The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (40 page)

She turned towards him, planting little
kisses on his chest and stomach as her head disappeared below the
blankets.

~

Most of the camp was up and awake by
the time Candace and Mike came out, got some coffee and set down at
one of the tables.

“
You two hungry?” Janet
Dove asked.

“
Starved,” Mike
said.

“
Yeah,” Candace
agreed.

“
How would you like your
eggs?” she asked.

“
Oh, sunny side up,” Mike
said.

“
Uh, eggs?” Candace asked.
“Where did you get eggs, Jan?”

“
I must be slipping,” Mike
said, “I didn't even realize what you said.”

Janet smiled. “Tim and Annie. They were
running around yesterday, testing something on one of the new
trucks, and found a barn up the road. Most of it is standing. I
know, I went myself to look. There's a well, and deep I would
guess, because it's still got water. A little wind mill pumps the
well. The water runs down the troughs to the cows. No cows, but the
chickens love it. They moved in. Eggs everywhere.” She took the lid
off a cardboard storage box full of packed straw and
eggs.

“
Wow,” Candace said. “Sunny
side up too. I'll dip one of those biscuits into the yolk. I love
egg yolk,” she confessed to both of them.

“
Best part of the egg,”
Mike agreed. “Man, this is a good life right here.”

“
It is,” Janet Dove said.
She left them to their coffee as she left to prepare their
eggs.

~

The morning passed quickly for Mike.
He, Candace, Patty and Ronnie spent the morning searching the store
room of the small mom-and-pop store Janet had spoken of, and
another that was diagonally across the road from it. Between the
two, they found all sorts of useful things, besides just the flour
and Bisquick she had told them about.

Batteries, disposable lighters,
key-chain can openers. Ronnie spent a few minutes with a small
battery powered video game, and then set it aside.

“
No need to start that shit
again,” he said with a grin as he tossed it onto a stack of old
newspapers.

There were bundles of the local
newspaper near the front door, everyone looked at them twice, but
in the end no one felt tempted to cut the string that held them
together to read one of them. And back against one wall, the mother
lode of seeds, apparently ordered for Spring and not yet put out.
There were several large boxes, and a couple of boxes of books on
gardening apparently meant to be put out of the same
time.

They carried everything out onto the
pavement where one of the Suburbans was parked. A small, black
metal ladder lead from the heavy duty rear step bumper to the large
metal rack that had been mounted to the roof. The rack had sides
that stood about one foot from the deck of the rack. Designed to
form a long metal box to pack things into.

Mike and Ronnie filled the rack as
Candace and Patty filled the rear cargo area, and the two five
gallon gas cans mounted on the rear tire carrier that also held a
spare tire. The ladder to the top rack was incorporated into the
swing out tire carrier. The whole unit worked well and was problem
free, swinging easily out of the way to allow access to the rear
double doors and the interior of the Suburban.

They were both surprised how much the
rooftop rack could hold. They had lined the bottom of the rack with
a blue waterproof tarp and then wrapped the whole load with more of
the same when they had finished. Bungee cords pulled tight kept
everything in place.

“
I wouldn't have believed
you guys could put that much stuff up there,” Patty
said.

Mike grinned at her, “Believe me,” he
said, “neither did we.”

“
You know, you're right
about the vehicles,” Ronnie said.

“
How so?” Mike
asked.

“
Gives us more stuff to
drag around, but I have to admit, stuff we will need,” Ronnie said
and laughed.

“
Wait until Bob and Janet
hear about the seeds,” Patty said.

“
Hell, there's everything
we could need to grow right there,” Mike said.

“
We should still look for
hybrids,” Candace said.

“
What kind?” Mike
asked.

“
Any kind. They have
genetically developed corn, tomatoes, peppers, you name it. Grows
faster, resistant to this and that, grows bigger, higher, more
protein,” Candace elaborated.

“
Where could we find it?”
Mike asked.

“
I don't know,” Ronnie
said.

“
I bet Janet or Bob would
know,” Patty said.

Candace nodded. “Probably one of them,
what do you call it, feed stores? I've seen them in farming
communities, you know, on A&E,” she finished.

“
Yeah, I've seen those
shows too,” Patty said.

“
Like small towns,” Candace
agreed. She hesitated, “So... what did you two think about what Bob
had a say?” She asked at last.

“
We wanna do it,” Ronnie
said, “but...”

“
We were wondering what you
were going to do,” Patty said. She looked at Candace and then
Mike.

“
I think it's good,” Mike
said. “But I won't go anywhere Candace won't. So I can't commit
until she does.”

“
She does,” Candace said.
“I wanted my man and my best friend too. I got what I wanted.” She
smiled.

“
We're going,” Patty
squealed, launching herself at Candace.

“
I can't believe it. We'll
get to raise our kids together,” Candace said, every bit as excited
as Patty.

Mike and Ronnie stood back, arms folded
across their chests and watched as the two hugged, squealed, and
congratulated each other.

“
Dude,” Mike
said.

“
Dude,” Ronnie repeated
grinning.

“
Don't you two pick on us,”
Patty said. Her eyes were bright.

“
Wouldn't think of it,”
Mike said.

“
Me either,” Ronnie
said.

“
Sure you would,” Candace
said. They let go of each other and turned to the men.

“
You're sure?” Candace
asked Mike.

“
Yep,” he said.

“
You?” Patty asked
Ronnie.

“
Yes, ma'am,” Ronnie
said.

“
Yes!” Candace said and
grabbed Patty again.

“
Yahoo,” Patty said as they
jumped up and down.

“
Yahoo?” Mike
asked.

