Jiri picked up a rock and threw it at the creeper. It landed short, bouncing in the grass in front of it. “Right. So where’s that going to leave us?”
“You know I have no idea where you’re going with this,” Will said, exasperated. It was one thing that Jiri had him beat when it came to book-smarts. It was another altogether for the professor to show off.
“Where that leaves us is here- sometime in the future someone will start putting it back together. Civilization, society, governance... the works. There’s a chance the survivors could devolve into dozens of little fiefdoms in each state, but I don’t believe that will be the result.”
“Why not?”
“The singularly human curse of upward mobility. What was it every little boy could be when he grew up? The President. That’s why with a few notable exceptions, dictators never last- somebody always thinks he can do a better job.” The shambling creeper was fifteen feet away, reaching toward them with eager hunger.
“It seems like you’re getting off the point.”
“This is all part of the point, but we can table it and get to the question at hand.”
“Which is?”
“Somewhere down the road, there will be a sort of ‘Post-Apocalyptic Continental Congress’. When that happens, you should be a delegate. This world will need people like you to put things back together.” With that, Jiri took two big steps toward the creeper, now five feet away. His right hand pulled his knife in a fast, fluid motion; his left reached between its outstretched arms and grabbed it by the neck. He jerked the creeper forward, braced it with his left hand, and pounded the knife through the top of its head. It jerked a few times and fell in a heap at their feet.
Jiri ran both sides of the blade across its thigh, wiping the blade. He returned it to its sheath and smiled at Will. “With me, your invaluable top aide, at your side, of course,” he finished.
Chapter Twenty-Six
* * *
A new truck joined the caravan, bringing its number to six. As they left the Hendrickson’s farm they added Mr. Hendrickson’s cobalt blue all-wheel-drive Expedition to the mix. It was almost new, with less than 10,000 miles on the odometer and its gas gauge read full. Will considered the big SUV a huge plus. With Coy driving and Meghan and Ashlee alternating between the passenger and rear seats, there was abundant room for the dogs and storage space for their gear. Best of all, it relieved the cramping in the other four vehicles.
They topped off the gas tanks at the farm’s fuel pod on the next farm over and hit the road at ten past eight. Tension gnawed at Will as they pulled out. Anyone that knew him would describe him as optimistic, but as of late he found himself expecting the worse in whatever situation lay ahead of him. But as they rolled south, clipping along at an even 35 miles an hour he relaxed. Save for an occasional creeper in the road and a few abandoned cars, there was nothing but empty road ahead of them.
Will watched the scenery pass by through passenger window. Houses were few- they drove by the odd farmhouse but for the most part he saw unused land interrupted by patchy wooded areas. The copses were made up of conifers, with a scant mix of birch and oak.
After an hour and a half, the houses picked up on both sides of the highway as they approached the tiny town of Morrisville.
“Stop right up there at that intersection,” Will instructed Danny, pointing up ahead.
A dirt road running east and west formed a tee with the highway a half-mile away from the town. The crossing was clear in each direction except for one house set far back from the road. It was as open an area as they were apt to find.
The trucks behind Will’s came to a stop one-by-one behind the Ford. He observed the area for a long time; seeing nothing that concerned him, he exited the truck. Danny climbed out the other side. Will motioned the rest of the group to leave their vehicles. “Eyes sharp, Danny,” he said. “Keep your head on a swivel.”
“Swiveling as ordered,” Danny replied, looking about.
Will helped Becky down from the back of the truck and then hugged her slim frame and bent his head for a kiss on the cheek. He stretched until the group was scattered around him in a half-circle.
“Listen up,” he told them. “This looks like a good place for a break. Stretch your legs, piss if you need to, get a fresh water bottle if you’re empty. We’re back on the road in ten minutes.” Turning to Justin he added, “Let’s see that map of yours.” Will drummed his fingers on the truck hood while Justin fumble with the map. “Come on, son. We only have ten minutes. I’d rather not spend eight of them watching you give yourself paper cuts.”
Justin got the map open to the right page.
“How many people live here?” He gestured at the little town in front of them. “Lived, I mean.”
Justin turned the map to the left, then right. He held it close to his face, then pulled it away and ran his finger down the side of it. Will pinched the bridge of his nose. “Justin,” he said, trying to keep his tone even, “do you need help?”
“No, I got it right here.Population of three hundred and forty, as of 2010.”
“You can’t tell me with that map how many blocks long the town is, can you?” It was more a statement than a question.
“No, Will. It’s just a dot on the map.”
“Okay, this is what I need to know. How much time are we adding to the trip if we go around it?”
“Well, let’s see...,” Justin said. He picked up his map, turning it this way and that again. Will, exasperated, shook his head, then turned away. Most of the group had finished with their errands and walked the kinks out of their legs, and were heading toward the front of the caravan. He looked around at the flat farmland and bare trees, and up the road both directions.
“Got it, Will,” Justin called.
He turned back to the truck to see what his navigator had worked out.
