The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (183 page)

“
See?” Bear
asked.

“
Been around there,” Pearl
said. “There are caves all through there.”

Bear nodded, smiling. “Exactly...
Well,” he continued to draw. “Right about halfway down on the
eastern side there is a cave at near ground level. Doesn't look
like much from there, but the space inside is huge. I mean huge as
in space to park trucks, trailers,” he nodded at the truck and
trailer as he talked, “But also a place to live... Build our own
homes. It would be close by, but removed.” He tossed the stick
aside and sat back. Beth found his chest and rested her head
against it once more.

“
I'm for it,” Beth said
sleepily.

Bear laughed. “I think you are up for
some sleep,” Bear told her.

“
Is that an invitation?”
Beth asked. They had set up tents not far from the truck,
surrounded by a fenced in area topped with barbed wire. The fencing
could be easily rolled up and taken with them. They had used it
twice now, carrying it on the back of the donor trailer, and it had
worked well. The dead stayed away or became tangled in the wire.
Stakes faced outwards to help keep the dead away, but other than
the first night, the dead had left them alone. They had all
wondered if that meant that the antidote worked that fast. They
simply didn't know.

“
How about dinner first,
turn in early. Tomorrow will be soon enough to start filling the
trailer.” Bear said.

“
I'll take the first
watch,” Billy said.

“
It is settled then,” Pearl
said.

“
We should be on the road
heading home in a few days,” Beth said. She sat up and then got to
her feet. She reached down with her hand and took Bear's
hand.

Bear laughed, took her hand, and got to
his feet. He was tired too, They all were. Rest was
needed.

They began preparations for dinner as
the sun crept across the sky heading north.

EPILOGUE

Post Plague:

Year 32: October
39
^th

The Nation

Bear sat at the mouth of the cave
staring out over the valley below. This close to the thick plastic
the air was cold, but the wooden benches were comfortable, if a
little hard. They had served for dozens upon dozens of people since
Mike and Bob had built them some thirty years before. They still
served them well. He turned and smiled at several children who sat
nearby pointing out different landmarks in the valley far below.
The children, especially, never seemed to tire of sitting on the
low benches and looking out over the valley.

Bear chuckled to himself, turned his
eyes from the other benches, and back out on the valley far below.
The snow was falling heavy. Two hours ago late fall had been
holding steady, little smudges of green had still existed
throughout all the fall foliage in the valley. Now it was quickly
becoming a blanket of white. Fall had lost this round.

Years before they had devised a new
year that better kept track of seasons and the much longer year the
Earth now had. Even with a year that now held some 95 extra days,
spread throughout the year to even the seasons out, the time still
seemed to move by too quickly. Time was never a friend to anyone,
Bear thought. Well, maybe to death, nothing else.

The seasons had worked themselves out
after a few years. Some longer, some shorter, it was winter that
had come out the winner in that round. Even slightly longer winters
had a huge impact on the year around weather and the planting that
could be accomplished. It took much longer to get through winter,
Longer for spring to thaw the valleys and fields for planting,
longer for the sun to warm the ground, and glaciers were forming in
the north. Growing ever bigger year by year. Bear had sometimes
wondered in years past if he would see them come this far. Of
course the answer was no. They would not come this far in his
lifetime, but he had no doubt they would come her
eventually.

Winter was coming in strong, there
would be little left to do soon, but plan the bison hunts, and tell
stories around the fire.

They still kept their own herds,
started from the stock they had worked so hard to bring into this
valley, but they often hunted. The habit was good, and it passed
the skills down to the younger ones. There were places in this
still young world where those skills were essential.

The whole mouth of the cave
had been closed off from the elements for many years. Thick plastic
sheets that spanned floor to ceiling. An aluminum frame that held
them. Warmth inside, the elements without, but always within reach.
Something Bob had built. The
last
thing Bob had built, Bear remembered sadly. That
had been back when Mike had lead the Nation. No, he told himself,
that had been back in the council days. Before the wars had begun.
Before the years of leaders, kings, the two queens and everything
else that had come with the wars. With the end of the Zombie
Plagues and the second great death. Even so, even in the council
years, Mike had been their leader. The council had made its
decisions but Mike had lead them.

Bear had been the leader of the Nation
for several years now, he had assumed it when the Nation was
broken, falling apart. He had helped to rebuild it, but he was
getting older and it was getting closer and closer to the time when
he would need to turn the reigns over to a younger, stronger
person. Maybe even this winter, he thought, as he watched the snow
swirl and blow.

Back in the cave behind him there were
three generations waiting to take their own steps into the
procession that would bring them to leadership. Some of those young
men and women were ready now. It really wasn't something he should
be thinking about, it was something he should be doing.

“
Grandfather?”

Bear smiled up into the eyes of Rain, a
newborn at her breast, her swollen belly a testament to the one
coming. There were so few. He took one of the furs from his
shoulder, and laid it across the worn wooden planking for her. A
second went around her shoulders as she sat.

“
It's not too cold for the
baby this close up is it?” Bear asked. The plastic held the weather
out, but it was still very cold this close to the huge plastic
sheets.

Rain smiled back. “Thank you,
grandfather. No, it isn't too cold.” She looked out over the valley
too.”It's beautiful,” she said.

“
It is, but it can be
treacherous. Winter is here now... Probably you should stay?” he
asked the last. Too often he came off as demanding. The rule giver.
It was something that Beth had always chided him about. His mind
clouded at the memory of her, gone now for the last ten years. And
him still here, still leading.

