by David Rogers
“You wanted us along because you needed help.” Austin said as he stopped close to Jessica, behind her bike. “That means the three of us have to work together.”
“It was only—”
“Team. As a team.” Austin said calmly, though his eyes were intent with what Jessica recognized as irritation. “We do everything as a team. Especially zombies, not just how we cover each other on piss breaks or ride together to help keep a lookout.”
“Sorry.” Milo said, dropping his eyes. “I … sorry.”
“Learn.” Jessica said tightly, not trusting herself to say much more without yelling for real. “Just learn.”
“Sorry.”
“Okay, this here looks like we’ve got a minute or two.” Austin said, his voice still pitched calmly. He made a show of looking around, and Jessica automatically glanced around again too. They were still clear. “You recognize the bag?”
“Yeah. Oh yeah. Look, see the logo?”
Jessica looked as he held out — brandished almost — the backpack. It was a well-worn pack, black nylon with a leather bottom. On the front, near the top zipper, was a faded but still colorful “Salt Life” logo comprised of jagged and heavily stylized letters with a swordfish curving beneath them. A flash of memory jolted her, and she suddenly remembered it from Arcelia’s visits. The woman always wore it, every time Jessica had seen her.
“Looks like it’s been damaged.” Austin said, holding a hand out. Milo leaned over on his bike and surrendered the pack to the taller man. Flipping it over, Austin fingered a tear in the nylon along the side near the logo. The strap on that side was also stretched out, half torn off and hanging on by only some of the threading that had formerly stitched it securely into place. “But no blood.”
“Rain maybe?” Jessica asked.
He shrugged. “Could be, but if any had gotten on the leather it might have soaked in. Black makes it a little hard to tell, but I don’t think so.” The zipper made a subdued and familiar ripping sound as he opened the bag and peered inside. “Looks like it’s been trampled.”
“What?” Milo asked, leaning forward again.
Reaching inside, Austin extracted two cans of food that were missing their labels. Both were dented. Dropping them back in, he reached in again and came out with a handful of packaged granola bars, all of them smashed. And sticky with something that had spilled across them and dried.
“That’s not blood is it?”
“Drink mix.” Austin said, sniffing at the bars. “Something with sugar.”
“It’s Arcelia’s.” Milo said.
“I think it probably is.” Austin said. “I mean, yeah, there’s a lot of Salt Life stuff around here, seems like every third or fifth car has one of their stickers on it somewhere, and shirts and stuff too. This really looks like it’s been there a while, but not months. And who would’ve been packing canned goods and ammo around before the outbreaks.”
Jessica stirred a little, and he caught her eye. “There’s a box of rounds in the bottom, 9 mils. They’ve been stepped on too.”
“Why would she leave it?” Milo asked.
“There was a fight back there.” Austin shrugged, dropping the granola bars back in the bag. “Bodies, and there were shell casings scattered around too; didn’t you see?”
Jessica actually hadn’t taken specific note of any brass, but she hadn’t been looking either. She did, however, trust Austin in all things. Especially violent things. “They decided to take on a pack, probably did okay too since there weren’t any bodies.”
“But—” Milo began.
“People.” Jessica stressed. “Just dead zombies, no dead people. Or did you see Arcelia or one of the others back there with their throats chewed out and their limbs stripped down to the bone?”
“No.” Milo said, shaking his head.
“I’m no tracker, but they definitely had a fight. And however it went down, I’d guess some zombie got close enough to get a hand on this bag.” Austin said. “She probably ditched it and kept running. Judging by how things looked, they darted further into town, not out.”
“So they were here.” Milo said, looking back at the town.
“But aren’t now.” Austin said, zipping the bag closed again before holding it out to Milo.
“We need to keep looking.” the Houseboater said as he took the bag back.
“We—” Jessica started to say, before a crackle of thunder rolled across the sky. She glanced up, then swept her eyes along the line of dark clouds. They were headed in at their usual pace; quickly. “Great.”
“It’s midafternoon.” Austin said as he reached into one of the pouches on the back of his harness. Jessica had shrugged one shoulder clear of her own backpack’s straps and was pulling it around in front of her so she could unzip the big compartment.
“We’ve still got time to complete a circuit and have a look at things on the rest of the perimeter.” the big man continued as he extracted a folded bundle of clear plastic from his pouch. “And then pick a spot to spend the night. Transfer all that stuff into your bag, at least what’s still good. Unbroken, I mean.”
“I’m keeping it.” Milo said firmly. “She’ll like to have it back.”
“Whatever. But we’ll finish the circuit, and stick together.” Austin said as he shook the poncho loose of its folds with two strong snaps of his wrist. Jessica had hers out too. Milo slung Arcelia’s backpack on over the limp one he already wore, then watched as Jessica and Austin put their ponchos on.
“What about the rain?” he asked as they all heard the rush of drops hitting the ground approach beneath the onrushing clouds.
“It won’t go on very long, the storms usually don’t.” Austin said as he got the poncho settled and twisted the hood to frame his face. It was lumpy in weird places with his weapons and gear poking at it, the slung carbine and backpack especially turning his profile oddly hunchbacked, but he got it settled without issue as the rain reached them and began pattering off the plastic covering.
