“Jay, like the letter,” she said, sipping the whiskey and making a frowny face as it burned its way down her throat.
“First taste a’ whiskey too, huh?”
“That obvious?”
“Yeah, like I was sayin’ Jay, them boys didn’t give you no choice. They came in here with murder on their minds, an’ if they’d a’ found you, it wouldn’t just been me they’d a’ murdered.”
“Doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better about it.” She tilted the glass back and drank the rest in one shot, then she started coughing. She put her head between her legs and began to cry. Ted laid a hand on her back and gave her a couple pats.
“Go ahead, you’ll get through this, I promise.”
After an hour or so, Jay was feeling a little better. She had stopped shaking and even ate the sandwich Ted had offered her. The cold Diet Coke was the best thing she ever tasted. She guzzled it down and burped loudly. Embarrassed, she excused herself. Ted just laughed.
“Feelin’ any better?”
“Yes, thank you, and thanks for the food.”
“Yer welcome Jay. Now what are ya plannin’ on doin’ from here? If you don’t mind me askin’.”
“I’ve got to get home, and then I’m off to South Carolina to find my daughter.”
“Well, you’re welcome to that truck if ya wannit.”
“No, thanks, I think I’ll stick with the Harley.” She had bonded with the bike; it gave her a sense of control. No matter that it was all psychological, it worked for her.
“Well, help me load these two up in the truck, then we’ll leave it down the road a piece, sorta advertisin’ this ain’t no place to loot.”
He was stronger than he appeared. A lifetime of hard work had taken its toll. But together they lifted the lifeless bodies into the back of the truck. Jay’s lunch threatened to come up, but Ted scowled at her and warned her not to be “wastin’ good vittles.” She laughed at that, which stopped her from heaving it up.
Jay stayed another hour, helping Ted clean up his store. He was a proud man and it showed in his attitude about the store. The whole time they were mopping up the brother’s blood, Ted regaled Jay with the history of this store. Originally located a mile farther down the road, it had been a stagecoach stop in the late eighteen hundreds. His grandfather purchased it from the company when the trains replaced the stagecoaches in the area. The state used eminent domain to force Ted to sell it and rebuild here ten years ago when they put through a new toll road connecting West Virginia to southwestern Pennsylvania.
“My wife told me I ought to close up shop an’ retire, but I figgered I still had a few good years in me. Was goin’ to leave it to my son.” He stopped working for a minute, stood erect, and produced a hanky from his back pocket. He gave his nose a mighty blow, folded the handkerchief, and dabbed his eyes before putting it back.
“When did you lose him and your wife?” Jay asked quietly.
“Lost ’em both to this damn flu” was all he said. He then busied himself with empting the mop bucket before she could even get out a word.
Ted packed her saddlebags full to overflowing with more water and snacks. “Now you be careful, young lady. I want you to stop back by here when all this passes, an’ trust me, it will pass.” He winked and smiled at her.
“Despite the circumstances, it was a pleasure meeting you, Ted. You take care.” And with that she started the Harley, put it in gear, and pulled away slowly, hoping beyond hope he was right.
Chapter 7
Day 2
Route 19 South
Oak Hill, WV
Dr. Julian Ruegg
Julian staggered under the weight of his son. He’d been carrying the boy piggyback since daybreak. The car had died before sunrise. They’d been on foot since then. He missed a step and his toe caught the edge of the pavement. He tumbled forward, falling into the abyss of unconsciousness.
His face was on fire. Someone was shaking him. It was his wife. No, she was dead. “Daddy, wake up, daddy!” His eyes focused on Simon, his son. “Daddy, wake up, someone is coming, wake up!” The darkness returned.
He woke; the cold of hard-packed earth on his face was the opposite of his last memory. He rolled his head. Simon was asleep next to him. He had the strength to gather his son into his arms. Then he disappeared again.
He felt something kick the sole of his shoe. Clambering out of his foggy dreamworld, he roused.
“Hey, you going to live?”
