“They had to go to supper, Mizz Eliza.” he said earnestly.
“Well, we’re done here, these men are getting ready to leave. You boys did a great job, we really appreciate your help.” she said “You should run along home, too. It’s getting late. Stop by the courthouse after school tomorrow and I’ll give your crew some soda’s if you want. I’ve got a whole case of Dr. Pepper I’ve been saving for a special occasion.”
They all smiled big, thanked her and scurried off between the buildings but stopped when they were well hidden in the shadows.
“We’ve only got one shot at getting on.” Gage said, shouldering his ruck. “When they make the corner to get on third street, it’s a left turn. We can jump the last flatbed on their blind side.”
Gage had become his second in command. He was technically too young to be in the gang, he was only nine, but he and his family had been hiding out on a military base before they came to Lakota. He knew a lot about guns and shooting and how the army tanks worked. He was the one who had suggested they steal the manuals and learn how to operate the Bradley’s since the grownups wouldn’t let them train with the others.
They heard the hissing of airbrakes being released over the rumbling of the motors and ran the three blocks for the intersection, hoping no one would see them so late in the evening. They stayed crouched and hidden behind an old warehouse until the last truck in the little convoy started to make the turn then they sprinted out after it with whispered Good Lucks from the others. Both boys leaped on and scurried under the tracks of the Bradley then lay still, waiting for someone to shout a warning but they hadn’t been seen.
They had made it.
The stories they told their parents or guardians, that they were spending the night at each other’s house, would hold until tomorrow at supper time. The rest of the gang would cover for them for as long as they could. By then, it would be too late to turn back and they could reveal themselves to the truckers. If these guys drove like they normally did, they should be seven or eight hundred miles away by dinner time tomorrow.
Once they were past the gates, away from the only electric lights for hundreds of miles in any direction, the boys wiggled out from under the Bradley and climbed on top. They were careful to stay near the middle, out of sight of the trucks mirrors, just in case the driver looked back and saw them in the moonlight. Jimmy had his picks in case they needed them but the hatch wasn’t padlocked. They climbed inside and made themselves comfortable, pulling their dinner from the small packs and trying not to worry about what lay ahead. About how mad the truck drivers would be. They’d just have to show them they were needed, that they weren’t in the way. They were tired of being told to stop pestering people and to get back to school. It was a zombie apocalypse. They didn’t need school, they needed to help.
Jimmy pulled out his handheld CB, made sure it was set on their channel, and tried to call the others hidden in the trailer.
“We read you loud and clear.” Tony said. “You guys in the Bradley?”
“Roger.” Jim said “How’s the ride up there? Over.”
“We rearranged some of the crates.” Lizzie came back. “If you don’t mind sleeping on top of enough explosives to blow you to smithereens, it’s not bad. Over.”
“Ten-four.” Jimmy replied. “I’m going to drop down to channel nineteen and listen in for a little, make sure the truckers don’t suspect anything. Maintain radio silence unless it’s necessary. Over and out.”
They listened to the chatter and jokes on the radio for a little while but when Sixteen Penny started a long boring story about some load he’d hauled years ago, they turned it off. The boys dozed in the personnel carrier as the other two rested comfortably in the hidden beds they’d made. The truck drivers hammered on it, running the rigs at highway speeds on the roads they knew were cleared, on the routes some of them had already taken a few times between Lakota and the Hutterite farms. Once they got past them, they’d have to be more careful. A few trucks had made the run to Tombstone but they’d gone different routes both times, trying to find the best way. Some roads were blocked by gridlocked cars, some back roads had bridges with low weight limits and they were hauling heavy. They preferred to hit up fuel stops that had already been cleared, too.
Eliza had mapped out a route that took them on many of the same roads they’d come down some ten months before, she knew they were clear of major pile ups, at least. They’d have to slow down once they unloaded the tools for Dozer though, anything could have happened. Storms may have knocked trees or telephone poles across the road, bridges could be washed out, road blocks could be set up by raiders, a ten thousand strong horde of zombies could be wandering down the freeway. It was the wild, wild west and they had to be ready for anything.
