A little.
He was still a mottled hue of fading yellows and purples from all the bruising. She was worried that if she ever met him again, she wouldn’t be able to recognize him. His face was still puffy and she wanted to see his real face, not the swollen one. She made her way over to the shop and whistled at the truck. Murray was beaming and Bob was rolling up the torch hoses. It looked positively wicked, like it could take on a thousand undead without slowing down. Murray bragged about the improvements they’d made and she made idle chitchat with the two until Donny and Yewan came by.
“Where you been all day?” She asked Donny.
He signed his answer.
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not apologizing.”
Murrays gaze was still riveted on the truck. “Apologize for what?”
“Mr. Brainiac went to count the dead. One hundred and seven, or so he claims.” She twirled her finger by her temple. Donny was crazy, she’d only counted about seventy. There couldn’t have been forty more stacked up or tossed in the weeds.
Probably.
The three approached the back of the truck where Bob was sorting supplies.
“You can’t count that high, you don’t have enough fingers and toes.” She said. “I still don’t believe it. Why were you counting them anyway, just to prove me wrong?”
Donny scowled and signed again.
“Really? How much?” Murray asked.
“Impressive.” Swan said as she stared at Bob. “Not only is he a mystery man who falls out of trees and a badass zombie slayer, he also has magical all-knowing powers. Turns out you were right, Canadian Bob. The warehouse down at the river is a grocery supply place. How did you know that?”
“Lucky guess.” Bob muttered and looked at Murray.
Murray tried to bail him out. “If I would have seen it, I could have told you the same thing. But since I hardly ever get to go to town, I didn’t see it, now did I? Everybody knows the barges bring in the food.”
“I didn’t know that.” She said with a snort.
Donny grinned and flashed at her, “That’s because you’re a nobody.”
Swan opened her mouth in retort but Harper stuck her head through the door.
“Everyone is back so dinner is early. Come on, I didn’t have any lunch. I’m starving.”
Bob and Murray exchanged a look and the boy whispered he’d take care of it, he’d keep them away.
They held a celebration dinner for Bob’s last night. Even though Tobias pretended that he didn’t like the stranger, he and Analise went all out in the food preparation and unveiled their first rhubarb pie for dessert. The tribe devoured it to the last crumb. Tobias glared at Landon when the small boy picked up the empty bowl and began to lick the sticky sweet residue still inside. He was secretly pleased, though. The bowls usually got set down for one of the animals to lick clean.
They tried to get Bob to stay a little longer again. He told them he couldn’t, he had to finish his scouting trip and return home so that his village wouldn’t have to make the move to their new location in the winter. Most of them didn’t believe the story anymore but they let it slide. The older boy had his reasons. They played board games and charades by candle light for a time and Swan always found an excuse to stay close to the stranger. They argued and laughed long past their normal bed times and when they finally curled up to sleep, they went down quickly.
Bob tiptoed over the sleeping bodies and only the wolves raised their heads to watch his progress, their eyes glittering in the darkness. The sun was just graying the horizon, it would be another half hour before its fiery brilliance crested. He eased the door closed and looked up to see Donny and Yewan approaching from the front gate. The silent boy was used to being up most of the night and had already cleared the entrance of the undead. He stepped from the shadows and signed to Bob. Are you leaving? Bob didn’t understand so he pointed at the gate and held his hands out in a questioning gesture.
“Yeah.” Bob kept his voice low. “I need to get on the road. Goodbyes take too long.”
Donny nodded and the pair followed him to the garage to help push the truck. If he wanted to leave without waking the tribe, Donny was cool with it. Everyone had their reasons for doing the things they did. As they pushed the truck past the house, the tribe slipped out of the darkness to help. They were wide awake, armed and armored and moved without words.
“Not much gets by you guys does it?” Bob asked them.
They hugged him or shook his hand and said their goodbyes. Swan was sullen and disappointed. She’d thought about hiding in the back of the truck and not revealing herself until they were too far away to turn back. It was just a fantasy though. This was her home and her family, and as long as Diablo and Gordon walked the earth, she had a mission of her own.
Tobias was the last to step forward and placed a bag of food in his hands. Bob had earned his respect and he figured the older boy would be eating MRE’s and canned food for the foreseeable future. He locked eyes with him and nodded, then walked away. He had work to do, breakfast for the tribe wasn’t going to cook itself.
They watched as the stranger fired up the truck, pulled out of the lot and disappeared in the mist coming off the river.
“Think we’ll ever see him again?” Swan asked.
Murray smiled. He hoped so. He hoped it would be in a world that wasn’t overrun by the undead and he hoped it would be soon.
16
Murray
Murray couldn’t keep his mind off everything Bob had shared with him. The tribe was eager to hit the warehouse but he did whatever he could to keep them away from town. Kodiak was their chief but he took council from the wheelchair bound boy because Murray thought things through, planned for the long term and knew what they needed to get through the winter. He convinced them there was no use going until they could make a big haul and if they helped him get the tractor running again, they wouldn’t have to use wheel barrows or mess with Millie to get her to pull a wagon.
