The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (135 page)

Lazy curls from the wood fire drifted
slowly up through the trees into the morning air, the smoky scent
hung in the air, and invoked nothing but good feelings in her. When
Billy crawled out of the tent, the black mood that had threatened
to envelop her was completely gone, and had been replaced with a
deep feeling of peace that calmed and soothed her soul. She knew
they would have to be careful on their trek east, but she was no
longer overpowered by the sense of foreboding that had washed over
her earlier.

“
Morning,” Billy said, as
he sat down next to her and took the steaming cup of coffee she
offered, “Sleep okay?”

She considered her answer only briefly,
“No,” she replied, “I woke up a couple of hours ago and couldn't
get back to sleep. I kept thinking about things, Billy. Like what's
ahead for us, and I couldn't shake the feeling that we have to be
careful, but I shouldn't spend my time sweating this stuff,” she
looked into his eyes as she finished speaking.

“
I know how you feel. I
feel the same way,” Billy said, “I spent a long time thinking about
it last night before I could finally get to sleep. I guess I just
don't care anymore. We could drive ourselves crazy trying to reason
it... whatever happened, happened, and we'll just face what we have
to as we go,” he paused for a second. “I think truthfully that
we'll be okay, I really do. If I didn't I would say so. We'll just
keep going.”

Billy finished speaking, and when he
did he pulled Beth to him and held her.

“
Are you afraid?” he asked
her.

“
No,” she
replied, “not afraid of death anyhow, maybe just afraid of
turning... I don't want that, Billy, I really don't,” she began to
cry as she finished, and Billy held her, comforting her as best he
could.
I won't let that
happen,
he thought,
not at all.

Aloud he said, “Beth?” he waited until
she looked up at him. “I think that we just have to be careful so
that doesn't happen, you know, like if we just went ahead with no
thought to what we were doing, we could find ourselves in a bad
situation, or we might not be able to think quickly enough if
something happened. But I don't, and can't believe that we will.
Not if we're careful, Beth, and that's probably what we're being
made to see.” He was looking over the top of her head as he spoke.
“I think,” he said, changing the subject, “that those stitches need
to come out... Might hurt a little.”

She looked up at him from his arms.
“Might?” She asked.

The surrounding symphony continued as
the rays of sunlight fought their way deeper into the forest to
awaken its inhabitants; they held each other and allowed the calls
and whistles of bird-talk to dispel their fears. Its calming effect
soon overcame the fear and apprehension thinking of the trip had
heaped upon them. Billy worked with a pair of nail clippers,
tweezers, and peroxide, pulling each piece of dental floss from her
head.

“
Put some iodine on it
too,” Beth told him as he finished.

“
That's gonna hurt like a
bitch,” Billy told her.

“
Really? Like a bitch?”
Beth asked.

“
I didn't mean it exactly
like that,” Billy told her. He let the dropper suck up some iodine
and then squeezed small drops on each small hole that the dental
floss had slipped out of.

“
Oh,” Beth said. “That does
hurt like a bitch,” she gritted her teeth as Billy continued until
each hole was done. A few minutes late he was done and Beth got up
to walk it off. “The hard part is that I want to itch it,” she told
him.

Billy nodded his head and looked into
the eyes of a small gray ground squirrel that sat watching them on
a gnarled limb of an older nearby pine. Its tiny hand-like limbs
were clasped together across its white belly, and to Billy it
seemed as though the squirrel were an old and wise man, sitting and
watching them from his pine perch. The squirrel chattered briefly,
adding its voice to the bird-talk of the forest, and then scampered
across the limb, into the upper reaches of the pine, out of
sight.

Beth came back a few moments later.
“Well, I guess we should get moving if we're going to.” Billy
nodded his head in agreement, and said. “We need to go into the
next city or town and get a map, Beth.”

“
I was wondering about
that,” she answered, “Wouldn’t the park office have maps?” She
lowered her head. “Itches a lot less... How's it
looking?”

“
I didn't think about that,
but yeah they should. We can check on the way out, and if they do
it'll save us having to travel the main road into the next city,
we'll still need a state map eventually though.” He looked her head
over. “Looks good. Your head probably won't get
infected.”

“
Right,” she replied as she
stood upright once more. “But if it gets infected you are the first
son of a bitch I'm eating.”

Billy looked comical for a moment and
then burst into laughter.

A few moments later, after they had
both quieted down, Beth spoke. “The map... Even if it's not a state
map it should at least get us heading in the right direction,
Billy. And maybe we should avoid the main roads... Just in case
someone is following us... Sounds crazy, I know.”

“
Even if we don't find a
map we can get ourselves pointed in the right direction anyway, and
eventually we'll have to come to some sort of small town, or
village, and then we'll get a map, okay?” he asked.

“
Just so long as you don't
think I'm being stupid, or foolish,” she said.

“
You don't have to explain
it to me, I know. I feel it too, and I have no intention of not
listening,” Billy stated calmly. “In fact I intend to listen to
whatever either of us feels. I think it’s probably the only way to
make sure we stay alive...” He paused briefly, and then changed the
subject. “We do need to pick up ammunition though, you need it for
that machine pistol of yours, and I think I'll pick up some for
that machine gun I took from that guy. It seems a lot better to
have that in my hands than the Remington...” he shrugged his
shoulders, “You think?”

“
Yeah, I do, if I hadn't
had the machine pistol, I think we would've been in deep trouble.
That Remington is nice, but... it just can't match that machine
gun, no way, and I really think we'll need it before we get...
Well, wherever it is we get to,” she finished lamely.

