“Start the car,” she ordered without realizing her lack of manners. She was going down what she knew of the combustion engine and the likely causes for both poor fuel economy and rising engine temperature. The belts all turned in circles and the dual fans positioned just behind the radiator spun properly. Nervously, she searched for the housing for the air filter, hoping that it was clogged, because if it wasn’t then the problem was likely beyond her.
A bum thermostat or a bad coolant pump couldn’t be replaced in the wilderness. The air filter looked almost brand new. “For all darn it,” she whispered. She then leaned over the engine, her lips pursed, her eyes slipping over the components noting each, hoping to see a leak of one fluid or another, or something that would help.
“Hey,” Sadie called from the driver’s seat. “The temp is dropping.”
“That’s probably just because…ohhh. Okay, now I get it. It’s the armor. You’ve covered the grill, thus reducing airflow to the engine. Okay, good.” It was good that she knew the problem, however the solution wasn’t jumping out at her. Because of the many gifts and the small size of the Camry, they had left the welding equipment back in Colton where Anita was probably eyeing it even then.
“That’s a thing?” Sadie asked, taking a second look at the ugly job. “Sorry, I, uh, I didn’t know. So, what do we do?”
Jillybean’s lips pursed. Knowing the problem didn’t mean she knew the solution, at least right off the bat. She ran a finger over the weld. It was a sloppy job; there were bubbles in it everywhere. “The good news is you didn’t have access to an arc welder.”
“Okay, that is good news, I guess, since I don’t know what that means…and I don’t want to know right now. I want to know how to fix it.”
“I’m working on it,” she said and then walked around the vehicle, waiting for inspiration to strike her, unfortunately, inspiration missed her by a mile. She blew out in exasperation. “One way would be to find a boulder jutting up out of the ground, you know one them big ones that we’re always trying not to hit?”
“And you want us to hit it? Won’t that just dent it?”
“That’s kinda the drawback. If the welds don’t break we might just cause more problems.” Sadie lifted her hands saying what the hell? with the gesture. “I know. It’s just one idea. The other worser idea is we get a smaller rock, one we can hold, and bang it against the welds. It’ll be loud and it’ll take a long time. Someone will probably hear.”
Sadie’s forehead wrinkled as she stared hard at Jillybean. “A rock? That’s all you got?”
Jillybean shrugged. “I don’t have any of my good tools. I don’t have a chain or nothing. All I have is…hey, the mining place! I saw what looks like a mine down in that valley.”
“A mine?” Sadie clapped her hands and pointed to the Camry. “Get in. Wouldn’t it be great if they had a jackhammer?” Jillybean thought a jackhammer would be a waste of time. She had seen them being worked back in the Before and knew that neither she nor Sadie possessed the upper body strength required to use one.
Both of them assumed that the mine would have been picked over by local rovers, but when they found the dirt trail that led down to it, there was still a chain across it and a rusting sign that read DANGER! The chain was a good size and Jillybean took it.
They then went down to the manmade clearing which wasn’t much larger than a football field. At one end was where all the equipment sat aging in the morning sun. There was a front-end loader, a semi-truck sitting in two parts, and a large machine with chimney stacks, and two conveyor belts, one leading to it, and one leading away to a smaller machine that sat filled with grey rocks that glittered in the sun.
There was also a mobile home and two metal fuel tanks on wheels. The tanks were bigger than the Camry and if they were full, would represent a sizable find. Sadie, leaning forward so that she was inches from the cutout, drove along the tracks that the bigger machines had laid down. She went to the trailer, what probably was the onsite office, and killed the engine.
When they got out, they each carried a weapon. Jillybean raised an eyebrow at the shotgun and Sadie shrugged. “There could be bears.”
Jillybean hadn’t thought about that. “If there is, don’t shoot them. I like bears. They’re very cute.”
