“It’s melting again,” Juju said, but mildly. Braced against the engine hump between the driver’s and front passenger’s seat, he was bright-eyed and plumb-near cheerful, and his hair was springing up in a halo of tight curls.
“Northern route’s probably best,” Duncan agreed. “This early in winter the lake’ll probably keep it from freezing too bad. In another month or so, you ain’t goin nowhere.”
“It’s about an eight-hour drive normally, with traffic.” Ginny’s warm, soft pressure against his shoulder was distracting as all get-out, especially since she’d awakened him with coffee this morning.
Coffee, and a soft, toothpaste-scented kiss that about drove him out of his mind.
The kids were out with Traveller, who was almost lost in the snow, bounding stiff-legged and for once not setting up an unholy racket. Lee stared at the atlas’s colored lines, thinking.
“I ain’t so familiar with the roads around here,” he said, finally. “Where the checkpoints likely to be at?” Those plywood sheds meant traffic snarls and possibly more critters. On the other hand, they had three armed men now, though Duncan was a bit of a question mark. Kasprak would probably do in a pinch, and Steph was a fair shot. Phyllis was a bigger question mark, and then there was Ginny. She’d try, sure—but civilians froze under fire.
Froze, or did some damn thing like run the exact wrong direction. You sank to the level of your training when the booms started, instead of rising to the occasion.
“Rochester. Syracuse. Utica.” Ginny’s finger, unpolished nails still smoothly shaped, tapped each. “On the south route…well, probably less traffic, and smaller towns, but then there’s Albany.”
“Always a hellhole.” Duncan, settled across from Lee, stared at the atlas too. He was rising steadily in Lee’s estimation—didn’t say much, but what he did was to the point. He and Phyllis didn’t seem to be together; maybe he didn’t think he had a chance with someone so perfectly finished. “This early, north’s better. Unless we get a howler.”
Ginny smelled like coffee, warm perfume, and the brunette spice of a pretty woman. It was a powerful mixture. “There’s the tolls, too.”
“Everywhere they got booths they’ll have road-clearers.” Duncan scratched his cheek with a blunt finger. He probably stubbled up hard and early, and though he was clean, there was a line of good honest engine grease under each nail. “I can drive one, if I gotta. Clear a lane.”
“We can take an RV or two.” Lee nodded. Things were shaping up fine. “Juju, your four-by…”
“Ain’t leavin her until she kicks the bucket, Loot.” Sardonic amusement filled Juju’s tone. “You gonna leave yo truck?”
“Might have to.” He didn’t want to, that was for damn sure.
“Another RV.” Ginny shuddered. “Sure, why not. We’ll need the space if Mom and Dad…”
An uncomfortable silence fell. A few moments later, the door banged open and Traveller burst in on a cloud of cold, snow-metallic breeze. “Get on in,” Steph Meacham finished saying and hopped up neat as you please, knocking her boots free of snow with quick graceful taps. “It’s all gooshy out there.”
“Is it, now.” The accessories shop here probably had window-mounting thermometers. That would be a good find to fix on every vehicle, and Lee made a mental note to search some out.
“Shut the damn door.” Mark crowded behind Steph, almost lifting her bodily off the step while Traveller gave a single happy yip and set to shaking his coat dry and telling them all about his travels in the great white wasteland. “It’s cold out there.”
“Language,” she sassed back, and stepped smartly away, ending up near Phyllis. Her two thin braids bounced against her shoulders. “Imma make some hot cocoa. Anyone want some?”
Lee thought it was likely her teeth were gonna rot right out of her head, but cocoa was warming and packed full of energy. It was gonna warm up in here right quick with so many breathing bodies packed into a smallish space. “Make enough for everyone, and some more coffee too. Anythin movin out there?”
“Nothin except birds. Heard a bunch of them.” Mark stripped off his gloves and shook his hood back, scratching luxuriously under his black knit cap. “We stayin here tonight?”
Birds meant a thaw. Lee twisted, and Ginny moved aside so he could look at Juju, who shrugged and spread his pink-palmed hands, the scar on his left showing stretched and shiny. “Gettin warmer if the chickadees is out. Might as well see what happens.”
