by Geo Dell
She turned to the West one last time scenting the air. She could smell blood on the air. It traveled with them. And it interfered with her thoughts to a degree. A newly dead may have followed that scent and it's allure. She would not. She turned away and a few moments after that she was loping through the darkening forest following the scent of her own kind.
On The Road
The farm store had suffered more damage while they had been gone. Several areas that had been damaged had been slowly settling. Wet timbers, wind and more rain had helped to collapse a few more areas. They stood on the highway, the Jeeps parked in a tight cluster, and looked over the collection of buildings that had once been a farm store.
“What do you think, Bear,” Mike asked.
“I think there are some in there.” He looked over the buildings. He pointed with one massive hand, Index finger extended. His voice was lower, just above a whisper when he spoke again. “See all that green growth up close to the buildings? That's all wrong. That would have been eaten by the Deer. The deer are everywhere. We just passed a few down the road. You see the way they keep it down. It doesn't get a chance to grow.” He looked around at the fields that marched off in both directions.
“The fields are high... Cows... Deer... Horses... You don't see it like this anywhere else cause they keep it down, but they don't want to come here to eat. The dead. They're in there all right.”
Mike sighed and nodded. “Okay... Ronnie,” he started. Bear interrupted.
“Look... It's not so bad. Let me show you something.” He looked around at the Jeeps and the fuel cans that were mounted at the back. “Help me to gather some wood... Doesn't have to be a lot.”
A few minutes later he and Tim had gathered a pile of wood and set it up in the middle of the highway upwind from the buildings. Bear doused it with gasoline and then walked back to Mike. The rest gathered around.
“They're gonna come out the back. They're afraid of fire. It's one constant that is always in our favor. The wind takes the smoke down to the building and they'll run,” Bear told him.
“Wakes them up,” Mike asked. “Gets them running?”
Bear shook his head. “No. And don't kid yourself. Right now they're down there wondering what we're up to. They're not sleeping. They know we're out here and they're just wondering whether we're going to come for them. Don't underestimate them.” He took a deep breath. “I would get people on both sides and out back. Mow those bastards down as they run... Don't know how many there are, but we can get most of them,” Bear finished grimly.
Mike stood for a second. “Josh, take James and cover the left side and I'll take the back with Ronnie. Tim, take the other side with Bear.” A second later they were all running off to their positions and Bear approached the pile of gasoline soaked wood and tossed a lit wooden kitchen match at it before he turned and sprinted for the side where Tim waited.
The Farm store was really two large steel building joined together at right angels. They had taken the earthquakes with relatively little damage. Cracks in the concrete base of the foundations. A few sections that had been too damaged to stand had collapsed from the weather. At the rear of the building, where they had removed the large steel doors that led into the warehouse the last time they had been here, the building seemed much the same to Mike as he stood waiting. The wind shifted though, and the smell of rot and corrupted flesh came to him, nearly gagging in its intensity. He looked over at Ronnie, probably intending to say something, but a split second after he looked away the first of the dead spilled from the building and they were nearly on him before his finger found the trigger and began to fire.
Ronnie walked a straight line into them firing as he went. Mike moved off further to the left and mowed down the ones that got past Ronnie. He could hear firing on the other side of the building too, and wondered how bad it could be. How many there were.
He had no sooner had the thought when something hit him hard in the shoulder and drove him back.
One of the zombies had come at a run from the side of the building and launch itself at him while still more than twenty five feet away. It came flying through the air. Mouth yawning. Teeth gnashing, faster than Mike would have thought possible. He forced himself to fight down the panic as he tried to turn.
His left leg buckled as it tripped over the broken pavement and he nearly went down before he caught himself, but the stumble cost him. The zombie that had hit him was picking itself up from the ground for a second assault; Mike thrust his rifle forward and squeezed the trigger but the zombies head slid down along the barrel and his teeth, gnashing and tearing took off the end of Mike's index finger. He screamed swung to his left and kicked out. A second later he was firing point blank into the zombie where it lay on the ground. A second after that silence descended.
Mike came up from the crouch he had found himself in. The ground in front of the rear doors was littered with a half dozen dead. He reached down and pinched off the blood flow tightly on his finger with his other hand. The rifle swung freely. “Ronnie!” He yelled at the top of his lungs. Ronnie stood from his own crouch, turned and then came running over as he saw the blood dripping from Mike's hand to the ground.
“Jesus... Jesus, Ronnie... Get your knife. Get it right now.” Ronnie slowed to a stop, let his own rifle swing free and began to reach for his knife, but before he could reach it Bear stepped around him. His own knife in his hand.
“Hold him,” Bear told him, when Ronnie hesitated Bear screamed at him. “Fuckin' hold him! Right now!” Ronnie rushed forward and wrapped his arms around Mike. Bear reached down, yanked the finger from Mike's own grasp, and began to cut. Mike screamed into the late afternoon silence that had descended after the gunfire.
