The King of Clayfield - 01 (10 page)

CHAPTER 9

I would have suggested driving back into town to one of the liquor stores, but Clayfield didn't have liquor stores. In fact, the whole county had been dry since Prohibition. I figured Grace County probably had a higher rate of infected for that reason.

It wasn't that there was no alcohol here; it just wasn't sold legally. People drove over the county line and bought it or got it from bootleggers.
 
It was likely
 
that one of the
 
neighbors would have something stashed away, but finding the right neighbor would be the key.

Blaine's nearest neighbors were close enough that we could see their houses, but not close enough to walk there quickly. I drove and Jen rode shotgun...literally.

I pulled into the driveway of the nearest house. The name on the big black mailbox was Kaler. It was a brick home with a large red barn off to the side. There were two cars by the house
 
under a carport
 
and a small blue tractor by the barn.

"Next house," Jen said.

"Huh? Why?"

"Look on the gray car. There's a Jesus bumper sticker."

"So?"

"Not likely to have booze, so it'll be a waste of time."

"Okay," I said, putting the Blazer in reverse.

"We'll come back, though," she said. "There's a four wheeler parked in the barn. It's painted camouflage. You know what that means?"

"What?"

"Somebody in that house hunts, so there'll be guns in there."

I laughed for the first time in days. "You're a regular Sherlock Holmes."

"Well,
 
yeah," she said, "elementary, my dear dumbass."

She smiled. It was a
real
smile, like in her profile pictures on the social networking sites.
 
I hadn't been thinking about it before, but she was pretty in a rough-around-the-edges kind of way.
 

We passed another field of cows and pulled into the driveway of a large white house with a wrap-around porch. The mailbox at the end of the driveway was painted to look like a large-mouth bass.

“Ahh," Jen said. "Another sportsman."

I stopped behind an older pickup truck.

"Well, Sherlock, what's the verdict?"

"Let's try it."

I turned off the Blazer, and we got out. We both stood still a while to listen and wait in case someone was inside. We didn't want to bust in on an occupied home and get shot.

"I think it's fine," I said. "But I'll go knock on the door. You okay with the gun?"

She nodded, and brushed her hair away from her face with her forearm.
 
Her
 
long coat sleeves were bunched up, stopping at
 
her knuckles. The only thing preventing her hands from disappearing inside was
 
her grip
 
on the shotgun.

I stepped up onto the long, wooden porch, and walked down to the front door. The screen door was closed, but the main door was standing open. I felt a sinking in my
 
stomach. There was no reason for that door to be open.

I looked down the porch to Jen who was standing by the truck. She raised her eyebrows and started forward. I shook my head for her not to come. There was a noise from inside.

Heeeeeh. Heeeeh. Heeeeeh.

I stepped back from the door.

"What's the matter?" Jen whispered.

I motioned for her to stay back.

Heeeeeh. Heeeeeh.

There was movement in the darkened room. I could see through the house to a window on the other side that looked into the backyard. Suddenly the silhouette of a head and shoulders were framed in that window. Fine, wispy hair stood away from the head. I stepped back to the porch railing. I began to make out the rest of the person shuffling toward the screen door.

Heeeeeh. Heeeh. Heeeeeh.

It was an old woman. Her long gray hair had been pulled back in a bun, but was coming loose, part of it
 
draped across her shoulder. She wore a night gown that was ripped from her left shoulder and one bare, shriveled
 
breast hung out. Her
 
chin was black with dried blood.

Heeeh. Heeeeeh. Heeeeh.
It was her breathing.

I couldn't move.

Jen was on the porch.

"What is it?" she said.

The old woman stared at me. There was a look in her eyes like a hungry animal. She charged, slamming into the screen door.

I yelped,
 
flipped over the railing, and
 
tumbled out into the yard.

I could hear Jen running back toward the Blazer.

The door didn't open.
 
The woman
 
rammed it again. It still wouldn't open. It must have been latched. She let out a noise that stood my hair on end. It sounded like a growling cat.

Jen came around the porch and ran to me.

"Are you okay?"

"She can't get out," I said.

Jen looked up to the door and got her first view of the woman.

"Holy shit," she said.

"She can't figure out how to unhook it," I said, fascinated and terrified at the same time. "Let's go," I said. "We'll try another house."

"No," Jen said, "We need to get you something to drink, and we are liable to find something like her at every house we go to. She looks kind of frail; we can handle her.
 
I'd rather face her now than have to deal with you later."

"But there's no guarantee there will be anything in there. She doesn't look like a drinker to me."

Jen nodded and made a face.

"Okay, but we've only got a couple of hours until dark.”

