America The Dead Book Two: The Road To Somewhere (14 page)

"It would be kind of hard to miss the
mountains," Mike agreed.

"Other roads, anything like that going in?"
Ronnie asked.

"Old logging trails, and I mean
very old. There's been no logging there in well over a century. But
those roads were sometimes still used and maintained by the park
service. They don't go in all the way though," Bob said.
"There
are
no
roads that go all the way in. There have been no people in there.
Some of that area has never even been explored, at least not since
this has been America," Bob said.

"Roosevelt, right?" Arlene asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Bob said, "He set it up. Some
land reclaimed and reforested, some never touched. Since then the
Federal government has been quietly buying land and adding to it.
We have the same thing here in New York, a pretty large area that
cuts across more than two thirds of the state. People just don't
know about it. But this, this cuts into portions of six states.
Taking all that land from six states doesn't make it seem like that
much land: a corner of Alabama here, a tract of Tennessee, part of
Kentucky there, a short run up into Ohio and down into Georgia. But
it all adds up; it's huge, big enough to have been a state in its
own right when you look at it," Bob said.

The area was clearly marked with Bob's black
grease pencil on the map, and the area it covered was
enormous.

"I never even knew about it," Patty
said.

"Me either," Lilly agreed.

"I heard about it in school," Kate said. "They
teach about the Forever Wild lands. Some of it was given to the
government to use for that, some of it was set aside for just that
reason," she said. "There are several other areas in the United
States, some small, some big that you do know about and you just
didn't realize that you knew... like Yellowstone, or the Grand
Canyon. Those are well known; others aren't."

Nell and Lilly began calling people to come and
eat. That at least seemed to perk up The Dog and Angel.

Mike got a bowl of stew and then went over to
relieve David who was on watch so he could go eat. "Take your
time," he told him.

Bob wandered over with a bowl himself. They
both sat on the back step bumper of one of the Suburbans, eating
quietly, staring out at the rainy night.

"Think you'll have any trouble finding it?"
Mike asked.

"No. It's so big it would be hard to miss it.
If, or I should say when, we hit the next mountain chain, that will
be the back door. The Appalachians. We'll follow them to the west,
to Kentucky, Tennessee, and that will let us in. Somewhere in there
we'll find a break in those mountains. There are two breaks really,
the Smokies and the Blue Ridge chain. I can't see how we could miss
it. We should be able to stand on those foothills and look at empty
for as far as we can see in any direction. No man made anything.
There are just so many places in this world that you can do that,"
Bob said thoughtfully.

"A long time to get there, you think?" Mike
asked.

"That's a good question. Did you say three
hundred and fifty miles? I'd say about twelve hundred total miles
to get us there, so if we made this kind of distance each day, then
somewhere around four days from now, give or take, we should be
there," Bob said.

Mike nodded, "For some reason I was thinking it
would be this long trip."

"It would be without these trucks. We would've
already torn up a couple of regular trucks. A regular truck
couldn't get over a foot drop in the road level, or sand instead of
pavement, with the mud we've had to deal with either for that
matter," Bob said.

"Even so, I'm not so sure we'll be able to make
that much mileage every day. We've been running roads, highway
road, torn up, sure, but still good enough for us. This whole area
is sparsely populated, and the closer we get, the sparser the
population gets. Farm country, walking country, and that means bad
roads, poorly maintained to start with, and now probably torn up so
bad that they have become impassable." He paused, took a bite of
his stew, chewed, and thought.

"I think our quick time is going to slow down.
Even so, once we get there, once we find it, we'll have a great
deal of work to do, a lot of trucks to find. We've got, what?
Eighteen drivers? Can Jessica drive? Probably not, so eighteen
drivers, and we need trucks for all of them and supplies also, and
I'm thinking some trailers on the back of a few of those trucks,
and, well, we'll just run those logging roads as deep in as we can,
get as close as we can, and we'll have to walk the rest of the way
in," Bob finished.

"It's gonna be a big deal, but it will be worth
it," Lilly said as she walked up and listened for a second or two.
"You guys want more? Janet sent me, and she sent these." She held
some biscuits with what looked like blueberries baked into them on
a large platter. She took their bowls and left them with the
platter.

They both thanked her, declined the offer of
more stew, and she went on her way. They stared after her.
"Everybody has changed so much," Bob said.

“
I was thinking the same thing,"
Mike said. "But for the better. Everyone, me included. For the
better," he said.

“
Yeah,” Bob agreed.

“
Listen...” Mike began. He fell
silent.

Bob turned and raised his eyebrows. “Ain't like
you to be at a loss for words.”

Mike laughed, but it was short and didn't match
the worried look on his face. “This is going to sound
crazy...”

For the next few minutes Mike talked, relaying
what Jeff had told them and filling Bob in about the cleared space
in the woods. Bob chewed thoughtfully at his biscuit as Mike spoke,
finishing it, dusting his hands on the legs of his jeans as he
did.

“
Should eat that,” Bob told him.
“She did a good job on them. Be a waste. Go on.” He cleared his
throat. “The dead walking ain't really a problem for me,” he said.
“I heard the talk before hand. Believed it. I guess that's where
you're at right now. Not sure you believe it.” He looked over at
Mike.

“
Go ahead... Eat it. Won't do you
any good to sit there with that worried look on your face. The
thing is, I have an alternate point of view. On most things, I
guess. I have no doubt there are dead that can walk. My religion
says there can be, so there can be. It's pretty simple to me. I
don't know about this other stuff though.”

