by Geo Dell
There were many things that we could not get. A weaving frame, a spinning wheel, both to make new cloth. We could find neither, but we did find books on constructing them. We found guitars, banjos and violins, but no acoustic basses, no flutes. We did find a piano but couldn't figure out how we could get it on the truck without breaking it all to hell. And where would we put it?
I think that we have more than we need. I think we can always come back, like Bob says, when we need to.
Candace is on watch post, we're both anxious to end the traveling and get there. She told me tonight that there's a good chance she might be pregnant. Just about three weeks overdue, give or take, so she didn't want to get my hopes up. Well, too late! They're up!
We have had no surprises, except late in the day when a herd of moose began to follow us. We thought it would be a problem, but it turned out not to be. They followed along and ate the Cow Chow falling off the truck. The cows and horses don't seem to mind them. I don't know how far they'll follow or what we'll do with them, but they seem to like the Cow Chow.
I feel bad about Chloe, but grateful that we got Cindy. The things they did to these girls really sickened us. I can't be angry at Chloe. We'll never know what happened her. We found where she called from, from the radio anyway. She's gone, but there's a body there. Maybe one of the crazies that we couldn't find? Hard to tell. But It almost has to be. It even makes sense. She couldn't have carried those bodies away on her own. He must have been with her, helped her, and then they had some sort of falling out. He went too far, did something, said something.
There was blood on the phone, so whatever he did, she was hurt. And we know she was also shot. Maybe life will treat her better from here on out.
We're back out in the morning. We're still on the logging road, well one of several. They weave all over the place and turn into each other. But this was the one they used. We're following the tracks of the big tires. With all the mud from the rain, it's pretty easy to do.
~April 4 - Patty's journal~
It's fairly early morning here. I have had bad dreams all night long that Ronnie got shot. No matter what I did, I couldn't shake it. I don't even have Candace here to tell me it's okay. I'm such a baby sometimes. I'm not a big believer in dreams, but it seemed so real. I finally decided to get up and not try to sleep anymore at all.
We spent the entire day getting this overhang and the cave behind it livable. Whatever had lived in the cave last liked to eat deer, big deer. It took all the morning to bring out all the bones and dump them.
There's a pretty big smoke hole that also allows light in. Yes I said smoke hole, because people have used this cave before. There are drawings of hands, outlines, drawings of deer and horses, birds, all over the walls.
This is a huge cave as well. The main area is bigger than any church or cathedral I have ever seen, and then there are several dozen caves off this one, and we can't tell where they may end. The passages just keep going deeper. It's pretty cold the deeper in that you go as well.
The smoke hole got us wondering what's up top, so we climbed up to take a look. We thought that would be hard to do, but there are steps that lead up there, worn down. They used this place a long time, whoever they were.
Janet says the drawings and paintings are not like Native American art work that she has seen. Makes us wonder who they were.
The top is flat, and from there you can see for miles. I mean, it must be miles. We can see the other line of the Appalachians were we left them in Kentucky, and although we did not come in a straight line, we did come a long way. I tried the radio up there, but it was a no go even as high up as I was. Even so, I go up there every time now to try it.
The other direction shows us our valley which is huge. There are more mountains in the distance, several rivers, lakes, herds of buffalo, horses, and other animals that are too far away to see what they are. It's a long valley, full of living things, but no other people. No sign of them.
We don't know how much longer we have to wait. But what can we do? God help us get our people home to us, Amen.
~Lillie's journal~
I am hanging in there. We worked hard all day, and I was still so keyed up that I couldn't sleep.
We found the cave Janet was sure would be here. We unloaded the trucks. We thought they were so packed, but all of that in here just looks empty. That's how big this place is. Even so, the cave is cleaned out, bones, mice, rats even. I really don't know how we'll keep them out, but they're out for now.
We also cleaned off the stone ledge where it goes down to the valley. We walked it down. It is able to be walked, so it may be able to be driven, but who knows. We threw all the rocks and pebbles over the edge.
At the bottom there is a large open area and a deep pool from where the stream falls from above. It doesn't really do a waterfall thing. It's more of an angle down the wall and into the pool at the bottom. It's nice though. Fresh water so close is a good thing, Janet says. You can see tracks from small animals where they come to drink.
I think I'll go sit with Patty for a while and talk. We are both missing everyone so much. God stays with us.
~Jessica~
She sat up abruptly and the dirt and mud flew from her. She had only been covered with what had trickled back down into the hole, or slid down in the form of mud. They hadn't bothered to re-bury her. Her hands came up and batted at her face for a moment, catching the rat that had been gnawing there. One bony hand closed around it, and the rat squealed in pain, turning and trying to bite her. She brought it to her face, stared at its beady eyes for a moment.
