The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books.

by Geo Dell

  “Oh,” Brian said. He looked worried for a few seconds. “Nellie said there would.”

  Nellie meant Janelle, his constant companion, one year older. Looked like she was a God to him, because she knew so many things that Brian didn't.

  “Well, if Nellie says so,” Mike allowed.

  Brian nodded. “She's really smart.”

  “She is. Most girls are,” Mike said seriously.

  “All of us are,” Candace said leaning in. She planted a kiss on his cheek, making Brian giggle.

  The Dog wandered by looking for handouts. He seemed a little put out that he wasn't getting all the handouts he felt he deserved. He stopped in his wandering, looked towards the interstate, stiffened his posture, and gave a little woof. He turned and looked at Mike, his lower lip pulled back slightly from his bottom teeth, his head tilted at an angle as if to ask, Did you hear that?

  Mike patted his leg. The Dog wagged his tail, came over to Mike, allowed his hand to fall on his back and scratch there, but kept his attention focused on the highway in the near distance. Mike scratched him under the chin too, patted his head and told him he was a good dog. He woofed once more and then sat down, content to wait along with everyone else.

  A few minutes later the sounds of the vehicles came to Mike's ears as well. The Dog's ears were perked now, his body tense with excitement.

  “Good dog,” Mike said and patted his head once more. “Well,” he said to the others close by, “Looks like our company is almost here.”

  A half minute later, three Hummers came into view running on the side of the interstate. Mike raised his radio from his side. “That's you then, Jeff?”

  The lead Hummer flashed its lights and then set off on a diagonal across the field headed for the small complex of buildings where Mike and the others waited.

  “It is, Mike,” Jeff answered. His voice was loud and clear from the radio's small speaker, seeming to jump out into the air.

  ~

  The Hummers pulled up onto a broken section of pavement that fronted what was left of the diner and shut down. Bob, Ronnie, Patty and several others walked across to the Hummers as they rolled to a stop.

  Mike stood, brushed imaginary dust from the front of his jeans and then pulled Candace to her feet. He stooped down, picked up Brian and settled him onto his shoulders. The Dog followed them as they walked over, completely unlike his usual exuberant self. He stayed at Mike's side taking small, measured steps to match his speed.

  Mike looked around him. Everyone was carrying a weapon in their holster, over their shoulder or both. No one was really expecting trouble, but after the past few weeks no one was taking any chances. Even Janet Dove, who had never handled a gun, wore a shoulder holster with what looked like a huge rubber gripped forty-four Magnum pistol, something straight out of a Hollywood movie, flat beige camouflage paint, black rubber grips and a heavy duty nylon webbed holster. She wore a smile on her face, maybe to offset the pistol, Mike thought.

  The front driver's door of the lead Hummer opened and a large red-haired man stepped out onto the cracked and buckled pavement. The other doors opened and the rest of the party began to climb out.

  “Jeff,” Mike asked?

  “Mike,” Jeff Simmons responded with a smile. They both nodded and then shook hands heartily.

  A tall woman, almost as large as Jeff himself stepped next to him. “This is my woman, Shar... Sharon,” Jeff said.

  Patty, Candace and Janet Dove stepped forward.

  Sharon smiled and took their offered hands, “Shar... To pretty much everyone,” She said.

  It took a few minutes to introduce everyone, and then they made their way to the tables. There were three small children, about the same age as Janelle and Brian, accompanied by an older woman. She took a seat next to Lilly where she had settled Janelle and Brian to keep the two smaller children out of the way.

  “Who is you?” a blonde haired little boy asked Lilly. “I'm Ben,” he smiled.

  Lilly smiled back, “I'm Lilly,” she told him. “This is Brian, and this is Janelle.”

  The little boy looked suspiciously at Janelle. Probably at the age where he didn't quite trust little girls yet, Lilly thought. He smiled shyly at Brian.

  “I'm Jessica, Lilly,” the older woman told Lilly. She turned to the other two children who were trying to hide behind her. “And this is Mark, and this little lady is Rain.”

