The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (82 page)

“
Really,” Lilly asked. She
was having trouble getting up.

Craig offered one hand and easily
pulled her to her feet.

“
Thank you,” Lilly told
him.

“
So what was it,” Candace
asked.

~

Cindy helped Bob change the water in
the large chests that held the crayfish, crabs and mollusks. They
were all lively except two which they fished out and tossed into
the lake.

Tom, Bob, and Cindy muscled the full
chests up onto the back of the wagon. There were a dozen other
plastic chests full of dried, smoked fish. And another large amount
that was wrapped in plastic they had bought with them.

Sharon and Bob had spent a good deal of
time that early morning scouring the area for herbs. Showing Cindy
how to tell one from the other. Digging up whole specimens, roots
and all, for transplanting. They packed them into the plastic and
cardboard containers they had bought the worms in.

They found more than a dozen they would
be taking back for transplanting in the gardens back at the cave
next spring. They would spend the fall and winter inside in a huge
herb garden Janet and Sandy had started in the cave common area. It
was close to the huge glass windows Bob had built into the front
wall, so they would get the sunlight, but they would be in the area
that would be heated by the huge central fire all winter. They
should do well through the cold months until they could be
transplanted in the spring.

They moved out at mid morning and
started the trek back. They were one horse short for the larger
wagon, but since the trip back was on mostly level ground, Bob just
made sure they took the return trip slower so that it would not be
too difficult for the horse that was doing the pulling.

Bob had called Janet to let
her know they would be a little slower coming back and she and
filled him in on the other death. It bothered him that he had been
away when the whole thing had happened. It bothered him too, that
someone had come and died, and he would never meet them. Two
someones, he reminded himself. So far he had met everyone who had
come to their settlement in the mountains.
The Nation
as they had begun to call
it. There were thirty other parties that had come so far. Five
graves that held the remains of those who had turned or could have
turned. Seven now, he told himself. At least they had had a place
for these last two and a few before them. At the first they had had
none. They had taken the bodies far into the other valley and
buried them.

Cindy came up beside him as he walked.
“Bob?” she asked.

He shook himself from the dark mood he
had been heading into. “At your service,” he joked.

Her face was serious. “What's to stop
us from damming that low rocky area down in the second valley and
making a little lake,” She asked.

Her question took him by surprise.
“Well... Ahh. I don't see any reason we couldn't... Catfish pond?
Is that it?”

“
And Crayfish, crabs,
bullheads, even trout, right?” She smiled.

“
I don't see why not,” Bob
agreed. “You're a thinker, Cindy. I like that,” Bob laughed. “I
believe we have a project. There's certainly a lot of land there.
More than enough.”

On The Road

They stopped at a huge truck dealership
on the outskirts of some nameless city. A large area of parking lot
was relatively intact and they could see for a mile or two in
either direction.

One of the Jeeps was giving them
trouble. Chloe was driving it, and twice the overheating light had
come on. It had a burned rubber smell to it. Ronnie thought it
might be a good idea to swap out all three Jeeps since they had all
been used hard and were beginning to show it.

He didn't mention that they may as well
get something that would last a long while because they had both
decided they would never come back, but it was in Mike's
mind.

They worked their way through the lot
carefully. Two dead were flushed by Josh hiding on the side of a
van, but it was over quickly. Josh and Richard both opened up point
blank. By the time the others arrived the dead were once again
dead. Even so it was unnerving. And something close to depression
seemed to descend on all of them.

They stayed together and found three
pickup trucks that fit their needs. They were mid-sized four wheel
drive units, virtually untouched and relatively easy to get to. The
pickup bed was a joke, Bear pointed out. Not full size or even
close to it. They were really no longer than the Jeeps. There
wasn't much they could carry.

The cabs were small with just two
bucket seats, passenger and driver, and they sat up much higher
than the jeeps, but they were wider and that gave them a good feel.
The tires were wider and taller, and Mike wondered if they had been
especially built for something.

The stickers in the windows told the
tale. There had been six specially ordered for the Marshall County
Beach Patrol, where ever that was. Of the six, four were still
there. They got them out, charged up and filled. They spent some
time switching over the tow bars as well as filling all the other
vehicles from the dealership's underground tanks. The gas quality
seemed to be pretty good. The smell of Gasoline strong when they
popped the caps on the vent tubes.

By the time they had gassed all the
trucks; decided to cut one of the other pickup trucks out for the
fourth Beach Patrol truck, the sun was beginning to sink from the
sky.

They had passed a herd of small beef
cows down the road. Mike had laughed at them. They were the
smallest cows he had ever seen. The cows they had back in the
Nation were huge. Some well over twenty five hundred pounds. These
cows looked to be three or four hundred tops.

Josh explained that they were purposely
bred to be small. Designer cows, if you will, Josh had joked.
Downsized to better stand the heat, and for smaller farm
operations, and although they looked like lightweights compared to
the cows Mike was used to seeing they were closer to six or seven
hundred pounds, give or take. While most of them were setting up
the new trucks, Josh and Ronnie had taken the Pickup down the road
and found the herd.

About the time they were finished
setting up the new trucks, the two of them were back with fresh
beef. They had found a cornfield growing wild nearby and picked
ears of corn and bought those back with them as well.

They found a relatively empty area of
asphalt, circled the trucks, and began to settle in for the night.
The only thing Mike didn't like about it was the woods, which were
no more than a quarter of a mile away. Thick Kudzu vines hung from
the trees and snaked away through the fields. Many creeping onto
the asphalt of the parking lot.

“
They imported it from
Japan back in the fifties,” Tim said from beside him.

“
The vines?” Mike
asked.

