Five Roads To Texas: A Phalanx Press Collaboration

by Lundy, W. J.

  What if Jack is infected? If he is, I have what—twelve hours? Maybe fifteen?—before the symptoms start to show. And once they get bad enough…

  She didn’t want to think about that. The images from the video, with the Army shooting into a crowd of people without regard for whether or not there were any uninfected people among them, were resting uncomfortably in the back of her mind.

  If Jack was infected, there were only two outcomes.

  She killed him, or he killed her.

  22

  Sheldon Lake, Michigan

  March 27th

  The pounding was persistent. Clay dropped low to the floor and huddled next to Rufous, holding a hand over the dog’s muzzle to silence him. “It’s okay, boy,” he whispered.

  The hammering at the door softened, and he heard a whisper. Clay couldn’t make out the words, so he crept out of the back bedroom and into the hallway, trying to focus.

  “Come on, Mr. Clay. I know you’re in there. I heard the boat.”

  Clay recognized the voice, and Rufous did too, by the way the dog’s ears perked up. It was Andrew, a boy from two houses down in one of the lake community’s few year-round residences. The boy’s father, a caretaker who provided maintenance and upkeep to homes on the lake and assisted with some of the rental properties during busy times of the year, was a good man and a hard worker. Andrew, on the other hand, was a pain in the ass ninety percent of the time. But, there were a few times when the kid was useful. For starters, he loved stacking firewood and shoveling snow, and wasn’t half bad at raking leaves either.

  The only relationship Clay had with the kid was as a paid hand. He looked down at Rufous and could see that the dog was desperate for attention. He reached back and took the rifle in his hands, and then he stood tall, sidestepping toward the doorway. The knocking had all but stopped now, but he could hear the creaking of the floorboards on the front porch. “Please, Clay, open the door. Something’s out here. I know it is. Please, open up.”

  Clay stepped closer and looked back down at the dog that kept close to his heels. His ears were still up and his tail wagged. Clay shook his head. “If this is a mistake, I’m blaming you,” he whispered.

  The old man put his hand on the heavy door and turned the bolt lock until it clunked into its housing. The boy on the outside was silent. Clay turned the handle and saw the young man with his torn and bloodied shirt. The kid’s face was pale in the fading sunlight. Without speaking, he grabbed Andrew by the arm and pulled him into the room, quickly reclosing and bolting the door. The boy moved past him and dropped to the floor with his back against the wall, his hands covering his face. The dog was quickly at his side, sniffing his mud-splattered jeans.

  “What are you doing here, Andrew?” Clay asked after ensuring the door was locked and there was no one else outside.

  “I heard your boat,” Andrew whispered back, his voice sounding hoarse.

  Clay shook off the comment and moved into the kitchen, grabbing a pair of beers before returning. He popped the top on one and stuck it in Andrew’s face. “Here take this.”

  Andrew looked up at him with wide eyes and shook his head no. “I ain’t old enough to drink,” he stuttered.

  “Well, how old are ya then?” Clay asked, still holding out the can.

  “Seventeen,” Andrew said just above a whisper.

  “Huh,” Clay grunted. “Then I reckon you’re old enough. Take the can, it’ll calm your ass down.”

  The boy looked up at Clay nervously and accepted the beer. He put it to his lips and gulped thirstily. “Too young to drink, my ass,” Clay guffawed. “You just put that back like a lush.”

  The boy pulled the can away from his lips and took a deep breath. Clay noticed the dried blood on his hands and the dark streaks of dirt around his eyes. “What did you get into, Andrew?”

  The kid bit at his lower lip and pulled in his knees. He looked away before speaking. “They’re dead,” he whispered before putting his hand back up to cover his eyes.

  “Who’s dead?” Clay asked.

  The boy took another sip from the can and looked Clay in the eye. “My mom and dad, both of ’em—and more people. I saw a lot of dead people outside.”

  Clay looked at the boy, suspecting he already knew what had happened, based on his experience across the lake, but he needed more information. And the kid had to know more than what was reported on the looping broadcast. “What do you mean ‘dead’? Who killed them?”

