The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books.

by Geo Dell

  They were thirty now, and there were a half dozen laying on the ground who would be coming up out of twilight any minute. Killers. Or they had been in the old world. Being dead took the killer out of you, at least at first it did. But then it came back. You forgot all the little things of the old life. You nearly forgot your name. Where you had lived, what you had done. And then it changed. Every day you got a little more back. It wasn't exactly a memory, like a memory would be in the old days, like a breather would have. It was more like found knowledge. Not there one second, and then there the next. But it was clearer than the old memories she had had.

  Donita didn't question whether that found knowledge was true or not. It didn't matter, just like it wouldn't matter to these. What would matter to these was getting through the first bit of time, that time where heat still seemed like the only possible source of life, and you struggled to find it, only to realize it did nothing at all for you any longer. In fact, it could kill you.

  Then the cold came upon you, found you, along with its understanding, and you were fine. You began to understand that life was just a short stop on the way to dead, and that dead was just a way station to walking. And walking could be forever. Walking was not something as trifling as life. But that took time, and these killers would be nothing more than babies for a few nights.

  There was a process. She had gone through it, and the others had gone through it. She supposed any walker had gone through it. Everything that had to do with life, heat, that world, had to come out of you... sick it up... shit it out. It had to go. It had to go because it had nothing to do with walking. Nothing at all.

  A walker used what it took in. There was no waste. So there was no need for a system to dispose of that waste. A walker did not heal in the same way that a breather did. There was no need for time to heal. You couldn't predict it. You weren't even precisely injured. You could lose a finger, or a leg, while you were turning, and that was that. It was lost. But you could lose one after, and it was back in a short time, or most of it. She had not lost a leg, but she had lost a few fingers. One of the twins had lost an ear a few nights before. It was back. Those things could be. But they did not depend on any kind of healing like a walker. No.

  These were killers. For a few days they would be babies. Then for a few days they would get used to the gift they had been given. Then they would be killers again. They would be because that is what they were, and you could not change the basic truths of what you were, whether you were a breather, a walker or even dead.

  The turnings were coming faster. Where once seven would pass in to death and maybe one would rise to a walker, now seven passed into death and five came to be walkers. Soon it would be seven for seven. She knew that. And soon after that, the whole world would belong to the walkers. The breathers would be done.

  She let her silvered eyes pass along the bodies that lay stretched out on the ground.

  She was not weak. There was a strength that came with being a walker, a strength that came to your whole body once you embraced cold. They had moved silently into the woods and taken these without a sound. They had carried them here. It had been no expenditure of energy at all.

  Killers, except one. One had not been a killer at all. But that one might not come back. If he did, she would have to watch him anyway, and she really didn't want to do that. She would leave him to the twins to teach. He would learn their ways, or he would learn that even in UN-Death there could be death. Permanent death.

  She looked him over. The night was getting along. They would come from twilight soon.

  In Search Of The Nation

  Lillie's diary

  We traveled for two days, and now we're in the middle of nowhere. I mean, like, we're really in the middle of nowhere.

  When we came up over this pass, we could see for miles, and there was nothing. No buildings, no quilted farmland, towns, cities, nothing at all. It was almost too big to see. I didn't know there was anywhere left on this planet where you could have a view like that.

  But, here we are. We found a cave, really an overhang, but Patty and Janet Dove think there is an actual cave farther back in it. We'll know tomorrow. Patty said it's funny, because we're right back in a cave again, and we are. But Janet said it seems right, and it also does feel right.

  I'm worried. We're all worried. We don't know where our men are, or Candace. We don't know what happened at all. And we don't even know how long it will be until we do know something. I wanted to ask, how will they find us? But I just didn't want to upset anyone. I don't think it will be easy at all. Why didn't we think of global positioning? They sell that kind of stuff everywhere. But are there still satellites going around and around up there? Or are they all useless now because of what happened? Did they crash? Lots of questions; almost no answers. And even if we had global positioning, we would not have had the time to use it.

  So we'll have to place our hope in the radios. Starting tomorrow we're going to monitor fifteen minutes of every hour during daylight, Patty says. We'll all be hoping.

  God be with us. Keep us strong. Bring those we love back to us. Amen.

  In The Campground

  Candace's diary

  It's not over until it's over, they say. We came back today to find out that one of the girls we had thought got away came back while we were gone and took off in the truck the other side left by the woods. We need one more day and we'll be gone, maybe two. So hopefully she won't be back to cause us any trouble.

