All That I See - 02

by Shane Gregory

  “When I find them, we’ll come home,” he said. “I still have big plans for Clayfield. I know you mean well, but I don’t agree with you on this, and I can’t just go along with it.”

  “You’re so weak, you can’t be out of bed more than a few minutes. How do you plan to cross the river?”

  “There’s a bass boat parked out there,” he said. “I’ve spent plenty of time on bass boats. I’ll be fine.”

  “Nicholas, I don’t—“

  “Stop talking,” he said. “I’m crossing that river. I’m not trying to guilt you into doing anything. It might be best if you stayed in Clayfield and kept a look out for them. I’ll go to Springfield. I’ll wait there a week, and if they aren’t there or don’t show, I’ll come back. Ordinarily, a trip like that would be less than a day coming and going, but I expect delays. You should give me…oh…a minimum of two weeks. If you want to come looking for me, you can, but I’d rather you didn’t.”

  I didn’t respond. I stood and went to get the bag with the medical supplies.

  “Don’t you be feeling bad or second guessing,” he said. “It’s just fine for men to disagree. I’m not leaving mad. I’ll be back.”

  I returned with the bag, “You shouldn’t take the pain pills if you’re going over the river. They’ll make you sleepy, and you need to stay alert. This antibiotic is in powder form. You might be able to mix it with water and drink it.”

  He nodded, “I’ll do that. I don’t have time for the I.V.”

  I looked out the window to keep from looking at him.

  “If the girls are in Clayfield, you tell Judy to keep her butt there until I get back,” he said. “There’s no use in us going back and forth looking for each other.”

  “Ben Parks’ truck is still full of supplies,” I said. “We should probably load the boat with necessary stuff before you go so you can just get in the water and go.”

  “I appreciate this,” he said.

  “It’s a bad idea,” I said. “Remember when you wanted to force that woman on Braggusberg Road to come with us? Remember how you told us that there aren’t enough people around to let everybody make stupid decisions?”

  “You’re welcome to try and stop me,” he said. “I might not win a fight, but you’ll know I’ve been there.”

  “No need for posturing,” I said. “We’re not in a city council meeting. You do what you want.”

  I packed Somerville a backpack and duffle bag with supplies from Ben Parks’ SUV and stowed them in the boat. The rest of the supplies for Parks’ two vehicles, I transferred to the RV. There was another shotgun in one of the trucks along with some extra shells. We split the ammunition between us—twelve rounds for Somerville, and thirteen for me. Then I followed him a few miles to the west to the ferry crossing. The flood gates were open there, and he backed the boat down into the river.

  “I’ll be seeing you soon,” he said, standing by the truck.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  He nodded, slapped my shoulder, and turned to go. He stumbled a little. I reached out to help him, but he pushed my hand away. Once he had steadied himself, he made his way out to the boat. I watched him push out into the river and climb in. He started the motor, gave me a wave, and turned the boat to the west. He was going straight to Missouri. I watched until he went around a bend in the river, and I returned to the RV.

  It was just me again.

  I used back roads to return to Grace County. Once I was far enough away from Riverton and Singletree, I cut across and connected to the main highway, heading south to Clayfield. I didn’t regret my decision to stay, but I did feel bad for not volunteering to go to help Somerville. My main concern was Sara, just as his was Judy. We both made our choices, but I was fairly certain he’d made the wrong one. I just hoped it wouldn’t cost him his life.

  I arrived at the Lassiter place just after dark. Sara and Judy weren’t there, but I didn’t let that make me give up hope. The house was incredibly empty and quiet. I didn’t really need one, but I thought about building a fire just to give me some company. Instead, I decided to go straight to bed. I would drive around and look for them the next day. It took a while, but sleep finally came.

