They decided a short time later to pull out. A quick meal, and they would be on their way.
The rain stopped. The sun was still hidden behind a clump of clouds that seemed to cover nearly the entire sky behind them, but at the very edge of the horizon a line of white-gold had appeared. The clouds there seemed to be breaking up, the clear skies making their way to them.
Off to their left, clearly visible without the rain, the Catskills sat like a beacon guiding them forward. The trucks were topped off with fuel. Everything was packed away, and the sun peeked out of its cloud cover just before they drove away. Conner took it as a good sign. He started his truck, splashed across a large puddle, rolled forward and dropped one huge front tire over the broken pavement leading back to the roadway. He turned out onto the road and led the way.
Two hours of slow travel brought them to a leaning road sign, a small 79 in a highway symbol, and printed below it in white lettering:
“Clarksburg 28 miles”
The V.H.F. crackled. “That's West Virginia, in case you're wondering,” James said. “State route seventy-nine will take us right into Charleston. But we should skirt that and try to pick up seventy-seven; that will take us into Kentucky.” James said.
“Tell me when,” Conner said, “to start looking.”
“Will do,” James said, “we're about a hundred and fifty miles out, so it'll be awhile. Must have been just the other side of Pennsylvania or just inside West Virginia where we stopped,” James finished.
“Made good time,” Conner said.
“Yeah. Carry on. I'm standing by,” James said.
Trouble on the highway
“Put it under her head,” Sandy instructed. “So it tilts her head back and she can breathe freely.”
Sandy went back to the chest compressions she had been doing on Jessica's chest. The exertion was taking the strength from her arms. Sweat had formed at her temples. It now rolled freely across her face. She brushed it away with the back of one hand and went back to working her arms in a steady rhythm. She was tiring, and she was getting no results.
They were stopped in the middle of what was left of the highway. There was nothing more than a washed out patch of rubble and broken fragments of pavement littered about. An occasional unmolested section of the road would appear, but more and more it was becoming gravel and mud, and they were thankful for the big tires and the four wheel drive.
The sun had been playing peekaboo all afternoon, gliding in and out of the cloud cover. Despite its occasional appearance, the day was still overcast and gray. Cold winds blew from the east, and Conner got the feeling that rain was not far behind the winds.
Sandy stopped, covered Jessica's mouth once more with her own and blew another deep breath into her lungs. Jessica's chest rose and fell.
There was some color in her cheeks, but her lips were still tinged with blue, and she was not breathing. Sandy blew another deep breath into Jessica's lungs, then moved sideways, and Sharon took over the C.P.R. Her arms were burning, her lungs. She looked down at her watch, more than 10 minutes had passed. She had not realized it had been so long. It had been too long, and there had been no response at all. Sandy had nothing to give to her, not even an aspirin. The first aid kits all held non aspirin equivalents.
She looked over and caught the outlines of several small, worried faces in the window of the Suburban. Rain caught her eyes and then looked down to Jessica.
“Sharon,” she said softly. Sharon met her eyes. Sandy was still breathing heavy, her arms still burning, her face slick with sweat. Sandy shook her head. Sharon thrust her hands down one more time, straightened up, wiped her own forehead and looked at Sandy.
“Too long,” Sandy said. “Too long.”
Death Following
The line of vehicles dropped off the edge of the pavement one by one, ran through the gravel, mud and water, and then back up onto the asphalt and into the abandoned truck stop. They were nearly out of gas, but Death was positive that there was gas here. An oily sheen of spilled gasoline lay over a small puddle, just to the side of the main island, as if its only reason for existence had been to prove him right.
The ground had shifted, the concrete tilted up into the air, but someone had gone to work with shovels, and the top of an iron pipe lay exposed; a mound of dirt laying to one side of the twisted concrete.
Death stepped down from his truck and crossed the twenty or so feet that separated him from the pile of dirt. The fill neck of the underground tank had been dug out down to about two feet. The cap was on but he had no doubt that it would spin right off with ease. They had been here, and if it wasn't them they were following, them that had been here, then it was maybe something better, he told himself.
