by Diane Butler
“I have wondered where their vegetable garden was,” Morgan said. “They boasted of cooking their own home grown vegetables, but I haven’t seen a field that would represent corn, tomatoes or cucumbers. Even if overgrown the signs of one should still be there.”
“Maybe it’s my ego,” Brandon said, “but I don’t like being beaten down and we were forced to abandon our search by something or someone unknown to us. It’s just too close to our borders for me to ignore it.”
“We don’t know if it is the right road, Brandon,” Cami said. “But we do know that zombies accumulate there. Why put ourselves in danger when it’s unnecessary?”
“Brandon is right,” Roxanne spoke up. “If we are to defend this place, make a permanent home here, we need to know what is outside all our borders. We don’t need to go into the thick of the Ze’s, but I like the idea of following the trail from this angle to at least see if there is a connection. Morgan you, Sally and Caleb stay here. Everyone else come with me, including you Randy.” Gene and Brandon passed a knowing glance after the conversation they just had in the truck about Roxanne’s performance.
“I’m not going,” Cami said. “Sorry Roxanne but I got a bad feeling about that place. I’ll fight anyone; I’ll take a stand against anyone, but my Karma tells me to stay away from that place. Besides, Morgan is not in any condition to be on his own, defending this place. I’ll stay and guard the home front.”
Roxanne hesitated, surprised by Cami’s response. “I totally believe in Karma and gut instinct, Cami” Roxanne said. “That’s what got me this far. If it doesn’t feel right to you, then I respect that.” She turned to Lucky who had not said anything during the conversation. “What about you Mr. Secret Service man? What does your gut instinct tell you?”
“Who, me?” Lucky put his hand on his chest. “I’ve been taking orders from you since you first handcuffed me to Ed and threw me into a shed. Don’t see why I should change now.” Roxanne could feel herself blushing and turned away. “Everyone get their gear and meet up at Ed’s gate,” she said trying to sound in control.
As they were packing extra ammo in their duffle bags Roxanne apologized to Lucky. “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting to think as a group. Keep forgetting that other lives are put into jeopardy by my decisions just because I did it for so long on my own. Keep forgetting that others may want to play it safe or hide. Everyone has their own way of dealing with this new life of being hunted down as food. I should have more compassion toward others, get more opinions, and ask more questions instead of telling people what they should do.”
Lucky kissed her on the neck and said, “You’re doing fine. If you want to know I was in total agreement with you. We need to know what’s on our borders or we could be building a home in the middle of a bad situation that we can’t get out of. I would have spoken up if I had disagreed. I’m not totally Mr. Roxanne yet,” he grinned as he opened the door for her.
Roxanne walked out and called for Mutt as she settled the compound crossbow behind her shoulder. She had elected to bring that one since it was good in tight spaces and Brandon had said that the woods thickened in places where it was almost impassable. Morgan waited at the gate to tie it back again after they went through. “How long will you be gone?” he asked.
Lucky looked up at the sky, “It’ll be dark in three hours. We’ll go one and a half hours out and then back again. We may not need that much time since we won’t be going uphill with heavy equipment.”
After leaving the gate behind, Gene turned to see Morgan, Caleb, Sally and Cami standing at the gate watching them walk away. He tipped his hat at Sally, but he didn’t feel good about this at all and wished that he had declined to go.
The three of them watched the group disappear into the woods. “Caleb,” Morgan said, “go over to the debris piled up against that building and bring me a chair. I’m going to sit here until they get back.” When Caleb brought the chair over Morgan directed him to put it beneath the shade of a tree where he sat down with a shotgun across his lap. Caleb said he would sit with him but Sally had other ideas.
“Caleb how would you like to go for a ride on the Ferris wheel?” she asked.
He jumped up, “Yes!”
“What are you talking about Sally?” Morgan asked. “That thing isn’t safe and will bring in Ze’s.”
“I’ll turn off the lights and the music,” she said, “but I want to stop the ride with Caleb at the top so he can scout the area. Both you and I know that we haven’t found things that should be here. Some of these shrubs would be 3’ but without regular maintenance they’ve grown 6 – 8’ high blocking what’s behind them. And some of the rides that have collapsed could be hiding access to other areas like that overhead rail that fell in on one of the craft buildings. Where did that go? I’m hoping Caleb can see something from the air that we can’t see on the ground.”
“Dad, let me go. Let me go. I can do this,” Caleb begged.
Morgan looked from one to the other and finally nodded his head. “It goes against my better judgment but if we can find another way out of here it will reduce the danger. I don’t like them going off into those woods after describing what they saw.”
As Caleb settled into the car Sally laughed and said, “Well I guess I don’t need to ask you if you’re afraid of heights. I’ll try to ease you up OK, so I don’t jerk you to a stop at the top but you might want to hold on to the frame so you won’t swing too much.” She should have practiced before putting Caleb in because it started with such a jerk that he almost fell out before leaving the ground.