“
It's what Ron and I
thought too. Alabama Island will be there in the spring. I thought
we could send a messenger… Maybe tomorrow after the snow?” She
smiled widely. She knew he had been worried, and she was glad that
he had given them the time to work it out between them. Glad now to
give him what he would consider good news. Bear had already stood
and turned though, his large frame standing tall from the rock
floor.

“
Candace,”
he called out.

A young woman came from the back area
of the cave. She was tall, dark, short black hair framed her face.
Her clothes were stitched leather, heavy, well made. A machine gun
rested upon her back. A wide belt circled her waist, pistols on
either side and a knife sheaf depended from it. Firepower was a
luxury. Not easy to come by any longer. At one time everyone had
made their own bullets, but the wars had destroyed most of that.
Now the Nation was one of the few that still knew how to make it,
and more than that, had the materials to make it.

She came and stood next to Bear. She
looked so much like her mother and namesake, Bear thought, that it
amazed him. He had known Candace at this age, the resemblance
always threw him when she was here, and made him think for a second
that reality had side slipped and he was back in time
somehow.

“
I will need you to deliver
a message to your mother for me,” Bear told her. He stood and
walked a short distance away and continued to talk to her in low
tones. Rain turned her face back out to the valley and watched the
thick flakes of snow fall, when they had finished their
conversation they both came back to the benches. Candace gazed out
over the valley, her eyes veiled.

Rain smiled at Candace, but her face
barely softened. She was so serious. The OutRunners never smiled,
Rain thought. Always serious, and Candace was no exception. Rain
supposed she had been the same during her service too, but
something in Candace had gone past service, she had come to love
it. She had never left it. It was her life. Younger than Rain
herself, she had already been an OutRunner for several years. Rain
had done her own duty for two years and had then become a wife and
mother. She and Ron were going to Alabama Island to be considered
for leadership within the Fold. She listened to the low whispers of
talk between Bear and Candace and thought about her own life as she
did.

She had come to this valley
as a child with the original settlers. Years past now. That bought
her to nearing her middle years, the age of leadership in the Fold.
As she looked out over the valley she realized there was little
left of the original settlement she had watched rise from the
valley floor as a child. In those days the people had still clung
to the old technology. That was long gone now, except with the
OutRunners, and some other applications like the power plant, a few
others. The people themselves had gone back to simpler roots. The
old ways Bob had taught them. His motto had been,
why use it just because it's there?
Do we really want to return to the old life, or do
we really want to move on to something else? Always a challenging
question, and one everyone had to answer in their own
way.

The cave, the ruins of the stone
houses; that was all that remained. It had all been destroyed in
the wars. There was only a Nation at all because Bear had come
back, killed the interlopers that had enslaved the people, freed
them, Rain included, and taken the valley back. In those days the
Fold was a small faction and the Nation ruled everything. The
Nation went on to rule all of North America, but as all large
peoples they had fallen. The Fold had ascended, and then they had
fallen too. Now the remaining peoples waited for the real end. They
ruled their own small places, nothing else. The end that had begun
all those years ago was finally coming to fruition.

Those women born before the end had
started, those women could reproduce. The new ones could not. The
potion that had given them all a shot at living through the
catastrophe had caused them to bear children that could not
continue the human race. Occasionally one would bear a child,
deformed, and they didn't live long.

Bear spoke, interrupting her
thoughts.

“
A team is outgoing with
Candace. She will tell them to look for you in the spring.” He
smiled. “Maybe that will give me time to talk you out of leaving.”
He smiled, but it was an uneasy smile.

Rain smiled. He didn't know why they
were leaving. They had told him it was simply time to move. She
didn't know how he would feel if she did tell him, but she hadn't
wanted to hurt him.

Bear turned back to the valley,
speaking as he did. “They will know inside of a week.”

Rain made up her mind. “They have asked
us to come... To be considered to lead... Mike himself asked for
us.”

Bear turned and straightened. “Mike?”
He nodded. “I thought surely he would be dead by now, he has been
so poorly. Candace is still strong.” He looked from Candace to Rain
as he spoke.

“
He lives... Mother rules
now,” Candace told him quietly.

“
... I remember the times
we spent there... When it was still good for all of us,” Rain said.
Her eyes teared up, she shifted the baby, and looked at
Bear.

Bear nodded. “You should
not leave here. I have, just today, sat staring out at this valley
and wished you would stay so I could offer you
this
leadership,” He turned away to
hide his own eyes from her. “Not so large as Alabama Island, but
large. And in need of new blood.” He turned back to face her. “Had
I known, I would have offered. I was afraid you would refuse
it.”

“
I...” she caught herself
as her voice broke. “I didn't know...” She turned her head away and
then stood quickly and walked away.

Bear turned to Candace. “I had thought
that it would be that would lead after your parents stepped
down.”

“
It was offered, I refused.
My place is here, in the Nation. This valley was where I was
raised, not there... I … I refused,” her eyes seemed to struggle to
say more, but it was not really necessary.

It was the same with many aspects of
the split that had torn the Nation apart. There were sides and they
were chosen. After all of these years he couldn't think of a single
reason why he had stayed and fought for the Nation as opposed to
the Fold. He reached out and placed one large hand on her shoulder.
“I understand your choices. I am glad that there are no barriers
between your mother and father and you.” He waited for her eyes to
meet his. “I hope to be going with you. I should make some changes
here.” He glanced over at where Rain stood talking with
Ron.