The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (132 page)

Once Billy got the fire going he began
to set up the tent as Beth started dinner.

“
What are you making?”
Billy asked, as he walked back to the fireplace.

A large steel pot sat directly over the
metal grating of the outdoor fireplace, and the aroma from it was
all he could smell as he finished setting up the tent. His stomach
was growling.

“
Well,” she asked, “how
does it smell?”

“
Pretty damn good,” Billy
replied, “in fact about the best thing I've smelled in a long time.
I mean I lived alone, strictly fast food. Burgers, tacos, you know.
What is it?” he asked again.

“
Well, it's nothing great,
beans and corned beef,” she looked at him and shrugged her
shoulders as if to say, who knows? “Smells good though,
huh?”

Billy nodded his head in agreement, and
said aloud. “It's got fast food beat, that's for sure... It's going
to be a few minutes, right?” Billy asked.

“
Probably more like an
hour,” she replied, “That's why I've got it off the heat,
simmering. Why?”

“
Well,” Billy said, “that
lake looks pretty good. I'm thinking seriously about jumping in it
and washing some of this road grime off.”

Before he could say more Beth jumped up
and said, “Race ya!” Billy stood dumb founded as she raced away
towards the lake.

He caught up with her next to the
water, slightly out of breath, and laughing. When she started to
remove her clothes, he nearly choked on the laughter though. Beth
seemed not to notice, and after she had stripped down to her bra
and panties she dove gracefully into the water and swam out into
the lake, toward a wooden raft that was anchored about fifty feet
off shore.

Billy got over his initial shock,
stripped down to his briefs, and also dove into the water. The
coldness of the water shocked him, but it helped in a way to. He
hadn't realized just how beautiful she was, and his body had begun
unconsciously to respond. The cold water ended that though, and he
turned over on his back and floated as he kicked with his feet
towards the raft. When he turned back over as he sensed he was
nearing the raft he saw her sitting, looking back at him as he swam
towards her. She smiled, and he couldn't help but smile back. Cold
water or not, he thought, she is a beautiful woman.

He had guessed she must be in her late
thirties when he had met her, but now he thought he might be wrong.
Maybe it had been the dingy apartment building, which had
contributed to his observation. Whatever it had been, he was pretty
sure he was wrong. She looked like maybe she was only in her late
twenties, maybe, he thought, only a few years older than I am. It
was more the way she looked now, he realized, that made him think
she was probably a lot younger than he had initially
thought.

In the apartment building, she had been
wary and tired-looking. She seemed more alive to him now though,
and the smile went a long way towards smoothing out the lines that
had seemed to be embedded in her forehead. He supposed that to her
he must seem awful young at twenty-two, maybe even immature. The
few women he had gone out with in Watertown had been much younger
than himself, girls really. He had been in a common law marriage in
Mexico that ended badly, and that was his extent of knowledge when
it came to women.

Beth sat on the wooden surface of the
small raft and watched Billy turn back over on his back, as he
continued to float towards the raft.

She had liked Billy almost from the
first, when he had convinced her to open the door it had been a big
deal to her. It was something she would normally never do at all,
under any circumstances. Nevertheless, she had let him in. He
seemed honest, she told herself, and reminded her of herself. She
had started life honest anyway, it was just that she couldn't be as
honest as she wanted too, she reminded herself. Life was just that
way, she decided.

Billy was different. She knew it was
stupid, here she was entertaining what she had told him to forget,
but even as the thought entered her head she knew it wouldn't work.
It was comfort she needed. It was sexual attraction. He didn't move
her inside like she wanted to be moved. She wondered if she could
be moved that way by any man and the thought caused her smile to
slip away.

The meal was excellent. Billy's mind
was not entirely impaled upon the world and what it had become. He
thought they both just wanted to be part of the whole
again.

He realized, on an unconscious level,
that it was even more than that. He wanted some sort of security
again. Some kind of normalcy, same old, same old, he thought. The
thought made him laugh.

“
What?” Beth
asked.

“
Well first, this is so
good. And second I was thinking that as much as I used to hate the
same old, same old of the world, I find myself wishing I had it
back again. Ironic, I know.”

Beth nodded. She felt the same way. In
a world that was constantly cruel to her, she had held out hope
that it would not always be that way that somehow, someday, it
would all change for her. And it had, and for her this was even
better than she had dreamed. She didn't have to pretend about her
past, it didn't matter anymore. She didn't have to be anything, or
anyone, other than who she had always wanted to be, herself, the
woman that she had buried deep within her. She was happier than she
could ever recall being in her entire life. It was as if she had
been blind, and now through some unimaginable miracle could see. It
was so much and so many feelings that it threatened to overwhelm
her.

Billy spoke as they finished eating. He
had been thinking non-stop about everything that had happened, in
just the last few days, and he was no longer certain he wanted to
risk traveling on.

“
Beth?” he began, not quite
sure how to proceed with what he had been thinking. “Do you want to
go? I mean, do you want to go all the way across this country? It's
just that, well, I'm not as positive as I was that it has to be
done, or that we should.”

She thought for only a brief second
before she answered him.

“
I think that we have to,
Billy. It's not a question of whether we should. We have to,” she
paused. “I know it may be dangerous, and I suppose it could mean
that we may even die, but to me it would be worthwhile. To me it
would be, because I am not the woman for you... And she is out
there.” Beth locked her eyes on Billy's as she finished speaking,
waiting for him to respond.