Hot Rod was in the lead, his off-road halogen beams lighting up the asphalt for half a mile, listening to Radio Lakota and telling jokes on the CB. They’d gotten a late start, it was nearly ten o’clock before they rolled out of the sally port. He let Dozer know they were on the way so he could have a crew of Hutterites standing by. They had to unload quick and hit the road again because he hoped to make Tombstone by mid-morning. They could grab something to eat, get a few hours of shut eye and be hammer down before dark. They’d leave the trailer with Tombstones supplies there, they’d just take the tractor to have a spare. It wasn’t easy to get another rig from a truck stop anymore. They’d been sitting for months: tires were flat, batteries were dead, mice and other critters had made themselves at home and had chewed up wiring. It was still doable, of course, but it was easier to have an extra truck with them, already armored and ready to go, in case they had some kind of catastrophic failure.
Hot Rod lead them down the dirt road, past hundreds of skeletons from last year’s run, already picked clean by rodents and bugs. These were some of same roads they’d come in on, looking for the safe haven, back when all this started back in September. Back when they were running scared, not sure if the nuclear power plants were going to blow up, not sure what they would find when they got to Lakota, not sure if friends and family back home were still alive. They’d come a long way in less than a year and now that the horror of what happened had worn off, the grieving for loved ones mostly over, the new world wasn’t so bad Hot Rod mused.
They’d all been shell-shocked for a while, going through the motions of living and burying emotions deep inside while they fought just to survive. Once they were safe, people had grieved and it came out in different ways. He remembered going to the first movie at the little theater maybe a month after they’d secured Lakota. Bastille had chosen a comedy, something light hearted where they could all laugh and have a good time. The entire town had turned out and he didn’t even remember which film it had been, some rom-com. During the sad part, the whole theater had cried, tears flowed and sobs were everywhere. It was contagious and the first sniffle spread like wildfire. Grown women bawling like babies, men weeping unashamed in the dark, finally letting it go, letting it out, in a community cry. Himself included. When it was over, when they could laugh again at the jokes and everything turned out fine for the couple in the end, there was an extended foot stomping cheer. The movie had been about them. They’d been through rough times but it was over. The boy got the girl, they made it through the bad and the good was ahead. The future looked bright. He’d proposed to Eliza while the credits rolled, her youngest sitting on his lap.
She’d said yes.
In the world before the fall, they never would have looked at each other. He was an uneducated farm boy from the South, drove a truck, raced stock cars on the weekends and liked country music. He drank Pabst Blue Ribbon, let his dog sleep in his bed and voted Republican. She was college educated, worked in the corporate world and wore shoes that cost more than his car. She could order fancy foods in French, could tell the difference between Brahms and Bach, enjoyed Chardonnay and was a staunch Democrat.
It was a tragedy that billions of people had died but the survivor
s didn’t dwell on it. They had a life to live and a world to rebuild. Hot Rod would be hard pressed to admit it, it just seemed wrong somehow, but he was happier now with Eliza and the kids than he’d been before the fall. Two people who would have had nothing but disdain for each other before the outbreak were now blissfully happy together. All those things that made them who they were before were completely irrelevant. Like most people, the trappings of society had put them both in a box and it took an apocalypse for them to see what was really important.
He slowed for a turn onto highway 412 then brought it back up to speed. They were making good time as the headlights split the night. The tires were singing, the new DJ Bastille had working for him was playing decent music and the banter on the CB was light and sometimes funny. Life was good.
56
Jessie
Jessie set grandma’s worn bible aside and dragged a wingback reading chair over to the bed. His head was still fuzzy but puking up the whiskey had allowed him to start getting sober. A little. He concentrated on her breathing, listening to the rise and fall of her chest, forced himself to really hear it and told himself he would wake if it changed.
If it became labored.
