He takes the shotgun and returns upstairs. Dragging the guy to the top of the stairs, he tosses him down. I’ll keep Kelsey upstairs. Bed rest will be best for her.
Mike’s foot kicks a spent shotgun shell.
“What was that?” Kelsey asks as he carries her through the room.
“Empty shells.”
“Police them up. We have reloaders.”
“Your home sounds like an apocalyptic paradise.” Mike lays her on the bed. He rolls the quilt to cover the burns on her legs. In the normal world, she would require multiple skin grafts. He wonders if her magical home and doctors have the ability to repair her. Some of her swelling has subsided and Mike makes out the outline of her face. She was a pretty girl. He draws the quilt around her shoulders. “Comfortable?”
“I don’t have pain. I can’t move much.”
“As the skin heals, I think it tightens. I read something once about burns, but I don’t remember the details. I was never one for reading much past high school.”
“You were a soldier?”
“Yes. But my war was nothing like this.”
She touches his hand. “No one has lived through anything like this. Thank you…for being kind.”
“I do what I can.”
“It shouldn’t wait, but tomorrow we need to wash your wound.”
“I keep breaking it open.” Mike touches her hair. “Sleep.”
Kelsey has no idea how long she slept. A haze hovers in the air from natural light. The table within her reach supports a glass of water covered by a paper towel. She sips it. In a sharpie scrolled on the napkin, she makes out the words “Be Back!”
More sips. She needs water, but not too fast.
Mike places a tray on the end table. From the battery-powered lantern, Kelsey spots steam from a soup bowl.
“These people had tons of camping gear. Got to warn you, it’s hot and expired.”
“I don’t care,” she says as she sits up, dragging her body under the quilt.
Mike doesn’t offer to feed her until her hands, too shaky to hold the liquid on the spoon, spill more soup than she eats. He guides her hand to her mouth.
“I’m full.”
“I couldn’t eat much either. Don’t force it. We can’t be sick,” he says. “When you’re ready, I have a surprise.”
“A tank?”
“Close.” Mike smiles.
Kelsey hobbles three steps across the yard before Mike carries her to the open barn doors. Inside, a rusting El Camino sleeps.
“It’s as close to a tank as I can get.” Mike pets the hood as if the car were a lover.
“A rusty tank.”
“Someone used it to haul big dogs.” He rattles the cage bolted to the bed surrounded by camping gear. “It’s not a glamour chariot, but it awaits my lady.”
“You don’t see dogs much,” Kelsey says.
“There were pens and a dog run out back, but the gates were all open. No corpses.”
“Small favors.”
Mike helps her into the passenger seat.
“I used the tractor battery to jump this baby. And on the dash was one of those sticky calendars with the address of a vet’s office. It’s on a rural route. I thought it might be intact if it was out in the middle of nowhere.”
“You going to be able to locate this place with no GPS?”
Mike opens the glove box. He pulls out a map from on top of the papers. The faded yellow paper tears along the creases as he opens the folds. “It’s of the county. I guess he needed it when he first started servicing the area.”
“Why?”
He takes a breath, but Mike understands the question. “Some people give up.”
“I can’t read this map without knowing where we are.”
“I’ll drive until we find a road sign.”
“You got it figured it out,” Kelsey says.
“We need antibiotics. I’m hoping they have some. If they don’t, we both face infections. Soon,” Mike says.
Mike parks the El Camino angled to escape the parking lot without turning around at the same time. It also allows Kelsey to view the door of the vet’s office.
“You going to be okay?”
“When you go in…sure. Be careful. This place appears untouched. I don’t trust it.”
“Stay on alert,” Mike says.
Kelsey drifts toward sleep before he reaches the door. She closes her heavy eyelids.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Mike says.
“It’s got a full tank of gas?” she jokes.
“I wish. I’ll have to locate more. Maybe it’s better.”
A puppy whine followed by nails scratching metal. The cage rattles as Kelsey turns her head. “Oh, my God! You found a dog.” She perks up.
“He was in an open dog run eating from an auto feeder. He was skittish. I trapped him in the pen.” Mike leans against the door.
“Dogs have disappeared. We have three at Acheron, and one so feral we never see it,” Kelsey says.
“After the spread of the plague, they were smarter than people. They know how to avoid the undead,” Mike says.
“Did you grab a leash? I don’t want him to get away.”
He holds up a leather strap. “I did, and there was this.” He hands her a Milky Way bar.
“You found candy?”
“It melted…a little. But the waiting room vending machine had some candy left. I thought we should not pig out on the sugar, but you need it, and I have bags of chips. I even brought microwave popcorn since you said your home has power.”
“Mana.” She bites off the tip, savoring the rush of sugar and the flavor of the milk chocolate followed by caramel.
Mike smiles. “Good?”
“Best. Food. Ever. I’ve never tasted something so grand.”
Mike holds up a bag. “Got plenty. Keep nibbling. None of these drugs are for an upset stomach. However, if you don’t eat with them, they’ll upset your stomach.” He unscrews the cap and spills out a handful of round white pills. “Short story, these are for cats. I’m guessing you can take six to match comparative body weight.”