  Andrew took another gulp of his beer and set it by his leg. He reached out a hand to touch the dog, drawing it in closer to him. He stroked the top of its head before saying, “My dad, he got a call about one of the rentals yesterday. Something about a silent alarm going off. The owner thought maybe a tree fell close to the house, or maybe a stiff wind tripped a censor. That tends to happen sometimes.”

  “And it was your dad’s job to attend to those things?” Clay asked.

  Andrew shook his head. “No, Dad never did stuff like that. Usually the police would go check it out. I guess they had trouble reaching the sheriff so the homeowners asked if Dad would go. He figured all the police were too busy—you know, with the cops being so busy with everything going on in the city.”

  Clay pursed his lips and shook his head. “Sorry kid, I hadn’t been following the news.” He turned and pointed to the TV in the other room still looping the day-old broadcast. “That there, and a few crazies I bumped into across the lake this afternoon, is all I know.”

  “You’re serious?” Andrew asked with surprise in his voice. He looked hard at Clay and could tell the man was unaware. “Lots of bad stuff’s been happening. Riots, attacks… Some was saying civil war, but it’s all been close to the city. Or it was until yesterday.”

  Clay put up his hand. “So, your dad, he went out to check on this house. Then what?”

  “We went,” Andrew corrected. “Dad ain’t no cop, so he figured it might be nice to have me ride along with him. He thought with all the crime on the TV, maybe it was a break-in, you know robbers or something. So he grabbed his shotgun and asked me to ride along.”

  “Where was the house?”

  Andrew pointed out through the back of Clay’s cabin. “The Robinson place—far side of the lake. We took the truck and pulled in the driveway. Everything seemed normal until we got to the front of the house.”

  Clay clenched his fist. “What did you see?”

  Andrew closed his eyes and continued. “It was broken, all of it. The windows, the door…everything was broken. Not like a robbery. No, this was like people just wanted to wreck the place. Dad told me to stay in the truck, and he took the shotgun and got out. I told him we should go. I mean, we found out why the alarm was going off. Dad wasn’t no cop; it wasn’t his job to go investigating.”

  “He went anyway?”

  The boy nodded his head and rubbed the dog’s neck. “Yeah, he went inside. I heard the scream and then the gunshots. I ran in after him. There was just two of them. Dad killed one, but he was fighting with the other one. I kicked the thing off Dad and hit him good. But he wouldn’t stop screaming at me—he just wouldn’t stop until, well, until Dad killed it.”

  “He shot them both?”

  “He had no choice, Clay. Honest, he didn’t. They were crazy out of their minds.” The boy drained the last of his can and looked back at the old man. “Could I have another, please?”

  Clay got to his feet and moved to the kitchen. Looking over his shoulder, he asked, “Did you call the sheriff?”

  “They didn’t answer,” Andrew said, staring at his boots. “Dad thought of driving into town, but we didn’t want to leave Mom out here alone. Not if there were more of them like that out by the lake, and besides, Dad was cut pretty bad.”

  Nodding, Clay returned and handed the boy a fresh beer. He passed by the window and peeked between the curtains. The sun was going down, and the street was still empty. He backed away and pulled up a chair. “So, you go back to the house. Then what?�
�� he asked.

  Andrew’s eyes began to water. He wiped the tears away with his sleeve and gulped at the beer.

  “I see,” Clay said softly. “It’s okay. I think I get it—how many of them were there?”

  “I don’t think you do,” Andrew sobbed. “It was Pa, he got sick and he, he—”

  “He what?” Clay prodded.

  “He turned on Momma, and then, well…” Andrew’s eyes drifted to the shotgun, then back to Clay. The boy sighed and buried his face back in his hands.

  “Well hell,” Clay muttered. He got to his feet and returned to the living room, leaving the boy in the kitchen. He saw an orange glow around the edges of the curtains and moved close to pull back the edges. A home across the lake burned brightly. There were no emergency vehicles working on the flames, but he could see dancing silhouettes of people on the shoreline and more moving higher on the lakeshore road. Following the shoreline east and west, he could see more of them moving on the road that led from the city. There were likely hundreds, if not thousands, more that he couldn’t see.

