by Geo Dell
“It can't,” Bear said again. “Cammy and I had a talk today. Let me rephrase that, Cammy talked to me, and I listened.”
Beth looked up at Bear.
“Cammy wanted me to know that she is not in love with me... can't love me. That was it. But that's not all of it. People think that we are together, and I haven't, she hasn't, corrected that. But the truth is that there is nothing there. Hasn't been. She was with someone else when we met. Long story, but she lost that person. I went through something bad too... lost someone I loved, the same as most of us did. She wanted me to know she's not ready to meet someone else. But we're not together, so Iris can say what Iris wants to say. Doesn't matter... Can't cause me problems.”
Beth took a sip from the pint and passed it to Bear.
Bear sipped deeply. “Wow.” He handed the bottle back, reached into his top pocket, pulled his pouch free and rolled a cigarette. He motioned to the pouch and looked at Beth.
“Please,” Beth said.
“Shit will kill you,” Bear warned.
“Yeah, well,” Beth laughed and looked around. “I'm pretty scared.”
“Guess I feel the same. If I didn't, I would have tossed this crap.” He rolled a second cigarette and handed it to Beth. A second later he scratched a match to life and lit both cigarettes. He blew gray-blue smoke into the air. They walked in silence for a time.
“Let's get to where we're going and then sort this out,” Beth said. She looked over at Bear.
“Alright, that's fair,” Bear agreed.
“Yeah... No sweat,” she added.
Bear nodded.
“Yet,” Beth added with a laugh. She took a sip from the bottle and then passed it back to Bear.
Bear chuckled, took another deep pull from the bottle, felt the fire roll down into his stomach and then passed it back. “Yet,” he agreed.
September 15th: Evening
The Nation
Candace let her fingers trail along the flat plane of Mike's stomach. “I had a flat stomach once,” she said.
Mike shifted, and his own hand traced the heavy swell of Candace's stomach “I'm pretty happy with the remodeling job you had done.”
Candace laughed. “You are a smart ass. I think you had quite a lot to do with this remodeling job.”
“Hmm, I vaguely remember it.”
Candace gave him a shot in the arm. “Vaguely?”
“I'm going to miss you when we go tomorrow,” Mike said, suddenly serious.
Candace said nothing for a second. “I could say, then don't go, but that wouldn't make you stay; so I don't want to talk about tomorrow morning. That's tomorrow. I'll deal with it then. This is tonight. Tonight you're right here, so am I.” She looked up at him. Her fingers went back to trailing across his stomach.
~
“And you tell Mike that if you come back messed up, he's dead,” Patty said.
“Mike is not responsible for me,” Ronnie said.
“Yes, he is. I told him. He knows. If he brings you back messed up, I'm going to kick his ass.”
Ronnie laughed.
“Oh, that's laughable? You find the idea of me kicking Mike's ass laughable?”
“No, I find the idea of someone as pregnant as you are right now kicking anyone’s ass funny.”
She punched him in the arm.
“Ouch. Son of gun... Damn you punch hard, Babe,” Ronnie complained. He rubbed at his arm.
“Oh? But I thought you said it was laughable?”
“Okay... Okay... Christ. Mike better watch out, I guess.”
“Exactly. He better. Now... you said something about spending time with me?”
“Yes,” Ronnie agreed.
“Well, here I am,” Patty said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
September 16th
The Old State Campgrounds Revisited
The State Park sign was overgrown, sun faded and leaning at the side of the road.
The four trucks sat idling just inside the treeline of the old narrow road that lead down into the campground. The driver's door of the second truck in line popped open, and Beth, wearing military style fatigues and carrying a wire stock machine pistol, walked up to the driver's side of the lead truck and tapped on the glass.
Billy looked up from the map he was reading. “Beth, Just checking out this map. I think this is right.” His finger jabbed at a spot on the map that had been circled with red ink. “This used to be a state park. It's early. I thought we should stop, plan where we go next.”
“Good a place as any, I guess,” Beth said. She looked up, staring down along the gloomy road and into the abandoned campground.
“What?” Billy asked.
Beth shook her head. “Nerves are on edge, Billy. I just thought I heard something.”
She smiled and turned back to Billy where he sat, map spread across his lap, the truck idling in park.
“But it doesn't feel right. That's why I stopped here, didn't drive down in. Feels funny,” Billy told her.
“The location?”
Another truck door opened on the third truck back and Bear strode toward the front. He left the door hanging ajar. Halfway between the lead vehicle and his own he lifted his arms up into the air and shrugged his shoulders. “What's the deal?” He asked in a deep bass voice.
The window on the last truck rolled down, the electric motor whining as it dropped. Mac stuck his head out of the window. “What the fuck, Bear?” he asked.
Bear stopped and turned. He shrugged his massive shoulders once more. “Something with Billy and Beth.” He turned and began walking back to the lead truck once more.
In The Park
The old state park appeared empty at first glance, but the dead were there, hidden among the trees, scenting the air with their eyes. The day was overcast. The late afternoon sky was swollen with rain clouds that seemed ready to burst at any minute, contributing to the gloom within the trees.
