Finally the snow had begun to melt.
Chapter 16
“Good freakin’ grief! Where the hell did they all come from?”
“That, Jimmy, is a damn good question,” Gordy said.
Jimmy, Gordy, Dean and Rick stood beside the old dodge pickup, about one fourth of a mile from where Highway 79 intersected County Road 453. On the east side of the highway sat a small amusement park known as Sawyers’ Creek. On the west side, down a long narrow gravel lane was the Mark Twain Cave Complex.
The Mark Twain Cave Complex served tourists with tours of the Mark Twain and Cameron caves, as well as a café, winery, and gift shop. Tourists flocking to the Hannibal area often kept the large campgrounds filled with RV’s, and tents.
“There must be hundreds of them,” Dean said, watching through a pair of large field glasses.
“Why clear out here though? I could understand in Hannibal, but this far outside of town?”
Rick looked over at Jimmy, “My guess would be that when things started getting really bad, people thought getting out of town would be a good idea. Most of them probably believed that they could find food and shelter at the caves as well as the buildings at Sawyers’ Creek.”
“I can understand that,” Jimmy replied, “but why so many dead? You think they all starved to death, or froze even?”
“Probably,” Gordy told him. “All these people out here, no one really prepared. Even if they had, there simply wouldn’t have been enough food to keep everyone fed through the winter. Look at all the food we had, and we’re scrounging for whatever we can find now, just to get us until we can restock.”
“So how do we get to Hannibal through all of them?” Dean asked, pointing to the massive horde of zombies wandering over the road between the two destinations.
“We don’t,” Rick said, “this shopping trip is over.”
“Not necessarily over, we just can’t make a big one like we planned to do in Hannibal.” Gordy looked at his fellow scavengers, saying, “There’s the little community of Monkey Run and the eight or ten houses on Marble Creek Drive, just past Ilasco. I think we should check those before we go back.”
No objections followed, and the men divided up between the old pickup and the De Soto. Rick drove the pickup, with Jimmy riding shotgun, while Dean handled the De Soto with Gordy.
The group had waited a week and a half since the first signs of melting had begun. The sun shone brighter every day, with each day becoming progressively warmer. The roads, while still slushy with melting snow in places, were passable.
The first scavenging team cleared out the Woodland Groves area in less than two days, and even checked out the paint factory, which had been completely abandoned. The snacks and sodas recovered from the vending machines were a pleasant treat for everyone.
Although their goal was to restock food, they were also looking for gasoline for the vehicles and the power equipment.
Rick backed the pickup into the driveway of the first house on Monkey Run Trail. Leaving the vehicle facing forward made it easier to get away quickly should they meet trouble.
There were fewer than twenty homes in the tiny river community, and they had found that the first six houses they searched were completely empty of food. In several of the homes they found the slowly decaying bodies of zombies that had been killed long ago, possibly before winter had set in.
“Well, we’ve found a couple of dead bodies, and some zombie corpses, but no food. Someone has cleaned this area out already.”
“You’re probably right Jimmy, but we still need to check each house.”
“I know Gordo, just pointing out the obvious,” Jimmy said, smiling. “Next house, then?”
They went through three more houses, before finding a house with anything in it. Rick had gone up to knock, and make noise, as usual. At his first light tap on the door it flew inward, and a man with a shotgun stared out at him.
Dean, Gordy and Jimmy, to their credit, brought their rifles to bear but did not shoot the man.
Rick just stood there, startled that someone was alive and pointing a 12 gauge at his head. “Uh, hello there,” he said, feeling a little stupid at the moment.
The man in the door was shorter than Rick, but with shoulders wider than the man he was holding the shotgun on. Once he realized he had no chance against four men with guns he lowered the weapon and took a step back inside the house.
“Foods’ in the back. Ain’t nobody here but me. Take whatever, I’m just gonna go sit in that corner and watch,” the wide shouldered man told them.
Rick glanced into the living room of the house, looked at the man and said, “First off, you aren’t the only one here, there are at least two others. Second, we’re not here to steal from you, or hurt anybody. We are simply looking for food for our family.”
“What the hell do you mean ‘there are two more people here’? I just told you I’m the only one in the house. And if you aren’t out to steal from anybody, then why don’t you just go on and leave?”
“Stack of bow-hunting magazines next to that chair, one open on top,” Rick told him, “unless you also sit on the couch and knit from time to time, or lay on the floor coloring.”
The man didn’t have to look to see the yarn and knitting needles on the couch, or the crayons and coloring book on the floor. He knew they were there, and was angry with himself that he had left them where they could be seen.
“Lower your weapons guys;” Gordy told his men, “he isn’t going to believe we’re not here to hurt anyone if we keep pointing guns at him.”
Gordy dropped his FN P90 to his side on its sling, placed a hand on Rick’s shoulder and offered the other to the man of the house. “I’m Gordon Fletcher; it’s good to meet you.”
The man was momentarily taken back by the genuine gesture, looking from Gordy’s hand to his face several times before lowering his shotgun, and extending his right hand.
“I’m Alex Humbell,” he said.
“You any relation to Jack Humbell from Saverton?” Jimmy asked.