~
“I think it's fine,” Bear said a short time later looking over Mike's hand. He had taken the finger where it joined the hand A couple of crude stitches and his hand looked as though it had never had an index finger at all. The others stood around in silence, occasionally looking around at the bodies of the dead that littered the ground where they had fallen, half expecting that they might rise again. As it was, Tim, Josh and James had gone around the building looking over the ones that had fallen and searching out stragglers. They had found two of the dead trying to pull another into the tall grass. The one they were dragging was still alive. Impossibly so to Tim, since it had nothing from the chest down. They opened up on all three and they were soon dead on the ground along with the others, for the last time.
They searched the rest of the building. There were two more that they shot in the head as they lay, teeth clashing, or crawled toward the high grass, half their bodies missing but somehow still alive. When they had come back Bear had taken off Mike's finger and he was stitching the wound closed. Tim had watched even though he hadn't wanted to. A liberal application of antibacterial cream and bandaging finished the job. Tim wondered just what they were going to do when you couldn't just pick up a tube of antibiotic cream in nearly any department store you rummaged through. Die of simple infections? Probably, he decided.
They had all huddled in silence for a few moments. Bear didn't give Mike back his rifle and when he went to reach for it he stopped his hand.
“Not yet,” Bear told him. “I saw nothing... It starts as what looks like little black capillaries spreading away under the skin... Then the skin turns white, like it's sucking away the life as they travel. They'll work their way across your body...”
Mike only nodded.
“I'm positive I got it. You clamped it off fast, I cut it fast... But you sit for an hour... Two, and if there's nothing you'll be good to go.” Bear turned to the others. “Bad fuckin' way to introduce you to this... Listen. You can't turn your back on these bastards at all. They're stronger, pound for pound than we are. They can kill you with a little bite you might not even feel.” He seemed to think for a few minutes.
“Back a few months ago a friend of mine took it like that. We ran into a mess of them. One got
past him. He got it before it bit him. He was positive... I was positive. But we're sitting by the fire a short time later. He has this little dirt spot on his finger, he thinks... Tries to wipe it off, only it don't want to come off. And that's when he sees the little lines... Already they're running up his arm. He flips out, rips off his jacket, shirt, but they're already running across his shoulder and into his chest...” Bear stopped and looked around. “So... an hour... Two, but I think you're okay.” He looked at Ronnie. “You're his friend... He needs a friend right now... The rest of us are going to check the building out... Might be a few stragglers, might be none. You're gonna sit here with him...” His eyes held Ronnie's. “You can do it?”
Ronnie looked at Mike and then back up at Bear. “Yeah.” Ronnie said. He knew Bear was asking more. A deeper question. “Yeah,” he repeated. He turned back to Mike, settled down to the ground across from him. His eyes followed Bear and the others as they walked away and then they came back to Mike.
“Don't fuck around if you have to do it,” Mike told him.
“No,” Ronnie agreed.
~
The warehouse turned out to be empty. An hour later they were searching through the building that Bob had been sure he had seen the sawmill in.
The sawmill turned out to be one of six. Three different models. Tim chose, selecting the two heavy duty ones. One to set up, the other for spare parts. They also got several replacement saw blades. The small propane powered fork lift they had used before took a great deal of convincing getting it going. They replaced the tank and ended up having to jump it with one of the Jeeps to get it running. It ran for a few minutes and then ran out of propane. The tank they had swapped had not been a full one. It took some searching to find a full tank. But after they hooked it up it started right up.
They picked two trucks the size of the ones they had used the first time. The forklift made short work of loading the two sawmills. Since there was still a great deal of daylight left they began loading grain, feed and other things that were on their lists. A selection of fruit trees and more kept them busy into the afternoon.
~
Ronnie sat quietly. An hour had passed. He and Mike had said very little. “How does it feel,” Ronnie asked at last. “Seems like it would feel some certain way if... Well if it was turning,” Ronnie finished quietly.
“Feels the same. Like somebody cut my finger off,” Mike said. He frowned and then laughed, startling Ronnie into laughter as well.
“Yeah,” Ronnie managed after a second. He leaned forward; his knife flashed and the cloth of Mike's shirt purred as it separated. Ronnie's knife traveled upward. Ronnie studied the skin as it was exposed to the failing light.
~
Bear turned as Mike and Ronnie walked up. He nodded. “Don't thank me. Just hate me for taking your finger,” he said. He grinned. Mike answered it.
“Had me a little worried,” Ronnie said.
Behind Bear the others where loading the truck. It was still far from full. Bear looked over at the truck and then back. “Could have been a lot worse.” He said.
Mike nodded. “And you would have made Ronnie shoot me.”
“Better Ronnie than me,” Bear said. The silence held. Bear shrugged Mike's rifle from his shoulder. “Gonna be a little tough to shoot one handed for the next bit of time.”
“Yeah... Well, I wouldn't be shooting at all if not for you,” Mike said.
Bear looked away. “Best get back at it.” He looked up at the sky. “Afternoons going.”
Mike shrugged his rifle back up over his shoulder, grimacing a little as he did. Thee three of them walked over to the truck that was being loaded.
