We hear what they say in New York and L.A. They have strongholds there and yet they worry about the diseased over running them. Some say they shouldn't be killed, they're only diseased, it can be treated, but who knows how to do that? I have heard of thousands causing problems, biting and infecting. I have not heard of one that was cured. And what would you cure them with? An aspirin? Penicillin? And there are truly thousands, maybe more than thousands. Jesus... Can there be so many? I guess there can be. And what do we do if they find our little valley here in the middle of nowhere? James says impossible, but I have been to New York City. I have walked the streets there. They go on forever. How on earth could there be so many diseased that they threaten to over run that city? A city that big? And L.A. Too. How?
I had hoped that we would sit down and talk it out before they left, but we never did, so I guess it is left to those of us who are here to wonder and worry about it.
Later...
I had to leave off. I sometimes get myself worked up over bullshit. Nothing has come here and I hope none will. In a few months I will be a father. How could anything be better?
Later: The Valley
The rifle shot pulled him from sleep instantly. He had his own rifle in his hands and was running through the rain a second later. His bare feet pounding down the graveled path to the barns.
Strangely, the pain had not come to him yet although he knew it had to be there. The rain was heavy, he blinked his eyes to take the sting of water running into his eyes away for a moment, and then continued to run.
The shot had come from the barn and as he ran he tried to recall who had the guard duty in that area tonight. He heard the sounds of a scuffle before he actually reached the barn. Behind him he heard Lilly's voice calling after him, and then James's raised in alarm.
Jake rounded the corner of the barn, feet sliding on the wet grass. The rain was so heavy that he couldn't really see what was happening as he skidded to a stop, the black shifting with patterns of light, shifting and the next second he was sitting up in bed. Heart racing, breath coming fast, screaming, and a split second later that was gone and he was staring out into the pouring rain from the overhang of the barn.
He cried out involuntarily, and then his body jerked and the back of his head slammed into the rough planks of the siding. His mouth opened to scream and he snapped it shut. His heart was slamming hard into his rib-cage, breath coming so hard it physically hurt. The rifle gripped so hard in his hands that he could not, at first, loosen it. He finally got his heart to slow and took a deep breath. The cold night air clearing his mind. He had fallen asleep leaning up against the barn. Lulled by the constant rain, but he was far from sleepy now.
He heard the grit of a footstep and bought up the rifle, turning toward the sound as he did. James stepped around the corner of the barn and peered toward him where he stood in the gloom. Jake stepped out into the pouring rain and motioned him over.
James hurried over and stepped under the overhang, out of the downpour. “Christ, Jake. This rain.”
“Yeah,” Jake said.
“Thought I heard something, figured I'd rather come check than be sorry I didn't,” James told him. His eyes were on Jake's own.
“Didn't hear anything, exactly,” Jake said. “Maybe thunder... Far off.”
James nodded. “Just the same, I think I'll hang over here with you for a while... This rain is about putting me to sleep,” he said.
“It's the monotony,” Jake agreed. He yawned in spite of himself. He leaned back into the side of the barn. James nodded, leaned back himself, and they watched the rain fall in silence.
THREE
Conner and Aaron
September 17th
The sun was barely up. Steam rose from the ground and then seemed to hang just below the tops of the trees.
Conner was looking at the phenomenon when Molly came over and handed him a cup of coffee. Molly looked up into the trees. “Pretty,” she said.
“I didn't know you could have steam rising from the ground after a heavy rain and fog too... At the same time,” Conner said.
“It's all the same,” Molly said. “Fog is rain, water, just rising from the ground. The steam you see rising is fog as well. So whether it's coming off the water or rising from the ground it's the same...” She looked to the south. “I would bet there is a body of water over there. The fog is lifting from there, drifting over here, mixing with our lifting ground fog and there you go.” She laughed.
Conner sipped at the coffee. “You sound like a Meteorologist... On the weather channel... 'Well thanks, John... Today we're going to see heavy rains across parts of the northwest...'” Conner parodied.
“Hey, that wasn't half bad,” Molly told him. She smiled.
“Yeah... Misspent adulthood... Programming and listening to the TV as I worked all night long. So where did you get the weather speak from? Or am I being too nosy?”
Molly smiled again, but it was a sad, careful smile. “Once upon a time... In the old world... I started work right out of college as a weather girl on a local TV station in Mobile... yes they actually called me a weather girl and I was so glad to get the job that I took that shit too. My first big assignment was as a storm reporter in the middle of a hurricane.” she frowned.
“I begged to get that job too... Changed my name... Anyway, I spent the next year climbing the ladder, field reporter, weather girl, co-anchor then anchor just before I left Mobile. Believe me. I learned a lot of stuff about weather that sort of got stuck in my brain.”
Conner nodded. He set the now empty coffee cup down and began to help to take down the tents with Annie. “I guess I can see that... Well, I'm glad you're here with us.” It was clear to him that she did not want to talk about her past. He found himself wishing he had not bought it up. It probably seemed like prying to her.
