They were silent a moment, and Jake smiled at them. He motioned, using his pistol, for the men to move away.
“You gonna get yours…” one of them warned.
“I could kill you right now,” Jake advised them. It froze them, as they realized there was already a pistol trained on them.
But Jake wasted no more time, and ducked into the sedan, a silver car he hadn’t even bothered to look at the make on. In an instant, he had put it in gear, and backed up, then drove away, maneuvering through the people, the zombies, and the traffic jam itself to head to the east. He was correct in that he would be able to find more fuel, including a couple stations that were still open and jam packed with fleeing people. He checked behind him only the first hour for any sign he was being followed, but by nightfall, with a full tank, and some gas in reserve, locked in the trunk, he was speeding along to the east.
Jon, meanwhile, had been cruising along on the motorcycle in the early morning hours when he noticed another round of thick, dark clouds coming in. Still, he smiled, and decided that he could even keep riding if he put on the rain suit, ill-fitting as it was, that his friend had given him with the motorcycle. Riding up along the coast from Miami, where the ship had actually put in, contrary to what Marty had informed the Andersons of, Jon was close to turning west from it.
Guiding the big, rumbling bike over underneath the rusting, rotting canopy of an old gas station, Jon took out his phone, saw that there was no signal, and smirked. He considered tossing it, but decided instead to just pocket the worthless thing after shutting it off. He then started to get out the rain suit, and while putting it on, was thinking about how to score more gasoline. He heard a noise, and turned back to look behind him toward the distant beach.
No more sounds came, and so he continued to struggle into the rain suit as the dark clouds boiled ever closer, and thunder sounded. Soon enough, Jon was riding out again with the rain suit on, but soon discovered that the rain was falling too hard to be in it at all, and he found another gas station many miles up the road, where he shut the bike off as he approached, and came to a stop near some other vehicles, which appeared empty.
The storm was blowing through fiercely, and Jon found himself annoyed at the frequency of the terrible weather. As a brilliant bolt of lightning struck near the gas station, the pilot started to look around to maybe top off his gas tank. There was a small, 1-gallon gas can strapped to the bike, but if he could score more, that wouldn’t hurt. Spying that the gas pump hoses were already all laying on the ground, he ruled out using those.
“You can forget it, mate,” came a voice that startled Jon, causing him to turn a full circle before he spied the man.
It was a man who looked to be roughly in his fifties, with graying hair, and slightly overweight. He was wearing clothes that looked like a mechanics uniform, but Jon could clearly see the blood soaked bandages on the man’s left arm. Jon approached, and sat on a curb near the man, who was sitting, and propped up against the gas station itself.
“Nothing here, huh?” Jon asked.
“Probably a few bits and scraps,” the man answered. “Name’s Tom.”
“I’m Jon,” came the reply.
“Where ya’ headed, Jon?” Tom asked, and winced.
“Up north a bit, to meet some friends near Chattanooga,” Jon explained, and looked around. “How’d you get here? You alone?”
“I’m the last of my little band of travelers,” Tom said with a smile. “And I’m pretty much screwed, too.”
“What do you mean?” Jon asked. “A few wounds on your arm doesn’t seem so bad.”
Tom laughed, and it was quiet, but it chilled Jon.
“You ain’t been keeping up on the news, have ya?” Tom quizzed. “Them dead things?”
“Yeah, I know about ‘em,” Jon said.
“Well, I got about four bites here, trying to save my girlfriend from those bastards,” Tom explained.
“Ouch,” Jon remarked. “But bites…”
“If you’d been keeping up, you’d know,” Tom said, looking rather haunted. “You get bitten by one of them? You don’t heal. You get infected, and then you become one of them.”
“Oh my god,” Jon said, gazing at the bandages. “I’m sorry, man.”
“Well, that’s why I just came here to sit down and gather my thoughts,” Tom explained. “Not sure I got the stones to end it myself.”
