“Yep, they’re range markers. So, what does that tell you?”
“There’s a sniper out here,” he exclaimed in hushed understanding. I heard Seth inhale some air. Sammy started looking around intensely. Suddenly, his mouth dropped open and he pointed at the small mound of bushes. I silently nodded, and I think the two of them finally noticed I had my Kimber forty-five out of its holster and holding it down by my side. I gave a tacit warning to Seth, who nodded in understanding, and began speaking out loudly.
“Sniper, I know your duty is to protect Joe, but I’d feel a heck of a lot better knowing you aren’t pointing that rifle at my friends. Why don’t you stand up and we’ll walk down there together and join everyone.” He didn’t respond, instead, he continued lying perfectly still, the tip of the barrel barely sticking out of the bushes was the only sign he was there.
“I know you can hear me, so let’s not sit here all day in the heat.” Actually, the steady breeze made it pleasant out, but I knew from experience that lying prone in a ghillie suit hiding in a bunch of weeds and bushes all day was mighty uncomfortable. Yet, there was still no movement or response. I glanced at Seth, who gave a slight shrug. We were at an impasse. I didn’t want any violence, but this sniper was trying my patience.
“Well, I guess I’m mistaken. Fellas, I need to pee first and then we’ll go down and join everyone. You know what, I think I’m going to piss all over that spot where I’m imagining a sniper is lying down.”
“Yeah,” Seth added. “I’ll join you, my bladder is about to burst.” It took maybe two seconds now before the small mound began moving and a figure in a ghillie suit slowly stood up.
“Please keep your weapon pointed down,” I said. He did as I suggested, but even through the camouflage I could sense a tenseness. I kept my handgun pointed at the ground, but I wasn’t quite ready to holster it just yet.
“I’m Zach, this is Captain Kitchens with the United States Army, and my buddy here is Sammy.” I gestured toward the others. “We’re travelling through here and not looking for trouble with anyone. I hope you can see that.” The sniper reached up and pulled his headgear off. When he did so, Sammy gasped.
“Zach, that sniper’s a girl!” I don’t know why, but I was as surprised as he was. Her face was painted in various shades of olive drab, but there was no mistaking the feminine features. Her hair was a wild mess of mahogany brown and a pair of bright hazel green eyes glared at us. Seth chuckled.
“Well, this is turning into an interesting day. What’s your name, ma’am?” he asked.
“Riley,” she answered in a somewhat defiant tone.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Riley. C’mon, let’s join the rest of them,” I suggested.
As we walked down the interstate, Seth and I tried to make small talk with her. She wasn’t having any of it though and walked along in silence. As we approached Trader Joe and his van, he stopped talking with everyone and started jogging toward us, worry etched on his face. I holstered my handgun and held my hands out in front of me.
“Mister Joe, there’s no cause for alarm, right, Riley?” He glanced at me for a microsecond before focusing on Riley.
“What happened?” he asked her.
“They spotted me,” she replied and glared at me again briefly. “I’m sorry, Dad.” Seth laughed and then caught himself. I spoke up quickly.
“Joe, you can see we haven’t done anything to your daughter, so would you do me a favor?” I asked, to which he focused on me suspiciously. “Would you make that hand signal to your other sniper letting them know everything is okay? You know, swinging your arms and slapping your hands together, would you please do that so nobody gets shot by accident?” Joe stared at me a second, frowning.
“Was it that obvious?” he asked before his smile returned and he gave the signal.
“Looks like we need to work on our tactics. Come on, let’s go have a seat and jaw at each other a while.”
“So, how did you know?” Joe asked Seth. Seth shook his head and hooked a thumb at me.
“Don’t look at me; Zach’s the one who figured it out.” Joe looked at Seth a moment, as if to see if was being bullshitted, before directing his gaze at me expectantly. I saw Kelly looking at me and her expression may have been one of pride at my astuteness or it may have been a silent admonishment not to go acting like a know-it-all. I took both interpretations to heart.
