The fact it was worldwide was something he found particularly distressing.
“Well,” she said, not conceding the point, “at the very least we need to get away from the city. There has to be some place we could go that’s better than this, farther out in the country maybe.”
“We have electricity here and plenty of food. They’re farmers. They aren’t going to run out. This is a good spot.”
“Until people come like those we saw,” continued Julie, angrily, “like the ones who killed that man for a fucking candy bar. Think they won’t be looking for an out of the way place like this too, at some point?”
* * *
Simon never wanted to leave the home of Gloria and Kyle Roberson. At the time he related this story to me, he still regretted the decision. Despite its location close to Omaha, it was well stocked and isolated. Even so, Julie had been adamant to the point of threatening to take the children on her own. In the end, they left with a full tank of gas courtesy of their hosts, some extra clothes, blankets, and a lot of provisions.
They journeyed south following farm roads until they could go no further and had to venture onto a highway. It was there that they encountered Stan’s convoy – Cherie had been with that group from the start – and listened to his plan of heading to the ocean. That seemed brilliant at the time, as Julie had been quick to say for days following, and they eagerly accepted his invitation to join. It was going to be a long, hard trip, but they had a goal. More importantly, they were going someplace the zombies wouldn’t be able to follow.
* * *
Over the next few days they picked up more survivors, usually one or two at time. Once they met and accepted a group of seven vehicles and sixteen people. But the number when Simon first met Stan was barely over a hundred, and by the time he met Jacob it had not changed much. There were significant losses.
Some deaths were from bad luck or carelessness, but the majority occurred when stopping to gather food and other supplies. With so many people, the caravan required a great deal, and, for whatever reason, no one had considered rationing. Food was being wasted. Also, quite a few individuals wanted this or that particular item, and Stan did his best to accommodate them. He might have had a destination in mind, but when it came to practical matters, he was lacking.
On one occasion, Simon watched as they hit a Super Wal-Mart. The doors had been wide open, and zombies were seen moving around in the parking lot. The team going inside didn’t seem to take either of these facts into consideration. They just grabbed shopping carts and started filling them. Simon heard the screams a few minutes later. There had been zombies in the building as well. Then the guards posted by the doors got frightened – to be fair, there was a large number of the dead shambling toward them – and opened fire. This was uncoordinated and rushed. They hit nothing. The gunshots did bring those inside back out to see what was happening however. The entire affair had fallen apart. Deciding they couldn't stay, the looting party ran for their cars. Two were dead, another eight infected. The entire debacle could have been avoided, if only Stan or someone else had planned it better.
It was this lack of competence among the leadership that caused Simon and Julie to leave the convoy and link up with Briana and me instead. They thought my predictions about what they’d face at the ocean made sense, and while it might still be doable, the odds of Stan’s group succeeding were distressingly low. There had been too many mistakes already. They couldn’t take any more chances with their lives, or that of their children.
While Julie had decided to place all blame for Juliette’s death on me, and none on herself or anyone else, or even to acknowledge it was a horrible event that no one could have foreseen, Simon was not so irrational. He was pissed in general, and I think he did hold me somewhat responsible, but that was a tiny part of him, and it was buried. The bulk of his attention was focused on keeping what remained of his family alive. He maintained, personally, that joining us had been the right call at the time.
Chapter VI
The twenty first day – three weeks and still alive, a milestone – found us driving north on US-385. We were almost there, and I was becoming more and more anxious. That we would arrive was almost a foregone conclusion, but would it be safe in the Nebraska National Forest? Would we be able to set up a community of sorts and survive, or would we become the victims of zombies, possibly of other breathers? We’d already lost Juliette, and I didn’t want to see anyone else die, although the way Julie had been acting that might be a viewpoint worth reconsidering. Okay, that was a horrible thing to say, seeing how she just lost her daughter, but the woman’s behavior was... trying.
It was around lunch time that we reached the outskirts and what was an unusually clear stretch of road.
“Briana, get on the radio and tell everyone we’re stopping.”
“We just filled the tanks a little while ago. Why again?”
“Check it out. We have a big open area where we can see in all directions, and no zombies in sight. Let’s stretch our legs and eat something, now that we have the chance.”
She grinned broadly – Briana has a delightful smile – and relayed the message. No one protested, and we stopped in the middle of the road. Doing so still seemed strange, and probably would for weeks to come, but with zero traffic there was no reason to pull off to the side.
“Soup, beans, or canned stew?” I asked, grabbing my largest pot. “We should have plenty of time to heat any of these before something unpleasant comes by. Mary, why don’t you make a fire.”
The teenager was our resident firebug in training, and she’d shown a great deal of talent and enthusiasm in this regard.
“I’ll kill any zombies that interfere with my eating,” declared Lizzy. “I mean that.”
The woman insisted on filling her belly each and every night. It wasn’t healthy. Still, Lizzy had accepted our loose rationing system, albeit with a great deal of complaining – she thought us amply supplied. However, this didn’t stop her from devouring anything Lois and Mary neglected to finish.
