She didn't expect the interaction to go down this way, and in her confusion she let go of the man's cloak. He tossed her another look and laughed again, then started pushing his cart forward, continuing on down the road.
"Hey, wait a minute!" she said. She went after him and grabbed him again, shoving the gun to his temple. "I mean it! I'll shoot you! Don't make another sound!"
"You can't have those batteries!" the man cried. "Those are the old ones!"
"What?" she said, utterly confused.
"I'm going to get some more now," he said, "you'll just have to wait." He tried to start off with his cart again, but yanked himself against Sarah's grip, choking himself. He stumbled backward a couple of steps before trying to set off again, apparently not understanding that she was still holding onto him.
She wondered how long he'd been traveling the roads. It seemed like the sun had baked every last brain cell out of his head, and it was a wonder he still knew what he was doing at all.
Much to his delirious protest, she dragged him across the street and into the tavern she pointed out to David. She shoved him into the pub and he staggered across the floor and fell on his hands and knees, laughing his head off. She hurried back out into the street and gave David a signal to follow her as she retrieved the shopping cart and pushed it into the pub.
David ran in and she instructed him to go sit on a rickety barstool in the corner. She went up to the cart and inspected it, shoving around all the items inside. A black curtain lined the inside of the cart and draped over the edges, hanging down to the wheels on all sides. The basket was filled almost to the top with supplies from bandages to silverware, to old cell phone covers. Most of it was junk in this day and age, and she supposed that was why the bandit had been angry with the old man.
She stood over the man, who was still on the floor, laughing. The hood of his cloak had fallen off his head, revealing his thinning and messy white hair. A pair of old, thin fingerless gloves coming apart at the seams covered his filthy hands.
"You go into Durham?" she asked him.
"What?" the man said.
"Durham," she said. "You go into Durham, don't you?"
"Huh?"
"What do you do with your cart?" she asked. She stepped over and grabbed the edge of the cart, shaking it.
"I'm a scrounger," he said, finally understanding a question she asked.
"A scrounger?"
"I get supplies for people and then I give it to them."
"And they let you go across that bridge?"
He gave a big nod. "Uh-yep."
"How often do you go over there?"
"Over where?"
"Into Durham," she said. "How often do you go across that bridge into Durham?"
He started laughing again at nothing in particular. She got angry and went up to him, grabbing him by the lapels and shaking him. He was jostled into silence and he regarded her face with a mixture of inquisitiveness and fright.
"Durham," she said. "Across the bridge." She pointed in the direction of it, making a gesture with her hand to simulate a bridge going over water.
"Yes," the man said. "Across the bridge."
She sighed. "How do you get across?" she asked in a measured tone.
"I walk!" he said.
She put a hand across her forehead, trying to ease the tension she felt. "Why do those men let you by?"
"I don't buy," he said. "I sell! Well, I mean, I give."
"No, why do those men let you cross the bridge?"
"Because I give them supplies. I give them supplies and they let me across."
She couldn't believe he actually gave her a straight answer. He seemed off his rocker, and she couldn't tell if he was genuine, or if this was all an act.
"So what do you get out of it?" she asked.
"Get out of... huh?"
"I saw those men hassling you today. Do they always do that?"
He sat and thought about it for a moment, rolling around the couple of marbles he had in his head. "No, they usually leave me alone," he said.
"Why were they bothering you today?"
"My wares have been a little light today. Couldn't find too much lately in the city."
"Where did you get all your supplies? Over in Durham?"
"Mostly, uh-yep."
"So what happens most of the time when you go over there? When they don't harass you? Do you just walk over the bridge, they take your stuff, and they let you by?"
"Usually they don't pay any attention to me. I just go by, do my business, and be on my way."
"Do you talk to anyone on the bridge?"
He looked up at the ceiling, thinking again. His eyes stared up, shifting back and forth, as if he were trying to uncover a large nugget of information that was buried deep down. But after several moments passed, he just stayed quiet, his thin lips parted slightly and his blank eyes staring.
"Did you hear what I said?" she asked.
His head snapped to hers. "What?" he said, coming out of his trance.
She bent down and shook him again.
He cried out, raising his hands up in the air, and she let him go because he was making too much noise. "Shh, be quiet!" she said.
He rubbed the back of his neck, wincing. "You can't do that! My neck's not so good. I can't think straight when it goes all wonky."
"You can't think straight at all," she said, frustrated.
"The bridge," she repeated. "Does anyone talk to you when you go across the bridge?"
"No, not usually," he said. "Usually I just go through and Tanner takes what he wants from my cart and I keep going."
"When do you usually cross the bridge? Do you go at the same time every day or do you go at different times?"
"I go whenever. Doesn't matter. I get the stuff and they take it."
"So what do you get out of all of this?"
He thought for a moment. "I get to live!" he said with a big toothless grin.
"Are you the only one who gives them supplies, or are there others like you?"
"I'm one of a kind, baby!" he said, grinning wider.
"Are there any female scroungers?"
