The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (129 page)

He looked over at her.

“
We gotta figure this out
too. I mean, we're going backwards, back to where we came,” Beth
said.

“
I could loop out deep and
then swing back,” Billy said.

“
Yeah, except I'm thinking
in this desert you can see dust for miles... The dust is the
problem.” She leaned over and looked at the gas gauge. “Less than a
half tank, so gas is a problem too.” She frowned.

“
We've got gas in the
back,” Billy threw in.

“
I'm thinking this. We hit
that water way, or an out building, has to be something around
here. We crash, sleep the day away, and then tonight we run across
the desert to the other side of Phoenix. What do you
think?”

“
Sounds like a plan... I'm
shot,” Billy agreed.

“
Okay, so take the next
road that crosses, slow down to keep the dust down and let's start
looking for a place to hide for the day... We've got enough gas in
the back we can get a long way before we need to find a station if
we don't burn it up running in circles and
backtracking.”

Billy slowed the truck and began
heading to the right, the east. “One of those towers will do...
High voltage lines? Something like that. Just scrap metal now, but
that will hide us if we drive right up to it,” Beth
said.

They drove to the tower and a dirt
service road that circled it and continued to the north. Billy
pulled the truck up close to the tower and shut it down. The
silence held for a few moments, he fisted his hands into his eyes.
“Jesus, I'm shot.”

“
Come here,” Beth said. She
pulled him down to the seat and laid his head in her lap. She began
to rub lightly at his temples.

“
God, don't do that, It'll
put me to sleep,” Billy told her half jokingly.

“
Which is why I'm doing
it.” She stretched her legs, angled them across to the drivers side
floorboard, and leaned back into the door. The last thing she
remembered was smoothing the hair out of his eyes and then she
spiraled away into a series of dreams.

CHAPTER FOUR

Billy and Beth

March 15th

It was late afternoon when Billy awoke.
Somewhere in the day Beth had wound up beside him, two spoons in a
drawer. He lay still unwilling to let her go, his hand was curled
protectively around her. Beth moved and he felt the sleep leave her
body. One moment all soft and willing, the next a live
wire.

“
You didn't cop a feel did
you?” Beth asked in a mumbled half sleepy voice.

“
Beth, can't you ever just
say something like, I don't know, good morning?”

She twisted her head around and smiled.
The secret smile she rarely ever gave out. The one that had started
him falling in the first place. “Good late afternoon,” she said and
the smile slipped away. There was still something there, but it
wasn't that secret, vulnerable glimpse into her heart that it was
usually. She stretched, yawned, and her feet came up against the
door. “Next vehicle we get is an SUV so we have some place to sleep
too.”

“
I don't know, I kind of
liked this,” Billy said before he could shut his mouth
down.

Beth laughed and it was the unguarded
Beth once more. “As long as you know what the deal is.” She twisted
her head once more, and then her entire body so she was looking
directly in his eyes.

“
I... I know the deal,”
Billy said. The press of her body was maddening.

“
We really don't need to
talk it out?”

“
You know how I feel,
Beth.”

“
I do,” she nodded and her
eyes became sad. “Let me just say these few things.” She took a
deep breath and then began to speak. “I am attracted to you. I
considered sleeping with you before you became my friend, before I
knew it couldn't work between us. I even considered it after...
Maybe ten minutes ago too, but it would cost me a friend because it
wouldn't mean to me what it would mean to you.” She held his eyes
as if willing him to understand.

“
It's like you see me as
this fragile little princess, and I am so far from that, Billy. So
far. You have been on the bad side of me and so I can't see why you
still try to see me that way.” She laughed. “It's a thing men do.
Like... Like that is love, you see? Instead of love just being
about all the other stuff... The things I admire about you, you
about me. The things in common, the things that we share, the parts
of you and me that are real that end up in the mix... But no, I'm a
princess, unattainable beauty, something to worship, and it has
nothing to do with what I really am at all. I have lived that way,
tried to live up to that. It's not possible... The man I need is
out there, I hope. Just someone that looks at me as me.” She
watched his eyes.

“
I think I can do that,”
Billy told her.

Beth laughed.

“
No, really. I think I can
separate those things... I'm pretty sure.”

“
Yeah? I think you like the
idea of me... I think you want to fuck me... I think it might even
hold together in a situation like this... At least for a while. And
I think you could talk me into that comfort we could give each
other, and I think you would feel completely different about me
once that happened. You would think it meant that we were together,
and it wouldn't mean that at all. It would mean we were scared and
we took some comfort in each other... Because the attraction was
there, and because it can just be about that sometimes.” She drew a
breath. “But I think then I would go from princess to whore,
because that's the way this world works, princess to whore in sixty
seconds. I've seen it... I've felt it... And then I lose my friend,
and I also hurt my fiend, because he doesn't want to see it, I mean
really see it for what it is.” She reached one hand up and pushed
Billy's dirty blonde hair away from his eyes. That hair, and the
way it hung across his eyes was one of the things that had nearly
made her give in. He looked like a little boy, vulnerable, maybe he
would love her forever, never hurt her, never treat her badly,
never leave, but he would be reacting to something in her that
didn't really exist. Something only he saw. That little boy,
awestruck, in love, but not the kind of love she needed him to
feel, to be in with her... She sighed again. She could see the hurt
in his eyes.

“
We probably should get
going,” Billy said. A smile played across his lips. Tentative, but
there.

“
Okay,” she laid her head
against his chest. “I need a toothbrush... That little bastard made
me lose my toothbrush.”

Billy laughed. “I got
extras.”

She lifted her face up,
“Really?”

“
Really.”

She bent and kissed his forehead and
then rose from the seat and looked around at the scrub brush and
sand before she rose all the way up and sat on the edge of the seat
while Billy straightened his long frame out and sat on the drivers
side of the seat.

