Earth's Survivors: box set

by Wendell Sweet

  Sandy, Janna, Susan, Annie and Lilly were all paying attention as well. Sandy leaned closer and traced one of the lines across Katie's wrist and up the under side of her arm before it died away. “Was it deep,” Sandy whispered, and before Katie answered, “What was it?”

  “Yes. It was deep. I tripped and fell into a plate glass window. I was little. I put my hands out as I was falling. Only this hand got there in front of me before I hit the glass.” She sighed. “It did stop my head and my neck from going through the glass. It was close though.”

  “It could have killed you. Cutting there, if it was really deep,” Sandy said.

  “It did,” Katie said. “Deader than a door-nail, as my Uncle Ike used to say.” She nodded at the shocked looks. “They, my parents, got me to the hospital, and I'd lost too much blood, but once they got the blood in me again my heart started right back up with just a few compressions. C.P.R., No shock, and not much C.P.R. either. The rhythm was good. Freaked out everybody.” She paused. “I know... I know because I watched the whole thing. I watched them load me in the ambulance. I watched them drive me to the hospital. I watched them rush me down the corridor to surgery, cutting off my clothes as they went. My mother running alongside trying to keep up... Hysterical. I saw it all,” Katie said.

  “Wow,” Lilly said after a short silence.

  “So what did you see, Dear. I mean, what else was there? What happened,” Janna asked.

  “It was weird. I was watching myself from above. God, or whoever, the big boss, was behind me. I couldn't see her, but she talked to me and I heard everything she said. Every question I had, she answered. She told me everything there was to know. That's the best way I know to explain it. I wasn't worried. I wasn't sad. I didn't miss my parents, my friends. I knew they would be right where I was eventually.”

  “Then the nurse tricked me. She kept talking to my body... For a few days, every time she came in for her shift she would come in and spend time talking, touching me, brushing my hair, stroking my arm while she held my hand in her own. Telling me to wake up. Tapping the sides of my face. She did it this one night, and I just opened my mouth to tell her to stop and that was it. I was sucked right back into my body. I was so mad. I was even madder when they didn't believe where I had gone, but when I told them how it had been, the things I had seen them do, the things they said, they were shocked. Mom accused the nurses of telling me. Dad accused mom. Stupid. They just could have accepted it: Believed it, but no one did except my Nana Pan. She looked in my eyes and said, “I believe you, Magomusume,” means granddaughter,” Katie explained. “She believed me. Made me sit down and tell her all of it.” Katie said.

  “How do you say it... Say it again, Dear,” Janna said.

  “Mahgo-moo-sah-may, Magomusume,” Katie repeated slower.

  “Magomusume,” Lilly said. “The kids will love it.”

  “I'm sorry no one else believed you, Kate, but it's hard to accept unless you have been there,” Amy said.

  “Have you,” Katie asked.

  “No. Well, not exactly. I fell out of a tree when I was little. It knocked me out. Knocked the breath out of me as well. My parents rushed me to the hospital, but I didn't see what was going on, instead I went to a little park. Some ladies were sitting around. Kids everywhere. One of the ladies saw me, she smiled and called me over to her. I wasn't afraid. She told me I couldn't stay, it wasn't my time, but that she was glad I came to visit. She told me her name was Sarah and she said she would be there the next time, when it was my time. I made her promise. She did too, and then she showed me the way back. I went right from there to waking up in the emergency room,” Amy finished.

  “That's the same,” Lilly said. “You left your body.”

  Katie nodded agreement.

  “When I was a little girl I was riding on the tailgate of my Uncle Ralph's pickup truck and took a header.” Susan said. “Lucky I didn't break my neck. I did break my collar bone and two fingers. And I was out and having trouble breathing, I guess. I had asthma, went away when I got older. The shock, the hay in the field we were riding through may have bought on the attack. Whatever it was, my parents took me to the hospital.”