“Whoa Sally!” Caleb squealed. “Take it easy!” She got the hang of it after that and let him go around a few times as she slowly adjusted the manual controls. “OK Caleb,” she called out as he passed her, “I’m going to stop it this time. Get ready.” She smiled to herself as she stopped it so smoothly that the car hardly swung at all. She stepped back so she could see him and shaded her eyes against the sun.
Caleb looked around to get his bearings of the layout of the park and thought he could see a cleared area with more buildings, but couldn’t make out what it was. He stood up to get a better view and used the cowboy hat he had found in wardrobe to shade his eyes. Morgan could see this from where he was sitting and made the sign of the cross. “Dear Lord”, he whispered. “Please make him sit down.”
“Do you see anything Caleb?” Sally yelled up to him. Caleb could hear her yelling but couldn’t understand the words. He wished he had brought the field glasses with him to get a better view. Thinking that she may be ready to start the Ferris again he gave her a wave and sat down. When he reached the bottom and got out she asked, “Well?”
“There’s definitely another area but I couldn’t tell how to get there. Didn’t see a road or path because the trees blocked my view between here and there. Maybe that overhead rail took people into that area.”
They started walking back to Morgan. “What did it look like?” Sally asked.
“It……well it looked like a mining shaft.”
“Mining,” she nodded. “That would make sense in these hills. Maybe a mock mine for the kids to practice sifting for gold.”
“I think I found Dad’s vegetable garden too. In one cleared area I could see bushes with something red scattered in them. Tomatoes maybe?”
When they approached Morgan, Cami had already joined him. “You are not going up on that thing again,” Morgan said. “Or if you do, I don’t want to know about it. I almost had a heart attack.”
Caleb relayed to them what he had seen. “The best I can tell is that the Craftsmen Section is the closest but there’s a section of forest between the two. I’m sure you don’t go outside the park but I couldn’t tell how you get into that section.” Caleb would have liked to ride his dirt bike over to the Craftsmen Section but since the two women went with him he patiently walked along beside them.
Sally went directly to the building that the overhead rail cars had collapsed into. “I’m convinc
ed it’s this section. The bushes have swallowed up the fence in this area and you can no longer see it. I think they have grown together hiding what could be a gate back there. Or, “she pointed, “It’s behind the wreckage. Anyone for climbing over?”
“Wait up,” Cami said as she stood looking up at a sign. The top two arrows pointed to Restrooms. The third sign down pointed to the Craftsman area but the last two arrows were covered in vines that had grown up the pole. She walked over and used her steel shaft to hook under the vines and pull them away. They were resistant but after several tries she was able to uncover enough to tell which way the arrows were pointing.
“Beaver Creek” “Coal Mine” Both arrows were pointing behind the wreckage. “Well Sally, looks like you were right.”
Lucky dropped behind to let Brandon lead the way. It was actually nice in the woods with the birds singing and a slight breeze blowing. He touched Roxanne’s arm as a signal for her to slow down too. After Gene and Randy passed them he said in a low voice, “I think you’re pushing yourself too hard, Roxanne. Would it have done me any good to mention this in the cabin?”
She shook her head, “Don’t get all protective on me.” She didn’t look at him but kept her eyes on Mutt who was running back and forth to the front of the group. It appeared that Mutt was completely at ease and was actually frolicking. She thought that Mutt had missed being a dog and having fun instead of constantly being on point for danger as people had been forced to do the same.
“You went directly from the attack on us, to kill…,” he paused not finishing the sentence about Ed. “…to climbing up the mountain, to attacking Chen Le. Your arm hasn’t completely healed from KC and now you have stitches in that same shoulder. That arm is weak now and you bring the crossbow. How do you expect to use the stirrup to load the arrow?”
Roxanne knew why he had paused in mid-sentence. He had meant to say to kill Ed and had skipped over it. “I feel fine, I don’t have a fever. I’ll use the gun if the Ze’s thicken. I only brought the crossbow in case silence is of the essence. Lucky, honest to God I can’t have you getting all wimpy on me. I always go by gut instinct and if you have me questioning that you’ll only confuse the issue. No one can afford to be confused in this world.” To soften her words she reached over and caressed his neck while walking.
They were just coming to a clearing when they saw Brandon hold up his hand and signal them to stop. They saw him dart behind a tree and everyone did the same. Mutt stood in the middle of the trail looking at everyone taking cover, and then trotted over to Roxanne. Lucky kept low and caught up with Brandon where he could see a torn and rotten tarp strung across the trail on the other side of the clearing. “That’s what we approached from the other side,” Brandon said. “That’s where all the Ze’s had accumulated. Why haven’t we seen zombies on this side of the clearing?”
Lucky could see symbols painted on some of the trees. “I know that symbol,” he said. “Some believe it is an ancient voodoo symbol for Protection. Did you see anything that could have been the remnant of a hermit’s cabin?”
Brandon shook his head, “No, but we were mesmerized by the articles in the trees and then busy hauling ass.” At that moment Lucky saw movement at the tarp as if something was hitting it on the other side when a zombie broke through and then immediately disappeared. At first they thought it had fallen but it had entirely disappeared from view and they did not see it get back up again and tall weeds prohibited them from seeing the ground on that side.
