Stage 6 (11 page)

Lucy slowly nodded her head, but then said, “I understand, but I still don’t like it. I can feel it; this is going to be trouble for all of us.”

On that ominous note, I walked back into the room and said, “Well thanks, Bob, that cleared up a lot for us. Say would you happen to know any people around here with stuff like food and gas that they would be willing to trade to us for money or supplies or something?”

He gritted his teeth, thought about it for a second and then replied, “Well I don’t know about the gas, but I’m sure you could find some food around here. Most of us have a surplus in food we’d be willing to sell or trade as that surplus would normally be shipped out of here to stores anyways. On the gas, your best bet is Alex. He lives behind the general store, and a few months ago he realized before the rest of us that the trucks were stopping to come in, and he bought up a bunch of gas for himself. He’s pretty stingy with it but he’s about the only one of us with any gas other than the gas already in our vehicles.”

I thanked him again, and we shuffled down the stairs and out the door, to see George sitting outside with a slingshot shooting at birds. I opened my mouth to say hello when suddenly a bird plummeted out of the sky aiming straight for him. Shocked I didn’t have time to do anything when Kevin raced forward and tackled George out of the way. A split second later the bird crashed beak first into the earth, instantly dying upon impact. We all ran over to Kevin and George and helped them up.

We all looked at Kevin surprised, when he said, “Hey I just remember you guys first telling me those animals could be Infected too, that scared the hell out of me.”

George dusted his shirt off and looked thankfully at Kevin. I then asked him, “Hey George do you know where someone called Alex lives? We heard he has a bunch of gas.”

I could tell George quickly got over his incident with the Infected bird because he immediately laughed and said, “Yeah I know where he lives, but good luck getting anything out of that guy. He hoards stuff like there’s no tomorrow.”

Grimly, I thought to myself that wasn’t far from the truth. Without those supplies there might very well
not
be a tomorrow. I asked George to take us there, and he replied, “Sure.”

We followed him around the store I had gone to get baby food from the day before, and saw a lonely old house in the distance with no grass or trees near it.

George pointed at the deserted landscape and remarked, “He conserves his water so much he won’t even use it to feed the grass.”

My hopes of trading for gas were plummeting with each step we took, and I hurriedly turned to my Mom and asked her, “What do we have that we can trade?”

She looked blankly at me before replying, “Well we have all the money left from your wallet, and I guess if we had too I’m sure we could trade some of our guns. Maybe some parts from our truck? We really don’t have much we can part with.”

Kevin spoke up, “Well hey guys I have about two hundred bucks here if we need it?”

Grimacing I nodded; hopefully Alex would be interested in money.

We walked up to the door of the house and George gave a quick three knocks, which brought an immediate drawling reply of, “Who is it now?”

George whispered to us, “We come around here every few days to ask for gas to go into the cities and find out where our trucks are going, but he always refuses.” George then spoke up, “It’s me, George, and a few travelers who are passing through. They want to see if they can work out a trade.”

We heard a sigh from inside, and a few seconds later the sound of bolts being withdrawn came to our ears, and the door was opened.

A middle-aged man stood there with a frown on his face, and after having a good look at us he said, “I am not used to so many visitors; three of you can come on in but the rest have to stay outside.”

His tone was apologetic, and I thought it a reasonable request. I told George to wait outside, and asked quietly and quickly who thinks they would be a good negotiator.

Kevin whispered back, “Before the world went to hell, I was a lawyer. I’d probably be good in there. Let’s take Sarah too.”

 Agreed, I asked the rest of them to wait outside for us and Alex parted to let Kevin, Sarah, and I into the house. It was a small rickety old house, with one center room making up most of the space. I found a small folding chair near the sliding glass door to the backyard, which was peculiarly fenced off although there was nobody else living anywhere around him. Kevin and Sarah sat on the small old couch by an old chimney, and Alex slumped into a brown rocking chair.

He leaned forward and asked, “So what can I do for you folks?”

I opened my mouth to speak when Kevin cut me off and said, “Let us just be honest here. We need gas, badly. We heard you’re the only one around here with extra gas so we came to see if we could work out a deal.”

