by David Achord
“We at Mount Weather are always looking for people of your caliber, would you agree, Captain Smithson?”
“Indeed, we are, Senator,” Justin responded.
Bob gave a slow, serious nod, like a monumental decision had been reached. “Gentlemen, I am formally extending an invitation for the two of you to join us at Mount Weather.”
The two brothers looked at each other before Liam fixed Bob with a pointed, serious stare. “I have one question, well maybe a lot of questions, but right now I’ve got one important one.”
“What’s that, Liam?” Bob asked.
“Are there any single women at Mount Weather?”
Priss spoke up. “There might be one or two.”
Chapter 8 – Coin Toss
Getting back to Mount Weather was interesting. And what I mean is, we did not see one, single, godforsaken zed. Not in the entire two hundred miles. We did, however, see some more post-apocalyptic graffiti along the sides of the overpasses and other spots of opportunity. Joker gave a running commentary.
“Oh, look, that one blames the infection on gays,” he said.
“The one we saw five miles ago blamed the Jews,” Bob said. “They can’t seem to make up their minds.”
“Why aren’t we seeing any of the stinking zeds?” Joker asked. “I mean, I know the cold messes them up, but where are they, hibernating or something? What do you think, Zach?”
“They’re hibernating or they’ve migrated south for the winter, but that’s only speculation,” I said.
“You know, it’s almost like they’re human again,” Flash remarked.
Bob looked at him questioningly. “How so, Flash?”
“They can run again. That one zed that jumped on Conway, there’s only one way he got on top of that stack of pallets; he had to climb up there. And, the fact that he climbed up there meant he thought it out, he didn’t just mindlessly start climbing.”
“Those were freshly infected,” I said. “They haven’t yet experienced any advanced decomposition. But, I like your powers of observation. What else have you noticed?”
Flash looked at me, trying to decide if I was messing with him.
“I’m serious, keep going.”
“Alright. If they’re hibernating, how do they know how to do that? I remember enough of high school biology to know that ain’t a natural human trait. It’s not, um…”
“It’s not innate behavior,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s not innate behavior, and all behavior is either innate or learned, right?”
“That’s true,” I agreed.
“What if they simply migrated south for the winter?” Joker asked.
“That’s a learned behavior too, am I right?” Flash asked.
I nodded in agreement. “The old ones are thinking again. They’ve proven that several times now.” I thought a moment. “Alright, let me throw this at you and see what you think.”
“Oh, this ought to be good,” Justin said. He glanced at Flash. “He does this all the time. Get used to it.”
I ignored him. “Back before, they experimented with teaching apes sign language. Some of them became fairly proficient and built up a decent-sized vocabulary, but even though they could communicate, they never asked questions. Some of the scientists who were in the study groups hypothesized this is what separated them from the human species, because they simply could not think at a level to ask questions.”
“So, what’s your question?” Justin asked.
“If, somehow, they were able to start communicating again…wait, let me rephrase that. They are able to communicate with each other again, that’s a given, but what if they were able to communicate with normal humans again, would they ask questions?”
Justin looked over at me. “What kind of question is that?”
I shrugged. “It’s one of those questions that entice a thoughtful, philosophical debate.”
The men got a chuckle out of my response, and we idly chatted about it for the next hour before switching to another subject.
“Aren’t there any people who live around here?” Flash asked.
I hooked a thumb to my right. “Over that way is a community called Saltlick Township. There’s ten to fifteen people living there. We made contact with them last year. They weren’t very receptive of us, so we let them be.” I then gestured around. “There’s a national forest around here. If you stare out of the hatch, you can probably see some trails of smoke, but we haven’t made any contact. Those people live deep in the woods; they don’t want anything to do with other people.”
“They’ve become isolationists,” Bob said. “It’s a good way to avoid hostile humans, but it will ultimately be their undoing.”
“How so?” Flash asked.