He motioned to the others behind him, and all four trucks emptied out. Nine of his soldiers stood behind him, waiting for him to speak.
“They've been here... or somebody's been here. And they ain't left too long ago either,” He pointed to heavy, rutted tire tracks that passed through the mud at the edge of the pavement, and then printed the tread pattern onto the road, “That would've been gone. Didn't stop raining until late this morning. Can't be more than a couple of hours ahead of us, maybe four at the most,” he said.
A petite, young woman with a shock of pink hair stepped forward, “There's dogs over by the woods... eating something. Don't look like no animal. They slunk off when we pulled in, but I seen them.” She wore a thin, black T-shirt that showcased the piercings in her nipples. A safety pin jutted through her lower lip, a small gold chain looped from a nose piercing to one ear. Her eyes were gray and flat. Another safety pin pierced the top of her bellybutton, visible where the overly short baby T-shirt she wore had pulled out of her jeans. She shifted her boot clad feet, fingered a 9 mm pistol in a side holster, and looked over towards the edge of the woods where something pink could be seen laying half in the water that flooded the fields up to the tree line.
Death followed her gaze and nodded slowly.
“Shitty, Murder... Go see.” He said softly. Two young men moved from the back and took off into the flooded field without hesitation. He turned his eyes back to the girl, “Chloe, you know you're my favorite. You did good, Chloe, you did good.”
The young woman smiled, snapped her head around and looked back at the other young women behind her. They were dressed almost exactly like her. “Little, bitches,” she said under her breath.
A snarling sound came from the tree line as the two boys approached through the calf high water. Three wolves slumped out of the trees and stood stiffly by the body. Their eyes shifted back and forth from one another to the boys who had slogged across the field towards them. One of the young men drew his pistol, aimed and fired. One of the wolves flipped into the air as if he had been launched into a backward somersault. He flopped down to the ground snarling, snapping at his chest were a small hole had appeared. The other two wolves sprang into the air, startled, and then fled into the woods.
The young man fired again. The wolf jumped and then lay still. They both walked forward and looked at the red and pink thing lying half in and half out of the water.
“It's a dead dude,” Shitty called back. His voice floated across the waterlogged fields. “Part of his head is gone entirely.”
“Is it one of them?” Death called back. “What happened to him.”
“He got dead,” Murder called back. “Can't fuckin tell how, these dogs been eatin' on him. Could be one of those fuckers though.”
“Who in the fuck else would it be?” Shitty yelled back. He lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Sometimes seems to me that he's got to be the dumbest motherfucker I ever knowed.” he told Murder. “Seems fuckin' clear to me.” He turned back towards Death. ”Looks like they had a change of leadership. Part of his skull is missing, right. I don't think them dogs or wolves or whatever the fuck they was, done that.”
“Get back here,” Death yelled while motioning with one hand. He turned, “Johnny, Nickle, get these trucks fi
lled.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said.
“On it,” Nickle added.
As they started to fill the trucks, the sun slipped back behind a block of heavy bottomed clouds and fat, cold rain drops began to plop down from the gray sky, reverberating off the steel roof.
“Fuck,” Death said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He looked over at Chloe, who stood slightly ahead of everyone else, and motioned with a nod of his head to the building behind him. She smiled. “Cassie, Tammy, get some fuckin' food on. I'm hungry. Looks like we're stuck here for a while.” He added.
As he finished speaking, Murder and Shitty slumped back across the asphalt, water dripping. “Murder, I'll be busy for a while,” he said.
“Got you,” murder said.
Death by the Roadside
They all stood quietly on the side of the road. Lilly spoke a few words from a small pocket Bible. Her voice seemed so much more mature than it had when she had spoken those same words just a few weeks before, Conner thought.