“Hey, if you’re asking-”
“No,” Tom interrupted. “I just want to lay here and see if I just fall asleep. Good to have someone to talk to, though.”
“If it ever quits storming, I got some miles to put on,” Jon said, looking out at the rain. “But as long as it’s like this, you got company.”
They sat and talked for a while, but Tom worsened, the pain searing through his bite wounds as the infection spread up into the shoulder and down toward his hip. Jon had gone into the gas station, looked around and come up with some provisions and a few things not looted. As he sat back down, a pale, sweaty Tom gazed over at him with reddening eyes. His breath was labored, and he shook his head with a smile.
“This is getting bad, amigo,” Tom said. “You sure you can’t… you know…”
“It must be getting unbearable,” Jon noted, and watched Tom quiver. The sick man nodded.
“Burning.”
“Try to relax for a bit,” Jon said, and was then never so thankful to have heard the sound of an engine approaching. A moment later, headlights pierced the gloom of the storm, and a pickup truck weaved, and came under the canopy. Three very soaked people were in the back, and three more in the cab, and Jon hailed them as the truck squealed to a halt. It shut off, and the three in the cab emerged while the three in the back hopped out.
“Lovely weather!” the man who had been driving the truck said to Jon.
“Fantastic,” Jon sarcastically agreed. As the six people approached, they were greeted by Jon, and noticed Tom against the side of the building. A rather shaggy, and thoroughly soaked man in a yellow poncho stared past Jon.
“Bit?” he asked. Jon nodded.
“Yeah, sounds like in trying to save his girlfriend, he got it,” Jon explained.
“You guys don’t know each other, then,” the driver, about as normal-looking of a guy as you could find, said, and ran a hand over his salt and pepper hair.
“No,” Jon said. “His name’s Tom.”
“Don’t just stand over there gabbing!” Tom hissed. “It’s fucking eating me up, somebody fucking just kill me!”
Jon exchanged a glance with the driver, who then turned to another man, a Latino who made the sign of the cross over himself, and took off his straw cowboy hat. As the Latino man started for the cab of the truck, Tom had wailed in agony, but a beautiful young woman in her mid-twenties shook her head.
“Not again,” she whined. “Please.”
“It is better to let him stay like that, then?” the Latino man asked her. She lowered her eyes, and walked far away from the others as the Latino man leaned into the truck, and then came out with a rifle, which he approached the others with. He looked specifically at Jon.
“This is not pretty,” the man, Caesar, said.
“Can’t imagine it ever would be,” Jon acknowledged.
Caesar stepped away from them, and leveled the rifle on Tom, whose eyes were squinted shut from the pain as he breathed rapidly. It was only another moment, with most of them looking away, that the sound of the rifle loudly filled the area under the canopy, and Caesar worked the lever on it, ejecting the spent shell. He returned to the others.
“You have to destroy the brain,” Caesar explained. “That’s what does them in, you know.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Jon said, feeling sickened by the situation. “I’m Jon. Are you guys just traveling around helping the wounded?”
“I’m Roger,” the driver said. “That’s Ty and his girlfriend Lauren, this is Caldwell, and the young lady over there is Dani. And that’s Caesar.�
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“Good to meet you all,” Jon said, and glanced over to where Tom was now lying flat, but there was a large red splatter against the side of the building. “Just stopped here for gas, and now this fiasco.”
“The world is getting worse and worse,” Caesar said grimly. “We’re headed away from the cities and towns.”
“I’m meeting some guys up north a bit,” Jon said.
“Do you have a gun?” Roger asked. Jon tapped his right hip.
“I’m just waiting for this rain to let up, and I have to head out again,” Jon explained to them. “I don’t want to leave the others waiting too long.”
“Best not to,” Roger agreed, just as Dani was returning.
“Think there’s anything here we can use?” she asked.
“There’s nothing really left inside the place,” Jon answered her. “I didn’t check any of the cars.”
“We’d better,” Roger said. “Won’t turn down anything we can use.”
