Chapter 30
The patrol was a week gone. Hawk was sending his reports at the end of each day. They were good. Brief. To the point. The man wasn’t wordy, but he knew what was important. It took them two days to get out of Peoria. They’d driven in on Route 29 and found the bridge over the Illinois River to be packed with dead vehicles. It was a burned out shell in general. Not much in the way of civilization left. What the zeds hadn’t killed off, the infighting between different groups had finished. They took side streets and drove over the skeletal remains of the population.
I figured the whole group was tight as a guitar string as they picked ways through town. Our illustrious government nuked both Champaign and Macomb three years ago in an effort to stop the outbreak. A year and a half later, we evacuated what was left of Chicago before the Navy dropped three Hades bombs on the city to eradicate the zombie population there. We knew those towns were cinders. The devastation in Peoria wasn’t a surprise, but it still made my heart sink a bit. I used to hang out there on a regular basis. Had buddies going to Bradley. From the sounds of it, there wasn’t much left to recommend it to the tourist bureau.
Half way through the second day, they found a neighborhood of survivors. They were a mixed population of every ethnicity that had been in the city. About thirty of them. Henry sent pictures with his report. It was nice to see living people mixed in with the devastation. The little band was making a go of it the best they could, but still didn’t have power or clean water. He moved them back up the river to Chillicothe and Hennepin in two smaller groups. They followed him up in a small convoy of cars they jump started. People in those little river towns agreed to take these new ones in, so long as they pulled their weight in the garden plots and daily living.
Ella came into my office as I was printing out the last of the reports. I had two sets. One went into the fire proof file cabinet Kenny had found and placed in his office. The other, I was taking with us.
“Brought the horse and cart around like you asked, Dad. Where you going?”
“We’re going out to Plow Ridge. I figured you’d want to come along.” I picked up the last sheet as it came out of the printer, stacked it with the others and gathered the rest of my things.
“Cool,” Ella said as we headed for the door. “Can I drive?”
I laughed. She sounded like a kid asking her dad for the keys to the car. The horse stood hitched to the rail in front of the library. The Mennonites had built several carts and buggies for use around town and between the three communities. We took the horses and carts to Princeton these days for the most part as well.
“Sure,” I said, “just don’t wear Jake out.”
She grinned as she undid the lines and climbed into the two wheeled buggy. I followed. Most of the horses in town were dual trained these days. Jake was my other saddle horse, but he took to the harness better than Cherokee did. With a flick of the reins, we were off.
We talked about little stuff at first. Who was seeing who. Who was going to have a baby. Who was trying to have a baby. I got caught up on the community’s gossip before we were a mile out of town. She chattered away like only a teenage girl could do. I felt so old sometimes and I wasn’t even thirty yet.
“Let me ask you something. You and Billy set a date yet? I haven’t forgotten our talk.”
She looked at me goggle eyed for a second. “I thought you had, Daddy. No, we haven’t set a date. It’s been a little busy since we got back.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She turned Jake up the hill along the creek. The gate was chained and locked. Someday, I hoped to be able to tear it down. For now though, it kept our rear pretty well protected. Jake trotted along the road. We’d walk him up the hill to get his wind back.
“You got nothing to be sorry about, Dad. Things have just been crazy. Not really in a bad way, either.”
I looked at my daughter and smiled. Her blond hair whipped in the breeze as she kept her eyes focused on the road. “Thank you. Someday, I’m hoping your kids don’t have to go through what we do just to get by.”
“It’s not horrible anymore, Dad. It’s actually pretty good most of the time. We just lost a lot.”
“Yeah.” I felt the grief start to rise up and shoved it down with the images of my family. “Now, about your impending nuptials. When and where do you want to do this?”
Ella laughed with just the pure joy of the moment. From there we discussed the details of a simple marriage. Our Community Church would be used. She wanted to use Pastor Zahr of the Mennonite church to conduct the service. I told her we would talk to him while we were here. She couldn’t set a date without discussing it with Billy, but we figured on a month at the outside.
The men at the gates waved us through. I figured Boss Connie would be in class at the small school on the east side of the community. Ella walked Jake past the communal houses where the unmarried people lived, though there wasn’t much of a population in those these days. The street then led past the main community church, the bakery, the cannery, the flour mill and then into residential areas. The homes were large. Usually an extended family lived under one roof. Until the First Year, a number of the homes had emptied of all but the senior members of the family, as the younger generations moved away. Now, third year in, families filled the homes again.
Ella pulled Jake into the yard of the school. Most of the kids walked from their homes or the fields to class, but there was a hitching post we tied Jake to. We stepped into the tidy, white building. The desks were full inside. Connie was in the second classroom. I had timed our visit so it would be near noon and class would let out for the day. She saw us in the back and went ahead and dismissed the group five minutes early.
A mixed group of high schoolers bolted for the door. Many were African American and Latina. They were from the Peoria school Connie had come from early in the Second Year. We settled them at Plow Ridge so they could put their lives back together. They’d adapted to the simple lifestyle well. The girls wore their hair up in buns covered in a white bonnet, learned to sew their blue dresses. What few boys survived with her group wore work clothes like the other young Mennonite men.
