We Go On (THE DELL) (4 page)

Food, of course, has been as big an issue as water. The
larger the group, the more food you need. We don't have the facilities for
making any kind of food stuff and, even if we did, the raw material is hard to
come by. We started out scavenging in grocery stores and convenience stores.
For a small group those work well. Larger groups need larger supplies.

We started looking for food distribution warehouses. That's
how we found the place we're in now. Military bases and abandoned convoys are
great. The Meal-Ready-to-Eat is worth its weight in gold. High in calories and
they last forever. Taste when you're starving is not a big deal but it is nice
if you can keep it down. MRE's saved a lot of us from starvation. We don't have
any fat people. I guess I’m around 150 and I've put on some weight recently.

We've gotten better at foraging and we don't have a lot of
competition. We know Road Gangs are around but we've only seen signs of their
passing, not them. It’s been months since any other survivors have come
through. Foraging, scavenging, whatever you want to call it, has taken us this
far but at some point we’re going to have to become self-sufficient. That
worries me. We need someplace secure, and large enough to have a garden and
raise animals. Some place defensible against the Stinkies and the Road Gangs.

I'm not sure how we’re going to do it but we need to find a
place that the Stinkies and the gangs can't find or get into. A place we can
defend with the limited number of people we have. Weapons are not a problem. I
said military bases were a good place to find food. They are also the perfect
place to pick up a rocket launcher if you happen to need one. We've searched a
couple and a few National Guard Armories. The one thing we have plenty of now,
is guns and the ammo to go along with them. There is no Army, or any of the
other services, for that matter. They were overrun, just like the police.
There’s equipment left everywhere. They tried to set up check points to stop
people who were infected. They tried to hold the line in places to keep the
zombies from moving further but none of it worked.

In normal combat there are a lot of wounds that are
survivable. With the Plague though, a bite, a scratch, and it's a death
sentence. This caused the rapid collapse of most of the perimeters designed to
protect uninfected humans. Anyway, they left plenty of weapons for us to use.
We are, without doubt, the best armed civilians ever. We have four HMMWV or
Humvee gun trucks. They are the up-armored variety, meaning the crew
compartment is armored against small arms fire and fragmentation. It also means
the Stinkies can't get in. One has an M-2 fifty caliber machine gun mounted on
it and the other three have M-240 7.62 millimeter machine guns mounted on them.
We've also picked up a variety of other small arms, grenades and anti-tank
rockets.

It's not just one aspect of our situation or one incident
that we have to worry about. It's the accumulation of events that will spell
doom for us. If the Road Gangs and the Stinkies left us completely alone, we
still might not be able to survive for much longer. If we can't find a reliable
source of water that's safe for us to use, or if the food runs out, or sickness;
it's over. We have a great medical staff but a limited supply of drugs. If we
have a flu epidemic, we're done. It's amazing how dependent on other people we
have become for our survival. If you get sick, go to the doctor. Hungry? Go to
the grocery. Thirsty? Go to the sink in the kitchen. Trouble with the
neighbors? Call the police. All that's gone. If we can't answer all those
questions for ourselves, then the human race is finished.

We've done well to get this far. I've got a lot of great
people helping me. Dave Hoskins is in charge of security. He's a former Marine
Staff Sergeant from Dooley, Oklahoma and a vet of the war in Afghanistan. Jim
Holly is my governance guy. He's a former city engineer from Cincinnati, Ohio.
He organizes the foraging parties and runs the day-to-day of the compound. Doc
Groves, we couldn't make it without Doc and his staff. My wife, Kat, who is my
go to person for questions about the law. Oh yes, we have laws. As a policeman,
I believe in the law. Without it, we'd be just like the Road Gangs or, worse,
like the Stinkies.

There's dozens of others in our group and we couldn't make
it without them. Judy Aikens is our agriculture specialist. She takes care of
our animals and will oversee our crop production if we get that far. Her
husband, Darryl, is one of our security platoon leaders. Jennifer Moss is our
other security platoon leader. When we found her, we came close to shooting
her. She was an Army MP and her unit had been overrun by the Stinkies. Her
uniform was literally torn off her and she was covered in blood. We thought she
was one of them, until she asked for help. Turns out the blood was from people
in her unit she'd tried to save and eventually had to put down. She was a mess
but she came around and is an asset.