~
The trucks were rapidly being loaded, they had already switched to the second truck. Two large loads of dimensional lumber went on the second truck nearly filling it.
“Hey,” Mike said. He was standing next to a particular piece of equipment. The others wandered over. “Damn... I'm not sure. If Bob were here he'd know for sure,” he said.
“Know what,” Tim asked.
“Know if this is one of those whatchamacallits... You know, they go through a field of hay and strip out the grain... If it is, we could really use it. But if it's not one of those... Whatever they are, then we don't need it.”
Josh laughed. “It is,” he said.
“Huh?” Mike said.
“It is... It is a whatchamacallit,” Josh said. “Or as we farmers call it, a grain harvester. This is a small tow behind unit. I know... It looks huge, but there are self contained units much bigger than this.”
Mike grinned. “You're a farmer?”
Josh smiled back. “Yeah. A working farm too.”
Mike looked confused.
“That only means a real farm. Pigs, chickens... Milk and beef cows. Crops. The whole nine,” he said.
“Man is Bob gonna love you,” Ronnie said.
“Yeah,” Tim agreed. “He pretty much has to teach everybody what to do.”
“Does that mean you're coming back with us,” Ronnie asked.
Josh nodded. “No question in my mind. It'll be good for the kids. Hell, it'll be good for me too.”
“Well,” Mike said, “lets get this baby on the truck.”
It took re-positioning the trees and a few other things, but once they made a hole the harvester loaded right up. It was made to be pulled by a tractor, but Josh said it could easily be converted to be pulled by a team of horses or oxen.
Josh was impressed that they had oxen, used them and were happy with them.
“I've never used them... It's a lost art,” He laughed.
The rest of the afternoon slipped by. Once they had filled the trucks they left the cracked parking lot and the dead behind, heading for the empty field and dinner.
The Nation
“Absolutely no fair,” Lilly said.
“She thinks I'm going to get bigger than you are,” Candace told her.
“No way,” Lilly said, shaking her head.
“Sandy thinks so,” Candace said. “That does explain why I'm bigger than Pats and we both conceived about the same time.”
“Do you wish you knew what they were... The sex,” Patty asked.
“Sort of, but in another way no. I like surprises. I hope Mike does,” Candace said.
“You could have Martians and Mike wouldn't mind at all. He's nuts about you,” Lilly said.
“And then some,” Patty agreed.
“I think we're all lucky,” Lilly said. “Or really blessed.”
Patty nodded.
“So, I'm banished. Three months of sorting potatoes, shelling peas, and your man is going to teach me how to tan hides,” Candace said.
“Yep... Well, join the club,” Lilly said. “But I'm looking forward to learning how to tan hides. We can make some baby stuff as we learn.”
“Well I'm not grounded yet,” Patty said. “I'm jealous.” She pointed her nose in the air.
They were deep within the caves working in one of the storage rooms. The air was cold. Not cold enough to freeze, but still very cold. It was also dry air and it seemed to suck the moisture from their hands as they worked.
One of the things that Janet had asked for was heavy plastic storage bins, or aluminum or even stainless steel. But she would prefer the plastic bins that would stack one on top of the others. They would work perfectly well for what she wanted to use them for in the storage areas, she had said. Candace had agreed.
They all wore heavy coats, but even with the heavy coats the cold worked it's way into them, and after a few hours of sorting and storing potatoes they all walked back out the long passage and into the main cave area.
They met Bob and Tom coming in as they came into the main meeting area. The smell of cooking food hit them and made them realize how hungry they were.
Lately they had taken to having most meals together. That way every one would be able to catch up with each other through the week. The evening meal bought everyone together
and it would probably continue to be a community meal until everyone came back.
It also allowed everyone to work straight through the days without having to worry about stopping to prepare a meal. More work got done. One of the jobs that would now fall to Candace and Lilly was cooking that meal. It usually fell to volunteers anyway. This would just be a slightly longer period of volunteering, and it was not hard physical work, but low physical impact, which was all that Sandy would allow them to do.
Today they were having trout cooked in fresh hay. And a salad with lettuce, radish, cucumber and carrots from the gardens.
“Fish,” Bob said and rubbed his hands together. “There's something to be said for it.”
“Um,” Sandy agreed.
“You know,” Cindy said, “I've been reading about fish, how to preserve it... smoked, salted, we don't have a lot of salt, but we do have the smoke house. Janet has promised to teach me how to smoke meat... And we have all of that storage space too.”
“But there are just so many fish in that stream,” Sharon said. “Right?”
“True, but there are a lot of deeper pools, and,” She grinned. “I know where they came from. They come from upstream. From the lake. From up top you can see the lake... Maybe three, four miles from us... West.”
Tom was smiling. “I think I know a young woman who wants to go fishing on a large scale,” he said. “Got room for another?”
“Hey!” Bob said. “Me too... Fishing?” He shook his head. “Gotta go.”
“I'll go,” Sharon said.
Arlene looked at David. “Me too,” she said.
“And me,” David added.
Cindy laughed. “I didn't think anyone would want to go and there are six of us... We could go later in the week,” she suggested.