“
Can
they,
do they
,
follow us? Maybe. Maybe they do. Maybe they eat our dead, but how
strong can they be? Strong enough to take on a grown man? I can't
see that.” He cleared his throat once more, picked up his coffee
and sipped at it.

“
You said a nest. Well, that
sounds like an animal, don't it? I guess that bothers me the most.
A man can be predictable, but something in between...” He shrugged.
“We believe in men that can live after death. Dreamers, those that
can travel in the dream state where ever they wish to go. Spirits
and more. What do you think to do?” Bob asked.

Mike shrugged. “I can't tell you I believe that
easily. But there was something there, and Jeff doesn't seem like
the sort of man that would exaggerate. If it's true, it bothers me.
How can you fight something like that?”

“
They won't come where we're
going. There's nothing there for them, nothing to lead them there.
I imagine they'll be in the cities. Like that.” Bob
said.

“
You think?”

“
I think so. I mean, I can't see
it. You think it's like the T.V. Said though?”

“
I don't know,” Mike said. “What
are you getting at?”

“
Well, we'll be taking them with
us, if that's the case. You see?”

“
No. You just said they wouldn't
want anything to do with us,” Mike said.

“
Uh huh. But when you die you
turn. That's the way they said it was on the T.V., Mike.” Bob
finished.

Mike stared at him for what seemed like
minutes. “Jesus,” He said at last. He turned away and looked out
into the rain

“
Exactly,” Bob said.
“Exactly.”

~

About two hours after dark the rain really
begin to come down, turning the surrounding fields into small lakes
of their own.

Several people were sitting around talking by
the fires, different subjects, all relating to the new life they
hoped to be living soon.

Mike and Kate were sitting, listening to the
conversations, when the rain suddenly let up, and a sliver of moon
broke through the clouded sky.

"Well," Kate said, "now or never I guess." Mike
looked a question at her.

"Ladies room," she said. "At least I won't
drown now," she laughed. She got up and walked away. Mike watched
her go, thinking how much he loved her. As she turned the corner of
the building, he turned back to the conversation he had been having
with Ronnie about how easy the steel structures would be to set
up.

Kate slipped between two abandoned trucks and
made her way around to the back of the main building of the truck
stop. The building cast long shadows among the scattered wood
pallets, junked trucks and oil barrels. A long wooden fence ran
around most of it, blocking the view from the highway. She hurried
over next to the wrecked front end of a big tractor cab and
squatted down close to the ground, balancing against one of the
tractor's tires with one hand. She finished and had just stood back
up, fastened the snap on her jeans, when she felt the cold barrel
of a pistol touch her neck.

“
Well look at this," a low voice
said, "Ain't you something."

Kate's heart crashed hard against her ribs. Her
fingers, in the act of tugging her zipper home, froze. She sucked
in a breath and tried to quiet her racing heart. Her voice sounded
shaky to her ears as she spoke.

"
What...
What do you want?
" she managed.

"
Wha...
What do you want,
" the voice mimicked.
"What do you
think
that I want?" he asked. One hand stroked lightly against her
face, leaving the feel of calloused fingers and the smell of
unwashed flesh.

"I think you know, Missy. I think you know."
His hand dropped down to her thigh and caressed it roughly, then
moved around to her hand still frozen on the zipper "What's this?"
he whispered in her ear. His breath smelled of rotting teeth and
rancid food as it blew hotly across her face.

His hand batted her own away and fumbled with
her zipper, jerking it roughly downward and plunging his fingers
into the opening, pulling at her panties.

"Don't,"
she whispered,
"You don't have to do
this."
Her voice sounded weak and
panicked, and she hated it, but she couldn't get her heart to slow
down or get her voice to sound normal or authoritative. She twisted
to get away from him, but he had settled his weight on her, and she
could not stand up or get a good footing so that she could turn and
fight him. And the fear was loose in her. She couldn't think past
it.

He ignored her, his rough hands forcing her
jeans down and grasping at her panties once again.

."
Please,
" she said,
"
don't.
It
doesn't have to be this way."

~

Arlene turned into the corner of the building
to find a private spot to use. The other ladies had been coming
back here all night long. It was about as private as you could hope
to get. She was just about to step into the fenced in area when she
heard the voices of a man and woman.

Oh Damn, she thought, looks like
I'm about to interrupt something. That made her smile, but her next
thought was a little less charitable.
So
where am I supposed to go?

She turned to leave when the
voices came again. And something about the woman's voice stopped
her in her tracks. Something about the woman's voice sounded,
well,
wrong
, she
told herself,
upset
. She waited a second but heard nothing more. Maybe it was
just a little argument between the two of them, she thought. Either
way it's not my business.

She had made up her mind to turn
around, was actually on the brink of walking away, when she caught
movement over by the wreck of a big rig truck. The woman's voice
came again, crying out in pain, but was quickly muffled as she fell
to the ground.
She was
pushed
, Arlene's mind told her. And then
she saw the shadow of the man kick the shadowed form on the ground
and then fall on to her.

Arlene unsnapped her 38 caliber pistol as she
ran to where the couple struggled on the ground. The woman's jeans
were around her ankles. A split second later she recognized Kate
and realized the man was ripping at her panties dragging them down,
a pistol pushed into her neck.

Arlene pushed the muzzle of her
own gun against the base of the man's skull.
"let her go, Mother Fucker, let her go."
She was fighting to control her anger.