by Tim Yingling
I turned to Rice. “The pistols are useless for the time being, Kate. Next gun store we come across I will find the part we need.”
“What happened to them?”
“Stone removed the spring.”
She nodded. “So, we are down to only using the one rifle you have.”
“That’s right. And that will be limited.”
That was all that was said for a long while. We continued to walk. I found it trifle to speak. There was no need for it. We knew Stone was about. Every so often I would hear him close by, but then he would scurry away. I just wanted him in eyesight for a matter of a few seconds. Do I think I would be able to raise my rifle in enough time to take care of him? Probably not in my current state, but I did have the help of Rice. It wouldn’t be much help, but enough to distract him. Of course, that would be only if he decided to make himself visible to us. And since he didn’t there was no need to worry about him.
We did pass zombies along the way. The two-lane road we traveled on was wide enough for us to pass by them unnoticed. If they were taking up the entire road, then we would have to move into the wood line. Everything just seemed easier to avoid the zombies. There wasn’t even an instance where we became in danger of one of them. That’s not to say we won’t come into contact with one a little later down the line. The odds are too great not to. We just had to stay vigilant on the matter.
As we walked we passed something I wanted to go into. A lovely golf course. Golfing was something I hadn’t done in over a year. I most likely was going to be a little rusty, but I still wanted to get a quick nine in. I didn’t, just so you know. We had many miles to go and little time to waste. So I kept walking. But I always had that image of me playing the nine holes. Unlike how I thought before where I would get an eagle on every hole, the daydream I had of this golf outing was more real. I didn’t get eagles, hell I barely got any birdies. Every hole was either par or a bogey. The good news of the outing, and my subsequent hiatus from golfing, was that I got rid of my horrible left to right slice. I was driving the damn ball so far down the fairway that I was getting compliments even from the non-speakers of the crowd.
I don’t know how many miles I walked with the same daydream running through my head over and over and over again, but it had to be a long while. I only know this because when I looked at the area where the course had been it wasn’t there. A farmhouse with a cornfield around it and a set of woods in the distance had replaced my happy place. I turned to look back down the road only to meet Rice’s eyes. She looked tired, but before I addressed her there were two things I wanted to get a good look at first.
The first thing I looked at was down the road. The golf course wasn’t in site. That brought me to the second thing I wanted to look at. The pace counter told me we had gone thirty miles since I picked it up that morning. The sun was already on its downward slant in the west, it still had about two and half hours to go before it touched the top of the trees. My watch even told me that it was getting too late to keep moving. It was already five. And that goes to show you how much I was out of it.
The golf course was no more than three miles away from the freeway we were on. We got off the freeway at roughly the twenty-two-mile mark. I just walked for eight miles blind. If Stone ever seriously contemplated an attack on us, that would have been a perfect time. Tom was still walking and I knew he was still out of it. Rice had stopped when I did. I guess that it was time for me to acknowledge her.
“We’ll give it another hour then we’ll stop. If there’s no buildings around, we’ll just set up camp outside and bed down.”
She walked past me to catch up with Tom. As she walked she asked, “And if Stone decides to attack us in the middle of the night because we’re dead tired?”
I thought about that for a second. It was true, we’re tired. There was no denying it. But he had to be as equally tired. He had been on the move with us, but he had to of tired himself out more than we did ourselves. He was the one trying to keep up and hide from us. I didn’t tell her any of this. I didn’t see the point in trying to scare her. Not to mention that another hour’s worth of walking would only take us three more miles. A tad short of the forty I wanted to do in a day. I knew I wasn’t going to get forty every day, so that’s okay. But my point was that we were coming up to a formally populated area.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said as I caught up with them. And again, we fell into silence. One much shorter than the last.
We didn’t make it the three miles, or the hour-long walk. We made it close to two miles and thirty-eight minutes into the hour when Rice noticed something. She was scared. I could tell by the way she caught her breath. But she kept moving.
“I’m trying not to look at them, but there are two people off to our left, Sarge,” she said in a whisper. Now she is the one who I can barely hear, so I looked down at her. She shifted her eyes to her left and said, “Over there.”
I looked in the direction she was motioning to. The sight was a good sight. One I thought I would never see again. A man and woman (I wasn’t going to assume they were husband and wife, although they did look to be about the same age) were in the front yard of a house tending to a tomato garden. I offered my hand in a wave with a smile. I didn’t want to say anything until I saw what they did. And what they did made me want to stop immediately.
The man took off his straw hat with his left hand, leaning his hoe against his chest and waving with his right hand. He used his left forearm to wipe the sweat off his brow. The woman, a wholesome looking woman who didn’t look like she had ever been out in a field before in her life, offered her hand as well. She did say something to us.
“How’r yur day bean, youngens?” She spoke in a perfect southern bell drawl. I don’t think I have ever heard one in person, only in the movies.
Rice looked to me. I don’t think she wanted to get involved until I gave the okay. I had to put my hand on Tom’s arm to stop him. The color looked to be fully back in his face. His eyes were coming back into focus. He looked at me with wonder.