“Or we can go looking for a house, clear it, and dry off.” Jessica said, not without a certain measure of what she admitted was a mean streak as she got her own poncho into place. “By the time we get done with all that, it’ll be dark anyway. That’ll only leave tomorrow before we head back.”
“Great.” Milo said unhappily as the rain thickened, plastering his hair against his head.
* * * * *
“Jeez that’s a lot of them.” Austin said.
“Beelining straight in.” Jessica added, studying the mass of zombies as she pushed herself up from the pedals of her bike for a better vantage point. She and the others were on the dreaded east side of Belle Glade, having worked their way cautiously across the town’s northern border before tackling the dangerous side. She had to admit though, she hadn’t expected to see anything like this.
“A couple hundred, easy.”
“Why are they … is that normal?” Milo asked.
“Nope.” Austin said, lifting his binoculars for a closer look. Jessica took one last look at the zombie horde — there was no other word — and then glanced around. They were on a farm path, a paved one, that ran straight south near the town. The zombie count was thicker on this half of the town, she’d noticed that clearly before they even made the turn to come south again. Accordingly, at her insistence, the group had faded further away and ended up in the fields that pushed up right against the town.
Her head turned from the immediate surroundings at the surprised sound Austin made. “What?”
“There’s some people ahead of them.”
“The horde?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“So they’re being chased?”
He shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure.”
“What’s that mean?” Milo asked.
“Well, for one they’re not even trying to outpace them.” Austin said, still looking through the binoculars. “Just walking fast is usually plenty to leave zombies behind, and a little ru
nning will let you open some distance even quicker. These guys are … if I didn’t know better, it looks like they’re doing this on purpose.”
“Why would someone lead zombies around?”
Jessica frowned, and made herself not stand up on the pedals again; it wasn’t like she could see any better than Austin, even if he weren’t using the binoculars. Instead she checked around them again. The vegetation to either side of the road made her a little nervous, the road wasn’t that wide; and while the out of control crops, plus the weeds and grasses that had taken root in the absence of any tending to keep them out, weren’t tall enough to hide any adult sized zombies, she still didn’t like it. If one staggered out of the fields, it would be only a couple of seconds from a teeth-first lunge.
“Milo, watch this side of the road.” she said.
“What?” he looked around at her.
She pointed. “The fields. Watch the fields while I watch over these here. So we don’t get surprised by anything coming out. We’re pretty close to the town.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” he said.
Jessica looked at her side of the road, waited a couple of seconds, then glanced at the Houseboater to make sure he was watching where she wanted. His head was just turning back to Austin, and she snapped her fingers at him in frustration. “Hey! The fields, watch the fields.” She knew she was continually being short with him, but couldn’t help it.
Not even her sympathy for how soaked he’d gotten during the rainstorm could temper her impatience with him much. If anything, it was just one more strike against him; he was four months into the end of the world and acted like it was still the first days of the zombies’ appearance. As bad as she’d been during that horrible first weekend, she knew for a fact she’d been less bumbling and wide-eyed naïve than Milo was now.
“Sorry.” Milo said, though there was an edge of irritation as he faced the chest-high wall of greenery once more.
“They’re armed.” Austin said, and Jessica was sure he was hoping to break up the verbal tension by interjecting himself into it with the distraction of the zombie horde. “And none of them look hurt; I don’t see any limping or obvious signs they’ve got to be going so slow. And they’re headed right into the town, which just about anyone would probably figure out isn’t the best place to be going if you’re trying to shake a shitload of zombies loose.”
“Are they soldiers?” Jessica asked as she scanned her side of the road. “Or cops. Government, anything like that?”
“No, why?”
“I was thinking maybe it was some sort of mission, or plan, to start clearing some of them out of the coastal cities.”
“Not the worst idea I’ve ever heard, but everything about these characters says they’re just random people. Different outfits, weapons; there’s no uniformity.”
“A lot’s happened, they could be reservists or something.” Milo said.
“No, trust me; even a podunk sheriff’s office would have a look to them that’d tie them together as a unit. Even if they were all out of uniform, and half of these are in shorts. I count one that’s probably still in high school, or that age. Two women, and neither of them has their hair back which never happens when you’re on the job; here or back before zombies. One of the guys is pretty old too, and his beard is both gray and fit to suit a biker.”
“How long until they hit the town?” Jessica asked.
“They’re just ambling along. At least twenty minutes.” Austin said. “And they’ve got three dogs with them too.”
“Dogs?”
“Yeah. And two of them are little dogs. Too little to be trained for anything police or anyone similar would use them for. On leashes.”
Jessica shook her head. “So it doesn’t sound like we can get around them.”
“No, I’m pretty sure we can’t sneak by before they hit the town without being seen unless we go belly down in the fields … wait.”
“Now what?”
“The fields ahead of them.” Austin said.
Jessica glanced at him when he was silent for several seconds. She caught Milo just turning to look too, but said nothing to him as she faced back to her side of the farm path. “Austin.” she pressed after another few moments.