Molly pitched in and between the three of them they had all the tents down in a matter of minutes and spread on the ground while they loaded everything else into the roof racks. The tents went on last and covered the cargo in place of the tarps that normally did. A few minutes after that they were working their way down the trail, splashing through the deep puddles of water left behind from the rain.
~
The Jeeps were stopped at a roadblock of vehicles. Conner had stopped well in advance and then had all of them back up further. They were all armed and tense, standing at the front of Conner's Jeep.
“There's no way around it that I could see,” Conner said.
“Probably going to have to go down there and look it over,” Molly said.
Conner nodded. “No choice.”
Aaron frowned. “I guess my concern is safety, who goes, who stays, how do we do it.”
“I think, Aaron, you stay here... Annie and Nellie too. Molly, Dustin and I go up on foot... I just want to be sure the rest of you stay safe back here,” Conner told them.
“You think it's smart to split us up like that,” Nellie asked.
Conner nodded. “Look, I don't know what that is. Someone blocked the road. Why? Do they know we're here? Is it some group of people that we'll have a problem with? Kind of seems possible, or else why did they block us off?”
“I don't think the dead do stuff like that, although a few of the things we heard over the radio from New York, Houston, L.A. said they're smart. They plan things out. So There's no way to know in advance what we're walking into.” he turned and looked down the road.
“Three of us walk down the road and three of us walk back.” He turned back and made eye contact with everyone. “Nobody goes down that road, only us. If we don't come back or if... Well, something else happens and we come back as one of them, then you guys will have the harder job... But I know you will do it.” He waited until everyone nodded. “You do what you have to do and then you head back home. Get help. Come back and wipe them out...” He shrugged. “Our first encounter... Living or dead, someone blocked that road for a reason... Molly... Dustin,” he looked at Aaron, N
ellie and Annie. “Hold it down.” He turned and walked away down the logging trail. Molly and Dustin behind him; hurrying to catch up. Once they did the three of them slowed and began checking the sides of the road as they went.
~
“I guess I expected them by now,” Josh said.
“Maybe that gunfire yesterday,” Chloe said. “I could go back... We can't take the kids near that though.”
“And what could you do? I don't think it makes sense for you to go back either,” Josh said. “You don't know for sure whether they are the people you know or not... And even if they are, they may not want you from what you said,” He paused, shook his head. “Stay put here, Chloe... The kids need you... Want you here.” he lowered his voice for the last.
Chloe opened her mouth to say something, but at nearly the same time gunfire erupted from the direction of the old state campgrounds for the second time in two days. This time there was no mistaking it, and no mistaking that it probably involved the people they had spoken to just the day before.
A split second after that she could not remember what it was she had planned to say. Alicia ran to her, tears already springing from her eyes. Frightened by the loud and rapid gunfire that clashed with the early morning stillness that had held the field.
~
The attack came fast when it came. Conner only remembered the details after the fact.
Molly had the right side, Dustin the left, Conner had taken a lead of fifty feet or so right up through the middle of the tall grass. It left him blind for the most part. The grass was higher than his head in most places, unless he walked right on the hump in the middle of the old road, and that was not an easy task. He found himself spending too much time concentrating on the next footfall. So he came down off the hump and walked slowly beside it. Watching for darker shadows within the golden brown of the grass.
He turned his head to look over to the right and Molly when his eye had caught movement in the trees just over her head. There was no time for thought. He swung his rifle up and fired. He had no time to register what he had accomplished. He dropped his eyes from the woods, alerted by a yell from Dustin on the other side of him and the Zombie was on him just that fast. Afterward he realized it must have been hidden in the tall grass and had sprung at him as soon as he was distracted by the movement in the woods.
He was out of position to fire so he reversed the rifle's stock smashing it into the forehead of the zombie that had sprung at him. She went down, but she was back up just as quickly. Conner kicked her hard in the stomach as he bought the rifle barrel around. He squeezed off a quick burst as she was falling from the kick.
It seemed as though the entire world turned into a solid wall of noisy gunfire. On both sides and front and back.
The zombie hit the ground thrown back by the force of the bullets. A huge section of her side blown away, one arm gone, but she had no sooner hit the ground than she was twisting to her side and rising to her feet, hissing and snarling as she lunged at him again.
The shock nearly kept him from firing. He had never expected her to get back up. The rifle barrel rose on its own as he fired blowing holes through her chest and finally taking her head from her shoulders. She staggered a few more feet and then collapsed in a heap.
In front, somewhere beyond the cars and trucks that blocked the road, the firing continued. Conner looked left to right. Both Molly and Dustin were gone. He got his feet moving and started off through the tall grass.
The gunfire fell off abruptly. He reached the beginning of the cars and trucks and began working his way down the length of a pickup truck when he caught movement on the opposite side of the truck out of the corner of his eye. He swung the rifle up fast, finger on the trigger, squeezing as it came up. The only thing stopping him from firing, the uncertainty of what his peripheral vision had caught, when his eyes finished the split second trip he nearly squeezed the trigger anyway when Dustin's face came into sharp focus.
