Hank was chuckling and he looked a bit better. Fletch was still stomping his feet in hysterics. Jared pulled to a stop at the dump truck, closed his eyes, and put his head down on the wheel. His shoulders were shaking silently.
A loud knock startled them all and they jumped. She might have screamed a little too. Jared rolled down his window and they tried to stifle themselves so Sten wouldn’t think they were insane.
“You didn’t ring the bell,” Sten said sternly.
This set them off again and he watched them solemnly as they battled with their senseless, manic laughter.
“Are you all high?” he asked calmly.
She snorted again and shook her head. “No.” She wiped her face and blinked away the tears. “We were attacked.”
The small muscle under Sten’s eye twitched, but the rest of him remained still. His face was inscrutable. “Were you attacked with… drugs?”
“No…look at Stewart!” she said with a grin.
They all turned back to Stewart again. His hens were roosting peacefully again on his shoulders. A feather was lodged in his hair, and he looked a little depressed that they no longer found him to be frightening. He shifted and one of the hens opened her eyes and combed through his hair with her beak.
She and Jared looked at each other at the same time and Jared pinched his lips together to keep from breaking down again.
Sten frowned at them all. “I guess he thinks he’s some kind of practical yolker.”
Jared made a strange high pitched hum in his throat.
“Yep, he’s up to his old chicks,” Bradley quipped, and she slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle new laughter.
Hank chuckled. “The plot chickens…”
Jared groaned at them and held up his hands for quiet. “Seriously guys, we need to calm down. This is dangerous and we need to tell Sten what we know.”
They all got quiet, and he continued. “We have to remember that we’re all in this together…through chick and thin.”
Anna covered her face with both hands.
◆◆◆
They pulled through the gate after a man moved the truck out of the way. After it closed behind them, Sten directed them to stop up the road, near the crossroads. They came to a stop at the gas station, and he motioned for Jared and Bradley to get out. Anna was curious, but she stayed put. It was probably better in case they had to make a quick exit.
Sten, Jared, Bradley, and a few others from Sten’s community went into the small market next to the gas station. She watched behind them nervously, expecting to see movement in the trees, or a herd of partially camouflaged rushing mutant monsters flying through the air. So far, it was clear.
“It feels like we’ve been gone forever already, and it’s only noon,” she told them.
“Time has a funny way of passing when you’re under a lot of stress. I could have sworn I was in Vietnam for either ten years, or one day, depending on what was going on at the time,” Hank said and Fletch nodded.
“You ever been deployed, Fletch?” she asked. She didn’t know how old he was, mid-twenties maybe. About her age. She couldn’t imagine being deployed.
“Yeah, I did one tour in Afghanistan. We were supposed to go back, but…” he shrugged.
“This all happened?” she asked.
“Yeah. I think we’re damned lucky we weren’t deployed when this all went down. Can you imagine those poor bastards stuck in all those overseas bases right now? Worried about their families and dealing with their own shit in a foreign country?”
She hadn’t thought about that. She did for a moment, and then realized that they were all extremely lucky. Way luckier that she felt earlier.
You are right. We need to remember that, especially when things get harder,” she said.
“I don’t doubt for a minute that they will too,” Hank said morosely.
The chickens bawked quietly in the back, seemingly content to sit next to Stewart. That was a mystery that she desperately wanted an answer to. Shouldn’t they be freaked out?
Jared and the others were coming back out and she was glad. She felt anxious to get away from here, to get somewhere safe. They needed to hurry and get the trenches dug and the barbed wire strung. She felt as if a clock was ticking down, and at the end all hell would break loose. She couldn’t shake it.
Jared got back in. “You ready?” he asked them, and they nodded.
“I told Sten what happened. They are going to work on their defenses, and they’ll be watching the trees as well as the ground now. They said they’ll send word if they need help, and I told them the same. Our backup location is the Rolling Hills compound.”
“So, what do we do now?” she asked.
“We start Phase Two,” he answered.
“What’s that?”
Jared grinned. “Ditches and Hoes.”
“Jared…” she sighed. She was too sore to laugh now, but she heard the men in the back chuckle.
It was kind of funny.
Chapter Thirteen
Ditches and Hoes
Jared
The day so far had been terrifying and hilarious in equal measure. It was so unorthodox, so unlike their usual routine. It took him a bit to get back on track, mentally in the game, so to speak. Bradley had been in combat, actual combat, so he had a leg up.
The rest of the drive the others made small talk. He tossed the radio to Bradley and asked him to contact Harry and tell him what was going on. He needed to know that those mutie flyers could be heading toward town.
“I think they were more like gliders,” Anna said. “Like gliding squirrels.”
“You mean flying squirrels,” Jared said.
“Hush,” Bradley said.
“They glide, not fly,” she whispered.
Their little interchange reminded him about the little arguments they had back at work. Sometimes they had gone back and forth for days, intermittently. He was glad they could still do that, after all that had happened.
“Okay. I told Harry. He said they’ll post extra guards.”
“Did you tell him about the trees?” Jared asked.
“Yes, I told him about the trees,” Bradley answered. “Weren’t you listening?”
