The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books.

by Geo Dell

  In a little over five months they had made the valley into a home. All the prejudices that some had had about living off the land, going back to nature, or simply staying alive, had gone by the wayside. The fields they had cultivated would be ready to harvest in just a few weeks. Corn, beans and other vegetables. And there were acres upon acres of wheat fields to harvest.

  The power station, although doing nothing more than powering a few lights right now, would soon be powering their homes and the main meeting area in the cave. Lights along the pathways. Once they had wire they could make it work for what they needed. The hard work to wire it all would willingly be given as it had been to build what they had so far built. They were all behind what they were doing. They were behind each other.

  They had found that the gradual slope of the stream down to the pool made an excellent water slide. Children and adults alike enjoyed it. It had been used daily through the long, hot summer months.

  Candace and Tim, along with Molly, Lilly and Cindy had put together a little band. Guitars and hand built drums as well as a flute that Lilly had gotten Ronnie to make for her from a pattern in a book. They got together a few times a week and provided music for the shared evening meals on Saturday and Sunday.

  The shared weekend meals had been organized by Lilly. She had also set apart an hour on Sunday morning for a church service. It had started with just she and Annie, and now encompassed most of the people. It was like no service in the old world. Lilly would simply read something from her bible or something from some other spiritual book she had. Bob, Sandy and Janet would speak a little about the Creator and the Great spirit. Ronnie explained a little about the Qua-ran and the Muslim faith. Not really sermons, they would point out, just food for thought.

  Janet would make a huge group breakfast that just happened to coincide with the end of their service. That had been the beginning of their day together. And it turned into a weekly service.

  From there it had seemed natural to Lilly to plan an afternoon community meal together. It was simply easier for everyone than planning many separate meals. Everyone was so busy throughout the week that they rarely had time to sit down together and talk. Sometimes they didn't see each at all.

  Not everyone made it to the community gathering every week, but no one missed more than one week unless something unusual was going on. It was the one time where no one had to do anything except relax and talk. Enjoy each other's company. Catch up on projects and ideas.

  The musicians played, or sometimes Annie, Lilly and Tim would play music they had collected and bought with them. But with the power as yet not hooked up and batteries getting scarcer and scarcer, most often it was live music.

  A dozen groups of people had found their way to the valley and joined them. They monitored the CB, FM and VHF bands and spoke with other groups on a nearly daily basis. They also kept up with the news in the outside world. How bad the cities had gotten. The plague of the Un-Dead that seemed to have swept what was left of the country. It made them grateful for their growing community and the safety they had within the stone ridges of their valley.

  Time was flowing by, and everyone was beginning to find their place in that flow once more. The community they had envisioned was becoming a reality and evolving as it grew.

  ~

  Mike and Candace lay in the big bed in their bedroom. He had one ear up against her stomach listening, trailing his fingers lightly across the swell of her stomach he did.

  He had felt the baby move a few times in the last couple of weeks. It was something that choked him up inside. So much emotion he didn't know how to express it. But that was only his thoughts. Candace could see the love spread across his face and color his eyes. It showed in his smile, in the way he touched her, in the way his eyes misted over.

  The baby kicked him in the ear.

  “Holy cow,” he said lifting his head up quickly. “Did you feel that?”

  “Yeah, Baby, I did.” She laughed and smoothed one hand across his hair as he lowered his head back down to her stomach again.

  “That was so... Cool... This is one of those times, Baby, that you never forget,” he told her in a voice that was hushed and filled with awe. He went back to lightly trailing his fingers across her belly, over the swell and back down the other side. It was something Candace had told him relaxed her. And it did this time too. She fell asleep stroking his hair.

  ~

  Nellie lay with her head on Molly's shoulder. She rubbed her flat stomach with her palm as one finger drew imaginary circles around her belly button. “I'm trying to imagine this with a bump,” she told her.

  “Well it will be soon, Honey” Molly told her.

  “Are you afraid? … Nervous?,” Nellie asked.

  “A bit. They say you forget the pain right after. So...” Molly said.

  “I'll bet it was a man who said that,” Nellie said.

  Molly laughed. “Janet says it's like that. But you want to kill every man in the world for a little while... While it's happening,” she said.

  “She said that,” Nellie asked.

  “Yeah. Just like that. Said she would have kicked herself in the ass for letting Bob do it, but she wouldn't have been able to get up to do it.” Molly told her. They both laughed. “But afterward? She didn't care. Like right afterward too. She saw her daughter and she said the rest just didn't matter anymore. You know?”

  “I can guess... I can't get pregnant... Or, I never did,” Nellie said.

  “It's our last night alone,” Molly said. Her hand slid down the length of Nellie’s body.

  Nellie let her own hand trail off of Molly's flat stomach and onto the bed. She pushed herself up, straddled Molly's stomach and kissed her slowly.

  “I love you so much,” Nellie told her. She kissed her again.

  ~

  Ronnie pulled Patty to him and held her as they both allowed their breathing to slow and their hearts to quit pounding.

  “I don't think pregnant ladies are supposed to be... Uh... To be that... Active,” Ronnie said.

