Mike considers her assessment. The couch holds up the roof, and it won’t support it forever. If she’s correct, it will be a waste of my energy to reach the door. At least until I’ve a way to escape. But we can’t remain here long. “Then I’m open for suggestions on how to get out of here.”
“Were you really in Iraq?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“I’ve never left the state. Barely the surrounding counties. I’ve traveled more since the end of the world than before.”
“Are you doing one of those goodbyes? Don’t. You’re not going to die,” Mike says.
“The beating messed up my insides,” she admits. “Cramps—like on my period, but not in the right spot.”
“We didn’t live through the quake to die under a house. Now, there’s enough of a crawl space for me to move, so we’re going to get out of here. But. I need you to help.”
“Kelsey.”
“What?”
“My name is Kelsey. I reside at a camp we christened Acheron. I’m a crack shot. Get us out of here and get me a loaded rifle, and I’ll make sure we make to Acheron.”
“What about warning your leader?”
“I need a doctor.” Her own urine contained red. “My kidneys were used as punching bags. If I die, I can’t warn anyone.”
“We get out of here and I’ll find you a hospital.”
“Acheron has two doctors.”
“Fuck me.”
“We’re well stocked. “
“Where’s this place?” Mike asks.
“Where are we?
“South of Interstate 44. I was heading to Fort Wood. I think I passed Meramec Caverns.”
“We need to head west until we’re sure of our location,” Kelsey says. Shouldn’t approach with the most direct route, must protect the group.
“Aren’t you putting the cart before the horse? We’re stuck in this house,” Mike says. Then he reconsiders; he as well as she, must have a goal—reason to keep going.
“Temporary setback. Maybe if you have room move to your legs, I can squeeze by and out the door. It may take me a while, my legs aren’t following my commands, but I might find a better place for you to crawl out.”
“Do you see my gear?” Mike asks. If I’m going to move out of her way, I might as well move toward it. Get the gear. Who knows when I’ll find more. If the quake dropped this building, it will have damaged others.
“It’s dark, and plaster dust dances in the light beams.”
“Why did you never leave the state?” Mike encourages her to keep speaking. He works around, putting his head toward the light.
She clamps down on her lips, then, with a whine, asks, “Why did you join the military?” She reaches, with her arm pressing her nails into the floor, and pulls. Her right eye closes and her left bugs out in pain as she inches toward the door. Her legs, afire from the blisters she has torn open, force her to halt before she has moved six inches.
“I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. College wasn’t for me. I thought if I decided later to go, Uncle Sam would cover the expense. But, really, it was to avoid flipping burgers.”
Kelsey breathes. “I’m sure I was on my way to five kids, four different daddies and a double wide. But I never left my hometown.” She reaches up with her arm again.
“Overseas trips are out unless you learn to sail, but think of the money you’ll save when you visit a national park now.” Mike hopes she at least smiles at his poor joke.
She drags herself again, pulling herself out of the blanket.
“I’m stuck.” Mike ceases his struggle to fit between the floor and the collapsed roof.
“Maybe I could find a car jack,” Kelsey says more as a joke.
“You need to stay here. Your legs.”
“Your back’s been carved on.”
“Mine is more healed.” At least that much is true. Mike wriggles. Nothing below his chest moves.
“I could pull.”
“At this point, I don’t care how bad it scrapes. I won’t fit. But I’m not sure I’m able to move back.”
“It is a farm. I could attempt to find some grease.”
“If the out building is standing, it might have some for lubing tractor gears, but I don’t know how safe it will be.”
“You know I won’t make it without you. I’m going to have to try something.”
“You can’t walk?” Mike asks, all out of ideas.
“More of a four-legged crawl.”
“I think I would flip my shit. You’ll be gone a long time, and every second, I’d think you’re dead.”
“Then come up with another option, or I’m going,” Kelsey says.
“How did you know I was cut?”
“Your shirt is bloody and sticks in places.”
Kelsey wraps her fingers around the doorframe. It gives her the leverage to move more of her body at once. “I’m at the door.”
“I’m able to turn, but I won’t fit out.”
“Then I’ll save you. You’ll save me.”
“Yes,” Mike screams.
“Promise.”
“Yes. I’ll get you home.”
Kelsey wiggles through the opening.
Mike works around. Even in the low light, he knows his weapon, and after he cleans the dust, she will operate properly. Nothing about her seems damaged. He works back to the door. Shoving out her blankets and his gear to wait. The only the sound for hours, creaks and wood groans, causes prayers for no more aftershocks until he is outside.
Kelsey drops the bucket on the porch. She pants. “It’s heavy.” She slides toward him.
“What is it?”
“Oil.”
Mike cranes his neck. “It’s not an oil bucket.”
“I liberated it from the tractor. It was in the yard. I would never have reached the barn.”
Mike drags it toward him. Scooping out a handful, he smears it on the door jam. He rubs some on his stomach, pushing with his legs to pop a shoulder though the opening.
“It’s going to take more,” she says.