“The road curves, cuts south toward the other end of Canal Street as it exits the town.”
“So?” Milo asked. Jessica waited, confident Austin would explain what he was thinking about. The diagonal divided road that ran through Belle Glade was Canal Street, she’d taken the time to identify it on the map. She and Austin and Milo were only minutes north of it, just shy of halfway down the east side of the town.
“So, the grass straight ahead of them, all the way into the town, is trampled down.”
“Ahead of them?” Jessica asked, looking at him again.
“Yeah.” he answered, lowering the glasses.
She’d already made the connection. “Whatever the hell they’re doing, this isn’t the first time.”
“Exactly.” Austin nodded. “Nothing stomps grass and stuff flat like a crowd.”
“Let’s head back north.” Jessica said.
“But—”
“There’s only a couple of hours of sun left.” Jessica said. “If we hide somewhere and wait for whatever this is to get done, assuming we don’t get ourselves into trouble with closer zombies, that’ll eat up a lot of time.”
“And we need the time to find a good spot for the night anyway.” Austin said.
“Those guys might know something.” Milo said.
“Maybe, maybe not—” Austin began, but Jessica interrupted him.
“Whatever’s going on, let’s not dive into the middle of it in the dark.” She stepped on her pedals and turned her bike around. Seconds later Austin pulled up abreast with her and shook his head slightly when she glanced at him. “What?”
“It just feels funny, you know?” he said quietly, clearly struggling to keep his voice as low as he felt he could get away with over the hum of their tires and the crunch of gravel and sand beneath them as they pedaled north. “We’ve led a horde ourselves, remember Ocala?”
“We were fleeing.” Jessica protested. “You said those guys are pulling it around on purpose.”
“That’s my best guess, and maybe they are fleeing.” he said, shaking his head again. “Maybe they’ve got some sort of kill zone setup in Belle Glade, like a trap or a cross fire or something; I don’t know. But however you slice it, I just can’t settle on anything that feels not-funny about this.”
“None of this is funny.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jessica said softly. “I know.”
Chapter Five — Nights are best without bumps
Candice swirled the water in the saucepan around one last time, to rinse, then tipped it to dump its contents down the sink. A quick wipe with the day’s towel, and she went back out on the back deck with it. Mom didn’t like used water, especially soapy water, being dumped in the lake. Candice sort of got it; they drank from the lake, but it added a step to cleaning. Fortunately the drains in the house still seemed to work fine; only the faucets were dry. And the plugs. And the connection for the satellite dish that was on the roof, even if there was a television hooked up. Which there wasn’t.
She put the saucepan into the cookware tote and made sure the lid was down. The sun was already behind the house, and the shadows told her it wouldn’t be very long before it vanished entirely bringing night. Looking around, she confirmed everything looked as quiet and normal as it was supposed to, then picked up the cookie box and her Kool-Aid. Taking them into the sitting room, she set them on the table and went for the chair so she could check all the peepholes. One at a time, she peered out of the three land-facing sides of the house, but nothing had changed. All quiet, everything peaceful.
“Good.” she told herself as she dragged the chair back into the sitting room. Leaving it there, she returned to the back deck and collected the armful of solar
powered path lights that had been out there all day to soak up sun. They were glowing their usual warm orange color, which made things look a little funny once the sun was down, but it was better than being stuck in the dark. Even in the lake-side bedrooms, where Mom was usually okay with opening a window shutter, moonlight wasn’t always enough to really do anything except not bump into furniture.
One of the path lights she put on the table in her room, and two more into the hallway brackets; but the rest, including the ones that normally went into mom and Austin’s bedroom she left in the sitting room. When she got back to the sitting room and emptied her hands, she made straight for the fun drawers.
Mom and Austin hadn’t spent all of their scavenging on just important things. Or, at least, only things like food and the like. Especially not after Austin had joined them. He’d sort of made it a regular point to come back with at least one or two items, every time he went scavenging, to add to their collection. It was kept in a little dresser they’d dragged out of one of the unused bedrooms and positioned in the main area of the house to serve as a repository of things that were good for simply having fun with.
A good chunk of what was in the drawers was books, and only some of them were to Candice’s liking. There were useful books, to be sure, but also fiction from Harry Potter to The Princess Bride to titles Candice was less fond of. Like the array of thrillers Austin had stocked for when he sat down to read something, or the “steamy” romances mom liked. Candice didn’t get the latter; it was just page after page of some girl pining after some boy; nothing ever seemed to happen.
But she’d spent all afternoon reading, studying really, the “reference” books; first the gardening texts, and then another about wildlife in the Florida Everglades in case she found something that she could mention to Austin that would help his hunting trips when he got back. She wanted to play something, have some fun before she got sleepy.
There were some board games, but as she eyed the boxes she decided she didn’t feel like messing with them right now. Some of them she’d come up with solo rules for, ways she could set up preset procedures for how the imaginary person she was “playing against” would act, which left her free to do whatever she wanted on her actual turn. But it usually wasn’t as fun as when she played against mom and Austin. Especially Austin, he was sneaky.