“
Old cowboy thing,” Ronnie
said.

“
You,” Patty slapped
Ronnie's shoulder softly, then pulled him to her and kissed
him.

“
And you too,” she said
giving Mike a kiss on the cheek.

“
Come here,” Candace said.
She kissed Mike and then gave Ronnie a kiss on the forehead. “I
guess we're pretty happy,” she said.

“
I guess you are, Babe,”
Mike said and kissed her back.

~

At midday, Mike and Ronnie left Candace
and Patty, who we're still going through the two smaller
mom-and-pop stores, finding all kinds of surprises, and headed over
to the garage area. Molly and Tom were finishing up bumpers on the
last of the trucks, while Bob was helping to remount the last two
tires on the last of Jeff's Hummers.

“
Ronnie and I want to take
one of the pickups down the road a bit, Bob,” Mike said.

“
Sure,” Bob said. “Anyone
but that one,” he pointed at the one Molly and Tom were working on.
“But that one will be done in an hour or so if you want to
wait.”

“
Nope,” Mike said. “One of
the ones outside will do just fine. Can we take you with us, or are
you really busy?” Mike asked.

“
Can if you want me. Sent
Tim and Annie off to spend some time alone. We're almost done.
There's really nothing left but that bumper and a test drive, and
Molly and Tom can take care of that.”

“
Good, we need your
opinion,” Mike said.

Bob put some muscle into the last lug
nut he was tightening and then handed off the lug wrench to
Jeff.

“
Jeff, you want to come
along?” Mike asked.

“
Let me finish these lug
nuts, and I'll be right along,” Jeff said.

A few minutes later the pickup truck
pulled out, followed by the hummer, and headed down the road
following Jan's general directions.

About a mile down the road, Mike
spotted the old partially collapsed barn and pulled down off the
broken pavement and headed towards it. He stopped the truck and
backed around, facing the road.

“
Stiff, but it walked right
down off the pavement like it was nothing, and in two wheel drive
no less,” Mike said.

Bob and Jeff walked up “What have we
got here?” Bob asked?. He looked over the barn, picking up on the
faint clucking sounds coming from the interior.

“
Guess you found Jan's
chickens,” Bob said.

“
Yep, and that's what I
wanted to talk to you about... chickens. I don't know anything
about them,” he said, “or cows, or horses, or... What else is there
I should know about, Bob?” Mike asked.

“
Um, well, what for?”Bob
asked.

“
For everything. All of it,
because me and Candace, Ronnie and Patty are going in with you on
this wilderness idea. We talked it over; we're going to do it,” he
told him.

Bob's face lit up, “Really?” he
said.

“
Really,” Mike said. He
looked over at Ronnie. “Watch him in case he starts jumping up and
down,” he said.

“
Did you tell Janet?” Bob
asked.

“
Nope. Thought you would,
should,” Mike said. “But I was wondering if chickens can travel.
If, since we will need chickens, we should take these,” he
said.

“
We could,” Bob said, “but
we'd probably lose an awful lot of them, we got quite a way to go.
Plus, they'd stop laying almost immediately.”

“
Why?” Ronnie
asked.

“
They don't like change,
noise, different, and anything else that upsets their normal
routine,” Bob told him. He paused. “We're going to have to change
our direction of travel,” Bob continued. “If we're going to the
place I picked. Who all is going?” he asked.

“
All of my people want to,”
Jeff said. “I was going to get with you about it myself. But, well,
this seems to be a good time for it.”

“
I can't speak for anyone
except the four of us, but, Sandy and Susan made it clear they want
to go as well,” Mike said.

“
Tom and Lilly also want to
go,” Bob said.

“
That leaves Nell and Molly
and Tim and Annie,” Mike said.

“
No, Tim and Annie said
they want to go to,” Ronnie said. “And last I knew Nell wanted to,
so really that's all of us, except the little ones. That's
twenty-four people. Wow,” Ronnie said.

“
We should discuss it
further tonight,” Mike said.

“
So animals, how are we
going to do it, Bob?”

“
Well, to be honest, I
hadn't thought quite that far. But I've been thinking cattle
trucks,” Bob said.

“
What's that?” Jeff
asked.

“
They're just big trucks
with a stake rack. You can run twenty cows up in one, I wouldn't
try it with horses, but we need that kind of space. I think we'll
have to drive them, cows and horses together. They graze with each
other, they should herd with each other,” he seemed to be thinking
out loud.

“
You lost me, Bob. Drive
them in trucks?” Mike asked.

“
No. Drive them on the
ground, as in cowboy style. I don't think we'll be able to get
those trucks as far back as we want to go. It's pretty wild
country, but even if we did, we have no fences. We have no homes.
We have crops to plant. It would be better to go with what we need,
seed, food, tools, get ourselves established this year, get a crop
in the ground. Next year we could come out and get horses, cows,
other animals. Or, drive them in with us and, well, turn them
loose. Most of them will stay near us, some would go wild pretty
quick though.” He shook his head slightly “We're going to have to
sit down and talk this out... all of us... and also make sure
everyone wants to go,” Bob said.

“
If we kick it open, we'll
probably get some more good feedback,” Ronnie said.

“
That's the best way to do
it,” Jeff agreed.

“
I like both ideas. Maybe
we could take some animals with us then come out for more in the
Spring? Most likely by then there will be a million and one things
we need anyway,” Mike said. “But, yeah, we can't discuss it like
this. Everybody needs to be in on it.”

“
Well, we can't take these
chickens with us, but it's early, I bet we could get a bunch of
them ready to eat,” Bob said.

“
Never did that before,”
Jeff said. “How's it go?”