by Jon Schafer
Picking up a fishing creel, Brain opened it and discovered that it was packed with gold and silver jewelry. Chains, rings and bracelets gleamed in the afternoon sun filtering through the trees.
Brain showed it to Tick-Tock, asking, “Is this stuff even worth anything anymore?”
“Not unless you can eat it,” he replied. “But if you find any money, save it for toilet paper.”
He dropped the creel, letting the precious metals and gems spill across the ground. Brain said, “If I can’t eat it, drink it, shoot it or use it to run my truck, I don’t want it.”
Tick-Tock flinched at the reference to a truck. The whole bottom of the radiator on his had blown out. While they were out searching for the camp, the others were transferring everything out of it and into Brain’s. Sheila and Mary were overseeing this while Steve and Heather checked the vehicles in the clearing for fuel and to see if any of them would run. Denise was taking the weapons off the men and women they’d killed and gathering whatever ammunition they had on them.
From his right, he saw Connie emerge from a tent and call out that she had found something. Not seeing anything in her hands, he asked her what it was.
“You’ve got to see it for yourselves. It’s like an armory or something.” She replied.
Flipping back the flap on the tent, they saw two piles of weapons stacked haphazardly on either side of a cot. Tick-Tock entered and was amazed at the variety of rifles and handguns. A few automatic rifles and even more hunting rifles were placed on one side while handguns were scattered across the ground on the other. Picking up a FN automatic rifle, he ejected the magazine and saw it was empty. Pulling back the bolt, he saw that it was starting to rust with disuse and lack of care. He picked up a scoped hunting rifle, pulled the bolt back and saw it was empty too. A few assorted boxes of cartridges were stacked on a camp table but that was it. Pawing through them, he found some .30 caliber rifle rounds that he pocketed for Denise, but most of it was .45 caliber.
He handed a box of .40 caliber pistol rounds to Brain and said, “Give these to Mary.”
“Mary?” Brain asked, surprised that Tick-Tock would give her anything except a hard time.
“You said she was shooting when we got ambushed so at least that’s a start,” he told him. “As long as she doesn’t hit one of us, I’d rather have her armed than not. Now, let’s look around for some more ammo.”
They searched the other tents but found little. They did come across some canned food and bottled water, but it appeared that all the weapons and ammunition were kept in the tent. After sending Connie back to get some of the others to move what they’d found, Tick-Tock and Brain searched everything again to make sure they hadn’t missed anything.
Brain flipped open the top of a large cooler that he found at the edge of the clearing, then stepped back at the rotten smell that wafted up to him. Glancing inside, he realized that it was full of decomposing hands. Hesitantly he took a closer look and saw that they all had rings on their swollen fingers. Turning away, he started to gag.
Tick-Tock walked over to see what had caused his reaction. After looking into the cooler, he said, “They must not have been able to get the jewelry loose, so they cut the hands off and stuck them in there to rot.”
Dry heaving, Brain said, “These guys were animals. Is this what the rest of the world is like?”
Not too optimistic at what they would find as they made their way to Fort Polk, Tick-Tock simply said, “Probably.”
Connie returned with Sean and two of the others in tow as Tick-Tock finished sorting through the weapons. He decided that most of it was crap, but a few of the rifles and handguns were salvageable. When he told them to gather them up and take them back to the truck, Sean refused.
“We don’t carry weapons,” he said flatly. “That’s your job.”
Leaning toward him, Tick-Tock replied, “I’m not asking you to shoot anyone. All I want is for you to bring them from here to there.”
With the others standing behind him, he crossed his arms and said, “We refuse.”
Tick-Tock pointed to the pile of food and water, saying, “But you’d have no problem carrying things like that so you can feed your face. What’s the difference? It was guns that got it for us. If it hadn’t been for us and our guns, you’d all be dead right now.”
“That’s a completely different subject,” Sean told him.