She squeezed harder, and the rat's eyes bulged from the sockets. She lunged forward, took the rat's head in her mouth. It bit at her tongue weakly. The taste of the rat and its fear flooded through her. She bit down hard, and blood spurted across her face as she crunched down on the small skull bones.
~Happy Trails~
They were up early, but the sun was still well up by the time they fed themselves, loaded the calves and foals and began to move out once more.
The hardest part was rounding up the two separate groups of animals and herding them with the Jeep's towards the logging trail. Once they got them going, it wasn't so bad. But they had not been interested in leaving the small clearing.
Candace drove the front Jeep, keeping slightly ahead, scouting for the trucks. When she came to the beginning of the reforestation project, she stopped and waited for the other trucks to catch up. It was close to midday, time to feed themselves, water and feed the chickens and piglets and let the calves and foals out to nurse for a while.
Straight lines of trees marched away in long even rows off into the distance. The logging road naturally ended at one row, and it seemed to make sense that that was the way the others had gone. Scouting up that way a few hundred yards, they found dried mud cast off the tires as they had moved along the pine needle covered floor of the forest.
“It's good. It tells us it's this one. But if they turn off...” Bob said.
They all nodded in agreement. Candace tried the radio, waited fifteen minutes and tried again. Nothing, but they had to be getting closer.
They had everything moving again a half hour later. The afternoon passed by slowly as they moved along through the tall trees. The cows, as well as the horses, didn't seem inclined to go wandering off into the trees.
The sun was just beginning to set behind them when they broke through the end of the trees and rolled into a long valley. A large herd of buffalo grazed close by, but the racket of the trucks, and the unfamiliar scents of all the people and so many other animals, sent them running, herding the calves as they went, to the other end of the valley.
A stream swung in from their left, dropping from some high cliffs on one side of the valley.
Everyone was stretching their legs when David saw the red ribbons fluttering from a tree a little past where they had parked. Once he noticed them, everyone did. And they couldn't figure out how they had missed them
in the first place.
They fed the chickens and piglets, turned the calves and the foals loose to be with their mothers and cleaned the insides of the trucks out.
Dinner was smoked beef added to several cans of stew that had been opened and dumped into a large cast iron pot.
“I'll be glad when your Janet is cooking for us again,” Mike said.
“Me as well,” Bob agreed, “No slight to this meal, but she has a way with food.” Bob said.
“I'll second that,” Candace said.
A few grunts of agreement were added.
~
Candace tried the radio a short time later. She climbed up the back of one of the stake rack trucks hoping for better reception.
Janet's voice came back almost immediately, faint, but intelligible.
“Oh, Candy, dear, let me get Pats. She's been beside herself,” Janet said.
Patty had come running, grabbed the radio and bounded up to the flat area above the cave.
“Candy? Are you there, Candy?” Patty called. Her voice was strong and clear.
“Pats, it's me. I'm here; I can't believe it!” Candace yelled into the radio. She looked down, “Get your ass up here, Ronnie,” she said.
“I love you, Pats. It's so good to hear your voice, but here's another one for you.”
Ronnie took the radio, swallowed and pressed the talk button “Hey, Babe. I love you, and I've missed you,” he told her.
“Ronnie,” she screamed. Ronnie held the radio away from his ear. “I love you... I love you too, Babe. I missed you so bad,” She sighed. “We should let some others talk, though” she said.
Mike yelled out. “Tell them to fire up a couple more radios and choose different channels.” He handed one to Bob and one to David as he began to climb up. Within a few minutes they were all standing around on top of the truck, talking on the radios.
The radios passed back and forth and Mike and Candace looked at each other at the same time. Candace mouthed Jeff. And it was only a few minutes later that David said Sharon was waiting to talk to Jeff.
Candace got on the phone to Sandy and talked to her and Janet to let them know what they thought had happened to Jeff.
“I'll talk to her,” Candace said, “if it will help.”
“If she needs to, I'll take you up on that,” Sandy said. “I'll give this back to Patty. She's taken charge here. Maybe we can figure out how far away you are and how to get you here.”
The radio conversations went back and forth for another hour, each side telling the other about what they had found, what they were bringing with them, finding the red ribbons, what the cave was like, the livestock. Tim was disappointed at first about the solar panels, but after Mike told him about the windmills, he couldn't wait to see them.
“So it's a matter of following the red ribbons, and somewhere around thirty to forty miles to go and we're there,” Bob said. He was relaying the conversation back to the others.
“Candace,” David said. She looked over at him. He held the radio out to her, “Sharon,” he said.