  The next day, I checked every place I thought Sara might go—Blaine’s place, the Somerville’s house, our house in town where we’d been ambushed by Wheeler and Corndog, Ben Park’s house, the museum, and even the First Christian Church. She wasn’t in any of those places. I drove around town until noon, just looking. Then I went back to the van by the glass shop and collected the rest of the supplies from there. With nowhere else to go, I returned to the stables. I thought it might be best to stay around in case she showed up. It gave me time to sort through all the supplies.

  I emptied the RV and took everything into the living room of the house. I would have more than enough alcohol for a while. I had enough food to last about three weeks, but I would need to go out for drinking water soon. My gun situation wasn’t that great either.

  I was concerned, too, about my mental state. I was fine at that moment, but it was starting to sink in that I might be the only healthy person left in Clayfield. I’d always been an introvert; I loved my time alone, but the thought of being completely alone indefinitely made me feel empty inside. I built a fire as the sun was going down, and that made me feel better.

  I went back outside with a flashlight to check the RV one more time and made a discovery. It had a propane water heater. I pulled aside the narrow folding door to its tiny bathroom and grinned a little when I saw the shower head. I hadn’t had a hot shower in weeks. It wouldn’t be the same as the showers I’d had before, but it was going to be better than rinsing myself off out of a stock pot. I ran inside and collected my soap, shampoo, a towel, and a couple of candles. This was going to be something special, and I planned to stay in there until every last drop was gone. I only regretted that Sara couldn’t enjoy one, too. I assured myself that she would be back, and I’d have the water tank full for her when she did. Maybe we could even squeeze in there together….

  I stood under that trickle of hot water until the tank was dry. I hadn’t felt that clean in a long time. I didn’t bother getting dressed. I just went inside, wrapped myself in a blanket and sat in front of the fire with a glass of whisky. I was so relaxed. The flames were hypnotic. I fell asleep.

  The next morning, I woke up to the sound of rain. I stood and went to the front window. It was pouring. I wished I had those rain barrels and cistern set up. These were things that needed to be done, and I had put them off for too long. The seasons weren’t going to stop for me. Soon it would be summer and the rains would be less frequent. Then it would be late summer and fall, but if I had not planted my garden, there would be no harvest. There were some things that couldn’t wait any longer. Sara and I had collected enough seeds to at least supplement our food supply for that year. I had to get them in the ground whether she was around or not. Eventually, she would come home.

  The cistern tank and rain barrels were still over at our place in town on the back of the hay truck. I couldn’t do much in the rain, and I didn’t want to be cooped up, so I decided to drive over in the church van and get the truck. My ability to drive a manual transmission had not improved, but I wasn’t in any hurry, and there was no one around to make fun of me.

  Everything seemed slower in the rain. The undead were especially sluggish. They were all droopy and soggy. I wondered how much longer they would last. I wondered if they would even be a problem by the end of the summer. They appeared to be deteriorating, but would they completely rot to their bones and fall apart, or would they hang on? I wondered if they were nourished when they fed on other living things. I wondered if it prolonged their existence. I didn’t plan to wait it out. I knew Sara was right that we needed to be proactive. We needed to exterminate them if we could.

  Chapter 41

  I made an effort with the clutch and gear shift in that old hay truck, but I lacked the practice and coordination. So,
I found first gear and left it there, content to creep along. It was still faster than most of the creatures. Only two stayed with me the whole way, and I think it was because they were newly turned. That was not a problem. I could deal with two.

  I parked the truck, bashed in their skulls with a splitting maul from the barn then sat in a chair on the front porch just out of the rain and thought about the best place to put the cistern. Ideally, it should be higher up so I could utilize gravity. It would also be a good idea to bury it so the water would stay cool in the summer and not freeze in the winter. To have it both ways, I’d have to get a backhoe. I could do that, but it wasn’t important at the moment.

  I absent-mindedly, twirled the head of the maul on the porch between my feet. Then I rested my chin on the end of the handle and stared out at the two things sprawled in the driveway. I would need to burn them. I still wasn’t comfortable with how little I felt for them. Before all this happened, I couldn’t even bring myself to kill a mouse. Now, I had no idea what my tally was up to on people.