“The workaround is pretty convoluted. If we want to stay on paved roads, it will take us about forty-five minutes to go around the town. And that’s minimum, assuming we don’t have to stop and clear cars from the road.”
“And if we drive through town what’s the route?”
Justin squinted at him. “Through town?”
“Yep. This road right here- does it go straight through and back out the other side?”
“But we never go through town. We’ve been avoiding towns since I met you.”
David was peering over Justin’s shoulder and listening to the conversation. He elbowed his nearby wife. “Will’s talking about driving through town.”
“Through town?” Kathy repeated, in a loud and shocked voice usually reserved for finding out a relative has died young.
Everybody nearby heard her and within seconds they were peppering Will with questions.
“Okay, gather around here, listen up.” Will called out. “Coy, you help Danny keep watch,” he added while waiting for stragglers to join the group. “We’re going to drive through this little town. We haven’t done much of that, so I want to make sure we’re all on the same page. The most important thing is we do not stop. Not for traffic signs, not for creepers in the road, not for live people. We keep going until I stop outside of town on the other side. If your engine dies, flash your lights and the rest of the caravan will figure something out. Beyond that, if you stop your vehicle then you are on your own- nobody will help you or come back for you. Keep your speed low, fifteen to twenty miles an hour. Drive around, not through, creepers in your way. If you hit one those things and bust a radiator, then we’ve got a Chinese fire drill on our hands.
“If you’re driving, keep your eyes on the road. Everybody else, keep your eyes open for threats. Give your driver as much warning as you can.”
Will was getting a disquieting feeling as he talked. Every time he looked in Becky’s direction she looked pissed. She was glaring at him with her arms crossed in front of her chest. He couldn’t hazard a guess what upset her, but if there was anything he knew from nineteen years of marriage, it w
as that he was about to find out. “Anybody have any questions?” he asked, looking away from his wife.
Becky pounced at once. “I have a question. Why are we doing this?”
“Why are we talking about how to stay safe?”
“No. You know what I’m asking. Why are we driving through this town?”
“Because it will take an hour to go around it- and that’s if the roads are clear. This is a tiny bump-in-the-road town. Three hundred people lived here. It’s six blocks long. So we’re talking about three minutes on one hand versus at least an hour on the other.” He pleaded for her to drop it with his eyes.
“And what if there’s a herd in town? A thousand creepers like we saw in Ottawa or like what swarmed our ranch? What do we do then?”
“Hiding where?” He splayed his hands out in vague over there gestures “Becky, look around. I imagine we would hide or run in the opposite direction, same as if we ran into a herd anywhere. But there’s not one in there or we would see it.” Becky started to reply but Will talked over her. “We’ve been in towns before and not run into a herd. We’ve avoided towns out on caution, not because every one of them has thousands of dead wandering through it in a clump.”
“Guys,” Jiri broke in, “We’ve been standing out here in the open for over ten minutes. We have to get a move on before we draw the wrong kind of attention.”
As if in response, Coy whistled sharply. “Creepers five o’clock,” he called in a low voice.
Will glanced toward the threat- to the west, just off the road and in a field. There were three creepers in a staggered line, two hundred yards off. They seemed headed toward the caravan but weren’t moaning asifawarefoodwas ahead. He took advantage of the chance to end the public disagreement with his wife. “All right, let’s load up. Remember- keep aware of your surroundings and don’t stop for anything.”
He opened the truck door for Becky, who entered without looking at or speaking to him. With a sigh, he climbed in and pulled the door closed.
They drove through Morrisville with no problems. The state highway converted to a dilapidated Main Street that ran past a handful of brick buildings from the turn of the century and empty concrete pads. Two blocks into town they turned west and drove by a consolidated high school. They passed a bus barn and a couple of baseball fields and followed a long curve that took them outside the city limits. Will only saw three creepers, each too far away to be a threat.
They chewed up the miles in a slow but steady fashion. There was an occasional car on the shoulder and the random creeper in the road, but they got by both with ease.
An uncomfortable silence enveloped the cab of the truck. Will, who usually bantered with Danny and Becky, was brooding and quiet. Becky was simmering in the back seat. Will assumed Danny and Justin stayed silent out of discomfort.
He was morose. He hated it when Becky was angry with him. Seriously angry- they had their disagreements, like any other married couple, and she nagged at him without pause. But it was a rare thing for her to be spitting mad at him.
He and Becky agreed one night long ago after it was clear that they fit together like matched socks but before they were inseparable. “Once we’re in the car, or at home, say anything you want. Scream at me, cuss me, claw my eyes out- whatever you need to do. And we’ll hash it out for as long as it takes to come to terms. But let’s not disagree in front of other people.”
That agreement lasted all of about five minutes. Maybe it was the Irish in her, but the woman was unable to hold her opinion. She would never castigate him or cut him down in front of others. But question him or his decisions? She didn’t hesitate a second when it came to that. It was part of what made her Becky, and part of what he loved about her.
He rummaged around in his bag, coming up with a handful of jerky and two bottles of water. He passed half the jerky and a water back to Becky and Justin. When she took the bottle, she rubbed his hand with her free hand for a moment. He looked back at her with surprise in the visor mirror. She gave him a wink and her sexiest smile and then flashed the peace sign at his reflection in the mirror.
