by S. B. Poe
“Don’t take another step.” JW said.
“I told y’all we was on the right road.” Bridger said, raising his hands and blinking in the light.
5
Reunion
JW stood there, seeing but not believing. He lowered the rifle. Bridger helped the other person down from the hood of the bus. JW had been so wrapped up in the things that were going on he had forgotten. He looked at Bridger and smiled. They had been through a lot together back during JW’s old life. Bridger had covered his ass too many times to count and vice versa. And even though they had fallen out of close contact, and both of them knew why, none of that seemed to matter. He walked up and hugged Bridger.
“Good to see you brother.” Bridger said.
“Good to see you too.” He said.
“JW, this is Tilly and Raj. He’s a doctor and she’s a hoot,” he laughed.
Tilly shot him a glance but amazingly held her tongue. Her and Raj lowered their hands.
“Is everything ok?” a voice came over the walkie.
“Yep, just fine. Bridger is here”
“Hey Katie” Bridger yelled over JW
“Hey Bridger” she replied.
“Honey, Bridger brought some friends. We’ve got company for breakfast, heading your way now.” JW said.
They walked back to the house. Kate and Scott were up and as they came through the front door, Josh came stumbling out of his room. He stopped and watched as his Dad and Bridger and two strangers walked through the door.
“Hey Uncle Bridger.” He called.
“Hey Josh, damn you growed up.” He said walking towards him with his arms going out for a hug.
“Yep.” Josh said, extending his hand for a handshake. Bridger took it and yanked him in for the hug anyway.
They all went into the living room and sat down. Kate lit more candles and JW went to the kitchen. He turned on the stove. The gas was still on. He lit a burner and started pulling food out of the deep freezer. Kate had put as much as she could in the deep freezer when the power went out and it was still cold. He knew it wouldn’t be for long. He started cooking sausage and bacon. He turned on another burner and started frying eggs. The living room grew quiet. The smell of food had made the group of travelers lose interest in recounting their story. Kate had heard enough to know what was happening on the other side of the buses. Chaos. They sat in the candlelight silently.
JW brought the plate of eggs and meat into the living room and had some paper plates tucked under his arm. Kate rose to help him and he asked her to grab the silver ware. They sat around the coffee table eating. He had boiled some water and found some instant coffee in the cabinet that he had forgotten about. He poured out cups. Tilly had finished eating and was lying on the couch. She was soon snoring. Raj lie down on the floor next to her and fell asleep. JW and Bridger leaned against the back wall.
“We need to bring my car inside your little compound.” Bridger said. Smiling.
“Why?” JW asked.
“Because all my shits in it, all their shits in it.” He said, nodding towards Tilly and Raj.
“Who are they?”
“Hell if I know, I came on them at a wreck. They were hurt. I helped them. Their car was crushed.” He said.
“Yeah but why are they with you?” JW asked.
“Because I couldn’t just leave them after what we saw.”
“Why not?” JW asked.
“Because we’re the good guys.” Bridger smiled.
“Good answer.” JW smiled too.
They had this conversation before. In a different time, in a different place, facing a decidedly different enemy. But they knew that it was a necessary conversation. They stood, JW nodded to Kate as they walked out the door. Kate nodded back. They walked outside up the road towards the buses.
“So what made you think to do this? With these?” Bridger said reaching out and touching the bus. The sun was beginning to come up. Everything had turned that gray color of early morning. Shapes took form.
“I just wanted to…” He broke off.
They became aware of someone walking on the road on the other side of the bus and knelt down to see. They could see bare feet and a bare legs walking. JW stood up and opened the bus door. Bridger jumped up.
“JW, get your ass up here, you are not going to believe this.”
JW climbed on the bus and looked out the window. In the street next to Bridger’s car was an elderly woman. She was naked and wet. She had a shower cap on. She was just shuffling along. The bus driver’s window was facing up the street so Bridger opened it.
“Hey” he called.
The woman stopped and without turning her body, turned her head towards Bridger’s voice. Her shoulder turned and her arms swung with them. Then her legs finally started to pivot with her hips.
“Well shit, I guess I know why they call it Marionette now. She looks like a fucking puppet on a string.” Bridger observed.
JW turned his flashlight on the woman and they could see the opaque eyes and the slack skin. She screeched at the light and started towards it. JW handed the light to Bridger and shouldered his rifle. One shot. She fell. Bridger turned the light off.
“Well, I guess I don’t really need to know where you stand on taking out these puppets.” Bridger said.
“Puppet?” he asked
“Gotta call em something.” Bridger said.
“Keep working on it.” He continued, “I have seen enough to know they are dangerous and right now anything I think is dangerous to my family is dead. Period.” He said.
“That’s what I am counting on. Brother.” Bridger smiled.
They started to get off the bus, JW turned to look back up the road. What had been an empty street one minute ago now had three or four people shuffling down it, in the direction of the bus.
“Damn.” JW said.