She slips one pill between her lips. “If I find myself wanting to climb a tree or chase a bird, you’re in trouble.”
“I almost thought we should start with the dog one, but I wasn’t sure how I’d lick my balls.”
Kelsey laughs. “You’d fall off the couch for sure.”
Mike chuckles.
“Where would the dogs go?”
“I think they don’t like the rot smell. Dogs’ noses are sensitive, and the undead stink. This little guy was eating in the veterinarian dog pens. The place still smelt like it had been scrubbed with bleach.”
“After ten months?” Kelsey ponders if bleach would last. “But the clean smell kept him around?”
“And the food. Besides what was left in the auto feeder, there were bags of dog food stacked against the back door as a barricade. With the inner dog pen door open, he could get at it.”
“And he hadn’t eaten it all?” Kelsey asks.
“I’d lay money he was rationing it.” Mike glances at the dog as it lays down in the cage.
“That’s not possible.” She swallows another pill.
“He’s too well fed not to have found food somewhere. Let’s get him safely to your home. He’s earned a place to run and chase rabbits where he’s not in danger.”
“There would be no way to control them, prevent them from running off, but if dogs did avoid biters maybe we could find a way to use them as extra early warning on scavenging runs. Sorry, I’m babbling.”
“You sound tired, but your thought is logical.”
Kelsey shoves the unfolded map at Mike. “I need a state map. I don’t recognize any of these roads to get us to the highway I need.”
“You said north. Can’t I go north?” Mike puts the bags from the vet’s office in the back next to the camping gear, along with two fifty-pound bags of dog food.
“You�
�ll run into the Missouri River. Which is good. We must cross it, and then I don’t know what roads to take. Well, the one. Danziger was the navigator; I was the crack shot,” Kelsey boasts.
“We need gas. Got to be state maps at a filling station.” Mike climbs into the driver’s seat.
“Head out slow. We haven’t seen a biter. It makes me think you’ll round a corner and crash into a herd.”
Mike twists the ignition.
“NO WAY THEY’LL be able to feed one hundred sixty thousand people through the winter,” Kalvin says. He twists his wrist, checking the balance and weight of the tire iron.
“They have electricity. Melt snow for water as well as several rivers. They’ll survive. Anorexic, but alive,” Karen says.
“Frank makes more than us. We’ll need his coin to make up for not working, and still sticking Grace in daycare.” The pea gravel comprising the alley crunches under his boots. Instinctually, he shifts his stride to hide his approach.
“Some daycare. They sing religious songs all day. Too much of the Good Word and she’ll be indoctrinated like a child in North Korea,” Karen spits.
“Beats child labor or cooking them. I wonder if cannibalism would work?”
“What the fuck’s wrong with you!?”
“People die and turn, but could you eat the meat?” he speculates.
“You’re fucked up.”
“People will get desperate. They’ll do anything to survive,” Kalvin says.
“Don’t let anyone see us,” Karen warns.
“What are they going to do, call the cops?” Kalvin says.
“We don’t need the attention. Or find out whose system of punishment we fall under.” Now Karen hears her own voice turning mother hen.
“We aren’t breaking a rule I know of.”
“These houses seem empty. Why don’t they house everyone?”
From a garage opening into the alley, Frank steps out with a short-haired woman in a medical scrub top and ripped jeans.
“They’re keeping power usage to a minimum, and this grid is off. Think of it as a forbidden zone. Our presence here could get us jailed,” the new woman says.
“Karen, Kalvin, this is Harley,” Frank says.
Kalvin takes up point at the end of the alley. He doesn’t wait to get caught in a forbidden area.
“You work in the hospital?” Karen asks.
“Yeah. And we must get back. I’m on a short leash. I want out of this city. Frank claims you can get me and my…sister out.”
Karen catches the pause. She examines the woman’s body language. Poor girl’s bladder demands release from fear.
“You’ll have to work in our camp. You don’t work, you don’t eat.”
“We’ll work. Frank said we could shovel horse shit to earn a meal. And I’m ready. Being one of the only medically trained people left…I can’t take it anymore. And I can’t even visit my sister in the jail.”
“You’ve got walls here. And no biters inside. You’ve a monetary system and a skill keeping you fed. Why do you want to leave so bad?” Karen asks.
“You weren’t here. Not in the first days.”
“There were no undead here. Springfield was spared,” Karen says.
“It made it worse. You don’t know what they did to the doctors here.” She sucks in a breath. Her lips quiver as if she is ready to blubber over the event. Composing herself, Harley continues, “The local residents are all for helping people, but the refugees believe the virus is God’s punishment. They’re pushing for a cleansing.”
“Whatever the fuck that means.”
“It means the same fucking situation as it did in Germany in the 1930s. And they are taking over. As the disease spread, people sought to blame someone. First were the doctors. There are stories of sinners being punished. One of the nurses and his male lover came across my table, dead. And there was nothing wrong with them. I passed him in the corridors, and he wasn’t sick.”
“It’s got a bad horror movie vibe here, and you know it,” Frank says.
“They want someone to blame for the plague and the rise of the undead,” Harley says.
