Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie by R Kralik Page A

isn't a cousin by marriage anymore.
    Marisa says he's a really nice kid and swears that she's not gonna let him die or send him back out into the cold, even if she has to cut her food portions in half to feed him. She has a hard time seeing anything suffer, man or beast, and she can get very dramatic about it. She thinks he's twenty, or twenty-one, years old by now. I have no idea in the world how, or why, he ended up on our front porch.
    We heated some chicken noodle soup over the fire and tried to get him to drink the broth. He took a few sips, and one bite of the noodles, before he shut his mouth and shook his head against anymore. I gave him one of my heavy duty pain pills, praying he isn't allergic to it. He finally took a few more sips and is now sleeping soundly. The shivering has stopped.
    Marisa's sleeping on the pallets tonight, so she can keep an eye on Jeremy. Mick made her put the Walther P22 under her pillow.
    Mick's sitting in the rec liner, going in and out of sleep, while trying to help Marisa keep an eye on Jeremy.
    Caleb, Amber, and Carisa are sacked out in Carisa's bed under two blankets and a thick comforter.
    I'm going back to bed and try to figure out where we'll put Jeremy. It's a fact that Mick will not allow a twenty-year-old, unrelated, good looking kid of the male variety sleeping in the same house as our beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter.
    I hope the crack of dawn sleeps in a little tomorrow, 'cause when it appears , Pop will be in here to call us out of bed for the looting run. I told Carisa to keep her bedroom door locked and I'll do the same. I'm nervous and excited, but I'm also scared.
     
     
    Thursday, January 9
    We didn't need Pop to wake us up this morning. The whole house was rudely awakened when a blood curdling scream came out of Jeremy about 4:30 this morning. I ran to the living room and saw Mick standing, swaying, and half asleep beside the recliner. His hair was sticking out all over the place and he had Mr. Winchester in his hand. Marisa was sitting on the floor beside the couch with her hand on Jeremy's shoulder, trying to comfort him.
    Jason was banging into the walls, half asleep, as he came down the hallway. Carisa was still in her room, behind the locked door with the kids.
    Opie and Tig were doing pee pee dances and Pop was banging on the back door for us to let him in, which we finally did. He was ticked off about how long it took. He looked at us and Jeremy, listened to a short explanation from Mick, and without a word went tromping back to the motorhome where his warm bed was waiting.
    Jeremy turned his head toward me and said, clear as can be, "sorry, I had a bad dream." I guess it's true what they say about young people bouncing back fast. Oh Lord, thank goodness he's coherent, but I'm having a hard time forgiving him for waking us with a screaming alarm clock.
    Jeremy's in a lot of pain , but he is absolutely starving. He ate two muffins and an apple along with a tall glass of milk before I could get the water pot off the fire in order to make coffee. Caleb and Amber were having fun "feeding him." Carisa looks like she couldn't care less one way or the other. She grabbed an ink pen and a Word Find book, and plopped herself into Mick's recliner.
    As we were having coffee, Jeremy started looking paler that he already was. He half crawled, half stumbled out the door to call Ralph all over my big ol' heirloo m rose bushes. I found the mess, and almost called Ralph myself, when I stepped out for a cigarette. He ate too fast. I knew it was bound to happen when I saw him scarfing that stuff down.
    I gave him another pain pill and water to wash it down. I told him that I wanted to hear what happened, but I had to get ready to go out lootin'. He looked at me like I was crazy and sank himself back down into the blankets, moaning, and holding his stomach.
    I thought Nana would look after him while we were out, but Pop said Nana was staying in the motorhome and that he would