by catt dahman
“That was stupid of her. Why did she gossip here at the last minute before we leave? Poor Misty.”
“Why ask why? People aren’t different, Kim. Stupid never dies out. Do you think Mark knew Andie was pregnant?”
“No. He would’ve talked to Len and me. That’s just bad. He didn’t do it to be cruel or to hurt Mis. He didn’t stop loving Mis; it was a bad time for us, and it wasn’t so much we were afraid we would die as much as we were afraid we would live.”
“I know,” Beth sighed, “I’m sure he wasn’t in his right mind but was about half insane….”
“Like I was. If I hadn’t kept you in my heart, I would have killed myself,” Kim said. He helped Beth to her feet, saying they needed sleep, but it was a long time before either could fall asleep.
Chapter 33
You Are Safe on This Bus
There was a big breakfast early in the morning, and some were excited and energetic, while others looked haggard from worry and lack of sleep.
Mark tried to retain of air of calm business and strength, but Kim and Beth,
who knew him best, saw pain in his eyes. Len tried to catch Beth’s eyes to see what
was going on.
Misty took care of their children with a pasted-on smile and then made sure
they were all comfortable and entertained on their bus, but her eyes were glassy
with shock.
“You wanna ride with them a while? I can cover this.” Beth offered.
Misty swung into her seat and shook her head. “I am fine. I’m looking forward
to a nice long ride.”
“I’m glad someone is,” Beth said.
Len stood on bus one and went over details again before they rolled out.
“If things go south, you have food and water and can sleep here until we can
get to you. You are safe on this bus. You have at least six who can fight if needed.
You kids have an adult to look to for anything you need, but we are depending
on you to care for the young ones. Each of you is vital and trusted to be strong and smart. I want each of you to always be calm and helpful.”
Kim and Beth’s seven year old raised his hand.
“Yes, Neal?”
“I have my pocket knife.”
“Good boy,” Len said.
Georgie rolled her eyes. “Keep it in your pocket, booger,” she told her brother. She was ten.
“Uncle Len, George called me a booger.”
“I heard. Georgie,please don’t call your brother names. Neal, don’t be a tattletale. Katie….”
“I’m on it, Uncle Len,” she promised and turned to scowl at both her siblings.
The exchange made several people laugh, and Len hid a grin behind his hand.
He repeated his speech three more times. He skipped the speech for the loaded trucks and drivers but saluted them.
“We’re gonna be crawling at no more than thirty miles per hour,” DeVon moaned as she started out in the lead vehicle. Behind her came another SUV, then the first bus, then the other three, and last three big trucks.
Max (Mad Max) almost cheered when they first saw the creatures approaching
them in the late afternoon. The people in Max’s adapted vehicles took down most
of the shamblers; those sitting in makeshift turrets shot more shamblers.A Berserker
and two more recently turned shamblers came close to the second busload of children.
The adults on board would later tell Misty and Mark how their children, having never before seen zombies up close, plastered their faces to the windows to peek out tiny cracks that missed being spray-painted over and giggled at the creatures.
Rae and Rev’s children first giggled and then howled at the monsters, unnerving everyone. It took some clever work to distract all the children and get them quiet again.
The threats were eliminated with ease.
“Tell me those are not my children,” Rae said. She knew that they were howling and screaming, and she blushed.
“That’s some Foxy Roxy noise if ever I heard,” Len laughed.
Rae smirked. “I thought it was some Len-whining.”
“She’s losing her touch; that wasn’t even a good zinger, Rae,” Rev said, “never
say our kids don’t have some good lungs.”
“I can remember many a time hearing Rae scream for help that way….”
Rae swatted at Len with a smile. “You are such a liar.”
Beth sniffled a while after they left Hannah and John Ponce with a good-sized group in Jefferson. With cattle in the fencing and horses in the barns, supplies on the porch, and voices all about, the home place looked cheerful again.
Seeing the people there, taking everything in, and feeling excited, Beth felt the place was like a postcard picture of a time long before. The farm would awaken and be productive under guidance of Hannah and Ponce, and in time, it would be a strong settlement.
A light dusting of snow would make it as perfect as a picture post-card, too.
Hannah hugged Beth tightly. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, my strong, beautiful girl,” Beth told her, “Ponce, you take care of my baby, you hear me?”
“I promise,” he said. He leaned to close to Beth’s ear, “You know you can trust me. You always have. I will die for her.”
Meeting his eyes, Beth felt a lump form in her throat. John was a good man,
as much a victim of the infection as any one else but determined to do the best he could. He wasn’t a saint, but a heart-string-pulling anti-hero. Kim shook hands with
John Ponce and hugged his daughter.
Chapter 34
Seems the Dead Are the Only Ones Who Find Any Peace Now
Once they were back on the road, Beth looked back several times to keep the image fixated in her mind.
Soon, she was distracted by looking at the damage a tornado had left a few years back, reducing houses to rubble and turning cars over on their roofs. She hoped the storm had killed a lot of zombies.
They camped outside of Marshall at a big, old factory that had tall fences so that they could park inside for the night and have a sense of safety. Len and his people made sure it was clear when they came back through the area.