Bridger looked back. He could see them too. He watched as another came out of the driveway just up the street. It turned towards the bus.
“You think they heard the shot?” Bridger asked.
“Maybe. Maybe they come to sound.” He said.
They watched as the infected made their way down the street towards them. Each one made the same stuttered move as they walked. They would throw their upper body forward and their legs would shuffle under them. They repeated it over and over.
JW sat down in the driver’s seat and Bridger was looking out the window behind him. JW reached his hand out of the window and banged one time against the side of the bus. The reaction was instantaneous. They all jerked forward towards the sound. They weren’t exactly running but continually falling forward with their legs moving just enough to keep them from falling down. They were a few yards from the bus and JW raised the rifle again. He dispatched each one until the street was empty again. They watched. Ten minutes passed and they didn’t see anything else coming down the street.
“We need to get my stuff out of my car.” Bridger said.
“I think I can spare of pair of clean socks if you need them.” JW said.
“Thanks, I do, I didn’t pack any. What I did pack was my bag of guns and I am pretty sure we are going to need those.” He said.
JW cranked the bus and moved it so that Bridger could pull his car through. He parked the bus back, making sure there were no gaps someone could easily walk through. What he had seen in the last hour had made him realize that even though he could keep a vehicle from coming in, these things didn’t drive. He would have to figure this out.
“What’s it like out there?” JW asked nodding towards the buses.
“What do you mean?” Bridger asked.
“I haven’t been a hundred yards outside those buses since we parked them.” Yesterday he thought to himself. “My guess is that since these things are wandering the woods, things got worse since then.”
“No shit, Sherlock. They have. I don’t know what this is but it is everywhere. If it’s a virus it’s airborne. We encountered a family, isolat
ed as hell, and one of them died of old age. He came back. No contact with anybody. Nothing. Just died and came back. I don’t know if we are all just ticking time bombs or what but yeah, it got worse. Why?”
“I think we may have to go back out there.” JW said, looking at the buses again.
6
on a string
This was a people problem. The more people, the more chance to become infected if this was a virus, and the more chance to encounter dead ones too. They needed to be away from people and not by just a few blocks and a bus. They needed to be miles away from folks. And JW had the perfect place. They just needed to figure out how to get there. They had figured out how to get out of a lot of tight spots. Some were bar fights in Fayetteville; others were gunfights not in Fayetteville. This was going to be basically the same thing. Just a simple forced march under fire. Except they weren’t firing at you, they were trying to eat you. Bridger smiled.
“Basically the same.” He mumbled.
“What?” JW said.
“Nothing” He smiled at JW.
JW looked at him turning his head sideways. He was glad Bridger was here. He was still having a hard time processing what happened with the deputy but he was beginning to put it in that place he keeps those things. That place was getting full and it took a little longer. Bridger had seen some of those things JW put away. That helped in a strange way.
“So you think this is the best move?” Bridger asked.
“Nope, but I have to go out there and see. Just a little recon job. I need to check out to the main road. I have to at least see that far. After that, well.”
“Well?”
“Well nothing. One step at a time. Right now, you say nothing. You just tell them I am doing a walk. Not anything else. Ok?” JW said.
“Yeah I got that but why are you walking. Just use my car.” Bridger said.
“No, I walk. I can see more. I need to be deliberate.”
“Ok, your plan. I will be on the other end of that” pointing to the walkie in JW’s pocket.
“You call if you need the cavalry.”
“Will do, you just get back there and make sure everybody gets a present from your Santa bag.” JW said.
“Ho, Ho, Ho” he smiled.
JW dropped to his belly and rolled under the bus. He had the rifle and his pistol. He stood and looked down the street. He had a little over a mile to the entrance where the four way stop was. And probably a deputy’s car. He glanced at the body just up the road. He started walking. The sun was up over the trees now and he could see down the road. He didn’t see any cars or people. As he reached the first house on the left he glanced down at the deputy lying face down in the road. He reached down and rolled him over.
“I’m sorry”. He said.
He reached into the deputy’s pocket and grabbed his keys. He took the gun belt off him and put it on. Glock. Four mags. Flashlight, two pair of handcuffs and Taser. JW inventoried in his head. He started walking again. He moved slowly but deliberately. Had covered about half the distance to the main road without seeing anything. He had stopped a few times to listen to the sounds of helicopters off in the distance. None had approached.
“Hey, hey you.” JW heard a voice to his right. He shouldered the rifle.
“Hey don’t shoot.” A man about JW’s age was peaking out a side door of the house.
JW knew the house. He didn’t know the man who lived here but Kate had told him the guy worked for the state too. He was a geologist or chemist or something.
“Please just don’t shoot, I am not infected.” He said.
“How do I know that?” JW asked
“Well, I am not trying to eat you.”
“Fair enough” JW lowered the rifle.
“What are you doing out here?” He asked.
“I am walking to the main road to see what it looks like.” JW said.