“Simple,” Bob said. “Procreation. Eventually, they’ll start inbreeding. It’s happened before with people who find themselves isolated from others, like the Appalachian people.” He chuckled. “Lots of banjo playing and inbreeding.”
We laughed some more, and Flash changed topics again. He was full of questions.
“What’s up with that Priss girl?” he asked.
Joker and Bob laughed. “You should ask Zach,” Joker said. “He knows her better than most of us.”
Flash looked over at me. “Have you and her hooked up?” he asked. This elicited more laughter. Even from Justin, who had been rather serious most of the mission.
“No, nothing like that,” I said.
Flash listened in fascination as I told him the story of how I met Priscila Rhinehart.
“And you whipped their asses with a switch?” he asked incredulously. I nodded. “Holy shit, I wish I saw that.”
“Zach and I bumped into her in the weight room a couple of days after that,” Justin said. “I swear to God, I think the ass whipping Zach gave her actually turned her on. She practically begged him for an encore.”
They all laughed again, at my expense.
“Believe it or not, we’ve become friends, and no, we haven’t slept together,” I said. “Why do you ask? Do you have your eye on her?”
“Dude, it’s been two years since I’ve been laid. I’ve had my eye on every single woman in the place.”
“Well, all I can say with her is think long and hard on it before messing with her. She’s…different,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter, it looks like she’s got her eye on one of those O’Malley brothers,” he said.
“Yeah, I wonder which one,” I said.
“Probably both of them,” Justin said. Joker howled in laughter.
When we arrived at Weather, we toiled through the decontamination process, parked the vehicles, and turned in our weapons. Everyone had learned to take turns cleaning their weapons on the ride back, otherwise they’d be stuck for another hour before being excused.
I noticed Priss had been paying extra attention to the O’Malley brothers and volunteered to stay with them while they had their blood drawn. I caught Joker looking at me and rolled his eyes. I grinned.
By the time we made it to the cafeteria, dinner was winding down, but a lot of people lingered. They wanted to hear all about Pittsburgh. When I sat down at our table, the questions quickly started. I filled them in while I ate.
Later, after we’d gotten the kids to bed, Kelly and I shared some much-needed intimacy. I had to be gentle because of her pregnancy, but I didn’t mind. After, we snuggled together.
“I think I want you to stay home for the rest of the winter,” she said. “I want you close while I’m pregnant. It would mean a lot to me.”
I looked at her in the dark. She knew I liked to get out and go traveling. She was content to live within the confines of Mount Weather, only occasionally going out to visit people who lived nearby.
“Yeah, sure, okay,” I said.
She turned to me in the dark. “Are you sure?”
“It’ll cost you lots of sex though,” I said, reached over, and began caressing her breasts. She let out a light moan, whic
h was all I needed for round two.
The next morning at breakfast, I couldn’t help but notice Liam and Priss were sitting extra close.
“I wonder how it was decided which brother she ended up with,” Kelly mused.
“Hell, they probably flipped a coin,” I said.
“Yeah, but which brother lost?” Rachel questioned.
The entire table erupted in laughter. Even Fred smiled a little.
Chapter 9 - Horse Ride
Sammy and Fred met up with Zoe and me promptly at six. They were dressed alike; jeans, flannel shirts, duster jackets, and boots. I must admit, I was dressed pretty much the same, but instead of a Resistol hat, I had on an Army jacket and a wool-knit watch cap.
“Good morning,” I greeted.
The two of them responded with a micro nod. I smiled at Sammy’s mimicking of Fred and gestured at my backpack. It was a smaller one, much like school students would use. I had another, larger rucksack, but it was too big to be carrying on horseback for nothing more than a morning ride.
“I’ve got my breakfast and hot tea. What about you two?” I asked.
Sammy and Fred had saddlebags draped across their left shoulders. Fred handed his to Sammy, who took off toward the kitchen.
“It’s thirty degrees out. Are you sure you don’t want to take a Humvee?”