Alex shook his head before Kevin even stopped talking, “I’m afraid I can’t give out any gas guys. You see my son is going to be visiting soon from my ex-wife and I promised him we’d go on a road trip.”

Kevin replied with something I couldn’t hear, as I was tuning out the conversation to listen to the feelings in the words rather than the actual words. When Alex talked about his son “visiting soon” a hint of doubt was in his words. Possibly, his son was supposed to visit before now and he is beginning to wonder if his son was coming after all.

I spoke up interrupting Kevin, “Alex, was your son supposed to visit a while ago, and is running late now?”

Alex looked at me bewildered, “Yeah he was originally going to come three days ago. How did you know?”

I replied, “Just a thought I had. Where was he coming from?”
If his son came from out of Texas, he’s not going to be able to get past the quarantine.

Alex replied, “Austin, Texas.”

A collective startled gasp came from all three of us, and Alex looked from one of us the next confused, “What’s wrong?”

I looked at Kevin and Sarah, who wouldn’t meet my gaze. I figured Alex had a right to know, so I said, “Alex. Have you noticed anything unusual around here? The weird behavior of the animals, the delivery trucks being delayed, your kid not contacting you?”

He replied slowly, “Yeah, what’s your point?”

I continued, “Well frankly Alex when we arrived in this town last night we were shocked to discover that none of you has even heard of the virus that has plagued our entire state.”

Alex cut in, “Well I have heard of a little virus going around but what’s this got to do with me and my boy?”

I thought about my reply for a second, and then said, “Well Alex there’s no easy way to put this, but that ‘little virus’ is known as The Infection. Its effects are similar to fast acting rabies, and it has spread throughout the entire state of Texas. We just came from the suburbs near Austin, and I can personally tell you there’s almost nothing left.”

Alex stopped me, “What are you saying?”

I continued slowly, “I’m saying that the entire city of Austin is now overrun by the Infected. When we left they were attempting to set up a civilian base at Camp Mabry, but it looked like it would only last another few days at best.”

Alex thought about this for a second, obviously trying to decide if we were crazy or not.

He asked, “So you’re telling me that somehow I haven’t heard of this new virus that is transforming normal people across the state in to killer rabies victims?”

Kevin suggested helpfully, “Think of them like zombies.”

Alex laughed and sat back, “This is too much. I have no idea why you’re trying to convince me of this, but rest assured I’m not buying it.”

I said, “Alex, your boy is probably at Mabry. He’s safe, but he’s not going to come here. You don’t need your gas.”

He stood up abruptly and demanded, “Is that what all this is about? You just come into my house and make up a story about zombies to try and convince me my son isn’t coming back so you can take my gas?”

I stood up also and protested, “No we just want you to understand that they could be coming this way, we need to get out of here soon!”

Alex walked to the door and threw it open. He said calmly, “Get out of my house.”

I looked at him and tried to argue when he cut me off and repeated, “Get out. Now.”

Resigned to my failure, I beckoned Kevin and Sarah to follow me and we left. The door closed and locked firmly behind us.

I said, “Well, that went well.”

Kevin filled the group in on what happened while I thought of our next move. It was obvious that Alex was not in the mood for sharing, and equally obvious that any more attempts at story-telling were going to end in similar disaster. It was already a little past noon, and we needed to find people with extra food before darkness fell. I wanted to be safely in doors way before the sun went down, I just didn’t feel comfortable out at night any more.

I said loudly, “Ok, let’s go see if anybody’s willing to give us some food.”

I nodded at George to lead the way and he happily started walking towards another house. I got the feeling he was hoping that by being cooperative we would take him with us when we left. We followed him all in bad spirits not getting the gas we so desperately needed. Kevin muttered something about going in there and getting the gas ourselves but we quickly silenced him. It was becoming a habit for Kevin to suggest a bad idea and we all quickly shoot it down before he gets us into trouble.

