“What’s that little spot in the road we drove by on our way to the lake last week? Kensington?”
“What?” Justin squinted at his map. “Oh, Kendricktown.”
“Whatever. Are there any other towns like that close? I prefer wide spots in the road with less than 500 people. A lot of houses all close together, a business or two, and that’s it. Towns like that don’t have enough residents to generate a big herd of creepers.”
“Let’s see.” Justin rubbed his chin and peered at a map. “Yeah, it looks like there’s a few. A little town called Alba, one called Purcell… Neck City and Or-on-a-go? Jesus, who’s naming these towns?”
“Good. So there’s plenty of places to take Jody’s people on runs. They can get their feet wet and see how we scavenge without running into five thousand creepers.” Will clapped his hands together to indicate that the topic was finished. “Next- how will we man the crews?”
Danny was sprawled out in a lawn chair with his hat pulled down over his face. When Will mentioned crews he sat up with a start. “The best way to teach scavenging is the same way we taught it on the road. Put two experienced people with two newbies.”
“Maybe once The Originals have some runs under their belts we’ll switch to four-man teams. To start out, I think eight people- five of ours and three of theirs- works better. I want maximum protection in case they freeze up or run. Hell, you saw how they acted at the lake, and that was four of their best men. So- five of us, three of them, and we rotate their three so everybody gets a chance and we can evaluate all of them.”
Will had one remaining item and turned his attention to Jiri. The tall, fit ex-professor leaned back in his chair with his hands laced behind his head.
“Jiri, what do you have?”
Jiri gave him an arch smile. “You won’t believe this. We’re on the brink of a food shortage.”
Everyone chattered at once.
“Hold it down!” Will said in a loud voice. “Let the man talk.”
Jiri blew out a breath and looked around the tunnel. “We’ve found eight warehouses used to hold with food. Three of them are blast freezers. The best we can figure, the emergency generators shut off six months ago. So, one of the freezers contains 60,000 pounds of rotten turkey turned to jelly, and the other two aren’t any better.
“We have a lifetime supply of Hostess cakes and Sunshine cookies that are stale and barely edible. They’ll always be there to prevent starvation, but dining on whatever Coy bags on his hunts with a rock-hard Twinkie on the side does not represent the ideal diet. We have a warehouse full of Ramen noodles, Hamburger Helper, Mac and Cheese, and the like. Unless you’re hungry enough to munch on dry elbow macaroni, everything in that warehouse requires preparation and other ingredients.
“Another unit has condiments and baking supplies- again, you need prep and other items to turn it into edible food. One was a fresh fruit and vegetable distribution center, and you can imagine what that’s like.
“That leaves the Associated Grocer’s warehouse in tunnel five- the ‘grocery store’. You all know about it because you’re there every day. You go for canned vegetables, soup, breakfast cereal, Pop Tarts, tuna… the things we use to make meals.”
Will didn’t know who first dubbed that warehouse the grocery store, but, like everyone else, he knew it by its unofficial name. So Jiri’s next words stunned him and the rest of the group equally.
“Now, the logistics in these damned places are completely automated- computers keep track of and control everything. But I found a binder with some hand-written notes that helped me formulate a rough idea of the inventory levels in the warehouses when the outbreak kicked off. Misty and I compared that to where the inventory stands today and extrapolated how long it will take at current consumption rates to deplete the current supply.”
Danny blew a raspberry into his arm, producing a long, loud fart sound, then raised his hand. “Excuse me, Professor? Can you put that in English for those of us with a high school diploma?”
“He calculated when the food will run out,” Tara said in a dry tone. “What’s the prognosis?”
“If we don’t find other food sources and/or slow the rate of consumption we’ll be out in five months.”
There was a stunned silence. Some people gazed with vacant eyes at the tunnel walls; others slouched in their chairs and focused on the floor. Danny met his gaze with a bitter smile and a shrug of his shoulders.
“That… that’s impossible,” sputtered Kathy. “There are boxes stacked to the ceiling in there.”
Jiri disagreed with a shake of his head “No, the shelves go to the ceiling. The boxes don’t even make it half way.”
Will stood. “Listen up. We can discuss this later. Right now it’s late and everyone has a busy day tomorrow. It’s me, Danny, Ando, Jiri, and Tara on the scavenge team in the morning. I want to leave out before eight.”
The group broke up. A few made smaller groups of two or three; others walked back further into the tunnel toward the scattering of sleeping bags. Through the bustle, Will caught Jiri’s eye and raised his chin. Jiri nodded and walked to where Will stood.
“We need to talk,” Will said in a low voice.
“When?”
“Tomorrow, an hour after we get back to the quarry.”
“You got it.”
Will clapped him on the back and went off in search of his wife.
First Trip Out
* * *
Dawn broke cold and gray, with low-hanging clouds and the whistle of a steady wind blowing through the treetops above the quarry. Will’s group of five had eaten a light breakfast, filled their canteens, and stuffed their pockets with beef jerky. Will thought the hard, chewy strips of meat were starting to taste like shredded ostrich shit and longed for a tender and juicy steak, but he kept that opinion to himself. Hopefully, the batch of pork that Coy and the old hillbilly woman had drying in special racks would fare better once it was ready.
