Ed chuckled. “Or in the rain.”
“Exactly.”
The two extra bedrooms held the bulk of Jasper’s stash. Bottled water, batteries, flashlights cheese crackers, more canned foods, cases of Ramen noodles. The second bedroom held more of the same, including stacks of toilet paper. Ed chuckled again.
“What’s so funny?” Jasper asked.
“That’s a lot of toilet paper.”
“Man, you can never have too much of that stuff.”
* * *
They burned through Jasper’s case of chili over the next few days. After that they moved on to beef stew. Lots of protein, lots of fats. Healing food.
The bones healed. The days passed. Ed thought of Zach and Jeremy every morning, the moment he awoke. He thought of them throughout the day. Only the distraction of the books or conversation with Jasper brought relief.
He thought of them again before falling asleep. Lying in bed, his desperation often got the best of him.
But during the day, the more he thought about it, the more likely the idea of his family’s survival became. And given that, the biggest problem facing him would be finding them again. So that’s where he placed his focus.
More days passed. More meals heated over flaming alcohol-gel. Boiling filtered stream water over propane camp stoves outside. After so much time spent indoors with only a burning candle to light the way, the full-blown sun provided Ed with a welcomed change. Not only did the sunlight warm and nourish his body, it did wonders for his state of mind.
A week became two weeks. Ed spent much of his day on his feet now. Instead of reading in bed he now sat when he read, using the bed only for sleeping.
He and Jasper played card games, passing more time. They shared stories about their past, each anecdote conspicuously devoid of the worst of their personal tragedies. They collectively lamented the non-existence of Big Macs and Chinese food, of Tarantino movies and rock music, of creative minds lost forever to the virus.
Two and a half weeks after finding Ed in the overturned train car, the two men stood in Jasper’s candle-lit kitchen, eating sticks of beef jerky and drinking boiled creek water from re-purposed Fiji water bottles.
“I want to go look for my family,” Ed said after swallowing a bite of jerky. He washed it down with a swig of the water and waited for Jasper’s objections.
Jasper shrugged. “Okay.”
Ed’s brow wrinkled. “Just like that? You think I’m well enough?”
“I suppose. I’m not a doctor, but you’re looking good and getting around okay. And you’ve been dumping your own pee for some time now. Thanks for that, by the way.” Jasper grinned wide.
“You’re welcome,” Ed replied, grinning back.
“Bottom line, if you think you’re ready then you probably are.”
“I think I am.”
“Then when do we leave?” Jasper asked.
“You know you don’t have to go with me.”
“Well…I kinda do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“How do you figure?”
“I have to see how this story ends.”
“C’mon…”
“No, seriously. How am I going to just let you walk out of here and disappear into the wastelands, not knowing if you found your family? Talk about a cliffhanger.”
“I’ll be okay. You don’t have to come.”
Jasper held up a finger. “That’s where you’re wrong. I do have to come. I risked my life for you, right?”
Ed nodded.
“Then I’ve earned the right to come. You wouldn’t be here to even go look for them if it wasn’t for me. I’m now a part of this whole thing. I have a vested interest now.” With that, Jasper folded his arms and sat back in the chair, a look of satisfaction painted on his face.
“Fair enough,” Ed said. He crossed his own arms and sat back in his chair. “We leave tomorrow morning then. We’ll start at the wreckage and work our way out from there.”
Jasper smiled. “I’ll be up at the butt-crack of dawn then.”
* * *
They left the following morning. Jasper rose just before dawn, as promised. He went to work packing a single backpack that Ed would wear as he sat behind Jasper on the motorcycle.
“You’d be surprised how little you can carry on a bike like this,” Jasper said as he stuffed two jars of peanut butter, beef jerky, various nuts and protein bars into the pack. “We have to be careful not to make this too heavy. That shoulder of yours is likely to bitch at you otherwise.”