It was a small town, so there were only six places George led us to that he claimed might be willing to give or sell food to us. The first two apologetically turned us down, the third didn’t answer, and by the fourth we were all in a remarkably bad mood. We walked up to the door and knocked, waiting for a reply. The door opened suddenly and a cheery woman greeted us and invited us in. Her name was Sally. I found it comforting that she could invite total strangers into her home like this, and hoped her politeness was a good sign.

Trying to keep the desperation out of my voice, I asked, “I’m sorry to bother you ma’am, but would you happen to have any extra food laying around that we could buy or trade for? We’re passing through the town and with the supplies the way they are we don’t feel comfortable moving on without a few day’s worth of food stored up.”

She grinned broadly and said, “Well how’s about that I was just complaining to Fred this morning about how we need some trucks to come through to sell our wares! My husband, that’s Fred, owns the farm down the ways’ and we have a bunch of vegetables and fruit we’ve just been dying to get rid of. What do you have to barter with?”

I said slowly, “We have about four hundred dollars. We also have a truck we can take some parts off of, and if absolutely necessary we have a few guns we could part with.”

 She replied, “Oh the money’s fine dear, come into the back and I’ll show you what we have.”

We followed her into the back yard to see a wide assortment of things such as watermelon, cantaloupe, peaches, blackberries, tomatoes, corn, bell peppers, and a large bowl of eggs sitting in a cooler. We all broke out in laughter and joy, to see such wonderful food after going a week on canned beans and such. I motioned for Kevin to take out his wallet and he handed his two hundred bucks to me.

I asked Sally, “What can we buy with two hundred dollars?”

She whistled and replied, “Well that’s a tough question really because all these things sell for very different amounts. Tell you what, why don’t you all pick out what you want, and then I’ll let you know how much it’s gonna be and we’ll work our way from there. How’s that?”

I thanked her, and said, “Alright gang, get gathering. What do we want? Keep in mind some of this stuff will not stay good for long, so we are going to want the vegetables mainly. Get some fruit if you want, but mainly vegetables. And some eggs maybe.”

Almost giddy with excitement, they set to work getting what they wanted. Everybody had some favorite food they had to get; Kevin was excited about the peppers; my mom was excited about the tomatoes, and so on. Personally I just wanted to raise the moral, and was fine spending a few extra bucks on fruit to do that especially considering to us money really wasn’t worth that much anymore.

I drew Sally aside and asked her, “Sally, you said your husband owned a farm. Would he by any chance happen to have cows on the farm?”

She was about to answer when a voice answered for her from the back door, “I do have cows on my farm, why do you ask?” He stepped forward to shake my hand and introduced himself as Fred.

I said, “Well Fred we would really appreciate getting some milk. We have a little baby who really needs it, and we haven’t been able to find anyone around here who will give us any. Is there any chance we could we buy it from you?”

Fred sighed and looked at the sky for a bit, obviously pained by what he had to say. He then replied, “I’m really sorry young man, but my cows don’t give much milk they’re getting to be pretty old now. I only have about a gallon left as it is, and it’s pretty precious stuff around here...”

Sally turned to her husband and whispered loudly, “Fred! They have a baby! Surely they need it more than we do?”

When it looked like Fred wasn’t going to budge, she asked us, “Didn’t you fellows mention having guns to trade?” Fred’s interest was immediately piqued, and he looked up at me cautiously.

I replied, “Yes we have some guns we could be willing to trade.” I called Ian and pulled him to the side, and then quickly asked him, “Ian! What do you think our least valuable gun is?”

He thought for a second, then replied, “Well definitely not Steve’s guns, they’re high grade stuff. Not the hunting rifles, because they can be used at long range and short range. I’d have to say Lucy’s revolver is the least-valuable to us.”

I nodded, and called Lucy over. I asked her, “Hey, we’ve decided your gun is the one we have to trade, but don’t worry we can just give Kevin’s gun to you. Think of it like an upgrade. Do you have your revolver with you?”

She sheepishly nodded, and reached inside her jacket to pull it out. Ian immediately took it from her, pointed it at the ground, did some strange stuff, and then looked at Lucy with a horrified expression on his face.