Slightly farther on were pear trees, oranges and banana. The pear trees were doing fine. The orange and Banana they had little hope for. Janna had talked about trying to grow them in green houses, but they lacked the materials to do that and with winter coming James was sure that they would probably die before they could get them into an environment where they could survive. For now they seemed to be fine. The severity of the fall and winter would tell.
Blackberries, Blueberries growing wild, and grapes and raspberries they had planted with the hopes that they would take and mature within a few years.
The day was pleasant. The sun was hot with no hint of what the winter to come would be like.
They made their way to the barn. Put away the teams and harnesses. By then it was late afternoon and they made their way up to the main cave.
On The Road
Josh and James pitched in to help set up the tents. They had decided they would probably be better off staying put. It was late in the day and they probably wouldn't make a lot of headway anyway. And, in any event, Conner told himself, they were not in any really big hurry. Things were obviously much different from what they had suspected.
One day would not hurt them. After they set up the tents they could drive to the old farm store and check out the rear storage warehouse where James was positive he had seen a fairly large disassembled portable saw mill.
Molly seemed very quiet and Nell was still in the van with Chloe. Conner caught Molly's eyes.
“Go ahead,” Molly told him. “I'll wait here,” she turned to Josh. “If you want to leave Rich and Alicia that's okay,” she assured him.
Josh nodded thank you. “You sure,” Conner asked her.
She put one hand on his sleeve and patted his arm. “It's just thinking about it. It'll pass. The kids will cheer me up and I'll feel much better when Nell comes out of there, hopefully with Chloe feeling better... Go,” she pushed his arm away. “Go and see about that sawmill.” She patted her belly. “Nellie and I are going to need to put an addition on. We'll need that sawmill.” She smiled and most of her real self came back from the dark place she had gone to. The tension bled away from her face.
Conner felt relief. Molly turned away and he jumped back in to helping Aaron set up tents. They left shortly after as the day was moving toward afternoon. Conner, Aaron, Dustin, Adam, Josh and James.
Undead
She stopped and scented the air. The vehicles were miles ahead, but it didn't matter. She would be able to follow their trail days from now as easily as she followed it now. She had stopped because she had scented more of her own. The question now was whether to follow or gather.
She had no doubt she would eventually follow them back to where ever it was they ended up... The living, she knew, gathered together. Not like the dead did. The dead gathered, but only for purpose, not social safety. The dead were afraid of nothing at all. The living seemed to be afraid of everything. They seemed to live in fear of everything, so wherever they ended up there would be others living there, wherever that turned out to be. She was only one, and a days travel away there were more who would follow her, and if she scented them, then they knew about her too.
Even now they were following her scent, her thoughts on the air. Questioning... Wondering if she would come to them. They were newly dead. They had no leader, but they were willing. Just waiting to be collected. They would follow her wherever she intended to go.
It meant that her position had changed. With the death of their leader she was no longer a soldier, just a follower... She was now a leader. It wasn't something that just fell to her, it was a duty that called to her. An urge that pulsed in the strange blood that flowed through her veins. She had been considering it like she had a choice to make, but very little of it was her own choice or free will. Nearly all of it was for the whole. The collective. The hive. All apt descriptions, although none of those descriptors really did it justice.
She turned to the west one last time scenting the air. She could smell blood on the air. It traveled with them. And it interfered with her thoughts to a degree. A newly dead may have followed that scent and its allure. She would not. She turned away and a few moments after that she was loping through the darkening forest following the scent of her own kind.
On The Road
The farm store had suffered more damage while they had been gone. Several sections that had been damaged had been slowly settling. Wet timbers, wind and more rain had helped to collapse a few more areas. They stood on the highway, the Jeeps parked in a tight cluster, and looked over the collection of buildings that had once been a farm store.
“What do you think, Adam,” Conner asked.
“I think there are some in there.” He looked over the buildings. He pointed with one massive hand, index finger extended. His voice was lower, just above a whisper when he spoke again. “See all that green growth up close to the buildings? That's all wrong. That would have been eaten by the deer. The deer are everywhere. We just passed a few down the road. You see the way they keep it down. It doesn't get a chance to grow.” He looked around at the fields that marched off in both directions.
“The fields are high... Cows... Deer... Horses... You don't see it like this anywhere else cause they keep it down, but they don't want to come here to eat. The dead. They smell them and it keeps them away. They're in there all right.”
Conner sighed and nodded. “Okay... Aaron,” he started. Adam interrupted.
“Look... It's not so bad. Let me show you something.” He looked around at the Jeeps and the fuel cans that were mounted at the back. “Help me to gather some wood... Doesn't have to be a lot.”
A few minutes later he and Dustin had gathered a pile of wood and set it up in the middle of the highway upwind from the buildings. Adam doused it with gasoline and then walked back to Conner. The rest gathered around.
“They're gonna come out the back. They're afraid of fire. It's one constant that is always in our favor. The wind takes the smoke down to the building and they'll run,” Adam told him.
“Wakes them up,” Conner asked. “Gets them running?”
