“They caught me by surprise, out in the open,” Bailey answered, more than a little offended at being supposed, not unjustifiably, a complete fool. “I used up all my ammo getting out of a tight spot.”
“You hurt bad?”
“I don’t think I can walk. Busted my shoulder up a bit, too, I think.”
The man nodded, then turned around and waved. A minute later, a truck drove up and a woman got out from behind the wheel.
“Name’s Ethan Tyler,” the man offered him a hand up. “This is Karen Monroe.”
“I’m Bailey,” Bailey answered, struggling painfully to his feet as the two helped him.
“Just ‘Bailey’?” Karen wondered.
“Gordon Alexander Bailey, Jr.” he elaborated.
“Okay, just ‘Bailey’ then,” she smiled.
“Not that I’m complaining, but why are you helping me? I have no weapons, no food or water, no transportation. I have nothing to offer at all.”
“You’re still human,” Karen smiled again. “There aren’t that many of us left anymore.”
“You don’t have the look of a gang member either,” Ethan added. “In fact, you look like you were, maybe, an accountant?”
“I was. CPA. Twenty-six years with Baxter and Warren.”
“Well, I’m sure that will come in handy,” Ethan shook his head.
With Bailey seated as comfortably as possible in the passenger’s seat and Ethan in the back of the crew cab, Karen drove the Ford back toward the industrial park to find Lauren waiting to open the gate while a rifle-armed Eric covered her. Once they got him inside the building and made introductions, Ethan took a closer look at Bailey’s foot and shoulder.
“Well,” he announced at length, “I don’t think the ankle’s broken or sprained. If you stay off it for a day or two, it’ll probably start to feel a lot better. Your shoulder looks to be dislocated, though.”
“What, you’re a doctor?” Bailey asked.
“No, but I’ve seen a lot of injuries and wounds. We need to reset that shoulder sooner than later.”
“Okay, what’s that mean? What do we have to do?”
“That means Eric and Karen will hold you down and Lauren will sit on your legs while I right it.”
“Hey, wait a minute!” Bailey protested. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“It won’t be my first time around. I won’t lie to you; you aren’t going to enjoy this, but it’ll be over quick.”
Bailey passed out when Ethan reset his shoulder and woke up a few minutes later lying on a cot, his arm in a sling. Lauren was by his side and put her hand on his chest, pushing him down as he tried to sit up.
“Take it easy for a while,” she told him. “You’ll need a couple days to recover. Ethan said your shoulder will probably be sore for a while, but it’ll start to feel better soon.”
“Thanks. Have you all been here long,” he asked, looking around.
“About two weeks. Ethan says we’ll have to find a more permanent place before much longer.”
“Why? From what little I saw, this place looks pretty good.”
“It’s going to start getting cold at night before too long. Winter’s on its way and there’s no way to heat this building. He says we need a house with a fireplace or a wood stove, something that doesn’t depend on gas or electric.”
“I didn’t think about that. Hey, I stayed in a house for a while that had water and a natural gas generator. There got to be too many infected around and I had to leave it, but it might be clear by now.”
“Could you find your way back to this house?” Ethan called from the doorway.
“Yeah, it’s maybe twenty or so miles east of here.”
“No good,” Ethan shook his head. “The biggest concentrations of infected are to the east. We were about six or eight miles east of where we found you and had to turn back because there were so many of them. We’ll find a spot sooner or later. You hungry? We’ve got a big pot of chicken stew just about ready.”
“Oh, I could eat.”
“Just lie back,” Lauren cautioned him. “I’ll bring you a bowl.”
“Say, what’s the story with her?” he asked Ethan when Lauren left the room.
“Picked her up with her brother and another couple a while back. The other couple didn’t make it. Oh, hell, she’s young enough to be your daughter!”
“I didn’t say anything! Just asking. …You and her?”
“No. The last thing we need in this group is drama. Lauren’s a nice girl,” here he looked over his shoulder before continuing. “Maybe not the brightest girl who ever lived, but none of us would take kindly to seeing her get hurt.”
“All I did was ask about her. I’m not going to cross any lines.”
“Okay then. We’ll talk more after we eat.”
Bailey protested when Lauren wanted to spoon-feed him and, after a word from her brother, she petulantly set the bowl in front of him and let him feed himself. The stew was hot and thick if a bit on the bland side but Bailey finished it off quickly. He was reluctant to ask for a second helping but gladly accepted when Lauren offered.
“So, where are you from?” Ethan asked.
“I’m originally from San Jose. I was offered a job with B&W there a couple years out of college and, after a couple of transfers and promotions, I ended up in their main office in New York.”
“You’re a long way from New York,” Eric observed, “or San Jose.”
“I was on my way back from Vegas. People started getting sick on the plane and the pilot brought it down at the nearest airport.” He briefly recapped his adventures, omitting the week he spent in the brothel. His experience was similar to the others in that the infection seemed to explode all at once, things going from outwardly normal to utterly chaotic in a matter of hours or even minutes.
“So, does anyone know what happened? I mean, why all of a sudden and why now?”