  “I couldn't see anyone, but I could hear everything they said about me, I just didn't care. I was sitting by this stream watching all these beautiful fish swimming by in the current. And this nun was there holding my hand. And then she just turned to me and said, 'Susan, it's time to go,' and that was it. I woke up,” Susan said. “I haven't told that to anyone,” She finished shyly.

  “I've read stuff like that too,” Katie said. “So, in other words, I believe... There is something else. Even a God. It's all real, just a different kind of real than here.”

  “Hey,” Craig said from the doorway. “What's the chance of getting some of that coffee?”

  Amy patted one hand against her chest. “Jesus. You scared the hell out of me,” She told him.

  “Me too,” Katie said. “We're just a bunch of pregnant ladies sitting around.”

  Craig laughed. “I'm sorry,” he said. “You know I went through something like that as a kid,” he added.

  “Really,” Lilly asked. She was having trouble getting up.

  Craig offered one hand and easily pulled her to her feet.

  “Thank you,” Lilly told him.

  “So what was it,” Katie asked.

  ~

  Cindy helped James change the water in the large chests that held the crayfish, crabs and mollusks. They were all lively except two which they fished out and tossed into the lake.

  Jake, James, and Cindy muscled the full chests up onto the back of the wagon. There were a dozen other plastic chests full of dried, smoked fish. And another large amount that was wrapped in plastic they had bought with them.

  Sharon and James had spent a good deal of time that early morning scouring the area for herbs. Showing Cindy how to tell one from the other. Digging up whole specimens, roots and all, for transplanting. They packed them into the plastic and cardboard containers they had bought the worms in.

  They found more than a dozen they would be taking back for transplanting in the gardens back at the cave next spring. They would spend the fall and winter inside in a huge herb garden Janna and Sandy had started in the cave common area. It was close to the huge glass windows James had built into the front wall, so they would get the sunlight, but they would be in the area that would be heated by the huge central fire all winter. They should do well through the cold months until they could be transplanted in the spring.

  They moved out at mid morning and started the trek back. They were one horse short for the larger wagon, but since the trip back was on mostly level ground, James just made sure they took the return trip slower so that it would not be too difficult for the horse that was doing the pulling.

  James had called Janna to let her know they would be a little slower coming back and she had filled him in on the other death. It bothered him that he had been away when the whole thing had happened. It bothered him too that someone had come and died, and he would never meet them. Two someones, he reminded himself. So far he had met everyone who had come to their settlement in the mountains. The Nation as they had begun to call it. There were thirty other parties that had come so far. Five graves that held the remains of those who had turned or could have turned. Seven now, he told himself. At least they had, had a place for these last two and a few before them. At the first they had had none. They had taken the bodies far into the other valley and buried them.

  Cindy came up beside him as he walked. “James?” she asked.

  He shook himself from the dark mood he had been heading into. “At your service,” he joked.

  Her face was serious. “What's to stop us from damming that low rocky area down in the second valley and making a little lake,” She asked.

  Her question took him by surprise. “Well... Ahh. I don't see any reason we couldn't... Catfish pond? Is that it?”

  “And Crayfish, crabs,
bullheads, even trout, right?” She smiled.

  “I don't see why not,” James agreed. “You're a thinker, Cindy. I like that,” James laughed. “I believe we have a project. There's certainly a lot of land there. More than enough. Solve a problem for me too, a pond for the cows and the deer... Make it shallow in one area. I've been worried about the stream. They could get in, go too deep, better to have a controlled area,” He smiled and his mouth snapped shut. “Guess I'll shut up now. I love it. I will help do it,” he promised.

  Cindy laughed along with him.

  Conner

  On The Road

  They stopped at a huge truck dealership on the outskirts of some nameless city. A large area of parking lot was relatively intact and they could see for a mile or two in either direction.

  One of the Jeeps was giving them trouble. Chloe was driving it, and twice the overheating light had come on. It had a burned rubber smell to it. Aaron thought it might be a good idea to swap out all three Jeeps since they had all been used hard and were beginning to show it.