Billy thought over what she had said.
It was not really a decisive thinking though, as he knew she was
right. It was more of an acceptance of a decision he had already
made, and not really wavered from. He nodded.

“
I've changed a lot of that
thinking,” Billy told her. “I really have. I don't always pay
attention, but I did when it came to you. I don't think I've ever
had a friend like you. I don't want to lose that. And I thought...
Well, I thought there must be a woman out there like you... Not one
I would compare to you, I mean one that gets inside of me and hooks
me the way you did, but where it works. I'm explaining it badly, I
guess.” Billy said.

“
No... No you're not. I
know exactly what you mean. How about some tea?” she
asked.

“
Tea?” he looked puzzled.
“Where did you get tea from?”

She held up a small package, and said,
“It was in the camping gear, a free sample package. Want
some?”

“
Sure,” he said, as he
smiled at her, “it sounds good, actually.”

While Beth made the tea, Billy took the
small tin cups, along with the plastic bowls that had also been in
the camping kit, and walked down to the water to wash them. The
moon had begun to rise and a silver trail spread across the lake,
seemingly alive as it rode the small ripples of the water. When he
finished, he stared off across the shimmering surface. It was calm
and peaceful, and he listened as somewhere in the distance an owl
hooted its greeting into the night. He walked back to the fire
feeling good. The night was dark, but it held no fear for him. Beth
looked up and smiled.

“
Billy, where do you want
to be when this is over? I mean to live?” Billy thought for a
second and considered before he responded.

“
I guess it would depend,”
he said. “I don't think I would want to live in a city though. I
like it here... It's peaceful. I guess some place like this.
Mountains, but this is a type of mountains I've never seen. I mean
mountains like you would see in New York... Pines,
Maples.”

Beth lay on her back, staring up into
the diamond studded sky. She rolled over and propped herself up on
one elbow next to him as she spoke.

“
This place, it used to be
a state park, but now it's just a nice lake. Nobody owns it
anymore. It would be a good place to be... Away from the city...
Build a little community here... There are thousands of places like
this now... All over the country. I would like a place like this.”
Beth said quietly. She removed the pot from the fire, setting it to
one side so it would be there in the morning when they awoke. They
crawled into the tent and were asleep within minutes.

The silvery moonlight shown down as
they slept, the nearly full circle slowly traveling across the
darkened sky.

CHAPTER FIVE

Billy and Beth

March 29th

They awoke early to the chatter of
squirrel-talk in the trees. Gray squirrels playfully leaping
through the pine branches and running up and down the thick trunks,
scolding as they went.

Beth set the water to boil, once she
had rekindled the fire from the still glowing coals, as Billy broke
camp and quickly loaded the truck. They ate a small breakfast of
the leftovers of the meal from the night before, and sipped the hot
tea as the sun began to slowly peek over the tops of the trees
across the lake. After they rinsed the utensils in the lake, and
doused the fire, they climbed into the truck and drove slowly back
to the main road. They both felt an urgency to be under way, and
once they regained the main road Billy pointed the truck
north.

The going was slow, but the farther
they traveled the less traffic there seemed to be, and, Billy
discovered, if they stayed on the shoulder they could make pretty
good time.

Towards mid-morning they turned off
onto state Route 260, and began to angle towards the New Mexico
border. The going was much easier and they found that they could
keep to the pavement, most of the time, which allowed them to make
even better time.

Late afternoon found them in the small
city of Springerville just inside the Arizona border, and Billy
drove the truck into the parking lot of a large shopping mall on
the outskirts.

The mall served as an anchor for
several large department stores, and a large grocery chain. There
were several other specialty shops scattered throughout the mall.
They stocked up on canned goods, as well as several packages of
freeze dried meats from a sporting goods store in the mall. Beth
wandered across the empty mall to a clothing store, and Billy
walked off towards a small shop he had spotted as she picked out
some clothing for both of them. By the time they had finished it
was late in the afternoon. They left the small city behind, and
continued into New Mexico on I60. Just before nightfall they
reached the Cibola National Forest and Billy pulled the truck off
onto one of the dirt roads of the park and found a place to park
among the trees. He unloaded the truck and set up camp, as Beth
made dinner. She experimented with canned meat along with some
freeze dried food, and the result was a tasty stew-like
dish.

“
Where did you learn to
cook, Beth?” he asked, “this is really good.”

“
Oh it's just a little
something I threw together,” she joked, as she blew lightly on her
finger-tips.

“
All I ever ate when I was
by myself was fast food,” Billy said, “and it all sort of tasted
like cardboard after a while. I can't believe you made this out of
that stuff we picked up today.”

“
Well,” she said, “I did
throw in some canned meat. If you think this is good, just wait
until I have some decent stuff to cook with.” Billy bugged his eyes
out comically at her, and said, “You mean this isn't the good
stuff?”

“
Not even,” she joked back.
They sipped at cups of hot tea as the fire crackled invitingly in
front of them.

They were at the edge of the San Mateo
Mountain range, and it was somewhat cooler at the higher elevation.
They had both remarked though, on how much warmer it was than it
should have been. Beth more so than Billy.

Billy and Beth

San Mateo Mountain range

March
30
^th
-
April 8
^th

In the morning they broke camp before
the sun was even up and headed out into the chill pre-morning
air.

They both enjoyed the scenery as they
drove along, and verbally promised that they would take their time
when they returned, and stop as often as they wanted to, to look at
the scenic mountains.