We headed back out onto the road and kept out heads pointed south. We’d find another place to stay. In the heart of Illinois, they were all over the place.
Harlem Avenue headed south and we stayed on it. It crossed I-57, but I wasn’t interested in heading down that way again. It was too open, and not enough places to find supplies and shelter for ourselves and the horses. It was still winter, and I hadn’t been planning on traveling until spring, but circumstances had forced my hand.
“Josh?”
Kim’s voice broke me out of my revelations.
“What’s up?” I figured she was interested in where we were going to spend the night.
“What will I do when we reach the southern community?” she asked.
That was a question I hadn’t considered, but it was clear by Kim’s tone that she had. I tried the old method of honesty. My dad always said that the truth was not always what people wanted to hear, but you could never be condemned for saying it.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I hadn’t really thought about it that far ahead. I suppose you could take care of my horses for me.”
I didn’t have to look over to see Kim glaring at me. I could feel it. It was like a ray of sunlight that makes it through a cloudy day and warms your face. Only this warmth was followed by a small chill heading down my spine.
“Mr. Andrews. Please revise your statement.” Kim’s voice was about ten degrees colder than the air we were currently experiencing.
I laughed. “How about this one. If I am to be the sheriff of the southern communities, I will need a deputy to help me. You interested?” I said.
Kim’s voice changed. “You mean it?” she said. “Really?”
“You’re good with your bow; you’ll need to find a gun and get good with it. Maybe a rifle would be easier to learn quickly. But you’re smart, and you learn quickly,” I said.
Kim smiled. “Why thank you, Josh. I was afraid you didn’t notice.”
“Except with baking. You seem to be going backwards in that area,” I said.
I don’t know how she did it, but suddenly a snowball hit me in the back of the neck. I didn’t flinch as the snow went down the back of my neck. I refused to give her the satisfaction.
The sun set slowly, and we were in an area that was pure farm. Off in the distance, there was a line of trees covering the horizon. The fields were covered in tall grass, and there were a lot of trees making their way back. They weren’t that tall, but then I knew exactly how old they were. They were born on the same day I was.
We moved along, and as we did, the sun went lower and lower. Out in the country, I wasn’t as worried about Trippers, but they weren’t the only predators. There were coyotes and wolves and who knew what else.
On the left side of the road, there was a large white building. It was next to a low ranch-style house. I turned Missy into the drive and dismounted. I held a hand up to Kim and moved toward the big white building. I walked around it, tapping on the sides and listening to see if there was a reply. When I heard none, I went over to the house and looked it over. There seemed to be no one inside, so I tapped on a few windows and didn’t see anything come answering.
I went to the back door and tried to open it, but it was locked. The sliding glass door was open, however, and I went inside for a quick look.
The house was neat, but it was literally cleaned out. There was no furniture, no supplies, and no reason to think anyone had left this lace than for the simple reason that they were going somewhere else.
I went back outside to the long white building, and I forced a door open on the side. I didn’t expect to see anything of use in here, but I needed to get the garage door open so we could set the horses up for the night. I was pleasantly surprised to find five stalls at the end of the garage, and even more surprised to find several large bags of feed. Our animals wouldn’t know what hit their stomachs.
I went over to the animal entrance and opened the door, finding myself on the north side of the stable. I went towards the drive and stopped suddenly. A man was creeping along the side of the building like he didn’t want to be heard. He was a large man, about my size, and he was holding a gun in his right hand as he crept forward. I drew my own gun and stepped behind him, keeping as silent as if I was stalking a deer.
Ahead of me, I could hear voices, and one of them was Kim arguing with a voice that didn’t like what it was being told.
“You ain’t got no call to throw down on us like that, Missy! No call at all! We was just coming by to see if we could spend the night in this big barn, and here you are telling us we can’t. Why you need that big ol’ gun, anyway? We can all be friends, why not? Don’t even need to spend the night in the same part of the house. What you say?”
“I said, back off!” Kim shouted. “You make another move and I’ll shoot!”
Chapter 47
“Why that ain’t friendly at all, missy. Not at all. I was hoping you’d see things my way, and want to stay with us, for safety and all, but you pointing that rifle at me sure got me thinking we need to part ways.”
The man in front of me reached the edge of the building, and he flattened himself even further. His right arm rounded the corner, and when he raised the gun towards Kim, I shot him in the butt.
The big slug slammed the man’s pelvis into the building, and he shrieked like I had set him on fire. The gun flew from his hand, back towards me, and I picked it up and put it in my pocket. The man fell to the ground, clutching his wounded ass and his crushed nuts. I wasn’t sure which of the wounds might hurt him worse.
I stepped around the man and into the general view of everyone on the west side of the garage. My gun was still in my hand, and I raised my other hand to calm down Missy, who was tossing her head and showing me the whites around her eyes.