We've got nurses and teachers. Used car salesmen and
housewives. We even have two clergymen. One’s Catholic and one’s Baptist. Quite
the cross section and they all contribute. That's one of the rules. You have to
contribute, can't afford to carry people now. You want to eat? You have to
work.

That's our situation as it stands now, five years after the
Event. We're trying real hard and, although we aren't hanging on by just a
thread, it wouldn't take much to push us over the edge. One disaster, one
disagreement that gets out of hand and the group could come apart. The old
Kentucky motto, ‘united we stand, divided we fall’ has never been truer than
right now. And it's my job, my responsibility—to keep us united—to keep us
alive.

Today was one of those days that I dread. It started out as
a beautiful spring day. No clouds, the birds singing, the flowers blooming. The
kind of day you live for after a long, cold winter. It went downhill, rapidly,
from there.

Jim Holley had organized a foraging party and they had a
shopping list that included food, bottled water, meds, and toys for the kids
along with building materials we needed to improve our compound. I call it a
compound for lack of a better term. It's a large, two story warehouse that was
used by Food Lion as a distribution center for their grocery chain. It has a
chain link fence topped with razor wire and encloses an area of about ten
acres. We've made some improvements to the gate and added watch towers around
the perimeter. All in all, it's fairly secure.

I hadn't been out of the compound in a while, so I
volunteered to lead the days foraging party. We have several box trucks and a
flatbed truck that we use to haul the supplies we pick up, and we took two gun
trucks and ten security guys with us. We had trouble as soon as we left the
gate. One of the box trucks had engine problems and we waited while it was
repaired. That took two hours and I thought about cancelling the run but we
needed the material. The driver finally got the truck fixed and we drove the
three miles to exit 238 off Interstate 40. A big outlet mall, Lowe's and Home
Depot are located there and would be a good place to start. We could go from
there if needed.

Of course, we ran into Stinkies. Some we could bypass but
others had to be dealt with. The security guys did their job and we were never
in any real danger. We moved from store to store picking up the needed items
and it took the better part of the day to fill the shopping list that Jim had
given me that morning. We were on our way back to compound when things went to
shit.

We cruised north on Castle Heights Avenue about five miles
from our compound on Sparta Pike. I always insist on going back by a different
route to reduce the chance of an ambush. In case a Road Gang had observed us
leaving and thought we might be a soft target as we returned.

I rode in the front passenger seat of the lead gun truck and
scanned the right side of the road for trouble. We were nearing the
intersection of Castle Heights and Cumberland Street when the gunner standing
in the turret yelled for us to stop. I asked why and he said he thought he saw
something down the embankment beside the road. I wanted a better description
and he said he wasn't sure but thought we should check it out. I said okay and
radioed the security detail to dismount. The gunners stayed in their vehicles
and covered us and the convoy with the turret mounted machine guns. Some of the
drivers and helpers from the other trucks had gotten out and were asking what
the holdup was when someone yelled they could see a car turned over in the
ditch at the bottom of the embankment. I told everyone to get back in their
vehicles; we'd check it out and then get going again. It had gotten late and I
didn't want to be stopped here for long.

I could see the vehicle and it looked familiar. It looked
like one of the vehicles we'd had at the compound. Jeff Filbert, one of the
security guys stood next to me. "That looks like the car Mike and Nancy
were driving when they disappeared the other day," he said.

It hit me then, he’s right, and that's why it looked
familiar to me. Mike and Nancy Dillard were two of the nicest people you could
meet. Nancy was a nurse and worked with Doc Groves in our Aid Station. Mike was
a former insurance salesman and, while sales was not an occupation much in need
now, Mike had a lot of skills. He helped out in several areas. He was a skilled
carpenter and knew quite a bit about machinery.

They had lost their only child, a boy of seven named Ricky,
shortly after the Event. Being a part of our group had saved their lives. They
had something to keep them busy and their minds off Ricky. They poured all
their energy into helping out at the compound. They had gone out on the last
foraging party, gotten separated, and never came back. We had looked for them
but had no luck. That was six days ago.

