“What?” Jackie asked.
“Nothing,” I said with a shake of my head, then looked at her with a smile. “I’m going to take you around back and up the stairs to the guest room. We still had water pressure this morning, and the water heater’s gas, so it’ll last a little while longer than the power did, I reckon.”
“Thank you, Henry,” she said with a faint smile of her own. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Several things flashed through my brain at that moment, but I kept them from making their way to my mouth.
“You any good with animals?” I asked.
She laughed and flashed me a grin. “I grew up on a farm, Mister Henry,” she replied. “My major is... was... Wildlife Ecology and Management.” The brief mirth drained from her face at those words, and she continued to look at me silently.
I wasn’t familiar with that major, but it suggested that she might be heading for a government career, or maybe a park ranger.
“Cool,” I said. “I’ll walk you around after I... take care of Grandma.”
Jackie nodded and looked over the house. It was a two-story affair with an attic as well, and a basement. My family had owned it for over a hundred years, slowly expanding the land and building additional structures as needed. At some point before I was born, Grandma and Grandpa built the cottage for my mom and her husband before their own careers led them afield.
After my parents died and I finished my term of service, I eventually ended up back here. Grandma helped me get set up with a small mechanic’s shop a few miles away and gave me the cottage to live in.
I was really going to miss her.
“Okay, Jackie,” I said. “Let me show you your room.”
“Lead on,” she said, dragging a large blue and orange Auburn University duffel back from the back seat of the jeep and shouldering it with a grunt.
“Want me to help you with that?” I offered.
“Thanks, but I’ve got it,” Jackie said, smiling. “It’s part of my workout regimen.”
I nodded and let out a chuckle, then led her off in the direction of the house.
4
Once Jackie was situated in the guest room, which got promptly invaded by cats, I made my way downstairs to Grandma’s room. Her body had settled a bit where I laid it, looking for all the world like she was asleep under the quilt that wrapped her. I sighed softly, then slipped back out, closing the door behind me.
Where, I wondered, would be a good place to lay her to rest. I had to figure that out fairly quickly. It wouldn’t take me long to get the backhoe from the barn and dig the hole. Best might be something close to the house. I scratched my head as I looked off in the direction of the Roberts farm. That could do. With a sigh, I turned towards my truck. Sooner would be better than later to check on the neighbors, and Jackie should be safe enough in the house.
I started up my truck and headed back out to the road, then across to the Roberts’ driveway. The gate was shut and padlocked, like it always was each night. The problem was, it was going on towards noon. That wasn’t a good sign. Still, I wasn’t going to break the lock just yet, though I hadn’t really quailed at acquiring medical supplies from a hospital full of the dead.
The gate wasn’t hard to bypass on foot, and I vaulted it and jogged up the dirt track to the house. The animals were still in their barns, and the dogs kenneled. The latter were barking up a storm as I approached the house, jumping all over each other in an attempt to get my attention. None of the barn cats were anywhere to be seen.
I walked up the creaky front stairs to the porch and knocked loudly on the wooden door.
“John!” I yelled. “Lisa! Anyone home?”
There was no immediate answer. I gave them a few minutes and some more heavy-handed banging on the wooden door. Still nothing like I had half-expected. I tried the door, and it was locked, but the spare key was on the doorjamb above. I unlocked the door and was greeted by a stale, coppery smell, much like I’d woken up to.
A quick search of the house proved me right. John and Lisa Roberts were dead in bed upstairs, and their corpses showed the same indications that those in town had. I covered them respectfully and made my way back outside after grabbing the gate and house keys. I should bury them too.
It was a reflex for me to take care of their animals before I left. I let the cows out into the pasture, as well as their two horses and five goats. Then I fed and watered the dogs, but left them kenneled. Maybe Jackie would have some ideas for combining the two packs, but at least two of my dogs didn’t get along with the Roberts’ passel of mutts.
Then it was back to the farm for me. I fired up the tractor-loader-backhoe and trundled it out to the shadows of the big sycamore behind the house. Once I dropped the levelers and started to excavate, the job went fast. I dug out a six-foot deep, probable eight-by-four trench. After I got out and inspected it, I dug a ramp down into it, probably a thirty-degree descent that was close to twelve feet or so long. It was faster to fill it all in rather than create a device to lower my Grandma down into the hole, and I just couldn’t bring myself to roll her.
It was just disrespectful. I’d probably build a walk-down ramp for burying the Roberts, too.
I climbed out of the cab and studied the vehicle. I could rig up a sling on the basket of the backhoe, then use it to lower a body down. Some part of me wanted to head to the workshop, but I forced it down and walked slowly back towards the house.
Jackie was waiting for me on the porch.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I returned the greeting.
Instead of asking if I’d found anything or some other vague question, she looked me in the eye and said. “Can I help?”
“Are you okay?” I countered, meeting her gaze.
Her cheeks pinkened a bit, but she held her ground. “Yeah. At least for now. I don’t think either of us really wants to be alone right now, and I need to be doing something.”
“I’ll take care of my Grandma,” I told her. “We need to do the same for the Roberts across the way. There’s also the question of all the livestock around here.”