  “Where the hell are you, Sara?” I said aloud. I had been trying not to think about it, but I was afraid I had made a huge mistake by coming back to Grace County without her. There was nothing I could do about it. I would just have to wait. I had to believe she would be okay. She and I had managed to survive against monsters, both living and undead, these past two months. She wasn’t a noob; she was a killer. She would make it back to me. She would make it back to me! She would make it. I propped the splitting maul against the house and went inside. I was hungry.

  After lunch, I tried to keep myself occupied by planting some of the tomato and pepper seeds that Sara and I had collected on our last excursion. It was kind of late in the year to be planting these particular seeds, but it couldn’t be helped. The mature plants would probably be full of unripe fruit when the first frost hit in the late fall, so I planned to transplant the seedlings into pots rather that the ground so I could move them inside if needed.

  When that was finished, I spent a couple of hours in front of the fireplace studying the edible wild plant field guide I’d found. Some of the plants in the book were already up. I knew I’d seen dandelions growing, and I thought I recognized some of the others. I didn’t know how they would taste, but eating fresh greens would be a welcome change from all the canned soup I’d eaten over the last few weeks.

  Every few minutes, I would get up and check the window. I wanted to make sure the creatures I had killed earlier were still dead, and I hoped to look out and see Sara coming up the driveway. The rain continued to fall. I went out for a few minutes to take the plastic barrels off the truck and put them under the eave of one of the barns so they could collect the runoff. I had initially planned to put them beneath the roof of the house, but I got to thinking that the runoff from the asphalt shingles might not be safe to drink. The barns had metal roofs, and I thought they would be a little cleaner, or at least free from chemical.

  I went out into the barn, found a hacksaw and finally cut that handcuff bracelet off my wrist. I was afraid I would cut myself, but I managed to do it without drawing blood. I stood inside the barn for a while after watching the rain. The two hens were still alive and had also taken shelter inside the barn. They kept their distance from me and were scratching around on the other end of the corridor between the stalls. Fortunately, there was enough forage material around—bugs and plants—that they were able to fend for themselves. The feed we had collected for them was still in the back of the moving van. It and the hay truck were my only real means of transportation, and neither was ideal.

  The van had no windshield, and the cab was probably ankle deep in rainwater by that time. The hay truck had a manual transmission, which I still hadn’t mastered. My other transportation options were a small tractor, a four-wheeler, and a horse—all would leave me open to attack. I thought it might be a good idea to secure another vehicle while the weather was bad since the zombies didn’t seem to like moving around in the rain. Besides, I really needed a distraction to keep my mind from wandering to Sara’s and Mr. Somerville’s safety.

  I covered the shotgun with plastic sheeting and strapped it to the four-wheeler. I didn’t like it being so difficult to get at, but I couldn’t hold it and steer. I cranked the machine and headed east back to where Ben Parks’ group had been staying. I knew there was a car over there, and I knew the place was free of infected.

  The tires of the four-wheeler hummed and whined on the paved road. There was also a faint buzzing sound added in because the road was wet with rain. The engine itself wasn’t that loud. It was a quieter way to travel, but I didn’t like being exposed. I liked having a door or windshield between me and them. It wasn’t a problem that particular trip, because I didn’t see any out. I kind of figured that even if they were out, the steady, heavy rain would make it difficult for them to get a fix on me.

  The vehicle left at the old house was a late 1990s Volvo station wagon. It was white, with a red passenger side door. It had a half tank of gas, and it started up just fine. I didn’t feel like going back to the stables, so I drove around checking out houses. I needed more guns anyway. I was soaked through and shivering, so I turned on the heat in the car. I figured I could change into something dry from the closets of one of the houses I entered.

