Chapter Three
One hundred miles, three weeks on horseback, and now they were stuck on the wrong side of the creek with a pack of Zeds behind them.
Cori sat astride her Thoroughbred, eyeing the churning water five feet below the horse's hooves. Two of her students shot glances over their shoulders. The horses danced nervously. They, too, knew the Zeds were closing in.
“What do we do, Miss Cori?” asked Rachel, a slender, blonde girl of twelve mounted up on a big, chestnut Dutch Warmblood.
“We have to get across. I don’t know where.” Cori gazed across the span. She saw a deader tied with cables to one of the supports halfway across the creek. “I didn’t expect the bridge to be blown.”
“We gotta go,” said Joe, up on a bay Irish Warmblood.
“Sherrie, anything down there?” Cori called to her sixteen-year-old niece.
The girl rode another Irish Warmblood. The bunch of them had left the riding academy in Coal Valley, one hundred miles west, and the ride thus far had cost the lives of two other students. But Rachel had received a text from a friend in Snareville who said folks were safe there, and Snareville was where they were headed.
“Nothin’, Aunt Cori. Banks are all cut like this, and the water’s up from the rain.”
“Damn.” Cori stared at the chocolate-colored water as it swirled below them. “We'll have to ride across.”
Tied to the pillar in the creek, the zombie let out a moan. Others answered the call as they stumbled down the road behind the riders.
Cori shot a look over her shoulder. Four more Zeds had joined the six.
“Get behind me,” Cori snapped. She pulled the riot gun she'd liberated from a burned-out squad car. Three shells left. She'd have to make them count.
Her first blast took out the zombie leader. The horses jumped, but they held. They'd grown accustomed to gunfire, but not to the Zeds.
Another shot took out an old woman with a missing breast. Cori's last shot went too low. Her round blew the shoulder off a younger woman. Cori slung her shotgun and reached for the pistol she'd taken from the remains of the dead cop.
Before she could fire a shot, a deader’s head exploded. Black gore spattered its packmates. Another round barked; another dead Zed hit the ground.
Thunder from a hidden gun tore the air apart, followed by shouts of victory. Five corpses lay on the roadbed. More corpses kept on coming.
The gunfire paused.
“Get across the crick, dammit! We’re gonna draw more of 'em!”
Two more gunshots, and now only still bodies lay where the pack had been shuffling down the road before.
Cori urged her Thoroughbred forward, and the kids followed. As the horse plummeted into the flood, the cold shock of the water took her breath away. Cori’s mount pulled hard for the far bank. The others hung in there with her. In a few short minutes, the animals pulled themselves from the creek. They stood on the sandy bank, shaking water from their bodies as their riders gasped for air.
Up on the roadbed, a bent, gray-haired man waited for them, an old bolt rifle in hand. He fired a shot and dropped another deader as it wandered out of the woods.
Cori managed, “Thanks, Mister…”
“Name’s Walt, Missy. An' I don’t reckon I’ve seen me a black girl out here for an awful long time now.”
Cori shrugged. “Name’s Cori White. My niece is Sherrie. Blondie there is Rachel Van De Vordie, and the lucky guy with all these chicks is Joe Heffernan. A friend of Rachel’s told us it was safe here.”
“Well, wouldn’t say safe so much as secure. Who’s the friend?”
“Shea Jonas.”
“Yeah, I know Shea. Always out on her horse. C’mon, an' I’ll take ya into town.”
Walt swung around to head for the golf cart parked on the edge of a cornfield. He hobbled more than he walked, his shoulders swinging side to side as his legs, bent inward at the knees, swung forward in quick, slanted arcs.
“What happened to you, Mister Walt?” Joe asked.
“Joe!” Cori snapped.
The old man chuckled. “Mine’s bowed in as far as yours is bowed out, boy. Don’t worry, Missy. Kids his age ain’t never seen no one who’s had polio. Damn good blessing, too.”
The horses clopped along behind the golf cart as the old man led them through a checkpoint over another bridge. At the edge of town, a young man with blonde hair and a thick, blonde beard came out to meet them. A young woman with dark, waist-length hair moved in step with him at his side.
“They say they got word from Pony Shea we was safe down here,” Walt said. “Must've figured here was better’n where they was.”
“Thanks, Walt," the young man said. "How’d the trap do?”
“Pretty good. Ol’ Petey brought his friends in just fine. Dropped near ‘bout a dozen deaders. Damn near hit these folks when they stumbled into the middle of things, though.”
“I’ll take ‘em from here, Walt. Thanks.”
“All yours, Boss.” The old man shuffled back to his cart, climbed in, and turned back out of town.