  Patty smacked him on one arm. “You... This one is,” she said.

  “Are you going to miss me… Really miss me,” he asked.

  She smacked him again, leaned her head down and bit him lightly on the chest. “Do you want me to show you again,” she asked.

  “Jesus! You'll kill me, Patty,” Ronnie told her.

  She rolled off him and curled into his side. “How did you feel about becoming a daddy?” She asked him. His hand was tracing patterns across her stomach.

  “Babe, you know how I feel.”

  “No, you... The other child that will be yours... Molly's?”

  “Oh... I... I guess I feel kind of weird. I don't know exactly how I should feel. When they asked I wasn’t sure. But when you were okay with it, I was okay with it. But it was an abstract, you know? It wasn't really real until I did the thing for Sandy and she did whatever she did with it... Then... Then it was different... That's part of me, Babe. I mean really part of me. I don't know how I feel... Proud? Nervous times two? Looking forward to it? Wondering how I will feel when I see that child and know that it is part of me,” he finished quietly.

  Patty rubbed one hand across his stomach. “They said the baby will know,” she said. "It probably won't feel so weird once you're used to it.”

  He nodded and touched her belly. “But this baby? This one will be spoiled rotten... A man who had nothing just a short time ago, and now, soon, I'll have two little people who are part of me to love and be loved by.”

  “The babies,” Patty said.

  “That makes three. I was talking about you and our baby. We're one, you're part of me and I'm a part of you. Old testament, New Testament, Qua-ran, they all say the same thing. We become one. So, there's you, a part of me... And the baby, a part of us... And the other baby that is part of us as well... A lot of love for a man who had nothing at all.” He let one hand travel over the swell of her stomach and downward.

&nbs
p; “And what exactly are you doing now,” Patty asked.

  His mouth planted little kisses on her stomach as he worked his way down.

  ~

  Arlene’s Journal

  It's the night before the six will leave to go back to the outside. I think of it that way... The outside. This place is something I have never had. So much love, so much caring, it overwhelmed me for the first little while. That and the other. Having to kill a man. But it was worse for those who stayed behind when we made our way to this place. If they had not stayed to fight the rest of us would not have been able to get away. David told me what it had been like for them. They had to kill too. They had to kill children that were controlled like puppets. Deadly puppets to be sure, but a puppet is a puppet... a slave.

  And now we're sending them back out again into a world that can't be any better than it was. It's worse in some ways. We didn't have to deal with the dead. The radio tells us they have taken over most of the bigger cities. I just can't imagine it. But We're sending them out tomorrow, and all so that we can live a little better. Nothing that we absolutely have to have. We have everything we could ever need right here. But to live better.

  To live better we need other things. It makes me wonder if we have changed all that much after all. I hope it is not a move toward the old society. I really hope not. Enough negativity though. They're going. I voted yes too, and there are thing's they will bring back that I asked for too.

  On a lighter note I think almost every woman in the Nation is pregnant. I guess that's a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. Me, Patty, Candace, Lilly, Annie. Jane, Alice and Amber are pretty sure. There are so many more people here. It seems almost like we grow every week. Maybe we do, come to think of it. Oh and now Molly too, and I wonder who the father is? But how would I ask Molly without sounding too nosy or even insensitive? Babies and more Babies, and thank God for them. They are our real crop. We joke about that, how in a few weeks it will be time to bring in the corn and that's our crop, but our real business, our real crop, is babies.

  Sandy and Susan are thinking about it too, only they both want to get pregnant. They're trying to decide who goes first. God bless them.

  Some times I think I am a long way from my roots. In another respect it seems to me that I have spent my entire life trying to get to this place... This condition... And I am so glad that I am here.

  May God go with ours tomorrow as they go back to the outside. Keep them safe. Bring them right back to us.

  ~

  Lilly's Journal.

  I am as big as a house. Seven months, two to go and I can not really believe it because I am so big. How much bigger can I get?

  Tom dotes on me bad. I mean he waits on me hand and foot. I am still teaching day times, but I take it easy late afternoon and evenings.

  I would have never believed that anyone would want to leave this and go back into the world. I think of this place as set apart. Out there is the other world... The old world with all of our garbage still there. I only hope and pray they have a safe trip.

  Ouch! This kid kicks like a football player!

  Our life here is good. So good. Thank you, God.

  CHAPTER TWO

  September 16th Year one

  They left in three Jeeps just as dawn began to spill its light over the mountains in the south.

  Candace had promised herself that there would be no tears, but it was a promise she couldn't keep. Tears were practically the first thing to come. Leaping from her eyes of their own accord.

  Patty had been unable to hold her tears back either. But both of them had been able to step back and let them go.

  “Hormones,” Janet told them. And for some reason that made both of them giggle and neither one of them had been able to stop.

  Sandy came up to the top of the ledge path, looked down at the two women giggling uncontrollably with tears running down their faces, turned to Janet and they both said “Hormones” which caused both of them to laugh.

  They both walked over to Candace and Patty, took them under the arms, helped them to their feet and started down the ledge.