They laughed and shouted their hellos as they went past Ella and me. The girls all greeted one another and Ella went with a cluster of them, so long as she stayed close. They agreed to stay in the yard. Connie stood from behind her desk with a grunt. One hand rubbed her swollen belly, the other braced against the wood.
“You and Bill aren’t slowing down, are you?” I grinned as I walked to the front of the room. This would be their second in the two years she and Bill Yoder were married.
She smiled as I gave her a hug. “Like you and your wives are slowing down any yourselves. Pepper pregnant again yet?”
“No, it’s only been a couple weeks. She’s still healing both cuts.” I sat on the edge of the desk.
“She’s well then? Jenny?”
“Well as she can be. Jenny’s fine. Sleeps through the night mostly.”
“Is Cindy all right? I heard she was having some awful nightmares before the zombies came.”
“That problem was solved.” I glanced down, noticed there was a rock stuck in the slats under my feet. “The guy who was getting into her head is dead.”
“Ah.” Connie glanced away. She and her group had been out in the world before they found us. They had killed. They had used their bodies to trade with. She understood. “So, what did you bring me?”
Connie, being the teacher she was, had been keeping an account of things since the Outbreak. She had been the biology teacher in the Peoria high school she taught at, but told me she had a history minor. It was natural for her to record all of this and Kenny had started the idea of bringing reports to her from time to time. I figured this mission would be a good one for her to record. I handed her the copy of daily reports.
“I heard you sent people out,” she said as she thumbed through the papers. Her breath caught and she paused as she reached the pictures. They
weren’t the greatest quality. Hawk wasn’t a photographer, but she understood what she saw.
“So, Peoria’s gone.”
I nodded. “For the most part. What Hawk and his group found wasn’t worth much. Apparently most of the city had burned at different times. They found a small group down in East Peoria. Took them up to Hennepin and Chilli. After that, they just drove on. Nothing else they wanted to see.”
“So, that’s Chicago, Macomb, Champaign and now Peoria we know are wasted.”
“So far.”
“Four centers of commerce and learning.” She shook her head. I saw a small tear run from the corner of one eye. She palmed it away. “Since 9-11 I wondered what would happen if some large disaster hit. I guess we know.”
I put an arm around her shoulder. For some reason, I felt like crying too. “Look, Connie, we’re alive. We’ll go on. Our grandkids may wonder what those big wrecks of cities were, but the human race will survive.”
“I know. We’re flexible. We’ll adjust. We’ll rebuild. It’s just hard seeing so much devastation.”
I nodded in agreement. We went on looking through the reports. They were detailed enough that she shouldn’t have much of a problem recording them. We talked a little more as she walked me to the door. Pastor Zahr actually found us and came for a visit. The four of us discussed the goings on of our communities, as well as Ella’s nuptials. He agreed to marry the young couple and asked after my wives and other children. Overall, it was a good visit, but he did say that he would need to meet with me with some concerns of his community.
We climbed back into the cart and with a flick of the reins, we began to retrace our morning route. To the north, dark clouds built up over the rim of the valley. Looked like we were going to get a spring soaker. With a rumble of thunder at the bottom of the hill, Ella flicked Jake into a long trot. Ground fell away behind us; neither of us wanted to get wet. Another crack of lightning and a few random drops fell, cold and fat.
If the kid hadn’t flinched to cover his ears from the thunder as we turned past the gate, I never would have seen him. I caught a flash of movement and saw him curled near the gate. Ella pulled Jake to a stop as I squeezed her arm. I pulled my pistol from its holster, as Ella reached under the seat of the buggy for the riot gun we keep there.
Lightning struck again as I got to the gate. The kid twitched and whimpered. He had short-cropped blond hair and tattered clothes. That was about all I could tell about him. I hoped to hell this wasn’t a trap.
“Hey, kid,” I yelled over the storm as it built around me. “Hey, kid, c’mon. Look at me.”
He rolled his face around to see me. Panicked blue eyes looked up into mine. Okay, he was a good looking kid. About nine or ten.
“Good, good. Look, kid, we have to get out of this weather. You alright?”
He nodded his head, hand still over his ears. I looked around, gun at half port. Jake stomped on the pavement. He was getting antsy. This storm blowing up was going to swamp us. I didn’t see anyone else on the other side of the gate. I glanced around. Ella had the shotgun up, a line from Jake’s harness wrapped around her arm.
“Okay, kid…”
“Kevin.” The kid shouted over the storm.
“What?”
“Kevin, my name’s Kevin.”
I grinned. At least he could think. “Okay, Kevin. I’m going to open this gate. You have anyone with you?”
He shook his head. Damn, I hated this. Without a thorough search of the area, I didn’t like to open gates. But I didn’t want to leave this kid in the rain on the asphalt. I fished the keychain out of my pocket, sorted through them, slid the key into the padlock. I holstered the pistol, as Ella stood behind me. I pulled a free end of the log chain through the gate and swung it open just enough for Kevin to get in. He dove through, wrapped me in a bear hug as I relocked the gate.