He rolled over and blinked, trying to bring the figure above him into focus.
He brought his head up off the dirt floor. “Where am I?”
The man laughed. “You’re in my root cellar. I stuck you two down here when I found you on Route 19, baking in the sun. I figured your boy wasn’t much of a threat, but I didn’t want you bushwhacking me, so… here we are.”
Julian finally zeroed in on him. He was short, bowlegged, with close-cropped grayish-brown hair and an eighties-style mustache that was obviously died dark brown. He wore thick glasses that distorted his eyes a little.
“Where is my son?”
“He’s fine, upstairs; you want me to get him?”
“I want to go to him.”
The man peered at him through his glasses. “Not until we talk a bit more. Who are you and where were you headed when I found you?”
Julian thought about telling him the truth. That he was responsible for the people who had turned into deranged killers and he was headed for the CDC in Atlanta to try and fix things. But that didn’t seem like a good idea.
“My name is Julian. We are headed to Atlanta, Georgia. I have… friends there. Our car broke down, and we were trying to find another one to replace it. I had been without sleep for several days. I imagine that I must have passed out.”
“Well, you’re fortunate that I was the one who found you. Not many folks out and about these days, not any you’d wish to run across anyhow. Atlanta is quite some distance. You might want to think about finding some place to weather this, this… whatever this is, out.”
“I appreciate your concern, sir, but it is essential that I make it to Atlanta as soon as possible.”
“Don’t call me sir; my name is Shaun, Shaun Pierce. Moreover, if you have your mind set on trying to get to Atlanta, that would be your business. I don’t give you great odds on getting there though. Have you run into any of the shriekers?”
“Yes, we have. That is why our car died—we ran into a large group of them in Clarksburg. I mean that we literally ran into them. Doing so smashed the front end of the car and ruined the radiator.”
“Well, there are plenty of cars around to choose from. Both my neighbors died from the flu. You’re welcome to take one of their cars. I don’t suppose their family will be coming anytime soon to get them. Most likely they’re dead too.” Shaun stood. “Come on, let’s go upstairs. I got some chili heated up.”
When they entered the kitchen, Julian could hear a TV playing in the other room. “You have electricity? Do your phones work?”
Shaun shook his head. “No, I have a generator. I put on a movie for your son to watch. He was somewhat bored. I brought him up here last time I checked on you; he said he had to pee. We got no phones, no water, no nothing. Sorry.”
Julian followed Shaun into the living room and found Simon sitting on the floor in front of the TV, watching an old Abbot and Costello movie. Simon saw him and jumped up. “Daddy!” He ran to Julian and embraced his legs tightly. Julian bent down.
“Hey buddy, are you doing all right?”
“Yes sir. Mr. Shaun gave me some chili and bread, and a pop! I know Mom doesn’t like for me to have pop, but I figured it was okay, and I didn’t want to be impolite to Mr. Shaun.”
“You were right, that was a good call, son,” Julian said, rubbing the six-year-old’s head. He’d explained to Simon about his mom, but he was sure that the boy didn’t understand. “Go ahead and watch your movie. I need to talk to Mr. Pierce, okay?”
&n
bsp; “Yes sir. It’s pretty funny,” the boy said, running back to his spot. “The little fat guy keeps getting hit on the head by the tall skinny guy.”
The two men went back into the kitchen and Shaun scooped some chili into a bowl, opened the bread, and put a couple of slices down next to the bowl on the table. Julian thanked him and sat down. He was famished.
“Sorry, it’s not much, just canned chili.”
“No, no, no, Mr. Pierce, it is fabulously good. Best I have ever tasted,” Julian countered.
“It’s Shaun, and there’s nothing like hunger to make you appreciate some store-brand chili,” he said with a chuckle.
“Thank you for the food, Shaun, and thank you for watching Simon. It is nice to find out there are still good people around.”
“No problem, bud,” Shaun said, dragging out the word bud and ending with a hiccup-like snort. “Not many, good or bad, left anymore.”
