The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (84 page)

The conversation picked back up around
them after a few seconds of silence. Candace had stood in the
doorway listening to the two of them talk. It had surprised her.
Cindy had asked her no more than an hour ago how she and Mike had
met, how it had happened.

“
I saw him and I knew he
was it,” she had told her. “I didn't wait, I just walked right over
to him and asked him. I let him know I wanted him, Cindy. I knew if
I waited someone else might do the same thing.”

Cindy had only nodded and looked
pensive. Then she had nodded again and walked out onto the ledge
like her mind was made up. Candace had followed her out and
listened to the conversation. She had realized then what the
question had been about. She smiled now, and as she did, Cindy
looked up and caught her eyes. They both smiled again and Cindy
turned back to the conversations going on around her. Craig's eye's
were on her, Candace saw. Cindy had made the first move and made
her point. The rest was up to Craig.

Fresh roasted Venison. Crayfish, boiled
this time along with the crabs, and roasted corn on the cob along
with mollusks and chunks of Venison, cut up and fried together with
leeks, wild radish and hot peppers as well as green peppers from
the gardens the community had planted. Everyone ate hugely,
celebrating the new arrivals, Annie's safe return and the fishing
trip.

Candace, Lilly, Patty, Bob and Janet,
as well as Arlene, made the invitation for them to stay and join,
formal, being the members of the council present.

All of them accepted. Craig's party and
the ones who had come back with Annie. Cammy, Bear's woman told
them that Beth wanted nothing more than to stay. The kids were
already fast friends, Billy had pointed out. Winston, the old man
that had come in with Cammy, Billy and Beth seemed relieved to have
a place to call home. They had been traveling with Bear and Cammy
all the way from New York. It was time to settle down, Billy said.
Although he added that he didn't believe for a second that Bear
would ever be ready to settle down. Cammy, a sad look in her eyes,
had agreed.

The people from Craig's party ate
carefully, their stomachs filling quickly, but Sandy thought it
would do them good to eat solid food, as long as they were careful
and didn't over do it.

The evening passed and people began to
say their goodbyes and drift off down the valley, or off to their
posts for the night. Soon it was only Susan and Sandy, Sharon and
Cindy who lived in the cave, and the six new comers.

Roberta, Bonnie and Cammy left with
Janet to take a look at the barns before night fall, and get an
idea of how the valley and the small community was laid out. There
were several other newcomers that had set up living quarters in
other small caves scattered through the valley, and small
encampments where people that had come in together had settled and
begun building. Cammy wanted to look for a more permanent solution
to sleeping in the main cave area.

Sandy and Sharon had piled Sleeping
bags and blankets in the main area, along with collapsible cots for
the newcomers to use. Candles for light, and pots for inside use.
Shortly after that Sandy and Susan said goodnight. Sharon left to
take care of Beth, and suddenly Cindy and Craig were alone on the
wide ledge, watching the daylight bleed out of the
valley.

Now that they were alone, Cindy did not
know what to say.

Craig seemed tongue tied
too.

“
You could hold me if you
wanted to,” Cindy said.

“
I do want to,” Craig
said.

The light was bleeding from the valley.
Shadows gathering the evening together.

“
Am I really what you
want?” Craig asked.

“
Yeah. You are,” Cindy
said. “All I had to do was see you and I knew it... My friend said
something to me... She said, let him know it. The world's not the
way it used to be... I think she's right,” she looked into his
eyes.

“
I haven't been good at
relationships,” Craig told her.

“
That's the old world,
isn't it,” Cindy asked.

“
We don't know each other,
not really,” Craig said.

“
Yet we want each other...
And why does that matter? It isn't the old world. There's no piece
of paper here, but I'll bet these relationships do better... Last
longer.”

“
I'm a little
older...”

Cindy laughed. “And that really makes a
difference to you? … Or me?”

“
I just want to make sure
you...”

“
Are you going to kiss me,”
Cindy interrupted.

He kissed her.

~

Candace's Journal

My man is on my mind. I miss him so
much and I want to be able to share the news about the babies with
him, and I'm scared. I am. Annie told us what it is really like out
there. I can't let my thoughts get away from me. I can't start
imagining things, making more out of it than there is. But the
things that are right out there are bad enough. It's one thing to
hear on the radio that the streets of New York City, or Los Angeles
are over run with the dead. And an entirely different thing to hear
that someone you love has been attacked. To see the results in a
young woman that has lost an arm. To go past hearing to
knowing.

It's only been a week, how am I going
to last a month or a month and a half? I just hope they find what
they need and come home early. I also hope they don't meet any
crazies. I don't know what I would do if something happened to
Mike.

The ones that Craig and the others met
with has put that into my head. Another worry on top of the dead
and a plain old accident of some sort. Those things are out there,
I just don't want them to touch my world.

I had crayfish and Mollusks tonight.
Arlene calls them Craw Dads. I had never had them before, man are
they ever good. And I think the babies liked them too, so I ate
some extra. After all I'm eating for the three of us. Or maybe the
three of us are just pigs!

Good luck to you, Cindy. Baby come
home. God, are you listening?

CHAPTER SEVEN

September 24th

“
That's a dog,” Ronnie
said.

“
You're sure,” Mike
asked.

“
Yeah... It's a mix with a
Malamute and maybe some big sheep dog. I can see the Spitz in it
and something else as well... Both of them... The one watching and
the one guarding... They're both dogs.”

“
Spitz?” Mike
asked.

“
Like in Chows...
Malamutes, other sled dogs, Akita. They have a common ancestor in
the Spitz.”