The sounds of vehicles on the highway had come to them, and they had faded further back into the dark of the forest as the vehicles came closer, slowed and then turned down onto the overgrown dirt road that lead into the old park area.
The hive kept the road cleared. The highway was one of a few in the area that was still in good shape and brought the hive a near constant supply of the living. And a constant supply of the living brought constant growth to the hive as those that once lived became those newly risen to death in their ranks.
Further, down the logging trails that led away from the old state park area was a graveyard of vehicles of all types. It was where they took them to dispose of them. It kept the old park area open and gave no reason for alarm to any of the travelers that stopped there.
One stepped from the trees now, tall, thin. He walked with a slight limp, a leftover from the leg that had at one time been entirely gone. His name had been Marcus in the old life. In the world of the dead, he had no name, yet he was still known, respected, followed. He walked down into a cleared area just out of the tree line and scented the air.
With this new life came new abilities, and old abilities used in new ways.
The respiratory system no longer worked. The heart beat in a strange new way, circulating a new type of blood throughout a body that had begun to change from the moment that death's decay had begun to set in, some change in chemistry that he did not pretend to understand on any level.
He could not draw breath to scent the air. His eyes picked up the scents from the air, and the scents painted a picture more complete than any of his old senses could have given.
They told him several things now. The vehicles were stopped a short distance from the entrance. He could smell them, sense their feelings, although not precisely their thoughts or words. He moved his head slightly and scented... ten... maybe eleven... parked at the side of the road.
Something had sparked fear within them, and it was running wild, building on the panic that seemed to be always just under the surface of the living. Fear and Panic. Th
ings he no longer lived with, conditions that did not exist in this new life.
The tale the scent told him was that they may well move on. Something they had sensed with their limited abilities had caused them concern. He cocked his head slightly. A second later he moved forward and broke into an easy lope, first on the dirt road, then into the trees angling for the highway slightly behind where the scent told him the vehicles had stopped. The others fell in behind him.
No words passed between them, but a kind of telepathy existed. What one knew, the others could know. And although they may not move without Marcus, they still knew, still felt the things he did. They were not mindless idiots, but loyal soldiers.
~
Beth lifted her eyes from the map just as the first of the UN-dead broke from the trees behind the back of the last truck.
“Jesus! Jesus, Billy... Dead!” She shrugged her machine pistol off her shoulder and caught it with both hands. She was already moving toward the back vehicles. In front of her, Bear was turning away from her, back toward the rear, his massive frame blocking her view. Somewhere towards the back truck someone began to scream. Iris, she thought, it was Iris who was screaming.
She found herself running at that point. Her legs pumping effortlessly, the adrenaline surging through her veins. Iris was in the truck with Mac.
She had no sooner had the thought then she heard another voice began to scream. She couldn't place it, but as she rounded Bear, catching up and passing him, she saw that two zombies had Mac on the ground, tearing chunks from his arms as he tried to fight them off.
“Beth!” Billy screamed from behind her. “Right. Your right!”
She had been just about to fire at the two zombies attacking Mac, and so even as she turned, she did not turn her pistol completely, but kept it aimed to the front towards Mac and the two zombies. By the time she registered how close the three zombies were to her, there was no time to turn the pistol and fire. They were nearly on her. She had no more registered their faces, jaws wide, teeth gnashing - she had not even had the time to worry about her own fate yet - when the lead zombie's head blew apart in a spray of black blood and bone.
She blinked involuntarily and managed to bring her pistol around as the two remaining zombies tried to reverse direction in mid stride. Their eyes were wild, trapped looking. She brought up the pistol and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened, and her heart staggered in her chest. The safety... the fucking safety, her mind screamed, and that was when another zombie hit her from the side and she went sprawling onto the dirt road. There were two more on her before she could get turned over. She felt the first bite to her arm and ignored it, as she concentrated on getting the safety off the pistol she had somehow managed to hold onto as she fell.
The passenger door on the second truck flew open, and Scotty jumped from the truck, machine pistol spiting fire as he ran. The gunfire all along the road was crazy. It had instantly become a war zone. Scotty made it halfway around the hood of the truck when he stepped into a crossfire and his head exploded, spraying across the hood of the truck.
Bear sprayed the woods with his machine pistol. The dead had all come from the same direction, and once he had focused on them, it had been easy to mow them down. They began to slow, some turning to run back into the woods, some standing as if they didn't know what to do. Bear launched himself away from the truck fender he had been leaning against and began to run at them, firing as he went, a scream building from his throat.
Billy had staggered to a stop just past the end of his rear bumper. He had watched Scotty come into his line of fire, and he had instantly let loose of his trigger, but it had been too late. He was in shock and time seemed to slow to a crawl. His eyes swiveled back around, and he saw that Beth was pinned to the ground by two zombies. He yelled and charged the zombies, raising the stock of his rifle, smashing in the back of the head of the first zombie, kicking the other aside with a hard shot to the ribs and spraying him with a short burst that took his head from his shoulders after he had rolled a short distance across the ground.
~
Marcus had stopped at the last truck and dragged the young man inside through the open window. Two more joined him and pulled him the rest of the way out of the truck.