“Bob showed me how to fix it,” he insisted, “and it’s as easy to drive as a golf cart.”
Donny and Swan were the only two he was worried about, they went outside the fences every week to hunt. The others rarely left the zoo unless they were going on a raid. When they went on a hunt, he gave them a list of things he needed, most of them should be readily available from any of the abandoned farms they’d mapped out. All of them were north, away from the town. It was easy for the first few weeks, they had just returned from a supply run, there was plenty of work to do with the early harvest and they’d had a scare from the horde Bob had killed. If he hadn’t been there it might have gone bad. Their worries faded and it didn’t take long before they were getting antsy, they really wanted to see what was available and how much there was. Kodiak was getting tired of the excuses and the waiting, too. He pulled Murray aside one afternoon and wanted to know what was going on.
“We need to find out what’s there.” He said. “We need to know if it will be enough for winter or if we need to go to the next town.
“Do you trust me?” Murray asked.
“Of course I do, Mur. But I don’t understand what all the resistance is about. Why are you so dead set against us even checking it out? Donny only looked through the windows, it could be nothing, maybe just pallets of office supplies or something.”
“Do you trust me?” the boy asked again.
Kodiak opened his mouth then closed it, thought about what was being asked and considered why Murray would even ask such a question.
“Did the stranger tell you something?” he asked. “Is that why?”
“It’s life and death.” Murray said. “I’ll tell you everything in another week or so but for now, do you trust me?”
Kodiak had nodded then asked no more. He did what Murray asked, either kept everyone inside the gates or sent them north to the empty farms and the rural houses that Swan had already cleared. Murray tinkered with the tractor in the shop and always
had a list of a few little parts he needed for them to try to find.
“No rush.” He’d said. “Don’t make a special trip out but when you go on a hunt, find me these and as soon as we get the tractor running, we’ll go into town. We can make one big haul instead of a bunch of little ones.”
They always went north, always away from the machine guns he knew were coming. There was nothing wrong with the old Kubota except a dead battery but he let the air out of one of the tires, disconnected a few wires and made “progress” on getting it running when they brought him something from the list. They were safe in the hunting grounds, the only danger was the undead and they didn’t like the woods. They stayed on the roads where walking was easy. While he was supposed to be fixing the tractor, he’d hook up the golf cart and spend hours hand pedaling the charger. Using the torches like Bob had shown him, he added a few bars across the windshield and doors as zombie protection. He only had to stall for another week, he couldn’t let Tobias and Analise die. He wouldn’t get a do over if he failed. Every time they started complaining and he was tempted to tell them the secret, he remembered what Bob said. Just knowing a thing could change the future. He kept quiet, ignored their complaints and kept assuring them it would be worth the wait. They would only have to risk going to town once if they had the tractor.
He knew time was close to when the warehouse battle was supposed to happen. When Jessie and Scarlet would form the bonds that might save the world. Bob hadn’t been exactly sure of the date but he knew it happened in the early afternoon and he’d narrowed it down to within a day or two. When everyone was busy with their duties, he slipped out of the maintenance gate near the river. The electric cart scraped both sides as it forced its way through and bounced across the tall grass towards the river. Putnam was only a few miles to the south and the rutted, overgrown path had been used by off roaders and fishermen. He got within a half mile of the riverfront district before the wooded trail ended on a frontage road. It was close enough, though. He could remain hidden and was sure he’d be able to hear any gunshots.
He sat, waited and listened for the guttural sound of an old car and the boom of gunfire. Once he heard the first shots he’d know everything was going to be fine. He’d head back to the house and share the news with the tribe.
The first day of his watch passed with just the sounds of birds and crickets to keep him company. The capuchins played in the trees but didn’t stray far from their boy. He was disappointed but by late afternoon he knew it wasn’t going to happen. He’d try again tomorrow.
The second day waiting for the gunfire passed the same as the first. Nothing happened and Murray felt that first niggle of doubt in the back of his mind. What if it wasn’t true? They didn’t really know Bob. He could have been an escapee from the loony bin for all they knew. He forced the doubt away and strained to hear anything that would validate the stranger’s story. Nothing. He went over the times Bob had mentioned again. Tobias and Analise were gunned down, there would be a lull and then a gun fight. Him and his girlfriend had buried the twins in the afternoon and met the tribe after dark. It was hard to think of Jessie and Bob as the same person. The carefree boy riding around the country with his gal and the jaded, scarred up warrior hell-bent on changing the world didn’t seem like they could be the same person.
He thought of a dozen ways that might make the future better. What if he warned them, told them what Bob had told him? Wouldn’t that save the girl? But if he did, then they never would have met Bob because he would have no reason to travel back to save her. It made his head hurt just thinking about all the possibilities and in the end he had to trust the stranger. He must know what he was doing.
Murray waited until the sun was low in the sky before he headed back to the shop.
