by Jake Bible
“Have you seen Charlie and Greta?” I asked Melissa as she carried a crate of medical supplies from the infirmary and out to the haul truck. “I can’t find them anywhere.”
“Check at the far end of the holler,” Melissa replied. “They were heading up one of the dead end walkways with a group of kids the last time I saw them.”
“A group of kids? What for?” I asked.
“Not a clue. I’ve been a little busy,” Melissa replied as she kept walking.
“Thanks,” I said as I turned and hurried towards the end of the holler.
Critter’s Holler was actually a valley about the size of three football fields laid end to end, and about as wide as a single football field, with sheer cliffs on both sides. A bubbling creek ran straight down the middle, coming from a trickle of a waterfall at the far end of the valley. Along the cliffs on either side, and almost halfway up, were platforms with buildings made from various materials, mostly retrofitted trailers and modular houses. Walkways of wood and steel connected the buildings, but there were quite a few unconnected walkways due to the fact we took down some buildings and put them in the haul truck’s bed.
I looked up at one of the unconnected walkways and saw my two kids with about ten others. The kids were busy sparring with various melee weapons while Greta and Charlie looked on. I was quite a ways away, but I could hear the distinct voice of my daughter shouting at the kids that weren’t doing so well. Charlie just stood there and shook his head.
“Hey!” I yelled up at them as I took a set of stairs that led to a walkway just across a gap from theirs. “What are you guys doing? There is shit that needs to be done! Now is not playtime!”
“We’re not playing, Dad!” Greta snapped. “We’re training! Half these kids coming with us don’t even know how to fight! They’ll be dead before we even get to Knoxville if shit gets rough!”
“Greta, knock it off!” I shout. “Not everyone has had to go through the shit you two have! Be nice and leave them alone!”
“It’s okay, Mr. Stanford,” a boy about Greta’s age said. “We need to know how to hold our own and how to help if the convoy gets overrun by Zs.”
“Overrun by Zs?” I asked. “Who said the convoy will be overrun by Zs?”
Everyone looked over at Charlie and he raised his hand. It stretched his chest wound and he winced, but he recovered quickly and just smiled.
“Charlie Stanford, get your ass over here,” I ordered.
It took him a while to get from his walkway to my walkway and I could see by the look on his face that he had his argument ready to go.
“Dad! They have to learn how to…” he began.
“I didn’t call you over here to talk about you and Greta training the kids how to fight,” I interrupted. “My issue is that you are telling these kids they are going to die when the convoy is overrun by Zs.”
“First, I never said the convoywouldbe overrun, justif it was overrun,” Charlie countered. “And Greta is the one saying they’ll die, not me.”
“Greta tells everyone they are going to die,” I replied. “People have learned to stop listening. But they do listen to you when you say alarming things. You have a different place in this group now. You saved a lot of people and kids look up to you. If you hint at shit going wrong, they will think it is going to go wrong. I need you to be the optimist here, please.”
“But I know it will go wrong,” Charlie stated.
That caught me off guard and I had to shake my head a little to get over the shock.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “You do not know that.”
Charlie frowned and rolled his eyes. “Name one time since Z-Day that everything hasn’t gone wrong. Just one time. Whispering Pines? Blown up. Reynolds Mountain? Swarmed with Zs. Grove Park Inn? Same thing. Asheville? Radioactive mess. Nothing has gone right, Dad. Take the blinders off and look at reality.”
I had to let that all sink in for a second before I could reply.
“Yeah, things have sucked. That’s true,” I replied. “But we are still alive which is more than a lot of people can say.”
Charlie frowned and shook his head. “That’s my point. Those people can’t say it because they are dead. And not just because Zs got them. We’ve been attacked by the living more than the undead these past few months. The kids over there at least have to know how to swing a baseball bat so it cracks a skull. That’ll save them from the Zs and the people.”
“Yes, well, the people are behind us and we are going to be long gone before they get here,” I said.