“Yeah, he’s my dad. Have you seen him, is he ok?”
“We only know him by name. Jonathan Cambrey said that your dad could work wonders on just about any motor out there,” Jimmy told him.
“Mr. Cambrey, how is he?”
Jimmy and the others looked at the ground for a moment, silent grief still visible.
“Oh, damn. Mrs. Cambrey too?”
Gordy simply nodded in affirmation.
“They were good people,” Alex said. He paused, thinking for a second before telling the men outside his door, “Uh, I guess I’m gonna have to take a chance sometime. Why don’t you guys come on in?”
Joining Alex inside the house, the men stood there looking around at the neatly kept living room. They noticed a plastic truck, and a few dinosaur toys, besides the coloring book.
“Evie, Alex, you can come on out.”
A young woman carrying a boy about five came from a back room, walking slowly, eyeing the men standing in her living room. Walking to her husband she said nothing, only nodding a greeting to Gordy and his crew. Alex put his arm around her waist, above hips any mother would be proud to have earned.
“Feel free to sit,” Alex told them, “Sorry the place is a mess, we weren’t expecting company today.”
“Man, if this is a mess, you would have hated my house,” Jimmy said laughing.
Everyone chuckled, helping to break the tension. They sat in the comfortable living room talking, feeling each other out. At one point Evie left the room, taking her son with her. When she came back she was carrying a tray with steaming cups of instant coffee, passing one out to each of the men, and taking one for herself.
“So that’s it really,” Alex was saying, “we just holed up here as soon as the reports of that sickness hitting St. Louis. I had to chase a few people off, people that were obviously sick. I hated doing it, but my wife and son, well…”
“I understand perfectly well,” Go
rdy told him, thinking of Jenny Appleton.
“I really haven’t had much trouble out here, other than Walt Smith, from down at the end of the road. We were ok for a few weeks after the power went out, but I knew we would need food, so I started going to the houses out here, looking for other people. If I didn’t find anyone I cleaned out all the food and stuff, brought it back here.
“Well, as I’m doing this I came across Walt Smith. He’d been doing the same thing, and we started talking about pooling everything and waiting out the winter together, him and my family.
“Then he starts asking me about my family, a lot of questions about my wife. If she was healthy, did she ever want more kids, even stranger stuff I don’t care to repeat. I realized then that there was no way I could trust the old bastard, and I told him as much. Needless to say, he didn’t like that very much at all.
“About a week after that he shows up at my doorstep, apologizing and asking forgiveness and all that, asks if he could hunker down with us. I tell him no way, and I meant it. I didn’t trust him as far as I could spit.
“He goes crazy, starts screaming and carrying on, so I reach for the shotgun by the door, when he pulls out a pistol and fires off a couple of shots. Nobody is hurt, but the crazy bastard starts to step backwards when he sees the shotgun, falls over and drops his pistol, all the while blubbering and screaming like a lunatic.
“Well, he jumps up, grabs that pistol and starts to point it at me. I didn’t even think about it, I just put a load of buckshot right in his chest. It made me sick, and I’m standing there outside my door puking my guts out, when he stands back up. I swear he just stood right back up and came after me.” Alex stopped, looking at his wife and son.
“You don’t need to say any more, we know,” Rick told him.
Alex looked at Rick, thankful for letting him stop his story right there.
After sharing a few of their stories with Alex, including Dean’s run down Broadway, Gordy asked if they would like to come stay with the group back at Camp Oko Tipi.
Gordy explained to them how everyone did their part to help make it a safe place. He told Alex and Evie about their intentions for the group and the Camp over the long run. He explained the council and why they had it. It all led to protecting each other and building a lasting home.
Alex and Evie took Alex Jr. too a back room in the house, coming back ten minutes later.
“You guys seem genuine, and I believe there is strength in numbers, same as you. We would be happy to join you folks, but I have to say, if people are praying to goat heads, or start talking about ‘Long Pork’ as a food, I’m outta there.”
The men laughed, and Jimmy said, “No weird stuff, we got it.”
Chapter 17
“Are you sure we can trust them?” Lisa asked.
“I wouldn’t have invited them to join us if they didn’t seem trustworthy. It will take some time to really get to know them, but I think they’re ok.”
“Alex is a bow man,” Dean added, “could be a very useful skill to have. I mean, several of us shoot bows, but this guy is more than a casual shooter.”
Everyone had gathered at the main house as soon as Gordy and the men returned home, and Gordy wasted no time in telling them about Alex and his family.
“We need more people, that much is certain. Not only is it ‘strength in numbers’ but we also need more people to help build this place up, hands for constructing and scavenging. With building the wall, tending gardens, and scavenging for supplies we are going to be spread pretty thin.”
“You’re right, we do need people,” Mike said, “but we also have to be careful about it.”
Gordy agreed with Mike, and the group spent a considerable amount of time discussing how to best handle future survivors that wished to join them. They finally agreed that should the situation permit, they would decide as a council who joined the group and who did not.
“I wanted to bring something up that Rick and I have been talking about,” Calvin said as the previous discussion began to wind down.