The group set about doing that, save for Roger, who stayed near Jon.
“You know, we have lots of guns,” he said. “Sure you don’t need something more than a pistol?”
“Actually, I’m not sure about that,” Jon said. “But I’m on a motorcycle, so I have no idea where I would carry something bigger.”
“No problem,” Roger said. “Sling it across your back, you’ll be fine.”
“You guys really are some kind of traveling philanthropists in this crap situation,” Jon noted in amusement. Roger was not as humored.
“Someone should be,” he said. “Come on, and I’ll let you shop at our gun store.”
They walked toward the truck, while Caesar had clubbed one of the ghouls to death that had risen from between two of the cars at the sound of the rifle shot. Within minutes, the group was back to the truck, and looking over a selection of road flares, tools, blankets, and more that they had looted from the cars. Caesar took note of Jon holding one of the rifles, and he smiled at the sight.
“Ah, the old deer gun,” he said. “One of our first companions brought that one.”
“Sorry there isn’t more ammo for that,” Roger offered. “So use those six wisely, I guess.”
“I’ve got about a hundred rounds for my pistol, so I’m okay, but thanks again for this,” Jon said.
“Just stay safe, and get to your friends,” Roger said, then turned as even through the rain, they could hear the sound. It was a collective moaning, groaning, and wailing.
“I knew they’d come,” Dani whined nervously, backing toward the truck.
“They always come,” Caesar said. “It seems the rain is getting lighter.”
“Whether it is or not, we can’t stay here,” Ty, the shaggy man in the poncho, said. “So let’s beat it.”
The man’s demeanor and look read “Stoner” to Jon, but he was hardly in a position to judge them as he glared into the falling rain. Sure enough, shapes had begun to stagger for them from the gloom, and Jon eyed the motorcycle. The rain had dwindled to a sprinkle, and soon it was apparent, there were dozens of the horrible monsters coming for them.
“Follow us north a bit,” Roger said to Jon. “Best way for you to go if you’re heading to Chattanooga is once we get to the junction at ninety five, you should get on that, and just get the hell away from the coast.”
“Noted,” Jon said. “I got maps, so I’ll be all right, but I think getting away from the coast may be a good idea.”
“Everybody back in the truck,” Roger said. “Better not waste any more time here.”
They began to scramble back into the pickup. Jon, looking at their pile of things that had been taken from the cars, regarded a golf club, a six iron, and he picked it up. Feeling the weight of it, he smiled, and glanced at Roger.
“I think I’ll hang onto this,” he said.
“Planning to get in a quick nine?” Roger kidded.
“You never know…”
“Well, time to haul ass,” Roger said.
“Thanks for the gun,” Jon said. “Don’t suppose you got a spare gallon or two of gas?”
“I think we can help you out, but let’s do that after we get the hell out of here,” Roger said, and headed off to the truck. Jon slung the rifle across his back, and then went to the motorcycle, quickly starting it, and waiting for the truck to move. It roared to life, and was quickly rolling out onto the road again, and Jon followed them.
They traveled along the highway for some time before stopping, at which time Jon was able to fill his tank by siphoning gas with the others. He then split from them, and was further on his way after consulting the map in one of his pockets. He had regarded the thought of trying to talk them into coming along to meet the others, but there wasn’t time for conversation, the day was wearing on, and travel was hampered not only by the weather, but by the many clogs of dead and empty cars and trucks along the heavily traveled highways.
Mick’s time had been spent racing along the roads toward the west since he had left the base. He learned he’d made a dreadful mistake by traveling to Raleigh, which had become a vicious fight for the living in the time since the return of the dead. People were not only fighting off thousands of the living dead, but were battling amongst one another for things as they sought to flee, or even fight the dead.
At one point, Mick watched momentarily as the remnants of a National Guard unit faced down a large group of the zombies. Passing by the conflict, Mick watched only to the moment where the zombies had reached barricades, and were grasping at the soldiers. Following his escape from Raleigh, Mick chose highways away from the cities and towns to make his way to the others.