Jasper opened another pack and began stuffing more supplies inside. Twine, matches, a flint, two metal canteens, a multi-tool, two large knives, a hatchet, two metal canteens, a saucepan, fishing line and hooks, coffee filters, a few bottles of water and some plastic sheeting all went into the bag.
“Who’s gonna carry that one then?” Ed asked.
“That goes in the milk crate on the back of the bike.”
After topping off the tank with more of the treated gasoline, Jasper placed a full can of gas in the milk crate before carrying both packs to the bike. He tossed the second pack on top of the gas can. After closing up the apartment door, he dragged a large sheet of frayed plywood in front of it.
With the plywood in place he looked at Ed. “Just in case I decide to come back, you know?”
“Won’t they just pull it out of the way?” Ed asked.
Jasper raised his eyebrows. “Can’t you just let me dream?”
Ed smiled. “Sure.”
With the bike packed, Jasper stared at the apartment building. “Guess this is goodbye.”
“Remember, you don’t have to go.”
“You trying to get rid of me?”
“If you had any sense you’d be trying to get rid of me.”
Jasper laughed. “You’re like the teenager I never had, sitting around on your ass all day and eating up my food.”
Ed chuckled.
Jasper glanced at Ed. “What is it they say? For every end there’s a new beginning?”
“Something like that.”
“Not like I had a castle here or anything. A bunch of stuff maybe, but what’s that amount to in the end?”
“Whoever dies with the most stuff, wins.” Ed said. “Saw that on a bumper sticker once.”
“You believe that?”
“Not for a minute. Especially not now.”
“Me neither,” Jasper said. “In any event, you can’t be afraid of what’s next.”
“You’re brave.”
“Meh. I put on a good show.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here. I have a family to find.”
Jasper nodded. “Yes. Let’s.”
* * *
Less than twenty minutes later Jasper brought the bike to a stop in front of the wrecked train car. He killed the engine, leaving the key in the ignition.
The sun shone hot overhead, grasshoppers making a racket in the tall grass around them. Not a carrier in sight for as far as they could see.
Jasper hopped off the bike. “Hey, wait a minute,” he said. “That’s my baseball bat!” He jogged over to where he’d dropped the bat while saving Ed and picked it up, admiring it. “I’d kiss you, but you’re covered in deadhead blood.”
Ed seemed not to notice. He dismounted the bike, repositioning the backpack’s weight over his good shoulder. He stared at the train car.
“So we start here, look for clues, right?” Jasper said.
“As good a plan as any.”
“Anything in particular I should be looking for?”
Ed shrugged. “I guess we’ll know it if we see it.” He headed toward the train car, disappearing around the other side.
Jasper returned the baseball bat back to its custom holster on the bike. He repositioned the extra pack in the milk crate, before releasing the pent up fumes from the jostling gasoline in the can.
Moments later he noticed how quiet things had become.
&nb
sp; “Ed?”
No reply.
“Ed? You okay?”
Nothing.
Concerned, Jasper pulled his pistol and made his way slowly toward the train car. He crept around, muscles tense. He peeked around the other side.
There Ed stood, staring at the side of the train car.
Lowering the pistol, Jasper approached slowly. He followed Ed’s gaze, reading the words Max had spray-painted on the side of the train.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Jasper said, chuckling. “Guess we’ll know it when we see it, after all, eh?”
* * *
Despite the rough ride of the motorcycle, Ed appreciated having it. After walking for years with Zach and Jeremy along desolate highways and dangerous side streets he knew just how slow foot travel could be.
During their trip to St. Louis they’d never tried to start a car or a motorcycle. Never even tried to use a bicycle. They’d simply walked, their feet carrying them along, the way their ancestors had done for hundreds of thousands of years before them.
They’d walked, because in the end Ed believed it was all the time they’d ever have together.
But now he needed to get to his family as quickly as possible. No savoring the journey. Knowing his family still lived filled him with a burning sense of urgency. Up ahead, somewhere along the tracks, the three of them headed toward Kansas City.
