There were two houses on the south side of the road, and I briefly considered them for the night, but then I changed my mind. There was nothing there for defense, and I wasn’t in the mood to get trapped by Trippers this close to getting home. I still didn’t know exactly where I was, but as long as the road kept going west, I knew this was still the right way to go. If I could keep the fields and forests all the way home, I’d be golden.
The road crossed a highway, and I stopped for a second to try and get my bearings. To the north, the road disappeared around the corner and I couldn’t see much. To the south, there were a few homes, and one of them actually had a stone fence around it. I took a look at the sun and thought I might want to try my luck at the hospitality of strangers.
The embankment was slippery and I hoped I didn’t look as foolish as I felt slipping and sliding down the steep hill. The grass made an attempt at stopping me, and I stumbled the last six feet before the ground leveled out.
I went over to the house and stood by the gate. It was reinforced wood, and the lock was solid. That was a good sign. The stack of firewood piled up against the house was another good sign. The last bit of good news was the flickering light. There was a lamp in there that meant someone had to light it.
I slipped the hammer thong off my Colt and hailed the residence.
“Hello the house!”
It was the custom of the times not to approach the house directly. My dad said it was a throwback to the old days when people lived much further from each other and the law was pretty much too far away from everywhere.
I waited for a few moments, and the light shifted from one room to the next. I walked back from the gate to let them take a look and see that I was alone. Chances were pretty good a weapon was being aimed at me right now and that was expected.
“You alone?” the voice came from the yard, and I knew they had already checked out around the fence to make sure I was by myself. If I wasn’t and said I was, I’d have been chased away or shot outright.
“I am. Just looking for a safe place to spend the night,” I said.
“Wait there.” The voice sounded young, but I couldn’t place whether it was male or female.
Another minute and the gate unlocked. I stepped forward and opened it, seeing my host for the first time. He had stepped back and was waiting for me to enter. He had a rifle in his hands and a stern look on his face. He was probably all of thirteen years old, and I wondered if he was alone like I was at his age.
I locked the gate and turned back to the boy. “Just looking for a place to spend the night,” I said. “I can camp out here, if you don’t mind a fire.”
The boy looked me over. He saw my gun and nodded. “No need for that. Come up to the house. You ate supper?” he asked.
“Nope. But I have some to share if you want,” I said.
“No need, there’s plenty. The couch should do you.” The boy led the way into the house, the polite exchange completed. I set up my stuff near the door and went to the table as the boy served up some cold beans and venison. It was the best meal I had had in a few days.
Conversation was limited, as it was considered impolite to ask too many questions about a guest or a host. We talked about Tripper activity, and he told me there was some activity up north, but then there always was. I asked if he had heard about any activity to the west, but he shook his head.
“Nothin’ new. Family travelin’ through from the north heard ‘bout another horde coming up, but I ain’t seen nuthin’,” he said. “Anything near the wall? I seen you comin’ from that direction.”
“Just a couple of walkers I left in a yard,” I said. I didn’t feel the need to say anything about where I had really been or what I had really seen. This boy was doing just fine. The wall he had around his house was solid, and it would take a horde the size of the one around Champaign to breach it.
We chatted about survival skills and traps, and I checked out his rifle while he looked over my Colt. He remarked that I had a nice one, better than the one he had. I asked about it and he scampered off, returning with another Colt single action. This one was blued, and had a longer barrel than mine. It was the same caliber, and I said it was very nice.
He beamed, and said he’d wear it like me if he had any bullets, but it had been a while since he had seen any. I told him I might give him a few on my way out tomorrow. He said he’d have to find something to trade, and we’d talk in the morning.
Chapter 27
I slept soundly, waking when the sun made a mosaic on the wall above my head. It was very bright, and held the promise of a cold day. I wouldn’t be surprised if I wound up in snow before the then end of the day.
I took a light breakfast, and without saying goodbye, I left ten cartridges on the table. I figured it was fair payment for the dinner and the safe place to sleep. I slipped out to the overpass and climbed the embankment. I didn’t see any Tripper activity, and I moved carefully back to the road. If I was very lucky, I would be somewhere closer to my home by the end of the day.
I moved west and right before I reached the edge of the woods that lined the road I heard a hail behind me. The boy stood on his porch and waved in my direction. I waved back and then watched as the boy suddenly fell back, a red spray covering the door behind him.
“Jesus!” I said, ducking and scanning for threats. Out of the east moved four men, and two of them moved towards the house while the other two opened fire in my direction. I jumped into the trees near the road as bullets whipped overhead. I didn’t bother to look back or try any return shots. I was a pistol against rifles and four of them at that.
As I ran, I tried to figure out who they were and I could only reach one conclusion. They were the four men who shot at me earlier, which made them military from the other side of the wall. Why they bothered to follow me was a mystery, unless they needed to make sure I never talked to anyone. In which case, they were going to kill anyone I did talk to.