“Jesus Fuckin' Christ,” he breathed. Dustin's face was streaked with blood. Pasty white under the scarlet. Dustin nodded and swiveled his eyes behind Conner, he turned to find Molly peering around the edge of a van fifty or so feet beyond his own position. He motioned both of them over.
“Dead?” he asked in a whisper. They both nodded.
“Gotta get them in the head,” Dustin told him. Molly nodded and grimaced. Conner nodded himself.
“It wasn't either of you up ahead firing?”
They both shook their heads. Conner swore under his breath. “So we got two different problems... Okay... Back to what we had,” he swapped out the clip in his rifle as he talked, surprised to find it empty. “Molly, right, Dustin left... I'll take it right up the middle.” He shrugged. “No idea what we got so be careful.” He nodded and then started off himself.
Molly had no sooner turned back to the right than a zombie sprang from the woods and ran straight at her looking into the woods behind it as it ran. She thrust her rifle out and dropped low to the ground. Behind her she heard Dustin and Conner's rifles open up. Her own began to speak, bucking in her hands, and the zombie began to do some weird jittering dance as it blew apart in a storm of bone and black fluid that was not blood, but weirdly similar. She gagged as it splattered on her face, scooted backwards, made her feet, and began to rub at her face, her rifle sagging towards the ground. She stripped her shirt over her head in one fluid movement, turned it inside out as it came off, and scrubbed at her face, throwing it away from her as she finished. There was a smell. A strong, cloying stink. It made her gag again and she gave into it, bending over and vomiting.
She caught her breath after a second, tears squeezing from her eyes. The silence was unnerving, and as she raised her eyes the biggest man she could recall ever having seen stepped from the trees.
“Right there,” Conner said from behind her. She turned to see that both Dustin and Conner had their rifles pointed at the man. She turned back to him, straightened and raised her own rifle from the ground.
“Not looking for trouble,” the big man said. He kept his own rifle, some sort of machine gun it looked to Molly, pointed at the ground, but his finger rested on the trigger. He looked from her to Conner and Dustin and then back to her. He shifted and a second later another man slid from the trees and walked up beside him. His own rifle pointing down, but his finger caressed the trigger restlessly.
“Look,” the big man said. “We got one... We chased six out...” He let the question hang.
“Four,” Conner said.
The big man nodded. “Leaves one... Probably long gone. They ain't stupid.” He looked at Molly. “Blood?”
Molly nodded. Suddenly aware of her nudity.
“Can't hurt you unless you have an open wound,” he fell silent.
Somewhere in the woods the birds must have decided the time for silence was past. They seemed to awaken all at once. One bird whistle turned into two and then a dozen. The big man grinned. “If that other one was around they wouldn't be singing. My name is Adam.” He looked around. “So we're all just gonna point these fuckin' guns at each other all morning?”
Conner thought for a second then lowered his rifle. Molly and Dustin followed suit. Molly turned, caught Conner's eyes and walked back toward the Jeeps.
Adam nodded. “Thanks... We ran into these bastards yesterday... Took three of ours, nearly a fourth, don't know if she'll heal up and be okay or not.” He rubbed one massive hand across his eyes and rubbed at his temples. “How is it you ended up on the other side of this graveyard anyhow? Nothing, but nothing back there as far as I know.”
“Yeah... Well there is a lot of nothing, but we have a place back there too... A long way back in,” Conner told him. He looked around at the cars and trucks. “What's the deal with this though? Keep people out? In?”
Adam shook his head. “Was about to ask you... It ain't ours, if it ain't yours then the dead must have done it. It looks like they have been nested in this campground up ahead,” he turned
and pointed back the way they had come.
“We know it,” Molly said as she returned, shrugging into a thick sweatshirt. “The campground, I mean, we know of it.”
“We were headed for it,” Conner added.
“Well, looks like they were using it to catch us... Like a big fly trap.... Web... Something like that. It is a natural stop off. They even kept it looking nice... If not them, someone did... They got us last night as we stopped. We were just off the main road...” He met Conner's eyes. “Anyway... Three of you? Why don't you come back to our camp... We're about a half mile back,” he turned. “This is Billy,” he turned back to face them.
Conner cleared his throat. “We have more behind us... Not to alarm you.”
“Course you do,” Adam looked down at the ground for a second kicking at the pine needles with one booted foot. He looked back up. “What do you intend to do?”
“We intend to move these vehicles and come through here... Go on our way... But we'll be coming back too,” Conner said.
Adam nodded. “We could help with that... Start from the other side and meet in the middle... Maybe then, once you got all of yours back together, you can decide whether we sit down and talk or not.” He fixed Conner with his eyes once more.
“Alright,” Conner nodded. “I can't speak for everyone... But we have some of ours sitting about a quarter mile back who are probably worried right now, once we have all of us safely through this we can talk it out... You're not with the group we talked to yesterday then? I assume not or you would have mentioned it by now. That and you would be where they said they were, not here.”
“There are others up in here somewhere too?” The one called Billy asked.
Conner nodded. “If it ain't you. We heard from them last night... We planned to meet them later this morning.”
“In the woods too?” Adam asked.
“No... Little town down the road,” Conner answered.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 82