Marcus lunged through the open window and fastened his teeth on Iris's throat as she tried to fight him off, and the inside of the truck became a slaughter house. He was so engrossed in feeding, that he did not see the machine pistols barrel as it thrust through the open window a few minutes later. He only barely felt it as it bit into the back of his head. Bear pulled the trigger, and his head blew apart. Iris stopped screaming.
Something happened to the remaining zombies after Bear killed Marcus. It was like a switch had been flipped in every one of them at the same time.
They stopped in mid stride, tried to turn back to the woods, but the machine pistols mowed then down where they stood or as they turned to run. Bear, Billy and Beth were on their feet moving in a loose line toward the wooded area once again.
Behind them, Cammy, Jamie and Winston, who had stayed in the trucks with the children, came out now and joined them. The gunfire held strong for a few moments, and then everything stopped at once. The last zombies fell or managed to get far enough into the woods as to no longer be seen.
Silence crashed down all along the road. It held for what seemed like minutes. The swirling haze of smoke from the gunfire hung heavy in the late afternoon air. The headlights of the trucks cut through it, making it dance through the blue-white beams of light. The overcast sky and the sudden silence made it seem as though night had arrived all at once. There was very little to hear in the silence: the still running trucks, a scratching, scrabbling sound as one of the undead tried to crawl off the road and into the woods. Beth turned shakily from the woods, her face hard, set. She pulled her knife from her side sheath, took a few steps and straddled the zombie. She reached down, grabbed his hair, pulled his head back as he snapped and snarled, trying to reach her with his teeth. The knife flashed as she embedded it into the side of his head. She thrust one booted foot against his head and pulled her knife free, letting his head fall into the dirt. She pulled a rag from her pocket and cinched it tightly around her arm, cutting off the blood flow.
The silence held for a second longer, and then Beth began to sob as she sank down to the ground.
The Nation
The barn was shadowed and cool after the hot sun in the valley. The entire Nation was digging potatoes. Lilly, Patty and Candace were grounded from the heavy work, but they had walked down from the main cave and watched them at work on their way to the barn to collect eggs for Jan.
Candace had truly believed that after Mike and Ronnie left, Sandy would allow them to go back to some sort of light work. It would have proven she had only grounded them to make sure they did not go on the expedition to the outside. Maybe she had been wrong though, she thought now. Sandy had not changed her mind.
“What I want to know,” Lilly said, “is what is the difference between picking eggs up or digging potatoes?”
“The potatoes don't have crap all over them,” Patty said.
Lilly laughed.
“Not really though, right?” Candace asked.
“What do I win?” Patty asked.
Candace slugged her in the arm. “It wasn't a contest. Besides, you forgot to answer in the form of a question.”
“What is, the potatoes don't have crap all over them, Alex?” Lilly asked.
“Lilly wins,” Candace said.
“Wow,” Patty said. “You guys cheat so bad.”
“So, for real, do the chickens lay the eggs and then leave them? We come along and just pick them up? And they're not really covered with crap, right?” Candace asked.
“You know, later you're coming down with me to get fresh rabbits for dinner,” Patty reminded her. “I expect you to know all about the modern farm by dinner this evening.” She smiled at Candace's sarcastic grin. “Okay,
the chicken lays the egg and then sits on it. You have to move the chicken to get the egg.”
“Oh... Great,” Candace said.
“It's not so bad,” Lilly said. “Tom brought me down a few times. Just act like you have a right to be there. Reach right in, move the chicken over and take the eggs.”
“Crap on toast. I suck at this sort of stuff,” Candace complained.
Lilly laughed. “Where does Crap On Toast come from? You and Arlene have the funniest sayings I have ever heard.”
“Okay,” Patty said. They faced the line of baskets and the wire mesh door to the chicken roost. Across the barn, the rabbits had a whole section to themselves. “Grab a basket and a pair of gloves.”
Candace picked up one of the pairs of gloves. They were heavy leather, stiff. She put them back and picked up a basket. “Oh,” she set the basket back and picked up another. “Wow. These baskets are not too clean, Pats,” She showed Patty one of the baskets.
Patty took a basket, looked at it and then handed it to Candace. “It's a basket for collecting eggs, Candy.” She turned it over and a few feathers drifted out of it.
Candace looked into the basket. “It's got crap in it.” She looked closer. “It looks like chicken crap to me.”
“It is,” Patty said.
“Well, I was thinking, clean eggs in a basket that has chicken crap in it?”
Lilly began to laugh. Patty choked back her own laughter.
“What?” Candace asked.
“Oh, God. Don't you make me pee myself, Candy,” Lilly said.
“But what!?”
“Okay,” Patty said. She bit back her own laughter. “I guess it's not funny. You don't know anything about eggs. Are you sure you want to come down here later to get the rabbits for dinner?”
Candace sighed. “No, but I have to learn sometime. So where have I got it wrong with the eggs?”
“Honey, it's easier to show you. Here,” she handed her the basket and then a pair of the stiff leather gloves.
“I'll skip the gloves,” Candace said. “I can't even flex my fingers in them. I'll never be able to grab an egg.” She tossed the heavy gloves onto the nearby bench top