"I wish! I'd like to scrounge a few things off of them!" He stuck his tongue between the few teeth he had left and wiggled his scrawny fingers through the air in delight.
"So no women?"
"No," he said. "Women don't want to go over that bridge."
"Why not?"
"Why don't you go and find out!" he said and cackled madly.
"Do you go over at night sometimes?"
"Sure, I do."
"What's on the other side of the bridge?"
"Durham," he said.
"No, I mean what kind of things are around the other side of the bridge? Are there more bandits? Is there a checkpoint? How many bandits are in the city?"
He scrunched up his face, looking like a child who just had his lunch stolen. "I have to go," he said, pulling the hood of his cloak back on. "It's getting late."
He started to get up, but she shoved him back to the floor.
"Where is Noah's Ark?" she said.
He traced a finger along the dust on the floor. His brow was scrunched up, and he was deep in thought, scratching the two marbles in his head together like a flint lighter trying to strike a spark. He sat upright at last, a look of excitement on his face. "The Bible!" he exclaimed. "It's in the Bible!"
She couldn't take any more of him and decided this interview was over.
"Give me that cloak you have on," she said. "Your gloves, too."
"Well, okay," the man said without objection. He stood up and took everything off and handed them to her, revealing a ratty black v-neck shirt underneath.
She was surprised by how easily he complied, and she took the articles from him and set them on top of the cart. "I'm taking your cart too," she said. "Get out of here."
"All right," he said, and walked across the room and started pushing his cart out of the pub. She yanked the back of his shirt
and pulled him away from it.
"Hey, did you hear what I said?" she asked. "I said I'm taking your cart."
"You can't take my cart," he said, suddenly agitated. "It's mine!" he cried. He grabbed the handle again and tried to wheel it out the door, but she grabbed onto the cart too and held it in place. He struggled against her and kept yelling "It's mine!" over and over again.
She let him go and turned to David.
"Cover your eyes," she said.
He was reluctant, but he did.
She took the gun out of her waistband and clocked the man in the back of the head with it. He crumpled up into a ball on the ground and she put the gun back in her pants, telling David that he could open his eyes.
He looked at the unconscious man lying on the floor. "What did you do to him?" he asked.
"He's just taking a nap," she said.
"Mom, I'm eight. I'm not stupid."
"I knocked him out. But he's not dead. I just needed his cart and his clothes."
"Why?"
"Because we're going to Noah's Ark."
17
THE BRIDGE
It was past midnight as Sarah pushed the shopping cart toward the bridge. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky and the moon shone in its unfiltered brilliance, as clear as crystal. Stars dotted the night sky and displayed the grandest map ever drawn, illustrating the magnificence of the universe and the countless stars, planets and civilizations that must span its endless body.
But there on Earth, in the outskirts of Durham, there was one woman and her little boy with a small task: they needed to cross a bridge. It was a task so simple, and yet it was the most important thing that ever faced her in her entire life. Everything was riding on the next ten minutes.
She prepared herself in every way she could. She donned the crazy old man's yellow-brown cloak and his gloves, purposefully dirtying her hands so that at a reasonable distance there would appear to be nothing amiss. She drew her hair back and tucked it into the back of her blouse so it wouldn't stick out, and she pulled the hood of the cloak forward as far as it would go, making sure to keep her head down the whole way so no one could see into it and see through her disguise.
David was hiding inside the shopping cart, and she told him to keep quiet and that she would tell him when it was over. All they needed to do was get across the bridge and then they could go to Noah's Ark. She could maybe even keep the disguise on the whole way, gliding past whatever patrols or sentries may lie between them and salvation. But for the moment, the bridge was a looming monolith towering in the night sky, illuminated by the barrel fires that the bandits had started around their encampments.
Most of the bandits were asleep in the large tents that dotted the bridge, with only a skeleton crew keeping watch. The ones that were awake seemed relaxed, like they had maybe even let their guards down.
The cart rattled along the interstate as she reached the bottom of the bridge. The contents inside were the same that the old man had in the cart earlier, but she figured that was for the best; any supplies left to be scrounged in the area seemed to only be inside the city, so they probably wouldn't even check the cart on the way over. If they did, they might find David, and she couldn't let that happen. She could slip a hand into the front of the cloak and grab the gun from her waist at any moment if she needed to, but with only one round left, it was her last resort.
The black cloth hanging down from the cart flapped gently in the breeze. The night was cool and calm, and the crickets sang in unison with the numerous but subdued cries and jeers from the patrolling bandits.
She pushed the cart up the incline, keeping a close watch from under her hood on the movements of the bandits around her. Some were patrolling up and down the incline and some were sitting in rusted chairs near the edges, surveying the land. A few patrolled with flashlights along the metal wall spanning the river down below. All of them were heavily armed, and even at night when the watch was sparse, no one would be able to mount an assault and successfully cross their bridge. But they weren't prepared for two people in disguise to slip through.
She passed a bandit sitting in a chair, cleaning his rifle with a filthy rag. She kept her head down and slightly to the side, trying not to make herself look suspicious, and he didn't pay any attention to her.
