Tommy shook his head. “He stayed with the military, last I knew. Chances are he was with one of the groups sent out this way by Dot. Too bad we can’t ask him.”
“Too bad his aim wasn’t better. Then you could have,” I said, heading back to the stairs.
“Easy,” said Charlie.
“Hell with that. Let’s bring Duncan down here for a really smartass comment.” I left the basement before anyone could reply.
Chapter 12
Outside the building, I stood on the sidewalk and looked out over the town. The wind had picked up, and I could see the long grass swaying in the wind. Across the sky, clouds competed with each other to block the sun, and spotted sunshine decorated the landscape. I took a few deep breaths, letting out the tension that had been building. Across the road, I could see Duncan sifting through a hardware store, picking up the odd tool, looking over the scattered leftovers from the first panic of the Upheaval.
Down the street, Rebecca and Sarah were chatting by the vehicles. Sarah saw me and threw me a wave, and I replied with a small wave of my own. I turned my back to her and looked back over the town.
Behind me, I heard someone walking over debris, and a duffle bag was dropped at my feet.
“You all right?” Charlie asked.
I took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just don’t like it, that’s all. I mean, not only did I kill a living person, but I killed someone who had managed to survive the Upheaval and the Zombie Wars, and someone who might have been able to tell us what’s waiting for us in Iowa.”
Charlie blinked. “Well, when you put it that way…”
Tommy came out at that moment carrying a small box. “Hate to break up the therapy, but you might want to take a look at this.”
“What is it?” I wondered what Tommy had found.
“The guy downstairs was running scared. He probably thought we were something else.” Tommy opened the box and placed it on the ground.
We squatted around the box, and sifted through the meager contents. There was a small canteen, a map, half a box of ammunition, and a knife. That was it.
“I don’t get it. What is this stuff?” Charlie asked.
I was wondering the same thing. “Where did you find it?”
Tommy looked at both of us. “This was in his pack. Nothing else.”
“Not to sound obvious, but so what? We’ve travelled light before,” Charlie said.
I shook my head. “Not this light. Remember, this wasn’t somebody on the run six years ago. This is somebody who would know better. “I stood up and looked to the West. “Something scared the survival instincts right out of this guy.”
Tommy and Charlie stood up and we were all silent for a moment.
Finally, Tommy broke the silence. “Well, we do know two things for sure, now.”
“What’s that?”
“This isn’t a rogue group. No way could anyone get scared insane like this guy was. He’d have come out shooting, sure, but not jabbering about…what did you say he said?”
“He said something about teeth and clicking,” I said.
Tommy cocked his head to the side. “What do you think that means?”
I shrugged. “It means we still don’t know what the hell is waiting for us, or what might be coming right at us.”
Charlie pulled out the ammo from the box and put it in his pack. “No point in keeping it waiting. We should go.”
I agreed. There was nothing here, especially answers.
Back at the truck, Sarah looked me over and asked what was wrong.
I put away my pack and reloaded my pistol magazine before answering. “Not much, just found some supplies, shot a living guy who might have had answers to our dilemma, and discovered there’s something out there that is scaring stupid even veteran survivors,” I said, somewhat sharply.
To her credit, Sarah just blinked and said nothing. She knew me well enough to know when I needed to settle this one out myself.
Charlie came to my defense. “Just to clear things up, John nearly took one in the head before he fired back. We all would have done the same.”
Sarah nodded. “Let’s get going. We should make the Iowa border by evening and set up for the night.”
I climbed aboard and fired up the truck, turning back onto the highway and heading towards Iowa.
Chapter 13
We passed a number of communities on our way, many living, many more unlivable. For a long time, the standard policy was to simply burn down the buildings we weren’t going to be able to maintain or use. Then someone got the bright idea to send in teams to strip the homes of useable materials, including building materials. We didn’t have sawmills or manufacturers of construction materials. What we wound up with was warehouses of semi-used home repair goods that we could recycle into something we needed.
About three hours past the incident, I decided to pull off the road again. We were about an hour from Iowa, and I wanted to regroup a little. We were heading into unknown territory, and I wanted to make sure our heads were still in the game. With the driving, everyone had time to think, and I wanted to see if we had any new insights. I also had to go to the bathroom.
I pulled off the highway on Route 82 and headed south for a bit. North of us was the town of Geneseo, and they had weathered the storm pretty well. There had been some outbreaks, but since Springfield Armory made their guns there, they had managed to repel the invaders. We did some trading in the past and they were restarting the factory, last I heard.
South of the highway was farm country, though, and I wasn’t going to go too far. There was a small building just a short way from the main road, and it was a good place to stop. The building looked like it had seen better days, as it was a low structure with a large awning to protect cars from the elements. No sign told what it might have been, and as I got out and stretched, I looked over at Charlie and shrugged.
Charlie returned the gesture and pointed at the small house down the road. “I think someone’s living there, I’m going to see if I can talk to them.”
