“They wander here as well. Do you have a defense?”
“Arms as best we can,” Towne replied.
“Do you have an inoculation against infection?”
“No. We haven’t been able to develop one.”
“Do you have a cure for the virus?” O’Shea asked. He sat back in his chair, turned to look at me. “Do we offer him the formulas if he wants them?” he asked.
“We ought to. Just to be human.”
“They find out this was a terrorist attack, they may not be very appreciative.” O’Shea said.
I thought for a few seconds. “I realize that, but if Homo Sapiens is going to survive, we need to help as many of us out as we can.”
The screen lit up again.
“You have such a thing?” Towne asked.
“Yes,” O’Shea answered. “Developed from the test subjects and found the origins of the virus. We reverse engineered it from that.”
Another long pause.
“As a doctor, we need the data.”
“We’ll make arrangements,” O’Shea typed.
“It was a created synthetic, then? As we heard?”
“Yes.”
“The old world, we were insane.”
“I agree,” O’Shea typed. “I’m sorry about this. No one knew until we found the facility after the outbreak. We never would have found it but by sheer luck, or the Grace of God, if you believe that stuff.”
“We won’t discuss these things, but I thank you for the help.”
I laid my hand on Doc’s shoulder and let myself out of the room. He and Pepper could transfer the records from here. I had things to do. I met with Tom and Wallace. We discussed a distribution system for the anti-zed juice. Tom wanted to go on the offensive with the juice, now that he had a way to deliver mass quantities of it. He had several swarms on the Iowa side of the river he wanted to hose down. We agreed that would be a good idea. He had the helicopters and the artillery to deliver the product on target. As for my group, we would keep what we had left for defense. We didn’t have much of a zed population left in the area, according to the scouts.
“Lieutenant Wallace, what can we do to arm your group better and bring you and your area into the Alliance?” Tom asked.
“We’ve got a lot of AKs and Soviet era rifles. A few AR-15s and the National Guard boys from Dubuque have their M-16s. We need some consistency.”
“I know where there’s a stash of captured arms brought back from Iraq from the first Gulf War. Crates of several hundred rifles and a number of pallets of ammo for them. We can fly them up to you in a week or so.”
Wallace sat back in his chair. We were in the office at the library. I couldn’t call it my office yet. It still had Kenny’s fingerprints all over it. For a long moment, Wally didn’t say anything.
“Thank you, Colonel Jackson. Would it be possible to get some mortars as well and some of the shells to disburse the gas with?”
“Absolutely,” Tom answered.
They talked more. It sounded like things were coming together well. Tom walked me home afterwards. Wallace followed. We would take him and Cherry home in the morning with his studs. A truck and trailer were already fueled up and waiting. It was decided that we didn’t want someone as valuable as Wally getting eaten on the way home. Tom told me that Tami and the baby were doing well. His new daughter, Maria, was growing like a weed. They were going to start trying for another in six months. It was strange to be discussing these things; life sounded so normal, but we were as normal as we’d be for a long time.
Wallace was quiet as we turned up our block. The sun was falling behind the valley walls. Turkey vultures rode the currents overhead as they looked for a place to roost for the night. I gave Tom a hug as I walked through my yard. Pepper was already home. Ella’s horse was in the yard, eating grass with Billy Jaques’ horse. We had company for supper. Wallace excused himself across the street, Tom headed for his choppers. I climbed the steps to the porch. Home again, home again, jiggity jig.
I don’t remember much about the dream. I came awake with a gasp, but didn’t jump straight up. Time in the field taught me that. My eyes took in the pitch black of the room—we still didn’t run street lights—and I reached across Cindy for the flashlight we kept on the nightstand. She mumbled protests into her pillow, until I snapped on the light and shone it in her face.
“Gads, Danny, have you lost your mind?” She held her hand up and tried to push the light away.
I waited for her to open her eyes. “You okay? You in there?” I asked.
