by Lorch, Jeff
“Tom, wait,” I said, my glasses trained at the top of the valley. I saw a truck and a few vans parked at the side of the road, men sitting inside and standing beside them, watching the violence at the roadblock below.
Grabbing a second pair of binoculars from the back porch, Tom came beside me and I pointed out where to look.
I turned to the others.
“Boys, finish getting everything in the trucks and get ready to go. We’re leaving now.”
While the brothers ushered everyone out, Tom and I stood watching.
The men at the top of the valley looked relaxed, standing casually. Cold washed over me as I realized what had happened; I knew what they were doing. They were letting the infected do the heavy lifting for them.
Having been turned away before by the men at the bridge defending their land and their families, the raiders came up with a better idea. Somehow, they had led a group of infected here, likely from one of the nearby towns or maybe even all the way from the city, and they had simply pointed them in the direction of the blockade.
In my mind, I could see how it would work; how easy it would be. Drive slowly through a populated area, maybe honking the horn to attract them. Get a crowd of them following you, driving just fast enough to stay ahead of the crowd. Then once you had them near your target, you could speed up and get out of sight, maybe turn off a side road and let the wave of them wash past you. Let the infected kill do all the killing. Then all the raiders had to do was wait for the infected to eventually disperse on their own, or they could go through the same process and lead them away; all the goodies would be left behind, undefended.
“They’ll kill everyone,” Tom said, his voice lost. Through the binoculars he saw the last of the men at the bridge fall, and the crowd swept forward towards the school.
“We can’t help them Tom,” I said, telling him what he already knew. “We have to get out of here. They’ll get here soon, maybe ten minutes, maybe less. Do you know a back way out of the valley?”
The road coming in along the lake from the turnoff was a dead end, it continued seven or eight kilometres westward along the lake and ended at a farmer’s field past the last of the cottages.
“Tom!” I grabbed his shoulder to get his attention.
He looked at me, thinking for a moment.
“Yeah,” he said nodding, “there are a few trails that we could take, maybe the snowmobile trail up past the warm-up shack.”
I knew where he meant; in the winter we often came out to the cabin for day trips, sometimes skating on the lake, or cross-country skiing. Sometimes we fired up Tom’s old snowmobiles and took the kids, one on each of the machines behind me and Kevin and drove around the trails in the valley. West of us towards the end of lake was an old shack with a wood stove the local snowmobile club maintained, and the trail followed a fairly easy climb up out of the valley. I knew Tom’s old truck would manage fine, and since it had been a dry fall, I figured my SUV was up for it also. From there we could make it across the fields to the grid roads and head west.
We closed up the cabin and ran out to the vehicles, taking the binoculars with us. Everyone had finished stuffing the last of the gear in when a truck roared up to the gate and came to a screeching halt. I grabbed for the pistol at my hip but relaxed slightly when I saw Terry climb out of his truck and come running down the drive.
“Terry, you need to get your family and run,” I said desperately. “This isn’t just the infected, I think they were led here.” I told him about the trucks and the men I had seen at the top of the road.
“I saw the bastards up at the top of the valley,” he said, his voice a tight ball of fury. “I was just down the lake checking on some friends when I heard the shots. I’m on my way back to the bridge but I wanted to stop and make sure you’re okay.”
“There’s nothing you can do at the bridge,” said Tom, coming up to see his friend. “They’re past the bridge, there must be hundreds of them. It looked like they were heading to the school.”
Terry uttered a rough curse in Sioux and spit at the ground.
“My family are all at the school,” he said. “It’s a solid building, and they’ll have it locked up, but given time and enough of them, they’ll get in.”
I looked at our family sitting in our vehicles, and up at Terry’s truck at the top of the driveway.
“Guys, I have an idea,” I said.
♦♦♦
Tom and I roared down the road toward the school in Terry’s big red truck, honking the horn as we went. We came to a screeching halt in the school parking lot, dust from gravel spraying up around us in a cloud. In front of us, piled up against the doors and windows of the school, we saw hundreds of infected turning, almost as one, screaming in fury. They turned and charged at us, and my knees went weak.
“Well, I think you got their attention!” Tom yelled, holding onto the door frame as I threw the truck in reverse and squealed back out of the parking lot. We turned, bouncing out onto the road, and put the truck into forward gear. Behind us, the crowd of infected came pouring out behind us.
We turned east, away from the road to our cabin, and towards Fort Qu’Appelle, driving along the north side of Echo Lake. It look a minute or so to find the right speed, but soon we were driving along at a steady clip just under twenty kilometres per hour, honking the horn as we led the horde away from the school. Behind us we could hear the wild shrieking of the infected as they ran, trying to catch up to us.
If our decoy was successful, at the speed the infected could run it would only take a matter of minutes before the schoolyard was clear and Terry and our family could get to his family and friends inside. He said there were enough armed men inside the school to go back and secure the blockade at the bridge. No matter what happened, he said, the raiders wouldn’t find easy pickings here.