Stew was the consensus, and I opened one of the gallon cans we’d taken from the diner. Those were ideal for feeding the entire group, and any leftovers were put into Tupperware containers to be used as snacks until the next meal rolled around. No one wanted beans. There was no shortage either. It seemed every time we stopped for supplies, there was at least one can of beans to be found. Creepy.
“How safe do you suppose it’ll be in the forest?” asked Cherie. She was looking at the trees in the distance. They did appear strange rising out of what was otherwise prairie.
“No zombies here,” said Briana, between bites. “Probably won’t be many in there either.”
“At present, you mean,” remarked Cherie. “They do travel.”
“There’ll be some,” I said. “Being summer, there would have been hikers and campers, and people live in and around the forest. Still, I don’t think the numbers would have been high. There are no big cities nearby, and the towns tend to be super tiny with only a few good sized ones close by. The only thing I’m kinda worried about is Mount Rushmore.”
“What about it?” asked Mary. “Can we go see? I’ve never been there.”
“Mary,” chided Lois, “not now.”
“I’m sure we’ll check it out eventually. Not just yet though. It’s north of us by the Black Hills, and it would have been packed with tourists. That means lots of zombies.”
“And you brought us here,” demanded Julie. “Wasn’t one of my babies enough for you?”
“Mom,” began Michael.
“Be quiet,” she ordered, and he dutifully, or fearfully, obeyed.
“It’s far enough away, with enough roads going in different directions, that I’m not too worried about them coming down toward us. Besides, I intend to set up well off the highway. Since they like to follow the roads most of the time, that should help.”
I looked over at Mary. “But all those tourists mean lots of food in the h
otels and restaurants, lots of campers and trucks and other stuff. No shortage of Mount Rushmore T-shirts either.”
“Zombie coming,” said Lizzy. She was on lookout.
“Is it wearing a Mount Rushmore T-shirt?” asked Cherie.
Mary began to giggle.
“Wouldn’t surprise me, but I can’t tell yet. It’s really far off. We’ll be done and packed up before it reaches us.”
“The Mount Rushmore area will be worth checking out for supplies Mary,” I continued, “at some point, but I think we should wait for it to thin out first. We’ll get things from the nearby towns in the meantime.”
“Here you go Mary,” said Cherie, after she retrieved something from her truck. “For you too Michael.”
Simon looked at her in surprise and with an expression of gratitude that was fortunately not witnessed by his wife.
Mary and Michael both let out squeals of delight as they opened the bag of marsh mellows and more when Cherie handed them makeshift skewers so they could roast them over the fire.
“We don’t have too long,” said Julie. She was focused on the zombie, and a few others that appeared behind it.
“I’ll take care of them if they get close,” declared Lizzy, annoyed that the bitch would imply, consciously or not, that she couldn’t defend the group from a mere handful of shamblers.
The older woman scowled at her, but softened a tiny bit as her eyes drifted over her son who was clearly enjoying himself. This might have been the first time he smiled since his sister died.
It was interesting. Here I’d thought Cherie was an extremely self-serving woman who always put herself first, though in a rather devious manner that was not readily obvious to the casual observer. Then she does something nice for the children. But judging from the way she was watching Simon, through the corner of her eye, it was more than likely she had thought this out from start to finish with a clear goal in mind.
* * *
The delay turned out to be longer than anticipated. Mary and Michael were having fun, and no one wanted to rush them. As a result, I joined Lizzy, and we took care of the four zombies that were approaching from the north. On a lark – sounds bad, I know – I took my .22. Hitting them in the head with the rifle was easy, easier than with my pistol, but the shots were largely ineffective. The first zombie took three bullets to kill, the second two. Rounds that tiny just don’t do enough damage to the brain to drop the things.
Returning, we found Briana had the atlas and some maps we picked up in Canton spread across the hood of the Jeep.
“The highway goes right down the middle,” she said.
“Yeah.” I’d passed through several times in the past.
She frowned. “No side roads.”
“There are tons of dirt roads, service roads, trails, and the like. They just aren’t on a normal road map. We’ll take one of those. Hopefully we can find a suitable ranger station or house or something to set up in. Then we can explore the forest and find a good spot to settle permanently.”
“Big place,” observed Lizzy, “or at least it looks that way. We should work fast. Fall’s pretty much here, for Nebraska anyway, and it won’t be long before we get snowed on.”
“I know,” I agreed, “but better to take the time and find an ideal location than have to move later and redo all the work.”
“Can I make Julie dig some ditches?”
Briana nodded. “I second that.”
“Say she’s not standing behind me.” I had a sudden fear that all sorts of nastiness was about to occur.
“She’s way back with Michael, putting away the leftovers.”
“Yeah,” said Lizzy. She slapped my shoulder, which was amusing since I’m a foot taller than her. “We wouldn’t talk like this in front of her.”
“You do that rather often,” I pointed out.
“Only when she deserves it, although that’s pretty much always.”