“What? Yes, I’m fine.” With a grunt she started to sit up. Her eyes were clear.
I ran my hand over her belly. She was getting bigger every day. Her skin was soft and smelled of cocoa butter. From the other side of the bed, Pepper mumbled into her pillow.
“What about the baby? Is the baby okay?”
“Danny, everything is fine. What the heck is going on?”
I clicked off the light and flopped back onto the bed. “I thought I lost you. I dunno, something about you and the baby going zed. King Freddie was there too.” I wrapped my arm around her as she rolled over onto my chest.
“Fred’s dead. You shot him. My mind’s clear. Me and the baby are fine. No worries.” She nuzzled her cheek against me. “I can hear your heart.”
Pepper snuggled up against us from the other side. I fell back asleep.
The alarm went off with a crash at six o’clock. We rolled out of bed, dressed and headed out the door. Wallace and Cherry met us for breakfast. We were packed. For Cindy and me, it was only an overnight jump. We’d take Wallace, Cherry and the studs back up north, spend the night and head home. Easy. We were loaded by seven thirty and on the road a few minutes later.
We rolled out of the valley north toward Princeton. At the top of the hill and around a curve we found a nude corpse in the middle of the road. I slowed the truck. For a few seconds we sat there, then I pulled my rifle. Wallace and the girls followed. We swept the area, but saw nothing. The body was nailed to an orange and white barricade. No bullet holes, not many knife wounds, but the wounds from spikes pounded though the man’s biceps into a piece of four by four lashed to the barricade had bled into wide pools.
“It’s Havers,” Wallace said. “The black angel on his shoulder.” He pointed with the muzzle of his rifle.
“How the hell did he get down here?” Cherry asked.
“Mongols must have caught him. They were north of us when we left.” Wallace scanned the woods around us. “Probably wanted to know where I was.”
“Why would they want you?” I asked.
“I’ve shot more than a few of the bastards.”
“Ah.” I looked at Havers. He didn’t die easy. His eyes were gone, from crows or carved out, I couldn’t tell. No major wounds. The bastards had nailed him there and let him bleed out. Flies crawled up the coagulated blood that covered his legs; swarmed around the wounds.
“Where’s his cock?” Cindy asked.
Wallace glanced around at the body. “Looks like they cut it off and shoved it in his mouth before they gagged him. It’s been done before.”
I felt my stomach churn, but Cherry beat me to it. She gagged and puked onto the shoulder of the road.
“Either way, we have to move him.” I said around a throat full. Wallace nodded. We grabbed an end of the four by four, heaved and dragged the man into the ditch. We should have buried him, but we didn’t have time. We walked away. He simply became one of the millions of corpses to feed the scavengers.
“Next time someone wants to call in an airstrike against those bastards, call Tom,” Cindy said as she worried down a cuticle.
I nodded. We were north of Princeton headed for Savanna. It was quiet. A few times, we had to slow down to let cattle or deer wander across the road. Twice I had to stop completely as a herd of cows meandered across the asphalt. They looked at us with dumb eyes. Few had seen man and his machines.
We were just getting back
to speed, when I glanced in the mirror. Cherry slid over into Wallace’s side in the back seat.
“You okay?” he asked as he brushed a strand of hair away from her face.
She nodded. “Just queasy.”
Wallace kissed the top of her head. He looked up at me in the mirror. “You Snareville people put something in the water down here.” He grinned. She looked up at him and nodded. “Cherry’s pregnant.”
I laughed. We congratulated them. From there it was a better trip. We eased through Morrison. Decent sized town, sitting pretty empty. I’d heard rumors of a tiny band of survivors who lived there. We didn’t have any contact with them, didn’t see anyone as we slid down the silent streets. The town would be a perfect place for an ambush. There’s only one way all the way through town, but no one showed. Not even a random zed. Eerie.