“Not the ones out here. Grizzlies aren’t cute, believe me. Let’s check out the office, first.” The mobile home was locked and the door surprisingly sturdy. “Must be some good stuff in there,” Sadie said. They had to break in through a window with Sadie hoisting Jillybean inside, where it was so dim that she had to pull out her maglite. There wasn’t much to see at least in the quick scan she gave the place—cheap desk, cold computer, twin filing cabinets and a fake plant—it was an office. She moved on down a narrow hall. The next door was a bathroom that still smelled faintly of man pee. The next room was another office. Beyond that was an open area, perhaps a place where the miners took breaks.
Then there was a kitchen and after that, two locked rooms. Jillybean was getting a case of the creeps being in there all alone and so she opened the front door for Sadie before exploring further. Once again, the locked rooms had doors that were much heavier than expected. Luckily the keys to both were in the first office.
For the most part, there was little inside the first room to get them excited. Extremely heavy tools, some electrical devices that did who knew what, a lock box with seven hundred dollars and a shotgun.
“You see? I’m willing to bet there are bears around here,” Sadie said, unloading it and pocketing the shells.
“I hope we see one before we leave,” Jillybean replied, nosing through the tools. Among the industrial strength bores and picks and drills of great size was a heavy, short-handled sledge hammer and a sturdy metal spike. These she took, sliding the spike into her belt loop and grunting as she heaved up the sledgehammer and settled it on her shoulder.
She felt like a lumberjack and a little tougher than usual, which, in truth, wasn’t very tough at all. Sadie gave her a look as they headed to the next locked room. “It’s in case there’s a bear in there,” Jillybean explained. “Not a real big one and not a baby, neither. But, you know a teen bear with an attitude and a hunger for kids. I’d bop him with this.”
“Alright, that’s our plan,” Sadie said, tipping her a wink. When she unlocked the door, Jillybean immediately forgot about “bopping” bears on the head. The smell in the room was sharp and very familiar. It brought her back to the time Grey and her had gone scrounging at Fort Campbell.
“You weren’t there,” Jillybean said, her eyes losing focus. “You were with your dad. It was just me and Miss Deanna and Captain Grey. I didn’t know what we were looking for, but he knew.” She blinked and her eyes focused like a laser on something that was also familiar. A green box. “Blasting caps,” she whispered, a smirk on her face.
She opened the box just to make sure it was real. She then went to the next, it read Dynamite-Danger. She was smiling as she opened it.
“Jillybean,” Sadie said with a warning in her voice. “That’s not something to play with and…and why are you smiling? You, of all people know this is dangerous stuff.”
“It’s not dangerous just sitting here. That dynamite is new. It’s the old stuff you got to worry about. And I should be smiling. We’ve been, vulnitrable ever since we lost Sergeant Woods and Hank. Now we can fight back if we want to.”
“I’m just worried about Eve. You know how these things bring her out and if she got a hold of dynamite, you know she’ll use it at the first chance she could.”
Jillybean could understand that fear better than anyone. “But she isn’t here. I haven’t heard a peep from her in days. It’s the pills, they’re like magic pills. Hey, what’s this stuff? ANFO? Highly dangerous, do not mix prior to use.” This was written on the outside of a separate box. What lay inside was the least dangerous looking stuff Jillybean had ever seen: bags of pink pellets. “I wonder what this stuff is? Hmmm, tertiary explosive.�
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“Let’s not touch any of this stuff,” Sadie said. “It could be poisonous if you touch it or breathe it in.”
“There’d be masks around if that was true and they’d have the poison symbol on the bags. Besides I’m not gonna eat this stuff. Tertiary, hmmm. The blasting caps are a primary explosive and the dynamite is a secondary, does it take a secondary explosion to set off this pink stuff? And what do you mix with it? Ah, probably this silvery stuff.”
She had opened a canister marked Al, Powdered. It had no smell whatsoever which shouldn’t have been a surprise. “It’s aluminum. I never seen it like this before.”
Sadie tapped her on the shoulder. “Look, I know you think this stuff is real cool and all, but I’m tired and we still have to get that front hunk of armor off the car. Let’s put this stuff away for now.”