She broke down as they talked, and that had gotten Candace crying as well. She told Candace stories about Jeff, what he had been like in the time she had known him. And Candace brought Cindy into it, letting her know what kind of people they had been up against.
When she asked to talk to Cindy, Candace was unsure, but they were both eager to talk to each other. Cindy broke down as well. They talked for over an hour, long after everyone else came down from the truck, finally Cindy came down as well.
“She's a nice lady,” she told Candace. Her eyes were bloodshot and shiny.
“You okay?” Candace asked.
“Yeah,” Cindy said, “Better than I have been in a long time. It was like talking to my mother... Someone that loves you that much, you know?”
Candace did know. She had that in Patty and Mike. She nodded
They sat quietly and watched the stars come out in the sky. They were so sharp, so close, so beautiful. They both took the last posts and waited for dawn to come over the mountains and color the sky.
~April 5th~
The trucks were rolling just after sunrise. All three Jeeps were needed to herd the errant cows and horses into a loose herd as they continued across the valley, following the occasional flutters of red.
They stopped for lunch in the early afternoon, turned the calves and the foals loose and made a quick lunch of smoked meat, peanuts and chocolate bars. The gap between the range was in sight, so after a short rest, water and feed for the chickens and piglets, an extra ration of Cow Chow and oats for the other animals, they pushed on. The moose and several deer were still following along.
~
The foothills slowed them down. The larger trucks fell behind, moving slower and slower as they worked their way up the steeper grades. The heavy loads were probably all, Mike decided later, that got those trucks up to the top of the last rise. In low gear the tires kept them moving up, but without the load, they would have spun on the slick rock and loose gravel.
Cindy was the first to see them. They had all been looking, knowing they were near the top of the pass somewhere, when Cindy spotted a small crowd on top of a rocky outcrop at the top of what looked like a nearly sheer cliff face that rose up into the mountain itself.
“There they are! There they are,” she yelled excitedly. “That's them, right?”
She waved, and the people silhouetted against the sky waved back.
~
Everybody stood on the wide ledge outside the cave, watching as the three big trucks battled their way upward in low gear, made the top and drove across the flat ledge to where the Suburbans were sitting.
The Jeeps and the pickup finished the short distance, the cows and horses following easily. When the trucks stopped, the animals kept going, smelling the water in the valley down below.
Bob and Ronnie set the calves and foals loose, and their mothers herded them over the rock and down into the valley below, moose, deer and all following along.
Then everything was cheers and yelling, hugs and kisses and tears. Cindy stood a little apart feeling overwhelmed, unsure of her place. A heavyset older woman approached her, her eyes puffy, but a smile on her face.
“I'm Sharon,” she said.
“I'm Cindy,” Cindy told her. She looked around at all the people. Two dogs were running around barking, wagging their tails crazily, sniffing the cow and horse dung.
Sharon laughed and swiped at her eyes. Cindy's own eyes were running freely. She came closer to the young woman, put her arms around her and hugged her to her bosom.
“Come on, Honey, let's go up and meet every one. They're gonna like you, I can tell.”
~Arlene's journal~
I missed last week, so I tested. I tested again today. I can't believe it, but I'm pregnant!
~Patty's Diary~
It's night. It's finally quiet. The day was crazy, but they are here. We are all back together again. I realized today that there is nothing at all that I can do about Candace and how I feel about her.
It was good to have Ronnie back, and I did miss him, but the way my heart jumped when I saw her.
It seems funny to read it like that, written right there in my own handwriting. And it's real, but somehow that makes it even more real. I don't know how that can be, but it is. And I don't know what I can do about it. I certainly can't tell her. Seeing her with Mike, it's obvious she loves him.
It's a mess.
THE ZOMBIE PLAGUES: BOOK THREE
Created by Geo Dell & Dell Sweet
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SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED ON SMASHWORDS BY GEO DELL
Geo Dell and independAntwriters Publishing
The Zombie Plagues Book Three
Copyright © 2010 – 2015 by Geo Dell & independAntwriters Publishing All rights reserved
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This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons places, situations or events is purely coincidental.
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THE ZOMBIE PLAGUES: BOOK THREE
CHAPTER ONE
September 15th year one
Mike sat quietly on the stone ledge, feet dangling over the edge, watching the sunrise. Patty and Candace were both on post and Mike expected them to come down from the top of the pass in just a few minutes. He sipped at his coffee as he waited for them.
He was midway up the ledge, just below the wider ledge that fronted the cave, before him the valley spread out in all directions. You could see the mountains where they blocked one end and sent the valley into a long right hand curve, but even that was several miles distance from where he sat. It was a huge expanse of land, and it was only a small part of the land that was available to them.