I stopped the truck in a small town by the name of Thompson. There was a small produce stand beside the road. I pulled the rig in and waited a moment. No one showed, dead or alive, so I got out. Rifle in hand, I walked across the small lot. Cindy and the others followed, guns ready.
“Why?” Cindy asked as we stepped into the building.
“Kind of a tradition with me. Every time we passed through town as a kid, we’d stop and get something. There was always something going on here.”
We walked through the place. Nothing there. No rotten produce, no shirts on the racks. We did find a few shriveled seedlings scattered around. Apparently someone had raided the place early on and tossed the plants around. I ducked into a back room and found gold. Literally. There were cases of honey stacked on the floor. I grabbed a case and headed for the truck. Sweeteners were getting scarce. Some people were keeping bees, but the trade was still expensive. Cindy saw what I’d found and went to get as much as she could carry.
“Hey,” Wallace grinned as he stood from a corner of the room, “you break a hundred?” He held up a handful of bills. “I don’t think Robert Hill of Peoria will need it.” Part of a skeleton lay on the ground, pants around what was left of a set of legs.
“No, but you could save it for toilet paper. Now go grab a case of honey and throw it in the back of the truck.”
It was the last stop we made before we rolled into Savanna. I shut the truck off in a grocery store parking lot. Wallace tacked the studs and we went to talk to some of his people. They updated us on the raid from the Mongols. How Havers didn’t want to shut down his store. The Mongols grabbed him and no one had seen him since. They made a few runs against the walls, but were driven off. We gave them the news of Havers and the Mongol raid against us. We’d have a more thorough debriefing in the morning, but we needed to get to the island and get Wallace’s horses back where they belonged. A few minutes more and we waited for the ferry to come across the river.
Chapter 25
The ferry took them back across the river. Wallace’s studs bellowed greetings to their ladies. Mares scattered around the island whinnied back at them. Some trotted up to the main compound to see what was going on, foals in tow. Wallace himself was greeted much the same way. Ladies of the settlement welcomed him with open arms, the men with grins and slaps on the back. Cherry was brought into the circle as well and when it was offered up she was going to have a baby, congratulatory laughter went around the group.
Dan introduced Cindy to the group. It was obvious she was with child as well and like women everywhere, she headed off with the group to chat. Dan watched them walk away with a shake of the head. Two battle hardened women softened to giddy girls in the beat of a heart. The men however, decided that they needed to celebrate the news with a few drinks. Dan and Wallace joined the men at the trading post on the north end of the island. The home brew was better with this batch, Dan decided and as the afternoon progressed, he relaxed more than he had in years.
Talk of the day went from zombies and the way they now had to eliminate them and the Alliance, to the humdrum aspects to life: fishing was good in certain spots of the river. Trade from up north was coming faster now that ice was out and people were learning to negotiate the river again. Sebula had gained a small population of people. They had run from the far west of Iowa, most from around Council Bluffs, a few from Des Moines and Iowa City. A small population, a lot of kids in their teens and twenties and a few older folks, some of them parents, other grandparents of the group.
Dan sat and took it all in. This was a good group. All of Savanna was an asset, the people especially, to the Alliance. He was sure they would join officially, as would Dubuque. His area was growing. They’d start electing representatives soon. They’d have to lay down a few laws—mostly common sense and following the Constitution had gotten them through the last three years. It would work out. Survival was still not a guarantee, but they were a damned sight closer than they were even six months ago.
Another beer and Dan excused himself. He found Cindy as she wandered the compound looking for him. Her short blond hair reflected shades of gold in the afternoon sun. She smiled up at him. He took her hand, as he kissed her lightly on the lips. Together they walked off toward the south end of the island.
At the water’s edge, he peeled off his boots, tied the laces together and hung them over his shoulder. He sighed as his toes found the cool wet sand. Cindy quickly had her shoes off and joined him as they walked the beach. He laced his fingers back through hers and they continued their walk. Ahead of them, a small herd of mares grazed along the water’s edge. The mares were all bays and chestnuts, with one grey at the head of the group. She cropped the water grass with her dark foal.
