The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (41 page)

“
Me either,” Ronnie said,
looking a little nervous.

“
Ditto,” Mike
said.

“
Well, gotta learn some
time,” Bob said. “Ain't hard.”

~

By the time the four men had gutted and
plucked the feathers from twenty chickens, it was well after noon
and all of them were covered with blood and feathers.

“
Let's get these back to
Jan,” Bob said. “Then we'll get down to the stream.”

“
I second that,” Mike said.
He was trying to blow a small downy feather off his nose, reluctant
to touch his nose with his hands which were blood sticky, and
looked themselves to be feathered. “Hey, didn't Janet say there was
a well here somewhere?” he asked hopefully.

A few minutes of searching found the
water where it bubbled up fresh and cold and ran down into the
trough. They all got cleaned up before they left.

~

Janet gratefully accepted the chickens
when they handed them over to her.

“
I had thought of that as
well, but I couldn't find two men willing to take me down there,”
she said.

Bob kissed her on the cheek. “We saved
you the drive,” he said.

“
Why, Bob,” she said,
embarrassed.

“
Everybody's going,” Bob
said, “With us. They're all coming with us.”

Janet grabbed Bob's face between her
palms and kissed him hard, pumped one fist in the air and said,
“Yes!”

“
Jan,” Bob said, surprised.
Then they both laughed and hugged. “We are going to talk it over
tonight. We're not sure of Molly and Nell. Other than that,
everybody else is in... including Jeff's people.”

“
I'm so happy,” Janet Dove
said. Her face glowed. She couldn't have smiled wider if she tried,
she thought.

“
Thought you would be,” Bob
said.

“
Go get some clean clothes
and get cleaned up,” Janet said. “I'll take these from here,” she
said indicating the chickens.

When they reached the stream, after
stopping off to pick up clothes, Tom was just getting there
himself.

“
How did it go?” Bob
asked.

“
Come out good. That Molly
can work. We left everything there. Didn't know what we'd do with
most of those tools anyway,” Tom said.

“
Yeah, the best place for
them,” Bob said.

“
The rest of us have
decided to go,” Mike said.

“
With Bob?” Tom
asked.

“
Yep,” Mike
said.

Tom exhaled. “That's good news.
Everybody?”

“
We don't know about Nell
and Molly,” Mike said.

Tom nodded, “They want to go. It is all
Molly and I've been talking about as we worked. She's so
enthusiastic. As for Lilly and I, Lilly got me to look at it
harder, she's... Well, that will come later, I guess, but I was
thinking about safety... For her,” Tom said.

“
That's not fair, you can't
almost spit it out and then not say it,” Ronnie said.

“
What,” Tom
said.

“
Like you were about to say
something, but decided not to,” Jeff said.

“
Yeah,” Mike
added.

“
That's it exactly,” Tom
said. “That's me. It's not a secret; we just haven't told anyone is
all. Lilly is... Pregnant,” Tom said.

“
Wow,” Ronnie said. “Fast
work, Bro,” he clapped Tom on the back.

“
Congratulations,” Mike
said.

“
It's not mine,” Tom said.
“I'm only saying it to say it. She was pregnant when this happened.
She was afraid I wouldn't want her, but I do. And the baby... well,
I'm pretty excited about it,” he smiled hugely.

“
All right then.
Congratulations, Tom,” Bob said slapping him on the
back.

“
Hey, the first one,” Mike
said. “That's a big deal.”

“
Awesome,” Jeff
said.

“
Hey, it's our future,”
Ronnie said.

“
That's why I wanna go...
for Lilly and the baby,” Tom said.

~

The Dog showed up just before dinner
with a companion. She was every bit mutt as The Dog, and very
nervous around everyone.

Everyone ate with gusto, slipping bits
of chicken to the two dogs, and fussing over Angel, which somebody
immediately named her.

“
It's not right,” Mike
said. “Angel here shows up and gets a name immediately and The Dog
is still The Dog.”

“
Yeah, but he's
The Dog,
” Janet said
laughing. Everybody joined in.

“
The Dog probably wouldn't
know what to make of a new name,” Tom said. “Probably thinks
The Dog
is
his name.”

“
Well, it is,” Lilly said.
“It is his name. Angel and The Dog. Now The Dog has somebody
too.”

~

Dinner passed by quickly, and Mike
broached the subject that had been on their minds and that they had
spoken of earlier.

“
Some of us talked today
about going with Bob and Janet. By some of us I mean, Ronnie,
Patty, Candace and myself, Tom and Jeff. We decided to go, Lilly,”
he looked at Lilly, “had already told Tom she wanted to go. If I
have it figured right,
we
have it figured right, the only ones who didn't
say for sure yet are Nell and Molly, but,” he held his hands up,
“this is for every one of us,” he looked to Jeff's group. “Those of
you who have been here, those of you who just got here.”

“
We thought we'd ask
everybody where they stand right now, but, if you still haven't
made up your mind, that's fine. It's a way away yet. We have some
traveling to do, which were going back to tomorrow, I'm told. So, I
thought we'd all answer, and there's an awful lot to discuss. And
since it will affect all of us, we should all talk about it. Bob
will do that, but first, we've got some other news. Tom... Lilly?”
Mike grinned hugely. It had been all he could do not to tell
Candace. Tom spoke to Lilly, and she had agreed to tell
everyone.

Lilly flushed. She seemed to think for
a moment and then spoke. “Tom and I are going to have a baby,” she
said. Cheers went up everywhere. Everybody hugged Lilly and shook
Tom's hand. The Dog and Angel ran around between their legs,
jumping up and down and barking, joining in the general
mayhem.

Lilly explained again how it was not
Tom who was the baby's father, but her boyfriend before everything
had happened. But it didn't dampen anyone's enthusiasm.