Shaun convinced Julian to spend the night and get a fresh start in the morning. They took the neighbors’ VW Jetta and brought it over to Shaun’s place. Simon spent most of the day watching movies and playing with Shaun’s sheepdog. The thing was a mass of long, fluffy hair and loved Simon.
Chapter 8
Day 2
East Shore Estates
North Myrtle Beach, SC
Auddy
The last twelve hours seemed to have lasted twelve days. After Danny went outside, Auddy heard more gunfire and was sick with worry. She paced in front of the door like a father waiting for his daughter to return from prom. More than once, she started to go outside, but talked herself out of it each time. When the gunfire stopped, she opened the front door and called out to Danny. There was no response.
An hour later she had to pee. The water was still running so she went into the bathroom. As she sat down on the toilet, she heard a thump, then another. With her pants around her ankles, she lifted both feet and brought them down hard, then listened. She heard another thump in response. She quickly took care of business and then went and got the broom from the kitchen.
She thumped the broom handle twice and heard two thumps in return. Every time she’d bang on the floor with the broom, a corresponding number of thumps would respond. Someone is alive down there. Oh please Danny, be alive. She continued the thumping for a while, then gave up. She went down on her knees to the floor by the heater vent and screamed into it, then put her ear to the vent. She thought she could here muffled screams back, but the condos were too well insulated and she couldn’t make out anything definite. She sat in the tub and thought about what to do. She didn’t know Morse code, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t think of a way to communicate with whomever it was in the bathroom below.
She dozed off, only to be awakened by a humming noise. It sounded like some kind of vibration. She looked over the rim of the tub in time to see a drill bit poke through the floor. She jumped up and watched as it pulled back, and then she heard Danny shouting her name. She got out of the tub, put her mouth close to the small hole, and yelled back. Soon they were both taking turns yelling back and forth. She’d yell, then put her ear to the hole. They had to repeat themselves several times to get the message across, but she was relieved just to know he was okay. After the shouting back and forth, he finally told her they’d better be quiet, there were pod people listening. Pod people? What the hell are pod people?
Even after the sun broke the horizon, they kept quiet. At around ten o’clock she heard Danny thumping the ceiling to get her attention. He thought the coast was clear. He and Winnie were coming up and she should meet them at the door.
For the next four hours, Auddy became the pack mule. It was decided that since Winnie’s condo was no longer secure, she should come upstairs. So while Danny stood guard, Winnie pointed out everything that needed to be moved upstairs from her place, and Auddy dutifully carried it to the spare room.
Auddy finally collapsed onto the couch. “That’s it, I’m done.”
Danny heard her proclamation from his post out on the porch and he yelled for Winnie. He helped her up the stairs and they had a nice lunch of PB&J’s and warm water.
“There’s still a lot of stuff to move,” Winnie said, fanning herself with a magazine.
Auddy shook her head. “Nope, no way. If it is that important, we can get it tomorrow. Like I said, I have climbed those stairs for the last time today.”
Winnie rolled her eyes and looked as if she was going to say something else, but stopped when Danny gave her a shake of his head. Instead, she rose from the chair and puttered off to the extra bedroom. “I’ll just be in here organizing,” she said. Looking over her shoulder, she winked at Danny. “Let me know if you want to finish the job.” Danny groaned and waited for Auddy’s response, but apparently she had fallen asleep in the short time since sitting down.
It was still fairly early in the day. Danny decided there was more he could do to fortify the condo. He boarded up the only window that faced the front porch, then stood there looking at the stairs. The sweat stung his eyes as it dripped from his brow; he was sure the temperature was in the nineties. The stairs worried him. When he escaped Mr. Dietrich in the clubhouse, he had just barely made it to the car. Whatever these things were, they were fast, and stairs didn’t seem to slow them down. It would only be a matter of time until they’d figure out that someone was upstairs.
There were two flights of stairs from the ground floor. The first was at a parallel to the porch, the second turned toward the condo and porch. If he could detach the second set somehow, he would be able to cut off that access.