With that they both got up and began to
break camp. Together they loaded the Suburban. Billy drowned the
small fire and they edged the truck through the trees and out of
the camp site, to the accompaniment of the bird-talk and the
chatter of the squirrels.

When they reached the small park
office, just before the main road, they stopped the truck and went
into the rustic log building to search for a map. They had only
hoped for a simple map of the region surrounding the state park,
but were instead rewarded with a selection of state
maps.

“
Kentucky?” Billy
asked.

Beth nodded. “Otherwise we'll need a
boat.”

Billy found the next large city,
Sturgis, and was surprised by how far they had traveled during the
night. When they were back in the truck, Billy checked the gas
tanks. One was full, but the other was barely above a quarter. He
switched to the full tank, and said, “We'll have to get gas soon,
does the map show any small towns?” Beth studied the map before her
as Billy drove slowly out of the park to the main road.

She traced out a route on the map with
one finger as she spoke. “Follow 1508, Billy. That should bring us
to route 109. That runs right into Sturgis,” she paused briefly as
she continued to trace the route. “Morganfield is north on 60. We
should be able to get gas and ammunition there, If not in
Sturgis.”

“
Well, it’s not a small
route, but it is smaller,” he said, “and that's a help.”

Route 109 was not clogged with stalled
traffic they found, when they reached it a few minutes later. Less
than an hour of driving took them into Sturgis, it was not as large
as Morganfield, but, Billy reasoned, it should fill their
needs.

They had both decided that it would be
unwise to split up for any purpose at all, and so when Billy eased
the Suburban into a paved area in front of a sporting goods store,
they locked the truck, and taking their weapons with them, headed
in the direction of the store together. Billy had reasoned locking
the truck up simply enough, if someone did try to get into it, they
would have to break the glass, and hopefully they would hear that
from inside the store. He would have liked to park closer, and not
risk leaving the truck in the lot, or being so far away from it,
but all the spaces in the front of the store were full.

As they left the truck and began to
walk across the asphalt, Beth suddenly stopped short. When she did,
Billy automatically raised his rifle.

“
What?” he asked in a near
whisper.

Instead of answering she pointed with
the machine pistol, she had also raised, toward one of the vehicles
in front of the store. Billy hadn't noticed when they had exited
the truck, but the low rumble of the trucks idle suddenly came to
him in the clear morning air. Stupid! I should have been paying
attention. Before he could take the thought any further, a tall
gray-haired older man stepped from the store, and, after seeing
them frozen in position in the parking lot, quickly ducked back
inside.

CHAPTER SIX

Billy and Beth

April
19
^th

The sight of the man broke
the paralysis that had held them, and they both quickly took cover
behind an old station wagon parked in the lot. Billy continued to
mentally berate himself for not hearing the sound of the running
truck when he had gotten out of the Suburban.
Stupid-Stupid-Stupid!
He thought as
he dropped to the ground and tried to crawl under the old
car.

He couldn't get all the way under it,
but he did get under it far enough to be able to look into the open
doorway of the sporting goods store. What he could see of it was
empty, but he could not see far enough into the gloom of the
interior to see whether there was just the old man, or others
waiting with him in the shadowy store.

“
Hey!” a young sounding
male voice called from within the store. “Don't shoot, okay? We
don't want any trouble with you.”

The voice let Billy and Beth know that
there were at least two people in the store, and a few seconds
later, they could hear the soft weeping of a woman coming from the
store as well.

“
We don't want trouble
either,” Billy called.

From under the car he could see a
jeans-clad pair of legs separate from the shadows, and cautiously
walk toward the open doorway. “What do you think, Beth,” Billy
whispered, “you believe 'em?”

“
Only one way to find out,”
she replied, as she backed out from under the car and stood
slowly.

A young man was standing framed in the
doorway, a shotgun resting in his hands. He saw her rise from
behind the car, quickly followed by Billy. His shotgun remained in
his hands, but he did not turn it in their direction, instead he
seemed to be purposely holding it away from them, and they could
both see that he was frightened.

Billy and Beth both kept their guns
turned away, but still they were on guard, as Beth spoke into the
silence that had descended on the parking lot.

“
Look, we
really don't want any trouble either. We only stopped because we
saw the truck running,” she lied. She thought it probably wouldn't
be a good idea to let them know they had stopped for ammunition.
“We haven't seen any...
many,”
she corrected herself,
“people. We'll leave, if it’s what you want,” she
finished.

The young man’s grip on the shotgun
seemed to loosen as she had spoken, and he seemed to be not as
fearful as he had been.

“
We
haven't seen any
good
people,” the young man said, “but we have seen a
lot of bad ones.” He seemed to be asking them which group they
belonged to.

Beth and Billy both relaxed a small
amount, and Billy spoke. “We've run into some bad ones ourselves,”
he said. He considered for a moment, and then moved from behind the
old station wagon, and out into the open. “Can we talk?” he asked.
He was careful to keep the machine gun pointed down as he had moved
from behind the car, and he forced himself to keep it pointed at
the pavement as the young man seemed to consider what he had
said.

The young man had lifted his shotgun
from the pavement as Billy had stepped from behind the old car, now
he dropped it back toward the pavement, and answered. “Well, come
on, I guess,” he replied. The older man they had seen initially and
a young red haired woman stepped out of the shadowy interior as he
finished speaking. They were both armed, but both kept their
weapons pointed down at the pavement.

Billy looked at Beth. “Well?” he asked.
She nodded her head, and they walked slowly toward the front of the
store. Once the two groups were facing each other, Beth spoke. “I'm
Beth, and this is Billy,” she said, pointing at Billy.