  Lilly smiled. “Hello, Mark. Hello, Rain. Rain is such a pretty name.”

  “My mom told it to me,” The little girl said seriously. She fixed her eyes on Janelle. “I got some dolls. You got some?”

  Janelle turned and pointed at the store behind her. “I got some. I got a lot. Are you going to live with us?”

  Rain shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know 'cause nobody told me, 'cause I'm just a kid.”

  Janelle solemnly nodded her head.

  Rain got up, crossed the short distance, climbed up on the seat next to Janelle and sat down.

  The other couple from the third Hummer had made their way over to the table. They were young, possibly younger than Lilly, Mike thought. He reminded himself how much everything had changed though, how mature eighteen was now, how actual age didn't have as much to do with life as it once had.

  As Mike shook hands, he realized he had been wrong. David, the young man, was certainly Lilly's age, maybe a year or two older. But the woman, Arlene, was much older. Maybe in her early thirties. Again he reminded himself that it didn't matter. Even so, it reminded him of Lilly and Tom. Lilly came over, Tom with her, and the two couples seemed to hit it off immediately.

  The entire camp was bubbling over with conversation. Janet Dove, Patty, Tim and Annie began serving breakfast to the newcomers. The hum of conversation dropped lower as the camp began to settle down to eat.

  ~The Dog~

  The Dog sniffed along the edge of the tree line. He had wandered away from the camp, attracted by the smell of the cows. It was the most wonderful scent he had ever smelled. He had already found two pilings of dropping and rolled in them. It was good. Like heaven, he thought.

  But the scent he was following now was even more intoxicating. It was the smell of something dead, but he didn't see it that way. He classified scents in an entirely different way. It was the best scent in the entire world. Two seconds from now, another scent might come along and transplant that scent, but for now, it was the top.

  He stopped and peered off into the gloom of the trees. Something had moved in the shadows, and a soft warning growl began in his chest and quickly built. Deep, bassy, rolling out of his small frame.

  The thing in the shadows moved again, and its head seemed to cock to one side, the eyes focused on The Dog through the gloom of the shadows. A higher growl, more like a subdued snarl reached the dog's ears. He stopped his own growl momentarily to listen, but his body posture changed. His legs stiffened. He crouched slightly, his neck lowered and his growl returned, rising to meet the pitch of the thing in the shadows.

  'The thing... person... mother-father...?' he wondered. '...Master?' It stopped moving and seemed to be waiting to see what the dog would do.

  Another dog yipped from somewhere out in the field, and he shot his head up quickly and looked in the direction the yip had come from, waiting to see if she would yip again.

  She was a stray that had been hanging on the fringes of the camp. He had caught her scent the night before, and again earlier this morning. The yip said, Where are you? I am here... Come and play... I need you.

  His head dropped back to the thing in the shadows for just a second, but it suddenly seemed far less interesting than it had been. The other dog yipped once more, louder, more insistent. And that yip said, If you're not coming I'm leaving... it said, I called you... it said, Why are you there? And it was too much. His head came back up, and he leapt away a second later, running through the winter blighted wheat of the field, following the other dog's scent on the air.

  In the shadows, the boy settl
ed back down. He had been tempted to go after the dog, even though Donita would have been.... would have been displeased, he decided. It was not displeased, but displeased was the best he could come up with. It seemed the longer he thought about a thing, the more abstract it became. He lowered himself back to the ground and pressed more tightly to Donita's cold flesh, taking comfort from it. She was like... like a mother, he decided. He could not precisely remember what a mother was, but he was pretty sure his thinking was correct.

  He closed his eyes, and the darkness slipped over him. The small death... The respite from the living death... The place where the constant hunger did not drive everything. The smell of her death came through to him, and he spiraled down ever deeper.

  ~The Camp~

  “I never thought of something like a Hummer, Jeff,” Mike said.

  “There was a National Guard base. About twenty of these things just sitting there,” Jeff explained.

  “We were right next to a big military base and never even thought to check it out,” Mike said. “Drove by that base all the time. Saw them. Most of them were like yours, the H-1, version, but I know there are other versions that aren't military. The H1 and the H2 both,” Mike said.

