The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (43 page)

“
My God,” Patty whispered
against her neck. She pulled away a second later and walked quickly
back out into the sunshine. Candace looked after her, hesitated,
and then went after her. Mike, Ronnie and Jeff stood in the shadows
looking over the small area that had been hollowed out of the
woods.

The carcass of a small calf lay rotting
a few feet away, the throat torn open, the stomach bloated,
swollen, intestines spilling out of her side where whatever had
killed her had been feeding. A few feet away, a shriveled corpse,
whether man or woman it was hard to tell, but whatever had been
feeding on the calf had been feeding on the body also. The head had
been dragged several feet away. Most of the chest was gone, one
arm, and the stomach lay open. A hollowed cavity.

Mike raised his eyes and took in the
gloom. His eyes searching the area.

“
Something’s been living
here,” Jeff said quietly.

Candace and Patty stepped back into the
small clearing. “Why does it look as though this was cleared?”
Candace said.

“
Exactly my question,” Jeff
said.

“
Probably was already
cleared,” Ronnie said. “Then this animal comes along...”

“
Maybe the body was someone
camped out here, then whatever this was come along and killed
them?” Patty asked.

No one spoke.

Mike turned back to the clearing from
his examination of the surrounding woods. “Trails,” Mike said. He
pointed. “There and there.”

“
Might have been here last
night.” This from Candace. “I say it because there's nothing else
here. No other animals have moved in to take what's left.” She
looked at Jeff.

He nodded. “I thought that as well.
It's maybe not a problem because we're leaving soon.”

“
Today,” Mike said. His
eyes swept the clearing again. “This morning.”

“
Yeah,” Ronnie
agreed.

“
Probably should keep this
to ourselves,” Mike added.

Jeff nodded. “My thoughts.”

“
But I guess we better
check the areas we stay in closer,” Candace said. “Who knows what
this was.” She turned and looked through the woods across the
fields. Their camp was easily visible. She shuddered. Jeff caught
her eyes and blinked. Mike caught the interplay.

“
Yeah,” Mike said.
“Whatever it was could have crouched here, hidden, and watched
us.”

“
Do animals do that?” Patty
asked.

“
Sure,” Ronnie
said.

“
'Cause it seems like
hunters,” Patty added.

“
Animals are hunters,
Babe,” Ronnie said.

Patty stayed silent. Jeff cleared his
throat quietly. “Back in Vermont we came across a... a nest like
this more than once.”

“
Why nest?” Mike
asked.

Jeff shrugged. “It seemed like a nest.
Look at the way it's arranged, like a clearing, like a real
clearing. Seems...” He shrugged.

Candace raised her eyebrows to
him.

“
I don't have an answer,
okay. Look at it though. I never used to hunt in the old world, but
it looks a little like a hunting camp, doesn't it?” He looked
embarrassed.

“
No campfire,” Ronnie
said.

“
Yeah. Yeah, that threw me.
I guess my concern is someone following us.” Jeff said.

“
People don't eat people,”
Patty said quietly. She seemed glued to Candace's side.

“
Zombies do,” Ronnie said
and laughed.

“
Not funny, really. Some
people in Vermont swore they saw things like that.” Jeff said. He
looked at Mike.

Mike fixed his eyes on him. “We need to
be careful there. You mean someone, something else beside what you
told me?”

Jeff sighed. “Nothing solid. This one
guy was with us a day or two, found a... a nest, he said, a nest
like this... a body. But, the body, he said, was not dead. It got
up and ran away when he poked it with a stick.” He held his hands
in front of him. “Didn't say I believed it. Wasn't there... Didn't
see it.”

“
Yeah, well, that's always
the problem with shit like that,” Ronnie said. “No one you actually
know has seen it, can vouch for it. Dead people coming back to
life? Come on. Really?”

“
Didn't say I believed it,”
Jeff said.

“
No... But do you?” Candace
asked. She looked back around the clearing. Nest, her mind
whispered. There did seem to be an orderliness to it that was
human, not animal. There seemed to be an area that was flattened
down where someone may have slept.

“
No,” Jeff said. “I didn't
believe in that kind of shit at all. I thought maybe it was someone
sick, real sick... nearly dead... out of their head, and so they
ran away when help came.” He shrugged. He looked over at
Mike.

“
Go on,” Mike said. “Jeff
and I talked about this. With the stuff that's been going on, us
making our decisions, I didn't think we should get right into it.”
He looked around the clearing. “But this...” He shook his head.
“Tell them what you told me, Jeff.”

“
I said I didn't believe in
Zombies... Un-Dead... Walking dead, living dead. None of it. And I
didn't. Then one day I was checking out this building. It smelled
bad... like this, but a building. I didn't connect it, but I
stepped into a room, and there was a body, dead.
I swear to Christ that woman was
dead
, missing part of her neck, body glued
into the blood on the floor.
Dead
. And I nearly turned and left.
And then she sat up... saw me... hissed at me. She hissed at me.
And then she took off. And I mean took off, fast. She could move.”
He shrugged. “That's it. I didn't believe. Not until then.” he
finished quietly.

“
Don't matter if
they
believe in you,”
Patty said quietly.

“
Oh come on, Pats,” Ronnie
said. “For Christ's sake.”

“
Could be real,” Candace
said. “Doesn't take much, government shit, some sort of chemical
change.”

“
Please,” Ronnie
said.

“
Please? Then why did the
C.D.C. issue warnings about it? If it's bullshit, why would they do
that?”

“
Candy, that was a joke,”
Ronnie said. “When I just said it, it was a joke. I was
joking.”

“
Ronnie, don't fuckin' call
me Candy. And it wasn't a joke. An organization like that doesn't
joke.”