Fred gave me one of his looks. “It wouldn’t be a morning horse ride without horses.”
I stifled a groan and instead gave him a nod. Fred had a notion that a great way to start off my birthday would be to go on an early morning horseback ride. He decided to rationalize his logic.
“The cool air will be invigorating,” he said. “By the way, happy birthday.”
I grunted. “Thanks.” When Sammy came back, I pointed at the door. “Let’s get going then.”
“How old are you now, Zach?” Sammy asked as we saddled up.
“Twenty-five,” I answered. “Nine years older than you and a hundred and thirty years younger than Fred.”
Sammy laughed. Fred gave me a sour look.
“Are you two coming to the party?” I asked as we rode out of the main gate.
“Yep,” Sammy said.
Fred gave a grunt, which I interpreted as meaning yes.
Kelly and her group of friends were the social butterflies of Mount Weather. They looked for any reason they could to create a social event. My idea of a nice birthday was to play with my kids, get them good and worn out so they’d go to bed early, and then play around with my wife. But, Kelly had other ideas.
Everyone was always invited, which meant if a party was being thrown, you could expect most of the one hundred and some odd people who lived at Mount Weather to attend. Fred was the exception. He rarely attended any function, so, I happened to know Kelly made a point of inviting him and told him he better not miss it, or else.
She was one of the few people who could talk to him that way. Ever since I’d known him, Fred had been a rather stoic man. After Sarah was murdered, and then his buddy Burt Cartwright died of a heart attack, he’d become even more withdrawn. Although he did not show it, I knew the two deaths had hit him hard.
So, Fred kept mostly to himself these days. After repeatedly ignoring work assignments, I convinced everyone to let him be. He cared for the horses and helped with the livestock, but sometimes he’d saddle up and ride off, not returning for days at a time. He confided to me once he felt out of place at Mount Weather and if not for us, he’d ride out into the sunset one day and not come back.
He was good to us though and the kids adored him. Sammy especially. Fred had decided to help me out, took young Sam under his wing, and was patiently teaching him everything about being a man that they did not teach in the Mount Weather school.
After a quarter-mile, I broke the silence. “Any particular destination?”
“We need to pay Harold and Maude a visit,” Fred said. “And then I’d thought we’d do a wide, lazy circle around Weather. See what we see.”
He was referring to our resident pig farmers. Harold, or Hog-Head Harold as we fondly called him, was a big friendly guy who had a house built on stilts in the middle of a pig sty. He was mostly a solitary soul, but one day he came to Weather with a woman nobody had ever seen before. When asked, he said she showed up one day and he had no idea where she’d come from. She was a homely woman of about forty or fifty, and only spoke in gibberish. Harold called her Maude, after the movie, Harold and Maude. We reached the gate off of Morgan’s Mill Road ten minutes later.
They must have seen us coming and met us at the gate. Both smiled and waved, but Harold was always the one who did the talking.
“Howdy, boys,” Harold greeted. “Y’all want to come in and warm up?” He pointed back at his house. “You can take a look at my new stove. I rigged it up so it can burn pig shit. It smells a little, but it keeps the house warm.”
“Appreciate the offer,” I said. “But, we’re only staying a few minutes.”
Harold gazed past me. “You get used to the smell, son,” he said.
I looked back to see that Sammy had pulled out a bandanna and was holding it over his face. I couldn’t help but laugh. When the outbreak occurred, Harold had reconfigured his pigpen so that it surrounded his house. It was great protection; zombies didn’t stand a chance against pigs. But, as one might imagine, it stunk to high heaven.
“How’ve you been, Harold?” Fred asked.
“Oh, can’t complain. If I do, Maude starts spoutin’ off and damned if I know what she’s sayin’.”
Maude grinned and giggled. That was about the most intelligent thing I’d ever heard out of her.
“Do you two need anything?” I asked.