“I guess your casual demeanor was the big tip off.” I gestured toward everyone with a wave of my hand.
“I mean, here’s a convoy driving up the road with an armored vehicle leading the pack, and yet, you didn’t seem particularly antsy about it.” The orange rocks, the flags, the hand signals, all of those clues helped, but Kelly was right, no reason to let on that I spotted all of that. There was no need to brag.
“How in the heck did you find Riley though? I had her hidden pretty good, and trust me, I’ve had a lot of experience in that particular area.” I shrugged and glanced at Riley, who had stripped out of her ghillie suit and was now wearing a pair of short camouflage shorts and a skimpy brown tank top.
She was a little on the petite side, skinny but toned. She’d wiped most of the camo off of her face, which revealed a very cute girl in her late teens, but she must have been hunkered down for quite a while because she was covered in sweat and grime and wasn’t smelling very pleasant at the moment. In addition, her unshaven legs had several mosquito bites.
And, it was obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra. I pretended not to notice, but those idiot brothers were staring unabashedly. Even Jorge was staring, which kind of embarrassed me. After all, Joe was no dummy, he had to have noticed as well, but he ignored it.
“You got lucky,” Riley contended in a husky voice. The glare was toned down, but it was still present. I nodded in agreement.
“Yes, we did. Sammy here has good eyesight and he happened to spot the tip of your rifle barrel peeking out.”
“Well, my son is undetected as yet and I think I’ll leave him out there, just in case. No offense.”
“None taken,” Seth replied.
“So, you guys never said where you’re heading,” Joe casually queried. I glanced at Seth.
“Mount Weather,” he replied. Joe nodded.
“I had an inkling.”
“You know of Mount Weather?” Raymond asked, to which Joe gave another small nod.
“How so?” Raymond pressed.
“My father used to work for the government,” Riley said. Joe gave her a look. She ignored him and spotted Kelly, who was over by the Volvo watching as Frederick peed on a tire. Callahan was not to be outdone and hiked his leg on it as well. I hoped I wouldn’t need to change that tire anytime soon. At least little Zoe trotted off into the weeds before squatting.
“Who is she?”
“That’s my - that’s my wife, Kelly, and my kids.”
“I think I’d like to say hello.” Riley promptly lost interest in us and walked over to her. I watched as Kelly smiled and the two of them immediately began what appeared to be a friendly conversation.
“The key phrase is used to,” Joe said. “I’ve got no desire to be involved with any government of any kind, anymore.”
“Do y’all live in Bristol?” I asked. He shook his head.
“We’ve got a place out in the east end of the county. Bristol was too dangerous. I guess every city was about the same when the outbreak first began.”
“How is it now?” Earl asked. Joe shrugged noncommittally.
“It’s calmed down some, but you’ve still gotta be careful.”
“Yeah, Nashville is about the same,” I said. Joe stretched and smiled.
“Why don’t we do some trading?” he suggested.
“Sounds like a good idea,” Raymond replied with his own grin and motioned toward the van and trailer.
We watched in amusement as the two men soon became involved in the preliminary verbal jousting and I had to admit, Raymond was indeed a good bullshitter. He u
sed a lot of preamble and foreplay before mentioning what we had available for trade. When he did, Joe actually emitted a small gasp and I could have sworn I heard his stomach growl. He recovered quickly and tried to regain control by throwing out a challenge.
“Well now, I’m not a man to call anybody a liar, but I’d sure like to see some proof of what you’re claiming.” Justin and Jorge helped me. Soon, we had one of Joe’s tables filled with several sirloin steaks and two mason jars of honey. Raymond smiled smugly, knowing victory was his.
When it was all said and done, we had all of the bananas and a goodly amount of strawberries to boot. When the bartering was completed, I suggested we go ahead and grill some of the steaks. Joe and Riley readily agreed.
