Around evening, I figured it was time to find a place for the night. We climbed off the road and onto a small bridge that crossed I-57. I wasn’t looking for anything fancy, just a place to spend the night.
The first place we saw had a collapsed roof, which was of no use to anybody. The second looked all right, being a small ranch house with an attached garage. I walked the horses around the yard and house, and when Missy didn’t seem agitated, I figured it would be safe enough to enter.
We settled in for the evening, and after the horses were put up, I circled the house and used a branch to sweep over our tracks. I wanted to make sure if anyone else was tracking me for any reason, they would have a hard time finding us.
I made sure the doors on the house were locked and I found a small room to lock myself in. I was tired of being surprised.
Chapter 36
In the morning, I checked around and saw a couple sets of footprints in the grass around the house. I was surrounded by deep weeds, tall grasses, and trees. But I knew somewhere out there was a Tripper at best, a looter at worst. I checked on the horses and they were glad to get out of their confinement to taste the grass outside.
I took my bow and climbed up onto the roof to have a look around. If I could see the trail, I might have an idea as to where they went, and more importantly, who they were.
Up on the roof, my view didn’t improve much of the surrounding area, but I could see that someone had walked around the house and then went into the woods. There were no trails towards the garage where the horses were, so that told me this was a Tripper.
Easy enough to call out. I began to sing a song, one I had heard my father singing many times. It was a song about sailing away, and love lost. I liked it well enough, and it worked most of the time.
When I reached the part about looking for a woman, a Tripper stumbled out of the woods. It was a large man, wearing what looked to be a formal suit of some kind. His face was red from blotches, and his eyes were deep and dark. He swiveled his head back and forth, looking for a threat, and I whistled once to get him to look up.
As soon as he did, I put an arrow into his eye, killing him. I dropped down to the ground to retrieve my arrow when another Tripper came out of the woods. This one was shorter than the original, but he was faster. I didn’t have time to get my arrow up, so I tossed my bow to the side and pulled my knife. I didn’t want to risk a shot with my gun so I waited with my knife. When the Tripper raged towards me, I lunged suddenly, driving the knife into its eye. The bone crunched underneath as the steel punched through to the brain. His hands gripped my shirt briefly as he fell, then let go as he left this world.
I kicked him loose and waited for a moment, trying to hear anything else coming through the weeds. After about ten minutes, I figured we’d seen the last of them for now, and I also figured we’d be moving on shortly.
We hit the road an hour later and I was glad to be moving again. The horses seemed to want to be moving as well. As we went, the miles dropped away and I spent as much time walking as I did riding.
The highway was empty, save for the occasional car abandoned by the roadside. The miles walked their way behind us as we moved from sunrise to sunset. The worst thing I saw in two weeks of travel was a dead dog on the side of the road. In the distance from the road, I saw several farms that looked like they were occupied. I saw many that had livestock in the yards, and one even had sheep.
I found homes and businesses to spend the night in and had no trouble whatsoever. I began to wonder about the Trippers and where they might be. If I had to place a guess, I would think that my easy days were about over. On the other hand, I could look forward to easy travel when I came this way again.
By the end of the third week, I was approaching the outskirts of Champaign, and by the map I referenced, there was supposed to be over eighty thousand people who once lived there. Using the Tripper math Kim had taught me, which was take the general population, divide it by half, divide it by half again, and you may have the number of people who survived. In this case, it was twenty thousand, but when you added in attacks, you had to figure a ten percent survival rate. So if my numbers were right, I was looking at over seventy-six thousand Trippers somewhere in the near vicinity.
I kept the thought in my head that a lot of time had passed and the Trippers may have moved on to greener pastures. Then again, they may have decided they liked each other’s company and stuck around to wait for a dumb traveler with two horses.
Chapter 37
I moved off the highway about a mile south of the city and found a large brick building off West Old Church Road. The sign near the road said Savoy United Methodist Church, but from the look things, it hadn’t been used in quite some time.
There were two buildings on the property, the church proper and a small building out on the other side of the parking lot. I didn’t like the distance between the two buildings, and decided to bring the horses into the church for the night. I didn’t think anyone would seriously mind.
I tied the two under the awning that stretched out from the front door across the lane that ran in front of the building. If I had to guess, it was a drop-off spot so people could come in without getting wet if it was raining. I guess it rained a lot around here to need such a thing.
I went into the church and looked around. There were classrooms and a huge auditorium with a large stained glass window casting colorful light all over the place. There were some offices and what looked like a gym. I went to the side door and found that it opened out into the back of the building. If I needed to get out in a hurry, this would be a good place to keep the horses.
I brought Judy and Missy around, and Judy went in without a fuss, but Missy gave me some trouble. She finally went in when Judy nickered at her from inside the building. Once that was closed, I went across the street and gathered armfuls of grass. I didn’t have any way to get them any water, but maybe that would sort itself out later.