“Well, I’d surely appreciate it if you would do something about my deliveries. They’ve been late almost every day for the past week, and my pigs sure do get cantankerous when they don’t get fed on time. I feed ‘em on a schedule, you know?”
He was referring to the barrels of food waste from Weather, which we brought to him. It was an efficient disposal method, and it supplemented the feed corn we kept him supplied with. We had some good people at Weather, but we also had some lazy ones. When it was cold outside, a work crew with lazy people would conveniently forget to make the delivery and leave it for the next crew. The result was, Harold’s pigs didn’t get their slop in a timely manner, which upset both the pigs and Harold. Maude never had much to say about it, but I assumed it upset her as well.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said. I didn’t want to chew anyone’s ass out on my birthday, but this was going to be my first order of business when we got back.
“Oh, and that man who makes moonshine, tell him we’re out. We’re getting low on weed too. Momma needs her nightly smoke,” he said. Maude giggled again.
“You got it,” I said. “Alright, give us a report. Have you seen any strangers or zeds?”
“Nah,” he said as he scratched his beard. He pulled something out and looked at it thoughtfully before rubbing his fingers together.
“The traps got a couple of coydogs the day before last. I fed ‘em to the hogs, but there’s a few more wandering around. I heard at least one of them barking last night.” He scratched again and then rubbed the top of his big bald head. “If you can spare a few more traps, I’ll set ‘em out.”
“You got it,” I said.
“Oh, when the weather gets warm, would you fellas help me build a new smokehouse?” He pointed at the existing smokehouse. “That one’s seen better days.”
“Absolutely,” Fred said. “It’ll be a good project for some of these boys we got, right, Sammy?”
“Yes, sir,” Sammy replied.
We talked a few more minutes before bidding them goodbye and heading back to Weather.
“Man, that farm stinks,” Sammy said once we’d gotten out of earshot.
“Don’t disrespect that man,” Fred admonished. “He was out here by himself while those Mount Weather people were tucked away down in that bunk
er. When they finally decided to come out and take a peek, Harold was there. When he heard they’d been living off of freeze dried food, he came riding up one day with over three hundred pounds of butchered pork in the back of his truck.”
“And he’s been supplying us with pork ever since,” I added. “Harold deserves our respect, no matter what he smells like.”
“Yes, sir,” Sammy said, duly chastened.
We rode quietly the rest of the way back. That’s the way Fred liked it. No unnecessary chatter, he’d say. You can’t hear if you’re not listening.
“I haven’t seen any zed tracks,” I mentioned.
Fred said nothing, which I assumed meant he agreed. The zeds often wandered out from the big cities, presumably to hunt for food. That was a guess, of course. I don’t think anybody was an expert on how they thought.
Even so, they’d become fairly proficient hunters, and when they could not find humans, they would kill wildlife. Rodents, cats, dogs, coyotes, even cows sometimes, but they seemed to take great enjoyment in killing humans, and in spite of our caution, they’d killed more than a few of us over the years. So, we had to be constantly on guard.
I thought about them as we rode. In some respects, they were downright amazing and as clever as any normal human, but the infection did something to their brains. Now, they were nothing more than evil sonsofbitches and I killed as many as I could.
Speaking of coyotes, those rascals were irksome. And black bears. The population of both species had been steadily increasing over the years. We had donkeys to protect the cows, but sometimes they’d still get one or two.
I brought along a computer tablet as well. The reason? We had game trail cameras surreptitiously placed at various locations around Mount Weather, so instead of going on an aimless ride, I suggested we check on them. Fred did not answer, but he led the way and a couple of minutes later, we stopped at an old oak tree near the intersection of Morgan’s Mill and Horseshoe Lane.
Over the years, our scavenging efforts had yielded a collection of game trail cameras and we put them to use. They were of various brands and levels of complexity, but most of them were battery operated, which, fortunately, we had thousands of the rechargeable kind, thanks to Parvis and a lavish government budget for such things back when all of this was nothing more than a worst-case scenario game.
