America The Dead Book Two: The Road To Somewhere (27 page)

Donita didn't question whether that found
knowledge was true or not. It didn't matter. Just like it wouldn't
matter to these. What would matter to these was getting through the
first little bit of time, that time where heat still seemed like
the only possible source of life, and you struggled to find it,
only to realize it did nothing for you any longer at all. In fact,
it could kill you.

Then the cold came upon
you,
found you,
along with its understanding, and you were fine. You began to
understand that life was just a short stop on the way to dead and
that dead was just a way station to walking. And walking could be
forever. Walking was not something as trifling as life. But that
took time, and these killers would be nothing more than babies for
a few nights.

There was a process. She had gone
through it, and the others had gone through it. She supposed any
walker had gone through it. Everything that had to do with life,
heat,
that world
had to come out of you... sick it up, shit it out. It had to
go. It had to go because it had nothing to do with walking. Nothing
at all.

A walker used what it took in. There was no
waste, so there was no need for a system to dispose of that waste.
A walker did not heal in the same way that a breather did. There
was no need for time to heal. You couldn't predict it. You weren't
even precisely injured. You could lose a finger, or a leg, while
you were turning and that was that. It was lost. But you could lose
one after, and it was back in a short time. Or most of it. She had
not lost a leg, but she had lost a few fingers. The horse had
broken its neck. It didn't seem broken any longer. One of the twins
had lost an ear a few nights before. It was back. Those things
could be, but they did not depend on any kind of healing like a
walker. No.

These were killers. For a few days they would
be babies. Then for a few days they would get used to the gift they
had been given. Then, they would be killers again. They would be
because that is what they were, and you could not change the basic
truths of what you were whether you were a breather, a walker, or
even dead. Death had its Jesus and Devil for that. Well, Donita
thought. Ol' Satan, and Jesus also, must be finding themselves with
a little extra time on their hands just lately.

The turnings were coming faster. Where once
seven would pass in to death and maybe one would rise to a walker,
now seven passed into death and five came to be walkers. Soon it
would be seven for seven. She knew that. And soon after that the
whole world would belong to the walkers. The breathers would be
done.

She let her silvered eyes pass along the bodies
that lay stretched out on the ground.

She was not weak. There was a strength that
came with being a walker, a strength that came to your whole body
once you embraced cold. They had moved silently into the woods and
taken these without a sound. They had carried them here. It had
been no expenditure of energy at all.

Killers. Except one. One had not been a killer
at all. But that one might not come back. If he did, she would have
to watch him anyway and she really didn't want to do that. She
would leave him to the twins to teach. He would learn their ways or
he would learn that even in Un-Death there could be death.
Permanent death. You could still get to go see Jesus if you really
wanted to go.

She looked him over. The night was getting
along. They would come from twilight soon.

Home

~April 3~

They spent the morning locating a
herd of cows and luring them back to the camp with a second pickup
truck and something Bob had found called
Cow Chow
. There were several
different breeds of cows, milkers and beef cows and three bulls
that seemed able to reasonably tolerate each other, and about a
dozen calves in the lot as well.

"Two or three more looked ready to drop," Bob
said. "And we have about a dozen horses that are ready to drop
somewhere on the way or after we get there."

"The cows," he continued, "are a good thing.
We'd get no milkers otherwise. And these are young, if we keep them
milking after they calve, they'll do fine for us. And, we'll be
there long before those calves are done milking, so, we'll have
fresh milk, butter, cheese," Bob smiled.

"Are they really going to follow us?" Mike
asked.

"I think so. The calves will have to go into a
trailer. No way could they keep up. But, I saw one back at that
equipment place, and once the calves go into the trailers the
mothers will stay with us. We will have to stop a few times a day
to let them nurse. But, well, I hope we're not traveling more than
a few days, so we'll make the best of it.” He thought a moment, "We
will lose a few though. They'll wander off, but we'll keep the feed
truck ahead, and the others behind it, cows and horses right in
between, there's only the road, they'll go right down it. Same with
the forest, straight lines, like a road. The trouble will come when
we get to open land. They'll naturally want to graze, cows and
horses both, but I thought a couple of those Jeeps, the small ones,
we can pretty much herd them like that," He paused for a second or
two and then continued once more.

"We have seven drivers. We have three big
trucks, and we need one of the pickups for feed. So we'll find us
three Jeeps, or something small, four wheel drive, that will be
us," Bob finished.

They found a Jeep dealership on the opposite
side of the little town. The smell of smoke and charred meat hung
in the air. They all wondered if they were about to meet up with
other travelers, but they came across no one as they drew closer to
the smoke that hung in the air.

A shed behind the dealership was a smoking
ruins, but one skeletal arm protruding from under a piece of rusted
tin roof told its own story. Ronnie found the radio where Chloe had
thrown it to the pavement. Everyone was uneasy.

They had spoken about the radio call most of
the early morning into sunrise and had decided to take it at face
value. For whatever reason, she didn't want a fight, and that was
something they could accept.

"This is mine," Ronnie said. He pointed to the
side of the radio case where a bullet had grazed the plastic,
cracking it. "That happened during the shootout, the one that
probably got Jeff," he finished thoughtfully.

"This is where she called from then," Mike
said, stating what was obvious to all of them. He looked at the
radio. Smears of maroon and a small bloody hand print decorated the
back of the plastic case.

"Not mine," Ronnie said, although it was
obvious.

Mike looked over to the smoking shed. "I guess
we will never know exactly what happened here, but I'd say she got
tired of being pushed," he said.