Shaking his head in disgust, Tick-Tock said, “Then grab the food and the water, I’ll carry the guns.”
“I’m not sure we should do that either,” Sean said in a pompous tone. “We had a meeting of the committee and we feel we’ve done enough for the day by moving everything to the other truck. We’ve also decided that if you hadn’t driven us into the maws of death, we never would have lost Senator Feinstein and her two aides.”
Tick-Tock burst out laughing and said loudly, “The maws of death? What the fuck does that even mean? You and your people better get your head and your ass wired together because I’m pretty sure we’re going to run into more people like that before we get to Polk. If you’d been armed, we wouldn’t have lost anyone. We would have tore their asses up. The truth of the matter is, it was a little girl who saved your ass and mine, and I’d rather have her at my back than you. There isn’t a rewind button on this shit, so get it in gear and grab some boxes.”
Distracted by seeing Denise coming out of the woods with her arms full of rifles, he said softly to himself, “There might not be a rewind button, but you can always go forward.”
Turning his full attention back to Sean, he barked at him like his drill instructors used to bark at him when he was on the grinder, “MOVE.”
Sean moved.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Highway 190:
Driving a Dodge Ram extended cab taken from the camp of the highwaymen, Tick-Tock led the way as they slalomed around the occasional stalled vehicle on the road. They had liberated the pickup since the truck that Brain was driving overflowed with people and supplies. No one could ride in the open back of his truck since it didn’t sit high enough, but Tick-Tock was happy to be alone with Denise and Cindy. They played games like I Spy and Slug Bug to kill the time as they looked for a car or truck that hadn’t already been looted. Since entering the highway, they found that every vehicle had already been stripped of anything usable. Doors, hoods and gas cap covers stood open, displaying they had already been picked clean.
Denise saw a National Guard truck in the distance, “That looks promising.”
“Looks are deceiving,” Tick-Tock replied. “Whoever came through here took everything that wasn’t nailed down.”
“Might be worth a shot though,” Denise said.
Tick-Tock pressed the transmit button on the radio and said, “I’ve got a truck up ahead that I want to check out, over.”
Heather’s voice came through the speaker, “It better have something in it, because we’re almost out of gas. We’re running on fumes, over.”
Tick-Tock grimaced. They had siphoned enough regular gas out of a few abandoned vehicles that still had some at the bottom of their tanks to keep the pickup going, but couldn’t find any diesel fuel. Everything they came across had already been drained dry and left with their filler caps off. The only good thing was that the dead weren’t as thick through this area. When they stopped, they weren’t beset by Z’s coming out of the stalled vehicles, but instead, an eerie quiet. They had come too far to turn back, so their only hope was to keep moving forward.
He handed the radio to Denise, and said, “We may have to get a bunch of cars running to carry everyone if we can’t find any diesel fuel. The others are pretty useless, but I’m hoping at least a few of them can drive.”
They pulled past the National Guard truck and stopped. As they looked it over for possible threats, Denise said, “I know Sean can drive, but I’m not sure of anyone else. They’re a bunch of politicians, so I doubt it.” Pointing to where the gas caps were still in place on the fuel tanks
of the truck, she added, “Hopefully, we won’t have to find out.”
Tick-Tock’s chainmail clanked as he got out of the driver’s side door. He watched as Denise lifted Cindy over her before sliding across the bench seat and settling behind the wheel. They had worked out a routine that whenever they stopped; she would get ready to take off if things went bad. They both knew that in reality she wouldn’t, but they still went through the motions. Flipping the hood of his armor over his head, he nodded to her as he hefted his M4 and turned.
He and Steve approached the truck and looked in back. It was empty except for a rotting body dressed in the remnants of a uniform, so they turned their attention to the fuel tanks on either side of the cab. Twisting off the cap on his side, Tick-Tock found that the tank was empty.
“Nothing,” he heard Steve say from the other side.
Just then, the truck Brain was driving died. Both men heard the whine of its starter as he tried to get it going again, but they knew it was no use.