“Easy, girl. It’s just me. No need to worry.” I spoke to the horse although I think I saw Kim calm down as well. I fixed my eye on the man who was speaking to Kim. He was a skinny man, although he was wearing enough clothing to make himself look bulky. I counted three shirts at least, a couple of jackets, and I could probably win a bet on whether or not he was wearing two pairs of jeans. He had dark hair tucked behind his ears and held in place with a baseball cap. His belt had a knife on the left side and a holstered gun on the right. There was a kind of pouch belted on there, too, but its purpose I could not discern.
Behind me, the man on the ground yelled and carried on something fierce, but no one moved. I suppose that had something to do with the fact that I was pointing my Colt at the skinny man’s head. He had a second man behind him, and that person was doing his dead level best to keep his hands exactly at the same level as his ears. I think I saw him move his butt out of my line of fire, but I couldn’t be sure.
“You okay?” I asked Kim, not taking my eyes off the leader.
“I’m fine. These assholes showed up out of nowhere and wanted our stuff. Then they wanted me!” Kim was showing her anger in her voice, and that was not doing well with our horses.
“Take the horses and the wagon around to the side. There’s an animal entrance there I left open. There’s a stall for each horse, and there’s feed as well,” I said. I wanted Kim to be doing something and calming herself down.
When she left, I faced the two men alone. I watched their eyes as Kim went past, and I could see the hunger in them for our supplies, our weapons, and our horses. I holstered my gun, a move that was not lost on Skinny. I kept my eye on him, figuring him to try some sort of move. He didn’t, but that didn’t endear him to me any.
“Time for you move on. Find another place to spend the night,” I said.
Skinny looked at me and then at my holstered gun.
“Figured you to be a man to shoot first and ask questions later,” he said. He looked at his companion on the ground, who had finally quieted down.
“I’m mostly a peaceful person,” I said.
“Couldn’t tell,” Skinny said, looking over at his wounded man.<
br />
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” I said with a small smile. “I prefer to go about my business peacefully, but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember how to be violent.”
Skinny thought about that one. Whatever conclusion he reached didn’t make him any happier. He motioned for the man behind him to help him, and the two of them went over to help their fallen man. They got him on a plank of wood from an old burn pile and carried him off, one end of the board sliding along the ground. He whimpered every time it hit a bump, but I wasn’t sympathetic at all. He would have either shot or disarmed Kim had she been alone, and that would have been the better of the outcomes.
After they had gone, I went back to the stable. I told Kim we’d be staying in the garage tonight, as the two of them would probably try and pay us a visit tonight. They wouldn’t shoot near the horses, so it was safer than being separated from the animals.
Kim was slightly shaken up, but she was better after feeding and watering the horses. We made a quick meal and found a place to sleep. I was actually tired from riding all day and I’m sure the horses were tired, too. Kim was asleep almost as soon as she lay down, likely coming down from the adrenaline rush she had when confronted by those men.
Chapter 48
It was very early in the morning when I woke. Kim was still sleeping, and it was really dark outside. I looked over at Judy and she was standing very still, with her ears pointed towards the house. I knew the men I had scared off would come back, I just wasn’t sure when. And I figured they would assume we would be staying in the house. That was one of the reasons I decided to stay out here. Plus, Judy was the best alarm system when it came to strangers.
I slipped out of the stable and into the night. The moon was what my dad called a ‘rustler’s moon.’ It was light enough to see by, but not light enough to get a good bead on someone trying to steal your cattle. I could see clearly enough, and I only needed to be able to hit a man-sized target. Even Kim could do that in this light.
I took my bow with me, and waited outside. I could see the front door, but they wouldn’t see me until they stepped outside. The back door was around the corner, but anyone coming that way would be a target as well. The moonlight bathed the landscape in a bluish light, highlighting the snow and the tracks that led from the road to the house.
The tracks told me there were only two of them in there, so they must have either left their wounded somewhere or finished him off. I could see them doing either.
The front door opened and Skinny stepped outside. He had a gun in his hand and there was no mistaking what he planned to do with it. He held the door for his partner and closed it carefully, not wanting to make any noise. His partner moved toward the stable with his gun out and I put an arrow in his throat. He went down choking and kicking and Skinny had no idea what had happened. He raised his gun, looking for a target but my arrows were coming out of the darkness and he never saw it coming. It took him in the eye and he went down as well.
I suppose I might have felt bad about killing those two men, but no one could convince me that they had good intentions. I took my arrows out of their bodies and dragged their corpses over to the ditch. They died as they lived. Hard men in hard times. I wondered sometimes if I would meet an end similar to this one. I never thought about getting old. Maybe that was for the people on the other side of the wall.
I went back to the stable and made sure everyone was okay before I went back to bed. I watched Judy for a while, and when she relaxed, I knew I could go to sleep. If there was a third man out there, he’d likely see the bodies in the ditch and decide it wasn’t worth his effort.