Ginny made a restless movement, turning to peer out another window.
“Cause if we are, they’s got some ATVs on a lot kitty-corner.” Mark wrung his gloves, an unconscious movement. “We can look around, get some more food.”
Only trouble with that was the noise of those little engines. Still, the idea had merit. Towing a trailer with one or two of the little buzzers could be useful.
“Another night?” Ginny shifted from one foot to the other, her hair swaying. “Sure, why not. It’s taken this long.” Her voice didn’t break, but it was probably close, and there was a pinching up under Lee’s left ribs.
“More haste, less speed, Miz Ginny.” Juju’s face turned thoughtful instead of almost-cheerful, but he wasn’t mournful yet. It was a good sign. He studied the air over Duncan’s head, turning over another idea or two inside his head. “You know, Lee, a trailer with one of them little scooters…”
It was damn good to work with the man, really. Lee grinned. “Be a right useful thing, wouldn’t it? ’Cept the extra gas for towin.”
Juju nodded, digging in his pockets like he did when he was almost done thinking and getting ready to move. “None of these bas—uh, none of these big ol things gonna get good mileage. There ain’t no shortage of gas for a while, though.”
Not until more survivors started draining the gas stations along the way. If they did. Lee looked back at the atlas. He just didn’t have enough information, and he hated the feeling. “Be nice to get a weather report.”
“They’ve got them weather stations,” Duncan piped up. “I mean, uh, personal ones. Get ’em at a Bargain Zone. Tell you pressure, temperature, predict a bit. Expensive, need batteries, but pretty cool.”
“Now that’s a good idea.” Ginny perked up slightly, and her approving smile, bestowed on Duncan, was a warm glow. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Lee shook his head a fraction. He should’ve thought of it, too. “Wellnow. Mr Harris, you know how to ride one of them ATVs?”
“Yessir.” The man straightened, and it was official, he’d been in the service. It was all over him, despite his aggressively unbuzzed hair. “I’ll take someone else who knows, and we can get supplies and one-two of them weather stations. Put it on one of these-here RVs or another and we have ourselves some warning.”
That sounded like a plan. Lee looked up at Ginny. “Can you wait a night for us to get this all settled? More we plan now, the easier the last bit of the trip’ll be.”
“Why not? It’s taken us this long.” But the color was high in her pretty cheeks. She didn’t like it at all, that much was clear. There was nothin’ to be done about it, though, and she didn’t want to make a fuss.
If hurryin’ would get them there faster, he’d do it. That pinch under his left ribs got worse, seeing her square her shoulders and nod slightly. A good little soldier, making the best of it.
Good Christ. She was one in a million, was Miss Virginia Mills.
“Just be careful.” Phyllis shook her glossy head, making a tch-tch sound a grandma would be proud of. “You get flipped over on one of those and lose your teeth, your grille is jacked.”
“Thanks, Phyl,” Duncan muttered, and laughter washed the inside of the RV.
It sounded good. Warm, and hopeful, and Lee smiled, the weight of responsibility easing for a moment.
But only a moment.
Dizzy
Duncan might have just broken in through the front door, but lean dark handsome Thurgood was also smart. He jimmied an employee e
ntrance with a lot less fuss and broken glass, and one-two-three, they were spelunking in a stale-smelling Bargain Zone and Duncan had a chance to talk to the man without the roaring of ATV engines.
“Figger we’ll look for those weather thingummies first.” Thurgood clicked his flashlight on, playing the beam over a bulletin board full of fluttering, unnecessary paperwork. Nobody was going to be looking at the OSHA notices and paper schedules on the cork board ever again. “Camping?”
That was a question Duncan could answer, thank God. “More likely in the garden section. Not camping.”
“Go figure.” The lean black man walked easily, hipshot, and his free hand dangled near his sidearm. Nice, capable hands, the left with a shiny burn scar across the palm that must hurt sometimes. Looked like a bitch of a wound, and Duncan wondered about the story behind it.
He wondered about other stories, too. Like Thurgood’s bond with Lee. The latter fellow looked done gone over quiet, dark-haired Ginny, which was a relief. But still…there was history there, and you could never tell for sure.