The vehicles were set up carefully for an emergency escape if needed, and tents were raised for the older children, teens, and adults; the little ones were bedded down on the buses for safety.
Katie glowed at her parents when they made camp, telling them how badly the children acted. Kim said he would warn them again and threaten to take off his belt
and spank them if they gave anyone any more trouble.
“But, Daddy, don’t really spank them,” Katie begged.
He gave her a wink and said he wouldn’t.
Rae held up a hand and said, “Mine, on the other hand, are about to get a
wailing on their butts…well…the oldest two anyway.”
“Uh-oh.” Rev wagged his eyebrows.
Katie looked stricken and vowed never to tell on them again even if she were short tempered and tired of the fussing and fighting the little ones engaged in.
“The cows there by now, you reckon?” Mark asked Len.
“ Should be, it’s just over there a ways, remember?”
“No, I’m too tired to hope we’re close,” Mark said.
“We are not too close, but not so far either,” Len said as he greeted Beth, “you doing ok? Kids straightened out?”
“It was a long ride. Their father is threatening dire consequences if they don’t behave tomorrow. You guys okay?”
Mark shook his head a little. He didn’t hold back secrets from Len or Kim.
“Mis won’t say much to me; she’s not really showing anger, just staying quiet.”
“Give her time, Mark,” Len said, “she’ll be okay. Let her mull it over a while. She’s deciding how she feels, and it’s not like she’s had time yet to really think in peace about everything yet.”
“It was a bad time, and my head was screwed up,” Mark said to Beth.
“I know. It’s a new wound to her; give her that time; then, tell her how things were back then and how messed up you were. Remind her, but don’t make excuses.
Ask for forgiveness.”
“Kim said you did some ass-kicking over it.” Mark allowed a slight grin to show.
“You know me; I get feisty. The good part is I won the fight,” Beth said.
“As if you wouldn’t win a fist fight.” Len chuckled.
Rae came flying from the school bus her finger aimed at Rev. “You better go do something with those children of yours.”
Everyone looked at the exchange, laughing. Rae walked over to Len, Beth, and Mark, holding out one reddened hand.
“What happened?”
Rae gave Len a dirty look. “I hurt my hand spanking those little monsters. And Fahreed giggled at me.”
Beth immediately grabbed Len’s arm as she bellowed laughter. “Fahry laughed? He’s always such a good baby.” He was two. “What did you do?”
“I stormed out,” Rae admitted, “my other two were angels compared to him. These twisted twos.”
“Terrible.”
“Yes, he is.”
“No….”Beth tried to get her breath, “I mean the phrase is ‘terrible twos’.”
Len elbowed Beth. “He’s Rae’s kid; ’twisted’ works just fine.”
In the morning, they loaded up and began again.
“Good thing our people got the cattle through to a dry spot before this hit,” Beth remarked as she watched the grey rain pouring down on them. The rain started right after they hit the road and had not let up yet.
“Damn, that’s a big group of the Zs building,” Johnny said. “How many do you count?”
“Too many,” Beth said. She could make out a shape close to them and thought
it was DeVon in her SUV but wasn’t positive.
The rain pounded on the SUV’s roof loudly, and there were bursts of booming thunder, but they could hear sporadic gunshots. “Pull in closer,” she ordered Conner, “please.”
“Thunder is farther away.” Misty rubbed at her jeans with worry. “Why are they all here? Why aren’t they thinned?”
“They’re coming from somewhere. Maybe they’re crossing along here and are massing.”
Johnny strained to see out the windows. “Can you see the buses?” Her voice was strained, and it made the rest shiver with concern; she seldom got rattled.
“Maybe. I see shamblers,” Conner said. The rain stopped pounding and began to pitter and patter softly. “Okay, we have buses and zeds.”
Beth pressed her face to the glass. “There are way too many. Who do we have besides DeVon and her group?”
“No one, they’ve moved past. We’re not alone, though. We’re okay; we’re okay, Johnny. Look. Bus three is past. There…we’re looking good. We…. Hey…no…no, damnit,” Conner yelled, “oh, shit. No.”
“What?” Beth couldn’t tell what was wrong, but she could feel it. She looked at the road, saw zombies, and couldn’t yet see why Conner was upset.
“Slow down. There’s no danger in moving slowly,” Conner was still yelling at the fourth bus. “Slow down. Slow.”
But the driver panicked with the mass of creatures pressing around the bus,
and instead of staying slow and steady like a tank, he tried to get enough speed to pass them.
The buses were fixed up like small fortresses and could handle an onslaught of attacks and still remain safe. The rule was to move slowly, and if trapped, remain in place until the area could be safely cleared; the creatures couldn’t get inside the buses or on top of them.
“Which bus?” Johnny demanded.
“Fuck,” Conner snapped the former Marine.
Rae knew the bus was the one their daughter was on. “Slow down; hang on; I’ll see if I can get them to slow.” Conner turned and began driving to get alongside the bus.
DeVon had the same plan and was doing the same. Instead of calming Johnny,
the team effort worried her more because she knew this was very serious and not her imagination.