The clamor of excited voices filled the air as everyone got out and milled around on the road. With the lack of Z’s in the area, even the others felt emboldened enough to get out and stretch their legs.
Steve rounded the front of the National Guard truck and found Tick-Tock looking down the empty stretch of road in front of them. For a second, he was worried that his friend was thinking of taking off on his own until he said, “We can go back and grab a couple trucks to carry our stuff and a bunch of cars to carry everyone else. I don’t know how far we’ll get, since we’ve barely found enough gas to keep the Dodge going, but we’ll give it a shot. We’re coming up to Jasper so we might find better pickings, but I kind of doubt it. It looks like this whole stretch of road has been stripped bare.”
Nodding his head in agreement, Steve said, “I saw a couple of pickups and a mini-van a few miles back. We can grab those and make our way into town. It’s not something I really want to do, but we’ve got no choice now.”
The setting sun threw long shadows through the scrub brush lining the sides of the road. Noting this, Tick-Tock said, “I think we need to stop for the night and go for the cars in the morning though. You, me and Brain can go out tomorrow and do a relay when we find something and bring it back here.” He gestured to a grove of trees in the distance, adding, “That might be a good place to set up. We haven’t seen any Z’s for a while, so we should be safe. There’s one thing that bothers me though.”
“What’s that?” Steve asked.
“This is supposed to be cattle country, but I haven’t seen a single cow. In fact, I haven’t seen a living thing since we turned onto the highway except for a few birds.”
“Maybe whoever stripped the cars did a little rustling when they came through,” Steve proposed.
“Maybe,” Tick-Tock said. “But that’s a shitload of cows to take. It would have to be a pretty good sized group to pull it off.”
Steve scanned the vacant pastureland around them, as he said, “If that’s the case, then I hope they moved on. I really don’t want to get into a fight out here. If we run into a big group, we’re in trouble.” Turning his attention to where the others were milling about, he added, “With that in mind, we need to get these people organized. I want to get the truck unloaded and everyone off the road before it gets dark. We’ll use the Ram to shuttle everything over to those trees and then park it on the far side to keep it out of sight. Get with Sean and -.”
Tick-Tock cut him off by pointing to where the man was approaching and said, “Speak the devil’s name and he will appear.”
“Now what are we going to do?” Sean whined in a loud voice as he headed toward them. “Don’t tell me we have to walk. Your part of the deal is to get us safely to an aid station and so far you’re failing miserably. We lost four people at the rail bridge and three more when we ran into those robbers. As soon as we get back to civilization, I’m putting together a committee to look into your actions.”
Steve grimaced at the reference to the people that had been killed, but refused to take responsibility for their deaths. Bristling at the comments, he said, “And we might lose a few more before it’s all done if you all don’t stop with your committee bullshit and carry a gun. We’ve got enough weapons to arm at least half of you.”
Stopping a few feet away and crossing his arms over his chest, Sean said defiantly, “And we refuse to carry weapons. What part of that don’t you get?”
In counterpoint to this, a small voice called out from the others who had gathered to watch the confrontation.
“I’d like to learn to shoot. I’ll carry a gun.”
Sean whirled around and demanded, “Who said that?”
A thin blonde woman in her early twenties stepped forward as she tentatively raised her hand and said, “I did. I want to learn how to protect myself.”
“Linda!” Sean yelled her name, “You’re going to let go of your values and give in to these people? They’re the reason we’re in this situation in the first place.”
Ignoring him, she moved to stand in front of Steve and said again, “I’d like to learn to shoot. I’ll carry a gun.”
“Have you ever shot anything before?” Steve asked.
“None of my people will -.” Sean started to say.
He was cut off by Steve pointing at him in warning and saying, “Shut up right now or I’ll leave you on the side of the road.”
Steve turned his attention back to Linda, he nodded at her to answer his question.