Roxanne came up to them and Lucky told her to stay in place where she could see the tarp. He signaled Randy and Gene to follow the tree line to their left and to not go into the clearing. He and Brandon would circle to their right. Before anyone could move another zombie broke through the tarp and it too disappeared as if it had fallen.
Brandon and Lucky had circled half of the clearing when Lucky noticed that many of the trees on this side were also marked with symbols. He could see Randy and Gene in the distance also half way around the clearing. He signaled for them to stop and then he began to look up into the trees behind him. He saw more symbols on the trunks and started to cautiously follow them deeper into the woods until he saw a tree with planks nailed into the trunk. He looked up to see the remnants of a treehouse. “What the hell?” Brandon said behind him.
“I don’t think anyone is living there now,” Lucky said. “The planks are old and haven’t been replaced but I’m going to try it. Go back and signal Gene and Randy to circle back to Roxanne. I think we have found a puzzle to the mystery.”
The planks weren’t very wide. It appeared to have been built for a lighter person, perhaps a child or woman. He made sure he was always holding onto a branch in case one gave way under his weight. He was ready to grab the floor of the treehouse when he heard the unmistakable groans of a zombie. He pulled his knife out and held it in his teeth waiting to see if a zombie appeared above.
He listened but could not detect any movement on the rotting floorboards so he pulled himself up in order to see over the floor. There wasn’t much left of the zombie, not being able to feed for a long time and animals had begun to feed on it. By the long grey hair it appeared to have been an old woman. There were still jars on the shelves that hadn’t collapsed and a few books now dried and brittle. She was holding a journal or diary wrapped in plastic and although Lucky knew she was nodding at him because she wanted to kill him, he felt she was also nodding for him to take the package. Her head was the only part of her that could still move since her legs, arms and torso were no longer functional.
He heard Brandon return and call out to him. Lucky climbed one more plank to be able to lean into the treehouse and grab her leg. Then he pulled her toward him, hoping the body wouldn’t separate until he could get the journal. Her legs were now dangling over the floor as she continued to growl at him. He took the knife out of his teeth and leaned in to stab her skull which immediately shattered. He almost lost his footing with the gesture but was able to grab the book. He turned to look down at Brandon and dropped the book for him to catch.
Climbing down he was able to use more of the branches than the planks and made it down to the forest bed with just scratches. They went back to the group and he explained what he had found in the treehouse. “I think this journal will explain everything but I’m sure she is the one who set up the strange tree decorations you found on the other side.”
“I would expect this type of voodoo in Louisiana but not Tennessee,” Gene said. “But how do you explain Ze’s disappearing when they come through the tarp? Did she put a spell on that spot? If she did then I’m the first one for reading that book to find out how” he laughed nervously.
“No, but there is definitely something dangerous about that spot,” Lucky said. “I’m not going to waste any more time circling around. We need to start back soon so I’m going to crawl out into the clearing and take a look. Everyone stay here,” he looked at Roxanne. “And I mean everyone.”
He got down on his belly and started to crawl out into the clearing. When he had gone only 15’ he looked back, “Oh, and if I should disappear don’t come looking for me.” He had meant it as a joke but no one laughed.
“Jez,” Gene said. “I have never been this scared and I have faced a lot of strange things since the world fell apart.”
“I’ve already pissed my pants,” Randy said. “I can’t tell you how glad I was when you signaled us to come back, Brandon.”
They saw Lucky part the tall grass that was growing on the other side of the clearing and crawl into it. “I don’t like this,” Roxanne said looking down at Mutt. Mutt was looking at Lucky then back to her again as if she should follow him. “I don’t like losing sight of him. We don’t know what’s in there but we know zombies aren’t coming out again.” She started to get up but Brandon grabbed her wrist and stopped her. She looked at him and touched the hilt of her knife. Brandon raised his eyebrows to give her a questionable look when Randy shouted. “There he is!”
Lucky was standing up beckoning for them to approach. “It’s a good thing you didn’t drive through that tarp,” he said as they all looked down into the abyss. It isn’t that big but it would definitely swallow a car or truck. They could not see the bottom, could not see any Ze’s below nor hear that any were still alive.
“What the hell is it?” Randy asked.
“It’s either an underground mine that has caved in or a cavern,” Lucky said. “These hills are filled with both.” Mutt started to growl and pull at Roxanne’s sleeve to back her away from the hole. Zombies had heard them talking and began to come through the tarp only to fall into darkness.
“If we had driven into that you never would have found us,” Gene said. “Would never have known what happened to us, whether we were alive or dead. It gives me the chills.”
Roxanne noticed that the surrounding woods were filling with Ze’s who hadn’t followed the trail but were coming toward the sound of their voices. “Guys, we’ve got company.” Everyone looked up to see that they were slowly being circled by zombies from both the left and right side of the clearing.
“Come on, I’ve had it with this place,” Gene said. “Let’s just make a run for it. I’m anxious to get back to my wife and tell her how much I love her.”