Jessica's body lay in the bottom of a shallow grave that had been dug into the sandy soil beside the highway. She was covered with a blue tarp and lay in about a foot of water at the bottom of the hole. They had tried to keep the hole bailed out, but it had been no use. Although the ground where they had chosen to dig had been relatively dry, the ground water was high, and kept seeping into the hole after digging just a few feet down.
“And, Lord, watch over the rest of us as we go. In Jesus name we pray, Amen,” Lilly finished.
Jeff and Dustin began to shovel the muddy dirt and stone back into the hole. The stones pattered down and rolled off the blue tarp as the dirt rained down into the hole. Between the two of them they had the shallow hole filled in no time. The first fat drops of rain began to fall as the trucks began to roll out again. Two miles down the road, what was left of a small airport came into view. Several large metal hangars, virtually untouched, crouched at one end of the twisted and tilted runways. A few inches of water ran over a fairly intact service road that lead to the hangars. One section of the road appeared to dip, and looked to be covered with about a foot of water.
Conner picked up the V.H.F. radio. “I'm thinking this ain't going to get any better,” he said. “I'll go first, but we should all be able to get across that water.”
“Piece of cake,” James said.
“Let's go,” Aaron said.
Conner turned off the highway and then eased down onto the narrow road that led to the hangars. The truck walked across the water like it was nothing, rolled up the slight rise on the other side and stopped in front of one of the hangars.
The Hummers, sitting a little lower, threw the water up in a spray as they crossed it. It rushed against the undercarriage, but even they had no trouble. “Yahoo,” Jeff called over the radio as he brought his last vehicle across.
The rain was picking up, and Conner hunched against the drops as he stepped through the rain and found a side door into the closest hanger. He emerged a moment later and walked over to a longer hanger and entered the side door. A few minutes later, he called on the radio.
“This one is empty, but the doors are jammed. I'll need a little help,” he said.
Aaron and Jake both jumped down from their trucks and sprinted through the driving rain to the side door. One of the heavy steel doors had warped in the opening. It flexed as all three men threw their weight into it, but it held. Then suddenly it gave way and swung open with a loud bang. The other door quickly followed.
“Bring them in,” Conner called over the radio.
Katie slid across the seat of the truck, flicked on the headlights, dropped the shift lever into drive and pulled slowly into the building. The interior was huge, looking even bigger on the inside than it had on the outside. There was absolutely nothing inside. She pulled towards the back, backed around and parked the big truck. She killed the lights, shut of the motor and stepped down from the cab. The other trucks drove in behind her.
~
Halfway back in the dim interior, a large wood stove set out from one wall. A pipe ran from the stove into the side wall and then to the outside. Janna opened it, blew at the dust and looked around for wood.
“We'll need wood,” she said. She looked the stove over. “It's not made for cooking on, but the top's flat and we can make it work. Find me some wood, and I'll get everything else ready,” she said.
Bad Pennies Again
Psycho arched her body above Shitty, moaned, peeked from one squinted eye and saw he was ready. She faked another moan, thrust her hips harder and then finished with a loud groan. She waited a half second, tensed her body, faked heavy breathing, then rolled off him.
“You're so good, Psycho,” he said. There was no faking in the heavy breaths that he drew. “Was it good for you? Was it?” he asked.
“Like, how could it not be, Shitty. You take me all the way. Every time, baby. Every time.”
He smiled and laid back while she quickly cleaned up with some paper towels she had found in one of the rest rooms. Then she leaned back into him and let him talk. It was always the same. How tough he was. How well he could fuck. How big his cock was. And that was a joke, because... He interrupted her thoughts. “...You think?” He was asking.
She had no idea what he had said. “I don't know, baby, explain it to me better. You know I don't always get things like you do. You're so smart.” She kissed his cheek, rubbed her breasts against his arm - he liked that - then waited.
“I was saying,” he said, clearly perturbed that all of her attentions had not been on him. She rubbed against him again, and he stopped and smiled.
