The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (22 page)

“
It’s a different world,
Miss,” The man said. He looked at Mike. “I thought that some of you
folks saw the way it is.”

“
You’re in this with
Death?” Mike asked.

“
I never said that. I see
him… I’ve seen him. I…” He began to stutter.

“
Lately?” Tom
asked.

“
Well,” The man
said.

“
Since the murder?” Patty
asked. Fury in her voice.

“
Well… Yeah, maybe,” The
man finally answered.

“
Get out,” Candace said.
She had walked to within a few inches of the man. Her eyes were
unblinking. Her left hand was closed around the butt of one Forty
five. Her voice sounded low, controlled, but Mike could feel the
emotion on the air like electricity before a
thunderstorm.

Before the man could speak again the
gun was out of her holster and in her hand. “Get out.”

“
Listen, I…” The man
started.

“
It’s loaded, the safety’s
off,
get the fuck out,
” Candace said softly.

The man hesitated for a second. Candace
began to raise the gun. He turned and began to walk quickly back
towards his truck. “Wouldn’t shoot me in the back, would you?” He
asked in a high, crazy voice.

“
I don’t know,” Candace
said. “And leave the truck where it is. Walk out.”

“
That’s my truck, Bitch!”
The man stopped and began to turn.

“
Not anymore,” Candace
said. She sighted with the pistol. The man turned and walked past
the truck, disappearing in to the storm.

Candace shook with anger. Mike pulled
her into his arms. There were tears in her eyes. He held her as she
shook. He caught Ronnie’s eye and nodded towards the truck. Ronnie
nodded and he and Patty walked off towards the truck. Bob and Tom
walked along beside them.

A few minutes later, the trucks lights
came on, the engine started and the truck rumbled the short
distance down the road to where Mike still stood holding Candace.
Candace pulled away as the truck pulled up. Ronnie jumped down from
the cab; Patty came around and stood next to Candace.

Ronnie and Bob held out two of the
carbines with the clips like the ones they had taken from Sin and
Death.

“
Could have been someone
else in that truck,” Ronnie said. “Or else why would they need two
of these?”

Bob nodded. “Could have done a quick
fade.”

“
I guess we better keep a
hard watch tonight,” Mike said. “No telling what they might do.” He
bent and whispered in Candace’s ear, “Go inside?”

She nodded “I’ll be back in a little
while,” Mike said. The three men nodded.

Candace ~ March 21st

A long, bad day. I almost lost it
today. Maybe I did a little. There are men here trading women,
children! They think they own them, really; that’s what it comes
down to. It made me understand stories my father’s granny used to
tell me about the slave days, and it made me feel every day of my
life where someone has hated me because of the color of my skin or
the shape of my eyes, or because I’m a woman. And this man wants
the world to be that way. Jesus, I was so disgusted. And he was
with the others, the ones who had Annie and the two little ones.
God only knows what that girl has been through, but she refuses to
talk about it. I know that too. I’ve been there too. Fear? Shame?
Both?

I am so fucking mad about it. I wanted
to kill that man. I wanted to do it. And at one point I think he
was going to say something else that would have pushed me over the
edge, then changed his mind. Lucky. Smart for him. I was right on
the edge at that point. I wanted to kill him because I know what
would’ve happened to Annie, what may have already happened to
Annie. And I was mad, mad after five years because of what happened
to me.

Mike held me. I couldn’t tell him. I
will though, or maybe I’ll let him read this. He’s smart though. He
probably knows, or has a good idea. I pray to God I never see that
man again.

March 22nd

Mike awoke with Candace curled into
him. He lay quietly for a few minutes listening to the silence in
the cave, holding her loosely, listening to her quiet, slow
breathing. He closed his arms around her and pulled her closer to
him, stroking her hair lightly, feeling the warm press of her body
against his own. She mumbled in her sleep, pressed her face more
deeply into his chest and quieted back into sleep once more. Mike
lay still, content to hold her, feel her body against his own. He
was in no hurry to get up and get the day started. It could get
started on its own, he told himself.

He glanced at the hanging collection of
tarps and blankets. No light seeped around the edges, so it was not
sunrise yet. There was no rush.

He had only spent a few short minutes
with her the night before when they had come in. She had spent most
of that time talking to Annie. He had finally left the two of them
alone. It seemed to be what Annie needed. He had gone back outside
where Tom, Ronnie, Bob and Patty were keeping watch.

“
She okay?” Patty asked.
Mike had told her she seemed to be and that she was talking to
Annie right then. It was clear to Mike that Patty wished she were
inside talking to Candace and Annie, so Mike had told her to go,
that he’d be happy to stand watch for a while.

Awhile turned into a four hour shift
with Ronnie, Tom and Tim. Bob had gone back in shortly after Mike
had come out. They had talked on and off through the hours, but
most of the time they spent looking around themselves at the
darkness, even watching the cliffs above them that led up to a
large, paved parking area at the back of the public
square.

Twice in the distance they had heard a
motor running. But it had faded in and out so quickly that they
couldn’t place the direction it had come from. Ronnie thought it
had come from someplace out State Street. Tim was sure it came from
Washington Street which ran out of the opposite side of the square
from where they were. Once they had heard voices raised in anger,
or distress, it was hard to tell. But nothing came near them during
the night.

He had finished the four hour shift,
and when he had come back in, Candace had been asleep. She had
awakened briefly when he had crawled in beside her, told him she
loved him and then fallen back asleep with her head resting against
the rise of his chest just as she was now. He had lain awake then
for a long time, just holding her, stroking her hair, unwilling to
fall asleep. Now he was unwilling to get up and start the day. It
was the same thing. The same feeling of the night before, an
overwhelming need to hold her, to let the day go wherever it might
go on its own.