“She is getting nutty,” added Briana, “more nutty I mean. She’s going to be trouble sooner or later. We have to do something.”
“Want me to cast her out? Simon and Michael will go too. Maybe Cherie.”
“Cherie’s not leaving,” said Briana, glowering at the thought. “She may be a slut trying to get at Simon, but she’ll want to stay with us. You and Lizzy have proven you can kill zombies left and right. You keep us, and her, safe. No one else does the shooting, not really.”
“That’s cause we’re the best.”
“And because no one else wants to do it.”
“That too,” admitted Lizzy. “Bunch of weenies in this group.”
“So, if I can’t toss Julie without losing Simon and Michael, and I don’t want that since there’s a good chance they’d end up dead, then the only alternative is to kill her. Do you prefer a quiet assassination, or should I just shoot her now and be done with it?”
I was being sarcastic, and neither missed this.
“Nah,” countered Lizzy. “I’ll be the one to get rid of her.”
“Funny, funny,” said Briana, sighing. “I guess we’re stuck with her, for now.” She emphasized those last words. “But I don’t think things can stay the way they are forever.”
* * *
“What type of home are we going to have?” asked Briana.
We were back in the Jeep, crossing into the forest and moving slower than normal as we kept an eye out for anything of interest.
“I think a fort, possibly old west style made of logs planted in the ground and bound together.”
“Don’t you think that’d be hard to make?”
“Not really. We have enough people to make one, and we could build cabins inside or possibly put it around an existing structure. A stone wall would be far better, but that would take longer. It might be something we do long term.”
“Oh, I want the stone, a castle actually. When I was little I always wanted to be a princess.”
“I don’t think I have the engineering skill or knowledge, much less the manpower, to build you a castle, however much I might want to.” I reached over, and she gave my hand a squeeze. “A tower we could probably do, and walls. More than that’s either going to take a lot of time or more people.”
“Hopefully we’ll find more survivors. It would be good to have a proper town, or whatever becomes the norm now that the zombies are everywhere. Damn zombies.”
“I also thought,” I continued, “that we could hit some lumber yards or Home Depots and get fencing material. It might be easiest to build a normal six foot fence right away. We could put that up in a day, maybe two, and it would keep the zombies out while we did other work, at least long enough for us to notice and deal with them.”
“I don’t want to be protected from the biters by a simple fence, long term, but I can see using it while building something better. It would suck to be there hammering or sawing away and get bitten from behind. Worse, if you’re actually bitten on the behind.”
“It would certainly be a shame to have a backside as lovely as yours eaten, tragedy even.”
No idea why I said that. It just popped into my head.
“Really.” Briana’s green eyes widened. “Tell me more about how nice my bottom is. Have you been looking while I’ve been facing the other way? Naughty, naughty.”
I hesitated. “I don’t think I can respond in any way that won’t have you abusing me.”
“Come on,” she pouted. “No taking away my fun.”
“How about fun after we take that service road there, to the left.”
“Fine, be that way.”
Her tone promised the teasing would continue soon enough.
I turned down the road and slowed even more. It was quite rough, and I didn’t want anyone messing up their vehicle. All of us could navigate it, but I thought I was the only one with skid plates. Those were a godsend when dealing with rocky terrain.
“Where we going?” asked Lizzy, over the radio.
“Well?” prompted Briana.
�
��Not sure. I think we’ll follow this and see what we find. We have several hours of daylight still, so there’s time.”
“We’re just exploring,” announced Briana. “If you see a possibility for the night, let us know. I for one would rather sleep in a building than in the Jeep.”
“I agree there,” laughed Lizzy.
Most of the radio conversations were between Lizzy and Briana. Cherie rarely spoke, nor did Simon. That was just as well. I didn’t particularly want to hear Julie’s input or opinions all day long. They were universally negative and generally insulting.
“Well, well,” said Briana, into the radio. “Imagine that.” Her voice was quiet.
“What is it?” demanded Lizzy. She was at the rear of our little convoy. That had become the norm, largely to ensure there was an experienced shooter on both ends in case anything happened.
“A campsite, full of living people, and they’re waving at us.”
* * *
As before, we’d found an organized group of survivors. First we had Edwin and his folk in Anadarko, Oklahoma. While they were in a precarious position, they knew what they were doing. Then there was Stan and Joan and their foolish quest to reach the sea. Between what I saw and what Simon related, I’m pretty certain they were clueless. This new group seemed to be more closely aligned with Stan’s bunch than Edwin’s. What a pity.
To start with, they were living in tents. With a few precautions that might be reasonable, even safe. However, I saw none. The tents were spread out around a small lake. Some were on high ground, some on low. That showed a lack of common sense right there. Anyone who’s camped a lot knows not to put the tent where it might flood during a storm. Additionally, there were no sentries, no one keeping watch. Children were playing unsupervised. Two men were fishing, and there were quite a few people milling about doing nothing whatsoever.
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Sanctuary Page 17