The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (139 page)

Billy smiled, “Damn, Dell, I had no
intention of getting you shot, I'm sorry, Dell, truly I
am.”

“
What the hell are you
apologizing for?” Delbert asked, his voice serious. “That ain't no
way to lead, Billy. You did the best you could, we're all damn
lucky to be alive, so don't go beating yourself over the head about
it. You ain't got nothin' to apologize for, far as I'm
concerned.”

“
Billy, I need to see your
face,” Beth said walking up, “now hold still, this is gonna hurt.”
He gritted his teeth as she first cleaned and then poured peroxide
directly over the wound. When she was done with that, she taped it
up as best she could, and kissed him. “Don't leave me, Billy,” she
said.

“
Wouldn't, and couldn't,”
he replied, “and don't want to either.” He turned to Delbert and
helped him to his feet as the four of them walked to the Durango.
None of them spoke of leaving John behind. They didn't like it, but
they all realized they had no choice.

Billy turned the truck around and eased
up onto the roadway. It was clear in both directions, and his eyes
swept over the drying smear of blood in the road, that was now
drawing flies, as he turned right and headed out of
Owensboro.

By the time they were under way again,
it was late afternoon. The road ahead was clear, and after several
miles of checking the rear-view mirror and seeing nothing, Billy
began to relax a small amount. The mood in the truck, however, was
somber, and no one seemed to be able to strike up any conversation
and keep it going for more than a minute or two, before it
fizzled.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Billy and Beth

April
24
^th

Two days of travel bought
them to the Ohio river. They crossed into Indiana over the Ohio
river at Hawesville, and by nightfall they had followed route 66
into the Hoosier national forest. T
he two
women had somehow managed to overcome the mood, and were talking
excitedly about stopping and being able to get out of the truck.
Their mood helped to swing Billy's mood around, and Delbert, who
had more than a mild buzz from the whiskey, was sleeping with his
head in Peggy's lap.

Billy pulled the Durango into the park,
and drove down next to a small stream and parked. Beth and Peggy
began to search for wood to build a fire as Billy helped Delbert
from the truck.

“
How are you feeling,
Dell?” Billy asked.

“
No brain no pain,” Delbert
responded, “but I expect I'll have a hangover tomorrow.”

“
Well go ahead and have
one,” Billy said, “long as that helps you get through the night,”
he said pointing at the bottle. “But make sure it's a small one,
Dell, because tomorrow I need you wide eyed and bushy tailed,
there's no telling what's ahead.”

“
Yeah, today was sure fun,”
he said glumly.

Billy helped him sit down at an old
green picnic table, before he went back to the truck and unloaded
the camping gear.

They had picked up two additional
tents, and he debated about whether to set up the third one. Peggy
settled it when she walked over, by telling him not to bother. “I'd
prefer to have Dell next to me,” she said slightly embarrassed,
“well, in case he wakes up in the night, or his leg bothers him,”
she finished.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she
realized that neither Billy nor Beth intended to make any
objections.

Peggy had met Delbert back in Texas the
day after the first earthquakes hit, almost at the same time she
had met John. She and Delbert had just been drawn to each other,
there was no other way to put it, and although their age difference
was vast, it didn't bother either one of them. It had bothered John
a great deal however. He had been of the opinion that since he had
found her first, she belonged to him. It pissed her off, and the
tension between them had been growing steadily.

She was sorry that John had died, and
had at first even felt guilty about it, but she didn't now. It
could have been any of them, she realized, it could have been
Dell.

She was through making pretensions
about how she felt too, she realized. She had been embarrassed, not
only because she was afraid Beth and Billy would disapprove, that
was only a small part. The big part was John. She had become
accustomed to his cutting remarks, and had braced herself for one,
before she had realized it wouldn't, and couldn't, come. She walked
over and squatted down beside Delbert.

“
How do you feel, Dell?”
she asked.

“
I'll live, Peg, you worry
too much,” he said smiling. She kissed him quickly, and then
straightened up. “I'm going to help Beth with dinner then. If you
need me say so, okay?” Delbert nodded his head and smiled once more
to reassure her, and she turned and walked away.

Billy walked over, handed Delbert a cup
of coffee, and then sat down next to him.

“
You know much about
Indiana?” Billy asked, once he sat down.

“
Not a lot,” Delbert
replied, “came through a few years back driving truck, what's on
your mind, Billy?”

“
Well, how big are the
cities we have to pass through, for starters, and, I guess, what do
you think our chances are of getting into Ohio in one
piece?”

“
Probably ought to stay
away from the cities,” Delbert answered. “Even if it takes longer.
I know a couple of ways around, cheat routes I used a couple of
times when I knew I was too heavy for the scales. If we're careful,
real careful, we should be able to do it, but I ain't about to drop
my guard none at all,” he finished.

“
Me either,” Billy said,
“me either, not one bit.”

“
How'd that gal of yours
learn to shoot that way?” Delbert asked, “I never seen somebody
react so fast in my life.”

Billy cleared his throat. “It's not
like that, Dell. She's not my gal... Rough life,” Billy continued,
“I imagine she'll tell you someday. I'm damn glad she can
though...Looks like Peggy can handle herself pretty damn well too,
Dell,” he finished.

“
Oh yeah, John was about to
find out how well, I think.” He continued with no further
explanation. “I think she probably had a pretty damn rough life
too, Billy,” he said. “It made her one fine woman
though.”

They sat and sipped quietly at the hot
coffee in silence for a few minutes before Billy spoke.