Juju didn’t send any of the signals, but then again, Duncan did his best not to. Yet another thing you never could tell, how someone would react when you showed that part of yourself.
Their flashlights bobbed side by side, easy and companionable; they cut across a row of dead checkstands and started looking at aisle signs, staggering their line instinctively. At least Bargain Zones were all laid out the same. Duncan searched for something to say. “You been travelin with them long?”
“We from the same town.” Juju swept his flashlight beam to one side, checking out a suspicious gleam. “Before that, Lee and I were in the service together.”
So he was a military man. It made sense, and that was a minefield. If they found out what Duncan was Before, well. Even Sandy, who he’d thought was his friend, looked at him different after the discharge. “I wondered.” Shelves of goods lay pristine and unplundered on every side, just waiting for someone to pick up.
There were onion-mesh bags of bulbs in cardboard displays, ready for getting into the ground and coming up in spring. Hoses, lawnmowers, birdhouses, bags of birdseed. If someone got hungry enough they might even try to eat that. Cook it up like oatmeal.
Duncan wondered if it would work, and also wondered if he’d get that hungry. Ginny said this thing was likely worldwide, and wasn’t that a piece of news? Trust a librarian to figure that out, and to drop it casual in conversation with Phyl like it was no big deal.
“What ’bout you?” Thurgood finally asked, casting him a curious glance. “Where you from?”
“Pomokie.” Duncan’s heart lodged in his throat halfway through the word. He coughed, and found what looked like the right aisle. “Look at that. Squirrel food. They feed the motherfuckers.”
“Like feeding rats.” Thurgood shook his finely carved head. His blue cap mashed his hair flat; Duncan wondered what it would be like to touch the tight curls. “Windchimes. You sure they’re around here?”
“Right there.” Duncan’s heart sped up. He hadn’t been wrong. There were the stations, from the tiny bare-bones ones to the fancy-dancies with rain gauges and wires.
“Well, would you look at that.” Thurgood sounded pleased, now. “Which one’s the best, you think?”
Duncan was about to reply, but stopped, his mouth open a little. He tilted his head—they taught you in the military that you had a dominant ear, and his was apparently his left. What the hell was that?
Thurgood gave him a curious look and opened his mouth too, maybe to repeat the question.
Duncan heard it again.
Squish-squish. A splashing, a splatter. A heavy, nasty dragging sound.
Thurgood dropped his flashlight, letting it dangle at the end of its lanyard. He also unlimbered his rifle, slowly, quietly. He motioned at the end of the aisle, and Duncan was glad he’d stayed in the Army long enough to know what the fuck that hand signal meant. Goosebumps rolled down both sides of his back, and he found out his own hand had gone for his sidearm—better for indoor work. He was endlessly glad he’d snagged a wrist and a neck-cord for his own MagLite, seeing both Lee and Thurgood with theirs. His was from the accessories shop at Deep River, a fugly orange piece of shit that was nevertheless saving him from embarrassment.
Don’t fuck this up, Harris. His throat was desert-dry, not just needing-whiskey-dry. He edged for the aisle end, and behind him, Thurgood inhaled sharply.
The zombie blundered through wet-ink darkness and crazycast shadows, a scarecrow that had once been a skinny middle-aged man with iron-colored hair. A fraying, melt-soaked uniform hung on him, a badge glinting at chest-height.
It’s the po-lice, Duncan thought, and a mad braying laugh rose in his throat. Only it wasn’t, it was store security rent-a-cop, that refuge of wannabes and serial killers who couldn’t hack actual dirty work.
He tasted bile; his gun rose in slow dreamlike motion. The zombie stopped, its head cocking like a dog’s. Did they have dominant ears too?
Those grey-filmed eyes barely blinked, beginning to desiccate and collapse inside the sockets. Its jaw champed once, twice. Could it smell them? They seemed to hunt by sound, Lee and Thurgood agreed, but Duncan only cared that it took cracking their goddamn skulls to get them to stop comin’ after you.
Were there more creeping behind this shitsucking cop wannabe? The dark beyond the motherfucker was a heavy curtain, just the edge of flashlight shadows painting him in short strokes—gleaming badge, yellowing teeth, sunken eyes, heavy steel-toed Red Wings covered in dribbles and drabbles of wet stuff that wasn’t slush or rain. A hole in the zombie’s side glistened, too, a slow seeping.