  Clay looked at a clock on the wall; it was just past six. In the matter of a few hours, he’d gone from seeing a few to seeing hundreds. Clay knew the road looped the lake and it would only be a matter of time before they found his place. He eyed the walls of his cabin. It was sturdy enough, but if someone wanted it, it wouldn’t be a mighty task to take it from him. Looking back to the bedroom and the foot locker, he tried to size up his situation. He could probably hide during the attack; he had canned goods for a week or so.

  He shook his head. “I’d lose my damn mind hiding during an attack with a dog and that kid,” he grumbled aloud.

  An explosion echoed across the lake, and he looked back out of the window. The flames had jumped from one luxury home to another. The garage windows of a Cape Cod had blown out, probably from a burning car inside. “Well, on the plus side, all those ugly McMansions will finally be gone,” Clay snickered. “On the down side, I’m thinking I need to get the hell out of here, before I burn with them.”

  He considered the Suburban out in the detached garage. They could be on US31 headed south in thirty minutes, but not if the roads were full of those things. And what if the kid was right when he said the city was infested? What good would it do getting surrounded in town? Well hell.

  Clay moved back to the bedroom and opened a closet, dropping a pair of canvas seabags from the top of a stack of boxes inside. They were stuffed with old tarps and hunting clothes he hadn’t worn in years. Clay unbuckled the tops, then dumped the contents into a pile. He heard movement behind him and saw Andrew staring at him.

  “Here, make yourself useful,” he said, tossing a seabag to the boy. “Go in the kitchen, and stuff it full of anything that won’t spoil.”

  “Why?” the kid asked. Clay could tell the boy was tired and his nerves on the last frazzled line of sanity.

  “Just do it. Get it as full as you can. Meet me back in the living room when you’re finished.” Turning back to his own sack, Clay dumped all the ammo from the locker into it. Next, he hurried through the house to an old dresser, pulling open drawers to retrieve several flashlights and batteries. He pulled open other junk drawers, shaking his head. “Can’t believe this is all I got. A bunch of junk.” His bag was only half full when he stuffed in a pair of old sleeping bags and buckled the top.

  Andrew returned to the living room. He had the bag hanging across his back and the shotgun under one arm. Clay looked him up and down. “You said those things cut your dad, then he got sick?”

  Andrew nodded, not speaking.

  Clay moved to a hall closet and dumped out jackets until he found an old canvas Carhart, which he tossed to the kid. He found an olive-green army field jacket for himself, then went back to the living room and dropped his feet into a pair of heavy boots. Andrew watched him as he laced them tight. He finished his preparations by strapping the holstered 1911 to his hip.

  Clay let his eyes sweep the house a last time, trying to find what he was missing. He sighed, catching the glow still cutting through the curtains. “Maybe it’s temporary. We’ll just head out for a bit and come back in a few days,” he mumbled.

  “We can’t take the road,” Andrew insisted. “Those things will be all over the street.”

  “Don’t sweat it, kid, we’re taking the boat.”

  23

  Crescent City, California

  March 27th

  “So you were attacked in Eureka and made your way back here?” Major Barraza crossed his arms and stared across the table at Jesse and Ram. Both of them had their hands zip-tied to the front and were seated at the small table with the Army officer.

  “We were trying to get back to the prison,” Jesse told him.

  “I was trying to get back to my family,” Ram amended angrily as he tried to snap his restraints. One of the three soldiers standing behind the two corrections officers stepped forward to stop him. The major raised a hand for the trooper to hold up.

  “We are here to help, Mr. Ramacher. The restraints are just a safety precaution. You’ve seen what’s going on out there.”

  “Just what the hell is going on out there?” Jesse asked.

  Major Barraza glanced toward one of the mobile building’s windows then back at Jesse and Ram. The soldiers had taken up command of a small Coast Guard station on the Crescent City Harbor. Scores of troops and military vehicles cordoned off the area from any attack from the infected.

