America The Dead Book Two: The Road To Somewhere (26 page)

They had found a notch in the second mountain
chain. They had driven up out of the lowlands, labored upward in
four wheel drive, and they had finally slipped through the rock and
gravel passage into a long, flat bottomed valley nestled between
two ranges.

At the opposite end, at least several miles
distance, a dark fringe of heavy woodlands had been visible in the
dimming light. When they had passed through the notch, they had
rolled out onto a wide stone ledge.

Another ledge, wider in places, narrowed in
others, gradually dropped down to the valley floor. The main branch
ran up to the rocky base of the mountain and into it about fifty
feet deep, forming a large sheltered overhang. A small stream cut
down one side of the pass not two hundred yards away. They had
found the home that Bob had sent them to find. They would go no
further.

Janet was positive, gradual though the shelf
was, that the trucks would never make it down to the valley floor
in one piece. She wouldn't try it anyway, she told herself. Maybe
Bob or Michael, but not her.

They had started a fire under the overhang,
turned the dogs loose to sniff out the darker regions of the
overhang where Janet suspected there was at least one large cave
going back into the rock. The dogs seemed fine, a little nervous, a
little bone weary from two days of nonstop travel and being bounced
around in the backs of the truck, but they all were.

They took out blankets, sleeping bags, food and
left the rest for the next day. Patty took charge of the watch, and
before the sun was fully down, she had the posts working on a
rotating basis.

~

Patty laughed as she sat sipping coffee with
Janet by the fire, waiting for the water to heat in a large iron
pot for dinner.

"Funny, we left a cave, came all this way, and
here we are in a cave again," she shook her head. The smile on her
face stayed put. Janet answered it with one of her own.

"It feels right though, doesn't it?" Janet
asked.

Patty grew sober, "It does. I can't put my
finger on the feeling, but you're right. It feels like we're
supposed to be here," she agreed.

Janet nodded. She tested the water, then added
a large portion of rice to the water and began to stir it
occasionally.

In another pot suspended over the fire, beans
simmered. Thick chunks of canned beef, fortified with some of their
own dried beef, bubbled with the beans.

"You think they're okay?" Patty asked Janet
quietly.

Janet met her eyes, "I don't know, Patty. I...
I don't feel one way or the other about it. I... I've been praying
to God. I got it from Lilly, I guess. But I'm praying, and I hope
they're okay," she said softly. Her eyes were moist, but she rubbed
the back of one hand quickly across them, refusing to let the tears
come.

She sighed deeply and then planted a smile back
on her face.

"We'll get this straightened out tomorrow,
fixed up. It's quite good, isn't it? We have water. I'm sure
there's an actual cave back in there. This looks like limestone, so
that would make sense. This will be home for awhile I think, and
we'll have it fixed up nice for them when they get here, Patty,"
Janet finished.

Patty nodded, and blinked back her
own tears. Things had happened so fast, she hadn't even been able
to kiss Ronnie or Kate goodbye. She had barely been able to
say
goodbye.

Janet didn't have a feeling, but Patty did, and
she told her now.

"For what it's worth, Janet,
I
do
have a
feeling. I feel it's going to be all right. I truly do," Patty
leaned over and hugged Janet, and Janet hugged her back.

~

Chloe found a little town just before dark. She
went from wrecked store to wrecked store gathering the things she
needed. She was alone, but she wasn't afraid. She had spent almost
a month as Death's woman. She was sure nothing could scare her
after that.

She found a Jeep dealership on the outskirts of
town. The show room was collapsed, the garage no better, but dozens
of shiny Jeeps of all sorts littered the lot.

She finally found a Wrangler with the keys in
the switch. The battery was a little flat, but despite that, it
started right up. Getting gas was no longer as easy as it had been
with several sets of willing hands, but by the time the Moon was up
and the place was really starting to creep her out, she had finally
filled the tank and two five gallon Jerry cans she put into the
back. Her mouth tasted like gasoline, and she had to admit, she was
more than a little high from inhaling fumes. But she considered
that a bonus. If only the place didn't creep her out so damn much
she'd stay and wait for morning, she thought, get a little
sleep.

She climbed into the jeep and was about to
start it up, and that was when Duffy hit her in the back of the
head with a short piece of a two by four board.

~

Duffy had been drifting long before all of this
had happened. This was no inconvenience to him; it was a help.
Everything was free now. And there were no cops to tell him what to
do. He looked down at Chloe slumped over the steering wheel. And
now I have a woman, he told himself. Can things get any
sweeter?

~Lillie's journal~

We traveled for two days, and now we're in the
middle of nowhere. I mean, like, we're really in the middle of
nowhere.

When we came up over this pass, we could see
for miles, and there was nothing. No buildings, no quilted
farmland, towns, cities, nothing at all. It was almost too big to
see. I didn't know there was anywhere left on this planet where you
could have a view like that.

But, here we are. We found a cave, really an
overhang, but Patty and Janet Dove think there is an actual cave
farther back in it. We'll know tomorrow. Patty said it's funny,
because we're right back in a cave again, and we are. But Janet
said it seems right, and it also does feel right.

I'm worried. We're all worried. We
don't know where our men are, or Kate. We don't know what happened
at all. And we don't even know how long it will be until we do know
something. I wanted to ask,
how will they
find us?
But I just didn't want to upset
anyone. I don't think it will be easy at all. Why didn't we think
of global positioning? They sell that kind of stuff everywhere. But
are there still satellites going around and around up there? Or are
they all useless now because of what happened? Did they crash? Lots
of questions; almost no answers. And even if we had global
positioning, we would not have had the time to use it.

