The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (34 page)

Candace looked back at him. “Do you
want to make that watch?”

Mike laughed. “No, but I have no choice
at all.” He leaned forward and kissed her mouth. “Later,” he
said.

“
Later,” She
agreed.

~

The room had not been in bad shape. It
was funny how fate could be, Mike had thought. One wing flattened,
one untouched. From sleeping in a cave a day ago, to sleeping in a
real bed the next.

The room was dusty, a slight musty,
unused odor, but dry. The roof had held up. The walls seemed
untouched.

“
Where are you going?” Mike
asked.

“
With you.”

“
You're not on, Babe,” Mike
grinned.

“
Correction. I wasn't on.
You had Patty on, but she wanted to spend time with Ronnie, so we
switched. That way, when we're done, we can come back here
again...” She cocked her eyebrows. “And take our time?”

“
What, not be rushed?” Mike
asked.

She stood and turned into him as he was
getting ready to leave. A beautiful woman wearing only a pair of
white socks, which was all she had managed to get on. She stretched
up onto her tip toes and kissed him. His hands pulled her close.
She pulled away with a smile.

“
I thought you were coming
with me,” Mike said.

“
I am,” She
giggled.

He reached for her once more, but she
skipped away. “We'll never get there, Baby,” she told
him.

“
As it is, I'll probably be
thinking about you throughout the whole watch and waiting to get
back here. God, Candace, you're so beautiful.”

She looked at him seriously. “Keep that
up and we'll never get out of this room.” She crossed the short
distance between them and kissed him once more. “Say it just once
more?”

“
You're beautiful,” Mike
told her as he pulled her close.

~

It was about an hour and a half past
sunset when Mike took over one of the perimeter guard posts from
Susan. It was simply the far corner of the garage complex that
overlooked a field and the highway beyond it.

“
Quiet?” He
asked.

“
Pretty much. The dog...
what's that dog's name anyway?” she asked.

“
He doesn't have one,” Mike
admitted. “We, uh... we just call him The Dog, you know. He
survived. He got through it same as us; he made it, you know. He's
The Dog.” Mike finished lamely.

“
Oh. Sounds like a little
guilt there, Mike. Maybe we should all get together and name it,”
Susan suggested.

Mike nodded.

“
Well, anyway... The Dog
kept looking off towards the highway. He didn't, like, bark or
anything. I thought maybe deer, cows, something else. But with the
meat drying, it could have drawn anything at all. The fires and so
many people should be enough to keep anything away. Even if it's
wolves, they'll probably stay away, right? I just thought you
should know about it.”

Mike nodded. “Could be something, but
you're probably right. Most likely it's nothing. I imagine the
smell of the meat will draw every carnivore in the area. That's
okay as long as they don't try to bother us. There will be plenty
of scraps when we're gone.”

Susan nodded this time. “Mike,” she
hesitated and Mike nodded for her to continue. “Well, I wondered
what you thought about Jan and Bob's idea of settling in the
wilderness. You know, deep in the middle of nowhere... a new
Nation.”

Mike nodded slowly. “I think they
really want to do it. I think they really believe in it, Susan,” he
shrugged. Her eyes questioned him. “Okay... and... And I wish I
could believe in it they way they do. Not that I believe it won't
work. I think anything we do will take hard work, a good deal of
hard work,” he shrugged again. “And I think they'll put the work
in, I really do. Maybe you're asking me what I want to do, and I
can't tell you that. I don't know... I haven't decided. It's
something Candace and I would have to take the time to sit down and
decide, and we just haven't had the time to do that.”

“
You know, in my head the
old world was selfish. It was all about selfish. The me-generation?
Something like that. And I'm not saying I was any better. I wasn’t.
Oh, I had my friends, and I helped them when I could, but when it
came down to push or shove, it was me. It was me, and a lot of the
people I knew, worked for, with, associated with, were the same
way. Social on the surface, but scratch that surface and it's a
different story. Push or shove... and not an overly hard push or
shove either.” He looked at her and Susan nodded.

“
At least for me it's been
that way. I guess I sound cynical. But it's not that way anymore.
I'm not that way anymore. It's not about me. It's about me and
Candace. And it really isn't about us either. It's deeper. There
are people here I've really come to care about. I mean really care
about. Do you realize that I haven't watched T.V. Since the night
this all started? Sounds ridiculous, right? None of us have, but I
did computer work. Scripting, C, C plus, plus, graphics, more. I
used to turn my computer on, turn on the T.V. for company and go to
work. Eighteen hours sometimes, even longer on occasion. It...
that... was my life. No relationships. No one to really care about.
No time for it. And everyone I knew was the same way. Superficial.
Shallow? Yeah, that too. Well... I don't do that anymore; I don't
want to.”

Susan nodded. “Everyone I knew was too
busy living to think about how they were living,” she
said.

“
That I do understand,”
Mike said. “But not now, you know, somewhere, in some secure
building, on some secure server I have a couple of bank accounts
that were well over a million dollars each.” He laughed. “All means
nothing now, Susan, nothing. I am happy with what I have. I don't
want what I used to have.” He sighed.

“
The Nation? Probably a
great idea. I can think of only a few things that I could do that
would matter as much to me as that does to them. Kids... love...
Candace, you know? Do it right, not like the old world. And that's
the rub. It depends on Candace... and the baby. She's trying to get
pregnant. It seems like almost everyone is.” He rubbed the flat of
his palm along his jaw feeling the stubble that was softening into
a beard. “If she wanted to do it, yes. If she wanted to travel to
Alaska, yes. When the time comes, and it's probably not all that
far away in the scheme of things, but when the time comes for Bob
and those that have committed to go with them, and those that will
- I know there will be more - when that time comes, if Candace
wants to go with them, I'll jump in with both feet. That's the
truth of it.”