I had three men and two women in the security detail and I
told them we'd go slowly in case a nasty surprise waited around the car. I had
no idea how nasty a surprise waited for us. We spread out and eased over the
embankment down toward the car, weapons up and ready. The car wasn't completely
upside down. The roof had come down on part of a retaining wall for a culvert,
causing the passenger side to stick up. From our angle, the raised portion
blocked our view of the embankment and ditch on the other side.

As we neared the car, we split into two, three-person
elements. I took the high-side with two others and Don Caparelli, a former
Deputy Sheriff from Monroe, Louisiana and the security team leader, took the
low side with the other two. We lost sight of each other as we started around
the vehicle. I heard some yelling, then two quick shots. I called to Don to ask
what’s going on and he yelled back they’d found Mike. He’d become a Stinky and
had come at Don and his two people when they cleared the front of the car. This
was disheartening news; I'd hoped to find them both alive and well. I knew it
was a long shot after six days though.

I turned my attention back to my area of responsibility and
finished clearing the rear of the car. I noticed the two security people with
me were both frozen in place and staring at something in the grass about twenty
yards away. I started forward and, as I got closer, I recognized Nancy. I
stopped beside her body and just stood there looking. I tried to remain
detached the way an investigator should but this was a woman I knew and called
friend. Don walked up and stood beside me. After a few seconds he said one word.
"Damn."

"Yeah," I replied. One of the guys on the detail
leaned over to vomit and both the girls with us had tears running down their
faces. I knew how they felt. I wanted to cry too.

Nancy was tied spread eagle to four stakes pounded in to the
ground. She was naked and it was obvious she had been raped. A knife had been
used to cut her stomach, breasts, and thighs. Decomposition made it hard to
tell any other injuries except for the bullet wound to the head. I was thankful
that, after all she had been through, at least she had been spared the
indignity of being turned into a Stinky like her husband, Mike. "Funny
thing, Mike had a rope tied around his leg. The other end was tied to the car,"
Don said.

I just nodded. I didn't trust my voice yet. Don's radio
blared with a call from the gunner in the rear Humvee. "Stinkies coming up
behind us," the gunner said.

Don asked how far and the reply was about a mile. I told the
others to cut Mike and Nancy loose, we were taking them back with us. I wasn't
going to leave them here. That's when I heard a racing truck engine and the
machine gun on the lead truck opened fire.

We immediately ran back up the embankment and got to the top
just in time to see a customized four-wheel drive pickup skid sideways and flip
into the intersection about fifty yards ahead of us. As I got to the Humvee,
the gunner pointed toward Elmwood Drive. "They came from that side road.
Passenger stuck a rifle out the window and I opened up on them,"
he
I
said.

I told him to keep us covered, then waved the rest forward
to check the pickup. Don reminded me of the Stinkies coming up behind and I
nodded but kept moving forward.

The wrecked vehicle rested on its passenger side, the
driver’s side front wheel still spinning, and I could hear the engine ticking
as it cooled. I could also hear moaning coming from somewhere at the front of
the vehicle. I looked through the rear window as I got closer and observed that
our gunner had aimed well. The front windshield was stitched with holes and the
driver was dead with a bullet hole in the center of his face. There was no one
else in the truck. We moved on to the front.

A young man, boy really, lay on the pavement with one leg
twisted at an unnatural angle up behind him. Both arms appeared to be badly
broken and he bled from several cuts on his face, neck, and chest. He wore
jeans and a ragged t-shirt and had a large knife strapped to his belt but
something else he wore caught my attention. Around his neck was a fine gold
chain with a locket attached. The initial ‘N’ was engraved on the front. The
kid moaned and asked for help but I couldn't hear any of it. All of my
attention was on that locket.

You see, I knew that locket. I'd seen it almost every day
for the past year and a half. Ever since Mike and Nancy had joined our group.
She never took it off because it held a picture of her seven year old son,
Ricky. She had shown it to me on several occasions, so I knew that locket.

The moaning had gotten louder behind us and I knew the Stinkies
were getting close. I told Don to get the rest of the crew back to the vehicles
and get them moving. I'd jump in as they passed. He looked at me a few moments,
the question unasked, but I could see it in his eyes.

