Roads Less Traveled | Book 5 | End of the Road

by Dulaney, C.

  Jonah scooted to the edge of the chair. Without taking his eyes off them, he reached down, unzipped his bag, and pulled out a set of binoculars.

  Through the lens he could make out the facial features of the two that were standing. He had to keep tracking back and forth, because they were that unsteady on their feet. Their eyes were blank and mouths slack. One looked like it was hunched just slightly. Jonah lowered the binoculars. His breathing quickened.

  The rest were getting up.

  A few more fell over when they tried to move. It took several attempts, but eventually the entire group was on its feet and walking.

  Jonah stood up. “Well, that’s fuckin’ disturbing.”

  The terminators moved like deadheads.

  “Kasey,” he hissed.

  It didn’t take much to open her eyes. “What is it?” Kasey rolled to her knees and pushed herself up.

  Jonah motioned her over. “Take a look at this.”

  Kasey rubbed her eyes and started toward the window, stumbling once over the corner of Michael’s couch cushion. The jounce woke him up.

  “What’s wrong?” he mumbled.

  Kasey was at the window now, standing beside Jonah. “What am I looking at? It’s dark as hell.”

  Jonah pointed down the street, about thirty yards away. “There. Can you see movement?”

  Kasey squinted. “Just barely.” She glanced over in front of the post office. “Doesn’t look like… oh, shit.”

  “Yeah,” Jonah confirmed.

  “When did that happen?”

  “Couple minutes ago.”

  Michael got to his feet and joined them. “What happened a couple minutes ago?”

  Kasey pointed down the street. “They’re on the move.” She went back to her cushion, fished a flashlight from her backpack, and made for the door. Before either of the men could voice a protest, she was outside and striding down the sidewalk.

  “Shit,” Michael said. He grabbed his weapon and followed her. Jonah frowned, but wasn’t too far behind.

  Kasey turned on her flashlight and followed the group from about fifty feet back. It was a test of patience to stay that far behind; the terminators were painfully slow. She played her flashlight across their backs. None of them reacted. She watched their legs move. Sluggish, uncoordinated. She moved the beam of light from one, to the next, to the next, and each body was the same. Shoulders hunched, upper bodies weaving as they walked, arms limp, feet shuffling.

  They were shambling.

  “What the fuck is this,” she whispered. “Oh, what the fuck is this?”

  Jonah and Michael caught up to her. Both heard her question but neither answered. A very small sliver of light began to brighten the eastern hills. It would be daylight soon, and maybe then they’d make sense of what they could barely see.

  Several minutes later, they left the edge of town and approached the point where the road broke through the woods. It was light enough to see without the flashlight. Kasey tucked it into her back pocket and glanced over her shoulder at Michael. His forehead creased and his eyes were a little bigger than usual. Kasey had come to recognize this as his worry face. He wore it the majority of the time.

  The terminators were quiet except for the sound their feet made scuffing along the pavement. They weren’t even breathing heavily. Kasey drew her sidearm, and with her other hand, motioned for Michael and Jonah to stay back. After they nodded their understanding, she crept faster toward the back of the group. She stopped and matched their pace once she was close enough to smell them. They smelled like a gut pile. Her eyes watered a bit and she scrunched her nose. Trudging along, she leaned to the side, trying to get a better look at the terminator directly in front of her.

  Its skin had some color to it. A deadhead’s skin was papery and discolored, almost pasty-sick. This one’s eyes were clear, albeit blank. Its dead brothers had eyes that were usually spidered with brown or black. She couldn’t make sense of it. Their smell and walk looked for the world like zombies. But a glance at one of the wounds on the thing’s arm told her it wasn’t dead. Its blood was still red, not black goop.

  She turned and shrugged at the men. Half a step later, she caught the back of the terminator’s foot. It tripped, she tripped, and they both stumbled into the things nearest them. The entire group stopped and turned back. Kasey scrambled to get away, tripping and arms pin-wheeling. Jonah caught her before she fell again. The three of them watched as the terminators snarled. They hunched over a little more and spread their feet.