“
Well, all we can do is try
our best, Dell, just that, and nothing more... I think it's best we
stay put for a while... Maybe a few days, a week or so... Let that
leg heal up,” He locked eyes with Dell. He had already spoken about
it to Beth, but they were four now, four voices, four
votes.

“
I think I don't have much
choice.” Dell looked around. “We could do worse,” He looked back up
at Billy.

Billy smiled. “What I was thinking
too.” He smiled and outstretched his hand. “How about we go get
some food, what do you say?”

“
Smells damn good, don't
it?” Delbert asked, as Billy helped him to his feet. They both
walked off toward the small fire where the two women sat quietly
talking.

New York: May
1
^st

Billy and Beth: The Camp

They had gotten on the road just a few
days later, as soon as Dell had healed enough to travel.

After everything they had gone through
on their flight from L.A., the trip across the top of the country
to the East coast had been uneventful. They had stuck to side
roads, avoided the major cities. They had, had their run ins with
the dead more than once, and for the last hundred miles or so
toward the end of the trip they had known they were being followed,
but they had made the outskirts of New York unmolested.

The city rose before them, several
miles off. Fires burned by night, black smoke hung above it during
the day. New York was no refuge. It had seemed to be the end of
everything after all they had been through, but a few days of rest
and they had begun to see things for what they were. It was not a
maybe any longer. Whatever had happened, had happened nationwide...
Probably worldwide they had agreed.

Billy squatted now before one of the
fires warming his hands. The horizon to the east glowed with
occasional bright flares erupting. Sometime the sounds of
explosions reached them out here as soft pops on the night air. A
few times those pops had been much louder though and they had
wondered what had blown that could be that big, but they had no
answers and no desire to venture into the city by daylight to find
out.

Billy rubbed some heat into his hands.
The nights were getting warmer, summer was on the way and he
couldn't help but feel they should be somewhere else by then,
preparing for the coming winter that would surely follow this first
new summer, but it was still cool.

The fire burned hot, but low, the heat
feeling good as the temperature of the air dropped. The fires were
many. A small group had been sitting, watching the stars come out,
when one by one, nearly all the others had come to sit and watch
with them.

There were well over a hundred people
here now. They had driven out of the city in whatever they could
find that would drive and was not boxed in or frozen in traffic.
Taxi cabs, huge delivery trucks and a few city police cars littered
the field they were camped in. The others had come in, some the
same day, more as the days passed.

Out here, twenty five miles from
anything, it sometimes seemed lonely, empty, but not as oppressive
as the cities. Death did not seem as though it were only waiting
for them. There were no dead, zombies, whatever they were, at least
so far. Still, he was uneasy. He felt an itch to go. Maybe there
were dead here, maybe they just weren't making themselves known
yet... Waiting for the right opportunity. There was no protection
here, and they needed a warmer climate too. The same reason they
had headed south in the first place when they had left L.A., he
told himself as he stared out into the darkness.

Within the first month, two dozen had
joined them.

They had thirty shotguns, better than
fifty rifles and dozens of handguns between them. They had banded
together and journeyed into the surrounding suburbs, broken into
gun shops and pawn shops to get them.

Jamie, Winston and the others had found
them just a few weeks earlier. Scotty had not been with them. None
of them wanted to talk about where he was or what had happened to
split them up.

That had solved the mystery of feeling
as though they were being followed. Billy and Beth had both
wondered how long they might have been following them across the
country. But nobody seemed to want to ask or answer those
questions. Had they been the ones that had destroyed their truck?
He found himself skating up to the edge of asking several times and
then failing. It had seemed to be personal though. It bothered him
that they may have been the ones who had done it.

He and Jamie had fallen back together
even though he had done his best to discourage it. In truth, he
thought now, looking out at the gathering gloom of early evening,
he should have tried harder. He didn't love her. Couldn't imagine a
life with her, and every day he spent with her made the trip from
L.A. with Beth more and more unreal. A fairy tale that never
happened.

He was weak. He had been weak back in
L.A. And he was weak now. Jamie had sensed that Beth had said no,
or something like no. That a trip halfway across the continent had
not been able to change her resolve. Scotty was not with her, so
she had picked things up where they had left off. Like it was the
natural thing to do, Billy had thought. And who knew, maybe it was
the natural thing to do now. Just pretend it didn't matter. Nothing
had happened. He had met enough people who were doing that same
thing and making it work, he supposed he could to. So he had fallen
right back into it too: Said nothing as the relationship picked
back up where it had left off.

Billy stood and watched night come down
on the trees. The fires in the city seemed to suddenly burn hotter.
Nothing moved anywhere. Jamie came and stood beside him for a
moment before she slipped her arm around his waist and managed to
capture his attention. He bent slightly and kissed her
forehead.

“
Wow. I can't believe you
just did that. I'm already getting the forehead kiss,” She told
him. She smiled up at him, teasing as she said the
words.

“
You know it's not like
that.” He kissed her once more, this time fully on the lips, a
longer kiss.

“
That was better,” Jamie
told him. She looked out over the emptiness. “What are you
thinking?” She asked.

“
I'm thinking we can't stay
here forever... A few more days.” He looked down at her. “But we'll
have to leave soon. We need to get south. Summer is coming down. It
doesn't seem possible, but it is. It's warmer every day.” He turned
to her. “We should be somewhere right now... Planting crops,
getting food set for winter.” he turned back to the distant fires.
“We can't stay too much longer.” He looked back at the clearing in
the middle of the vehicles where the others sat and talked before
the fires. There were dozens of kids. Three babies and their
mothers.