I looked around the building for any supplies or items of value, but there wasn’t anything of use other than a really huge supply of candles. I only took a few, figuring others could come and get them as they needed, too.
I tried to check out the offices, but they were locked. I didn’t bother with them, thinking that there was even less in there that I could use than before.
I settled down in a small room next to the gym. If there was trouble, I wanted to be close to my horses.
I don’t know what woke me up, but I was instantly awake. I thought I heard something, and strained to hear it again. There. A small tapping sound coming from somewhere outside.
I took my gun and went towards the front of the building. I could hear the tapping sound more clearly, and I swore I could feel a vibration in the floor. As I approached the glass doors, a voice spoke behind me.
“Don’t let them see you.”
I spun around, drawing my gun as I did so. I lined it up on the chest of the young man standing in the shadows.
“Whoa!” The man’s hands shot up as he stared at my gun. “Don’t kill me!”
“Who are you and what are talking about?” I asked, keeping my gun level.
“Take it easy, I’m in the same boat you are right now,” he said. He was a thin man with curly black hair. He was wearing a couple of knives on his belt and the pack at his feet had a long-handled weapon of some sort attached to it.
I didn’t see any gun, but that didn’t mean anything. He could have one stored in his pack or on his belt at the small of his back .
I put my gun back in its holster, and I could see the man breathe a small sigh of relief.
“I’m Marco, from up north. You are?”
“Josh, from up north as well,” I said.
“Ah! Are you heading south?” Marco asked.
“Nope, going back north. I’ve been south, and will head back there in a little bit, but not right now,” I said. “What did you mean about not being seen? Are Trippers out there?”
“Lo
ok for yourself. But be very careful,” Marco said.
I decided I’d rather not have him at my back, so I went into an office and locked the door behind me. At the window, I carefully looked out at the parking lot. What I saw nearly made me curse aloud.
It was a Tripper horde, the largest I had ever seen. They were walking slowly across the lot, and their cadence was causing the tapping and the shaking. It was literally a sea of infected persons, stretching away into the darkness. They were in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and in various states of clothing. Some had wounds, others had dark stains over their hands and mouths. It was quite possibly the second most frightening thing I had ever seen.
I went back out to the main hall where Marco was waiting for me.
“Did you see them?” he asked.
I nodded. “That’s the biggest horde I’ve ever seen. And they’re still coming, from the sound of it.”
Marco looked out toward the door. “A family I stayed with told me they’ve been in this area for years. Sometimes they lose a couple to people killing them, and sometimes they add to their numbers. But they’re mostly stuck in this area and they just drift around from one place to the next. They can’t figure out how to get over the highway fences, and the wall keeps them in on the east. So they just drift back and forth. Anything that might have been alive in their territory is long dead.”
I looked at him. “How’d you know all this?” I asked.
“Met a man who had lived here for a while, before the horde got too big, and he began to recognize a couple of the Trippers as they had been that way before. When the horde got too big, he got out,” Marco said.
“We may be here for a while before they are gone,” I said.
Marco shook his head. “They are moving pretty fast, so they should be cleared out by the morning. Just don’t be seen by them before you get to the road.”
“Good advice,” I said. “I’m going to check on my horses, so if you don’t mind…?”
Marco perked up. “You have horses? As in more than one?”
I nodded. “Used to have six, but I let four go since I couldn’t easily take care of them all heading north.”
“Six! Good Lord, why didn’t I meet you earlier?” Marco exclaimed. “You wouldn’t want to trade for one, would you?”
I shook my head. “No, I like these two. But I’ll show you where I let the others go. Chances are pretty good they’ll be near where I let them go. There was good grass and water, so they wouldn’t have a reason to move.”
Marco nodded. “That would be good.”
“Actually, now that I think about it, all you have to do is head south on I-57 until you reach a pile of saddles and tack. They’ll be around there,” I said.
Marco smiled, his teeth bright white in the darkness. “My thanks.”
I went back to the gym, and the two ladies were happy to see me. I made sure they were okay, and I went back to where Marco was waiting. We talked for a while, then went out separate ways to sleep the rest of the night. I stayed with my animals, figuring they would not raise a fuss if I was nearby, and I also didn’t trust Marco not to try and take one when the coast was clear. The one thing I’ve learned in this world was trusting someone you just met was a fool’s way of getting killed.
We stayed there a couple of days and I had to boil water that I found in a small pool to give to the horses. The horde hung around longer than we liked, but in the end, both Marco and I were both relieved when they headed back east and not north to bother me or south to bother him. He was anxious to find the horses and I was anxious to get back on the road. Summer was coming to an end and I had promised Kim I would be back before winter.
Marco and I said goodbye, and as a parting gift, I gave him one of the guns I had taken off Mort Piker’s men. It was a .38 caliber revolver, and I didn’t mind giving it to him since it was unloaded and I had no bullets for it anyway. He was fine with that, he figured to get some somewhere. He gave me a large, black silk bandanna he had picked up a week ago. He figured it went better with my outfit than his.