  “I think you pissed ‘em off,” Jonah said.

  “Yeah, no shit.” Kasey raised her gun and aimed at the closest terminator. Immediately she thought back to the first time they’d run across the killers. She and her group had been ambushed by deadheads, and a gang of these terminators had entered the fray at the last minute. The zombies were ripped to pieces without hesitation and within seconds.

  “What do we do?” Michael asked. The three took slow steps backwards.

  The terminators advanced. They didn’t run, didn’t move like Kasey had seen them attack before, but their shambling was definitely faster paced. They growled, clawed the air with their hands, and chomped their teeth together.

  “They’re acting like runners,” she said.

  “But they’re still alive,” Michael countered.

  “I don’t think they’re alive enough to matter.”

  Jonah laid a hand on Kasey’s gun arm. “Don’t.”

  She jerked away. “We don’t have a choice!” Kasey took aim and fired.

  The first one dropped. The others didn’t react; they just kept coming. She lined up another and squeezed the trigger. The three had put enough distance between them and the group that rifles would be effective, so Michael raised his and opened fire. Jonah kept his barrel pointed toward the ground. Half a minute later, the terminators were down.

  Kasey released the empty magazine, pulled another from her pocket, and reloaded. She and Michael scanned the area, watching for any trouble the noise might bring out of the trees. Jonah shoved between them and kneeled next to a body. He searched it, looked for bites or scratches. He pulled the lips open and looked at its gums, pulled the lower eyelid down and looked at the tender skin inside.

  “We need to get going,” Kasey said. “We don’t know if there are any more of those things around here. If there are, and they heard the shots, they’ll come running.”

  Michael said, “Yeah, if they’re acting like these damn things, they will.”

  “You don’t know that.” Jonah stood and slung his rifle. “These people weren’t dead, Kasey. They weren’t runners.”

  Kasey holstered her pistol. “They were going to attack. That’s not normal. Does it really matter if they were dead or not?”

  Jonah didn’t answer, just shook his head and started walking back up the road.

  Kasey stared at him, then looked back at the bodies.

  “C’mon,” Michael said. “Let’s get home.”

  ✽✽✽

  The sun had been up about an hour, and Caleb was out back firing up the charcoal grill. Jake had bagged a deer the day before on their perimeter check, and the two men had sliced most of it up for jerky. The rest Mia had cut into chunks and canned, sealing the cooked meat in jars to be stored in the cellar underneath the shed.

  Booted feet thumped up the front porch steps, and Caleb heard the door slam shut. He cocked his head and listened, but only picked up faint rustling noises coming from inside the cabin. He poked the charcoal with a stick and nodded. The fire was burning down; almost time to put on the meat. He wiped his hands on his pants and walked around the corner of the house in time to see Jake burst out the door of his cabin. He waited by the porch for the younger man.

  “What’s going on?”

  Jake shook his head. “Don’t know. Jonah said Michael was gonna need me to run a message.”

  Caleb nodded, his eyes on Kasey’s cabin. “Alright. Get on, then.”

  Jake
huffed a breath and ran inside. Caleb stared at the cabin on the other side of the central yard for a bit. He frowned and started across to Kasey’s.

  ✽✽✽

  Inside his cabin, Michael bent over his desk and scribbled out a letter. His head snapped around when Jake came tearing ass into the living room.

  “What’s wrong?” the younger man asked.

  “I need you to take this to Gibson.” Michael folded the letter and stuffed it into an envelope. “After you’ve done that, you need to ride to the Guard station in Bentree. I know it’s far, but you have to do it. Give this to the CO.” Michael folded another letter and stuck it into a blue envelope. He wrote Bentree on the front and placed it underneath the other.

  Jake stared at the envelopes in Michael’s hand, then looked up. He’d never ridden that far with messages before. “Seriously, dude. What the hell is goin’ on?”