Sandy made her promise to let her know
if she felt any way out of the ordinary, and then began to
prescribe vitamins and exercise, sounding exactly like a doctor.
But, Mike thought, in this world, she was a doctor.

The topic shifted to the forever wild
area, what they would need to take with them and what they would
need to do once they got there.

“
We've got to figure out
how to get cows, horses, chickens and pigs there in reasonable
numbers,” Bob said. “We talked a little about driving them in. Like
a cattle drive, old fashioned cowboy stuff, and we talked about
trying to drive them in, in cattle trucks, if we could find or
build something that can work.”

“
Bob?” It was Arlene. “I've
done a little ranching, worked on one for a while out of college. I
know a little about it. You're talking some real work rounding up
cattle and horses, teaching some others to ride horses to keep them
moving. That's hard work for real cow hands. Really hard to imagine
regular folks getting it done easily.” She smiled, clearly nervous,
but also in familiar territory.

“
Now, cattle trucks will
work, so will horse trailers. We just have to make a few trips is
all. We can catch them and turn them loose once we get close to
where we are going. There's no way to get the kind of fencing up
that we need,” she said. “Not now, but late fall or next spring we
can. They'll winter fine on their own for the most part. Oh, and I
definitely want to go,” she added with a surprised
chuckle.

“
Oh, stupid,” Bob said.
“First things first. Does everybody want to go? Is there anyone
that doesn't want to go?”

Nell raised her hand. “We do want to
go, we talked it over last night and again this afternoon. We want
to go.” Molly held Nell's hand as she spoke.

Another spontaneous cheer went up, and
The Dog and Angel went chasing around and barking once
more.

“
That is really it then,”
Bob said. “Well, I liked what Arlene said. I didn't know we had an
expert.”

Arlene laughed. “I'm no expert,” she
protested.

“
To us you are. Hell, to
this world you are,” Bob said seriously. “So, go ahead. I didn't
know about horse trailers that would take more than two horses,” he
said.

“
Oh no, they got horse
trailers that will take as many as 10 horses in safety. That is the
key. Now, with a cow, they crowd together and it makes them feel
safe. With a horse, they have to be separated or they'll just keep
on pushing, maybe kicking too. A cattle truck is easy to find. Any
truck dealer might have a few, but we'll be coming into beef cow
country soon, and I'm sure we'll find more then. We could make a
couple of trips, although we'd have to get gas, or we could get us
8 to 10 of those trucks, put the horses in and bring them in,”
Arlene said.

“
Are they a hard drive?”
Tom asked.

“
Not too,” Arlene said.
“Standard shift, mostly, but a few automatics. I guess we'll be
driving so slow it won't matter much.”

“
You know, almost the whole
of the north west side is flat lands. Mountains to the south and to
the east. Once we get them past that, there isn't anyplace they can
go. They can winter, and next year when we have a place for them,
we could round them up. We might lose a few, and there are probably
wild horses in there to, so we could gain some, but it'll work,”
Bob said.

“
That sounds good,” Mike
said.

“
Easy even,” Ronnie
said.

“
Oh, squash that. It ain't
going to be easy at all. We have to catch them first. Cows? Not a
big a problem. Horses? Oh brother. Thankfully it hasn't been long,
and we shouldn't have too tough of a time of it,” Arlene
finished.

“
That's good enough for
me,” Lilly said.

“
Yeah.”

“
Me too.”

Several others spoke out loud while
they were nodding.

“
Well, we'll need other
things as well. Janet is going to start a list. We'll all add to
it. We'll start now,” Bob said. “What else can you think of that we
need or should take?”

“
Books,” Janet
said.

“
Medicines,” Sandy
said.

“
Carpenter tools. Hammers.
Levels, and saws. Oh, and nails,” Ronnie said.

“
Hand plows, saddles, stuff
like that,” Arlene said.

“
Why not some solar
panels?” Tim said. “We could use them to keep a few lights running,
maybe a refridgerator, monitor a CB maybe. They're easy to hook up
and use, and they work pretty well,” he finished.

“
Good,” Arlene said.
“Good.”

“
Some cast iron wood and
coal stoves. That is if they still make them,” Lilly
said.

“
We talked about hybrid
seeds today, so trying to find a store somewhere along the way
would be a smart thing to do,” Mike said.

“
Maybe load one of those
metal buildings on a truck. There's nothing to them when they're
apart,” Ronnie said.

“
Maybe a few of them,” Jeff
said. “They might have to do us for a while.”

“
Pots and pans. The heavy
duty stuff. Stuff that will last,” Patty said. “Cast
iron.”

“
And those steel laundry
tubs.” Candace said.

“
Maybe some...”

~

The conversation and suggestions went
on and on, some drifted away to take the first posts of the night.
In the end Janet had most of a spiral notebook filled with
notes.

The good feeling stayed with them,
fueled by the knowledge that tomorrow would see them back on the
road and heading for their destination some twelve hundred miles to
the southwest.

~Candace's journal~

I'm tired so this will be a short
entry. This is our last night of privacy in a real room, and a real
bed, (me with my candle so I can write).

We're going. We're all going. Bob's
dream, and Janet's as well really, is about to be realized. And
Lilly is pregnant. And I would say we can't top that, except, both
Patty and I missed our monthly. Stress? Maybe. But, wouldn't it be
nice? We're both only a little late, so we're not getting our hopes
up. Of course, we really are!

~Mike's journal~

It's early. We're going to go eat in
just a few minutes, but I wanted to write this down. We're all
going to do this wilderness thing with Bob and Janet. We must be
nuts! I say that, but I'm kidding. I can't imagine going back to
the way things were, even if we could. The other big news is Lilly
is pregnant. Wow. What can I say after that?