“The general opinion is it’s some kind of biological weapon. No one knows for certain if it was a deliberate attack or something that just got out of control,” Ethan answered. “I doubt we’ll ever find out the truth.”
“Is it just in the US? Did someone unload a dirty bomb on us?”
“No, this is worldwide. Apparently, it started out in Africa. Didn’t you hear about this on the news before everything went to hell?”
“No. Like I said, I was on vacation. I wanted to get away from everything. I never watched television or listened to the news on the radio, I didn’t even glance at a newspaper the whole time. I was blissfully ignorant for three weeks.”
“Well, welcome back. The next vacation is a long way off.”
“Is he always so cheerful?” Bailey looked at Karen.
“He has his moments.” Turning back to Ethan, she said, “It’s too late to go out again. Do you want to just get an early start tomorrow?”
“Yeah, no point in heading out this late in the day.”
“What’s going on?” Bailey asked.
“We’re scouting for a new place,” Karen told him. “We found a couple of possible sites, but we’d like to find a place large enough that we could take in a few more people.”
“Well, I have to say I haven’t run into anyone else the whole time I’ve been out there. Do you have someone in mind or are you just being optimistic?”
“There have to be more people out there,” Ethan said. “We found Eric and Lauren, then you; eventually we’ll run across more. A larger group with a secure base has a better chance of survival.”
“I guess I can’t argue with that.”
“I cleaned and oiled your Colt, by the way,” Ethan mentioned. “Can I assume you know how to use it?”
“Well, I do know which end the bullet comes out. As you might guess, an accountant in New York City doesn’t have a lot of opportunities to target shoot.”
“Fair enough. Once you get back on your feet, we’ll go over a few basics. In the meantime, enjoy your rest while you can
; there won’t be much time for it later.”
“Hey? Thanks again for saving me, taking me in.”
“Just do your share here and we’ll call it even.”
Chapter 15: Starting Over
Jerry had to admit his misgivings about taking Garth along on supply runs were unfounded. Even with his artificial leg, he easily kept up with Jerry and his knowledge of basic tactics helped them out of a couple of bad situations. The only problem he’d had so far was carrying a heavy load up or down steep inclines or long flights of stairs.
Today they were scavenging a shopping mall, picking up mostly clothing, bedding and medical supplies. Their last stop was a food court at the far end of the mall. The truck was parked near the doors and they made several trips apiece carrying out anything edible that was still in boxes or cans. Surprisingly, in Jerry’s opinion, there were few corpses in the entire complex and they’d had to take down fewer than a dozen infected, mostly in the food court.
“I would have thought we’d find a lot more people or bodies there,” Jerry commented as they drove back toward the farm.
“It’s about time we caught a break,” Garth replied. “We got out by the skin of our teeth when we hit that gun store last week. I wonder who got there before us.”
“Whoever it was, they sure didn’t miss much. If they hadn’t dropped a couple boxes of ammo in the parking lot, we’d have come away dry.”
“I sure wish we’d gotten there first. We could use a few hundred more rounds.”
“We’ve got what we’ve got,” Jerry shrugged. “It’ll be close to dark by the time we get back. How much more food do you think we’ll need to get us through the winter?”
“I’m not much worried about that. Another week or two and there will be plenty of vegetable gardens ready to start picking. People around here loved having gardens and it seemed like they always had plenty to give away to their neighbors. Whatever wasn’t trampled by infected or eaten by whatever wildlife the infected didn’t catch or scare off should be more than enough for our needs. Besides, the basement is already so full of home canned goods from all the surrounding houses that there’s hardly any room to walk. What we need to do is prepare some ground for planting in the spring.”
“Yeah. How much ground should we dig up?”
“We should dig every square foot we can until the ground freezes.”
“Oh, I’m looking forward to that!”
“Well, we’ve already hit all the homes and stores for miles around so, unless we’re prepared to pack up and find another place, we don’t have much choice. Even then, there’s no guarantee other people haven’t stripped all the supplies from wherever we relocate.”
“Man, I never appreciated how good I had it,” Jerry laughed. “I used to think it was so rough to do three shows a night. Sometimes I was so tired I wasn’t even looking forward to hitting the bars afterward, maybe hooking up with a hot blonde.”
“Yeah, that must have been awful,” Garth grunted.
The sun was low in the sky by the time they turned onto the county road that led to the farm. They heard gunfire a few minutes later and Jerry pushed the pedal to the floor, racing toward their home. There were three strange pickups and a car about halfway up the driveway and men were firing toward the house from behind them. Garth was out of the truck and taking position behind a stone cairn before Jerry even got the vehicle stopped. The men were too intent upon their target to notice until Garth’s hunting rifle took down his second target just as Jerry began firing from behind a huge old stump. Three of the attackers turned to return fire, one of them exposing himself to view from the house to be rewarded with a bullet in the base of his skull. The attack fell apart quickly after that and it was all over within five minutes.
Jerry and Garth counted nine assailants, two of whom were still alive but in no condition to be deemed a threat. Jerry stood guard on them while Garth rushed up to the house. Cara met him on the porch, tears pouring down her cheeks, and pointed him toward the dining room. Bill lay in the middle of the floor, breathing laboriously, a bloody towel against his bare chest.