Quietly, she said, “I fired my brother’s .22 pistol a few times back when I was a kid, but that’s it. I’m just tired of feeling so helpless and afraid.” She motioned to the others standing behind her, then added in a slightly stronger voice, “All they do is sit around and whine about how scared they are, and I’m over it. They talk about how we should treat everyone equally and that those poor people infected by the disease are the same as you and me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a bunch of shit. I only took a job as Senator Feinstein’s intern so I could get some experience toward my degree in Political Science.”
“And now you’re stomping on her memory,” Sean cut in.
Turning toward him in a rage, Linda said, “Fuck that liberal bitch! She was nothing but a socialist, elitist, snob. You need to read Animal Farm, and then take a good look at yourself, asshole.”
Behind him, Steve heard Tick-Tock laugh and say, “Some pigs are more equal than others.”
Sean leaned forward to cut in again until Steve shut him up by saying in a low voice, “Like I said before. One more word out of you and I’ll leave you here.”
Sean closed his mouth with an audible snap, but Steve gave him another warning look before turning his attention back to Linda and asking, “Are you the only one in your group who wants to learn how to shoot?”
She shook her head sadly as she replied, “As far as I know. The rest of them just sit around and complain about how badly they’re treated and what they’re going to do when they get to the aid station. They see this as a perfect opportunity to set America on the right path. They’ve got these wild ass ideas about taking over since now they’re the most powerful political bloc in the nation. They want to use the military to disarm the public, so no one will be able to challenge them, and they’re always talking about healthcare and other unrealistic shit like its created from air.”
“It’s not unrealistic,” Sean mumbled. “The people need the government to take care of them since they can’t take care of themselves. They need more rules and regulations so they know what to do and how to think and feel.”
Linda looked at him with complete contempt and said, “Well, you are the government and you sure can’t take care of yourself!”
Smiling at this, Steve called Heather over from where she was talking to Connie and said loudly, “This is Linda, and she wants to learn how to shoot.”
***
After unloading the supplies and removing any trace they had been on the road by pushing the truck off i
nto the ditch at its side, they made a cold camp that night. After they had eaten, Heather worked with Linda, teaching her how to aim, disassemble, clean and assemble a .380 pistol they had taken from the highwaymen’s camp. Once the woman felt comfortable with the weapon, she let her dry fire it a few times. They couldn’t risk the noise of a gunshot attracting anything living or dead, so she would have to wait until they were moving again to fire it for real. Linda hit it off right away with Cindy, so when she tried to return to the others and was shunned, she spent the night in her sleeping bag next to the ten year old. Pep wandered around the small grove of trees for a few minutes, sniffing and marking her territory before lying down between them.
Tick-Tock was standing guard at daybreak when he saw something coming down the road from the direction of Jasper. It was some type of vehicle, but it was moving too slowly to be a car or a truck. Raising his binoculars, he saw what it was in the early morning light and started to laugh. Brain was already up, so he called him over and handed him the binoculars saying, “Check this out, Pork Chop.”
Brain scanned the area for a minute before focusing in on the road. Doing a double take, he asked, “What the fuck is that?”
“That’s what I thought when I first saw it,” Tick-Tock told him. “Go get Steve and we’ll check it out.”
The three men stood at the side of the road as the vehicle slowly approached. They kept their weapons ready but not pointed at the strange sight coming towards them. The sun was well up, so every detail of it was visible, and they were amazed at the ingenuity of it. Pulled by a team of two dozen of the dead strapped into harnesses, it was a farm wagon with a cart in tow, both filled with gas cans and boxes. Two people were visible, one walking in front of the Z’s so they would follow him and pull, while the other sat in the driver’s seat holding the reins.
This would have been an awesome enough sight, but to add to it, both of them wore long black cloaks with the hoods pulled over their heads, and the driver had a scythe propped up next to her. Its blade glinted in the sun as Tick-Tock started singing ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ by Blue Oyster Cult.