“Our day has been long. And yours?” I asked back at the two.
“Oh, cain’t complan. How’r fur yous travel today?”
I looked down at the pace counter. “Little over thirty-five miles.”
The man laughed. It was a hearty laugh. One that said he liked what he heard. “Okey-dokey, then yur travels are dont wit fur the day. Comon in and warsh up fa suppa.”
I could feel two sets of eyes on me from my left and right. They waited until I moved. When I did, they quickly followed. The man moved to the fence around the house. He opened the gate and said, “Stay righ behind me and don’t stray fromt path.”
I didn’t know why he wanted us to do that, but I did. As we walked by the nice woman, she said, “My name is Beverly, and that dere is my mister, Adam.”
I nodded. Adam stopped when Beverly introduced him. It was on me to introduce the three of us. I had to move the rifle to my other side (I couldn’t put it at my back due to my pack) and offered my hand in a different way to Adam. “My name is Byron. Most people just call me Sarge. This here” – I pointed to Rice first – “is Kate. And bringing up the rear is Tom.”
“A-right, now tat the formalities are ot ta way, let’s get inside and eat. I’m sure you all are famished.”
I let Rice and Tom go in front of me. There was something wrong here, but I didn’t know what it was. To me, it was the way Adam was talking. He was hiding something. Something important. So maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get the dangerous part out of the way.
I showed off by being a gentleman to Beverly. I held the door open with a smile. She smiled back and went in. Before I went in myself I dropped my pack. I had to unsling the rifle to do so. That didn’t matter. When I got a good look inside the small house, I could see all of the living room. The living room expanded to the right and off to the left was the kitchen. The house was cramped. Then again, it didn’t need to be that b
ig for a middle-aged married couple with no kids. I did notice there were no pictures on the walls of children. Just of Adam and Beverly. Needless to say that, even though an M4 is made for close combat, in this cramped place with the five of us in the house (two of which were on my side) the M4 would be too dangerous to use. I resorted to the useless M9.
After I let the screen door come to a crash on the door frame, I put my left hand on Beverly’s shoulder while pulling the M9 with my right hand. Beverly tried to turn to see what was going on, but I held her firm as I said, “We are too tired and exhausted to be playing games with you two, Adam.” I only wanted to address him. When he turned to look at me I showed him the pistol before putting it behind Beverly’s back a foot and a half away. “Kate, pull yours and aim at him.”
“But you –”
I had to stop Kate before she said anything that would hurt us. “Don’t worry about what I said on the road. I realized something as I listened to Adam talk. Beverly was a bit better at hiding it, but Adam let it slip. Now, Beverly, I would like you to take that pistol you have in your bibs and toss it on the couch. Adam, take both of your weapons you have on your upper body and do the same. And definitely, don’t forget that boot knife you have.”
They did as they were told. While Adam was doing this, he asked, “What did I let slip?”
“Just that. You have no real southern accent. You were trying to hide the fact you weren’t from here. Although the pictures on the walls say different.”
Adam nodded. “You’re right, I’m not from here. But she is.” He pointed at Beverly. “I wanted her to stay here in order to protect her. My job was a dangerous one before all of this started.”
I thought about what he said. His job was dangerous before the zombie outbreak that would endanger his wife as well. That meant only one thing to me.
“SF or Delta?”
“First Group.”
I had to laugh a little. And you will see why. First, I looked over to Rice. “Holster it, Kate.” She did as I told her. When I turned back to Adam I still had the smile. I let go of Beverly and holstered my own pistol as I said, “The springs aren’t even in the pistols” – no reaction from Adam – “and I wouldn’t have killed you all anyway. Right now I only have one person I need to kill.”
“Would that be the person who is following you?”
“Yeah.”
“Who is he?”
“All in due time. It must have been a long trek from Lewis to here for you with the outbreak.”
“It wasn’t that bad. Getting out of Washington was easy because all those hippies wanted to do was hunker down and try to resolve everything peacefully. Now, can we move into the kitchen and have a lengthy discussion about this?”
“You’re no threat, and you know that we’re no threat. So, of course, we can.”
Adam nodded and led the way. Before I went into the kitchen I went back outside to get my things. I also wanted to look around to see if I could see Stone anywhere. I thought I saw a shadow movement directly across the street in the woods, but I couldn’t have been sure about it. Didn’t matter.
I went back into the house to join everyone in the small kitchen. Beverly and Rice had taken up residence at the counter to get things ready for the dinner Beverly was going to make. Adam produced some beer cans from the fridge. He put one down in front of Tom. Tom looked at it but didn’t take it. He still wasn’t fully awake, but he would come around eventually.
I sat down at one of the four remaining chairs, pulling my pack of cigarettes out. I looked at Adam with them and he nodded his go ahead. I lit one and took one of the other two beers on the table. Adam took the last.
“First, let me tell you I’m sorry about what I just did. You have to understand why I did it.”