The four newcomers sat on their tired horses, uncertain. Wet, bedraggled, clothing hung from their frames, ripped to shreds in places, and the kids' backpacks hung limp from their shoulders. The guards at the checkpoint hadn’t backed away to let them through.
“Which one of you is Shea’s friend?” the young man asked.
Rachel raised her hand.
“How do you know her?”
“We show together, Mister. Up at Shone’s Farm.”
The young brunette nodded. “I’ve heard Pony talk about it, Danny. She’s still upset about missing show season.”
“Let ‘em in,” the young man said. Guards stepped back as the young man looked over the newcomers. “When's the last time you folks had a decent meal?”
“I don’t remember when, Mister…” Cori began, hesitating.
The young man smiled. “They call me Danny Death. This’s my girl Jenny One Sock.”
“Those’re funny names,” Joe said.
Danny shrugged. “Last names don’t mean much these days, kid. Take Shea… we call her Pony around here, ‘cause she's always out riding around town on one of her horses.”
He slung his rifle over his shoulder and held out a hand.
“C’mon down. We’ll walk you in.”
The group dismounted, stumbling a bit when their feet hit the ground. Danny radioed someone to let Pony know she had company, then led the newcomers down Main Street. A gate across the road connected with a tall fence topped with barbed wire. The same fence ran along each side of the street, punctuated with gates opening onto side streets. Danny made a few more radio calls, asking for food and clothing, while Jenny opened the gate onto Brewster Street. As the group trudged along, Danny gathered the backpacks from the kids. With a few shakes, he found the packs nearly empty.
He stopped the group at a low, red-brick school house where a soccer field had been fenced in.
“We’ve got a few horses of our own in town," Danny said. "You’re welcome to put yours up here.”
Cori moved first to untack her horse, and the kids followed suit. After a quick rubdown, the four turned their mounts out into the field. The horses, relieved of their saddles for the first time in weeks, ran out in search of the best places to roll around and scratch their backs.
Galloping hoof beats drew their attention. The younger girls squealed as Shea—Pony, as these people called her—dismounted her horse and fell into her friends' arms with a mix of laughter and tears.
Watching the girls reunited, Cori collapsed to the bleachers with a smile.
“There were times I didn’t think we were gonna make it,” she told Danny. “Thanks for taking us in.”
Other people came along. Some rode up on bikes, and some walked. Clothes appeared. Food came out. Nothing fancy, but it did the trick.
“We’ll leave you to get a shower,” Jenny said. “Not much for privacy, but it’ll get the grime of
f.”
Danny nodded. “And I’m sorry to tell you, but you’ll have to stay in some of the classrooms for a week of quarantine. After that, we’ll set you up.”
Cori smiled. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. We’ve been sleeping in barns since all this started. Be nice to get away from the bugs.”
Danny chuckled as he gathered his rifle. “I'll leave you in Jenny’s hands, then. She and the other gals can get you folks settled.”
A warm shower, followed by clean clothes and a full belly, nearly put Cori to sleep. Although it was still mid-day, she was ready for a nap. She and the kids collapsed in their makeshift bedrooms. The cot was small, and the mattress was lumpy. Cori slept like a baby.
When the sun broke over the east wall of the valley, a rooster cut loose with his a.m. greeting. In the distance, another joined, followed by a third. Soon, the three dueled with their morning songs. Cori probably could have slept through the racket if the chicken house wasn't fifty yards from her window.
As she rolled out of bed, she picked at the clean T-shirt she wore. It was a little small, a little thin, but it was the best thing she’d worn in more than two months.
Staring sleepily out the window, she heard the buzz of a quad runner. Soon enough, she saw it pull up behind the house across the road from the school. A dark-bearded man with a short, black ponytail hopped off. He gathered a fish from the yard wagon he towed and ducked inside the house with it. From there, he emerged to feed the chickens, re-mounted the quad, and drove off. An hour later by Corri's watch, the man came back. He tipped the wagon, sloshed some water around its bed, and disappeared into the house once more. She didn’t see him again the rest of the day.
Late that afternoon, the man reappeared in the yard. This time, he loaded a bucket into the wagon, along with some nets. He filled the gas tank of the quad, mounted, and left. For Cori's week-long quarantine, some variation of this routine occurred every day in the yard across the way.
“That’s just Chicken George,” Jenny said when Cori asked. “He goes out at night and fishes. Some nights the canal, some nights the creek. Doesn’t want to fish out our waters.”
Cori arched an eyebrow. “Chicken George? He don’t look much like the man.”
Jenny chuckled. “He started with the birds after he came here a month ago. Name stuck.”
“Why’re you Jenny One Sock?” Cori asked, taking another bite of the catfish on her plate.