And the sooner he got to them, the better.
So Ed endured the beating of the motorcycle’s seat against his body, irritating his still-healing ribs. He ignored the weight of the backpack on his collarbone. The motorcycle’s speed would make up for the head start that Trish and the boys had gained, so he would bear the discomfort and pain for as long as necessary.
Jasper stayed close by to the track most of the time, taking side roads running parallel to the tracks when possible, swerving and zigzagging around rusting cars when they presented themselves as roadblocks. When the roads veered too far away from the track, he’d take to the railroad tracks themselves, riding along on the bumpy gravel and wooden ties.
They stopped around noon to eat, tapping into the nuts and bottled water before mounting the motorcycle again. They passed through wooded areas and open farmland, the only scenery central Missouri seemed to offer, the motorcycle’s engine buzzing as it hurled them onward.
They rode for several more hours, chasing the sun on its westerly descent. As they approached the remains of a small, one stoplight town, Jasper yelled to Ed over the engine noise. “Gas is running low. We need to stop.”
Jasper slowed the bike, bringing it to a stop on a concrete street. Before them a stop sign sat atop a bent post, old graffiti covering its face. To their left ran the railroad track, some fifty yards away. Small buildings lined the street to their right, interspersed with crumbling houses.
Jasper killed the engine. The silence surrounded them.
“You picked a great place to run out of gas,” Ed said.
“We didn’t run out. We’re running low. Big difference.”
“From the looks of this place we’d have been better off chancing it.”
“It is pretty creepy,” Jasper said. He dismounted the bike and looked around. “And quiet.”
“Creepy quiet,” Ed added, scooting off the back seat. He removed his backpack and placed it on the ground, his shoulder thankful for the opportunity to rest.
Jasper retrieved the gas can and began filling the motorcycle’s tank. “Keep your eyes peeled, will ya?”
“Already a step ahead of you.” Ed peered down the small town streets at the line of rusty cars parked along its edge. “Should we try to siphon some gas out of these cars?”
Jasper shook his head. “Not yet. I don’t trust it. Probably all sludge by now. I want to use up all this treated stuff we brought with us first. Get as far as we can on it.”
Suddenly a scream pierced the silence like a cannon blast. Ed turned. He watched Jasper fall down, tackled by a snarling and biting carrier that had been hiding behind a nearby car. The gas can fell from his hands, their treated fuel leaking onto the concrete.
The carrier writhed on top of Jasper, its mouth open wide as it tried to tear flesh. Jasper fended off the attack, gripping the carrier by the neck, pushing it away. Feral stink filled the air.
Ed ran toward the carrier, hauled back and kicked. His boot met the carrier’s mouth, snapping its jaws violently shut, severing its tongue between its front teeth.
With the carrier dazed, Jasper pushed, rolling it off and to the side before scrambling to his feet.
It rose to its hands and knees, its bloody, severed tongue flicking wildly inside its mouth as it wailed. Ed smashed another boot in the thing’s face, knocking it to the pavement. He pistoned his boot down, splitting the thing’s head open. Pain ripped through his injured ribs as carrier blood and brains oozed.
“Get that bike started!” he yelled.
Jasper stood, transfixed. He raised a finger and pointed behind Ed.
Following Jasper’s finger, Ed saw them.
Scores of carriers, trudging toward them along the street. The moans hung in the air.
“Start that goddamn bike!”
More screams, now directly behind them. Only yards away, a half-dozen more infected approached, mouths wide.
“Run!” Ed yelled.
“What about the bike?”
“Leave it. Just go!”
They ran. Screams echoed from behind them as Ed searched frantically for a place to hide from their pursuers. Only burned-out storefronts and disintegrating cars remained, all open and exposed.
He glanced behind. More carriers followed, creating a horrific cacophony of moans and screeches as they pulled themselves along.
Three runners appeared, breaking from the pack and closing the distance quickly.