He stepped down the first few stairs and turned to examine them. The treads, nailed to wooden stringers, could be pried up, but that wouldn’t be good enough. He needed to remove the entire structure completely. He went down to Winnie’s porch and looked up at the bottom side of them. It would be a challenge, but he thought he could do it.
Auddy woke up with sweat pooling in all her crevices. The next thing she noticed was the unusual quiet. No fans humming, pushing the cool air around the room, no air conditioner compressor kicking on to make the air cool, no TV playing in the background. No sound at all. She sat up. “Danny?”
There was no response. She jumped up and ran into the spare bedroom. No sign of Winnie either. She was about to panic when she saw the note on the coffee table: “Had to make a supply run. Don’t worry we’ll be right back. Winnie is riding shotgun.”
She didn’t know if she was mad that he left her here, or if she was mad that he took that old biddy with him. She knew she was mad. Once again, Danny hadn’t thought about how she would feel, which made her madder still.
Danny’s BMW had ski racks on its roof. He hadn’t bothered to remove them when he moved from New Jersey to South Carolina. Now there was an extension ladder strapped to the car’s roof. It stuck clear out to the front end of the car and several feet past the rear end as well. He took it from the golf course’s maintenance shed, along with a chainsaw, some gas, and six water coolers that were there to refresh the golfers every other hole.
Winnie insisted that he let her look around before he went into the shed itself. This was why the fifteen-minute job had turned into an hour-long adventure. She would not be rushed, and if you didn’t like how long it took her, that was your problem. If he’d said “We need to hurry this up” once, he’d said it fifty times.
They pulled up to the condos to find Auddy standing on the porch. “Oh my, she doesn’t look happy,” Winnie quipped.
“Winnie, would you please not antagonize her? It’s bad enough already, I don’t need you stoking the fire.”
Winnie thought about it for a second, then said, “Can’t promise you anything, but I’ll try.”
He got out and ran around to Winnie’s door, opening it for her. Auddy saw this and it cooled her down. He was always such a gentleman. He had made it clear to her on their first date: he would expect her to wait for him to make it around the car to open her door. She had argued that
it wasn’t necessary, but he said it was a sign of respect and that for him it was necessary. So she reluctantly agreed at first. Then, as time went by, she understood what he meant. Other people saw him opening her door and knew that she was important to him, and she liked that.
Winnie stood guard as he undid the rope that bound the ladder to the roof. Then he carried it over to the porch and set it down.
“Hey there, sleeping beauty, got some more stuff in the car.”
“You need help?” she asked, trying to make it clear she was good.
“No, I got it, love you.”
“I love you too Danny.”
Winnie had protested the entire plan. “How the hell do you expect me to climb that damn ladder?”
“I don’t. If for some reason you have to leave, I will lower you down myself. Now, go on up there so I can get busy.”
She muttered and cursed him for the five minutes it took her to climb the stairs with Auddy on her arm. Then Auddy and Danny finished carrying up the last of Winnie’s stuff while she sat in her rocker with the shotgun in her lap.
Two hours later, the stairs were down. Danny pulled the ladder up after himself and looked down. “I don’t think they’ll be able to get up here now.”
“Homeowners association’s going to have your ass for cutting down the stairs,” Winnie said. That got all of them laughing.
Chapter 9
Day 2
Interstate 79
Big Chimney, WV
Jay
Jay didn’t run into any more problems between Morgantown and Charleston, and two and a half hours later, she arrived. Her heart quickened as she passed the exit that would have taken her to her home. She had to see if Mark and Patty were okay. She drove on another four miles and pulled off at the Big Chimney exit, downshifting to slow the big bike’s momentum. There was a car similar to Patty’s at the end of the off-ramp with a body slumped behind the wheel. She pulled up next to the small car and was relieved to see that the corpse was not her daughter-in-law.
Apocalypse Family (Book 2): Family Reunion J Page 6