“But they have remote controlled detonators,” Jillybean whined. She was tired from the long night’s drive and wasn’t in the mood for chores. They closed up the containers and relocked the door before finishing their exploration of the mining facility. There was a lot to see and soon the explosives were shoved to the back of Jillybean’s mind.
The fuel trucks were three-quarters full of diesel and unleaded gas, which was fantastic. In the cupboards of the little kitchen were over twenty cans of assorted soups and chillies. As well there was coffee, sugar, thirteen bottles of water and seventeen sodas. In the trailer of the semi-truck were more tools, most of which were for mining; there were also protective coveralls, helmets and heavy gloves, as well as a generator and, much to Jillybean’s delight, an arc welder.
It was a great find, but with the Camry’s limited space, most of it would have to be left behind, once slits were cut in the armor in front of the radiator, that is. Jillybean insisted on taking the dynamite, the blasting caps, the ANFO, and the aluminum. She also found three old text books, each stamped Colorado School of Mines and each dedicated to the science behind blowing things up.
Jillybean’s eyes were greedy for the books.
Chapter 19
Sadie Martin
They met the “dog man” the following morning just as the sun made its second appearance since they had left the town of Colton. They came down out of the mountain wilderness almost directly between the cities of Spokane and Moscow. The land here was craggy and twisted and dry, and yet for the next eighty miles, they passed nothing but old farms.
A few times, Sadie got out to inspect what was growing, hoping to come across something good, like strawberries or cherries. She was out of luck. They were either not in season or grew in another state. She did manage to get three bushels of potatoes, picking them by hand without Jillybean’s help. After picking up one she made a face, handed it to Sadie and then went back to the Camry to continue her reading.
“That girl is just crazy for bombs,” Sadie whispered and then bent back down for another potato. There were so many of them, growing wild, that even though it was dark and everything was a uniform shade of grey-black, Sadie picked so many that for the rest of the night if they had to open a door for whatever reason, a potato would roll out.
“You turn up your nose now, but wait until I make us some French fries,” Sadie said. Just saying it brought out a mad craving in her.
The potato fields eventually ran out, turning to wheat and hay. Sadie spent four hours staring at the same scenery through the little hole in the front armor. Even though she had slept like a rock on one of the couches in the trailer, she couldn’t stop yawning during this stretch. Luckily the tortured land eventually gave way to a much more pleasant view as they swung slightly to the northwest. Here they drove beneath lanes of apple and pear trees. Neither was in season, but the land smelled wonderful.
Towards sunrise, Sadie began weaving with exhaustion and Jillybean finally put the textbook aside. “What a cool book,” she said. “Hey, where are we?”
Sadie cast a glare at her sister and pointed at the looming peaks that looked like the teeth of a saw cutting up the dark sky. “That’s the eastern edge of the Cascades. We’ll be in Seattle by tomorrow, no thanks to you.”
“I was busy and…and you don’t like it when I drive, anyhow. You say it makes you car sick. And besides, I got the formulas for making some cool bombs, including how to create an implosion! That’s not the same as an explosion in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t,” Sadie answered. “I was more worried about falling asleep at the wheel and killing us both.”
Her sharp tone came as a surprise. “Oh, sorry,” Jillybean said. “We have coffee. I don’t know how to make it, but it can’t be all that hard. It’s just hot water and the brown stuff. You want to make some for you? Oh, wait, I don’t have a coffee maker. My dad had a red one that had a clock on it and it could make the coffee for you at just the right time. That’s pretty smart for a coffee machine. Look, a sign. Does that say Wenatchee? Oh, they have a Walmart. We can get one there.”
“A Walmart? I don’t know.” Sadie was suddenly shy about the idea of venturing into a town large enough to have a Walmart. They had been in the wilderness for so long that any sign of civilization made her nervous. She kept picturing the bodies hanging on the street lights as they entered Butte, Montana.
“I’m gonna need some stuff for my bombs,” Jillybean went on, still with her face pressed to the cutout in front of the passenger’s seat. She didn’t notice her sister’s sudden anxiety. “And I need a couple more drones and the cameras for ‘em, too.” She went on, making a rather lengthy list, not figuring in where they were going to put everything.