“Dad, there are always people,” Charlie replied. “And there will be plenty ahead of us as well. The highwaymen alone could stop us from even getting over the pass.”
“Wait...the what? Who told you about the highwaymen?”
“Critter,” Charlie responded. “He says he needs us to keep our eyes open when we hit the road because the highwaymen will be watching us every step of the way. If they smell weakness, they’ll swarm down on us like locusts.”
Yeah, that’s sounds like Critter.
“Great. Just great,” I replied. “Looks like I need to go have a chat with Critter about not spooking kids.”
“So the highwaymen are real?” Charlie asked.
“If I answer that will you promise to keep it to yourself?” I responded. “Don’t tell the other kids and get them all freaked out, okay?”
“Okay,” Charlie nodded.
“Yes, the highwaymen are real,” I answered. “Critter and his men have always kept them in check and away from our area, mainly because Critter is the scariest of all the highwaymen, but once we get out on that road, we’ll be fair game. All of the adults know about them, but we left it up to the parents to tell their kids. I guess Critter just couldn’t help being a creepy dick.”
“He gets a kick out of shaking shit up,” Charlie said.
“Tell me about it.”
“How many are there?” Charlie asked.
“We don’t know,” I said. “Could be a dozen or two, or it could be a hundred. Critter hasn’t dealt with them in a while because he’s been busy with all the Asheville bullshit. Trust me, I’ve gotten an earful about how the city drama has gotten in the way of real country work. Guess we finally get to see what that real work is.”
“Wee. Fun,” Charlie sighed.
“Hey!” Greta shouted over at us. “So are we grounded or can we keep practicing?”
“You can keep practicing!” I shouted back. “But be ready to stop and come help the second you’re called for, got it?”
“Got it!” Greta said.
“Thanks, Mr. Stanford!” the boy yelled.
“Who is that?” I asked. “I don’t recognize him.”
“That’s Jordan Jensen,” Charlie replied. “His parents were laborers for Mondello.”
“Were?”
Charlie shrugged. “They didn’t make it to Asheville. They died during a Z attack on the parkway up by Blowing Rock.”
“That sucks,” I said. “He a good kid?”
“He’s nice, but weird,” Charlie said. “Probably why Greta likes him.”
“Probably why what?” I snapped. “Greta likes him?”
“Uh, yeah, haven’t you noticed?” Charlie grinned. “Those two have been hanging out non-stop since we all got to the holler.”
A billion thoughts ran through my head, and most included shotguns, but I took a deep breath and just nodded to Charlie. “Keep an eye on him.”
“Already am,” Charlie said. “He gets out of line and I’ll toss him to the Zs.”
“Don’t do that,” I said. “At least not unless you ask me first.”
“Will do.”
“Good,” I said as I looked out over the hustle and bustle on the valley floor. “Now I have to find Critter and give him a piece of my mind.”
“Better be a small piece,” Charlie laughed. “You don’t have much left.”
“Ha ha, funny guy,” I smirked. “Now feel free to go fuc
k off.”
I left him there and took off down the stairs to find Critter. The last thing we needed was that old coot stirring up fear and anxiety.
Chapter Three
The makeup and exact order of vehicles in the convoy was a huge bone of contention for a while, until I finally had to put a stop to the debate and set the order.
“Haul truck goes first,” I stated. “Yes, it carries the shelters, most of the supplies, and our weaker friends and family, but it’s also the biggest hunk of metal on the road. The thing was designed to take point and clear away any blockages we may come across.”
There were some grumbles, but in the end, everyone came around to my way of thinking. After the haul truck, was Critter and his tricked out Jeep Wrangler. The thing had two mini-guns mounted to the front and huge saw blades welded to the sides as well as spikes on the bumpers. It was designed to tear through Zs. After that, was the Ford Explorer that I would be riding in with Stella, Elsbeth and the kids. Then the Fitzpatricks in various pickup trucks with the remainder of the convoy behind them.