“Do you want your son to join us?” I asked. Joe thought a moment and then gave a hand signal. After a minute, I saw a figure emerge from the dense bushes on the opposite end of the interstate. He too was wearing a homemade ghillie suit similar to Riley’s. He was a little bit shorter than me, lanky, with a ponytail similar to his father’s and a scruff of a beard on his chin.
“He’s named after me, so we call him Little Joe.” Introductions were made all around and then I went back to the trailer to get the fancy Weber grill I’d taken from the farm. I didn’t realize Joe and Riley had followed me until I heard a long low whistle from behind me.
“You people have a little bit of everything in there,” he remarked. I nodded affably and handed down the grill.
“We’re relocating; I didn’t see any reason to leave everything behind.” I jumped out of the trailer, shutting the doors and padlocking them. Joe seemed a little put off by that. He obviously wanted to look over everything we had.
“If you don’t mind my asking, why are you relocating? Is it that bad where you came from?”
“We had a few setbacks with cattle and crops, probably nothing you haven’t gone through as well.”
“Doesn’t seem like that would be the deciding factor,” he said as we walked back to the group.
“If I didn’t have family, I don’t think I would have left, but I have to take their welfare into consideration.” Before I could speak further, the little Tasmanian devil ran up from wherever he was and attacked one of my legs in a bear hug. I hoisted him up on my hip.
“This is why,” I responded as Janet walked up holding Macie. “These are my two kids and this is Janet, my monster-in-law.” Janet glared at me as Joe laughed and introduced himself. Macie hid her face in the cleavage of Janet’s shirt, which if I didn’t know any better I’d say there were a couple of extra buttons open that normally weren’t. Joe laughed again.
“She’s a shy one. So, your decision has to do with your kids.”
“Yep. There are several things that Mount Weather can offer that I can’t provide for,” I continued as we all walked back to the main group, which were all gathered around Joe’s van.
“Such as?” he asked.
“Medical care, a formal education for the kids,” and me, for that matter. “A military presence, and an overall greater access to resources.” I glanced at Janet, who was trying, and succeeding, in making pointed eye contact with Joe.
“Hmm,” he replied. Whether he was hmming at my statement or at Janet’s cleavage, I had no idea.
Jorge had rounded up some kindling, took charge of the grill and started getting a fire going. Josue had gotten our folding chairs out of the truck and everyone was getting comfortable. Little Joe had walked over to the side of his father’s van, stripped down to his waist and was doing his best to clean himself up with a washrag. Both Kate and Kyra were giving him the once over too, much to Shooter’s displeasure. Kelly pretended not to notice, which was nice.
“How about you guys, what kind of community do you have set up?” Seth asked.
“We have a few farmers, locals and their spouses.” He intentionally didn’t tell the specific numbers. Seth noticed and looked at me suspiciously, but he didn’t push it. Joe picked up on our tacit exchange.
“A couple of winters ago, we had a cholera outbreak. We lost a few people, but I’m not sure I’m trusting enough to tell you our actual numbers.”
“We understand,” I said. “May I ask how it happened?”
“When everything went bad, a group of us banded together. We had a decent operation going, for the most part. Everyone had job assignments.” Joe made a face and shook his head. “We had this one knucklehead, he was a poster child for laziness. We all know the type. Well, unfortunately, he was assigned water duty. Come to find out he wasn’t boiling the water we were drawing from a well.”
“And the well was contaminated,” Grant said. Joe nodded. “It’s a wonder all of you didn’t die.” He then gestured toward me.
“He distills his drinking water.” Joe looked at me questioningly.
“Filtering removes sediment, boiling kills bacteria, but only distilling can remove heavy metals.”
“That’s a lot of time and effort involved. Are you certain there’re heavy metals in your water?”
“I don’t have any test kits, so no, I’m only guessing, but think about it. The groundwater is contaminated by toxic spills everywhere. I think it’s prudent, especially when it comes to my kids.” Joe continued staring at me as he grunted thoughtfully.
“How did you people contain the cholera?” Grant asked, his interest now piqued.