“I know. I was hoping to get by with minimal gunk. I won’t get to shower.” He scoops more. “Did the tractor have keys?”
“Yes.”
Waggling his shoulders up and down, he notes a slight outward movement. “I wonder if the battery has any juice. If I don’t use all the oil, we can drive it to the next farm.”
“Tractors are loud. I won’t be much good in a fight.”
“I thought it might be easier on you than me carrying you a few miles.” Mike’s body gives an inch. Now committed to escaping, the full pressure of the building on his abdomen. If I could get some leverage, I might be able to push myself out.
“It’s getting late. You don’t have enough daylight to secure a new house. And now we have to worry about aftershocks.”
Mike places his hands on the wall and shoves. His body gives an inch. Skin tears. The scabs on his back open. He cries out. Fuck it. No need to impress her with manliness.
She crawls closer. “Can I help?”
“More grease.”
She pours it over his stomach. Mike rubs it in. He pushes and twists, working until he pops free, leaving some of his flesh behind.
Mike strips off his shirt. His stomach and back covered in dozens of cat scratch marks oozing blood. The filleted section of skin bleeds where black oil doesn’t cover.
He rips off the remains of his old dressings. “The undead are going to smell this.” He tears the sheet for a makeshift bandage. Blacking the ends with oily fingerprints.
“We’re both going die from infection.” Kelsey lays over on her side.
“No. I’m going to get you back to your people.”
KAREN POURS WATER from a bucket into a metal mixing bowl. She washes the dirt from her face, keeping her dark hair from the water. She rubs water around her neck.
“Make you miss the showers at home?”
She chucks the towel at Kalvin and mouths, “
Shut up,” nodding her head toward the sleeping Grace. She needs to take out the girl’s pigtails and comb out the tangles. A good scrubbing in the tub wouldn’t hurt any of them. She won’t wake the question-queen. Not while she cuddles with her teddy bear. Her deadly teddy.
Karen’s mission priority keeps changing. In Acheron, Grace would have a stable life. No five-year-old should have to sleep with a gun, nor kill to stay alive. Karen refuses to imagine how the next generation must be raised to exist in this brave new world.
Kalvin spreads a blanket near the fire.
“It’s costing me all the labor I do to get wood and your water. I haven’t been able to scout the city.”
“Keep your voice down. We don’t need Grace asking questions, and we don’t need outside ears.”
“Not many are on this side of the city. Most of the religious zealots are gathered in the churches. Original Springfield residents stay being locked doors, and those running security…I’m not sure what they do. But we’ve nothing of value with us.”
Karen voice levels are close to inaudible. “We have everything of value. This city will fall in on itself without proper leadership. Too many groups are grasping for their own piece of the pie. And we can’t support the numbers willing to return to us. Ethan’s plan was successful because we grow as our resources grow. The resources dwindle here.”
“They’re clearing yards and parks for crops.”
“And emptying houses. Anything useless and burnable shipped to the powerplant. Clearing enough lots will allow for more land for crops. No large yields this year.”
“Means winter will thin the herd.”
She tugs at her baggy shirt. “I miss steady meals. I shouldn’t complain about weight loss, but I don’t much care for hunger cramps.”
Kalvin fluffs his pack as a makeshift pillow. “Too bad we don’t have the skills to earn a house. There are plenty vacant.”
“They tossed two vagrants squatting in an empty house in detention. I’m not sure how effective that punishment is since they now have a place inside to sleep,” Karen says. She rolls some of the loose skin around her midsection between her fingers.
“Detention means forced labor. Chain gangs—one step above slavery. They feed them and give them a room indoors, but there are rumors.”
“Why do they have a slave labor force? Most people are willing to work in exchange for the trading chits they’re using as currency. Even if it works more like a company store.”
Kalvin shakes his head. “No one seems to know why. And it’s a taboo subject. I dare not press for information or ask about a train engineer.”
“The first problem is too many groups are attempting to prepare the city for a future existence with their own agenda.”
“Anarchy?”
“Theocracy is winning. Even Ethan works Acheron toward a ruling council over an autocracy.”
“He hasn’t yet.”
Karen eyes her sleeping companion. “All these survivors, someone has to have practical knowledge of the railroad. I get the lack of medical people. Most were wiped out in the first few days from the undead before anyone understood the plague. But cargo supplies were still moving for weeks. Missouri wasn’t even hit like other states.”
“Frank got lucky. He was assigned to a podunk country EMS Station with orders to stay. By the time his crew was called up, they knew what was going on. They did save a few people.”
“Including the Kyle, who raped Sam,” Karen says.
“We never know what any of these people are going to do.”
“Ethan brought him in, so he must have felt he was okay.”
“We’re all okay until the corrupting moment presents itself.”
Kalvin punches the bag. “God, I hope I don’t get used to sleeping on the ground. Frank earns enough for a house. Why don’t we use some of his chits?”
“It would make us less mobile.”
“A good, uninterrupted eight hours before we hit the road. We can’t trust the quake drew away all the undead.”
“You know the tracks head toward KC. We’re going north?”