“They don’t seem to be stopping people if they want to leave.”
“They would stop me. If I’m not on shift on time, they’ll hunt me. And I won’t leave my sister in jail. Guess what they use the female prisoners for? None of them are used on the outside work detail.”
“Much of what we’ve seen here has a logic to it,” Karen says. “They do have a power plant and are giving sections of the city power—for certain hours of the day. They have teams tearing down useless buildings and turning the ground into gardens. I think they’re burning the wood from the houses in the power plant.”
“Wood?” Harley rolls her eyes. “You people have no understanding.”
“I think originally it was a coal burning plant. I don’t see why wood wouldn’t work. It’s not as…whatever makes coal a better choice,” Karen says.
“You’re living in a fantasy, and I’m trying to escape a nightmare. There are no fluffy bunnies here.”
“We’re no strangers to the new frontier of survival. And when no one will speak about life here, it is a major red flag, but only you seem to notice people who are disappearing.”
“Because those in control are slugs. The other group, those proclaimed as God’s worthy, work slower, so by the time they seize power, no one will know to resist,” Harley says.
“Karen, I’ve seen the bodies. The ones coming through the hospital. Many appear to be sick from bad food and other ailments. Without proper testing, they might be being poisoned.”
“You bring this up now,” Karen snaps.
“I knew some of them. They had…alternate lifestyles,” Harley says
“You didn’t know who was listening in at our little outdoor campsites. And I’m medical personnel,” Frank says.
“Several believe they’re shadowed. I want to show you this and get back. If it doesn’t convince you, then I know who will help us,” Harley says.
“We’re not saviors, but we will help you leave. Show me.”
Armed guards stand on the top of dump truck cabs. They monitor men in orange jumpsuits working in tandem to remove undead corpses from the four-lane road. They toss the rotten bodies in the back of a dump truck, where more orange clad men drag the corpses to the front.
The midmorning sun makes the rot drift on the breeze. Karen would hate this task in the middle of the afternoon.
Abandoned cars line the median as a makeshift barrier. It holds back some undead but wouldn’t stop the living. This end of the city has not been secured like the east end with high walls and guards. Chain-link holds back any undead who cross the James River Freeway and get past the line of cars.
“See, no women,” Harley says. “And many of those men aren’t original prison inmates.”
“Frank, take her back. I don’t need you under watch,” Karen says. Not if we are going to flee. Shifting her eyes from the work detail to a staggering undead, it halts as if some invisible force is holding it in place. Flailing its arms, it pushes against the force until black blood sacs in its neck explode. Its head plops like a deflated basketball on the pavement.
Near invisible strands of concertina, pulled tight at neck height, land across the road. As the undead funnel down the four-lane divided highway along the path of least resistance toward the epicenter, they lose their heads.
“They’re using the inmates chained together to clean up the undead bodies.”
“They need to earn their keep,” Karen says.
“It’s not going to be like home anywhere else. This isn’t earning their keep, this is slave labor. In an emergency, no way three men lashed together can effectively escape.”
Karen ignores him. Acheron may never be the same again if Ethan doesn’t return with the Major’s brother. He’ll encounter a shit ton of undead.
More undead shamble down the highway.
The individual biters r
efocus on Karen. “Notice they stumble but don’t join with each other to form a herd, similar to migrating birds, as we’ve witnessed before.”
“Does it matter? Harley was right about only men working,” Kalvin says.
Karen doesn’t like the answer gnawing at the pit of her stomach. She checks out each orange clad living body. The weakest appearing of the trio carries a broom handle with a metal spike to spear any heads still animated, with his chain longer to reach any approaching biters. The other two are chained with enough room to carry the bodies to the dump truck. She wonders how many hours of practice allowed them to move and work together without being bit.
“Slave labor.” Kalvin forces his hypothesis.
“Why bother with the undead outside the fence at all?” Karen wonders.
“They would build up. If not for the aftershocks, they would gather at the fence until enough of them pushed it down. Ethan has a team cleaning them on the east side of the fence to prevent that at home. Uses vagrants he wouldn’t allow inside, but feeds.”
“Springfield’s federal prison housed some of the most violent and dangerous offenders in the country. I don’t know if I’d let them out of their cells alive. Why would they cooperate?”
“Besides the shotguns,” Kalvin says.
“Fuck that. If they charge the guards, a few will be shot, but the rest will escape. At any time, they could be locked in their cells and left to die. I’d risk the shotgun. Die on my feet.”
“You think so?”
Kalvin and Karen freeze at the unknown voice.
“Citizens aren’t allowed out here.”
Turning to face the armed men, Karen places her hands on her hips, ready to pounce.
Three men in summer camo vests aim shotguns from behind a cowboy figure, complete with a brown Stetson and a forty-five in a quick draw leather holster on his hip.
Busted, Karen keeps her no-fear stance. “You don’t want them learning how you’re using the inmates?”
“The city council voted to put them to work to justify continuing to feed them. Not that I need to explain anything to lawbreakers.” His finger gyrates above his gun, impatient for anyone to draw on him.
No Room In Hell (Book 3): Aftershocks Page 9
