Jake shrugged. “Can’t say exactly. About a day’s drive south, southeast of here.”
Moustache Man nodded, more to himself than at what Jake was saying. At length, he spoke again. “Anything unusual about these bodies?”
Jake shook his head, and by his body language I could see he was getting impatient at the questioning. If we wanted to leave on good terms, I probably needed to speak up.
“As a matter of fact, there was. But I have a feeling these bodies aren’t the only ones you’ve heard of or even seen, Mr…?” I used the same tactic the mayor did in getting to know my name.
“Blaine. August Blaine. And you’re right. They aren’t the first.” He paused a minute to look at the mayor who slipped into a chair near the door.
“About five years ago a rancher south of here stumbled across a body. No big deal, go to any town and you’ll find a corpse or two somewheres. All part of the landscape these days. Some of them corpses will kick back, if you take my meanin’. Anyway, this one was different because the corpse had been shot in the back. He was wearing black clothes and looked like he’d been runnin’ a while. Sound familiar?” Blaine looked at me.
Julia spoke up. “That’s what we saw! He was lying face down with a big hole in his back, likely a heavy caliber rifle. The shooter waited for him to clear a hill, then he shot him in the back.”
Blaine turned his attention to Julia. “And just how do you know that, young lady?” His interest was obvious, and not because she was beautiful.
“I tracked the dead man and read the signs,” Julia responded.
“You did?” Nolan smiled condescendingly. “Really, miss I hardly think…”
“You hardly think at all, that’s why you’re mayor,” Blaine said sharply, shutting off what might have led to a difficult situation. Julia would have slapped the mayor silly if he kept being disrespectful. “My apologies for our unthinkin’ public official, Mrs. Talon. He doesn’t know your background, that’s all.”
Jake shifted his feet. “And you do?”
Blaine smiled, and the transformation to his face was amazing. “I surely do. I fought with your daddies when things went south some thirty years ago. I remember meeting you when you was just a spud. Seems like you turned out all right.” Blaine turned to Julia and Kayla. “I assume you all would be the daughters of Charlie James, and who else?”
Kayla smiled. “Duncan Fries is my father.”
“My God! He survived. Never met a man who had more fun in a zombie apocalypse than him. Hell of a fighter, though. Best man with a blade I ever saw, unless it was John.”
Kayla beamed.
“Anyways, we’d come across about two of these bodies a year, all looking the same, and dying the same way. Last couple of them had some odd numbers pinned to their shirts, like they wanted something to be known.”
Julia gasped. “We found that, too, on two of them! Do you know what it means?”
Blaine looked over at the third man in the room, and it was he who answered her.
“I wish I did, little lady. But I do not,” the man answered. He was a tall man, nearly as tall as myself. He was thinner than me, but I could see he had a good deal of muscle in his arms and hands. He was dressed casually, with what could be called a western style, right down to worn boots and a stained, high-crowned hat. On his hip rode a single action revolver in a worn holster.
“Name’s Andrew Page. I’m what you might call a county sheriff in these parts. Most of the people in these here parts have their hands full trying just to survive, so I take up the slack and do what needs to be done when it comes to stuff the rest of the good folk don’t have the time for.” He smiled slightly. “I also keep the peace, as it were.”
I smiled slightly at that and stayed silent, figuring the man had a little more to tell. I wasn’t disappointed.
“Truth is, the people that died weren’t from around here. No one knows who they are or where they came from. Being as they weren’t local, I didn’t pay too close of attention as maybe I might have. “ Page shrugged. “If I had to throw a guess out, I’d figure on using those numbers as a clue, although we never really had any luck figuring out what they were for. “
Jake spoke up. “How hard did you try?”
Page shifted and squared up against Jake. Jake for his part stared unblinkingly back at the taller man.
“We gave a good work up, but since there…”
“Were other things to do; yeah, we got that,” Jake interrupted. “If we have nothing else to keep us here, is there any way we can get some supplies and be on our way?”
Jake’s sudden willingness to leave took the three men by surprise. Blaine recovered first.
“Don’t take us the wrong way, son. We’re just wanting to pass on some information and say thanks for dealing with that small problem,” Blaine said.
Jake shook his head. “I think I understand just fine. But there’s something we haven’t told you yet.”
“What’s that, son?”
“Aaron here had an encounter with the shooter in the dark, and in all likelihood gave him a permanent mark to remember it by,” Jake said.
The three men went silent like one of them farted. I looked at each of them as they looked at me and choose that time to speak.
“Your shooter is still out there somewhere. Likely as not, he’s close. The men you sent out to look for the zombie kids might have a chance at corralling him if they’re any good at tracking,” I said.
Andrew Page excused himself to go make a call. Blaine looked at the four of us, and I saw the question in his eyes.
“Sorry, sir. This really isn’t our fight. But if we run across anyone with a big rifle and a nasty cut on their head, we’ll be sure to ask the right questions,” I said, adding, “Where can we get supplies?”