So we'll have to place our hope in the radios.
Starting tomorrow we're going to monitor fifteen minutes of every
hour during daylight, Patty says. We'll all be hoping.

God be with us. Keep us strong. Bring those we
love back to us. Amen.

~Kate's journal~

It's not over 'til it's over, they say. We came
back today to find out that one of the girls we had thought got
away came back while we were gone and took off in the truck the
other side left by the woods. We need one more day and we'll be
gone, maybe two. So hopefully she won't be back to cause us any
trouble.

I am so tired of this. Sometimes I think we
should have stayed in the cave in Watertown, fought them there, let
it end there. Then I look at Mike, and I love him so much that I
want any chance at all at a free life. I'm glad we ran, and all
this doesn't seem so bad.

I'm banged up, we all are. At least I'm not
missing part of me like Ronnie and David both are. A piece of
finger for David, a piece of ear for Ronnie. Patty is going to be
so pissed!

Speaking of Patty, and everyone else, we're all
worried. We can't reach them on the radios. Bob supposes that they
could have gotten out of range. I guess we won't know until we're
on our way. And if I don't stop writing and go to
sleep...

I'm back. Mike is sleeping now and my head's a
lot better. I hope we'll start out tomorrow. God help
us.

~In a Dark Place~

Chloe woke up in the pitch dark. Her head was
splitting. She sat up, and stars exploded behind her eyes. She
fought back the headache and sat still for a few seconds until she
felt better.

Someone was snoring close by. She
fought the nausea down in her stomach and took several deep breaths
to clear her head. She had no idea what it was that had happened.
Obviously someone had her,
had gotten
her,
some how. The last thing she
remembered was getting into the Jeep. Had she wrecked it? No, that
made no sense.

She could smell unwashed flesh and
hear the snoring. A man had taken her. Somehow a man had taken
her...
Was it them?

Her feet were bound, and her hands were also
tied behind her back. She could feel her boot knife pressing
against her ankle; it was still there if she could get to it. She
worked her hands, rubbing them raw before she finally got enough
slack to pull one wrist free. It was raw. She could feel the slick
blood. The feet were easier, and then she was free.

She sat blinking. She could see a little now.
There was a thin strip of light, like the crack under a door, off
to her left, away from the snoring. She considered for a minute and
then made up her mind. She stood slowly, carefully, joints
screaming, and made her way very quietly across what felt like a
hard-packed dirt floor.

She made her way to what turned out to be a
door. She pushed it open slowly, looking back over her shoulders as
it swung open. She saw the man, a great fat pig of a man. His back
to her in the faint moonlight. She eased the old wooden door shut
and slowly looked around.

She was in a wooden shack behind the Jeep
dealership. So that was it, she thought.

She made her way around to the side of the
building. The Jeep sat where it had, the keys still in the
ignition. She smiled for the first time, but stopped when it caused
her head to scream.

She made her way to the back of the jeep,
hefted one of the five gallon Jerry cans, felt her pocket for one
of the plastic disposable lighters she always carried to light the
huge bomber joints that Death used to roll. She could use one of
those right now, she told herself.

She walked back to the shed,
upended the can and drenched the exterior of the small wooden
shack, the door, and the rest she let run under the door and into
the interior. She puddled a small amount of gas back away from the
shed, set the can down and screwed the lid back on. Then she set it
further back. She'd have to remember to refill that, she told
herself. She thumbed the wheel on the cheap lighter, stretched her
arm out and touched the small flame to the gasoline. It went up
with a low
whoosh
. She felt it on her eardrums rather than heard it. The
flames bit into the dry wood, and Duffy began screaming almost
immediately.

"Fucker,"
she screamed into the fire lighted night,
"
Fucker! That will teach you!"

The shed blew up with a
soft
wump!
And
Duffy stopped screaming.

She walked back to the Jeep. Her head was
pounding. Maybe, she told herself, she could leave off all of this.
It really wasn't her fault. It really wasn't her fight. Maybe she
could just get into that Jeep and keep heading south, let those
crazy bastards settle in the woods. To hell with them.

She picked up the radio from the seat beside
her. She flipped it to the on position and sat listening to the
smooth static. She pressed the mic. button down.

"Hey,"
she said.
"Hey are you guys
there?"

Silence. And then...

"Lilly? Is that you
Lilly?"

She didn't know the voice, or who Lilly
was.

"Nooooo,"
she said. Her head was killing her.

"Chloe,"
she told the voice.
"I don't know if
you know me."

The voice came back.
"I know who you are, Chloe. What do you
want?"

"You guys worried about
me?"
She asked.

Silence.

"Are you?"
she asked again.
"'Cause if you are,
you ain't got to be. I'm going. I'm done with this, you know? I
just wanted to say that,"
she
said.

"Chloe, we could talk about this.
You could come with us,"
the man's voice
said.

"Nope,"
Chloe said. She turned the radio off and then tossed it out
onto the asphalt.

She shifted the Jeep into drive and idled her
way out to the highway. Behind her, the wooden shack continued to
burn.

~Donita - A mile east~

They were thirty now, and there were a half
dozen laying on the ground who would be coming up out of twilight
any minute. Killers, or they had been in the old world. Being dead
took the killer out of you. At least at first it did. But then it
came back. You forgot all the little things in the old life. You
nearly forgot your name, where you had lived, what you had done.
And then it changed. Everyday you got a little more back. It wasn't
exactly a memory like a memory would be in the old days, like a
breather would have. It was more like found knowledge. Not there
one second, and then there the next. But it was clearer than the
old memories she once had.