  “And three and four,” Bob added. “But the three and four versions are not really military trucks, not really even off road trucks. But they are really good off road vehicles, and what about all those Jeeps? One of those new four door models. I should have thought that, and I didn't,” Bob said.

  “Well, next time we need a new vehicle we'll look in that direction,” Mike said. “But the ones you guys are building are probably going to be damn hard to beat when you're done with them.”

  There were a few of them sitting around talking. The rest of the camp had drifted off to begin the projects they had planned to do the day before. Lilly had taken all five of the children to the toy store to keep them occupied. Jessica went with her.

  Molly, Tom, Tim and Annie left to go to the garage, and it looked to Mike like Bob was looking for an excuse to get his hands greased up again. It was probably why, Mike thought, Bob came up with an excuse to leave a few moments later.

  “Well, Jeff,” Bob said extending his hand. “It was good to get to talk to you, but if I don't get over to the garage there's no telling what those kids will build... or take apart,” he finished with a laugh.

  “It was good to meet you, Bob,” Jeff said. They shook hands goodbye, and that left Patty, Ronnie, Candace and Mike as well as Jeff, Sharon, David and Arlene.

  “So,” Mike said in the silence that fell, “have you guys thought about how far you might actually go? I mean, all the way to California or just west?”

  “Well, when I said west, it's more southwest we were thinking. Texas, Mexico, maybe even South America,” Jeff said.

  Mike nodded.

  “Bob and his wife Janet, and maybe a few others, are going to go back to the land. They're looking for a place. Wilderness, or close to it,” Candace said, “To settle down.”

  “We discussed that, but we don't know just yet,” Jeff said.

  “It would have my vote,” Sharon said.

  “Mine also,” Arlene said. “We've only been traveling a week, and I'm already sick of it.”

  “Maybe we're closer to a decision than I thought we were,” Jeff said sheepishly. “All of you looking at doing that?” he asked.

  Mike looked at Candace; Candace looked at Patty and Ronnie and then back to Mike.

  “It's on the table,” Mike said. “We talked it over early on, but no one fully decided. Bob and Janet, they have an idea of rebuilding the Indian Nation. That is a different thing than deciding to live in the wilderness, I think they have a specific place picked out, the forever wild area up around Kentucky, Tennessee. Extends into Alabama. Huge.”

  Jeff nodded. “I think I heard about that somewhere. Read about it, maybe in school.”

  Mike nodded. “It almost sounds like anti-technology talk. Maybe no rifles. That's what I got from what they said early on. But, I think that has changed. I think they've revised things a little. Anyway, it's there on the table.” He looked at Candace. “I guess for me personally, and I mean me, nobody else, it depends on what my woman wants to do. If she wanted to go, I would. I mean, we're all going to live somewhere. There really aren't any cities left. If there are, they're unsafe, or worse from what we've seen,” Mike said.

  Candace smiled at him. “We met some real crazies back in Watertown,” she said. “This has brought out the worst in some people.”

  “I told Mike last night we've had a rough time ourselves. We've taken to avoiding towns, cities. Starting something over again in the middle of nowhere don't sound so bad compared to what we've seen,” he said softly.

  He paused for a moment and a pained look crossed his face. “The little ones, the older woman... we found them abandoned on the outskirts of a little city up north a little further, and the people we're refusing to feed them. Too old... Too young... Worthless they told them. That shocked me. But she told us later that they had been toying with the idea of killing them out right.” Jeff nodded at the face Candace made. “And the women they had with them they treated like possessions.” He shrugged, “We took them with us. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't leave them.”

  “It was the same back where we came up. They were about to try to take us,” Patty said. “We spoiled their plans I think.”

  Jeff nodded. “Maybe I'll talk to Bob and his woman a little more later on,” he said. “See exactly what they have in mind.”

  “I think he'd like the opportunity, and to be honest, I'd like to hear what he has to say too, where they've gone with their thinking.”