  Michael shook his head. “No time. Just go. Now. And get right back here as soon as you can.”

  The corners of Jake’s eyes pulled tight, but he took the envelopes, nodded, and ran back to his cabin for his gear.

  ✽✽✽

  Mia planted herself between Kasey and Caleb, doing her best to defuse an argument that had gotten out of control about thirty seconds after Caleb had stepped foot through the door. She wasn’t even entirely sure what had caused it; the most she’d gotten out of the conversation so far had been “What the hell happened” and “Why do you always assume I popped a cap in someone’s ass.”

  With a hand on his chest, Mia pushed back against Caleb and said, “Stop this.” She glanced at Kasey, then back to the older man. “You two can’t keep this up. You’ve been at each other for a year now. It has to stop.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “It does.”

  She dropped her hand and smiled. “Good. Okay.” Mia turned to Kasey. “What’s this about?”

  Through her teeth, Kasey said, “The shit that went down in Matias this morning.”

  Caleb ground his teeth and balled his fists.

  Kasey pointed a finger at him. “You don’t even care about what happened down there, same as you don’t care about how I got that gun powder,” she said. The longer she talked, the louder she got. “That’s not it. You got a problem with every damn thing I do, and it started with Mom.”

  Mia stepped out of the way. This was a personal thing they all avoided every time it came up, which seemed to be more and more these days. The only time someone had intervened was back when it had happened, when they’d cleared Gibson of the terminators, which had included Kasey’s mom and brother. It’d looked like the father and daughter were going to shoot each other over it.

  “Kasey,” Caleb whispered.

  “You know!” she shouted. Kasey took three quick steps and jabbed a finger at him. “You know why. I protected those people. Mom was going to hurt them, and I saved them. And you’ve been treating me like a goddamned murderer ever since. You hate me ‘cause of what I did.”

  Caleb shook his head. “No.”

  “Yes!” Kasey shouted in his face. “You do!”

  Caleb backed away and tried to turn his back on her, but Kasey grabbed his arm and spun him around.

  “You’re never gonna forgive me for it,” Kasey continued. She backed away and dropped her arms. “You don’t trust me anymore.” Another halting exhale escaped her chest. “And I don’t blame you.”

  Caleb blinked. “I won’t forgive you? I don’t trust you?” He sniffed and said, “Sounds to me like you’re talking about yourself.”

  The only sound that came from Kasey was heavy breathing.

  “I’d listen to him if I were you,” Michael said. He’d snuck in during all the shouting and leaned against the doorframe. He gestured to Kasey and Caleb. “In case you haven’t noticed, the sun doesn’t rise and set on your asses. You’ve both got responsibilities.” He paused and deliberately looked at Kasey. “We’ve got more important things to deal with right now, so stow your bullshit. Is that understood?”

  Neither said anything at all, so Michael nodded. “Good.” He turned his attention to Mia. “We need water pumped. See to it.” He waited for Mia to slip past him, then focused on Caleb. “You’ve got powder now. Get that brass reloaded.”

  Caleb’s face went through several shades of red before the muscles in his neck finally relaxed. “Yes, sir,” he growled, and strode out.

  Michael stepped over to Kasey. More quietly, he said, “Why don’t you go on out to the shed. Check our food supplies, see what we’re low on.”

  “Sure.”

  “Alright.” Michael took her by the shoulder. “Alright. C’mon.” He led her from the cabin, walked with her in silence to the shed, then let go and went on to his cabin.

  Gus appeared at Kasey’s feet while she worked on unlocking the shed. She wiped away a tear and looked down at him. He carried a stick in his mouth almost as long as he was.

  “You heard all that, huh?”

  He tilted his head like dogs do.

  She grunted. “Don’t give me that. I know you eavesdrop.” She pulled the lock free and swung the door open. She stepped to the side and swept out an arm. “Go on, age before beauty.”