On the third day he sat in the shade and tried to read a book as the monkeys played in the trees. They never went far, always kept him in sight and would scramble quickly aboard as soon as the cart started moving. He was half dozing in the lazy afternoon and the beeping noise caught him by surprise. He tossed the paperback aside and gripped the steering wheel. It was faint, a long way off, but the sound carried. It was the trucks Bob had told him about. They were backing up to the warehouse doors. The tribe wasn’t there, they hadn’t fled in panic and the gunfire that killed Tobias and Analise didn’t happen. Everyone was safe back at the sanctuary. He had just changed the future.
Everything was different now.
From this moment forward, nothing was the same as it had been in the world Bob described. A thrill ran through him. His heart thudded in his chest and he strained his ears. His capuchins heard it too and scrambled back into the cart to be near him. He waited for a long time, heard more beeping sounds of fork trucks and an occasional voice barking commands then sighed in relief when he heard it. The throaty grumble of a hot rod was unmistakable as it passed. It was true, everything Bob had said was true.
Murray listened to the gunfight a short time later and finally relaxed. He’d been tense for weeks, snapping at everyone, arguing against a warehouse raid and generally making the rest of the tribe think he was going crazy.
Analise was safe.
Tobias was safe.
They hadn’t triggered the cult to come looking for them. He let out a long shuddering breath and almost shed tears of relief. The burden of knowing his actions could wind up killing them all had almost been too much. From this moment forward, the future was unknown. He’d spent a lot of hours considering what to do next and hoped he was making the right choice. Bob said he’d met the tribe after the twins had been buried but Murray wasn’t sure if they should meet now. Things were already different, how much more different would they be if it slipped out that Bob, or Jessie, had visited them. How much of the future would it change? Bob said just knowing a thing was dangerous. Murray was still mulling it over when he heard the old muscle car fire up a short while later. The sound of its engine faded away as it drove out of town and that made the decision for him. They were gone. It didn’t matter if he told the tribe now, they were isolated and couldn’t affect anything. They wouldn’t believe him anyway. Nobody in their right mind would. It was probably best to keep those secrets but he’d let them know about everything else. He’d tell them all about Lakota and the rebuilding that was happening. They weren’t alone, there were thousands of others.
17
Diablo
Darkness fell and he was hungry again. He was always hungry, nothing satisfied the craving. The pack had already cleaned out the undead wandering around town and they learned how to get to those inside the houses. Windows broke if they slammed into them hard enough. Diablo led them to a place of slaughter just outside of town and they had fed heavily on the dead lying in the road. They ate and slept then ate some more, the food supply seemed endless for a time. The ingestion of so much nanobot infested meat overloaded their senses. It wasn’t enough to feed and rest anymore, they wanted to feast until they burst. Already they were picking off their own members and ripping savagely into them. Blood splattered and fur flew as those too slow to avoid the larger animals became meals for their own pack. The raccoons and opossums scampered to the trees, out of reach of the snapping jaws of the coyotes and wild dogs. The boars and sows ripped their razor-sharp tusks into anything that got too close, including each other. The feral cats scattered into culverts or abandoned cars, away from the savagery of the pack. Yet, none went far. None would break away from the pack. The horde mentality, the need to bunch together in massive numbers, overrode their sense of self preservation. The raccoons and opossums leapt from limb to limb as they followed the odd procession. The buzzards, ravens and crows observed it all from the safety of the treetops, darting in to grab the scraps that weren’t devoured. A bit of flesh, a shard of bone. A piece of fur with a little bloody skin attached. It was all precious and worth fighting to the death over.
The moon was high as Diablo followed the old familiar route. They had fled at the sound of the machine gun
s, out of town and back into the woods. They hid for hours, waited until darkness fell before they came back out. Now he padded along the fences of the zoo, the same as he had many times before. Only his survival instincts had kept him from pushing under the gates and feeding during his many trips to this same spot. He feared the claws of the little ones and the roar of the mighty beasts that guarded them. His kind were cowardly. Scavengers. They were the garbage disposals of the world. They took the weak or stole their kills from stronger animals by sheer numbers and deceit. But he hungered and nothing he ate satisfied him. He craved the hot blood of the living and the madness worming its way through his mind grew stronger with each mouthful of undead flesh he ate.
He had watched the wolf girl raiding the dens of the humans. Diablo had refrained from taking her several times because of the presence of her pack. They had sensed him but the human smells were strong in the dens and they masked his own. He yearned for the taste of her flesh in his jaws. Reveled in the thought of thrusting his muzzle into her body and eating the protein rich organs while they still pulsed with hot blood. Cracking open her bones with his powerful jaws and devouring the sweet marrow inside. Yet, he’d refrained. The wolf girl killed the stinking ones and left them where they lay. Diablo was confused by the act, she didn’t eat the stinking prey. So, he watched and when she left the bodies he and his pack gobbled down the kills that had her smell on them. It was the hyena way.
The Feral Children [A Zombie Road Tale] Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 89