“
That felt sort of, I don't
know, brotherly... That kiss.”

“
I hated my brother,” Beth
said. She levered the handle and stepped down to the
ground.

“
Hey?” Billy said. Beth
stopped and looked back at him, her eyes careful.

“
I'll work at it... I
mean,” he looked at a loss. “I don't want to lose our
friendship.”

Beth smiled. “Thanks... I mean it. Now
get out here and get me a toothbrush, Billy Jingo.” She laughed as
she finished.

~

“
So, look.” Billy jabbed
his finger at the map and Beth leaned across and looked at the map.
“Teddy Roosevelt Lake... Tonto National forest... Connected to Gila
National forest... Cibola National forest. Pretty
isolated.”

Beth turned her eyes back to the
desert. There was little to see, but twice she had hit bushes that
popped up out of what seemed like nowhere. They had passed under
the truck, but there were cactus out here too in places, and she
was pretty sure a cactus wouldn't just pass under the
truck.

“
So... Why there?” Beth
asked.

“
Just a place to get our
shit together: Breath for a few moments, really look the map over
and pick a destination.”

“
Isn't that taking us
closer to Yellowstone, or whatever is causing the problems to the
north?” Beth asked.

“
It is... But,” Billy
checked the scale and did some quick measurements. “Still close to
a thousand miles away from there.” He looked up. “I think it is
Yellowstone. I heard something just before the shit hit the fan,
something about the park in Yellowstone.”

“
What was it?” Beth
asked.

“
I don't know,” Billy
answered. He shrugged. “I wasn't paying attention... Wish I had
been... Something like everyone in the park went off line... Like
they couldn't reach any of the stations, rangers, whatever you call
them... Something like that. And seismic activity, like an
earthquake centered there.” He shrugged once more and shook his
head.

“
So it's a good place to
stay away from,” Beth said.

“
Yeah... I would say so,
but we'll be a thousand miles away.” Billy shrugged once
more.

“
So?”

“
So, head north... We'll
have to cross a few highways... Just keep out from the cities... I
mean Phoenix turns to suburbs that spread out a long way, at least
that's what the map looks like. Like it just kept spreading and so
they just kept adding names.”

Off to their left the city was easy to
spot. There were fires all through it. In some places huge sections
were on fire, in others it was scattered fires. There were no areas
that didn't seem to be affected, and with the fires it was easy to
track the edge of the cities as they drove.

Beth laughed. “So they just added
names. Well, couldn't the same be said about New York? About any
large city as it grows? Isn't that the way it works?”

“
I guess... I hadn't
thought it out, I guess.”

~

“
Going to have to cut
through part of the city,” Beth said a few moments
later.

Billy looked up from the map as the
truck rolled to a stop. “A river.”

“
Probably a canal...” Beth
said. “Either way we can't drive over it... Does it break
anywhere?” She turned the truck and began to run alone the side of
the canal heading for the city once more. In the distance several
fires burned, but the fires seemed to be a few mile distance,
nothing close. “Like a housing development or something,” Beth said
a few minutes later as the truck bumped up onto a road that was
paralleled by a brick wall. The wide concrete gutter was bone dry,
the pavement smooth after so much time in the desert

“
Not on the map...” He
shrugged. “I just don't know, Beth.”

Beth had stopped on the edge of the
housing development. It was dark, lit only by the headlights of the
truck. Cars and trucks sat neatly in driveways. The streets were
empty. Heavy dust seemed to blanket the whole scene. Little trails
cut from place to place.

“
Fucking spooky,” Billy
said. “Volcanic ash?”

“
Probably... What do you
think the trails are?”

Billy frowned. “It has to be
dead.”

“
It doesn't have to be
dead... Could be small animals raiding house to house... No garbage
any more so they have to get into those houses and get what they
can or starve... Or it could be dead.”

“
Great, you had me
ha...”

Something hit the truck hard and it
rocked on its springs. The smell of death hit them about the same
time, and Beth hit the gas, mashing the pedal into the floor
boards.

A rotting hand came through the open
back window and fastened around Beth's throat, her hands left the
wheel as she was yanked backwards, and the truck spun hard to the
left and accelerated, her foot still mashed on the gas.

Billy lifted his gun and shot the
zombie in the face. It seemed slow motion at first, the face
exploded as it fell away into the back of the pickup, Beth drew a
deep breath and tried to grab the wheel but it was too late.
Everything sped up to real time and the truck roared forward and
slammed into the side of a house, continuing into it. Her foot had
slammed down on the brake and the truck finally stopped several
feet into the house.

Billy hit the dashboard hard and then
rebounded and slid under the dash as the truck plunged into the
house. Seconds later he scrambled out from under the dash, the
smell of gasoline was strong, the smell of the hot motor equally
strong. He looked over at Beth but she seemed dazed, her eyes
unfocused, a trickle of blood running from somewhere under her
hairline, mumbling softly under her breath. Billy levered his door
open with a little help from his foot, it screeched as it opened.
The screech of metal was very loud in the silence of the house. The
headlights were still on, illuminating what looked to be a
kitchen.

The smell of death came to him over the
smell of gas and hot motor.

“
Jesus, Beth. Jesus. We got
to go,” Billy said loudly. He reached down, gabbed Beth's rifle
where it had fallen to the floor and then shoved his gun into his
holster. He was surprised he had the presence of mind to actually
pull the strap over the hammer and snap it in place to hold the gun
in. He reached over and pulled Beth to him, she came willingly. A
second later he was outside the ruined truck and staring out the
hole it had punched through into the house. He saw no dead, but he
could smell them. He debated only briefly and then ran for the hole
and the moonlit night outside.