We planned to drive into the town, leading the infected behind us, and then speed up and lose them in the streets before doubling back and returning to the school to meet up with the others. There was a good chance some of them might fall away along the route, or maybe find their way back to the school, and they would have to be dealt with; but dealing with a few here or there was a far cry from a crowd of hundreds of them.
Once Terry got his people organized, they would arrange a couple of vehicles to come into town and attract the infected and lead them further away up out of the valley, but for the moment, this should do the trick.
We drove past the golf course and into town, crossing the river, the howling mob hot on our heels. I drove south for two blocks, honking all the way, hoping to make sure the bulk of the mob was across the river before turning east again and speeding up and heading for the highway.
I looked in my rearview mirror as I came around the last corner before the highway, making sure I didn’t see any of the infected behind us. The coast looked clear, so I stepped on the gas and turned my attention ahead. Suddenly I slammed on my brakes, throwing Tom ahead into the dash.
“What the ...” he started to say, sitting up and looking at me in surprise, then turning to look in front of us.
Twenty feet ahead of us parked crossways in the intersection, its engine idling smoothly, was a white van. Its side door, facing us, was thrown open wide, and two men were sitting there, casually, their legs stretched out onto the road, their rifles sitting across their knees. A third man was sitting at the front of the van, leaning across the engine, a shotgun in his hands pointed at our truck.
I was about to put the truck in reverse, when I saw another van pull up behind us, two men in the front seat.
Apparently, someone didn’t like that we had messed up their plan
One of the men in front of us stood up, stretched, rifle cradled at his side, and walked easily towards our truck, an arrogant smile on his face.
He stuck his hand out wagging his index finger in the air and making a ‘tsk-tsk’ sound, he looked like he was ready to tell me what a bad girl I had been.
I had
other ideas.
“Fuck this prick,” I growled as I slammed my hand down on the horn. The blast made the man in front of me jump, surprised, his self-assurance gone. Still leaning on the horn, I nodded to Tom who leaned out the passenger window and racked the action on his pump shotgun, barrel aimed directly at the man’s chest.
I let off the horn, and in the sudden silence, I smiled and raised my middle finger to the man still standing in the street; the howling screams of the infected got louder and louder as they poured down the street behind us.
Warning Tom to hold on, I threw the truck into gear and slammed my foot down on the gas pedal, the truck leaping forward narrowly missing the man in the street. From the corner of my eye, I saw the glare of hatred in his eyes as we blew past him.
I pulled the truck hard to the right, but still clipped the corner of the van as we drove past, the impact throwing the man on the hood back. In my rearview mirror I saw the van that had pulled in behind us swarmed by a wave of the infected, literally disappearing from sight. As I pulled away down the road getting some distance from the mob, I saw the man from the street jumping into the front van and taking off just before the crowd reached it.
I turned again, heading back into town, and made several tight corners making sure neither the van nor any of the infected were following us, before heading back across the bridge and heading to the school.
From the passenger seat, Tom was looking at me with a new respect.
“Damn, girl,” he said, his voice tinged with awe, holding his hand out to me, flat, palm up.
I gave him a low-five him with my Frankenstein hand, smiled, and we headed back to our family.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Day 10
I gave Terry a hug and climbed up into my SUV. Tom stood outside beside his friend, ready to climb into his truck. Everyone else was already inside and ready to go. Jamie sat in the passenger seat, while Karen and David were in the back. Alex had climbed into the truck behind Pauline.
I rolled down my window and squinted at Terry where he stood in the sunlight.
“Sorry again about your truck,” I said. He glanced over at the left front crumpled bumper and shattered headlight.
“Trucks can be fixed,” he said with a sideways smile. “I’ll send you the bill.”
Once we had drawn the horde of infected away from the school and the people trapped inside, Terry had driven with Pauline and the kids into the parking lot while Alex and Jamie followed in our SUV. Seeing the familiar faces, already some of the people were coming out of the school, armed, and ready to fight. Terry warned them of the raiders at the top of the hill, and moments later the blockade was again armed, ready to turn away attackers.
By the time we returned with his newly-dented truck, Terry was already directing sentries to the different roads, and making plans to have vehicles at the blockade and other entry points ready to be driven as distractions to draw away any infected that might come this way, on their own, or led here by others. They wouldn’t be caught by the same trick again.
I had tried to talk Terry and some of his people into leaving for the protection of the army base, but there was no use. My heart ached for them thinking of the hard winter they had coming their way. But these were tough people who knew tough times, and more importantly, they knew how to make it work. It would be hard, but they would manage.
I was more worried about the bandits than I was about the infected, or even the harshness of the coming winter.
Terry turned and shook Tom’s hand, saying goodbye. Tom told him there were still food supplies at the house we wouldn’t be needing, and they were welcome to them or anything else there they might need, including the generator.
“And if you give it another few hours,” he said to Terry as he climbed into his truck, “you’ll find a nice fat turkey grilled to perfection waiting for you on the barbeque.”
“Thanks for the offer, white man,” said Terry with a smile, “but I’m not real big on Thanksgiving.”
Laughing, Tom slammed the door to his truck, waved again to his friend, and we were off.