“It looks like a road. I know who you are. I saw you come rolling by yesterday in those buses. Your that” he hesitated “that guy that lives at the end of the road.”
JW realized something. If you really want people to leave you alone, move into a neighborhood with a bunch of gossipy neighbors and don’t take part in their gossip.
“I am just seeing what options are available. Choices.” JW said. “How many folks are left?”
“I don’t know about anything other than just these few houses right here.” He waved his hand over about six houses up and down the street. He started pointing at each one.
“That one is gone. Dead. The next two are in the second house together, an elderly gentleman and a family of four. Except for the mom. She is in the other house. Dead but not dead. You know?” He raised his eyebrow at JW. JW nodded. “The rest on that side are dead or gone away. Some left this morning with the folks to my right. The couple to the left is inside my house with my daughter and her friend. We had a sleepover and we haven’t been able to reach her parents. So 8, no 9, counting me.”
“How do you know?”
“Know what?”
“About the house across the street, when was the last time you talked to them?”
“Well, it’s been a few hours but there hasn’t been any of those things out there.”
“What news have you heard?” JW asked, less formally “I mean, besides the obvious.”
“Well the only thing I have heard lately is on a battery powered police scanner. It was some police and some civilian talking. The lady was telling the cop that people were eating people and that blood was everywhere. There was no help. The cop was telling the lady to get to the shelter at the fairgrounds on the east side of town. She said she was at the fairgrounds.”
“OK. Listen, I am going to walk to the main road. If you want me to I can stop by on my way back. I am going to see if it’s safe to leave.” JW said.
“And go where?”
“Away from town. At least for a while.” He said.
“Do you think it matters?”
“I don’t know, but at least there will be less of those things.”
“I don’t know your name,” he said.
“JW. JW Toles.”
“Charlie. Charlie Fair.” They shook hands.
“I’ll stop by on my way back.”
JW walked back out in the street. He walked on without encountering living or dead. He heard a few sirens and an occasional helicopter in the distance. Most of the cars were gone from driveways. A dog crossed the street in front of him. He could see the entrance to the neighborhood. He saw the deputy’s car. He opened the trunk. There was a shotgun and another rifle in a built in case. There was also a big first aid kit and some road flares. He grabbed the shotgun and opened the driver’s door. He mounted the shotgun in the rest and used the deputy’s keys to crank the car. He turned out of the neighborhood slowly heading north towards the river and the bridge. He could see Kate’s school ahead. It looked like folks had tried to gather there. Cars filled the parking lot. He thought about turning in but the windows in the building made him keep going. Every window was smeared in blood and handprints. Whatever had happened, it had been bad. He drove to the bridge and stopped. There was one car parked in the middle of the bridge with its door open. He knew he could get across the bridge. That was what he needed to know. He started to turn the car around and looked down the street towards town. He could see more vehicles. He had no reason to go towards town. He went anyway. He needed to know.
Charlie closed the door and his daughter looked at him.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“That was JW Toles. He lives at the end of the road.” He said.
“You mean that weird guy.” She said, turning to her friend. “I heard he was like tortured and stuff when he was in the CIA and they messed with his brain.”
“Jennifer, please. He is just a retired veteran who likes his privacy.” He looked at her. She raised her eyebrows.
“OK he’s a little weird.” He said.
“Listen, he is talking abou
t trying to get away from town. He says he has somewhere to go. I think we should consider going with him.”
“Seriously?” she said.
“Seriously.” Charlie said.
Bridger had told Kate that JW had gone to scout the neighborhood. He told her not told her not to worry. He told her a lot of things. It didn’t matter. She had let him know in explicit detail what she thought of Bridger Preston allowing him to go out there. She had calmed down since but she still was worried. Raj and Tilly were sitting on the couch with Evelyn. Scott was sitting in JW’s chair and Josh was sitting on the floor. Kate and Bridger came into the living room. Kate sat down on the floor.
“JW went out past the buses. He said he would be back soon. He was going to check out the rest of the neighborhood.”
“By himself?” Raj asked.
“Yeah, he does that.” Kate said.
“While we are waiting we need to figure out what we have and what we need. I have weapons for everyone. Anybody need a quick lesson just ask.” Bridger said. “We also need to get all of our food together. We need to make sure it is ready to go.” He paused. “Just in case.” He added.
They all gathered around Bridger’s bag. He had two pump shotguns with pistol grips, two standard pump shotguns, three Colt AR Civilian models and one honest to goodness Special Ops issue M4 fully automatic rifle. That one was his. It had been with him a long time. He also had seven 9mm pistols of varying manufacturers. He had some ammo but not much beyond what was loaded in the weapons. He had several more shotgun rounds and pistol rounds but most of the other was what were in the magazines. Tilly and Raj chose the standard shotguns. Josh and Scott the pistol grips. They also had the rifles JW had given them. Along with Kate’s pistol, she chose another pistol. Bridger took his M4 and the magazines from the other rifles.