Adam shook his head. “No. And don't kid yourself. Right now they're down there wondering what we're up to. They're not sleeping. They know we're out here and they're just wondering whether we're going to come for them. Don't underestimate them.” He took a deep breath. “I would get people on both sides and out back. Mow those bastards down as they run... Don't know how many there are, but we can get most of them,” Adam finished grimly.
Conner stood for a second. “Josh, take James and cover the left side and I'll take the back with Aaron. Dustin, take the other side with Adam.” A second later they were all running off to their positions and Adam approached the pile of gasoline soaked wood and tossed a lit wooden kitchen match at it before he turned and sprinted for the side where Dustin waited.
The Farm store was really two large steel building joined together at right angels. They had taken the earthquakes with relatively little damage. Cracks in the concrete base of the foundations. A few sections that had been too damaged to stand had collapsed from the weather. At the rear of the building, where they had removed the large steel doors that led into the warehouse the last time they had been here, the building seemed much the same to Conner as he stood waiting. The wind shifted though, and the smell of rot and corrupted flesh came to him, nearly gagging in its intensity. He looked over at Aaron, probably intending to say something, but a split second after he looked away the first of the dead spilled from the building and they were nearly on him before his finger found the trigger and began to fire.
Aaron walked a straight line into them firing as he went. Conner moved off further to the left and mowed down the ones that got past Aaron. He could hear firing on the other side of the building too, and wondered how bad it could be. How many there were.
He had no sooner had the thought when something hit him hard in the shoulder and drove him back.
One of the de
ad had come at a run from the side of the building and launched itself at him while still more than twenty five feet away. It came flying through the air. Mouth yawning. Teeth gnashing, faster than Conner would have thought possible. He forced himself to fight down the panic as he tried to turn.
His left leg buckled as it tripped over the broken pavement and he nearly went down before he caught himself, but the stumble cost him. The one that had hit him was picking itself up from the ground for a second assault; Conner thrust his rifle forward and squeezed the trigger, but the zombies head slid down along the barrel and his teeth, gnashing and tearing took off the end of Conner's index finger. He screamed swung to his left and kicked out. A second later he was firing point blank into the zombie where it lay on the ground. A second after that silence descended.
Conner came up from the crouch he had found himself in. The ground in front of the rear doors was littered with a half dozen dead. He reached down and pinched off the blood flow tightly on his finger with his other hand. The rifle swung freely. “Aaron!” He yelled at the top of his lungs. Aaron stood from his own crouch, turned and then came running over as he saw the blood dripping from Conner's hand to the ground.
“Jesus... Jesus, Aaron... Get your knife. Get it right now.” Aaron slowed to a stop, let his own rifle swing free and began to reach for his knife, but before he could reach it Adam stepped around him. His own knife in his hand.
“Hold him,” Adam told him, when Aaron hesitated Adam screamed at him. “Fuckin' hold him! Right now!” Aaron rushed forward and wrapped his arms around Conner. Adam reached down, yanked the finger from Conner's own grasp, and began to cut. Conner screamed into the late afternoon silence that had descended after the gunfire.
~
“I think it's fine,” Adam said a short time later looking over Conner's hand. He had taken the finger where it joined the hand A couple of crude stitches and his hand looked as though it had never had an index finger at all. The others stood around in silence, occasionally looking around at the bodies of the dead that littered the ground where they had fallen, half expecting that they might rise again. As it was, Dustin, Josh and James had gone around the building looking over the ones that had fallen and searching out stragglers. They had found two of the dead trying to pull another into the tall grass. The one they were dragging was still alive. Impossibly so to Dustin, since it had nothing from the chest down. They opened up on all three and they were soon dead on the ground along with the others, for the last time.
They searched the rest of the building. There were two more that they shot in the head as they lay, teeth clashing, or crawled toward the high grass, half their bodies missing but somehow still alive. When they had come back Adam had taken off Conner's finger and he was stitching the wound closed. Dustin had watched even though he hadn't wanted to. A liberal application of antibacterial cream and bandaging finished the job. Dustin wondered just what they were going to do when you couldn't just pick up a tube of antibiotic cream in nearly any department store you rummaged through. Die of simple infections? Probably, he decided.
They had all huddled in silence for a few moments. Adam didn't give Conner back his rifle and when he went to reach for it he stopped his hand.
“Not yet,” Adam told him. “I saw nothing... It starts as what looks like little black capillaries spreading away under the skin... Then the skin turns white, like it's sucking away the life as they travel. They'll work their way across your body...”
Conner only nodded.
“I'm positive I got it. You clamped it off fast, I cut it fast... But you sit for an hour... Two, and if there's nothing you'll be good to go.” Adam turned to the others. “Bad fuckin' way to introduce you to this... Listen. You can't turn your back on these bastards at all. They're stronger, pound for pound than we are. They can kill you with a little bite you might not even feel.” He seemed to think for a few minutes.