“There must be a million undead in Kansas City.” Kalvin flips over, snuggling away from the firelight.
“Not if they felt the quake.”
“If they did, we should wait a week before heading out. We don’t want to hike right into the middle of the Million Undead March.”
“For being fresh from the outside, no one seems to integrate us or use us as advisers. We’re sloshed in with the rest of the worker bees. Our experience doesn’t matter,” Karen says. “Except for Frank.”
“Does that bother you? It shouldn’t.” Kalvin flips over again. “If you were in the president’s office, or with the church elders, you’d be watched and never gain any information. No one new is going to march through the gate and instantly assume the role of second in command. No one’s that charismatic. It takes time to build trust. And if they did bring in a strong leader, it would be to placate a large group. They would be a figurehead, not a leader with any real power. Not among these people, anyway.”
“Not quite how it works at home.” Karen slips her bra off and pulls on a clean shirt. Modesty ceased days after the end of the world.
“People fear being placed in prison here. Instead of fortifying and utilizing the structure and the wall, they house inmates. Some of the originals and new ones culled from the refugees flowing in. Most of the people here are good, and help the refugees flooding in, but come winter, they’ll be out of food. We don’t need to be here then,” Kalvin says.
“It’s the outsiders who are pushing the God’s chosen people angle. Are any of them incarcerated?”
“People are tight lipped.”
“After Frank’s report, we need to plot our exit strategy. We got a second mission. Unless you get a lead on an engineer, we’ve learned all we can,” Karen says.
“I don’t know what the city will have to offer us unless the groups come together and manufacture goods for our beef.”
“Only beef?”
“The occupied homes are plowing the yards for vegetables. I hate sleeping on the ground. We need one night in a house with a bed before we go.”
“Karen.” A soft voice drifts on the breeze.
“Frank?”
“Don’t shoot.” He strolls into the circle of light with his hands in the air.
“Took me longer to find you. You changed camps again.” Frank thrusts a burlap bag at Karen.
“There is too much secretive unrest here.”
“Think we should bug out?” Frank asks. “My work at the hospital won’t feed the four of us much longer. We’ll need some supplies to march.”
“Discover a fun fact?” Kalvin asks.
“Lot of sick people. Those that come in from the outside are malnourished and have lot of sprains. Some electrical burns from hot wiring cars. But they allow anyone inside, some close to turning. We had one today. I put it down. Made me a hero. And a new friend.”
“Where are they disposing of the dead?”
“I’m working on that. They don’t like me to leave the hospital. I know they’re not buried,” Frank says.
“South of town they’re loading up useless burnable items from homes,” Karen says.
“It explains how after ten months, they have power.” Kalvin sits up. “The bodies would burn.”
“If the dead are heading east, they’ll run out of fuel soon.”
“We got more dangers. Like I said, I made a new friend today,” Frank says.
“Someone you are able to trust?”
“Maybe. But in the rush to create a functioning system for fifty thousand survivors, they overlook the medical people because we are two. This girl was attending med school when the outbreak struck. She doesn’t want the doc responsibility they’re forcing on her.”
“You want to bring her?” Karen realizes.
“I doubt she’ll want to be a medic for us. Most of the people she works on die,” F
rank says.
“Does she know the city?”
“Some. More than what we’ve learned.”
“Bring her.”
“She won’t leave without her sister. And that’s if they allow her to leave the hospital.”
“Did this come up in casual conversation, or did you tell her about us?” Karen punches Frank in the shoulder.
“No. This isn’t my first rodeo. I said I wondered why scavenging teams weren’t being sent to seek survivors, and she said she’d be first to leave the city if they’d let her.”
She detects the pause, as if he learned some dark piece of information. With all we’ve experienced, what could hold his tongue? “There’s more? Frank, we’re a team. Tell me. If we’re able, we’ll bring her along.”
“My little pre-med girl won’t leave without her sister, who followed a different path. She was already in the jail on day one,” Frank says.
“Whoa, this is not in our operation mandate. If she wants to come, fine, but we aren’t going to disrupt this city’s operation and bring them down on us,” Kalvin says.
“Keep your voice down. The wind will carry it further when there’s no ambient noise,” Karen says. “Long-term goal is to build a trading friendship with this city. The militant, the zealots or the citizens will come out on top, and a jailbreak might damage our chances.”
“They won’t know it was us.”
“We have to get out of the city, and the jail is as close to the center as it can be,” Karen says.
“Sounds like she’s sucking his cock,” Kalvin says. “The only person I’m risking anything for outside of our circle is a train driver. I don’t care how good a head job I get.”
“She provided me with information. She insisted I check it.”
“And this is worth us precipitating a jailbreak?” Karen asks. She detects Frank holding back information. He knows, or he suspects, and it will cost him Karen’s consent.
“She’s in the jail and not the federal prison?” Kalvin seeks clarification.
“They keep the men in the federal prison and all the women at the jail,” Frank says.
“What did the sister do?”
“Drug possession.”
“Are you sure?”
No Room In Hell (Book 3): Aftershocks Page 5