“No, I was setting Anna straight on a few zoological matters.”
Anna snorted and shook her head.
“Hank, you still good to drive the backhoe home?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m fine. Just get me into one and I’ll do the rest,” Hank assured.
“I’m hoping we’ll find an extra vehicle there too,” Bradley said.
Anna wrinkled her brow and looked at him. “What if there are people there? Like, the owners?”
Jared shrugged. “Then we’ll have to find another one. Jimmy Don might know of one.”
When they got to the intersection of the highway that led to Jared’s, town, and Rolling Hills, they turned right onto another state highway. This one led north, and eventually to the interstate that passed by Thompsonville…where they damned sure didn’t want to go.
“Bradley, what’s your plan regarding your unit? Are you thinking about trying to find them?” Jared asked.
Bradley rubbed his head and glanced back at Stewart. He seemed to be in a hibernation mode with the chickens.
“I don’t know, man. Part of me feels like I should do everything I can to find them, like I’m a deserter. The other part of me knows that there probably isn’t much of a military left anymore. My unit may all be dead.”
Jared tightened his hand on the wheel and tried not to think about Kate.
“Sorry,” Bradley winced at his blunder. Jared didn’t blame him, but it was still hard to think about.
“If Nashville wasn’t bombed then they could still be alive, so could Kate,” he said.
“It’s possible.”
Nobody said anything else. He thought they were either uncomfortable talking about it and felt sorry for him, or they thought he was insane. He would have to get Bradley alone and get into a se
rious discussion about the technical aspects of traveling to Nashville, finding his unit and Kate, and getting back in one piece. He wasn’t giving up.
“Here we are,” he said and turned into a large gravel parking area. The gravel led behind a large steel building and back into an actual gravel pit. He knew there should be large machinery back there.
There was a pickup truck parked near the back of the building, and a car was closer to the front. Both were dusty and coated with pollen. They looked like they had been sitting for a while. He hoped the batteries weren’t dead.
“This is most likely the office,” Jared said, gesturing to a large sign that said Office.
“Really? Well, I'll be damned,” Bradley said sarcastically, and went around the back to let Stewart out. Stewart slid out, gently leaving his roosting hens in the back of the SUV.
“You think they’ll fly out the windows?” Anna worried.
Stewart shook his head.
“The chicken whisperer has spoken. Let’s go in,” Jared urged.
Bradley took the front position, with Fletch and Stewart behind. Jared and Anna came next.
“I want you to stay right behind me until we know it’s clear,” he told her, and she nodded.
Hank was going to stay in the SUV and honk the horn if he saw anything they needed to know about. He was glad that the parking lot was in the middle of an extremely large clearing. They should be able to see trouble coming before it got to them.
Bradley pulled on the door, and it was locked. He looked around and motioned them to follow him to the back. They walked around the back where the pickup truck was parked. Jared went and peered in. It was empty. They keys were lying in the center console. That was probably a bad thing.
“The owners are probably still here…in some form or fashion,” he told Bradley.
Bradley nodded and they followed him over to the employee entrance. Bradley tested the knob. He gave a thumbs up and Jared held his breath as they flowed in the doorway.
They had forgotten that it would be dark in here.
“Prop open the door,” Bradley whispered.
Anna found a heavy box just inside and wedged it against the door. Jared looked around the faintly illuminated space, but the corners were just too dark to see properly. He had visions of mutie clusters hanging up there like bats ready to swoop down on them.
“Run back and get the flashlight from the truck,” he whispered in her ear.
She nodded and took off, and he strained his hears to hear anything that shouldn’t be there. Bradley and Fletch stood there, waiting. Stewart had other ideas. He walked right in and disappeared into the dark.
What the heck?
“Where is he going?” he hissed at Bradley.
“No idea,” was the reply.
They heard a loud growling from the cavernous darkness ahead and a snapping, chomping scuffle. Metallic clangs and horrible wet ripping sounds echoed in the large space. He was starting to get worried about Stewart. Then, it got quiet.
“Stew?” Bradley whisper shouted into the pitch-black space. “Stewart!” he said, a bit louder.
Loud scuffing, shuffling footsteps closed in on them rapidly and they all raised their weapons. A face, pale and bloody, appeared. The thing’s teeth were bared in a grin.
“What the hell, Stew?” Jared yelled, a little freaked out.
Fletch turned to him and blew out a big breath and grinned.
“Is that all of them?” Bradley asked.
Stewart nodded.
“Here’s the flashlight,” Anna said, rushing back in the doorway. “I found your new secret stash, by the way,” she told Jared.
Crap.
“I’ll give you half if you don’t tell anybody,” he bribed.
“Fine, but I already took one, just so you know.”
“Hands off my Star Crunches, babe.”
“Give me the flashlight and let’s find the keys. Stew said it’s clear,” Bradley said in a normal tone of voice.
“You trust Stew’s judgement on this?” Fletch asked skeptically.
“More than yours, kid,” Bradley retorted.
“Boys!” Anna shouted. “Let’s go already. I think we’re on borrowed time here,” she said.
She was right. They didn’t have much time. They not only needed to find the keys, but they still had to get the thing home and get the work done.