John and Stuart were up on top of the haul truck, along with some others, their rifles ready to pick off trouble. Dr. McCormick and Reaper were inside the shelters watching over the sick and wounded. Reaper had double duty and had to watch Kramer as well.
None of us trusted the man and had zero intention of forcing anyone to be cramped in a smaller vehicle with him. It was probably for his own good since he seemed to have an innate ability to piss everyone off. It would have only been a matter of time before somebody tossed him out a door and onto the road. As much as I would have enjoyed seeing that, I still thought we needed him at the very least for the knowledge he had of the road from Critter’s Holler to Kansas City.
Yes, we were still going to KC. Kramer may have been right that it was a scorched crater, but we needed to see it for ourselves. Plus, it was on the way to Colorado anyway. If it was a complete loss, we would just keep on going to Boulder and the supposed Stronghold.
“That thing don’t move very fast,” Elsbeth said from the passenger seat.
Stella was driving and I was in the way back backseat behind the kids, who were in the middle backseat (there’s a lot of fucking seats in SUVs), so that I could keep an eye on the line of vehicles behind us and Elsbeth could keep an eye on the road ahead. The kids were supposed to be watching the sides, but Charlie kept spacing off and Greta was busy making pink bracelets from some twine she found (Elsbeth had like six on her wrists already since she liked them so much) so I had to do triple duty most of the time.
“It’ll move faster once we hit the open stretch of the interstate in Tennessee,” Stella said as she watched the haul truck ahead of Critter’s Jeep move at a crawl.
Red Lapsing was driving the haul truck, despite having lost an eye the last time he drove it. He insisted the injury didn’t hurt his ability to drive, so we put him through a few tests, but in the end, it was his phobias and anxieties about being around wide open spaces and too many people that settled it. The cab of the giant truck was the only place he said he wouldn’t totally freak out.
I couldn’t drive the thing since I only had one arm and a stump, so he had my vote.
“Long Pork? You read me?” Critter called over the walkie talkie. “You back there?”
“We’re back here,” I replied into my walkie. Critter had a ton of walkies and radios stockpiled and luckily, Landon Chase, our resident tech pain in the ass, was able to get enough working and hold a charge for one to be in each vehicle. “What’s up, Crit?”
“Just makin’ sure I can squawk at ya when I need to,” Critter laughed. “You keep that radio handy, you hear? We have a tricky detour to take just up ahead. If the assholes are gonna hit us, it’ll be right along there.”
The one major flaw in our convoy plan was the fact that the haul truck was two stories high and as big as a house. We knew the interstate was the fastest, easiest way to travel, especially since a lot of it had been cleared of cars and trucks over the years by Critter’s men (at least on the North Carolina side of the mountains), but we also knew there would be issues such as tunnels and overpasses that the haul truck wouldn’t fit in or under.
Overpasses were easy to drive around, but a tunnel wasn’t.
We were at our first detour.
Not that the detour was all that great. Instead of the interstate, we had to take rural highway 288. That meant the haul truck took up both lanes and had to crawl along even slower as the small road twisted and turned its way through the mountains. Many a tree would lose the majority of its limbs as that massive thing on wheels shoved by.
Taking that route also presented a slight problem when it came to communication, as we found out in just a couple of miles.
“Hey, all,” Red said over the radio as we lost sight of the haul truck as it went around a sharp curve. “Looks like we have -hiss- up ahead.”
“What was that?” I replied. “What’s up ahead?”
“I think he said a tree was down,” Critter replied. “Hard to hear though. These hills are getting in the way of the radio signal. I thought that Landon boy had it all worked out.”
“I did,” Landon interrupted. “The walkies weren’t in the greatest of shape. I salvaged the best and put in the strongest batteries I could find, but none of them could be considered top of the line.”
“I don’t need a damn CB Cadillac!” Critter snapped. “Top of the line don’t meant shit to me, boy. I just need to talk -hiss- in the -hiss- got that?”