The dogs knew they were there. They had
looked over at them several times. They seemed to be guarding the
mixed flock of sheep and goats.

“
Here goes,” Ronnie said.
He stood and walked towards the larger one that was guarding the
herd and whistled. The dog's head came up and he barked a greeting,
his tail wagging. “Yeah... It's a dog,” Ronnie said with a
laugh.

“
You mean you weren’t
sure!” Mike said. “
That dog weighs more
than you do!”

“
Yeah... But it's a dog.”
He bent and patted his hands on his knees and the huge dog loped to
him and jumped up on him. The one that had been laying down got up
and trotted over as well. Between the two of them they knocked
Ronnie down and stood over him licking his face.

Ronnie sat up grinning, one arm around
the neck of each dog. To Mike they looked exactly like huge shaggy
wolves. They were marked the same; gray-black mixed with white.
Josh walked up beside Mike, James with him. Debbie, Bear and Chloe
on the other side of Ronnie.

Chloe raised her hands into the air
with a what now gesture. Mike shrugged his shoulders. Chloe turned
to Debbie, said something, and they both laughed. She walked over
to the two dogs and Ronnie, offered her hand, and pulled him to his
feet.

The bigger dog was the dog that had
been laying down. A female. That was obvious because she was
pregnant, her belly sagging low. Debbie walked over and the two
women began fussing over the dogs who seemed overjoyed with all the
attention.

“
I don't recall seeing the
dogs,” Josh said. “Nor the goats, but this looks like the same
herds I saw... Both of them... They were only twenty or so each and
this herd is close to forty, and ten goats too. But if those dogs
are sheep dogs, as in
bred
to be herding dogs, they would have taken anything
that came their way and herded it. That's what they do.”

They had yet another huge truck. A flat
bed with stake rack sides. A livestock truck that Josh had picked
out. A detachable ramp that could be slotted into the back to run
animals up into the rear area, and stored under the rear deck when
not in use. Josh himself was driving it.

“
That's their herd. I would
bet all that I have to do is back this truck up, drop the ramp, and
those two will put that herd right in there for us,” he
said.

Everybody else was standing around.
They had all been in the trucks, unsure if the dogs were dogs, and
if they did turn out to be dogs, whether they were friendly or
turned wild. Now that the suspense was over and it seemed as though
the whole plan they had in mind might turn out to be easier than
they had thought it would be, they were all waiting to see what
would happen next.

“
I say go for it,” Mike
said. “You know more about this than I do. I'm just glad the dogs
didn't eat Ronnie... Or me,” he added with a laugh.

Chloe came over with
Debbie. “You're just being strung along,” she joked. “They'll
probably eat you later on, take over the rest of us and call in
their dog pack to ride shotgun over us... Make us work in the mines
or something,” she laughed too, but she pulled the female to her
and ruffled her fur. “Big babies,” she said. “And she's about to
pop...
Puppies!”

Mike smiled at her. This was not the
same Chloe of yesterday. This was a whole new woman. She talked
differently, walked differently. She seemed confidant. “You look
great this morning, Chloe,” he told her.

“
I feel pretty great,” she
smiled. She looked over at Debbie and they both smiled.

Josh ran the big truck down off the
road and into the field. As soon as the truck dropped off the
roadway and into the field the dogs became excited: Running back to
the herd, nipping at their heels, chasing the ones that had
wandered off. Before Josh and James had the ramp completely set up,
the two dogs had all the goats and sheep on their feet and milling
around in the field not far from the truck.

When the ramp dropped Josh
turned to the big female that seemed to be watching and waiting on
him. He motioned his hand in an
up the
ramp
gesture. The dog cocked its head and
looked at him.
“Hi!,”
he yelled.

She spun on her heels and the two dogs
working together drove the herd to him. James and Josh on one side
of the ramp, Mike and Ronnie on the other, and the others spread
out to make sure none veered off or dropped off the edge of the
ramp, and it was over in just a few moments. The sheep especially
were no trouble, the goats only a little trouble as they tried to
back up and get away, but the dogs took care of that, herding them
right back at the truck and onto the ramp. The ramp came down and
slid under the deck, and they set the stake rack into the holes in
the deck to close off the back.

“
High?” Mike
asked.

“
Hi... H, i,” Josh told
him. “Like,
Hi, how are you.
I used to use it with the cows. But I think
anything I yelled would have done it. Those dogs know their job.
There probably are some specific commands I just don't know what
they would be. I have seen this done in competition. The dogs, a
good sheep herder, can run the herd through a course. Put them in a
field. Take them out. Almost anything at all, on their
own.”

Mike nodded. “That was nice,” he
agreed. “I think they've done this before.”

The dogs sat quietly at the back of the
truck looking from Josh to Mike to Ronnie.

“
Where are we going to put
the dogs?” Mike asked.

“
Gonna bring them with us?”
Josh asked.

“
Yeah... But will they
come,” Mike wondered.

Josh walked to the front of the truck,
opened the door, whistled, and both dogs jumped up into the big
cab. The female curled up onto the seat, the male with his huge
paws on the dashboard looking out the window.

“
I...” Mike just laughed.
“That's that, I guess.” He turned and looked to everyone standing
around. “That's it,” he said loudly. “Follow us... We're going
home.”

The Nation

Candace, Patty and Lilly sat on a thick
quilt under a huge plastic awning and watched the corn picking
proceed. Two large plastic coolers sat just off the quilt, filled
with cold water from the stream. A second tarp covered an area
where most of the children were playing. A few of the smaller ones
had fallen asleep. Brian and Ben were both in the field, helping to
pick ears of corn.