He followed Bradley, Stewart, and Fletch through the dark office. Anna kept her hand on his belt the whole time. She was nervous and he couldn’t blame her. It was a bit creepy walking through the dark with all these sharp objects and no real way of knowing if there were any more biters around, or worse, muties. He supposed Stewart was reliable on this subject, but it was still odd trusting Biter-Stew.
The back of the building was a storage area for tools of all kinds. He wanted to come back sometime and borrow some of the rarer ones. The owners of this place were hoarders for sure, which was good for them.
“Check that box on the wall there,” Jared said to Bradley as they got out to the main office. In the beam of the flashlight, they saw a couple of empty desks, some chairs, a coffee pot, a small fridge, and a tv mounted in the wall.
Bradley opened up the box on the wall and rows of keys glinted in the light. He checked the labels, then smiled. “We could just take them all,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be right to leave them here to rust,” Jared conceded.
“Hell yeah, man!” Fletch said.
“Anna, can you drive a dump truck?” Bradley asked.
“Um, maybe?” It was more of a question and Jared grinned. “Where are you going to get gas for all these things?” she asked.
“There should be a tank around here somewhere. It’ll probably be diesel though.”
“And what are you planning to do with all this machinery?”
“We aren’t taking it all today. As long as it’s stored here and we have the keys, we can use it whenever we want,” Bradley said.
“A steamroller would be cool though. Imagine taking down muties with it,” Fletch said.
“You realize that you’d be dead long before you even rolled over a mutie toe, right? Those things aren’t exactly fast,” Jared informed him.
“Still be cool,” Fletch murmured.
“Okay, Anna and I will drive the truck back to the storage area, if it runs. You guys take the SUV.”
◆◆◆
“Okay, Hank. We’ll escort you back. Remember, just keep the thing moving, and keep the door closed if any muties try to jump you. We’ll take care of them,” Bradley shouted.
“What’s the top speed of that thing?” Jared yelled up to him.
“I’m not going to take it over twenty-five!” Hank yelled down.
Twenty-five miles per hour? Jeez. He was glad he lived just down the road. He wanted to take the excavator, but Hank said it was too big to fit down the driveway without taking out some trees and demolishing part of his garage.
He thought about it for a minute.
Nah. They could always come back for it.
In addition to the backhoe, excavator, and dump truck, there was a small bulldozer, a crane, and a truck and trailer he guessed was intended to haul these pieces of equipment. He definitely wanted to come back for the bulldozer.
He boosted Anna up into the pickup truck and enjoyed it immensely. She was going to drive so he would have his hands free to shoot in case they needed to defend the backhoe. Fletch was driving the SUV, leaving Bradley to ride shotgun.
Stewart had volunteered to drive, but they just didn’t feel he was ready for that. He was still too twitchy, and they weren’t sure his hand, eye, foot coordination was up to it. It was something to think about in the future, maybe. If he could control his impulses.
The day dimmed as they rolled out and black clouds were building up again in the west. He rolled the window down in the truck and felt the air buzzing with the impending storm. The trees were still, and the sky was going green. He felt
uneasy. While he was grateful for the rain, he didn’t like not knowing what was heading their way.
“It doesn’t look so good out there,” Anna said, leaning forward and looking up at the sky. Jared shook his head.
“I think the chickens are going to get wet,” he said, looking over to the right past Hank in the backhoe to where Fletch was pulling the trailer of chickens and other looted supplies. “And we still have to go pick up the chain link fencing.”
“We’re doing that today?” she asked. “I thought we were going to wait.”
“No, we need to do that as soon as we can. I don’t feel right waiting.”
They took the lead at the head of the little convoy. Anna kept pace with Hank and Fletch brought up the rear. It was a little nerve-wracking to be driving so slowly and knowing that those things could be up in the trees watching, plus the storm that was looming upon them. It was moving faster than they were.
Jared scanned all directions carefully, looking for muties, but also watching for lightning or anything else that could possibly kill them. Like tornadoes. Or maybe road gangs.
“Jared, someone’s coming up behind us fast!” Anna said. He looked back and saw a vehicle speeding toward the SUV in the back. The headlights were flashing, and Jared stuck his head out the window to try and see better.
“Keep going the same speed but pull more to the right!” he told her.
A beeping noise reached his ears through the sound of the truck engine and the rumble of the backhoe. It was a car horn. Now that the car was closer, he saw that it was actually an old Volkswagen bus.
It’s distinctive shape and red and white paint job kind of gave it away. The beeping continued and an arm waved out the window frantically. As he watched, the van swerved around and darted past Bradley’s SUV and the backhoe. Not hard considering they were only going twenty miles per hour.
He figured if Bradley had let the vehicle pass then it was probably safe. He could be mistaken, but he didn’t think vicious road gangs would be tooling around in a sixty-eight Volkswagen bus. In fact, the only person he imagined it could be was—
“Is that Jimmy Don?! What is he doing?” Anna shouted as Jimmy Don Booth pulled up beside them and motioned for them to pull over.
The Salvation Plague | Book 2 | The Mutation Page 10