Jackie made a sour face. “I was thinking about that. A lot of them can just be released to forage, but dogs will form packs and hunt.”
“We can’t care for all of them,” I said. “Much as I’d like to, letting them out at least gives them a chance, and we can watch our own critters and deal with any problems. Hell, maybe some of them will pack up with our girls.”
She tilted her head and looked at me thoughtfully. “We?”
“You’re welcome to stay here,” I replied with a shrug. “Long as you don’t mind primitive farm living.”
“It’s not that primitive,” Jackie laughed.
“Give it a few months to a year,” I explained. “Gas is going to go bad. Diesel might last a bit longer, especially if I can bring a couple of tankers here and pour in enough stabilizers.”
“I didn’t know gas went bad,” she muttered and looked down at her hands. She’d changed out of the cheerleader outfit and wore blue jeans, boots, and a black hoodie with ‘Sunnydale’ printed on it. This must have been what she had in that overstuffed duffel.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Buffy fan, huh?”
Her face brightened, and she grinned up at me. “Yeah!” Then she caught herself. “Okay, before we both start geeking out and getting to know each other, let’s see about taking care of…” She waved a hand around vaguely in the direction of the other farm. “You know.”
“Right,” I said and held out my truck keys and the gate key. “Truck and gate. Their access road is literally across the street from ours. Unlock and open the gate for me while I drive the tractor over.”
“Will do,” she said and bounded off in the direction of my truck.
“Wait!” I called after her. “Dammit, I need to take care of Grandma first.”
“Do you need help?” she asked.
“Nah. Go ahead and see about introduc
ing yourself to the dogs. I’ll be along in about a half-hour or so.”
“Right!” She turned back, and I went into the house.
Laying Grandma to rest didn’t take long. I carried her down into the makeshift grave, said a little prayer over her corpse, and said goodbye. Then I steeled myself, got into the tractor, and filled the grave in, wincing as the first load of dirt mounded over the corpse.
There was one good thing about all of this, though. I didn’t have anything left unsaid. Grandma and I had been friends and confidants since my return from the war, and she’d helped me through a lot of my problems, mostly by listening and understanding.
She’d never judged me. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be looking down on me in displeasure for the poor quality of the memorial. I didn’t have time to transport her all the way to the national cemetery at Fort Mitchell, where Grandpa was. Besides, they’d be together, anyway.
I looked heavenward and snapped a salute, then got back into the tractor, started it off, and rumbled off at a sedate pace towards the Roberts farm. How much trouble had Jackie gotten into, I wondered. The girl was a bit of an enigma. She had that strange young-old feel around her of someone who’d seen a lot. Grandma would have called her an old soul.
Maybe that worked if you believed in reincarnation. Me, I wasn’t much of a believer in anything except what I could see and touch. Some of the old trappings of faith just kind of slipped in since I’d grown up around them.
My family had been kind of weird, and I’d seen a lot of different things and talked to lots of different people during my time in the Army. Jackie would have fit right in, I suspected.
The tractor rumbled up the dirt driveway and across the street before plunging down the track leading to the Roberts’ house. Jackie had left the gate open for me, and I wound my slow way up past the shielding trees and undergrowth to the farm proper.
She was in the pasture with what must have been all of the animals. Dogs, goats, horses, and cows all crowded around the young woman, who seemed to be deep in her element.
Good. I really needed someone to take care of all the critters, and while I was a hand at it, I wasn’t the best with animals, and I certainly didn’t know how to deal with them when they got sick. It was almost too bad that Jackie wasn’t a vet, but that would have been hitting the lottery in a lot more ways than I had. My luck really wasn’t that good.
I waved to her as I parked the tractor, clambered out, and headed into the house. Transporting John and Lisa downstairs for burial wouldn’t be the easiest thing I’d ever done, and likely wouldn’t be terribly graceful, either. They’d forgive me a few bumps and jars, most likely.
The next big decision facing me was where to bury them. They hadn’t had a favorite tree or anything like that, unlike my Grandma and her sycamore, but they had their horses.
Maybe out back of the house, close to the stables, then. That struck me as the best place. I didn’t know anything about where their kids were or the rest of their family, and it was probably a lot further than I wanted to transport bodies, anyway.
That got me thinking that since I hadn’t been able to reach any authority figures via phone or radio, and I’d seen nobody alive aside from Jackie, how many people did survive whatever this disease was?
Not many, from what I could tell. I went back downstairs and outside. Jackie had extricated herself from the excited animals and waited for me by the tractor.
“How can I help?” she asked, looking at me curiously.
“You were a farm girl, right?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she replied with a nod of her head. “From that question, I guess you need muscles.”
“You guess right. Two people can move bodies a lot easier than one. They aren’t really messy, and they’re wrapped in blankets. Still, if you’re squeamish, you can sit this out.”
Jackie made a face. “I can handle it,” she said. “You’re digging the graves, first?”
“Right,” I answered, then changed the subject. “The animals seemed to like you.”
She smiled broadly and nodded. “I like them, and they know it, but they also seem to get that I won’t take any shit from them.”