Blaine’s shoulders slumped a bit when he realized we weren’t going to help. The Mayor’s response was noticeably cooler, and I could figure out why. Why risk his own people when there were four capable people to do your dirty work for you? Trouble was, we weren’t willing to do the dirty work. That wasn’t why we were out here.
“End of the street. McGinty’s Station. He’ll have what you need. Thanks for taking care of the zombie kids.” The mayor looked away, and I knew it was time to leave.
“Obliged, mayor,” I said. The girls left first, and Jake followed, with me bringing up the rear. Just before I left, the mayor called out.
“Sure you won’t help? We could use you.”
“Positive. We’ve got other things to do,” I said. I wasn’t going to tell him what I meant, since that would get me another plea for help, but something stuck in my head, and I wanted to see if there was an end to it.
Trouble was, it may amount to my end, as it were.
Chapter 12
We left McGinty’s Station a little lighter in the wallet, but well-supplied for our next leg of our journey. I wanted to be out of town before I voiced my thoughts to the rest of the family.
Ten miles down the road I told Jake to stop. He chose a spot on a bridge that spanned a small river. We stepped out and stretched a bit, taking in the morning sunlight. It would still be a few hours till noon, but the weather was nice enough. There were small groves of trees here and there, and in the distance, larger hills rose out of the land. If I had to pick a spot to stay, this could have been worse.
“What’s on your mind, Aaron?” Jake asked.
“You’d not believe me if I told you outright,” I replied, looking off to the west. The bright sun made everything stand out in sharp focus.
“Try me.”
“I think I know what those numbers are, and I want to see where they lead,” I said.
I tried not to laugh as Julia’s and Kayla’s mouths dropped open. “Remember that map on the wall at the mayor’s office?”
Jake shrugged. “What about it? I’ve got several in the van.”
“Trot them out, and I’ll show you. Julia, you have those numbers handy?” I said.<
br />
“Sure, hang on.” Julia stuck her head in the side of the van and came back with a small piece of paper and a pen.
“Now, let me show you how they make sense with two letters. “ I took the pen, added a capital letter N to the first numbers, and a capital letter W to the second set. When I showed the group the light came on immediately.
Jake slapped his head. “Latitude and longitude! I’ll be damned.”
I smiled. “Right behind you, brother. I saw those numbers on the map and figured it was the only thing they could be.”
“Where do they point to?” Kayla asked.
“We can figure out that later. The question I have is do we want to follow this? There’s some very dangerous people out there willing to kill to keep this place a secret,” I said.
Julia nodded. “But by the same logic, there are people out there willing to risk death to try and get help.”
“Jake? Kayla?” I asked.
Jake looked at me with a half smile. “Why not, Aaron? It’s what we do.”
I had to smile back as my brother hit me with my own logic in helping others. I had recently adopted my father’s line, and it seemed to serve me pretty well.
“All right then. Let’s get ourselves to Casper and see what we can see. There’s plenty of time to find out where we are going, so let’s get ourselves at least comfortable when we do it,” I said, winking at Julia.
Julia blushed slightly, but gave me an extra wiggle of her butt as she put the paper back in the van. Kayla brightened at the prospect of not spending another night in the van, and I could see Jake was happy about it as well.
We followed highway 25 and then split off onto highway 20. Highway 25 was blocked by several vehicles and an old, faded wooden sign that just said “Closed.” Likely the highway was choked with old cars trying to get out of Casper in the old days.
Highway 20 wasn’t much better, but at least the cars had been moved off to the side. Jake drove carefully, making sure that nothing on the road could puncture our tires. I had been down a road like this before, and the last time I lost both Jake and Julia.
A slow half hour later brought us to the outskirts of Glenrock. First impressions weren’t that favorable, and I was a little apprehensive about all of the broken homes I was seeing as we travelled deeper into town. I wasn’t feeling any better when I realized that with all of the cars stranded on the interstate, the people had to go somewhere, and that somewhere was right in front of us.
When we passed the high school, things became a lot clearer. On the hills overlooking the football fields there were hundreds of bleached bones littering the hillsides. Piles of bleached skulls stared out at us at from the bottom of the hill and the ditch. Nearly every one of them had a hole in the skull.
Jake slowed us down to look at the carnage.
“What do you think?” He asked.
Julia looked out the other side of the van. “Probably they set up a firing position on the bleachers right there, and picked them off as they either came over the hill or as they tried to get up after falling.”
“Think so?” Jake said. “Seems like a stretch.”
Julia shrugged. “That’s what I’d do. There’s a fence around the football field, and a good solid school to hole up in. People in the west grew up with guns, Jake. Chances are there wasn’t any shortage of people who could shoot.”
Jake nodded thoughtfully and drove on with the vacant eyes of the skulls watching us go.
Chapter 13
A mile later found us in the center of town, and it was easy to see that there wasn’t anything for us here. The old buildings had been broken into, and the weather of the last twenty years had taken a fearsome toll on most of them. Those that still had their windows intact had fared better, but not by much.