“
Sorry,” Ronnie looked
embarrassed. “Sorry, but you don't really think that.”

“
I didn't say I did.” The
fire bled out of her eyes. “Looks like people camped out here
though... not an animal.”

Mike cleared his throat. “Whatever it
was doesn't matter. I saw that whole thing too. Does anyone
remember back in Watertown? It's in my journal. I can't remember
the date. I heard Airplanes in the night, woke up the next day
there was this blue shit all over the snow.”

“
And?” Ronnie
asked.

“
And, I don't know. Does
anyone? Can anyone say this wasn't a pack of wolves? Wolves do
this. They act a lot like humans. They do. I'm not ready to say we
have Zombies running around, but, well, ignoring shit is not good.
Better to look at the big picture. I'm not saying it is; I'm not
saying it isn't. But, what was that shit about? Why spray that shit
after all that had happened? What was that?”

“
I remember that blue snow.
I didn't hear the planes. I remember the snow though. Could be they
are real,” Candace said.

“
But... Never mind, I
jumped, I am sorry, but, fuck, a thing like that. What the hell
could we do against a thing like that?” Ronnie said.

Silence held for a few minutes. The
gloom began to get to them. It seemed twenty degrees cooler out of
the sunlight.

“
It was my fault. I
shouldn't have made that crack,” Patty said.

“
I got spooked, I guess,”
Jeff said.

“
Doesn't matter,” Mike
said. “Let's get out of here.”

“
Shouldn't we bury the
body?” Patty asked.

Mike stopped. “Ronnie, go back and get
us ready to go. Jeff and I will take care of this.”

“
The guy's been dead for a
while,” Ronnie said.

“
Yeah, but I'm going to do
it anyway. Go on back and get us ready. Talk to Bob. Babe,” he
looked at Candace. She turned her eyes to him. Patty was still
curled into her side. “Okay?”

Candace nodded. Patty looked up and
nodded too. “Just scared me,” Patty said.

Mike nodded. “Jeff, you and me, let's
go get a shovel. And this stays with us. Later on we'll sit down
and talk to the others if it looks like we have to. It doesn't look
like we have to right now. I will talk to Bob about it myself,” He
nodded, raised his eyes from the ground and then started through
the trees to get a shovel.

~On the road again~

The camp began to break up at
mid-morning. The day was gray and overcast, a few drops of rain
falling from the sky. But the gray day and rain couldn't put a
damper on the smiling faces talking to one another, laughing behind
the glass windows of the vehicles as the caravan pulled away
parallel to the highway, riding through the grassy field which
wasn't in much better shape than the road.

Each truck had a V.H.F. radio so they
could communicate with each other and a C.B. radio to monitor
everything else. The skip talk on the C.B. was light this morning.
Twice a voice bled through claiming to be from somewhere in L.A.
and warning everyone to stay away. The voice claimed the city was
on fire, gangs fighting for control of what was left. The dead were
rising and walking the streets.

“
Feds?” Patty
asked.

“
Feds landed and took over
the streets?” Ronnie supplied.

Patty nodded doubtfully. “I
hope so, because it sounded like dead...
The dead are walking the streets.
”
She trailed off and turned her eyes back to the scenery, woods,
fields, low hanging gray clouds that slipped past the windows.
“That's crazy, though, right? ” she asked. “Crazy?”

“
Yeah, nuts. I think it was
Feds. Maybe it means there is still someone in charge there? Could
be,” Ronnie said. He pulled Patty closer to him.

The voice, a young male from the sound,
continued to talk on in a matter-of-fact voice, something close to
a monotone that suggested he was drugged or high. They were all
glad when whatever atmospheric conditions had brought the voice to
them passed, and the other skip took its place.

~

Just before noon they came upon a small
gas station and convenience store area and stopped to top off the
gas tanks. The store looked well used; everything was picked over.
But no one came around, and no one called on the radio. They all
got out and stretched their legs, lunched on canned meat and energy
bars, washed down with vitamin water and sports drinks.

Just after midday, they left the
interchange behind them and continued on their way. The heavens
continued to leak rain and the fields became harder to travel
through, so they stuck to the pavement, traveling slowly on the
broken surface, skirting the occasional abandoned vehicle, tilted
piece of pavement or washed out section of roadway. About twenty
minutes later, they consulted their map under the portico of a
sagging motel office and angled west, off the main highway, away
from Syracuse and its suburbs.

The C.B. was useless, bursts of static
and people blocking each others transmissions. Thick black smoke
billowed up into the air several miles ahead, about where Syracuse
would be, and a plastic electrical smell hung in the air even with
the rain. But they saw no one at all, not even animals. They were
all happy once the black smudge in the sky had disappeared behind
them.

A few minutes after that, a large herd
of horses grazing in a field popped their heads up when they saw
the trucks and then galloped after them for about half mile before
turning and pounding off towards a wooded area in the distance.
That kept everybody talking back and forth on the VHF radios for a
while. Arlene thought possibly they were part of some range stock,
and they were used to associating vehicles with feed. Lilly worried
that they might be hungry, but Arlene assured her they had plenty
to eat.

Mike had watched one large gray horse
spotted with black on its nose which had kept pace with his truck.
Steam had risen from his coat as he had stopped and then turned
away into the rain. Beautiful, Mike had thought.

“
Beautiful,” Candace said
from beside him.

He laughed. “I was thinking exactly
that when you said it,” Mike told her. “How big do you think he
was?” Mike asked.

“
Probably about six feet at
the shoulder,” Candace said. “Big.”

“
Got to be,” Patty said
from the back seat. “Because we're way off the ground, and it was
pretty much even with us.”

“
Anybody ever ride a
horse?” Ronnie asked.