“Good. We need to figure out if they’ll mesh with the ones at home before I start a fight by bringing around a cow, dog, goat, or whatever that wants to rule the roost, no matter what.” I sighed and shrugged. “I’ll yell when I’m ready to bring them down.”
“Got it,” she said. “I’ll be waiting.”
I climbed back into the tractor, started it up, and chugged off around the house. The Roberts place was a lot like my Grandma’s. It had even been built around the same time. There were two stories with an attic, and I passed by a pair of green doors covering stairs down into the cellar. John had been something of a brewer and winemaker and kept his work under the house. Maybe he even had a still. That would save me the trouble of trying to cobble together one of my own.
With those thoughts in my head, I wondered if I was jumping the gun on circling up and prepping for tough times ahead. Sure, it couldn’t hurt, really, but if there was some semblance of order left out there, my efforts might be wasted.
Of course, I might be giving too much credit to the politicians and such that ran the country.
Out back of the house was an old well that, as far as I knew, still held water. It might be important to check, but not now. Right now, I had holes to dig. I drove the tractor around to a nice patch with a good view of the stables and the pasture beyond. I set the braces and went about my work, digging holes for the neighbors much the same way I’d done it for Grandma.
The ground was a bit harder here, though with fewer roots, so it didn’t take me as much time to dig a single grave as it had at the homestead. I finished the first one, then thought about it for a bit before simply enlarging the hole I’d already dug. John and Lisa could lay side-by-side in the ground, which fit them. The pair had always been close, and I figured that was only fitting.
When I looked back towards the house, I saw Jackie waiting. A couple of the dogs were with her, and she regarded me with a serious, compassionate look. My heart went out to her then. She could care about other people without even knowing the state of her own family.
We had to fix that.
“Ready?” I asked as I clambered off the tractor.
“As I’ll ever be,” she said with a sigh and a nod. “Let’s get this over with.”
5
My watch said 16:37 when we finally finished filling in the Roberts’ shared grave. I slid down from the tractor and dusted my hands off on my jeans. “I meant to ask, Jackie. Where’s home for you?”
“Georgia,” she replied. “Just over the line around LaGrange.”
I nodded slowly. “You were headed that way, right?”
“Yeah,” she answered with a nod of her head. “Everything was just so weird that when I saw you, I had to track you down and see if you knew anything about what was going on.”
“I wish I did,” I said. “Want to go ahead and finish your trip? I’ll go with you.”
Jackie smiled faintly. “I don’t think it’ll do any good, Henry, but yeah, I’d like that.”
“Hey, there’s always a chance, right,” I tried to give her a reassuring smile.
She just shook her head. “A for effort. Let’s go see, I guess. You drive.”
“Sure.” LaGrange was maybe an hour away, and I had plenty of lights and other tools in the chests I kept in the truck bed, plus the Dodge had a full light bar. I also wasn’t worried about any non-human trouble, and the likelihood of the other sort seemed pretty small.
We put everything away, fed both sets of animals, and set out just as the sky was turning a deep, rose-orange color from the setting sun. The air was starting to pick up a deeper chill than it had this morning, and I, for one, was glad that my truck had a good heater.
Jackie huddled in the seat beside me, staring out into the growing darkness. We had just crossed the state line when she po
inted, “Lights!”
Indeed there were. The welcome center sported some glowing lights, and it looked like there were a couple of campers and cars parked in the lot. Were there more survivors, I wondered as I braked hard and angled off the freeway onto the drive up to the Georgia Welcome Center.
“What do you think?” I asked as I parked and turned off the truck. The outside lights were on, but the tinted windows hid most of the interior.
“We might as well check,” she opined. “I mean, we either find living folks, or we don’t.”
A dog started barking from one of the parked RVs as we got out, and I rubbed the bridge of my nose. I wasn’t going to leave a dog trapped and starving, even if it was one of the small, yappy kind.
Jackie and I shared a look when I started for the vehicle instead of the building. She asked no questions, though, and just fell in beside me as I went to the RV, a medium-sized, newer one, with a relatively clean paint job. I rapped on the door, and the dog inside went quiet for just an instant before going absolutely nuts.
“Get ready,” I said to my companion. “No idea what Sparky here is gonna do with I open the door.” Of course, it could be locked, or at least that’s what I thought as I reached to open it.
It wasn’t.
The door opened into a dark interior as a small lightning bolt of black fur and white teeth bolted at warp speed out and took off into the growing darkness in the direction away from the freeway.
“Holy shit!” Jackie exclaimed. “Blink, and you missed it!”
I laughed and shook my head before taking a closer look into the camper. The smell was a good indication that all was not right in the world, but I called out anyway. “You alive?”
Silence answered, so I banged on the doorjamb hard enough to rock the vehicle and repeated my question in a booming voice. I’d considered trying out for drill sergeant, and I might have actually gone through with it if I hadn’t decided military life wasn’t for me after my tour.
She sighed and backed up a step when I just shut the door. “Let’s check the center,” I said.
After The Virus (Book 1): After The Virus Page 3