  I saw one I liked. It was a small manufactured home and the front door was standing wide open. There was a row of three homemade deer stands in the front yard with for sale signs on them. A big, new Dodge Ram 4x4 was parked in the driveway. I pulled up next to the truck. It was black and had been pimped out redneck style with a winch on the front, roll bar, those awful chrome bull’s testicles hanging from the back bumper, tires that were entirely too big, mud flaps with Calvin pissing on the Chevrolet logo, tailgate painted as the Confederate Flag, and a big decal in white letters on the back window that said “Ram F*ckin’ Fo’ by Fo’.” I shook my head at that irrelevant asterisk.

  Naturally, I wanted that truck. Two months ago, I wouldn’t be caught dead even parking near it, but this was now. That was an ass-kicking truck, and these were ass-kicking times. There was an NRA sticker on the bumper near the bull scrotum.

  I figured I’d find a gun or two inside the house. I couldn’t imagine looters sacking the house and not taking that truck. I also couldn’t imagine there being any zombies inside since the door was standing open. This was going to be a good score.

  I was right.

  “Holy shit,” I said when I walked in. The first thing I noticed was that the living room looked like a taxidermy exhibit. The place was full of dead animals, some of them not indigenous to Kentucky. One of the deer heads had been pulled from the wall and torn apart in the floor, but otherwise nothing looked disturbed.

  Then I started seeing the guns. All four walls in the living room each had a gun rack to display particularly beautiful firearms. This guy was a collector. There was even a flintlock, and it didn’t look like a replica. Of course, I wasn’t interested in sullying these museum pieces by killing zombies with them. I knew there would be more. I wasn’t disappointed.

  In a spare room, I found not one, but five gun cabinets. On the wall, there were all these pictures of the guy’s not-so-attractive girlfriend posing with guns and posing next to kills. In the only bedroom, I found a gun safe. There were replicas of medieval weapons hanging on the wall in there—mace, sword, lance, flail, and a shield. There were more pictures of the guy’s girlfriend, too.

  I looked in his closet, for something to change into and was surprised to find women’s jeans and shirts. All were too small to fit me. I went to his dresser and found panties and bras in the top drawer. That’s when I realized that the owner of all the guns, dead animals, and ass-kicking truck was a woman—probably the woman in the pictures.

  I wasn’t going to find any dry clothes there that would fit me, and I really didn’t want to drag all those guns out into the rain, so I decided to spend the night there. Other than the deer head and some wet carpet in
the front doorway, the place was very clean.

  I closed and locked the front door then stripped down and hung my clothes up to dry in the bathroom. Then I dried off with a very soft and fluffy Harley Davidson bath towel (I had no idea they made those), wrapped it around my waist and did a full investigation of the house.

  There was plenty to eat and drink, and there was a gas heater in the living room. The blower didn’t work, but it wasn’t really that cold anyway, so all I really needed was for it to ignite. I cooked some canned chili on the gas range then looked through a few of her gun magazines while I ate. Later, I was surprised to find a generous supply of romance novels under her bed. If nothing else, the zombie apocalypse had given me a good look into people’s lives. Like they used to say, “You just never know about some people.”

  That afternoon and evening, I moved all of the weapons into the living room so I could see what I had. This was my haul: two AR-15s (one painted camo, one black), one .30-30 lever action, one .30-30 semi-auto, five .22 semi-automatic rifles, three 12 gauge shotguns (one break action, one semi-auto, one pump action), one .30-06, one 20 gauge shotgun (pump action), one double-barrel .410 shotgun made to look like a lupara, two 9mm semi-auto pistols, a .45 revolver, a .22 revolver, a pistol I couldn’t identify (something Russian, I think), and various fully-functional antique guns, including a very old blunderbuss and a pepperbox . In addition to that, there were perhaps 10,000 rounds of mixed ammunition for the newer guns. All of that came out of the gun cabinets. I couldn’t get into the gun safe….I could only imagine what must have been in there.

  I also found a Kevlar vest and a Kevlar helmet.

  I put the helmet and vest on then grabbed the camo AR-15 and looked at myself in the mirror. Helmet, vest, gun, and Harley Davidson bath towel. Then the towel fell off.