Susan's eyes were misted. “Thank you,”
she said.

“
Thank you for being long
winded and entirely too personal on short notice?” Mike
asked.

Susan laughed. “No, for being honest. I
think I'm going to go have a talk with a young lady. I'll see you
later, Mike,” she said. She smiled and then walked off into the
shadows of the night.

Mike watched her go. Apparently
everyone was more appreciative of people now, not just himself, he
thought. He turned his attention to the field and the highway.
After his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he could see the
dark shapes of cattle grazing in the field, a few deer mixed in
with them.

He thought about what he had just said,
how much he felt for Candace. How for the next few nights they
would have a real bed. His mind filled with thoughts of her. He
almost missed the radio call, almost wrote it off as one of their
own, until he realized it wasn't.

~

“
Hello the camp,” the voice
repeated.

Mike unclasped the radio from his belt
and raised it to his mouth and spoke. “I guess you mean us,” he
said more calmly than he felt.

“
I do,” the voice answered.
“We've been traveling. Saw your fires from about five miles back. I
guess the question is, are you okay? If you've been living in the
same world that we've been living in, I guess you'll understand
that question.”

Mike keyed the button and let the
smooth static play out for a few seconds before he spoke. “You must
have stopped quite a way back. We didn't hear the sound of your
vehicles.”

“
We did. Like I said, it's
a funny world. Listen... we kind of wanted to feel you out. I'm
Jeff... Jeff Simmons,” he finished.

“
Mike... Mike Collins,”
Mike told him. “I understand your point. We've been through a few
things too. Do you want to come in?”

“
Well... we do but we're
stopped now for the night. In the morning? Would the morning be
okay with you?”

“
That will work. I... I
guess breakfast will be on us,” Mike told him. “You know where
we're at?”

“
Yeah, we do,” Jeff told
him. “I sent a couple of scouts down. It looks like a little build
up off the interstate... No actual town or anything. We're a couple
of miles back. But we can see the light of the fires from
here.”

“
I would've sent scouts
too,” Mike allowed. “It's about like you imagine, a wide place in
the road. Garage... Motel... A few chain stores. It looks like it
all built up around the truck stop diner that's also here. There's
plenty of gas here, plenty of supplies also,” Mike
finished.

“
That's good to hear, Mike.
We swung down from Vermont. We're all from there. We've been
avoiding the cities as best we can, trying to get out West...
somewhere where we don't have to worry about winters,” he
said.

“
I hear that. We're in the
same boat here, only heading South. Or at least right now we are. I
guess we're still undecided where we'll end up. We're pretty
heavily armed, Jeff. I guess you'll see that when you come in
tomorrow. We've been through some stuff as well. I won't apologize
for the weapons,” Mike finished.

“
Don't need to. We're
loaded too. I don't exactly like it, but it's the way life is now.
I... Well... I couldn't come in unarmed, Mike. I couldn't. I'm sure
you see that.”

“
I understand that,” Mike
told him. “And I'm sure you know we'll be on the defensive for the
first little while ourselves. I don't like it either, but same as
you, I do what I have to... we do. We've got some good people here,
Jeff, good people, and we're careful.”

“
Us too. Well... there's
eight of us, Mike. I don't like to give away numbers, but you'll
know soon enough anyway. We'll be eight in the morning.”

“
Sixteen of us here, Jeff.”
Mike told him.

“
Wow. No wonder you got so
many fires going. We wondered about that.”

“
Yeah, well, some of it is
the people, but we're smoking meat to take with us. There are cows
and deer everywhere. We figured we might as well get some fresh
meat while we can. Beats the hell out of stuff from a
can.”

“
You'll have to show us how
to do that. We don't have anyone who knows how to do that. I don't
think we even have a hunter of any kind either,” Jeff said. “I can
shoot, but I've never hunted.”

Mike laughed. “We're all learning to do
new things,” He said. “And we're lucky to have some people with us
that do know how to do those things.”

The radio hissed silence for a
while.

“
Well, Mike, it was good to
talk to you, and we'll see you in the morning,” Jeff
said.

“
Okay, Jeff. Same here. And
I meant that about breakfast, so come hungry,” Mike
said.

“
Will do,” Jeff said.
“Out.”

“
We're out too,” Mike said.
He clipped the radio back to his belt. He thought about making love
to Candace. How she had swapped time with Patty to make it all work
out so Patty and Ronnie would have time together too. He thought
about how he was going to have to wake Bob, Tom and Ronnie... Patty
as well. Well, he realized, most of the camp. Hell all the camp
except the two kids. The V.H.F. Squawked as he was thinking.
Candace calling for him.

“
Yeah,” he said.

“
I'll help you get them all
up,” she told him.

“
Thank you, Babe. Tell them
it won't be overly long. They can go back to sleep after we
talk.”

“
Okay, Babe. Out,” Candace
said and giggled.

Mike's face broke into a
grin.

“
Uh, Babe. You need anymore
help?” Lilly's voice came through.

“
Okay,” Mike laughed. “You
can go wake up a few as well. And, Lilly?”

“
Yeah?” she
asked.

“
I'll want you there too,”
Mike said.

“
Um... okay, Mike. I'll go
help Candace,” she told him, sounding flustered.

~

Mike was able to keep the meeting
short. In the end, there was not a lot to say or to discuss. They
asked a few questions, made plans to be up early in the morning and
then everyone went back to bed.

~Sandy's Diary - March 26th~

I should start calling this a diary not
a journal. It's funny, but we started these to leave at the cave
but then we brought them with us to keep for the children. Now it's
becoming something more, although still for the children, so they
can see who we were or are... or both.