But while the three pilots made their way as quickly as they could toward the farm, those already there found the place covered in fog in the early morning. No one was awake in the early morning hours except for Andy, who smiled when he thought back to his fling with Abbie during the night. He wasn’t normally one to have flings with married women, but she even told him she was barely married, and Andy hadn’t cared. He’d been away from civilization, and women, for so long, it got the better of him.
She was back with Clint as the sun had come up, and Andy was pleased to have noted that none of the creatures breaking down society had come to the farm. He was sure they would, but for now, it was quiet, and he welcomed that. His M4 lay across his lap at the sill of the upstairs window, and he wondered if Austin was actually keeping watch at the window on the other side of the house. He heard Wilma moving around, likely tending to the wounded Pete, and then he decided- it was time to go for a walk to keep an eye out for the bad guys.
CHAPTER TEN- NIGHTFALL
Night was approaching the United States, bearing down on it from the east with a dreadful gloom that seemed ominous, foreboding. It seemed to be chasing Mick as he sped along in the truck, likely closer than Jon or Jake, though he had no real idea by how much. Jon had been lucky enough to find just enough gas to keep going on the motorcycle, while Jake- at a respectable one hundred thirty miles per hour- was closing in as fast as he could in the borrowed sedan.
The farm was quiet, with its house, enormous barn, shed, and corn crib awaiting the darkness of another night as some within waited for others to arrive, while the rest cared not, as long as they were safe. Marty was keeping watch on the long driveway, which disappeared around a bend into some trees, down to the road, and he fussed with the hat on his head as he waited, desperately wanting headlights to show up, along with his three friends.
Wilma had come downstairs, and she looked ashen as she stepped into the parlor, where many of the others were sitting. David rose from his chair, worried about the demeanor of his wife, while Andy was pretty sure he knew what it meant, and Henson approached her.
“Pete?” Henson asked.
“He got awful quiet,” she said with a tremble. “And then he just stopped breathing.”
“Aw, son of a bitch…” Henson said, and his face lowered to his hands. “Not Pete.”
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p; “I’ve said a little prayer over him, and we can take him out to bury him if you’d like,” Wilma said softly. Henson looked up, and he gave a nod.
“Thanks, ma’am,” he said. “You’ve been so kind.”
“I’ll just go up and take care of things, and then we can carry him down,” Wilma said, and left the room.
“Sorry, brother,” Andy said to Henson. “That’s gotta be tough.”
Henson gave a nod, and then wandered away, followed by his wife. Across the room, Abbie nervously looked from Clint to Andy, and then leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder. He shrugged, hard, getting her off his shoulder, and glared at her.
“You know I don’t like it when you do that,” he snarled.
“Hey chill out, Clint,” Andy said. “She’s in the middle of a shitty situation, and you’re her husband.”
“Fuck off, soldier boy,” Clint growled at him. “Ain’t you got some boots to shine or something?”
Austin snorted a laugh at this, and Andy smiled. This just made the last night all okay, and he leaned back. David was the one to step into the middle of the room, and his expression was hardly friendly as he stared down at Clint.
“You know I don’t like that kind of talk, Clint,” he said. “And you can just as easily head down to your dad’s place if you’re gonna insult my guests.”
Clint, if nothing else, had a strong sense of loyalty to his blood, and so he gave an apologetic nod to his grandfather, before glaring at Andy. There was a noise behind them, and they turned, but saw only the dark opening to the dining room. It was a baby’s cry that drew their attention, and as it grew noisier, David turned to the others.
“Someone want to go get that kid’s parents?” he asked. Austin gave a nod, and then hurried away, while Abbie looked again from Clint, who was drinking even more whiskey, to Andy, who gave her a wink. Soon enough, Austin had returned with Henson and Lisa, who hurried off toward the dining room, where the baby was in a makeshift crib, and their daughter Daisy was watching him. Soon- too soon- the others heard the voices, but no crying.
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