“How are we coming, Justin?” Will called back, trying not grin like a fool.
“We’ll be outside a town called Walnut Grove in just about ten minutes.”
“Outstanding. Be on the lookout for a good place to pull over.”
Justin rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat. “Will, you know I’d never argue with you,” he stammered. “But I might have an idea.”
“Let’s hear it, son,” Will nudged him along.
“Well, not far up the road past this town is another one, Ash Grove. It’s more than twice as big as Walnut Grove. If we need to go into a town for anything we’ve got a lot better chance of finding it in the bigger town. In my opinion, I mean. We’ll do whatever you want.”
Will thought for a minute and looked back at Becky in the mirror again; she gave him a noncommittal shoulder shrug.
“Have you got a workaround for both towns? We probably won’t go in either one.”
“Of course.”
“Let’s head toward Ash Grove, then.”
Danny broke out in a series of loud, braying sobs; he wiped pretend tears on each shirt sleeve and blew his nose loudly into the crook of his arm. “My little boy is all growed up and making his own decisions,” he said in between loud sniffles.
“Drive, idiot,” Will told him. “Can you just drive the truck?”
“Driving, sir.”
Will shook his head, smiling to himself. He caught Becky’s eye in the mirror a third time; she blew him a kiss. He blew out a burst of air and re-settled in his seat, covering up an ear-to-ear grin with the palm of his hand.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
* * *
Progress stalled three miles north of Ash Grove when they came upon a three-car pileup left abandoned in the middle of the highway. While Coy, Danny, and Andro used the Jeep’s winch to remove the wrecked cars, Will took a quick group survey. No one needed anything and the trucks had plenty of fuel. Will let out a sigh and bowed his head, thankful there was no need to go into town.
The caravan drove south on Missouri Highway V. The afternoon had turned off dreary and cold with a brisk west wind. Will watched the scenery roll by outside the passenger window, listening to the drone of Justin calling the directions out to Danny. Will spent all his life in a part of the country that divided the sparse, flat land into homesteads of a thousand-plus acres and where you could drive for half an hour without seeing a house. He found this landscape odd. There were habitats every couple of hundred yards- a random mix of trailers, upscale houses, McMansions, and tiny, rundown houses that were little more than shacks. There didn’t seem to be any development or planning; it wasn’t unusual for a two-story luxury home to be bracketed by two rickety single-wide trailers.
Will wouldn’t call any of the plots of land a farm, but almost all of them were engaged in some sort of farming enterprise. Most of the houses sat in front of a pasture with a ten or twenty cattle inside, or a small field or two planted with corn. Twice he saw executive-style brick homes with poultry houses behind them. Houses that didn’t have pastures or fields all seemed to spring out of the woods. The home builders fought back the oaks, pines, and maples just far enough to make room for a driveway and a house.
The land undulated with hills and water ran everywhere. There were cattle ponds scattered on each side of the highway and every couple of miles they crossed a bridge over a slow-moving stream or small river. Swimming pools dotted the yards; elegant in-ground pools nestled behind expensive-looking privacy fences behind the luxury homes, nice looking above-ground pools with redwood decks beside the upscale houses, and cheap and dangerous-looking above-ground pools with rickety ladders sitting on the grass out in front of the trailers. There doesn’t appear to be many folks going to the creek for a swim, Will thought.
The houses tapered off as the caravan descended a long downslope and ended altogether when
the highway entered a thick forest. The trees crowded the road on both sides for two miles, stopped for a set of railroad tracks, and picked right back up on the other side. They turned off the state highway onto a county road that angled back and carried them over the same set of tracks. The road curved hard to the south, crossed over a bridge, and curved even harder back west. A scant few miles later they turned south again, and the woods came to an abrupt stop. Now they were in pure farm country- fields, some fallow but most planted with corn and soybeans, stretched to the horizon on both sides of the road.
Justin told Danny to turn south, then west, then south again, in a five-minute span. Another turn to the west followed, and a mile later Justin said, “Turn left here.”
Will scooted forward in his seat and turned to talk to Justin. With no warning, Danny brought the truck to a stop with a loud squeal of the brakes, throwing Will into the dash and Becky against the back of his seat.
Will turned and glared at Danny; Becky righted herself behind him.
Danny paid no attention to Will; he turned around and pierced Justin with a withering stare. “What the fuck, Justin?”
“What?” Wide-eyed, Justin raised his shoulders and held his hands up before him.
“Why do you have us out here driving around in circles?”
“We’re not driving in circles,” Justin sputtered. “This is... “
“Maybe we aren’t driving in circles,” Danny interrupted in a loud voice, “but you have five trucks out like they’re on a Sunday drive, touring the scenic Missouri countryside during the friggin’ zombie apocalypse. What the hell?”
“If we want to get from one side of the town to the other, stay headed to the Southwest, and not drive on any dirt roads this route is the one we have to take.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Danny protested.
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