We went back to the vehicle. Before Jen got in, she went over to the pickup truck, opened the passenger door and searched it. I had the Blazer cranked when she returned.

"I was hoping to find a flashlight," she said.

We drove another quarter mile past woods and a sleeping cornfield.
 
We passed a little Baptist church. I was still shaken from my encounter with the
 
old woman, and I knew I'd have nightmares about her.

"Maybe we should just head back the other direction and check houses that way," Jen said. "I'm starting to worry. When were you exposed for the first time?"

"Around noon yesterday, I guess."

"It's getting close for you, then."

"I feel fine.”

“Zach did, too," she said. "It'll hit you fast.

The next house was a mobile home. There were two junked cars in the front yard; one had a
 
blue plastic
 
tarp over it. To the side of the house was a huge oak
 
tree with an engine block hanging from one of its limbs by a chain. The driveway wound through trees and
 
circled around to the
 
back, then continued a few hundred feet
 
farther into a wooded area
 
to a concrete block building with a garage door. I
 
pulled around
 
and parked by the back door of the home.

When
 
I got out I could hear a sound like an engine running. It was coming from the direction of the block building.

"What's that noise?" Jen
 
said, "It kind of sounds like a lawn mower."

"We should leave," I said.

"Someone is there," she said. "Maybe they can help us."

"They don't look like the sort...."

"You haven't seen them to judge whether they're the
 
'sort,'" she said. "Let's at least go take a
 
look."

Reluctantly,
 
I agreed. We
 
walked out toward the building. The snow was all trampled down and muddy there. There
 
had been a lot of
 
activity there
 
that day.
 
I
 
stepped over
 
near one
 
of the trees and picked up a stick. It
 
wasn't long
 
like the
 
tobacco stake, but it
 
would make a good club.

There weren't any windows in the front of the building;
 
I could see
 
a couple in the left
 
side. There was a gravel footpath that led around that side of the building to the rear. There was a lot of rusted
 
metal and junk piled along the way.

Jen nodded toward some broken beer bottles and said, "Looks promising."

"I think the noise is coming from behind the building,"
 
I said. "Let's go around."

We started around on the path. I was trying to
 
look in the windows, but they were too high up.

"Oh God," Jen said, grabbing my arm.

She was staring into the trees to our left. There was a doghouse there that had been
 
pieced together with scraps of siding and plywood. There was a food bowl and a stake driven in the ground next to it. Attached to the stake was a chain, and the chain was attached to the mutilated remains of a mutt. It had been ripped apart. There was blood in the snow.

This wasn't good.
 
Now, I'd have to check on the noise to see if someone was in trouble.

I stepped away from her and eased toward the back of the building toward the noise.

"No," she whispered. "Let's get out of here."

I ignored Jen. I didn't want to leave if there were people
 
that needed
 
our help.
 
 
I walked softly
 
to the corner of the building and peeked around.

There was a small gas-powered
 
generator next to the building beside the back door. The door was cracked enough to allow an orange extension cord inside.
 
Standing next to the generator
 
with his back to me was a large
 
man in dark blue coveralls. He was hunched over a little, and I couldn't see what he was doing. I scanned the rest of the area behind the building for others, but all I saw was more junk and trees.

I looked over my shoulder. Jen was still by the dog motioning me back. I returned, but I didn't plan on leaving just yet.

"There's a man back there," I whispered. "I can't tell whether he's infected. I'm going around to the other side to see if I can see his face."

"Is anyone inside?"

"I don't know," I said. "But there's a generator
 
running back there, so probably."

She was planted in her spot. She didn't offer to come with me. I went around the
 
right side of the building. There were no windows in this side. I looked around the corner. The man wasn't there anymore. I presumed
 
that he had gone inside.

The noise of the generator would mask the sound of my movement, so I wasn't concerned about that. I went up to the back door, and put an eye up to the crack. It was a garage. There were lots of tools and oil stains. There were
 
five cots set up in the middle; one was occupied. The extension cord coming from the generator was connected to a television, a space heater, and a small lamp.
 
The person on the cot wasn't moving--probably asleep.

Then there was a shotgun blast.

I ran around the building.
 
Jen
 
was
 
still where
 
I'd left her.
 
The man in blue
 
coveralls was on the ground between us on his back.

"Mother fucker!" she was crying.
 
She stepped closer to him, pumped the shotgun,
 
and
 
fired again. The coveralls near his stomach blew out like confetti. The
 
sound echoed through the woods behind me.

"Mother...," she
 
dropped to her knees, the shotgun
 
rolling
 
down her lap to the
 
driveway.