the body, Marie simply nodded before uncapping it and pouring a small amount onto the body. Juno grabbed one of the matches before lighting it and throwing it on top of the flammable liquid, fire immediately sprouted on the corpse while Danny dumped another body on top of the burning one. They quickly dragged the rest of the infected cadavers into the bonfire, Marie had been steadily squirting more lighter fluid onto the bodies whenever the flames faltered, but now the flames were climbing high into the sky. Pesky flies were still buzzing around them in an annoying fashion despite the smoke and the smell had only gotten worse. The smell of burning human flesh was as awful as it'd been described. Juno could have happily died without knowing it for herself.

Sweat clung to Juno's shirt and she couldn't help but feel extremely filthy. It was only after the last body was dumped into the pit that Juno realized she'd been crying. She shut her eyes in grief as she caught another glimpse of Harrison Burgess, fuck. He'd been a good kid, her mind immediately jumped to the boy's dog Baxter and she began to internally promise the boy to take care of the German Shepherd.

"What now?" Marie asked softly. The woman had plopped herself onto the concrete floor with her back turned to the fire.

"Food." John grunted beside her, "We should grab any perishables from Juno's neighbors and bring it back to the school. We're gonna need it."

Danny sighed, exhaustion clear in voice and face, "I don' disagree with ya there man, but we're gonna have ta take a small water break first."

John nodded in agreement as the four of them began to make their way back down the road. They hadn't really encountered any problems disposing of the bodies, shambler-wise, but Juno couldn't help but feel slightly paranoid in the face of their new reality. If she was being honest with herself it was possible that there were more shamblers inside of the houses, though it wouldn't be too hard to dispose of them as long as no one panicked, but the mental stress of having burned all of her neighbors was weighing on Juno's mind.

She didn't really think that they would have been too pissed at Juno for... putting them down. In all honesty, Juno herself would rather be shot in the head than become a shambler herself, but a lot of her neighbors were Catholic and as a whole frowned upon the concept of cremation... after all, you couldn't have the resurrection of the body without a body- though, Juno doubted that this was what the bible had meant when it spoke of the resurrection. She could only hope that they understood, that burning them was the only choice.

It still didn't feel good.

None of this did.

She could still see the fire crackling in her mind, licking over rotting skin and the white sundress of one of her neighbors until it turned to ash. White. Like Jane's lab coat.

Breaking the silence, Juno cleared her throat and asked, "Hey, what did- what did you guys do with Jane's body?"

Marie's eyes shot up to lock with hers, "We left her on the pontoon, Danny said to leave her there- so that her son wouldn't see."

She nodded, "We'll have to get her with the truck when the Kims get here." Juno paused in front of the Burgess house, "Wait up for a second, I wanna get Baxter real quick."

"Baxter?" John asked in confusion.

"He was Harrison's dog." she explained briefly, they'd all seen how Juno carried the little boy's corpse to the fire pit, "He's a good dog, Ethan'll probably be happy to see him."

Ethan was the only living survivor of the Burgess family now, since he'd been dropped off at the daycare yesterday morning. Juno quickly climbed up onto the porch before trying the doorknob, the door was locked but that didn't deter her, she bent down and lifted the welcome rug to reveal the spare key before unlocking the door. It wasn't hard to spot the dog- Baxter was hiding underneath the couch and growling at her in fear.

"Hey," she cooed, slowly entering the threshold of the house before kneeling down, "Hey Baxter. It's okay bud. I'm not gonna hurt you."

The dog slowly relaxed at her tone before crawling out and whining pitifully. Juno carefully moved towards him on her knees before letting him nuzzle her hand and petting the dog's back in a reassuring manner, "It's okay Baxter, no one's going to hurt you now. Come on, come on." she whispered softly before grabbing his collar and gently tugging him towards the entryway, she only paused to grab the green cameo leash hanging by the door to clip it onto Baxter's collar before walking out onto the street once more.

"Took you long enough." John teased, waggling his brows in that mystifying way that Juno always failed to copy, "Did ya go explorin' or something?"

"Shut up, Baxter here was nervous." she shot back.

Danny snorted sardonically as he glared up at the sky, "I don' blame 'im."

Marie shot her a commiserating look, but that was that.

Juno and John entered the school through the back to put the wheel barrel away and let Baxter into the yard to stretch his legs, while Marie and Danny went through the front. Baxter had been a bit jumpy while they walked but had relaxed after they'd gotten behind the fence and he'd begun smelling the copious number of children that attended the preschool, including his own tiny human.

The shepherd dutifully followed behind her as they locked up the basement once more before Juno headed into the school. Baxter whined sadly from outside but thankfully didn't bark. Juno had filled up a bowl of water for the pooch- the poor thing had probably been dry since yesterday, but she would have to feed the dog as soon as possible.


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