“Twenty-one degrees,” Jiri called out. He peered at an old thermometer that an unnamed miner had attached to the limestone wall long ago. “We’ll be even colder up in the wind.”
“It’s early. It will get warmer as the day goes by,” Will said. As if to mock him, the sky began to spit snow. He watched with irritation as his four crewmates — Jiri, Danny, Tara, and Casandro — stared at the sky as if seeing snow for the first time. “C’mon, let’s load up,” he barked, his tone rougher than he intended. Danny shot a curious glance his way but no one else seemed to notice.
A big, white, Dodge four-wheel-drive roared to life at the other end of the pit and drove toward them. It stopped a few feet away and Mark Renner climbed out of the driver’s seat. A middle-aged man, who Will recognized from when the two groups met got out on the passenger side, followed by a young man who couldn’t be a day over twenty. The young zombie fighter wore a pair of pistols in a holster high on his waist. When he got out of the truck, the seatbelt tangled in his holster, causing him to stumble. He tried to twist free and only succeeded in tangling himself worse; his face grew red as he struggled. The pistol gave way and clattered to the ground and the young man came tumbled after it, landing unceremoniously on the limestone, stomach-first.
Will’s crewmates covered their mouths or looked away to keep from laughing. Mark closed his eyes and shook his head. The third man helped the kid to his feet and Will picked up the pistol.
He gave it a once-over. “Sig Sauer.” He offered it butt-first to its owner, who took it with a sheepish expression. “Nice piece. Will Crandall.” Will extended his hand in introduction.
“Tatum Gruver. We met at the intro party.”
“Yeah, but there were a lot of names and a lot of faces, and I didn’t put many of them together.” Will turned to the older man. “And you are?”
“Joe Ashton.”
He barely recalled Joe from the meet-up. A tall man with an open face, he had a shock of red hair and long arms and legs that jutted from his body at odd angl
es. His full beard completed the appearance of a man used to working hard and outdoors. Will hoped that the case. “That’s Jiri, Tara, Danny, and Andro,” he said, pointing at each. While they nodded and said their hello’s Will extended a warm greeting to Mark, then turned his attention to Tatum.
The young man was of medium height and possessed a slight build. He had a scrunched up face and a messy beard that looked to still have the remains of his morning oatmeal in it.
This kid was one of their top three choices to send out on scavenging lessons? Will thought.
Mark must have felt his concern because he spoke up quickly. “Tatum and me, we lived on the same block. About five days after things broke bad I did a house to house on my block, looking for survivors. He was the only one. We geared up, fought our way across town, and made it here.”
“We’ve been partners since then,” Tatum added in a proud voice.
“Yeah, partnered up, or something.” Mark blew out a breath. “Anyway, he’s a hell of a shot with those Sigs.”
“No gunfire on a scavenge, except to save a life,” Danny said in a cold voice.
“The noise draws creepers,” Jiri added.
Will looked over the newbie’s clothing and felt a rush of irritation. Mark wore a Gortex coat over several layers of hoodies; that was fine. But he also sported cotton gloves and lace-up boots. His hands and feet would freeze into blocks of ice before they completed the first house. The other two were worse- Tatum had on tennis shoes, for God’s sake.
“Danny, take these folks in and get them geared up. Machetes, knives, good gloves, boots, and outerwear for each of them. Borrow them from somebody not making the trip.”
A good fifteen minutes passed before they returned. Will spent the time honing his blades and trying not to snap at Tara. The ex-entertainment lawyer with a rack that brought tears to Danny’s eyes paced back and forth on a short line, huffing her with impatience and pulling back her overcoat to check a wristwatch. She’d check the time, mutter a curse, and pace back in the other direction.
Tara had returned to her childhood home in Gardner for one of her twice-yearly visits with her family when the outbreak began. Tara, her Mom and Dad, and her little sister Tess holed up in their parent’s upper-middle-class home for six weeks. Desperate for food, her parents promised to stay close to home and left to search the neighborhood. Tara and Tess never saw them again. The sisters met up with Will’s group outside Lawrence; a short time later, he and Danny began teaching her to shoot and fight creepers.
For most of the group, putting down a creeper was a job; the elimination of a threat or removal of an obstacle. To Tara, putting down a creeper was vengeance. Each time she shot one, each time she cleaved one’s head, she scored a reprisal for her Mom and Dad or friends lost. She took this shit personal.
Danny and his trio of neophyte scavengers emerged. The trainees were decked out in thick overcoats, Gortex gloves, and water-resistant steel-toed boots. They also carried an array of knives and blades.
Will gave them a broad smile. “Now you guys look like you’re ready to put down zombies.”
The team gathered around the Ford pickup. “Do you think we ought to take the Jeep, in case we need the winch?” Jiri asked him.
“Nah. If we come upon a pileup, we can just go around it. If the road’s blocked we’ll go another way.”
Jiri nodded.
Mark scrunched his eyes together and rubbed his chin. “What about the snow?” He asked. It was snowing hard now, coming down in fat, wet flakes. An inch accumulated in a short time.