Jake rolled the van to a stop in the middle of the intersection at the center of town. On one side was a small café still advertising local beef stew while a real estate office commanded another corner. That building, being all brick, was in much better shape. Across the street, a newer looking building housed several businesses with what looked to be apartments on the second floor.
I got out of the van and stretched, unkinking my neck and back. My legs were tingly from sitting too long, and I could see that Julia felt the same way from the manner in which she placed her steps. Kayla jumped out fresh as ever, and Jake was just Jake.
“Not much here, not even when it was alive,” he said. Pointing to the real estate office, he said, “Wonder f they have any maps in there that might be useful?”
I nodded. “That would be a good thought. Let’s take a look.” I slipped my tomahawk into my hand and pulled my Ka-Bar with the other. Jake cocked his head at me but pulled his own knives just in case. We were close to the barricades, and we had heard stories about how a few zombies every year managed to get through and cause problems. People who lived in the area usually took care of things before they became a more serious problem, but outbreaks had been known to occur. We had heard of the bad one about five years ago, and it took communities as far as a hundred miles away to come together to get it contained. Besides, the real estate office’s front door was open, and I never took that as an open invitation.
“What do you want us to do?” Kayla called as we headed in that direction.
“Look around,” Jake said. “Might be something of use around here.”
Five seconds later Jake and I watched the van drive off with our wives.
I broke the silence first. “Was that what you meant?”
Jake shook his head slowly. “Not really.”
We went over to the real estate office and looked it over. It was a two story brick building, and the first glance was favorable. Everything seemed intact, and that was a good sign for anything made of paper in there. Years of moisture tended to play havoc with books and printed material. I wasn’t surprised that the real estate office hadn’t been broken into. In times of a crisis, what would you find of use in a place like that?
The door was locked, and Jake spent a minute banging on the doorknob with his pick. The lock lost the fight, and Jake used the pointed end to twist open the remains of the handle. Twenty years of rust protested loudly as Jake pulled the door open.
Inside, the office looked like it must have years ago. A thin layer of dust covered everything, and apart from that the place could easily open for business tomorrow. Not that the market for real estate was going to bounce back any time soon.
“I’ll head upstairs, you look around here,” I told Jake. I didn’t have to tell him what to look for, this was his idea in the first place. I moved towards the back and found a flight of stairs behind another door. This door was directly across from the back door, and I could see the parking lot through the small windows.
The stairs creaked in dismay as my heavy self moved up quickly. I didn’t take the usual precautions with a place like this; I figured anything that was in here would have moved when Jake pounded on the door. If it hadn’t moved by then, it was seriously dead.
Upstairs was nearly the exact copy of downstairs. There was a central waiting area with small offices occupying the corners of the building. One section looked to be a kitchen and another was a bathroom. On a small table by the waiting area was a box that contained the remains of mummified donuts.
I started with the first office I went into and looked around for any maps. There were lots of maps of the surrounding area, but I needed something bigger. The next office yielded the same results, and the third actually had less. Given the spartan nature of the place, I’d have guessed this one was unoccupied.
The last office I checked had three maps that might prove useful. The first was a road map of Idaho, and the second was a topography map of Oregon. I didn’t care about the elevations, I just wanted the latitudes written on the sides.
I made my way downstairs and bumped into Jake as he walked towards the back.
“Anything?” I asked.
“Shhh!!” Jake pu
t his finger up to emphasize the instruction, and then pointed to an outside window.
I looked out and immediately ducked down, trying to stay out of sight. What I had seen was something I was sure no one had seen in a long time.
Jake joined me on the floor. “What do you think we should do?”
“I think we need to be smarter than we’ve been,” I snapped. “I don’t recall banging on a doorknob as part of our training.”
“Tell me you guessed this was happening here, and I will call you liar,” Jake hissed back.
“Point taken. Here’s our problem. The girls will be back soon and likely in the middle of this before they know it. We have to handle this, at least until they can give us some backup,” I said.
“If they can,” Jake said. “For all we know they’re holed up in either a building or the van, waiting for us.”
I didn’t like that thought. Outside of the building were about twenty zombies of all shapes and sizes. Wherever they had been hiding, Jake’s banging on the door had brought them out. I understood why this town was abandoned. The zombies had moved in, and the neighborhood went to hell.
“Plan?” I asked.
“Just kill them before they kill us,” Jake said.
“Rifle would be nice,” I said, peeking out of a window.
“Don’t be a baby.”
“Front door or back?”
“Back, parking lot has only two out there.”
“Let’s go get them.”
Chapter 14
I went over to the door and quietly unlocked it. I kept my head down so the zombies outside wouldn’t get any advanced warning. Jake was right behind me, close enough that his pick was poking me in the back. I twisted the knob and braced myself. I figured the hinges on this door weren’t going to be any quieter than the ones on the front door.
I was right. I pushed the door out, and the rusty things groaned like Jake getting out of bed. It was loud enough that the two zombies crossing the parking lot immediately turned our way. The second they saw Jake and me burst out of the building they set up their own moaning, which came in second place to the door, I have to admit.
Generation Dead (Book 3): Beyond The Gates Page 5