Even though the trucks at the top of the hill that had led the horde to the valley were long gone, we didn’t want to risk running into them on the road. Instead we drove north from the school then followed that road up out of the valley, then turned west; I was glad we didn’t have to test the SUV’s off-road capabilities by taking the snowmobile trail.
Behind me, David tested the walkie-talkies we had packed from the cabin, talking to Alex back in the truck behind us; in previous summers the kids used them when hiking up in the hills, but now they would keep the two vehicles connected. The radios had been a Christmas gift for both kids a few years ago and had sparked an interest in David that extended to learning Morse Code for a badge in Boy Scouts and wanting to get an amateur HAM radio licence someday. It’s funny, I thought, listening to David explain proper radio etiquette and call-sign use to Alex in the other truck, you can never tell where a kid’s interests are going to lead them.
Before leaving, with the immediate threat of the raiders less likely, we had discussed staying the night as originally planned and setting off tomorrow morning; in the end had decided it made more sense to get out of the valley and put some miles between us and the raiders now. I certainly didn’t think they had been expecting to have their attack redirected like it was, so it was unlikely they had any contingency plans in place. But given another day, and if they had enough people, they might well have scouts or blockades of their own set up, trapping us here.
Whoever that asshole on the road by the van had been, I had a feeling he might hold a grudge; I wanted to make sure we never gave him the chance to settle the score.
Beside me, Jamie had a road atlas open on his lap Pauline had put aside at the cabin. It was one of the good ring-bound Rand McNally books that had all North America, the kind everyone used to have when they travelled before GPS and smartphones took over. This one was well-weathered and dog-eared, like all the best books are. There was a coffee-cup ring stain on the front page.
Jamie did a quick figure on the distance, heading west to join Highway 6 at Southey, north to Dafoe, then west to Saskatoon. We would pass through dozens of small towns along the way, but there were no larger centres to present a risk.
“Driving the back roads like this it looks like we’re around three hundred klicks to Saskatoon, maybe a few more” he said, folding the book open to the page we would need and setting it aside. “I think everything should be pretty smooth since it’s all backroads. If there are any obstacles, we can just go around them or detour a mile over to the next road.”
It was just after one in the afternoon, so allowing some time for the odd delay or backtrack, I figured we would make it to Saskatoon hopefully by around five o’clock or so, meaning if we were lucky, we could get into the city and find the boys’ family before dark.
Jamie and I kept our eyes peeled for other vehicles on the roads, or any sign that we were being followed. Twice, when coming over a rise and down the other side, I signaled back to Tom and we pulled over. We walked back to the rise and used the binoculars looking back the way we had come; waiting, watching for raiders following us from a distance, but not seeing anything.
We made pretty good time.
The drive was uneventful; the few small towns we drove through all looked deserted and emptied out, but they didn’t show the same ruthless destruction we had seen in some of the other towns and centres. There was no sign of the infected anywhere.
We stopped at Dafoe at around three o’clock; it was a wide spot along the road right beside Quill Lake where Highway 6 joined up with Highway 16. We had time for a quick pit stop including some sandwiches Pauline had made and packed that morning. We pulled over at a small truck stop just on the edge of town; the large gravel parking lot was empty, deserted-looking without the big rigs and RVs that usually took up the real estate at this kind of place.
Like most gas stations, it
had bathrooms with doors to the outside. Normally you would have to get the key from the front counter, and it would be attached to something the size of a boat anchor to keep you from stealing it. In our case, Alex simply forced the door with a crowbar, and we all did our business in private, sitting down like civilized people instead of up against a tree somewhere.
While we were parked and waiting for the bathroom brigade to finish, I pointed out to Tom that we were going to want to disable the truck’s lights so we could drive in the dark, if we had to, without standing out like a sore thumb. He looked at the job the boys had done on the SUV’s lights and shook his head.
“How about we just do this,” he said, popping the hood to his truck and, a second later, pulling out a fuse from the fuse box. “That’s the brake lights,” he said. “This old beast doesn’t have daytime running lights, so the headlights won’t turn on unless I turn them on.”
I looked at the smashed empty sockets where my SUV’s headlights once sat and looked at Tom. I swear he looked smug.
“We were in a hurry,” I said defensively.
Once we were all emptied, fed and watered, we were back on the road. Two hours and change later, we saw Saskatoon’s skyline on the horizon, and it was still an hour or so from sunset.
At Tom’s suggestion, we took a moment and filled both vehicles with gas from our plastic containers, just in case.
As we climbed back into the vehicles, I got into the passenger seat and let Jamie drive, and Alex did the same in the truck behind us; we figured it was better to have people who knew the city behind the wheels. With that, our convoy of two rolled into Saskatoon.
♦♦♦
Thankfully, the Walters brothers lived with their family in the southeast area of town, fairly close to where the highway came into the city. As we drove slowly into Saskatoon, we again began to pass signs of violence and looting, but it didn’t look as severe as we had seen in Regina. Maybe the city being a few more hours north, further away from the possible spread of the sickness, was enough to make a difference.