More rain began to fall. I scooped the kid up, ran for the cart. Ella was a step ahead of me as she turned Jake loose. We raced the rain back to town. I could see it coming down in a wall of grey on the far edge of houses, then it was on us. Like a cold shower from a dead water heater. I slid close to my daughter, Kevin pressed between. We rolled up to the hospital and parked Jake under the awning that covered the little entrance door. Kevin struggled, until I just picked him up and carried him inside. Ella shouted she would take Jake to the barn and cool him out and be back. As my new charge beat on my back, I carried the little whirlwind inside.
Chapter 31
The group stood on the sharp west bank of the Wabash River. Henry spit into the clear water six feet below them. The Humvees were parked a mile behind them on the median of Interstate 64. The string of dead vehicles reached that far back. They were in southern Illinois, trying to cross over into Indiana. Four days of travel had got them almost out of the state. They avoided Champaign. It would a glowing crater for years. I-64 was the best route to Kentucky, but they had to get across the Indiana state line first.
On the eastern side of the border were parked an M-60 Abrams tank, a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and several Humvees. Both lanes of traffic were blocked over the bridge. East, beyond the roadblock, it was clear.
“I’d heard of this happenin’,” Mart said. “Since we was the center of the outbreak, they tried to keep people from crossin’ out of the state.”
“Don’t know if it worked,” Horse said. “Water’s not real deep. Folks could have just rushed across.”
“Look at the banks,” Henry said.
For a moment, no one saw anything. Then the picture became clear. A skull here, a set of ribs there. The river had washed a lot of the bodies away, but there were still a few remnants of those who had tried exactly what Horse suggested. Not many had made it across the river, from the looks.
Henry took the folding road map out of a pocket in his pants and opened it. “There’s no other way across for miles up or down this river. We’ve got to find a way across.”
“We should have rode horses,” Mart muttered. “Wouldn’t have this problem.”
“True,” Henry said, as he studied the map, “but we couldn’t carry the equipment and trade goods we needed.”
“Geronimo and fifteen Apaches kept twenty thousand US troops busy for a year and they only had the supplies they could carry on a few horses.” Mart grinned.
Henry looked up. “When’d you get so smart?”
“I get bored out there on the plantation, Boss. Girl’s got to do something to pass the time if she’s got no man around.”
Henry blushed. Horse grinned behind them. Johnson offered to keep her from being bored. Mart snapped that he couldn’t handle her. This brought a round of cat calls and teasing. Horse slid his arm around her shoulder and offered that an old man may be slower, but he knew what he was doing. It was Mart’s turn to blush and the girls to make the catcalls.
“Alright, people, this isn’t getting us across the river,” Henry said. He turned and led the way back to the Humvees. The others followed and soon they were parked on the north edge of the highway along the banks of the river.
“Okay. I’m going to take Mart and scout north along the river to find a place to ford. Jinks, you and Cody go south. The rest, stay put. We’ll go a half click. If we don’t find anything, we’ll come back. One hour, everyone comes back. I want eyes and ears open, people. This would be a hell of a place for an ambush.”
“You want us to check out the Bradley and the Abrams over there, Boss?” Beno asked. “Might have some stuff left we can use.”
“Good idea. Two look, three cover. If everything runs, we ought to send word for a salvage mission.” Henry looked over across the river. “I don’t recognize the markings, but it must be Indiana Guard. Let’s go.”
The three groups separated. Henry and Mart slipped into the long grass and brush along the banks of the river. They were swallowed from sight within a few feet. Henry took point with his shotgun. In the heavy brush they picked their way through silently. He could only see a few ya
rds in front of him. He didn’t worry about the others. They all knew their jobs. This wasn’t the first time on the way south they had had to find an alternate water crossing. The little streams they could ford. Bigger bodies, they either found a ferry, which had become common business again, or dragged vehicles off the bridge with the winches of the Humvees if it were jammed.
County roads and state highways were easier to travel. Folks hit the interstates to get away in a hurry. But to get over the state line across the Wabash, they had to take I-64. There just wasn’t another way across unless they went way north, or way south and then they would have to cross the river in Indiana.
Two hundred yards they crept through the brush. Henry stopped. With a silent signal, Mart stopped behind him. She scanned the brush to either side, ignoring the deerfly that buzzed around her head. In front of them, a small clearing the width of a narrow road opened and led to the river’s edge.
Both dropped to the ground to crawl forward the remaining distance. They lay flat at the edge of the trees as they looked both directions. It was a little road. From the west, it came through the tall grass that had been a cornfield. The banks had been carved into a gentle slope. Rocks and gravel had been hauled in to create what looked like a solid ford. The bank on the east side of the river had been cut away as well. The road led away into the brush until it faded from sight.
“Well, at least we know someone’s livin’ around here,” Mart said. “We found a way across.”
“That’s what worries me. No one’s out here. Is this so well traveled they don’t bother to guard it? Zeds don’t like water, but this is shallow enough to cross without getting washed away.”
“Probably part of a trade route,” Mart said. “They’re all over the place.”
“So where’s the trading post?”
“Away from here. Look, that water’s deep enough and clean enough, I’m getting in it. I stink.” She stood and began to peel her shirt off.
Snareville II: Circles Page 17