“Faster!” Ed shouted.
“This is as fast as I can go!”
Ed spied an adjoining street. No visibility to what might lie around the corner. They’d have to take their chances. He pointed it out and Jasper followed.
They rounded the corner and kept running. Suddenly a truck carrying a deer carcass appeared from the cross street before them. It slowed to a stop. The animal’s body hung from a makeshift boom attached to the bed of the truck, wrapped in a length of chain link fencing. Metal bars protected the truck’s windows.
The truck’s passenger door opened and a man leaned toward them.
“Get in if you want to live,” he said.
Ed shoved Jasper inside the cab of the truck, leaping in after him. His ribs screamed. He pulled the door shut as a gnarled, filthy hand slammed against the metal bars lining the door’s window. It snarled, teeth bared as more carriers piled up behind, their screams muffled by the glass.
The driver crammed the gearshift into first. The transmission groaned. He released the clutch and took off.
“I’m Pastor Dan,” he said, turning toward them. Set within crow’s feet, his blue eyes shone above a blonde beard. “Pleased to meet you.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Pastor Dan navigated the armored truck through the town’s streets, periodically blowing the horn. A mob of carriers filed in behind him, like dogs chasing a rabbit. “They like noise and sound…and meat.”
“Who the hell are you?” Jasper asked.
“Pastor Dan. But you can call me Betty.”
“Huh?”
“Old reference. You can call me Al. Paul Simon?”
“Wait…what does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing.”
“But…but…”
“Why all this?” Dan replied, gesturing around the truck’s cab. “Is that your next question?”
Jasper nodded.
“Better to show you than tell you. Besides, we’re almost there.”
Dan maneuvered the truck through another street, carriers streaming in behind him, slamming their bodies into the bar-covered doors and tearing at the meat protected beneath the chain-link
cage.
Nestled between a series of dilapidated houses, a high school appeared. Dan pulled into the school’s parking lot, steering around parked cars and debris until they reached the back of the school. There a small football field sat, surrounded by rising, rusting bleachers, all enclosed within a high-walled arena.
As they approached, Ed smelled the unmistakable odor of human waste and death trickling in through the air vents. A low murmur built to a roar as they approached, eclipsing even the cries of the carriers behind them.
At the arena’s entrance Dan slowed the truck to a crawl before a tall wooden gate. Nudging the gate open with the truck, he drove inside the arena.
Nothing could have prepared Ed for what he saw.
Trapped inside the stadium’s walls, hundreds upon hundreds of carriers intermingled. Their screams and moans rose like a macabre rock concert, so loud it seemed as if they’d somehow gotten inside the cab.
Some of the infected lay on the ground, moaning, while others ran in circles, arms flailing and heads shaking. Some fought with each other, as if driven wild by the appearance of the truck and the meat. Dozens of carriers charged the doors, slamming themselves into the metal bars before bouncing harmlessly away.
The truck continued forward, waves of carriers parting like the Red Sea before Moses before amassing at the carcass hanging just out of reach.
“Funny thing is, they pretty much let me pass,” Dan said, staring in the rearview mirror. “The movement seems to get them worked up, but they’re really only concerned about the meat back there. They stay pretty hungry.
“Thing is, you gotta keep it up and out of their reach or they’re likely to yank us over,” Dan said, speeding up. “Had to put a fence around the truck bed to keep ‘em from climbing inside.”
They drove to the far end of the field, cutting through carriers like a plow through soil. “That should do it,” Dan finally said, glancing in his side mirror. “I think all ones following me are inside. Now for the drop.”
Grasping a rope tied off to a hook and fed through a hole in the roof, he pulled. The carcass fell out of its protective cage, the rope zipping up and through the hole in the roof as the deer’s body struck the muddy ground. The mass of carriers fell upon the remains, their screams and wails so loud Ed wanted to cover his ears.
Badlands Trilogy (Book 2): Beyond the Badlands Page 16