Will regarded him, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“If it keeps snowing like this, won’t it be harder to get around?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “It’ll be harder for the creepers, too.”
Will and Danny passed a look and Will snickered to himself. They ran cattle on the Kansas-Nebraska border, where the snow started in early November and didn’t let up until late March; digging calves out of drifts deeper than the calves were tall wasn’t unusual. It would never have occurred to them to put off work that needed doing because it was snowing.
Mark wasn’t finished discussing the weather. “If the snow gets deep enough, do you think there’s any chance it will freeze the biters, like the ones in the lake?”
“We don’t know what caused the creepers in the lake to act like that,” Jiri said. “It could have been the cold, the water, the combination of the two- any number of other things.”
“My high school science teacher said you can’t deduct the cause of something by seeing it once, you have to see it multiple times,” Tatum said. He waved his hands expansively while he spoke; finished, he stood erect and square-shouldered, his scrunched face wearing a smug little smile.
It was silent for a beat, and then two. Danny cleared his throat and Tatum turned his attention to him.
“Your high school science teacher is now a creeper in Titty Fuck Junction, Arkansas. I wouldn’t put too much weight in what she said.” He clapped Tatum on the back and walked toward the Ford.
Tatum’s mouth hung open. He closed it with a snap and took on a stony expression.
“All right, ya bastards,” Danny called over his shoulder. “And Tara. Let’s go get some plunder.”
Will banged his hand on the bed of the Ford three times. “Load up!” he whooped.
Doors banged shut and the trucks eased up the incline, leaving twin paths in the snow behind them.
Where to Go?
* * *
Will frowned at the scene outside the truck’s passenger window. Kendricktown consisted of a motley collection of run-down houses, old trailer homes, and the occasional tarpaper shack. It sat east of the quarry on a small plot of land, twenty acres at the most. The town was bound by Juniper Road to the north and V Highway to the east; a medium-sized stand of trees hemmed it in from the south. A highway sign that marked the small town’s city limit said only that it was unincorporated. The sign didn’t display a population figure, but Will couldn’t imagine more than 200 people lived there before the world ended.
The trucks coasted bumper-to-bumper through the snow. They cruised the streets, passing dilapidated houses with sagging roofs and porches supported by cinder blocks. The remnants of last summer’s weeds and vines choked the yards; cheap toys, broken furniture and trash were scattered among the dead foliage.
Will groaned out loud and shook his head in frustration. “This is a bust. These people didn’t have anything to scavenge before the outbreak; we’re sure not going to find anything in here now.”
Danny smacked the steering wheel twice in agreement. “These are some sad houses. We might as well run to Carthage. What did Justin say- population of 12,000? There’s bound to be good pickin’.”
Jiri leaned forward and rested his long arms on the back of the front seats. “Hold on. I’ve seen a few places. A big trucking company sits up on that hill across the highway. We won’t find anything to eat, but think about the other possibilities in a place like that- tools, weapons components, who knows what else? I think we should head there.”
Will considered the idea for a moment, then turned in his seat to look at Jiri. “Tell Danny how to find the place.”
“That can’t be too hard,” Danny mumbled. “There are three streets in this entire shitty little town.”
“Yeah, but you could fuck up a two-car parade.”
Danny emitted a long-suffering sigh. “Do you want me to let the newbies know what we’re doing?”
“They’ll figure it out when we stop.”
Mormont Trucking
* * *
Danny pulled into a large gravel parking lot and stopped the truck in front of a piece of granite the size of a small car. A logo carved into the rock read Mormont Trucking, Inc. Mormont’s building was green from top to bottom. The company’s office, constructed of brick painted hunter green, sat on the structure’s north side. A small breezeway connected the office building to a six-bay metal bui
lding, also green. Overhead doors twenty-five feet high allowed entry into the bays. Each door had three oblong windows in a row five feet off the ground.
Everyone exited the two trucks and Mark approached Will with a quizzical look. “I thought we’re looking for food. We’re not going to find anything to eat in there.” He pointed at the building.
Will gestured at the houses on the other side of the highway. “Yeah, we’re not likely to find food anywhere in that piss-ant little collection of hovels, either. We’re taking a different tack.” He focused on the trio of Originals to make sure he had their attention. “That’s lesson one- you can’t get tunnel vision about a particular idea out here. Unless you’re after the one medicine that will save a life or something like that, you have to be willing to change up and adapt. If you come out looking for ammunition but find an abandoned semi-trailer full of canned food, you need to say forget about that ammo for today.”
“What do we hope to get in there?”
Will sighed and rubbed the top of his head. “You’re not getting it. We aren’t hoping for any particular thing. You clear a place of creepers, see what’s inside, and grab what you can put to use. We’re always after food, but that doesn’t mean if we find a box of ammo we leave it behind.”
Mark nodded his head as Will finished. “Got it.”
Will’s group busied themselves with re-checking magazines and making one final pass with a sharpening stone. One by one, they indicated they were ready.
Danny and Will surveyed the long building. “Do you want me to break the glass on the office door?” Danny asked.
The Haven Series (Book 2): Haven Page 8