“Mother of God,” I said aloud as I ran. I ducked under branches, ran around fences, and generally stuck to the same direction. If I had my bow, I could make a fight of it, but I wasn’t going to bring this crew near Kim. I could never forgive myself if something happened to her because I just happened to be near.
As I moved, I took stock of the situation. I had one handgun, a knife, a pack of some supplies, and I was probably ten to fifteen miles from home, maybe more. I had trained killers on my trail, armed with high-powered rifles that they certainly knew how to use and were willing to use.
I couldn’t survive a four on one fight, but maybe I could even the odds a little bit with the resources I had. There were several houses on the road, and as I ran past, I swear I saw some movement in them. I began to open the front doors of every house I went by, yelling inside to see if there was anyone to stir up. I was more than willing to use Trippers as ammo bait.
The more houses I opened, the more I began to have an idea form in my head. If I could get these guys a little further north, maybe in a subdivision with a lot of Tripper activity, the infected could do my work for me. Trick was to get them to follow.
I took a minute to rest and watched my back trail. I could see several Trippers stumbling out of the homes I had opened, so hopefully they might delay the soldiers. Ahead of me looked like a town, so I was going to have to be careful about where I moved.
Chapter 28
“Little bastard runs pretty well,” Corporal Baker remarked casually.
“Can’t run forever, Corporal,” Sergeant Townsend said. “Our job is to run him down, take out anyone he talks to.” Townsend had been the one to shoot the boy at the house, after they had seen their quarry leave the house.
They had crossed the wall at roughly the same place the runner had, using a hidden door. The wall on the outside had a number of doors built into it that were hidden on the inside. The big gates that the insiders could see were just fakes. They weren’t gates at all. They could never be opened.
“Contac
t!” Private Houston said. He was walking point on their team. He pointed down the road where several people were moving in a slow, almost dazed fashion.
“Well, gentlemen, you finally get to meet the locals. Commonly known as Trippers,” Townsend said. “Houston, take them out. Headshots only. Nothing else works with them.”
Private Houston crouched to give himself a more stable shooting platform, then his silenced AR snapped out three aimed rounds. The Trippers, who were about seventy-five yards away, never knew what hit them. They just realized that their nightmare was over as they woke in another world.
The four men walked up to the dead. There were two men and a woman on the ground. The men were dark skinned, but their eyes were very bloodshot, and the woman had very blotchy skin, with slightly less bloodshot eyes.
“Christ, that’s ugly,” Private Robbins said. He nudged one of the men with his rifle to make sure he was dead.
Townsend was looking at the houses, and saw that three of them had their doors propped open. He didn’t think anything of it, just dismissed it as a bizarre feature of this side of the wall. Probably looters, he thought. They’re all just garbage over here.
“Let’s keep moving.” Townsend paused to talk into his radio. “Sky pilots say he’s still moving west, but it’s hard to be sure.” The drones were helping track their runner, but in order to keep out of sight, they had to fly at a much higher altitude, which affected their ability to see anything very clearly with their cameras. Also, there were a lot of wind shears at that altitude, which made things iffy at best. Still, it was better than nothing.
“Robbins, forward. Be careful.” Sergeant Townsend took his place in the formation and the squad moved out again.
Chapter 29
I ran out of woods at the intersection of S. Cottage Grove Avenue and Glenwood-Lansing Road. Neither of those names meant anything to me, but the intersection did. There were lots of homes and residences to the north, so I hatched a kind of plan. It would require a lot of things going right at the same time, so I wasn’t sure of its success. I was also going to try not to get shot. That part was at the top of the list.
I moved far enough west until I found what I thought to be a road that led to the center of the subdivision. There were a couple of Trippers walking about and that was just what I needed. They headed my way and I led them deeper into the subdivision. What I wanted was a lot more of them, but of course, I seemed to have picked the one place in Illinois where the damn things had vacated.
I walked past several houses, towing my two new friends, and they tried valiantly to close the distance. One of them, a teenager, wheezed suddenly very loudly, almost like a whistle. I looked back at him and he did it again, stopping in his pursuit to do it. All of a sudden, there were several other whistles like it, and they came from all over.
The hair on the back of my neck suddenly stood up as I recognized what he was doing. I had seen the same thing with animals over the years. He was calling for help. The Trippers were learning to communicate with each other.
I shook off the chill that gave me and decided to run very fast. I didn’t want to be in the circle of surrounding Trippers if I could help it. I headed north and then went east, keeping to the center of the road as more and more Trippers came stumbling out of yards and homes. If I had stayed at the pace I was, I’d have been encircled and killed.
As it was, there were two Trippers that managed to get in my way. I briefly thought about using my knife, as it would be quieter, but I wanted the men chasing me to come this way. I had a bigger horde than I had hoped for, and with luck, I could make the two meet and squeak out the other side. With bad luck, I’d be horribly killed in the next ten minutes.