"Now," I told him.

He nodded then ordered everyone back to the vehicles.

I knelt beside the young man lying in the road and grasped
his chin. I turned his head to look me in the eyes and I asked him about the
locket. He pleaded saying he was hurt. He asked me to help him and I told him
there wasn’t anything I could do for him. I reached down and removed the locket
from around his neck. Then, I told him what was coming up the road. He begged
me not to leave him. When I stood, he begged me to shoot him. The lead truck
stopped beside us and I turned and walked toward it.

"You can't leave me for those things. Please shoot me.
Don't let them eat me!" the boy pleaded.

I climbed in the truck and shut the door. I didn't say a
word, just pointed straight ahead through the windshield. The driver nodded and
we headed home, the rest of the convoy following us. The chain and locket
burned where it rested in my pocket—a reminder that I had let two more of my
people down. I hadn't protected them, kept them alive.

I don't remember the drive back to the compound. All I could
think about was Nancy's naked and brutalized body. I knew there would be hell
to pay when we got back because of the kid I'd left lying in the road. That was
one of our laws; never leave a living human to the Stinkies unless it would
cost more lives to prevent it. I just couldn't bring myself to regret leaving
him. After all, it was him and his buddy that tortured and brutalized Mike and
Nancy. He deserved what he got.

I was right; there’d be hell to pay. Kat and I had one of
the offices on the second floor of the warehouse as a room. I went there as
soon as we returned to the compound. She knew something was wrong and, like any
good wife, asked what it was. I told her about Mike and Nancy, how Mike had
died. How he'd been shot and left to turn into one of those things. How Nancy
was tortured and what we had done to the men responsible. What I'd done.

We had pushed the office desk against one wall to give us
more room and I sat down at it. I pulled the locket from my pocket and laid it
on the desk. Kat stood beside my chair and ran her finger over the engraved
initial in the front.

"Ricky," she quietly said, but I knew her thoughts
were about another boy, another son. Alex, our son.

I don't know how long we stayed like that, her standing
beside me, one hand on my shoulder, the other stroking the locket. There was a
commotion down the hall, raised voices, and I heard footsteps coming toward our
room. Dave Hoskins, Jim Holley, and about ten to twelve others stopped at our
door. The door was open and Dave and Jim came inside. The rest stayed in the
hall but bunched up around the opening so they could see. Apparently, they had
been arguing and both still looked upset.

Jim started. "I understand you found Mike and Nancy's
bodies today?"

"Yes," I replied.

I could tell Dave had something to say but he waited and let
Jim continue.

"I also understand that the security team engaged a
pickup with two men in it?" Jim asked.

"That's right. Your point is?" I was already
pissed off and the way they barged in hadn’t helped my attitude. Now I had the
feeling of being interrogated.

"My point is that you left one of those men out there.
Alive!"

Kat felt me tense, I was ready to jump in Jim's face and
tell him about the man I'd left out there. She squeezed my shoulder, a sign not
to lose my temper. Dave took this opportunity to add his opinion. "This is
such bullshit. Scott did the right thing. The guy was all broke up and we don't
have the medical facilities to treat those kinds of injuries. Besides, look
what he did to Nancy!"

Jim turned on Dave. "You don't know that! We'll never
know that now because he left him out there!" Jim said, pointing at me.
The crowd at the door had become restless and I could hear more and more
comments. Some agreed with Dave, others with Jim. I could see some pushing and
shoving going on. I needed to get a handle on the situation before it evolved
further into chaos.

"You need to mind your own business and leave the
security issues to me and Scott,” Dave said.

Jim poked his finger in Dave chest. "If it was left up
to you two assholes, you'd just shoot everybody."

I heard Kat suck in a breath. Even the crowd in the hall
quieted down some at this comment.

I slowly stood up and looked at both of them. "You two
done now?" They turned and looked at me but didn't say anything. "I
asked you a fucking question. I expect an answer," I yelled.

Before either of them could speak, I looked at the door. "All
of you. Knock this shit off and get back to whatever you were doing," I
commanded.