“All I was saying, Psycho, is, I think I've been showing Death that I'm a thinking dude. You know, not like Murder. You know, today? He couldn't even see the gunshot wound, couldn't tell it from what the wolves ate. That will add up. He'll put me ahead of Murder. Soon, you'll see,” he said. “And you'll be sleeping with number two,” he finished.
I already am, she thought. “Oh, Shitty, that makes me so hot,” she said. “Just thinking about it.”
He smiled. “Is that you?” he asked. “Smells like.... Like some sort of perfume... Some... I don't know the scent.”
“Sandalwood,” Psycho told him. She had smelled it a soon as they had come into the room. Someone had been here that liked to wear that scent. It was one of her favorites too. “You like it?”
He reached over and pulled her back over to him. “Yeah,” he told her. “A lot.”
~
Shitty could never go more than twice. He was nineteen years old and weighed two hundred and forty pounds. A five foot nine frame. He ate candy bars all day long, smoked like a chimney, and she was surprised he hadn't dropped dead or run out of breath when he had run across the field earlier in the day. Hopefully he would the next time, she thought.
He reached over, squeezed one breast and tugged at the piercing in the nipple. Something he thought turned her on, but actually hurt and scared her a bit too. He might be simple, but he was nuts. She always joked to herself that it should be him who was called Psycho. Only, really, when she thought about it, it was no joking matter.
He had been with an older woman, in her thirties when they had first picked her up. She was still Cindy then, only Shitty said it was spelled with an S. Sindy. He had his eyes on her, marked her out immediately. He was on her from the first day.
She had gotten really wasted drinking hard liquor with Johnny Red a few nights later and had gotten into a fight with Shitty's woman, Bitch. Shitty had named her himself. He had the idea that a woman was owned by the man, like a dog. And so the man chose the name, he had told them seriously.
She had flipped out on Bitch, bitten her face and broken her nose before Shitty had dragged her off her, and he had given her the name Psycho.
A few nights later, Shitty had taken her into one of the bedrooms in the house that they had been sharing. It was where he and Bitch had been sleeping. He had kicked her out of the bed and told her to g
et lost. She had come back at him, kicking and clawing, and he had simply pulled his gun and shot her.
She had seemed so surprised as her fingers came up and found the hole in her chest. She had raised her fingers up to her eyes to see the blood that was there. She had tried to breath for what seemed like minutes, but was surely less than a minute, making an awful clicking, swallowing sound. And then she had fallen down dead. And Shitty had taken Psycho right there on the bed while she had still lain dead upon the floor. After the sex, he had dozed off and he had awakened. He had dragged Bitch by one foot through the house and thrown her out on the front lawn.
Psycho could not forget that. Nor the way no one came running to find out what the shot was about, or said a word when Shitty had dragged her from the falling down house or when he had tossed her body into the river the next morning after leaving her in the yard overnight.
Shitty was simple, but he was crazy and she was taking no chances with him. She moved her body now, once he'd stopped pulling at her piercing, so it was slightly out of reach. No matter how the rest of her life went, she was looking for the end of it. She had no illusions about it; it was going to end up badly. She could feel it.
~
A heavy canvas tarp covered a neat stack of wood on the side of the hanger. The front had a small overhang above the doors, so they left the doors ajar and ran back and forth until most of the wood was piled by the stove. A couple of gas lanterns lit the inside up, and once the wood stove was fired up, it took the chill out of the air.
There were two doors, both of which had overhangs, and Aaron and Conner drew the first watch. They helped to close up the main doors once more, and then each of them took a thermos of coffee with them for their post. They stood under the overhangs, trying to stay dry as the rain poured down.
~
James came up to Conner later on when he came back in. “Truck's odometer says only about a hundred and twenty miles today,” he said.
“Yeah, well, the roads were worse, and... Jessica, and now this. We could've gone another couple hours,” Conner said. “But I just didn't see it happening.”
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 62