  “Coffee,” Janet said. “It'll do both of you good.”

  Patty had slowed to a sniffle.

  “Hormones,” Candace said, and they both began giggling again.

  ~

  They made good time with the lightweight Jeeps, and found themselves at the head of the first valley by late morning. They took a few minutes and used the radios.

  “Is something wrong,” Candace asked.

  “No, Babe. We're already at the first valley so we thought we had better call now... We may be out of range later on in the day, or tonight when we stop.”

  Ronnie was carrying on a similar conversation with Patty on a different channel Tim and Annie sharing a phone talking to Lilly as well and then Patty too.

  Mike told Candace he loved her and then handed the phone to Molly. Ronnie handed his to Nellie.

  A half hour later they were following the straighter lines of the tall pines through the forest.

  “This is not a slow trip when you're not driving a huge truck loaded down with cows and pigs and all that other stuff,” Ronnie said.

  “I was thinking that too,” Mike agreed. “It seems as though we are so removed from everything. So isolated. But it looks like we'll drive out in a little more than a day.”

  “We're only what, a hundred miles in? Little more little less?”

  “Little less, I think,” Mike agreed.

  “Why does it seem to be going by so fast,” Ronnie wondered.

  “Because, if you think about it. On the way in we drove slow. And we moved everything out of the way. Dead limbs, branches, trees, there isn't anything left to slow us down.” Mike said.

  Ronnie nodded. “Plus. No cows, horses, pig-chickens. Either.”

  “Plus we know where we're going too. We didn't before. What's a pig-chicken anyway?”

  Ronnie laughed. “I meant pigs and chickens.” They both laughed.

  They settled back for the ride, the small Jeeps seeming to float across the soft carpet of pine needles. The sun was just dropping from the sky in the North East when they left the straight lines of trees and dropped off onto the old logging road.

  “Hell. We could probably make it tonight... Later on,” Ronnie said as they pulled onto the grass covered old road. It didn't look much like the old logging road that they had followed. Into the forever-wild lands. Summer had allowed the grass and trees to grow unchecked. Three foot high grass ran down the hump in the middle of the road. It was even higher on the sides where the road blended back into the woods. They stopped and waited for the other two Jeeps to catch up to them.

  “Drive on,” Mike asked as they all stared off down the old road, “or stay here tonight?”

  “Only got bout twenty miles to go... We could probably reach the park area before nightfall,” Ronnie said.

  “I'd rather not go in there after dark. Try to set up tents after dark,” Annie said.

  “There's that,” Mike agreed. “We don't know what to expect...”

  Nellie nodded. “If we stop here we have time to set up camp, eat, and we can leave early enough... And, well, we might not even stay there, right?”

  “Everything we need will have to come from somewhere else anyway,” Tim said. “Except the bigger trucks and the sawmill setup Bob thought he saw.”

  “So the park isn't really a stop then,” Molly said.

  “Well,” Mike started.

  “We may as well talk it out,” Ronnie said. “The dead.”

  “The dead,” Mike agreed.

  They had all listened to the radio talk over the last several months. The reception was incredible and far reaching from the top of the ridge the cave was in.

  LA was in ruins. There were still living factions there, but they were losing ground to the dead. San Diego was gone. A huge area of the west coast was gone. An even larger area had been over run by the dead.

  New
York seemed to be holding its own in areas. Manhattan was gone, but Harlem was holding its own, a few northern cities they had heard from.

  Other places scattered in between were still held by the living. Houston. Another place up in Maine. One in Georgia. It was good to hear the radio talk from those places day after day, but it was alarming that there were not more.

  In any case they had all come to grips with it. They had gotten the board of nine together and made some not for the public decisions. It was a serious thing and they were taking it serious.

  “I don't think we have as much to worry about if we stop here. There's nothing to pull them in this deep.” Molly said quietly.

  Ronnie nodded. “What might we run into there? It's a small park. Nothing close by. Nothing there for them either, right?”

  Nellie nodded. “Maybe. Maybe not. How can we tell?”

  “And that's the bitch about it,” Tim said. “How will we know?”

  “I don't think we will... We'll have to keep our eyes open wide. No sleeping,” Mike said.

  Annie nodded.

  “Okay. I'm for staying here tonight,” Molly said. She shrugged her rifle from her shoulder. “I am not for getting bit and having one of you guys shoot me,” She said. Silence held for a moment and then Molly smiled.

  “Only if I had to,” Ronnie said and answered her smile.

  “You guys are sick,” Annie said. But she too was smiling.

  ~

  The tents went up fast. They set them up in the forest itself which was free of grass and carpeted with the soft pine needles. Mike, Molly and Annie were on grass duty. In no time they had a wide area free of grass in both directions down the road.

  They dug down into the forest floor and cleared an area for a fire and started diner. Dried meat, some canned vegetables and some hard thick cakes that Janet had made. Berries, ground up dried meat, and pine nuts all mixed into a flour base made from wheat and rye that grew wild in the valley. Some rendered fat to hold it all together and then the whole thing had been baked in the huge stone oven that Bob and Ronnie had built in the main area of the cave.