The cart rattled up the bridge, and the sound was deafening in her ears. She felt like it was betraying her presence and drawing everyone's attention to her, even though all of the bandits she passed couldn't care less about her.
She weaved the cart between a few abandoned cars, one of them just a torched husk of metal. She crested the bridge without any trouble and the rest of it spanned in front of her. She felt like a runner looking down the hundred-meter track they were about to run. Large green military tents, wrecked cars and the odd group of bandits sitting by a fire were up ahead.
As she came up to the first tent sitting against the left side of the bridge, the front flap opened and a bandit strolled out. She recognized him; he was one of the bandits that she saw on the bridge earlier in the day that told the other bandit not to harass the scrounger. At first he just stood there, looking across the bridge out into the land beyond, smoking a cigarette.
She kept her head down and steered the cart to the right, trying not to make her obviation too apparent.
The bandit turned his head and looked at her, then he walked toward her. He glanced at the cart, then back at her.
She started to panic, not knowing what to do. If she veered off course, it would look suspicious, and if he tried to have a conversation with her, her game would be up.
He stopped just in front of the cart and she brought it to a halt. She gripped the handle tightly, her fingers going white. She was terrified that he would go rooting around the junk in the basket and find David hiding below, or David would shift slightly and make a noise.
The man reached into the cart and picked up a box of dried cranberries, looked at them, then tossed them back in the cart. "Just make sure you come back with some better stuff next time, yeah?"
She nodded, her heart pounding.
He nodded too, giving her one last look, and walked back to his tent.
She kept her head down and pushed forward, trying to stay away from the tents lining both sides of the bridge.
A couple men up ahead leaned against the edge of the bridge, staring out at the landscape. She was so focused on not tripping over herself or running the cart into anything that she didn't hear much of their conversation, but she did hear one of them mention the name "Jericho". She heard that name from some of the bandits before, and they had made the person out to sound like their leader. Her ears perked up after that and heard them talking about Jericho murdering one of their own over something to do with a woman, but she couldn't make out more than that as the sound of the rattling cart droned out their conversation as she passed them and continued along the bridge.
She passed a tent that was bigger than all the rest and saw something beyond it that chilled her to the bone.
A set of three large metal cages were lined up along the right side of the bridge, and each one had a big door that was secured with a padlock and heavy chains. The cages were filled with women, appearing to range from about twenty to seventy years old. All of them were stripped naked, with cuts and bruises littering their bodies, and some of them looked very emaciated. A young brunette who looked to be in her twenties lay on her side, her knees hiked up to her chest with her arms wrapped around. She stared off at nothing, and the only place Sarah had ever seen that same blank look before was in the eyes of the restless dead. A portly, elderly woman lay behind her, her wiry white hair matted against the pavement. She had lacerations all down her back and her legs were black and blue. There were about ten girls in the cages altogether, and they all lay on the hard ground, sleeping or staring mindlessly, the skin on their bodies damaged and dry from lying out in the sun all day.
A bandit sat in a little chair in front of the cages, s
tanding guard. He held a hunting knife in his hands, stropping the blade with a piece of leather. He looked completely disinterested with the bounty he was guarding, like he had seen that kind of thing a thousand times before.
The haunting words of the crazy old coot who she stole the cart and the clothes from came back to her: "Women don't want to go over that bridge." At the time, she didn't want to think about the implications of what he meant, but the reality was all too apparent now.
Sarah averted her gaze as she pushed the cart on, not sure if she wanted to scream or throw up. She was extremely thankful that David was hidden in the cart and couldn't see what she was seeing. The sound of the guard stropping his knife grated on her ears as she left the horrific display, and she had to grind her teeth together to stop from doing anything to bring attention to herself.
She crossed the middle of the bridge and a patrolling bandit ahead walked in her direction. He swept his flashlight around and pointed it at her when she came by.
Her heart seized and she thought that he'd seen through her disguise, but then the man laughed at her like a depraved lunatic as he wiggled the light back and forth across her face, taunting her. She twisted her head away and pushed the cart a little faster, just waiting to hear the man come after her. But he continued to laugh as he faded away into the distance.
She didn't dare to look behind her, and before long, she saw the end of the bridge up ahead. The goal was in sight and she focused on it with incredible intensity. She thought about Noah's Ark and what it would be like for her and David, not having to worry about their safety from zombies or bandits or lunatics in schools or cannibals or anything else that filled the mad, apocalyptic world.
The final obstacle on the top of the bridge before it descended down into Durham was a large congregation of bandits sitting around a fire and playing cards. They were all talking and boorishly throwing insults at each other. As she got closer, one of the bandits got a sour look on his face, throwing his cards down on the ground and yelling at another person near him.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he yelled. "You fucking cheated!"
"The hell I did," the second man shot back. "I won fair and square and you fucking know it. And even if I did cheat, you better count your teeth before you talk to me like that again, boy."
Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 1): The Fall of Man Page 16