If he heard anything different.
His eyes closed. He listened. He kept repeating it, forcing the part of his brain that was always clear and sober, to listen. Don’t let her die while you’re passed out. Listen. You have a job to do, you don’t get to sleep, not tonight. The room spun and tilted. He’d never drank so much in his life. He could drink a fifth by himself and hardly feel it, but they’d drank way more than that. Seven or eight bottles between them. What the hell had he been thinking? Either of them. That much booze could kill a person. He was glad he’d thrown up, he just wished the room would quit moving. He knew he couldn’t stay awake no matter how much Trucker Speed he chugged. He needed to shut down. He reached over and took her hand, still repeating the mantra in his head: Listen. Hear. Don’t let her die. Listen. Hear. Don’t let her die. He dozed off with the whispered words on his lips.
The sun was up when he opened his crusty eyes. Drool had run down his face, leaking from his scarred lip. His hand was still in hers and she was still breathing. The barn cat was curled up at her side and the towel on her forehead was dry but her temperature was down. He groaned to his feet, grabbed the walker and made his way outside. His car door was still open, the motor still idling, the front bumper buried a few feet into the porch.
“Maybe I should of let you take the wheel, Bob.” he said. “Apparently, I make a lousy drunk driver.”
Bob wagged his tail at the mention of his name. The humans had been acting funny. Maybe they were back to normal. Maybe they would remember to feed him, he was hungry and he liked their food better than the rabbits.
He shut off his car, saw the gas gauge was down to a quarter, grabbed fresh clothes and shuffled over to the well. He needed to get cleaned up. The water was invigorating, cleared his head enough for him to start chastising himself for letting his guard down. You just couldn’t do that anymore, there was no safety net, no one to help. What if he would have torn his car up? What if a single zombie would have found them and Bob was off hunting for his own food? He could be dead right now because he wasn’t going to let some girl out drink him. Stupid. He let the cold water splash over his head giving him brain freeze and telling himself he deserved it.
His back and ribs had healed up enough he could pull one of his own t-shirts over his head and he dressed quickly. His leg was the only thing left really bothering him, it still hurt to put weight on it, but it was mending fast. Another week and he wouldn’t even have a limp, he hoped. He went back inside, checked on Scarlet and started fixing a light breakfast, his mind wandering, trying to remember what all he should be doing to help her heal. At least the fever had broke sometime during the night, her forehead was still a little too hot but she wasn’t burning up and delirious any more. He wondered how much she said was true, how much was the alcohol talking. He’d heard somewhere that children and drunks always spoke the truth and her stories had sounded real enough.
He mixed up another batch of the antibiotics and woke her, making her drink it and spoon fed her some chicken soup he found in the cupboard. There was something about chicken soup and sickness that always seemed to go hand in hand. Some old wives tale that it helped with fever but they became old wives tales because usually they were true. Like rubbing five different leaves on a bee sting to make the pain go away or eat lots of bananas if you’re pregnant and want a boy.
She was still woozy, her emerald eyes still distant, but she ate most of it before drifting back to sleep. Jessie watched her for a time, weighing his options, trying to figure out a plan. They had enough food to last for weeks, the canned goods supplementing the dried stuff he had in the car. He supposed he could go hunting, get them a deer. There were enough of them around, roaming the fields every morning and evening. He knew how to clean one, although he’d never done it by himself. He’d helped his dad and uncle once when they were visiting family back in Kentucky. Some deer steak might help her recovery, lots of protein. He’d have to go back into town to get some Italian dressing or steak sauce or something to marinate it. There was probably some in the fridge but no way he was going to open it and release that smell into the house.
He’d hung out in the kitchen and watched his aunt prepare it, fascinated by the process of hunting your own food in the morning and eating it in the evening. She said sometimes she soaked it in Pepsi, just to give it a different flavor. Jessie was a city kid and even thought that pulling carrots out of the garden and having them for supper was amazing. Country people didn’t have to go to the store for food.