Tim nodded. “The highway department in
some southern town, the details escape me, but I read about it.
They thought it would be great. The problem they were having was
that the soil from highway and work projects got washed away before
the growth could stabilize it. Kudzu worked great. Roots fast.
Grows fast. Did everything they wanted it to do.”

“
Shit is growing like a
damn weed now,” Bear said as he walked up.

“
It's been like that since
they planted it. Cost millions of dollars in maintenance each year
cutting it back. Cut it back on Tuesday and it's growing again on
Thursday. Now that there's nothing to stop it, it'll probably cover
everything in a few years... Like a jungle,” Tim
finished.

Mike nodded. “Well. We're going to have
to keep a close eye on that treeline... If there had been enough
daylight left we could have gone over there and checked it out...
Just feels like a good place for them to hide, if it weren't so
late I'd...” He broke off as several dead lunged from the tree line
in the twilight and headed for them.

“
Son of a bitch,” Mike said
as he shrugged his machine pistol into his hands.

“
Dead in the
trees,”
Bear's bass voice yelled
out.

The noise was instant, and the flash of
gunfire lit up the twilight. They were all firing hard and fast and
it took Mike a second to realize that someone was yelling above the
roar of the gunfire. He turned away from the wood line and that was
when the first of the dead came over the hood of the nearest truck
and jumped at him. He yelled as he turned his gun and fired. All
hell broke loose after that.

Mike drove the barrel of his gun into
the zombies head, and only barely got it lined up to do it before
he found himself on the ground, the zombie biting at him as he went
down, missing by scant inches. Mike pulled the trigger and the
zombies head exploded in a spray of black: Almost like a fog in the
air that seemed to hang there, Mike thought, as he made it back to
his feet and ran at another zombie climbing over the hood of a
truck near him. He realized then that the fog had stayed with him.
In his eyes, he knew, and he hoped that it could not infect him
that way. He squeezed the trigger briefly and the zombie climbing
over the truck flew back from the hood.

He stiffened his knees to slow his
momentum and the coming collision with the fender of the truck. He
managed to catch himself without losing his balance and sprawling
over the hood of the truck. He got himself turned and Chloe began
to scream: Even as he began to turn he knew the zombie's from the
woods were gone. That had been a distraction. He began to think
then that they had thought out their attack. Later he was
positive.

Chloe's rifle came up and she fired
almost as soon as Mike had found her with his eyes. Mike's head
spun trying to track what she was watching. He saw it all in a
short burst. Less than a second.

Two zombies scrambled over the hood of
one of their own trucks. Alice was between them. Already bitten.
They gnashed their teeth and bit as they tried to drag her off. She
clawed and fought. Mike's own gun started up, but another spoke
from behind him. All three blew apart in front of him and then the
silence fell hard for a few seconds. The stench of gunpowder hung
in the air. A blue-gray haze hung heavy in the air. The daylight
was hanging by a thread.

Alice's body slid off the hood of the
truck and slumped to the ground. The next gunshot came as a
surprise. Mike spun around to find George collapsing to the ground.
One hand held to his stomach. Blood streaming over his fingers as
he toppled over. Brad, Alice's brother turned to Bear and his rifle
started to come up.

Ronnie yelled Bear's Name. The words
came from Ronnie's mouth at nearly the same time that his rifle
bucked in his hands. Mike watched it all happen in slow motion. He
had simply reacted. Bear finished turning and watched as Brad flew
back and slammed into the fender of a nearby car. His eyes moved
from Brad to Ronnie whose rifle was still clutched tightly in his
hands. Barrel smoking. He had called out Bear's name and then
fired. Chloe rushed over to George but he was clearly gone. Debbie
came from a crouch near the fender of a truck and stumbled to her
feet. Her eyes were wide and shocked. The others stood slowly and
looked around.

The dead were gone. Run off into the
shadows of the lot, faded back into the trees. Chloe began to stand
from where she had crouched by George. She had not made it fully to
her feet when his leg twitched and he started to move, his hand
reaching out to grab at her. Three rifles spoke quickly and his
head blew apart splattering Chloe as she tried to spring back, too
late. She collapsed onto the ground and began to sob. Debbie came
over, pulled her into her arms and began to cry softly with her.
Mike spun and kicked the fender of a truck with one heavy boot,
crushing it inward.

“
Easy, Baby,” Bear said in
his bass rumble. “Easy.” He walked to Chloe and pulled her to her
feet. “Crying don't cut it,” he told her. “I'd like to give you
that luxury, but I can't. Out here this is the way it is. I've
lived with it for the last several months.” He pulled Debbie up
too. “You had to do it and you did. And a good goddamn thing you
did it fast too... No telling how many more of us might have gotten
dead if you hadn't.” He turned to George and Brad. “Did anybody see
what that was about?”

“
George shot her too,”
Debbie said. “So Brad shot him... I don't know from there... She
was his sister... I suppose...” She was still upset and her voice
hitched and caught as she spoke.

“
Can't have that shit,”
Bear said. His voice boomed out.

“
Bear's right,” Mike said
loudly. “Does anybody here want to be a zombie, because if they had
gotten her over the hood of the car that's exactly what would have
happened to her. She was on the way already... They already had
her,” his voice lowered. “Listen... Let's get some fires going...
Right now... Then we're going to lay out the ground rules for the
rest of this trip...Bear?” He waited until Bear looked at
him.

“
I don't know... You do...
I should have already done this, but you're going to tell us what
we need to do to get our heads out of our asses so we can get home
in one goddamn piece.” Bear nodded slowly. He turned back to the
others. “Fires, dinner, then we talk this out. Meanwhile, watch
everywhere... Hard.”