“Well, sir, one of the first to get sick and die was our doctor. We quarantined the rest.”
“Did anyone who had become sick survive?” he asked. Joe frowned.
“Quite a few died. Riley got pretty sick, but she lived through it.” I looked over at her. She smiled demurely. At least she wasn’t glaring at me anymore.
“At one point, she’d dropped down to about fifty pounds.”
“Now, I’m stronger than ever,” she exclaimed and flexed her right bicep. She indeed had muscular arms, small, but muscular. Just like Andie.
“Nice,” I said. She smiled again and then I saw Kelly looking at me out of the corner of my eye. I turned to Joe and changed the subject.
“How has it gone with the infected?” I asked.
“About what you’d expect. Once we figured out they can’t do shit when it’s below freezing, we went on a lot of search and destroy missions. We killed off quite a lot.”
“We’ve killed the shit out of them,” Riley declared.
“We lost a few people though,” Joe said. “It hasn’t been easy.”
“Are you people everyone that’s left over from Nashville?” Riley asked.
“No, there’s a few who decided not to join us and stayed behind.”
“Any men?” she asked, and cast a quick glance at Jorge this time. Joe spoke up.
“My little girl is in heat.”
“Dad!” Riley scolded. Even through the grime, I could see her cheeks redden. Little Joe, who had emerged from the side of the van wearing a semi-fresh baseball jersey, chortled.
“Yeah, my son is too,” Joe added. His son was suddenly quiet and started blushing too. I pointed at the jersey.
“Did you play baseball in high school?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he answered, thankful that I changed the subject.
“He loves his baseball,” Joe added. “He had the state record for homeruns and was going to have a full ride at Virginia Tech when it all broke out.”
“Now he hits homeruns upside zombie’s heads,” Riley said. “It’s gross when their heads bust open.”
“At least, he takes his sexual frustrations out with a bat instead of using all of our spare batteries on a vibrator.” Most of us laughed loudly now. Riley’s cheeks turned even redder. She stood quickly and grabbed the wash rag from her brother before disappearing behind the van.
“Starting about a year ago, we began noticing a distinct change in behavior in quite a few of them,” I said and told them some of the stories.
“Have you seen anything similar, Joe?”
“A little bit,” Joe admitted,
but didn’t elaborate.
“What’s the largest horde you guys have seen?” Grant asked.
“I suppose the largest was during the initial outbreak. The whole city of Bristol seemed to be infected.” He thought for a minute.
“A lot of them died off after the first year. We ventured a little way into the city from time to time and tested the waters. The stench from the rotting bodies is just awful.”
“You got that right,” Little Joe said. “Riley’s BO smells exactly the same.”
“Asshole,” Riley retorted from behind the van.
“We’ve killed quite a few as well. Let’s see, I’d say in the last year the biggest group of them we’ve seen together at one time was about five hundred to a thousand. What do you think, son?”
“Yeah, I guess,” he answered. “I mean, I didn’t take the time to count each one of them and Riley can’t count that high.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from a dumb jock,” Riley retorted as she emerged. She’d wiped most of the grime off of her face and it looked like she’d even brushed her hair a little.
“How did y’all react?” I asked. Joe grinned and held his hands up in a shrug.
“We hid.”
“They came out of the city,” Riley said as she blew a tuft of hair out of her face. “They were all walking together.”
“We don’t know where they were going but they were walking south,” Joe added. I nodded and was about to give my opinion when Cutter spoke up.
“Yeah, we’ve been studying them,” he said with a little bit of puff in his voice. “There are some of them that’re evolving and they’ve figured out they need to travel in order to find fresh food sources.” Riley looked at him curiously.
“What kind of studying?” she asked. Cutter obviously wasn’t prepared for that kind of question and started stammering.
“Mostly through observation,” I said, hoping to stop him from making himself out to look like an idiot. I mean, we all knew he wasn’t all that smart, but he was a reflection of us.
Zombie Rules (Book 4): Destiny Page 43