“Back a few months ago a friend of mine took it like that. We ran into a mess of them. One got past him. He got it before it bit him. He was positive... I was positive. But we're sitting by the fire a short time later. He has this little dirt spot on his finger, he thinks... Tries to wipe it off, only it don't want to come off. And that's when he sees the little lines... Already they're running up his arm. He flips out, rips off his jacket, shirt, but they're already running across his shoulder and into his chest...” Adam stopped and looked around. “So... an hour... Two, but I think you're okay.” He looked at Aaron. “You're his friend... He needs a friend right now... The rest of us are going to check the building out... Might be a few stragglers, might be none. You're gonna sit here with him...” His eyes held Aaron's. “You can do it?”
Aaron looked at Conner and then back up at Adam. “Yeah.” Aaron said. He knew Adam was asking more. A deeper question. “Yeah,” he repeated. He turned back to Conner, settled down to the ground across from him. His eyes followed Adam and the others as they walked away and then they came back to Conner.
“Don't fuck around if you have to do it,” Conner told him.
“No,” Aaron agreed.
~
The warehouse turned out to be empty. An hour later they were searching through the building that James had been sure he had seen the sawmill in.
The sawmill turned out to be one of six. Three different models. Dustin chose, selecting the two heavy duty ones. One to set up, the other for spare parts. They also got several replacement saw blades. The small propane powered fork lift they had used before took a great deal of convincing getting it going. They replaced the tank and ended up having to jump it with one of the Jeeps to get it running. It ran for a few minutes and then ran out of propane. The tank they had swapped had not been a full one. It took some searching to find a full tank. But after they hooked it up it started right up.
They picked two trucks the size of the ones they had used the first time. The forklift made short work of loading the two sawmills. Since there was still a great deal of daylight left they began loading grain, feed and other things that were on their lists. A selection of fruit trees and more kept them busy into the afternoon.
~
Aaron sat quietly. More than an hour had passed. He and Conner had said very little. “How does it feel,” Aaron asked at last. “Seems like it would feel some certain way if... Well if it was turning,” Aaron finished quietly.
“Feels the same. Like somebody cut my finger off,” Conner said. He frowned and then laughed, startling Aaron into laughter as well.
“Yeah,” Aaron managed after a second. He leaned forward; his knife flashed and the cloth of Conner's shirt purred as it separated. Aaron's knife traveled upward. Aaron studied the skin as it was exposed to the failing light.
~
Adam turned as Conner and Aaron walked up. He nodded. “Don't thank me. Just hate me for taking your finger,” he said. He grinned. Conner answered it.
“Had me a little worried,” Aaron said.
Behind Adam the others where loading the truck. It was still far from full. Adam looked over at the truck and then back. “Could have been a lot worse.” He said.
Conner nodded. “And you would have made Aaron shoot me.”
“Better Aaron than me,” Adam said. The silence held. Adam shrugged Conner's rifle from his shoulder. “Gonna be a little tough to shoot one handed for the next bit of time.”
“Yeah... Well, I wouldn't be shooting at all if not for you,” Conner said.
Adam looked away. “Best get back at it.” He looked up at the sky. “Afternoons going.”
Conner shrugged his rifle back up over his shoulder, grimacing a little as he did. Thee three of them walked over to the truck that was being loaded.
~
The trucks were rapidly being loaded, they had already switched to the second truck. Two large loads of dimensional lumber went on the second truck nearly filling it.
“Hey,” Conner said. He was standing next to a particular piece of equipment. The others wandered over. “Da
mn... I'm not sure. If James were here he'd know for sure,” he said.
“Know what,” Dustin asked.
“Know if this is one of those whatchamacallits... You know, they go through a field of hay and strip out the grain... If it is, we could really use it. But if it's not one of those... Whatever they are, then we don't need it.”
Josh laughed. “It is,” he said.
“Huh?” Conner said.
“It is... It is a whatchamacallit,” Josh said. “Or as we farmers call it, a grain harvester. This is a small tow behind unit. I know... It looks huge, but there are self contained units much bigger than this.”
Conner grinned. “You're a farmer?”
Josh smiled back. “Yeah. A working farm too.”
Conner looked confused.
“That only means a real farm. Pigs, chickens... Milk and beef cows. Crops. The whole nine,” he said.
“Man is James gonna love you,” Aaron said.
“Yeah,” Dustin agreed. “He pretty much has to teach everybody what to do.”
“Does that mean you're coming back with us,” Aaron asked.
Josh nodded. “No question in my mind. It'll be good for the kids. Hell, it'll be good for me too.”
“Well,” Conner said, “lets get this baby on the truck.”
It took re-positioning the trees and a few other things, but once they made a hole the harvester loaded right up. It was made to be pulled by a tractor, but Josh said it could easily be converted to be pulled by a team of horses or oxen.
Josh was impressed that they had oxen, used them and were happy with them.
“I've never used them... It's a lost art,” He laughed.
The rest of the afternoon slipped by. Once they had filled the trucks they left the cracked parking lot and the dead behind, heading for the empty field and dinner.
The Nation
“Absolutely no fair,” Lilly said.
“She thinks I'm going to get bigger than you are,” Katie told her.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 85