  “We've got the little ones. Traveling isn't exactly the kind of life they need,” Jeff added.

  “Well, we've got a way to go anyway before we hit southern climates. So we've got to travel some,” Mike said. “There's time to make our decisions.”

  “I think most of us want someplace safe. That's all, just safe,” Candace said.

  “Safe sounds good,” Arlene agreed. She squeezed David's hand, and he pulled her closer to him.

  “I can get behind that,” Ronnie said. “I grew up in the city. I thought that was bad, but what we just went through in Watertown? Those people were crazy... still are crazy, I guess. It's like the way the city was, but if you took off all the controls. No cops, nobody to stop you at all. Makes me wonder what things are going to be like in a few years. I want Patty and our children to have something safer. Sometimes I think Bob's idea isn't all that bad,” he paused and scuffed one booted foot at the ground before continuing.

  “I don't know about leaving all the technology behind, that seems a waste. Not all of it was bad. What do we really have left? Cars and trucks? High powered weapons? I guess it's all still out there somewhere. But the vehicles, the weapons will all rust away, fall apart, then what? We'll run out of bullets someday. Does anyone know how to make bullets, where to get the stuff to make gunpowder with? I don't, that's for sure. And so what little we have that we're using will pass away on its own. Maybe, in another twenty thousand years or so, we'll all be living in caves throwing spears at our food. I read something about that once. The world goes just so far, something happens and it falls apart. Society devolves, then the whole thing starts all over again from nothing,” he shrugged, seeming uncomfortable.

  “You know, I never heard you say that much at one time before, Ronnie,” Mike said laughing.

  Ronnie nodded. “I don't, not usually, but I guess I've been thinking as well, Mike. I have Patty to think of. We have each other to think of. In the old world, well, I was OK with letting shit go by... slide. I had an attitude of whatever I think or want won't make a difference so why bother? But now, that's all changed. We're the ones building our own world. We can do it right. Not like those guys back in Watertown,” Ronnie finished.

  “I agree. And I like the way that you put it, Ronnie,” Candace said.

  “Yeah, it
really is that way,” David agreed.

  “I care about what Mike wants. I, we, want to have children. We want them to be safe. Mike and I haven't really talked about it, but I'll bet that all of us will be talking about it tonight,” Candace finished.

  ~

  The morning crept by, and eventually Ronnie, Patty, and Candace said their goodbyes and left to take care of their own responsibilities. David and Arlene went with them. They all headed for one of the chain stores.

  Mike, Jeff and Sharon wound up checking over a large map of the Eastern United States that Mike had been carrying with him. It extended to about the middle of the country. The red line of a grease pencil ran roughly along, following major routes and ending in Mobile Alabama.

  “Why Mobile?” Jeff asked.

  “Ronnie's people are from there. He lived there as a kid until his parents died, then he came up here to live and ended up in the city, New York, living with an Aunt. From there he went up to Watertown to work and stayed. But, he remembers the gulf coast as a kid. A little town called Pritchard. He wants to see how it is, whether any of his people are still there. It's south, that's where we're going. About as south as you can get, and we'll have someone that knows the area when we get there,” Mike explained.

  “Got the same thing,” Jeff said. “Arlene comes from Texas, spent time in Arizona, and got around in Mexico quite a bit as well.”

  They all stood from the map and Jeff looked over at the Auto store. “Think they got tires to fit my trucks?” he asked.

  “I wouldn't doubt it,” Mike said. He looked over at the Hummers.

  “Oh, they look okay,” Jeff said. “It's dry rot. All cracked and split from sitting around. If you wouldn't mind us being here a while, maybe we can change those tires out. I've been more than a little worried about them,” Jeff finished.

  “You're welcome as long as you'd like to stay, and I'm sure that comes from everyone. Let's go see what they got,” Mike said. He and Jeff walked over to the auto garage.

  ~

  By late afternoon they had swapped out tires on one of the hummers and started on a second one. Tim and Annie, who had gotten pretty good at changing tires with only tire irons, had done the first few tires to show Jeff how it was done, then left him to it.