  He didn't mention that they may as well get something that would last a long while because they had both decided they would never come back, but it was in Conner's mind.

  They worked their way through the lot carefully. Two dead were flushed by Josh hiding on the side of a van, but it was over quickly. Josh and Richard both opened up point blank. By the time the others arrived the dead were once again dead. Even so it was unnerving. And something close to depression seemed to descend on all of them.

  They stayed together and found three pickup trucks that fit their needs. They were mid-sized four wheel drive units, virtually untouched and relatively easy to get to. The pickup bed was a joke, Adam pointed out. Not full size or even close to it. They were really no longer than the Jeeps. There wasn't much they could carry.

  The cabs were small with just two bucket seats, passenger and driver, and they sat up much higher than the jeeps, but they were wider and that gave them a good feel. The tires were wider and taller, and Conner wondered if they had been especially built for something.

  The stickers in the windows told the tale. There had been six specially ordered for the Marshall County Beach Patrol, where ever that was. Of the six, four were still there. They got them out, charged up and filled. They spent some time switching over the tow bars as well as filling all the other vehicles from the dealership's underground tanks. The gas quality seemed to be pretty good. The smell of Gasoline strong when they popped the caps on the vent tubes.

  By the time they had gassed all the trucks; decided to cut one of the other pickup trucks out for the fourth Beach Patrol truck, the sun was beginning to sink from the sky.

  They had passed a herd of small beef cows down the road. Conner had laughed at them. They were the smallest cows he had ever seen. The cows they had back in the Nation were huge. Some well over twenty five hundred pounds. These cows looked to be three or four hundred tops.

  Josh explained that they were purposely bred to be small. Designer cows, if you will, Josh had joked. Downsized to better stand the heat, and for smaller farm operations, and although they looked like lightweights compared to the cows Conner was used to seeing they were closer to six or seven hundred pounds, give or take. While most of them were setting up the new trucks, Josh and Aaron had taken the Pickup down the road and found the herd.

  About the time they were finished setting up the new trucks, the two of them were back with fresh beef. They had found a cornfield growing wild nearby and picked ears of corn and bought those back with them as well.

  They found a relatively empty area of asphalt, circled the trucks, and began to settle in for the night. The only thing Conner didn't like about it was the woods, which were no more than a quarter of a mile away. Thick Kudzu vines hung from the trees and snaked away through the fields. Many creeping onto the asphalt of the parking lot.

  “They imported it from Japan back in the fifties,” Dustin said from beside him.

  “The vines?” Conner asked.

  Dustin nodded. “The highway department in some southern town, the details escape me, but I read about it. They thought it would be great. The problem they were having was that the soil from highway and work projects got washed away before the growth could stabilize it. Kudzu worked great. Roots fast and deep. Grows fast. Did everything they wanted it to do.”

  “Shit is growing like a damn weed now,” Adam said as he walked up.

  “It's been like that since they planted it. Cost millions of dollars in maintenance each year cutting it back. Cut it back on Tuesday and it's growing again on Thursday. Now that there's nothing to stop it, it'll probably cover everything in a few years... Like a jungle,” Dustin finished.

  Conner nodded. “Well. We're going to have to keep a close eye on that treeline... If there had been enough daylight left we could have gone over there and checked it out... Just feels like a good place for them to hide, if it weren't so late I'd...” He broke off as several dead lunged from the tree line in the twilight and headed for them.

  “Son of a bitch,” Conner said as he shrugged his machine pistol into his hands.

  “Dead in the trees,” Adam's bass voice yelled out.

  The noise was instant, and the flash of gunfire lit up the twilight. They were all firing hard and fast and it took Conner a second to realize that someone was yelling above the roar of the gunfire. He turned away from the wood line and that was when the first of the dead came over the hood of the nearest truck and jumped at him. He yelled as he turned his gun and fired. All hell broke loose after that.