The bus driver needed to stop and stay in place so they could clear the area,
but he increased speed and looked at Conner’s SUV and DeVon’s SUV instead of watching the road.
The driver swerved in reaction to seeing the huge mass of zeds in his way.
Instead of breaking and stopping, he was concerned over the wet road and tried to sweep past them. But he was driving much too fast to think and react properly.
So Instead of making the tight curve, the driver plowed through the guardrail.
In his SUV, Conner yelled as his wife Johnny screamed. Beth slapped her hands against the dash.
DeVon slammed fists into the steering wheel. “Take them out…one by one.
Do not leave your position; we have to clear the road.” Her team went into action,
but it seemed impossible to kill so many.
Rain soaked into the zombies’ clothing and ran down to pool in a brownish
puddle about their feet; it dripped from matted hair and ran down their battered
faces. Ruined feet sloshed in puddles.
They looked so forlorn and tragic in their wet, ragged clothing and had such
grey faces in the surrounding gloom that they almost seemed like forgotten, lost children,
but then they opened their mouths, dirty, yellowed teeth, jagged or stubs, showed. Their moaning was a constant humming, accented by drips of water.
Somehow, this group was the most horrifying vision some of the survivors had ever seen. In this visage, blood would blossom as a burst of color, too red and too bright.
Conner followed DeVon, and while his team began shooting, Johnny, Gabe, and he followed where the bus had driven off the road, sliding, slipping on the pavement, and splashing down the water-soaked grass.
Johnny screamed again as she saw the big yellow bus half submerged in a swollen river below. “Oh, dear God, please no.”
Several zombies tumbled down onto the muddy banks and then into the water.
“Get Roxy. Get our baby out.” Conner ordered Johnny as he started shooting. His voice was raw with pain. He didn’t back-step but went at the zombies, grabbing them by shirts and by their hair to fling them to the side, shattering their bones. “You want me? You want my baby? Come on, come get me.”
Inside the bus, the passengers were thrown to the back, tossed like rag dolls,
and supplies flew around them. Bones broke, skin tore, and dirty water filled the bus.
It happened so fast that few had time to scream, but they began to yell as the bus slid around and down to the water.
An arm, cut off by a box, slammed into a woman’s head so hard that it knocked her unconscious; she fell back and hit the glass window, breaking it out.
An older man, holding a bundle in his lap, was thrown backwards and then forward so the items in the bundle punctured through his stomach to wash him in
bright red.
The impact broke a woman’s neck as she sat in the front of the bus, and Niki,
who was in the aisle, trying to help scared people, was tossed into the front windshield
where she stuck.Her throat caught in the glass, and her flesh was torn as wide open
as a grin. Gore slid down the hood of the bus.
A branch on the bank crashed through one of the windows and slid into Ann’s throat. She blinked several seconds, reaching for her husband and unsure why she couldn’t call his name. Turning, she fell under the seats and slid along the floor.
Teri, Maria and Carl’s youngest, who was three and wore a little backpack, was thrown up and back among the supplies stored, and the little backpack slipped off to snag on a hook.
Unfortunately, Teri’s neck was caught in a strap, and although she thrashed violently, reaching for the strap, she didn’t know how to free herself. She was so f
ar back among everything else that no one saw her, and the water rose quickly to cover her as her movements slowed, and her eyes rolled back into her head.
Maria coughed water and felt warm blood running down her face from her torn scalp, and she knew from the pain that one of her legs was broken. Her arms were cut in several places and soaked the water with crimson.
She frantically called for each of her four children, but none of them answered her. As she tried to get her balance, she felt something soft under her feet and wondered if it were a body.
She sobbed with fear, still looking around for her babies. The bus inside was all messed up.Seats were hanging from the ceiling, and seats were on the floor; she didn’t quite understand why everything was out of place.
A plastic doll floated on the surface of the water even as the water poured inside. It was Teri’s baby doll.
Maria, the most beautiful woman in Hopetown, began praying in Mexican and weeping hysterically.
She snagged something with her fingers that felt like cloth and yanked, ripping back a nail. Maria pulled with both hands until she was able to see what was under feet.
As she pulled upwards, Maria screamed as she saw the limp body of her youngest child, Teri. The little girl was still warm and looked alive, but she didn’t respond as water poured out of her mouth.
Maria set her gently on a seat and went back to splashing through the water.
“No, No, No,” Maria kept wailing as she thrashed around, feeling for anything that could be a person. She yanked up a woman’s arm, glanced at the bracelet, and dropped it.
A man groaned from the seat next to her on the floor. He didn’t keep Maria’s interest although he was weak and dying from blood loss: his broken bones punctured his organs and flesh.
He was almost dead, but she demanded he help find the children; he passed out and died as she watched.
“Useless,” she whispered. She pulled herself out of the deepening water to keep from drowning; she grimaced and bit her own bloody lip as the bones in her broken leg ground together.
The pain almost took her breath away. At the same time, she pulled herself along; she pulled up the body of her oldest child.
Clasping the body to her chest, Maria paused in her search to scream and shake
with grief. With a choice, she would have gladly died right then with her babies, but she wanted to find the rest.