Ronnie nodded.

They spent the better part of two hours
searching through the wrecked show room until they found the
keyboard. The keyboard, Ronnie explained was where the salesmen
picked up and returned the keys. It had to be close to the front of
the show room yet not right in direct sight of customers. The
mechanics and body shop guys would need access to it to.

Ronnie had spent two summers working as a
body-man at a small dealership in Mobile when he had still been in
high school back in Pritchard.

They found the board in a small hallway that
lead back to the garage area. They took the keys to several smaller
Jeeps and out of those found three that fit their needs. Cloth
tops, bigger tires, heavy duty off road versions.

No one spoke much, the smell on the air, the
puzzle of what might have happened, the silence over what seemed
like the entire world. They picked up the chickens on the way
back.

The farm store had a large poultry barn in the
back. They backed up the big trailer they had selected for the
calves, partially filled the inside with caged chickens and headed
back to the camp ground where the others were waiting.

Kate had collected thirty eggs and found six
piglets out behind the barn. It was a mystery to her what they had
been feeding on, but they we're healthy and fat. She brought them
to Bob.

"Those are not just little pigs," Bob told her
as she loaded them in their own cages into the back of one of the
Jeeps. "Those babies will be full blown hogs come fall."

“
Good," Kate smiled. “But how did
they manage to stay alive?”

Bob laughed. “You probably don't want to know,”
he told her.

“
Well I wouldn't have
asked...”

Bob held up one hand. ”You're right. The
chickens, most likely. Maybe some of the grain if they were able to
get into the feed store.”

“
Pigs eat chickens?”

“
Pigs will eat just about anything
that doesn't eat them,” Bob said solemnly. Kate didn't look like
she was quite so thrilled about eating pork in the fall.

“
Huh,” was all she said as she
turned away and went back to packing things into one truck or
another.

~

By the time they made it back to the camp it
was early afternoon. Kate made a lunch with some help from David.
Eggs, spam and pancakes.

"Eat it like a sandwich," Ronnie told Mike as
he came to get his own.

"They're good," Kate said around a
mouthful.

Everybody dug in. The clearing fell silent for
awhile as they ate. Their thoughts were on the next little bit of
time, and wondering still about what had happened to the bodies,
including Jeff.

No one had said it, but it seemed obvious that
Chloe could not have taken the bodies. The thought of how she may
have lifted them, taken them away, had been cast in doubt from the
first. How could she have carried them? And why? But, knowing that
she had probably run into problems of her own threw all of it in
doubt. Where were the bodies? Shouldn't they have been there? Was
the body in the burned shed one of their missing bodies?

They wondered as they ate. Mike
and Ronnie had talked a little about it in private, but no one
wanted to speak about it in the light of day, where things
like
living dead
just didn't make any kind of sense at all.

After they finished lunch, they shifted things
around. The chickens and the piglets went on the back of one of the
flatbeds. They loaded the calves and two foals onto the open stake
sided trailer and started out down the logging trail.

~On the Trail~

There were three big trucks with one Jeep in
front of them. The pickup with the trailer in back of them,
followed by some concerned cows and a small herd of horses. The
remaining two Jeeps brought up the rear.

On the narrow logging trail there was nothing
much to do. The cows and horses were more than willing to follow
along behind the trucks.

They made slow time, but just before nightfall
they came to a wide, shallow stream that meandered through a small,
grassy field. They scattered feed, put the colts and calves out
with their mothers and began to set up camp.

The cows and horses chose opposite ends of the
field.

“
Those cows are fighting," David
said, pointing at a couple of bulls that had separated themselves
from the rest.

Bob laughed, "More than a few horses as well,"
he said.

David raised his eyebrows.

"Mating season," Kate said.

David flashed red, "Are they dangerous?" he
asked.

"I wouldn't get near them," Bob
said.

“
You're probably okay," Ronnie
said, "Now if you were a cow or a horse..." He lifted his eyes back
to the field and let the comment trail off. Everybody laughed,
David included.

After dinner, Kate, Mike and Ronnie looked over
the chickens and the piglets, watered them and gave the chickens
some grain. The piglets kept nuzzling Kate's hands. "What should I
feed them?" she asked.

"Well, like I said a pig will eat anything,"
Bob said, "Including each other. Feed them the scraps from dinner
and some of the Cow Chow, make sure they have lots of water.
They'll be fine."

She nodded. "How far?" She asked Bob, "I had
about 30 miles."

"Same as me," Bob agreed. "We might get twice
that, but we'd lose too many animals. Most likely came too fast
this afternoon. Tomorrow we'll slow down, be lucky to make thirty
for the whole day. Probably less." He thought a moment. "Really
doesn't matter now though. We're on our way," he smiled.

~

He came awake in the darkness and lay looking
up at the silvery moon far over head.

His mind was clouded but seemed to
be clearing.
For a second there...
For a second there he had forgotten who he was,
or...
or what was going on.

He tried to move, but his body
seemed excessively heavy. That was okay though. They would come for
him. They would realize he had not made it to the top of the hill.
They would come back and... He tried to pull a breath and the panic
set in. He bolted upright, the weight of his body suddenly not an
issue, still struggling to pull a breath, but his lungs would not
comply. His hands came up to his neck and then fell away slowly.
His neck was a ruined mass of flesh. He had taken a bullet there,
he reasoned. Taken a bullet there, but it hadn't killed
him...
yet,
his
mind supplied.
But you can't
breath!