All eyes were on Cal, which always made him just a bit uncomfortable. “We’ve been talking, and, well, what would you guys think about building an area outside the fence that is double gated. One gate is closed, the other opened to let people pass through. It would have the same palisade walls we’ve been building, but it would create a choke point for anyone who might be thinking about hurting us.”
“A kill-box, Cal?”
“I didn’t want to say that, but yeah, Jimmy, a kill-box.”
“I think it may be worth looking at,” Gordy told them.
“So what are we going to do about the food situation?”
“Thanks, Lynn, I was getting ready to ask that myself,” Tam said.
“We might be able to reach Hannibal from Highway 61, but if we have to go that route, I think we might want to check out New London and Frankford first. Both are really small, New London is, I think, about one thousand people, and the population of Frankford has never gone over four hundred or so.”
“Hell yeah, sounds good to me,” Jimmy said.
“There’s Bowling Green and Louisiana to think about as well. We would have further to drive, but we might have more luck actually getting to them,” Gordy said. “We’ll spend tomorrow getting Alex and his family here, along with anything he has to bring along. We can also take the time to check out the little stretch of houses on Marble Creek Drive. Once that’s done, we can plan a trip to New London.”
For the first time in months people were excited. The prospects of increased food stores from the small towns surrounding them as well as new members to the group lifted everyone’s spirits.
The next couple of days were busy ones for the group and its newest members. Using two pickup trucks, and the De Soto they made several trips to Alex’s home, as well as surrounding houses to gather everything of value. Nothing was left behind that could be of use to the Camp.
On the morning of the Humbell family’s second day at the camp several people requested that Alex demonstrate his skill with the bow.
He agreed, setting up several targets on the baseball diamond. Using a basic longbow, a recurve bow, and then a hunting compound bow he proved that he was an exceptional bowman.
“Would you mind teaching archery to other people in the group?” Gordy asked.
“Sure, I could do that, and Evie is nearly as good as I am, so she could help.”
They agreed to have an archery class three days per week, for anyone that wished to learn.
That afternoon people sat down to plan out a trip to New London. Using the knowledge they shared of the area, which was limited, they made plans to go through the town in sections, clearing out each area before they moved on the next. Mike, Dean, Gordy and Rick would go for this trip, using three vehicles.
Early the next morning Gordy told those remaining at the Camp, “This is going to be an all-day thing. Don’t expect us back until later in the day. Make sure to lock the gate as we leave, and listen for us when we come back. We’ll pull up to the gate and each car will honk their horn twice, anything but two honks from each car and don’t open the gate.” Though he spoke to everyone, he expressly looked at Jimmy and Calvin.
“We got it, Big Man,” Cal said, poking his dad in the stomach.
“Watch it, punk, besides, I’ve lost a lot of weight since this all began,” Gordy said, patting his much smaller stomach.”
The men quickly hugged their families, climbed into the vehicles and left in a trail of dust down the gravel road.
Chapter 18
Coming in from the east on State Highway V, the men moved quickly from house to house. They focused on food and medications, though they were lucky enough to find the occasional box of ammunition or guns.
Rick stood facing the next door, with Mike standing to the right of him, suppressed rifle at the ready. Gordy and Dean watched behind them, seeing several zombies shuffling through the streets at a distance.
Rick tapped the door as usual, and then tapped again, slightly louder. Hearing noises from inside he said “Hot house”, meaning something was inside, alerting the others to be ready as they breached the house.
Like a majority of the homes they found, the door was unlocked. He twisted the knob slowly, feeling when the latch slid free of the strike plate. Gently pushing the door open, he immediately saw one zombie moving towards him, with another stepping out of a hallway from the left.
Mike stepped forward, sighted on the first zombie, a woman in a bloody housecoat, snapping a shot into her forehead, just left of center. “Shit, I miss my red-dot sight,” he whispered.
Rick came in right behind him, while Dean and Gordy backed up to the door, still keeping watch on the area behind the group. They expected surprises around every corner, and from every direction. Not good surprises like a cake, or strippers, but the kind of surprises that eat your face.
Rick stepped right up to the next zombie, bringing up his Ka-Bar fighting knife and plunging it into the forehead of the dead man. He let the body fall, the weight of it pulling away from his knife. He wiped the blade on the dead woman’s bloody housecoat, as it was still cleaner than the gore encrusted shirt of the man.
Gordy, then Dean stepped inside, quietly closing the door behind him. They took a moment to listen to the house, hoping that it was empty. When they heard nothing they proceeded to clean out the kitchen.
The pantry next to the kitchen was well stocked with canned goods, mostly vegetables and some fruits. They also found a large spinning rack of spices, and cabinets filled with boxed cereals, pastas, and many other food items.
They gathered all of this in plastic bags they pulled from a hand-sewn dispenser made from a kitchen hand-towel. There were a few empty cardboard boxes set by the door that led to the back yard, and they filled these as well.
After placing all of the foodstuffs in a pile by the door, they went to check the rest of the house. A single plastic bag held everything from the bathroom cabinets.
American Revenant (Book 2): Settlers and Sorrow Page 10