Adam waved his hand. “Of course I do.” He looked at his wife before continuing. “I would have done the same thing.”
I turned to Beverly. “Seriously, ma’am, I am sorry.”
She smiled. “You need not apologize, and Adam will let you know why. Kate and I will make the chicken. You guys just work things out.”
With that, she was done while Adam and I talked.
“You know I’m not going to call you ‘sir,’” I said.
He tilted his head in surprise. “How did you know I was an officer?”
“Dude, seriously? We both have been in the military long enough to know the answer to that. You’re in your forties, and closer to your fifties at that. You couldn’t have joined the Special Forces until you were a captain. And that’s after graduating from college at the reasonable age of twenty-two. You would have to spend four years getting to the rank of captain, and that’s being generous. And right now, I’m guessing you were the commander of First Group.”
The entire time, Adam would either shrug his shoulders or nod when I got something right. And it seemed everything I said was right.
“You got a keen eye about you, Sarge. And you look awfully familiar to me. Have we met before?”
I shook my head. “You and I have never met, but you either have met my father or read about him. Or even seen pictures of him. He was in Group back in Vietnam and up to ’75. His name was Jacob Yames.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Why didn’t you follow in his footsteps?”
“I really couldn’t. I dislocated my shoulder in basic and still tried to go through…”
“They told you to get out because of it,” he finished for me. “But let’s get past this. We have more important things to talk about. Like…”
I stopped him by putting my hand up. “I want to know how this started in the states before I go into how it started overseas.”
He nodded again. Before he talked he opened his beer and downed a quarter of it on the first swig. Tom opened his own beer in response to the first one being opened. He didn’t drink as much as Adam did, but did take some. I finished my cigarette and put it out in a cup of water Beverly had provided when I lit it. I wanted to light another one, but I didn’t because we were about to eat. Instead, I started to drink my beer as well.
“I don’t know where it started in country…” Adam began.
He went into great detail on the matter. The epidemic didn’t spread as quickly as it did in Iraq. But it was quick. It seemed that an outbreak happened in the three major cities of the country at the same time. New York was the first to report it. Los Angeles followed suit not fifteen minutes later. Then D.C. reported the Capital building was on lockdown due to an outbreak inside the actual building. That last surprised me the most. From there, the CDC couldn’t contain it. Within a day all of New York, L.A., and D.C. and most of their surrounding areas were overtaken. The CDC tried to close them off, but more and more zombies had been popping up all around the country. The CDC tried to stop all flights, but before they could, several zombies had gotten on to and from the country. Once the outbreak popped up in the middle of the country when the CDC almost had it contained close to the coast, they knew the country was done for. The CDC cut their losses and tried to get all the important people into quarantine. That didn’t work either. The outbreak was too powerful.
Adam said he managed to get out of Lewis before the outbreak reached the base. He even made it halfway across the country in his vehicle before he couldn’t drive due to the roads being blocked. He never found out how to stop the zombies. No matter what he tried to do, they wouldn’t die. I informed him on what I learned and light dawned in his eyes. We pushed pass that as well. No need to stay on the matter for too long.
Adam concluded his tell by saying he made it home and reinforced his house as best he could. As a matter of fact, he had just finished it up not two days before we showed up on his doorstep.
It was a good thing he did finish because Beverly just finished with the last course of the meal she was making. Everything smelled so good. Adam and I got up to help place things on the table before we washed up. Not only did the food smell good (good enough for me to want to devour it wit
hin seconds of looking at it) but it also tasted good after we set everything up. The potatoes were buttery and went down smooth. The chicken was juicy and tender enough to rip off the bone with two fingers. There isn’t much you can say about the green beans. They were good enough. Needless to say, that was the best meal I had in a really long time, and most likely I wouldn’t have another like it for many weeks, perhaps months or years, to come. I enjoyed every minute of it. I guess that’s why I didn’t want to talk during the meal. And even went back for seconds and thirds. I was advised against going back for a fourth helping as there was even dessert. Nothing as extravagant as the meal itself, just simple ice cream. But we enjoyed it all the same.
With all the left-over food put away and the dishes cleaned, Adam and I ushered Tom into the living room. We put him on the couch and covered him with a throw blanket. He was asleep shortly. I gave him the night and figured he would be better in the morning. With that taken care of, Adam and I went back into the kitchen to finish our conversation from forty-five minutes earlier. Beverly took Rice somewhere, I don’t know where.
“Are you prepared to tell me who is following you?” Adam asked as we sat down.
“I will get to it,” I said. “But first I shall tell you about the situation elsewhere in the world.”
“That’s fine. Go ahead with it.”
My tale wasn’t as long as Adam’s was. I mostly just concentrated on my travels from Iraq back to the states. As I told him the story, I left out Stone’s name. I did it on purpose. I didn’t know Adam’s rank, I was only guessing he was the commander, a full bird Colonial, of First Group. That meant to me he knew who Stone was. Or has at least heard of him.