He spent the next few days checking on her, cleaning out his car, hand washing his bag of dirty laundry and cleaning all of his guns. He kept feeding her soups, tenderized venison and antibiotics and she slowly improved. By the third day she was sitting up and feeding herself. She was still weak and shaky and tired quickly but she was on the mend. Her gunshot had scabbed over and had finally quit bleeding, the slashes were healing nicely and the swelling in her face was almost gone. The gashes on her cheek were going to scar, though. Not bad, not like his, but there were three lines across it that would leave their mark. One day blended into another with busy work and chores. He changed the oil on his car and made a run into town but it was nearly unbearable. He got back out as quick as he could. The bloated corpses were rotting in the summer heat and blow flies were buzzing around in clouds. He topped off his fuel tanks, found a generator in someone’s garage and brought back a whole bag of DVD’s. He unscrewed an antenna from one of the raiders shot up trucks and contacted Lakota. Everything was fine, he told Wire Bender. Nothing to report, he was still running a grid, headed East.
Every day she grew stronger, the serum in her blood finally doing its job, healing her, repairing her and finally winning the fight against the invading virus.
Jessie started jogging again in the mornings before the day got too hot, still favoring his leg a little but enjoying the workout. It was about two miles around if he circled the big corn field. After a week, or maybe it had been closer to two, she joined him. Her legs were better than his, they didn’t have a bullet hole in them, but he knew her side still had to hurt. Their quickly healing injuries didn’t slow them down though and he refused to be outpaced by a girl.
She refused to be beaten by a limping boy.
They ran.
On the second pass of the farm house Bob had enough and turned down the drive to get something to drink and lay in the shade. On the third time around, they were both breathing hard, sweat pouring from them soaking their clothes.
“You should stop.” Jessie said trying to control his panting, trying to sound nonchalant. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.”
“I’m good, gimpy.” she said, the same control in her voice. “Maybe you ought to take it easy on that leg and get some rest.”
Bob watched t
hem pass and lay his head back down for a nap. Silly humans.
57
Gunny
Bridget heard them just after dawn, her time on guard duty. The rest of the crew were deep in the mine shaft, trying to get a little sleep after the long trek to get there. She whistled, the sound echoing through the man-made cave, and they were there quickly, dressed and ready to fight or flee.
“Looks like they finally found the plane wreckage.” Gunny said listening to the whine and roar of dozens of trucks and motorcycles.
“And no bodies.” Griz added, unconsciously fingering his loadout, checking magazines.
The raiders were spread out wide, dust trails from bikes and cars as far as the eye could see. They were searching for them.
“We’re in a good position.” Bridget said “Can’t we hide? If they find us we can snipe them.”
“Nope.” Scratch said. “I’ve seen this same situation play out in Afghanistan. A bunch of Taliban have good cover in the mountains, shoot a few of our guys and think they’re safe. We just call in air support and blow the hell out of the whole mountainside. If they’re in caves, they get buried alive.”
“They don’t have airplanes.” Bridget said “They can’t do that.”
“No, but we know they have RPG’s and LAW’s.” Griz said. “Close enough. If they spot us, they’ll blow us to bits.”
The dust clouds were still a long way off, they were going slow, methodically searching in the valley.
“Can we just hide, then?” Bridget asked.
Griz, Scratch and Gunny looked at each other. They’d all been to the sandbox, all had chased Taliban or ISIS through the mountains and deserts. If Casey had one just one grunt, one eleven bang bang, who’d spent some time tracking terrorists, he would be able to find them. He had hundreds of people, plenty of supplies and the group had left sign everywhere. The wind hadn’t blown enough sand around to cover their footprints, Casey had to know where they were headed. The manhunt spread across the valley was in case they’d circled back. Casey was being slow, careful and methodical. Crossing his I’s and dotting his T’s. Gunny would lay money there were teams on the other side of the mountain, too. Between them and the freeway.
Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet Page 38