As he lay holding her, he realized the
cave wasn’t silent after all. It was quiet though. Small noises
from the other people as they slept: the rustle of blankets, soft
breathing, the quiet sounds of someone getting up and moving
around, softer sounds, sounds he couldn’t quite identify. They were
comforting sounds. He was completely content to stay right where he
was and listen to them.

There was a little light from the fire,
really only small curls of flame casting just enough light to make
out the contours of the walls and the other sleepers.

Sometimes, like this, he could feel the
weight of responsibility on his shoulders like some impossibly
heavy load, something he could not ever hope to bear, and he felt
like an imposter. He was no leader. He had no idea why anyone would
want to make him one or listen to anything he had to say. But they
did. And not only did they listen, they were prepared to follow
too. And he had no more idea than anyone else where they should go,
what the future held. None at all.

No idea if there would be other people,
a place to live, food, more crazies like they had run into here. He
felt as if he knew absolutely nothing at all, yet here he was
responsible for fourteen people. Fourteen people! The number alone
made him feel panic, and what if what the others thought was true?
What if they did pick up others along the way? What then? Could he
be responsible for fifteen? Twenty? Thirty? Where would it end? And
what would they think if they knew he was not as calm, cool and
collected as everyone else thought he was?

Candace moved, one hand tracing along
his side. Her body pressing more firmly against him. He felt her
lips against his ear as she whispered to him.

“
Make love to
me.”

Tom and Bob had both made jokes about
learning to make love in near silence. He pushed the thoughts out
of his head, lowered his mouth on Candace’s own and pulled her
closer to him. Candace pulled him over on to her, and he quit
worrying and lost himself in the moment, when he awakened again it
was much later. Candace was gone, the smell of coffee was on the
air and hunger was gnawing at his belly. A dull gray light was
seeping around the edges of the tarps and blankets that hung over
the entry way.

He lay for a few minutes thinking about
how much he loved Candace, wondering how funny it was that he had
lost so much yet gained so much, something he had never had and had
been in no hurry to go out and find. He wondered how he had ever
managed to live his life without her in it. He wondered over how
deep his love was in such a short period. It seemed like it was
just yesterday when he had first met her. He had remembered how he
had never really found tattoos attractive on a woman, but she had
this tribal thing that started on her left hand, wrapped around
that wrist and then sleeved her arm, disappearing under her shirt
sleeve. It was one of the first things he had noticed, and when she
had been reaching for something he had seen another piece of the
same work that came down across her flat stomach and slipped below
the waist band of her jeans. While he had been wondering if it was
a second piece or part of the same piece, she had caught him
looking. Her eyes had settled on his own and the next thing he knew
he was thinking about her in an entirely different way. Thinking
about making love to her, about being with her. Thinking that could
never happen, Tom was obviously interested. And then she had walked
over and changed his entire life.

He couldn’t be without her now. The man
he was becoming had a lot to do with her, probably would have never
existed without her, and he had never even known she existed, never
even known that love could be like that. The entire world was
destroyed, but he had found himself. And she loved him too. He
could feel it, see it. It was every bit as strong as what he felt
for her. Not clingy, just real. Total.

“
Hey,” Candace said. His
eyes had slipped closed; he opened them to see her standing over
him, a cup of coffee in one hand.

“
Coffee,” He
said.

“
Good,” she said. “It’s
alive. Were you going to sleep the day away?” She handed him the
coffee carefully as he sat up.

“
Something wore me out,” He
grinned. “You okay?”

“
More than okay,” She
answered. She leaned over and kissed him.

~

The snow had finally stopped falling
sometime after Mike had come off shift. A blanket of wet, slushy
snow covered the ground outside the cave. Mike examined the truck
that had been left from the night before. It was a new sport
utility, but someone had put more than a little work into it: a
lift kit, larger tires, brush guards. It had much more ground
clearance than any of their trucks.

“
This looks as though it
could go anywhere,” Mike said.

Bob and Tom were going over
it.

“
It could, nearly. And
whoever did it did a good job. They must have a garage somewhere
with a pit. And they had to have done it all with standard stuff
too, no air tools,” Bob said. He looked and sounded
impressed.

“
Changing suspension parts
without air tools?” Mike asked.

“
Not hard,” Bob said.
“Also, it’s a new vehicle. The nuts and bolts aren’t rusted on yet.
A couple of years up here and they would be a lot harder to turn.
But, now? No big deal. That’s what they make breaker bars and three
quarter inch socket sets for,” he finished.

“
You know,” Tom said, “If
we did this to a couple of our trucks, we wouldn’t have to worry
about leaving them if we got stuck, or drove a rock through an oil
pan. Those things wouldn’t happen.”

“
We could drive around
almost anything,” Bob added.

Mike nodded. “Yeah, but how long does
something like this take to do?”

Bob was staring at the cave. “You know.
Even lifted, these trucks could fit right in there,” he
said.

“
What?” Mike
asked.

“
What?” Bob asked. They
both laughed.

“
I asked how long it would
take to do this to our vehicles,” Mike said.

“
Oh, well, Tom’s a good
mechanic too, so there are two of us, maybe a few other pairs of
hands that have some skill attached to them. We could do one a day,
easy,” He said.

“
So would that set your
mind at rest that they wouldn’t bog us down or get stuck on us?”
Mike asked.