  “I understand Mr. Ramacher was scratched when you were attacked,” Barraza said, ignoring Jesse’s question.

  “Look, General…” Ram squirmed in his zip ties.

  “It’s Major.” Barraza pointed at the gold oak leaf on his chest.

  “Whatever.” He shook his head. “My family is just a few miles from here. Can you send someone to get them or, fuck, let me go get them!” Ram pulled his arms apart in a vain attempt to snap the ties. It killed him that he was so close to home and could do nothing to help them.

  “I’m sorry. Right now that’s not possible.”

  “At least let me call and see if they are all right. Please.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am, but I can’t breach security.” Barraza stood up. “I’m waiting on a response from Command right now. You work with us, and we’ll work with you.” There was the sound of small arms fire in the distance. Both corrections officers glanced over to the windows.

  “You’re safe here. Don’t worry about the outside. We have plenty of men and guns to hold back the infected.”

  “Infected?” Jesse sat back in the cheap plastic chair. “Infected with what?”

  “You were scratched, Mr. Ramacher?” Barraza asked again as he leaned across the table, ignoring Jesse’s question once more.

  “Yeah.” Ram reached up with his zip-tied hands and pulled the bandage off his cheek, exposing the deep scratch he’d gotten from the crazy in Eureka. “Jesse patched me up. Now can I at least call my wife?”

  “Not yet.” The Major sat back down and looked over at Jesse, who was clearly annoyed by his actions. “Miss Moreno, you did that?”

  “I was a nurse in the Navy,” she said in a monotone voice.

  “Aw, good.” The Major clasped his hands together. “Then you understand…”

  “I understand you are illegally detaining us!” Jesse leaned forward, cutting him off. “You are active military and have no right to detain US citizens!”

  “Easy, Miss Moreno!” The Major held up a well-manicured hand. “We have a crisis situation here and we have every right to detain American citizens. Now, Mr. Ramacher, you were scratched by an infected over five hours ago, and you haven’t felt any effects. Is that true?”

  “Other than being fucking pissed off? No! Now let me call my wife!”

  “I can’t do that right now.”

  “What can you do?” Jesse grumbled.

  “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

  “How about taking off these zip ties?” Ram smiled, no h
umor in his eyes. The door to the mobile suddenly swung open and four heavily armed men dressed in black fatigues stepped inside.

  “Major Barraza?” the shorter of the four men asked. The officer frowned as he stood up, and his soldiers raised their rifles. The short man in black waved a hand at them. “Relax. I have orders.” He reached into his tac vest and handed a paper to the Major. Barraza quickly scanned it then looked down at the other man.

  “Looks in order.” He glanced over at his men. “These two aren’t our problem anymore.”

  “Thanks, Major.” The short man smiled and signaled for his men to grab Jesse and Ram. “Good luck with your mission.”

  “Yeah.” Barraza nodded. “Good luck with yours.”

  “Come on!” one of the men in black said, grabbing Ram under the arm.

  “Where the hell are you taking us? I need to talk to my wife!” Ram struggled with the two men who’d yanked him from his chair. “Major!”

  “Sorry, you’re no longer my concern,” the soldier said, turning away.

  “What the fuck is going on?!” Ram pulled away from one of the men. Another grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed him to the table.

  “Quit resisting or it’s going to get real ugly,” the leader of the group said, leaning down to whisper in Ram’s ear. He was still face-down on the table. “Any more shit from you, and we’ll start hurting your buddy. Get me?”

  “I get you!” Ram spat.

  “Good.” The short man stood up. “We’re all going for a long helicopter ride. Fun.” He smiled and glanced down at Jesse, who was still seated. “And you can sit next to me the whole flight. Lucky girl.”

  “You…” Jesse went to swing her arms up to strike the man, when one of the others stopped her.

  “No heroes, Miss Moreno,” the short man chuckled. “We need to get moving. Mr. Ramacher, you have some important people to meet!”