“Good enough. We’ll be here, figuring out where we will spend the night.”
Sarah wandered to the other vehicle, and I walked over to the other side of the building to relieve myself. The building was a bit of a mystery, with closed curtains and a single door in the front. It didn’t look like a church or a banquet hall, although it was big enough for either.
I finished up and walked back to the trucks, stopping halfway to wait for Charlie, who was jogging back from the house.
“Well?” I asked, stepping in alongside him.
“Bad news and worse news, depending on your point of view,” Charlie said.
“Bad news first.”
“They remember seeing our late friend a few weeks ago. He was running along the highway and didn’t stop when they hailed him.”
“That fits with what we already know, what’s the worse news?”
“There may be a breach at East Moline. Zombie activity has been up recently.”
I sighed. “Damn. Well, how are they fixed?”
“They’re good, just waiting for winter to find the hole. It seems to be a trickle, so they’ve been handling it up to now.” Charlie finished as we reached the trucks.
“Guess we have to keep an eye out, now. Great. What else could go wrong?” I asked, looking over the highway. I thought I saw something move, but nothing happened for a minute and I forgot it. I turned to the assembled faces in front of me.
“We’re heading into Davenport, and will probably spend the night there. I think there’s a hotel or something outside the containment zone,” I said.
Sarah spoke up, “Any news, Charlie?”
Charlie shook his head. “Nothing new. Our friend came from the west, running hard. Nothing chasing him, but he was running jus the same.”
“No vehicle?” Duncan asked.
“None. As far as anyone could determine, this guy was just running.”
We all digested that for a bit. Cha
rlie finished with his other news. “Probably a breach at East Moline, so we’re on alert.”
Duncan stretched. “Ahh, the good old days. Never quite leave us, do they?”
Rebecca pointed. “Not quite.”
We all looked and saw a familiar lurching figure stumble into view under the highway. We had never seen this one specifically before, but we’d seen his type. Everyone tensed a bit, but I took the lead.
“Got it, just make sure he’s alone,” I said, drawing my .45 and advancing on the ghoul.
Charlie reached into the van and pulled out his AR, flicking off the safety and stepping into the bed of the truck. I kept walking, glancing down to make sure my gun was loaded and ready. I needn’t have bothered, it had been so long since I had to check, but it never hurt. The one time I let it go would be the one time I got a click when I needed a bang.
About twenty yards up the road I stopped, and waited for the Z to get closer. He was about forty yards out, and while I could hit him, I might not kill him. As he got closer, I could see more details about him. His clothes were torn and shabby, yet I could see he was wearing the remnants of a business suit. His left arm swung a little too far out, balancing the rest of him, since he was missing half of his right arm. Bloodstains across the front of his body suggested his arm had been ripped off while he was alive and he had run for a bit before falling to the virus. Hell of a way to go.
At twenty yards or so, I lined up a shot, aiming just between his vacant eyes. One loud bang later and this dapper zombie was no more. I went over to the body and dragged it into the ditch. It was no fun cruising along and suddenly running over a dead zombie that someone had forgotten to move out of the way.
I walked back to the group and we mounted up. Sarah looked over at me and arched an eyebrow as we pulled back onto the highway.
“Yes, it felt better than the other guy,” I said
“Just checking, sweetheart. Just checking.”
Chapter 14
We got back onto I-80 and kept heading west. Out in the fields we could see a few wandering zombies, but since they were alone, we figured the locals could handle them. The ones that were closer to the highway we dispatched, with Charlie showing off his marksmanship. I was personally impressed with a five hundred yard shot he made, but Charlie tempered that when he told me that was the luckiest shot he had made so far.
I-80 turned north to go around the Quad Cities, and I decided to follow that route, instead of going the I-74 route. If there was a breach at East Moline, it had to be along this corridor, since the southern end of the city was blocked by a river. Also, the bridge at I-74 was impassable due to the car fence we had placed there a while ago.
Crossing the river brought a few memories back, some good, and some bad. We were officially in Iowa when we reached the other side, and I have to admit my apprehension level went a little higher. We were that much closer to whatever it was that was out there, and it wasn’t a comforting thought.
Cruising down the I-74 highway, we got a good look at our previous handiwork. Our containment policy walled in dozens of subdivisions, and we could see hundreds of zombies milling about in the evening sun. Cars lined the edges of the highway, providing an additional layer of protection. For every zombie we saw, we knew there were ten inside the buildings. Something had evolved in the virus, and the zombies were staying away from the elements, hiding out indoors to keep from falling apart. They came out when they spotted you, or figured you could be eaten, and it was a nasty surprise when you thought a town was clear and suddenly a horde was chasing you down the street.
Just past the debris berms was the hotel I was looking for. It actually was the only one left outside the zone, so our choices were limited. I didn’t feel like spending the night in the truck, and a secure location was a welcome sight. We had made several of these over the years as places for people to stop. I can’t tell you how important it was to the psychological well-being of people to know they could travel and still feel safe.