Morning came as a hard shaft of sunlight through a small eastern window. I was rolled up in my blankets and Kim was pressed up against my back. I could feel her breathing on the base of my neck and it was a nice feeling. Her arm was wrapped around my chest, holding me to her body. I must have been very asleep not to have felt her move in like that.
I pulled her arm off and she snuggled in tighter.
“Where are you going?” Kim asked sleepily.
“Need to look around,” I said. “It’s morning.”
“Stay here. I’m cold.”
“You can have my blanket.”
“Okay.” The arm disappeared under several blankets and joined a lump on the floor.
I chuckled as I got up. I guess my company wasn’t really required after all. I fed the horses, and they were happy to get the change in diet. I checked the sleds and then pumped up some water for the horses and myself. This stable was very self-sufficient. The water pump had a hose attachment that moved water to the troughs in front of the stalls. That was a pretty neat trick. I filled a small bowl with water and splashed myself fully awake. The water wasn’t frozen, but it was very close.
Outside, I saw that there had been some snow overnight. The tracks and blood that were there yesterday were covered in a thin layer of ice and snow. If I looked carefully, I could see the marks where the two men had fallen, and the drag lines I had made when I moved the bodies.
I walked toward the street, just looking around at the landscape. There were trees in the distance, and to the north, I could see the road as it moved up a hill. There was a strange lump in the road, and I walked carefully up to it.
As I got closer, I could see that it was not a strange lump; it was the outline of a man covered in snow. There were two dark areas of snow on the man. One near his rear, and other was near his head. I guess I knew what Skinny was going to do with his wounded comrade. I felt a lot less bad this morning about killing that one than I did last night, that’s for sure.
The sky was a light grey in color, promising a gloomy day but not much else. The western sky was the same color, so today was going to be a good traveling day. I knew better than to try and announce my plans, because Dad always said that was a good way to hear God laugh.
When I got back to the stable, Kim was still sleeping, so I used the spare time I had to go through the house one more time. My dad always said that sometimes the obvious wasn’t, and the hidden could be found if you looked for things that weren’t where they were supposed to be. I had found more than one good stash of supplies when I went through some houses as a kid.
The house was still empty, but as I went through the rooms, something was bothering me. It was as if the house was too empty. I had read about people buying new homes and then selling their old ones, moving all of their things to another house. Maybe that’s what happened here. I thought about it and decided that there was something else wrong here.
I went outside and circled the house, but nothing really stood out as being wrong. The backyard had a nice gazebo, and the rear of the house had a large porch that would be covered with the shade of a big oak tree that grew near the north side. On the south side, the window wells were mostly filled with snow from several snowfalls, and on the west side, the front of the house would get a nice sunset every evening.
I went back inside and looked around again. Then it hit me like a brick. Window wells meant a basement. I hadn’t been down there. I went through the house but couldn’t find a basement door. That was weird. I went outside and looked for an entrance, but there was none. I could see into the basement, and it looked like there might be something down there, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
Chapter 49
Back inside, I looked more carefully, and in the kitchen, I found a drag mark on the tile that led to a wall. I pulled on a corner and stepped back as the wall swung away. It had been cleverly concealed right in plain sight. The edges of the wall had been hidden behind wood trim that covered the corners and crown molding hid the break in the ceiling. Behind the wall was the basement door.
I reached for the door handle, and as I turned it, I remembered to pull my gun. The stairs were covered in carpet, and I could see light coming in from the windows. I eased my way down, and when I reached the bottom, I just stood there. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
The basement covered the
full length of the house, and the people who lived here duplicated their home exactly. The living room, kitchen, bedrooms, everything was exactly the way it was upstairs, except for a small detail. This basement was full of everything that was supposed to be upstairs. Furniture, appliances, pictures, everything. They literally moved all of their belongings into a duplicate house.
In the bedroom, I found the occupants of the house. They were lying on the bed, holding hands. Their bodies were mummified, and on the dresser, there was a picture of an older man and woman holding hands. In the picture, they looked to be about seventy years old, and it was not hard to imagine the struggle they had in trying to survive the end of the world. I had to admire their ingenuity. They had nothing to build a wall with, so they retreated into a hole. Anyone coming into the house would see an empty place and figure the occupants long gone. I wondered how many times they had to listen to people like me or Skinny come into their house and stomp around like we owned it.
There was a plant by the window that looked like it had been there for just a little while. I looked it over, and after a minute of inspection, I knew what it was. My dad had shown it to me once when we were in the woods and his lesson stuck with me. The dried flowers and berries were a big clue, being dark purple in color, with large triangular leaves. It was Atropa belladonna, or more commonly known as deadly nightshade. Everything about the plant was deadly. Four berries could kill a child and ten could kill an adult. Eating a single leaf could kill an adult. Looking at the two on the bed, it seemed like they decided to head to the afterlife together before they got too old and frail to live in this world.
I left everything as I found it and went back upstairs. I closed the door and the wall, and left the house. It was one of the more strange things I had seen in a while.
Born In The Apocalypse (Book 3): Jericho Page 13