  Gus tilted his head the other way, then pranced inside. Rather, he tried to. The stick was too long and the doorway too narrow. He slammed into it three times before the stick finally broke and he stumbled inside. Kasey followed him in. Three of the four walls were lined with shelves, and only half were full. Dried goods, mostly. Some canned food. Not jarred, but real cans from grocery stores and the like, back before everywhere had been looted bare. All that, they’d traded for over the months, and kept on these shelves for appearances more than anything else. Their real stores were under the shed.

  Kasey bent next to the only wall without shelves and moved all the yard tools out of the way. Gus stood by with half that stick still in his mouth, watching shovels, hoes, and rakes being tossed aside. When the floor was clear, Kasey reached down and grabbed a small ring. She pulled, and up came a trap door.

  “Come on.” She grabbed him up like a football, pulling the stick away so he didn’t accidentally impale himself, then swung a leg over the lip of the opening and climbed down the ladder.

  The cellar had been dug out and cribbed up soon after the first cabin had been built. They knew they’d need somewhere cool and dark to store food, and they needed it to be hidden in case any assholes showed up and wanted to take what they had again. Kasey used to have a hidden room underneath her barn, the old one that’d been burned to the ground. Learning from that mistake, they decided to build a simple shed over the new cellar. The building itself was small, the typical size for a storage building. The cellar underneath it was much larger, and sprawled out for several yards away from the building in all directions.

  Large, hardwood timbers and bolts held the ceiling and walls in place. It was damp all the time, so everything had to be kept up off the dirt floor or else it’d rust or rot. An oil lamp hung from a hook at the bottom of the ladder. Kasey set Gus down, tossed his stick, then took the lamp from its hook and lit it. She turned in a circle, lamp held out, lighting up only a small area around her. The corner closest to her was where they stored extra blankets and clothes, in case they’d ever have to hide down there.

  She checked those things first, looking for dry-rot and mold. Once she was done with that, she moved on to the first set of shelves on the nearest wall. The soft light from the lamp lit up rows and rows of home-canned food. Vegetables, fruit, meat, they canned everything they hunted and traded for. They could raise a garden if they had to, each of them knew how, and live like most people lived: off what they killed and what they grew. They definitely had enough bags of seeds. But they hadn’t had to do that, at least not yet. Their skills had been needed for too many things, so many people in the area depended on them, and living this way had resulted in their cellar being full with more than enough to keep them for a long time.

  She moved on to the s
econd and third wall, eyes scanning over all the jars... Michael knew what was down here. He didn’t need her to take stock. She was pretty sure he just wanted her out of the way, or rather, out of her dad’s way. Let them both cool off, he probably thought. Kasey shook her head. Well, she was definitely cooled off. The cold, damp air had her arms breaking out in goose bumps.

  She turned in a circle and decided her time there didn’t have to be a total waste. She went back to the corner next to the ladder and pulled out one of the heavy sleeping bags. She set the lamp down and rolled the bag out, then sat down on it and kicked off her boots. After she crawled inside, she called Gus over and let him crawl in, then zipped it to her neck and rolled over.

  Kasey didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, or how long Gus had been huffing next to her. But judging by the pressure in her bladder and the stiffness in her joints, she’d been asleep for several hours. Real sleep, too. Not the half-assed dozing she caught every night.

  She opened her eyes and looked up. Gus stared down at her, his floppy ears and lips hanging in that funny way. He huffed again.

  “What?”

  Then she heard the hooves. Her eyes moved past Gus to the open trap door above.

  Jake’s back.

  ✽✽✽

  “This one here,” Jake said and pointed to a spot on the map. “Marlo told me this settlement here had a bunch of ‘em move through yesterday. Scared the shit out of ‘em.”

  “What’d they do?” Michael asked.

  “Hid. Said the things didn’t look for ‘em. Just went on by.”

  “No, not them. What did the terminators do to scare them?”

  “Oh,” Jake shrugged, “Nothing, really. It was just the way they were actin’, the way they looked. The leader there told Marlo he swore those terminators were dead.”