  I am so tired of this. Sometimes I think we should have stayed in the cave in Watertown, fought them there, let it end there. Then I look at Mike, and I love him so much that I want any chance at all at a free life. I'm glad we ran, and all this doesn't seem so bad.

  I'm banged up, we all are. At least I'm not missing part of me like Ronnie and David both are. A piece of finger for David, a piece of ear for Ronnie. Patty is going to be so pissed!

  Speaking of Patty, and everyone else, we're all worried. We can't reach them on the radios. Bob supposes that they could have gotten out of range. I guess we won't know until we're on our way. And if I don't stop writing and go to sleep...

  I'm back. Mike is sleeping now and my head's a lot better. I hope we'll start out tomorrow. God help us.

  April 3rd: Late Night

  Mike's journal

  We have seven trucks, so everyone is a driver. I thought the big trucks would be the worst, but I have to admit, once we loaded them down they were much easier to drive. And they are loaded down with every farm implement we could find. And more than that, everything we could think of, or thought that we would need. We also packed in trees to plant, sapling fruit trees, vine cuttings and so much more. I just lost count.

  There were many things that we could not get, but 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're stopped for the night, but we'll be back out in the morning. We're still on the logging road, well, one of several logging roads. 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 4th

  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 the
m.

  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 and birds all over the walls

  This is a huge cave. The main area is bigger than any church or cathedral I have ever seen. Then there are several dozen caves off this one, and we can't tell where they may end. The passages just keep going deeper, and it's pretty cold the deeper in that you go.

  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. It 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 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.

  April 15th

  618 Park Avenue: Seventh floor 2B

  Bear paced before the glass slider that opened onto the balcony. The apartment had been getting on his nerves more and more every day. Closing him in, making him jumpy, paranoid.

  He had spent five full days scouring the streets, but he had found nothing. He had learned a great deal though. The city did not belong to the living any longer. Yes, the living were there, gathered together, but the living were becoming the dead. Looking at it, it was inevitable The dead would grow even as the living shrank. Someday the dead would be more... stronger, and they would take the city completely. He had wondered if it were like that everywhere.

  He had come back to the building, killed more of the dead that had taken over the lobby once more, broken the lock set and made his way back up to the apartment. That had been days, or even weeks ago. He had fed himself from Amanda Bynes' cupboards. The water supply at the taps was gone, but he had carried cases of water and sports drinks up to the apartment early on, so it was well stocked.

  He had lost track of the days and weeks as he had sunk deeper into his depression. Donita had not come back. He had gone out searching two other times, but he had finally given it up. Where did you search for someone who was missing? She could be ten feet away or ten thousand miles away. There was no way to know. He had spent more and more time on the balcony, looking out over the dying city.

  The dead had been giving him more trouble too. He had put a new deadbolt in the stairwell door that opened onto the lobby. He kept that door locked, but they had figured out how to force the lock. Not surprising since he had forced it himself to get back into the apartment. He hadn't been able to repair all the damage that he had caused to the steel door frame.

  The really bad part about that had been that when he did return, he had found the key to the stairwell door - apparently all tenants had one - along with a key to the lobby front door, hanging on a peg above the kitchen counter.

  He had finally scoured all the other apartments, taken what he could carry and blocked off the stairwell with a jumble of couches, chairs and other furnishings he had thrown down into and then stacked up against the jumble in the stairwell to reinforce it.

  He had thought, at the time, that closing off the stairwell made perfect sense. What he had not thought out was the fact that he too would not be able to use the stairwell. Yes, it would keep the dead out, but it would also keep him in; it had since he had closed it off, and that was not something he could take much longer.

  At night he could hear the zombies working at the tangle of furniture in the stairwell. It was just a matter of time before they managed to fight their way through it and clear the stairwell. When that happened, it would be the end of him.

  And the Zombies were getting smarter. They had been coming at dusk and assaulting the stairwell. It was as if they knew he was there, and they had to have him at any cost. But they had no real thinking process. They simply threw themselves at the pile, clawing, trying to work their way over or through it, never making much progress. But the last two nights, they had stopped simply assaulting the pile of furniture and junk Bear had tossed into the stairwell. They had instead begun taking it apart, working at it, as though they had stood back and really looked at it, decided how to clear it and then went about it. That was not dumb-dead-zombie thinking. Not at all. That was thinking like any man could do. They were thinking, and that scared him. It scared him because the last two mornings before this one had shown progress. And this morning, they had nearly made it. Another couple of hours of work, and they would have been in.