“And a voice from the heavens said, ‘Come and see. And I saw and beheld a pale horse. The man who sat upon it was Death. And hell followed behind.’” Dan said as they walked toward the group.
“Revelations?” Cindy asked.
Dan looked down at her with a crooked smile. “That or Johnny Cash. Take your pick.”
She grinned back and nudged him with her shoulder. They took a few more steps. “Dan, you think this is the end of times? That this is our hell on earth?”
Dan said nothing at first and Cindy wondered if he was going to answer. Then he kissed her on top of her head, drank in her scent.
“I feel like Stu Redman.”
“Who?”
“Stu Redman. You know, from King’s book, ‘The Stand.’ Someone asked him about the same question. Best answer I can give is his.”
“Which was what?”
“I don’t know.” He kissed Cindy gently.
“When did you know you loved me?” she asked.
He laughed out loud. “I’m going to get whiplash talking to you.”
“Seriously. We’ve never had a normal relationship. I just wanted to know if there was a moment when you realized you loved me. That I was more than a broodmare.”
Dan smiled at her. “Of course you are more than that. You’re normal.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him.
“What I mean is that with Jennifer, it was like I was her Knight in Shining Armor because I’d saved her a couple times from the zeds. If I hadn’t done something like that, she never would have looked my way. She was from an upper crust family, married to an upper crust man. With Pepper, I love her and have I think since I found out she was a woman, but with her, it’s all blood and thunder. We fight like hell at times and work things out. With you, my dear, my love, it’s normal. You’re the first girl, ever, I can look in the eyes and not look away. Not feel like I have to hide something. Not like I have to be someone I’m not. You don’t know how much a relief that is.”
She smiled up at him, laced her fingers around his neck. “Thank you.” Her deep blue eyes were moist, tears threatened to fall. “I needed to know that. I’ve loved you since the first time we had lunch together.”
Dan thought for a moment. “You mean when you were sitting across from me with a mouth full of raw liver?”
“Aw, that’s sweet. You do remember.”
Dan laughed again. “I thought you ha
d the biggest screw loose in your head.”
Cindy chuckled. “Well, when your brain is half-cooked and you’ve been locked in a straitjacket for three years, you tend to forget how to function socially.”
“Glad you remembered,” Dan said softly.
“Me too.” Cindy stretched up, kissed him gently. He returned the kiss. Neither wanted to stop. The world slid away. Only the waves lapped at the sand. A bell echoed across the island and called them to supper. Dan slid his arm around her waist and together, they went in to eat.
Chapter 26
I woke up next morning, to birdsong. Not the usual roosters calling to one another across town. Not the clock blaring in my ears, but songbirds in the woods along the river. I rolled over gently in the bed. Cindy was still asleep. I could just make out her face in the dim light. I padded down the hall to the bathroom, listening to the house as I went. Either everyone was asleep, or out doing the morning chores. I cleaned up and slid back into bed.
I love it when Cindy sleeps naked. With no kids around, we have that freedom. With just the tips of my fingers, I traced the contours of her body; placed soft kisses along her neck, down to her breasts. She stirred, mumbled something in her sleep. I glanced up.
“Keep going,” she whispered, “Great way to wake up.”
I obliged her. My hands continued their route. The skin of her belly was soft, but she was starting to get a little more rounded every day. Her lips met mine as I slid my hand through the thick tangle of her mound, along the inside of her thigh. She moaned a little as I rolled over and pulled her on top of me. It was more comfortable for her this way and I liked being able to touch all of her. We didn’t want to wake the house, so quietly we made love, accompanied by the birds as they greeted the day.
Afterward, she lay on top of me, head on my chest, picking at the hairs. Every now and then she’d give a yank and I’d flinch. Odd little habit she had. She did the same with Pepper after their couplings, but lower down.
Snareville II: Circles Page 14