Chapter 38
Judy and Missy were ready for the road, having been stuck in that gym for much longer than they wanted. They were hungry and thirsty, and after we reached the highway, I just let them eat for a bit. We traveled in the center of the four lanes of highway, since it was grassy and slightly depressed, keeping us under cover from anyone looking out for any movement. The only time we had to leave the depression was to go over a bridge.
We saw a lot of country as we moved back north, and there were towns and farms all over the place. It was hit or miss as far as whether or not the Tripp virus had struck, and I was getting the impression that the major cities and towns were the only ones that really got hit hard. The more I traveled, the more it seemed like we would actually survive this, and eventually, we might move out of the contained area. Of course, that would require all the Trippers in the world to start dying out, and since they haven’t been inclined to do that in the last sixteen years, I wasn’t sure it would happen soon. But we were surviving, and that was the main thing.
I got off I-57 at Sauk Trail and headed west. I moved a lot more cautiously through this area, since I was much closer to Chicago and the surrounding areas were full of Trippers. But I was close to home, and I was anxious to get back to what was familiar. At the same time, I was anxious to get back on the road and head south again.
I didn’t think I would be heading back until spring; the trip north had taken longer than I had anticipated. I had figured on about three weeks, but it had actually taken more than six. Summer was pretty much over, and a lot of the trees were getting out their colors and showing them off to their neighbors. The landscape was a mixture of green, yellow, brown, and red, with an occasional orange and purple thrown in there just for luck.
The sun was starting its descent from zenith when I turned the corner from Sauk Trail to Harlem. I could feel Judy starting to get anxious, and I was content to let her have her head. She knew where she as going.
At Sauk Trail again, she turned west and we rode down the road the crossed in front of the earthen dam I knew so well. At the pathway, Judy turned toward the yard, and I dismounted to get the gate. Missy was nervous, but she stuck close to Judy and everything was all right.
I let the horses into the yard and closed the gate behind myself. I stretched my legs and looked up at the house. Everything seemed normal, although it was a little quiet. I walked carefully up to my house and pulling a key from a hiding place, I opened up and went inside.
Everything was exactly as I had left it, and I felt good to be finally home. I looked forward to sleeping in my own bed, secure in the knowledge that no Trippers or other people were going to try and wake me up to kill me. That sense of security was almost overwhelming. I took my gun belt off and hung my Colt on a peg near the door. I hung my Winchester up on its pegs, and dropped my hat on a chair.
I didn’t have time to relax, though, since I had two horses that were probably thirsty and hungry. I went into the garage and pulled down a couple bales of hay. I pulled several buckets of water up from the creek, and got the trough filled in time for Missy to stick her nose in.
I took my saddle off Judy and brought that inside, along with my bow and quiver. Missy had the other supplies and I took those in as well.
I laid all the supplies out on my table when there was a knock on the door. I saw a female head through the window, and when I opened the door, I was wrapped up in a huge hug.
“Hi, Kim,” I said.
“You’re back! You actually came back!” Kim hugged me with all her strength, and when she pulled away a bit, she kissed me square on the mouth.
I didn’t know what else to do but kiss her back. She softened a bit against me then pulled away with a funny look in her eye. I stayed impassive with a small smile on my face.
“Nice to see you, too, Kim,” I said. “We have a lot to talk about.”
Kim smiled, and something seemed to
turn over in her head because she hugged me again and gave me another kiss. This one was on the cheek and I took it with a smile.
“Let me get myself situated, and we can talk over dinner. You can go introduce yourself to Missy,” I said.
Kim’s eyes turned dark. “Who’s Missy?” she asked in a tone that even I knew was dangerous.
“She’s the filly I acquired down state. She’s a little skittish, but she killed a Tripper for me, so I figure she’ll make a fine friend for Judy,” I said.
Kim let out a breath and shook her head. “Gotcha. I almost thought you came back with a bride or something.”
I laughed out loud. “God no. What women would have a rawboned ugly-looking cuss like me?”
Kim threw me a look over her shoulder as she went out the door. “More than you might think, Joshua Andrews. More than you might think.”
Kim came back later that evening with some fresh bread, a bowl of cut potatoes, and a bottle of apple cider. I had gone into the woods and come back with a hog. Apparently, they were now in the area. This one took three arrows to kill it, and the butchering of it took me most of the afternoon. But I figured it out, and we had pork as the main course.
After dinner, Kim and I relaxed in my thick chairs facing the backyard drinking cider. The sun was just below the horizon, and long red fingers traced the clouds as they drifted across the sky.
I told Kim about my travels, sparing no detail. She gasped in the right places, admonished me in others, listening intently throughout the whole tale. She asked a few questions here and there, but for the most part, she just listened.
When I finished, she asked me a single question. “When are you leaving?”
Born in the Apocalypse 2: State of Ruin Page 14