  Conner drove the barrel of his gun into the zombies head, and only barely got it lined up to do it before he found himself on the ground, the zombie biting at him as he went down, missing by scant inches. Conner pulled the trigger and the zombies head exploded in a spray of black: Almost like a fog in the air that seemed to hang there, Conner thought, as he made it back to his feet and ran at another zombie climbing over the hood of a truck near him. He realized then that the fog had stayed with him. In his eyes, he knew, and he hoped that it could not infect him that way. He squeezed the trigger briefly and the zombie climbing over the truck flew back from the hood.

  He stiffened his knees to slow his momentum and the coming collision with the fender of the truck. He managed to catch himself without losing his balance and sprawling over the hood of the truck. He got himself turned and Chloe began to scream: Even as he began to turn he knew the zombie's from the woods were gone. That had been a distraction. He began to think then that they had thought out their attack. Later he was positive.

  Chloe's rifle came up and she fired almost as soon as Conner had found her with his eyes. Conner's head spun trying to track what she was watching. He saw it all in a short burst. Less than a second.

  Two zombies scrambled over the hood of one of their own trucks. Alice was between them. Already bitten. They gnashed their teeth and bit as they tried to drag her off. She clawed and fought. Conner's own gun started up, but another spoke from behind him. All three blew apart in front of him and then the silence fell hard for a few seconds. The stench of gunpowder hung in the air. A blue-gray haze hung heavy in the air. The daylight was hanging by a thread.

  Alice's body slid off the hood of the truck and slumped to the ground. The next gunshot came as a surprise. Conner spun around to find George collapsing to the ground. One hand held to his stomach. Blood streaming over his fingers as he toppled over. Brad, Alice's brother turned to Adam and his rifle started to come up.

  Aaron yelled Adam's Name. The words came from Aaron's mouth at nearly the same time that his rifle bucked in his hands. Conner watched it all happen in slow motion. He had simply reacted. Adam finished turning and watched as Brad flew back and slammed into the fender of a nearby car. His eyes moved from Brad to Aaron whose rifle was still clutched tightly in his hands. Barrel smoking. He had called out Adam's name and then fired. Chloe rushed over to George but he was clearly gone. Debbie came from a crouch near
the fender of a truck and stumbled to her feet. Her eyes were wide and shocked. The others stood slowly and looked around.

  The dead were gone. Run off into the shadows of the lot, faded back into the trees. Chloe began to stand from where she had crouched by George. She had not made it fully to her feet when his leg twitched and he started to move, his hand reaching out to grab at her. Three rifles spoke quickly and his head blew apart splattering Chloe as she tried to spring back, too late. She collapsed onto the ground and began to sob. Debbie came over, pulled her into her arms and began to cry softly with her. Conner spun and kicked the fender of a truck with one heavy boot, crushing it inward.

  “Easy, Baby,” Adam said in his bass rumble. “Easy.” He walked to Chloe and pulled her to her feet. “Crying don't cut it,” he told her. “I'd like to give you that luxury, but I can't. Out here this is the way it is. I've lived with it for the last several months.” He pulled Debbie up too. “You had to do it and you did. And a good goddamn thing you did it fast too... No telling how many more of us might have gotten dead if you hadn't.” He turned to George and Brad. “Did anybody see what that was about?”

  “George shot her too,” Debbie said. “So Brad shot him... I don't know from there... She was his sister... I suppose...” She was still upset and her voice hitched and caught as she spoke.

  “Can't have that shit,” Adam said. His voice boomed out.

  “Adam's right,” Conner said loudly. “Does anybody here want to be a zombie, because if they had gotten her over the hood of the car that's exactly what would have happened to her. She was on the way already... They already had her,” his voice lowered. “Listen... Let's get some fires going... Right now... Then we're going to lay out the ground rules for the rest of this trip...Adam?” He waited until Adam looked at him.

  “I don't know... You do... I should have already done this, but you're going to tell us what we need to do to get our heads out of our asses so we can get home in one goddamn piece.” Adam nodded slowly. He turned back to the others. “Fires, dinner, then we talk this out. Meanwhile, watch everywhere... Hard.”