  He had decided the time had come to leave. It had, and really, he should have left three weeks before. He should have left and headed south like he and Donita had planned. Instead, he had developed a suicidal side. He didn't care. How else could he explain barricading himself in the way he had? He couldn't.

  It took three hours of the morning to make his way through the pile of furnishings and junk, and he had awakened three zombies as he moved it, they had come out of the shadows in the bottom of the stairwell and stared up at him. Smart, but not smart enough. He had killed the first one, and then the second one when it had come right up behind the first one. The third one was a little smarter.

  The third one had waited in the deep shadows, silent, as he finished moving the tangle of furniture and started down into the shadows. He stopped just a few steps down. He had taken a flashlight from Amanda Bynes' kitchen. He flicked it on now, gun out before him, before he took another step.

  The third one was crouched six feet below, waiting for him, and even though he had been ready, he nearly blew it.

  He was a young boy, or had been. He was coiled like a snake, and he came out of the coil and launched himself into the light.

  Bear fired three times, his finger squeezing convulsively on the trigger. The boy landed in a heap before him, a wet splash on the steps. His mouth continued to work, biting at the steel step where his teeth now lay shattered, growling deep in his throat. Bear leaned forward and shot the boy in the head once more, and he stopped moving. Bear made his way around him and down the stairs into the first floor stairwell.

  There were two more waiting in the lobby, but these were not the smart ones. These were slow and shuffling. He killed the first one as he stepped out into the lobby. The second one stood looking down at her companion. He walked up, placed the gun against her head and pulled the trigger. She collapsed next to her friend where she apparently had wanted to be.

  Bear made the street through the same shattered door frame he had come through with Donita just a few short weeks before. The zombies had shattered the windows on the delivery truck and torn the inside apart. He had hoped the truck would be intact, and it was not. He looked around at the early morning quiet of the devastated city, up and down the deserted street, scuffed the sidewalk with his gore spattered boots and then walked off to the south.

  The Nation

  “Got it... Little to the left... Okay,” Ronnie leaned back on the ladder and drove a spike into first one side, and then the other side of the roof beam. He straightened up. "We should have thought of lumber. All we had to do was throw a bunch of it on one of those trucks. Next time," he turned to Mike and started to speak, but the frown on Patty's face stopped him.

  Mike looked over at Patty and Candace where they stood in the open doorway of the framed cottage. Candace looked up and met his eyes. She wrapped one arm around
Patty and pulled her close.

  “We've been here for just a few weeks, and you guys are already talking about going back out there,” Candace said.

  “Not necessarily,” Mike said.

  “And it probably wouldn't be us,” Ronnie added.

  Patty rolled her eyes. “Ronnie Vincent, do not lie to me to try to make me feel better. Don't do that.”

  “I,” Ronnie started. Candace raised her eyes to him and arched her eyebrows. “I won't,” he finished. He came down off the ladder and walked over to Patty. Patty looked up from where her head lay on Candace's breast. “Baby,” Ronnie began. “We have fifteen more people already than we came with. There are so many things we forgot to bring in. And things that have been added to the wish list. Bob thinks we could have hundreds before the snow flies. And that's Bob's conservative estimate. He thinks a thousand isn't out of line. If so, we don't have enough of anything.” He reached down and tilted her head up to his, continuing in a lower voice. “We're not even thinking of going right now. Fall at the soonest, but if someone has to go... I'm not voting for someone to do my dirty work for me. If you say no, then no it will be, but I don't see you saying no when the time comes,” Ronnie finished carefully.

  “If you make me feel guilty,” Patty said.

  Ronnie shook his head. “Not guilt. Responsibility. This is our life.”

  Bob edged through the door with a second beam.

  Mike groaned. “It's like a whole tree. Christ, it should hold up two roofs,” he complained, as he took one end from Bob.

  Ronnie looked over his shoulder at Mike and Bob. “Got to go, pregnant lady. I love you,” he bent forward and kissed her nose.

  “You are so lucky,” Patty told him. Her eyes were wet, but she smiled. “I get scared sometimes, Ronnie,” she said in a near whisper.

  “I know how lucky... We all get scared sometimes.” He kissed her lips, pulled back, held her eyes until she nodded and then turned to Mike and Bob.