“The mountains are getting in the way,” I said to everyone in the Explorer with me. “We’ll be fine when we get back on the interstate and hit that straight stretch in Tennessee.”
“Doesn’t help us now when we need it the most,” Stella said as she took the sharp curve and brought us around to see what Red was talking about.
There were a couple more twists, but not sharp enough that we couldn’t see the haul truck. It was up the road from us, stopped dead, and several folks were climbing down from it. We pulled up behind Critter’s Jeep, where he stood shouting orders here and there, and came to our own stop.
“What is it?” I asked as I got out of the Explorer with Elsbeth, leaving Stella and the kids inside.
The first rule of the convoy was that someone was behind the wheel of a vehicle at all times. Critter was bending that rule by standing in the driver’s seat instead of seated and ready to get moving, but I wasn’t going to be the one to quibble with the old coot.
“Trees down,” Critter said. “Looks like they were uprooted by a storm.”
“So it’s not a trap?” I asked.
“Oh, it probably is,” Critter grinned as he eyed the mountainside to our left. “But they ain’t gonna attack until they know our weak point. We gots enough guns to keep them back for now.”
One thing we were counting on was that Critter was positive the highwaymen were out of ammunition. He couldn’t say for certain, but he hadn’t had a shoot out with any of the small gangs in a long while. Last time he got into a tussle with some of the highwaymen, he said they’d been using bows and arrows.
But no bullets. We all hoped he was right.
“Can’t the haul truck just mow down the trees?” I asked. “Run them over and keep going?”
“Sure,” Critter said as we watched men scramble ahead of the haul truck to start clearing the road. “But that truck would make such a god-awful mess of those trees that none of the other vehicles could get through.” He let out a low whistle. “And you ever see what those giant tires can do to a hunk of wood? It catches it right and we’d have a million splinters shootin’ back at us. Don’t know if you noticed or not, Long Pork, but my Jeep ain’t got no top on it. That wouldn’t be too much fun for me, now would it?”
“Are you afraid of a little toothpick rain?” I smiled.
“You afraid of my boot up your ass?” Critter replied.
“Point taken,” I nodded. “So we just wait? You think I should sen
d runners down the convoy to give everyone a heads up? Good chance for people to stretch their legs and have a piss break before we get going again.”
“Sounds like a good way to go since the radios ain’t workin’ too well,” Critter nodded. He let out a whistle and pointed at two men with rifles that were busy watching the mountainside. “You boys! Head down the line and let folks in on what’s happenin’, will ya? Move your asses and get back up here!”
The men nodded and hurried past us and down the convoy, stopping at each vehicle to give a quick update. Or I assume that was what they did since I lost sight of them in seconds once they went around the curve.
Moving the trees wasn’t as easy as it should have been. They were huge, old oaks and that wood is dense and heavy. It took a dozen men with ropes to maneuver the first tree far enough so that it could be shoved off the road and go tumbling and crashing through the smaller trees below. The second tree was a lot bigger than the first.
I leaned against Critter’s Jeep and watched everyone else work, since Stumpageddon wasn’t exactly up for lumberjack duty. Even if I wanted to put a cool axe or hook attachment onto my stump, I still had the healing collarbone to deal with. No leverage because of the minor issue of the pain. Not to mention the fact that Reaper would kick my ass if I ruined all the work he’d done to keep me from losing the last half of my right arm. He and Dr. McCormick had wanted to amputate all the way up to the shoulder so there was less stress on my fracture, but I vetoed that.
I’d grown fond of Stumpageddon and didn’t want to lose the whole arm. Having half an arm was shitty enough, but taking it all was unthinkable.
“Long Pork!” Critter snapped. “What you think’ about?”
“Life with one arm,” I said as I patted Stumpageddon.
“Well, good for you,” Critter snorted. “Now get your head out of the clouds and pay attention.”
“What for?” I asked.
“The attack that’s comin’,” Critter said.
That’s when I noticed he had picked up his rifle and was studying not the mountainside to our left, but the drop off to our right.