The Abbey Hotel was a big brick building situated high on a hill. It actually used to be an abbey, but it had been renovated into a hotel/museum before the Upheaval. During the dark times, it had been used as a fortress against the zombies, and now it served as a resting spot on the main road.
We pulled into the parking lot just as the sun was settling into its evening descent. Long shadows played out over the landscape, and the frustrated groans of the zombies on the other side of the zones mingled with the calls of the hunting cats and dogs.
Duncan looked up at the Abbey and grimaced. “Creepy place. Are you sure there isn’t a better hotel around here?”
I shook my head. “You burned them, remember? Back when you and Tommy took the river to the south?”
Duncan’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, yeah.” He brightened quickly. “Dibs on the corner room!” He grabbed his pack and scampered towards the hotel.
Sarah and I laughed, while Tommy managed a face palm holding two bags. Charlie just shook his head and Rebecca laughed.
We moved into the hotel, dropping our bags at the front door and joined Duncan in a quick sweep of the building. Everything checked out so we took the stairs to the rooms on the third floor. The fourth floor was the attic, and there wasn’t anything up there.
As the sun slowly set, the light in the building turned from white to yellow to orange, changing the color of the walls from bright to melancholy. I left Sarah up in our room while I explored a little, finding a small room at the end of the hall blocked off by a piece of Plexiglas. The room contained a cot, a bedside table, a chair, and a tiny locker by the foot of the cot. A plaque informed me that this was a cell used by the nuns of the abbey. They each had their own room, and this one was preserved as part of the museum. A single homespun dress hung on a peg in the corner.
I wandered downstairs and passed by the lobby, moving my way into the dining area. The chairs and tables were long gone, probably used as firewood during the Upheaval. In the back of the dining room was a big door, and it was slightly ajar.
Curious, I went over and peeked inside. There was just enough light for me to see the small chapel contained within, with a tiny alter and several rows of pews. I stepped in and walked over to pews when the back door suddenly opened. I jumped at the intrusion, but relaxed when I saw it was Charlie.
“Spooked me there,” I said, and chuckled when I saw my words had made Charlie jump.
“Jesus, don’t do that,” he said, walking over. “This place is creepy enough.”
“What do you mean? I don’t feel anything.”
“How can you not?” Charlie asked. “This chapel is sitting on top of the kitchen.”
“Gee, how terrifying,” I said, looking at Charlie curiously.
“The kitchen is where the crypt used to be.”
“Oh. Well, they’re long gone, so we should be fine,” I said, brushing off the chill I suddenly got.
“Yeah. I hope so. Let’s get out of here.” Charlie seemed genuinely spooked, which in itself was a wonder.
We made our way back to our rooms, and Sarah and I spent some quality time together before we drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 15
I awoke in the middle of the night to see Sarah sitting up in bed. The moonlight coming in through the window provided enough light for me to see she was staring at the ceiling, her hands gripping the blanket tightly. I reached out and touched her hand, and she nearly leaped out of bed.
“Jesus!” she cried, holding a hand to her chest and breathing heavily. I had never seen Sarah this scared before, and I was instantly wide awake.
“What’s going on?” My threat level suddenly jumped and I was in battle mode instantly. I grabbed my pistol from the nightstand and got out of bed, the night sites on my gun oddly reassuring.
Sarah pointed at the ceiling. “Someone’s walking around up there,” she said.
I stood completely still and waited. After a minute, I could hear it plainly, too. The floor creaked in a r
hythmic pattern, going around the edge of our room, and then stopping directly overhead. I aimed my gun at the ceiling, although I had no real reason to do so, and felt a distinct chill creep down my back.
The steps retreated and disappeared, and I looked at Sarah. She looked back at me and we both shrugged at the same time. I started towards the bed when I heard a footstep in the hallway. It wasn’t overly loud, but loud enough that I wanted to investigate.
“What?” Sarah asked, seeing me turn towards the door.
“Someone’s in the hallway.” I whispered, moving to the small hallway between the door and the bathroom.
Sarah slipped out of bed and picked up her own gun, positioning herself on my side of the bed to give me backup if I needed it.
I reached the door and I could see a small band of moonlight under the door as the hallway was lit by a big window on the end of the hall. Just as I was starting to reach for the doorway, I froze. Two shadows, like someone’s feet, blocked the moonlight and stopped in front of my door. The shadows then positioned themselves outside my door, like there was a person waiting to be let in.
For whatever reason, I could not open that door. I couldn’t even put my hand on the doorknob. I just stood there with my gun ready and my hand outstretched. In the dim light, I could still see the shadow of someone standing outside my doorway. I brought my gun up but I knew instinctively it was only a comfort to me, and useless against whatever was in the hallway. I couldn’t even bring myself to look through the peephole. I didn’t want to see what was on the other side. Something was stopping me from looking, and I just stood there, staring at the door and the shadows.
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