Sadie was barely hearing any of this. She stopped the car and reached for the map. Wenatchee lay dead along their path and there was really no avoiding it if they wanted to use the smallest of the passes across the Cascades which was a very tall mountain range. Even with the dark she could see the peaks, some of which were still snow-capped. Thankfully the cascades were amazingly narrow, not more than fifteen miles across at some points.
They just had to get through Wenatchee. Sadie did her best to skirt the town, much like they did in the Bitterroot Valley, crossing the Columbia River miles before they got to the town and hugging the foothills to the fullest extent that the overloaded Camry would allow.
For the first time in days, they came across zombies in significant numbers. There were tens of thousands of them and for some reason their presence reassured Sadie. It was a given: humans and zombies didn’t mix. Jillybean saw them and smacked her forehead. “I’ll also need a few Bumble Balls.”
“Where do you think you’re going to put all this stuff?” Sadie asked. The little girl looked into the back seat and frowned. It didn’t last and before she could spout her next idea, Sadie groaned. She always had an idea.
“Easy as pies. I can build a roof rack thingy in a jiffy or, look at that! Wait, stop.” Jillybean realized that with the little cutouts Sadie couldn’t see anything on her side. “That was a dog! Sadie, that was a dog.” Not much would have caused Sadie to stop the Camry with so many zombies around, but seeing a dog was on par with seeing a baby bear. She slammed on the brakes and then leaned across Jillybean’s lap to get a look at this supposed dog.
The sun was just climbing over the horizon and the world was set in a yellowish tinge as though she were looking at a picture from an old newspaper. All around them zombies stopped whatever mindless things they were doing to stare at the windowless car. Beyond them were little suburban houses and in the shadow of one was something brown.
It disappeared around the house in mid-blink. “That was a wolf!” Sadie exclaimed.
“Dog,” Jillybean insisted.
“It was a wolf. I know a wolf when I see one and I just saw one, and besides, all the dogs are dead. But what is it doing around so many zombies. From the stories I hear, wolves steer clear of them.”
“That’s why it was a dog. It was a really, really big dog and it was probably looking for its owner. Oh, the poor thing. Out here all alone with no one to
keep him company but the monsters. You know what we should do?”
Sadie sat back, holding up a finger. “What we should not do is go look for it and what we should do is get under cover. Uh-uh, no back-talking. Let’s say it is a dog, how are we going to feed it? Where’s it going to sit? On your lap? I don’t think so. It was too big. And what if it has rabies or something? Besides, there’s no way we could catch it. Wolves and dogs are too fast.”
Jillybean’s eyes assumed that far off expression, the one that usually meant she was concocting a plan. Sadie stopped her cold. “No. Don’t even think about it. We are either on a serious mission, or not. If we are, then the dog will have to make it on its own.” Jillybean attempted a single “but,” only Sadie stood firm.
There were a hundred reasons to let the dog go, not the least of which were the zombies crowding the car. They weren’t attacking it, because, why should they? To them it was a rolling hunk of mismatched metal. Still, some part of them was curious and Sadie was forced to run a few over. It wasn’t easy or pleasant.
The Camry had all of a foot of clearance. They rumbled over one beast and that was okay, but when three went down in front, things got dicey and disgusting as the wheels tore-up the creatures. Sadie was very glad for their limited vision; blood was shooting out from beneath the vehicle.
Jillybean reached for her mining textbook but when the car lurched, she thought better of it. Her face had gone pale and it seemed she had forgotten about the dog. Sadie had as well. A few zombies beneath the Camry became fifteen, luckily not all at once.
Their trip to the Wenatchee Walmart became an obstacle course and not just because of the zombies. The town had been the scene of some terrible fighting back in the early days of the apocalypse. There were discarded Humvees and trucks and even a Stryker that had somehow been turned on its side. And there were bones that crackled like dry twigs snapping beneath their wheels and helmets with skulls still in them. There were also guns, however they were all magazine-less and empty.
The Apocalypse Sacrifice: The Undead World (The Undead World Series Book 10) Page 20