“Oh, God, Uncle Bill!” He gently lifted the towel to look at the wound, realizing at once that it was beyond their ability to treat. Bill opened his eyes and tried to smile, then seemed to shrink in Cara’s arms as he let out his last breath.
“They came driving up about fifteen minutes ago,” she said after a minute. “One of them said they wanted our food, our guns, all our supplies and they’d go away and leave us alone. Some of the others started laughing at that. Bill went to the door to try to talk to them but they shot him before he could say a word. A couple of them started for the steps; they must have thought it was safe with Bill down, but I shot both of them. The rest just started shooting up the house from behind their cars.”
“I’ll go down and tell Jerry what happened,” Garth’s voice cracked as Cara cradled her dead husband in her arms, not looking up, not even seeming to notice him. “We’ll take care of Uncle Bill then.”
Jerry listened as Garth briefed him, then turned to the two still living thugs.
“Why?” was all he asked.
“Why not,” one of them answered very matter-of-factly. “We need something, we take it.”
“It never occurred to you to try to cooperate with other survivors, to join up with them and work together?”
“Hell, we are working together. We got our own group and they’ll find you eventually, same as we did. You take good care of us now and we might put in a good word for you when they do.”
“You really believe,” Jerry laughed in his face, “that after you attacked our home, killed one of us, tried to steal everything we worked hard to get that we’re going to nurse you back to health so you and your friends can try it all over again?”
Jerry stood over him and pointed his pistol at the squirming man’s face. His finger tightened on the trigger but he wasn’t able to bring himself to shoot him in cold blood even though he was trembling with rage. A moment later, two shots rang out as Garth put a bullet through each of their skulls.
“You said it,” Garth looked at him. “They’d just try again. There’s no more police, no more jails, no more law. We have to take care of business ourselves.”
“You’re right. The rules only apply if everyone else follows them too. Is Cara okay?”
“No. I don’t know how she’s going to get over this. They meant the world to each other; they were the world to each other.”
It was full dark by the time they loaded all the bodies into the bed of one of the trucks. Jerry drove the pickup a few miles while Garth followed him in his uncle’s truck until they came to a long downgrade. After he tied the wheel, he dropped a brick on the gas pedal, then put the truck into gear and let it take off by itself, eventually going off the road and continuing across a wide field. When they got back to the house, they found Bill’s body covered with a blanket, hands folded across his chest and a pillow under his head. Cara was sitting in a chair near him, silent, staring off into the distance.
“Aunt Cara?”
“Just let me sit with him until morning,” her voice was barely audible. “We’ll take care of him in the morning.”
Garth put a blanket over her lap and kissed her cheek. He and Jerry took turns at standing watch and Cara drifted off into sleep around midnight. In the morning, Garth called her name softly and, when she didn’t answer, he approached her and laid his hand on her arm. He skin was cold to the touch and her head drooped to her chest when he gently shook her. They buried the two of them side by side in the yard, Garth reading a few words over them from the family bible.
“We can’t stay here anymore,” Garth said once the grim task was done. “Two people can’t defend this place against marauders like that. We couldn’t go on any more supply runs and leave the house empty, couldn’t leave just one of us behind to watch the place while the other makes the runs. The bottom line is that the two of us can’t make it on our own. We n
eed, at a minimum, two more people who know how and when to use weapons. If those guys really were part of a larger group, they’ll be missed and somebody will come looking for them. We need to get out of here as soon as we can.”
“What do you suggest? Where do we find some place that’s safe? Until I came here, everyone I ran into along the way was part of some sort of outlaw gang. It seems like they’re the only ones who survived.”
“I think they’re the ones who are most visible,” Garth contended. “The good people are keeping a low profile because of them. They’re out there; we just have to find them.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“We load up the two best trucks with everything we can carry and head north.”
“Why north?” Jerry wondered.
“Have you noticed the infected are mostly moving to the south? I can’t say for sure, but I think that the cold weather when winter does get here will thin them out considerably. They don’t seem to think about anything but feeding. Once the weather gets cold enough, I think most of them will freeze to death.”
“Well if that’s true, why not go way up into Canada?”
“We don’t have to go that far to find cold weather; Ohio has some pretty nasty winters.”
“I played a dinner club in Akron this past January and it was plenty cold then. It sure seems like a long time ago now.”
Garth nodded in agreement and the two men began loading up the trucks. They took a couple changes of clothing, some bedding, all the medical supplies they could and then started loading the food and water. Glass containers went in last, wrapped in blankets and towels to cushion them, and the truck beds were covered with waterproof tarps. A lot of food in mason jars had to be left behind with little hope of ever being reclaimed.
The pair of survivors were now more heavily armed than they dreamed of being before the outlaws attacked. From the dead assailants they gained two AKs, two ARs five other rifles ranging from .22s to .308 in caliber and four handguns; three 9mm autos and one .38 revolver plus several hundred rounds of ammunition. Added to what they already had, it was an impressive amount of firepower.
The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy Page 58