Duncan’s gun barked, muzzle-flash blinding white.The rent-a-cop’s head evaporated, and the body fell in slow motion, a cut-string puppet.
“Nice shot.” Thurgood squeezed his shoulder. “Keep yo’ ears peeled. If they’s more—”
“Yeah.” A thin, unhealthy tremor ran through him.There was liquor here. Shelves and shelves of it, just waiting. A tot would set his nerves easy, amen and hallelujah. Duncan wet his lips. His throat was puckered like a lemon-sucker’s asshole. “What else we got to get?”
“Batteries. Ammo if we come cross’t. Food that ent spoilt.” Juju nodded, finishing the list. He still had his rifle ready, carefully pointed away. “You need gear?”
“Could use some good boots.” Duncan stared at the corpse’s twitching Red Wings. And a fifth of somethin hard.
“Aight. Gimme a second.” The black man turned away to look over the weather stations, trusting him to keep watch, and a hot spill of shame went all the way from Duncan, scalp to toes.
No, he decided. He wouldn’t drink. Not as long as Thurgood was here, with his easy grace and that faint smell of leather and some strange cologne like something crisp and hot and good fresh from a fryer and settin’ your mouth to watering.
Duncan played the flashlight beam over the the empty space between aisles, a cardboard bin full of discounted stuffed animals with their beady little eyes glinting, the twitching feet in their Red Wings. His ears rang from the shot, a funny high buzzing threatening to make him dizzy.
His shoulder burned, too, with the leftover pressure of those strong, dark, beautiful fingers. Lord, he wanted a drink.
But he wanted to not fuck this up even more.
Painted Dolls
“Oh, God,” Miz Ginny said, softly, and her shoulders sagged. Steph, crowding close behind her to avoid the swinging door, blinked.
It was a fancy bookstore, one of a chain, and the smell of dusty paper made Steph’s nose itch. Miz Ginny clasped her hands and glanced at Mr Lee, who drew himself up like a kid expecting a yelling, a small self-conscious movement.
“Figured you’d want to look around,” he said, and scanned the store’s interior. Strong, misty grey daylight came in through the glass all along one side of the building, and they all had flashlights.
“Oh, God,” Miz Ginny said again, like she was hurt, but
her face shone. Thin and wan, she was nevertheless pretty, and Steph caught herself trying to figure out the difference between her and flat-out-gorgeous Miz Phyllis. Maybe Miz Ginny was just-plain-pretty because she was older? But there was somethin’ else there, too, and try as she might Steph couldn’t put a brainfinger on it.
At least it would give her something to think about while they were driving.
“Bet they’ve got Vogue.” Miz Phyllis, in a hushed tone. She hefted a baseball bat—it was painted pink, for breast-cancer awareness. That pink paint was stained near the end, and there were a few scrapes in the wood, too. Pretty and functional. “Imma go look.”
“I’ll go too,” Steph volunteered. She had a snub-nosed .38, and the holster weighed on her belt. Since you’s a good shot, Mr Juju had said, and didn’t that warm her all the way through? It was nice to be good at something, to feel like a part of the group instead of a useless scrub at the fringes.
That was one good thing about the end of the world. There was no high school to attend. She was just glad the only person she really liked form school had made it out, too. He was back at the RVs with Traveller, keeping watch for zombies and probably drinking a mess of hot cocoa. Staying where it was warm suited him today, and Steph was happy to get out and move around.
“Be careful,” Mr Lee said. “Not likely to be a critter in here, but you never know.”
“Yessir.” Steph trailed after the model, who walked just like she was on one of them runways. You could probably get into the habit of walking that way, if you practiced enough. Chin up, feet coming down in a straight line, hips moving—it felt funny to imitate, you had to swing your hips something sassy. Hard on the knees, but she would try it, when nobody was looking.
“Craft books,” Miz Ginny said, behind them. “And anything medical I can find. What are you looking for?”
Mr Lee was gonna follow her around the whole time, betcha anything. He cleared his throat, softly. “Just along for the ride, darlin.”
Atlanta Bound Page 5