The King of Clayfield - 01 (50 page)

I'd lost my mom, too. My best friend, Blaine and his beautiful family were gone. I
 
hurt for them, but not the way I would have hurt before. It didn't seem right for me to feel such a great loss over Jen when I didn't feel it for these people I loved...yet
 
I still felt it.

It was comforting to have Sara's head on my shoulder and to listen to her sleep. The wine helped it not to hurt so badly, and I had more than I needed.

Dawn showed a cloudy sky. I slipped
 
away from Sara without waking her and stepped outside. It was cool out but not cold. It looked like we'd have another warm, breezy day like
 
the day before, with the possibility of rain.

The buzz from the wine had worn off, and I was left with a dull headache. I was surprised that I wanted to eat, but I wanted to put Jen and Brian to rest before the rain started. I went back in and woke Sara.

"Come on," I said. "It's time to go."

We drove back out to the house. The front door was still open. Brian's body was gone from the front lawn. I sort of expected that. We sat in the bus staring at the house, trying to get up enough nerve to get out.

"I can't," I said. "I'm really sorry, but I don't want to see her."

"You don't have to," Sara said. "I'll get some sticks and build a fire in the kitchen, and then I'll throw some water on the gas logs. That will put the fire out, but the gas will keep running. Once the gas gets to the fire in the kitchen it should take care of it."

"I can at least help you find some sticks," I said.

"You stay and keep watch for me," she said. "I'll be okay."

I watched her walking around under some
 
large trees on the edge of the property. She seemed so much older than her years. Really, she was just a kid, but times
 
like these
 
can mature a person.

When she had a bundle, she went inside the house. I felt like such a baby for not being willing to go in there myself. She was in there a while. I was just about to make myself go check on her when she came back out of the house still holding the sticks.
 
I stepped out of the bus.

"She's gone, too,"
 
she said. "I checked the whole house."

I
 
went as far as the front porch. There were at least three sets of bloody footprints going in and out of the house. For a moment I thought that someone had carried her away, but then I realized some of those footprints were mine and Sara's from the night before. The other set must have been Jen's.

This changed my understanding of things. I had tried to avoid admitting it, but I'd finally
 
surrendered to the notion that the virus was bringing people back to life. However, seeing that Jen was missing added something new.

There were the infected. They were the ones with the fever who'd lost their minds. They were fast, albeit uncoordinated, and operating on animal instincts. Then there were the infected that had died--either through violence or from the virus itself--and had come back to "life." Jen's absence told of a third group. Jen hadn't had the virus before she died, yet because she'd been killed (bitten) by one of the infected, she came back, too.

This gave me pause about the possibility of a fourth group. What would happen to those who neither had the virus, nor were killed by someone with the virus? Would they come back, too?

"Do you want to look for her?" Sara said, dropping the sticks.

"No," I said. "We might find her; then what?"

"What do you want to do?" she said.

I didn't know.

"Crawl in a hole somewhere," I said. "Pull it in on top of
 
me."

She walked over to me. She put her arm around my waist and her head on my chest.
 

We drove back
 
by the stables. The crowd from the day before was
 
mostly gone. There were just five left. We didn't want to shoot them because of the noise, so Sara pulled in close to the barns. We got out and found
 
some farm tools--a shovel for Sara and an axe for me. We bludgeoned and chopped until they were all still then we dragged their bodies in a pile.

There was a lone horse and two chickens left alive. The two chickens that made it did so by flying up and roosting in the rafters of the barn. We couldn't get them to come down.
 
Pieces of the goat were strewn around the barn.

We unloaded the pickup and put
 
the supplies from it
 
into the bus.
 
We
 
went in the house and got
 
everything we could and loaded it into the bus. I went back in for one last pass and saw Jen's stack of magazines next to the couch
 
along with the golf club I'd left her for a cane. I almost lost it
 
right then, but I kept my composure. I took the golf club.

I'd been going along with Jen on everything, and I had not really thought beyond that.
 
My overall plan hadn't changed. I still thought it best to find a way to live here. I had no real desire to wander around the country
 
looking for someone to save me, but I knew I
 
couldn't stay here at the stables. Sara had been right--staying at the Lassiter Stables was what
Jen
had wanted. It
 
turned out not to be safe anyway.

When the
 
bus was loaded, we poured kerosene on the bodies and set them on fire.

We drove down to the end of the driveway where the hay truck was still parked askew. I stopped and
 
Sara got out.

"Where are we going?" she said.

"I don't know," I said. "It almost doesn't matter."

She climbed back up on the steps.

"Listen, I know you're hurting, but we can't give up. They'll get us if we give up."

I nodded, staring out the windshield at nothing in particular.
 

"You said yourself that this is a chance for us to live however we want and wherever we want. Is there some place you've ever wanted to live? Some place other than Clayfield?"

"Clayfield is home," I said.

"We could drive south and find us a nice place on the Gulf, right on the beach. How does that sound?”

"Is that what you want?" I said, looking at her.

She smiled and looked down at her feet then back up at me.

"I'm with you."

I tried to smile back, but I couldn't.

"Okay," she said. "If we're going to stay
 
around here, we're going to have to do better.
 
We've
 
been just
 
reacting and hiding. I know that's what
 
you and Jen wanted to do, but we
 
can't live like that.
 
I think the people at the high school had the right idea, they just went about it the wrong way. I think we need to take the town back.
 
If that means we're exterminators, then so be it."

I was sad and angry enough right then to go along with
 
being an exterminator,
 
but
 
that was not the time to do anything except mend.

I nodded my agreement.

"Good," she said, hopping out of the bus. She climbed in the hay truck then motioned me to lead the way.

Rain began to spot up the windshield. I
 
switched on the wipers, pulled out of the driveway, and turned the bus toward Clayfield.