I swept out my gun, and without breaking stride, I shot the nearest one in the face. The shot galvanized the horde that was forming and the other Tripper lunged, reaching for my arm. It came within an inch before I fired. I got a very good look at its bloodshot eyes and torn face as it fell away with a large hole between its eyes. I didn’t bother looking back, I just ran across the subdivision, knowing the Trippers would be in as hot pursuit as they could. Thankfully, they hadn’t developed running as their new skill.
I ran up east Center Street since it was the only one that went west from where I was. It took me through the heart of the subdivision and I could hear more and more of them coming out of the houses behind me. If this didn’t work, I was going to have the longest night of my life.
I needed distance so I ran hard and cut the corner around a small white house. A Tripper was stumbling out of the house and I didn’t even think. I punched it in the head, sending it tumbling back into the house. I didn’t even take note if it was male or female, old or young. For all I knew, it may not have even been a Tripper. I could just have easily punched out a fellow survivor who just wondered what all the ruckus was on his lawn.
East Center Street dead-ended at South Cottage Grove Road, and I thought about running into the forest at the end of the street. But the trees were thin, and there weren’t enough leaves to hide a decent-sized dog, let alone a man my size. I ran south, but that was risky, since the other group of people who wanted to kill me were coming from that direction.
I settled on going halfway up the street, and into a small cottage-like home near the road. It was tucked under a couple of pine trees and a gravel driveway rolled past to a crumbling garage. The cottage door was half a floor above the ground, like the first floor was sunk halfway into the ground. The little porch leading up to the door was unstable at best, so I checked the house out first, then pushed the porch away from the house. It fell away to the side with the only protest of a single nail.
I closed the curtains and waited for the horde to pass. I only hoped none of them saw me come in here. I checked downstairs and didn’t find anything of use. I made sure the curtains were closed and the windows were locked. I was actually pretty safe in this house unless the Trippers tried to get in downstairs. If they did, I could kill the ones trying to get in the window and block the rest out with a corpse or two.
After that, if it got bad, I could block the stairs inside and escape out one of the windows. As I waited, I thought about Kim and what she was doing. I wondered if she was okay, and if the horses were okay. I tried to think about how many days I had been gone, and I was actually surprised when I realized I had only been gone for a few days. It certainly had seemed like more.
Chapter 30
I heard them before I saw them. There was a concentrated wheezing sound as the horde arrived. It was as if they had dropped out of nowhere. The street was full of them, and they wandered in the general direction they had seen me before. I stayed in the shadows and made sure there were no light sources behind me. Once I saw they were not interested in my hiding place, I lay out on the floor, placed my head on my backpack, and got some rest.
After about a half an hour, I heard the shots. There were a few to begin with, but suddenly there were dozens. The shots faded after a time and then ended altogether. That told me one of two things. Either the Trippers had dealt with my hunter friends, or my hunter friends had dealt with the Tripper horde. Either way, it was a win for me. If the Trippers won, they’d be on their way; if the hunters won, they’d have their ammo supply severely depleted.
I decided not to bother going out at night, staying where I was. I was safe enough, and I’d rather travel when the sun as going up rather than when it was going down. I was still in territory I was unfamiliar with, and I hoped by going south I might find a road that would take me right back to home.
The shots were finished now, and every Tripper in the area was drawn to them, from every direction. I’d have no chance if I was to leave, so I just fell asleep. Whatever was going on out there was going to happen, and I’ll see what mess there was in the morning.
I woke once in the night to the sound of footsteps around the little cottage, but I knew better than to investigate. If I stuck my face outside, I ran the risk of getting it bit off
. I fell back asleep without thinking about it anymore.
The sun peeked through the windows with the long shadows of the trees making interesting lines across the walls. I ate the last of my supplies and drank the last of my water. I had an extra incentive to get back home, since I didn’t think I was going to find much in the way of supplies in these houses. This one had been cleaned out, and the likelihood of the others being the same way was pretty high. My dad had said after things had calmed down the first time and people hadn’t figured out how to hunt or grow their own food yet, looting was the only way to get fed.
I settled my gear on, made sure my gun was loaded and secure, and loosened my knife in its sheath. I’d have felt a thousand times better if I had my bow and quiver, but that was too much to ask for.
Outside, the world was crisp and clear, and the sun lit up everything to a brightness that was almost painful. The air was cold, and the small west breeze promised some snow, unless I was smelling something different.
I hopped down to the ground, and left my little sanctuary with a slight pang of regret. It had been a good hidey-hole, one that would be useful to remember if I ever planned on coming back this way, but I could pretty much be sure that I wasn’t ever going to be in this neighborhood again.
I stepped away from the trees and onto the road carefully and quietly. I didn’t have any other plan than to head south. I moved slowly, taking advantage of the shadows to move away from the subdivision. Funny thing, I was more comfortable walking in this world than in the one on the other side of the wall.
Born In The Apocalypse (Book 3): Jericho Page 8