Jenny grinned. “The first Zed attack after I got here, I rolled out to my defensive position in nothing but a pair of panties and one sock. They tried to call me Jenny Free Boobs, but I put the kibosh on that.”
“I can see that,” Cori said, laughing. She took another bite of her meal. “You guys must eat a lot of fish if George is out every night.”
“He doesn’t over-fish. He takes orders. Kind of like the old milkmen. We trade with the Mennonites up the road, too, so George fishes for both communities.”
“So things are safe down here.”
“Secure. I wouldn’t say safe." Jenny paused. "You guys get out of quarantine tomorrow. That’s Saturday, so the kids can go back to school on Monday.”
“They’ll love that.” Cori rolled her eyes.
“Probably more than you think,” Jenny said, standing. “Don’t worry. We’ll find something for you to do, too.”
“Damn.” Cori grinned.
Days passed. A routine began to develop. Cori and the kids were put up in a large house next to George’s. Another couple lived there with their two children. Rachel and Sherrie bunked in a room of their own, and Joe slept with the two Jaque boys. Cori got her own room on the first floor. Small quarters, but it worked. Every morning, the rooster next door woke her, and she listened for the sound of Chicken George's quad to start the day.
One morning, two weeks after the townfolk let her and the kids out of quarantine, Cori was up before the sun. As a horse trainer, she was used to early mornings. She pulled on her clothes, stuffed her feet into a pair of boots, and stepped outside. The pistol felt good on her hip. She'd trained with a rifle since her arrival with the kids, and she knew how to use the handgun. She didn’t know yet how she’d perform in a Zed attack, but she felt better about her shooting skills than she had in a long time.
She heard the quad before she saw it. In seconds, it bounced around the corner of the house next door. Chicken George parked the machine, shut off the engine, and climbed off.
Cori walked across the yard. “You go out every night?”
“Purt' near,” George responded, not looking up.
“Ain’t you sick of fish?”
“Nearly.”
“Chatty thing, ain’t you?”
George glanced at her face. Cori held out her hand. “Name’s Cori. Haven’t been around long enough to get a nickname yet.”
He looked her up and down, paused at her chest, then met her eyes. “Black girl wearin' a white T-shirt makes for a good morning.”
She met his dark eyes with a twinkle in her own. “Only got one bra to my name, and it’s in the wash.”
“Jenny’ll have to take you shopping, then.” He took her hand. “Name’s Tony.”
Cori smiled. “Nice to meet you, Tony.”
They chatted a bit while Tony picked out the fish he wanted for breakfast. He didn’t say much. He didn’t ask much. Cori always had been a talker. She told him about the long trip on horseback with the kids. She talked about the devastated landscape. She told about the empty towns and the towns full of Zeds.
“You wanna go with me?” Tony asked after a while. “I’m on my way out to the Mennonite place. Plow Ridge, they call it. You can talk the whole way, if you want to.”
Cori grinned. “Sorry. I know I talk a lot when I’m nervous.”
Tony swung aboard the quad. “I’ll try not to make you nervous.”
He started the bike. Cori climbed on behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Hold tight. Don’t wanna dump you.”
And they were off.
Cori got the nickel tour of town, as they had to pass all the way through Snareville to get where they were going. Fencing lined Main Street on both sides with one gate to a side street. Tony explained the firing positions on the roofs and second-story windows in the three-block stretch that made up the business district. As they passed through the last checkpoint, they entered a free zone. Cori felt her guts tighten up.
“You sure it’s safe out here?” she shouted as the wind threatened to rip away her words.
“No,” Tony said, “but it’s only about three miles now.”
They buzzed down the blacktop. At a bridge over a small creek, a huge set of steel-tube gates topped with spikes and woven through with barbed wire stood blocking their side of the pass. The gates were anchored on two telephone poles cut down to ten feet and sunk deep into the ground. Log chain looped around the gates to keep them closed, held with a thick lock.
“We can’t be everywhere at once,” Tony said, “so we locked this up. When the creek’s full, it keeps the deaders over on the other side. We go south from here.”
He turned onto a narrow, blacktop road that wound its way into the hills. Two more miles passed, and they stopped at the first Mennonite checkpoint. To Cori, it seemed a strange contradiction to see long-bearded men dressed in overalls and work boots, carrying AR-15s over their shoulders. The women wore pistols like Cori’s, strapped at their hips over their plain, blue dresses.
They were a friendly group, welcoming Tony and Cori with open arms and hugs. Laughter filled the morning air as everyone gathered around to sort out the catfish. Cori's news of the outside world was appreciated. The Mennonites were worried about their communities in the region, but she couldn't provide any information about the others' status. She could only tell them theirs was the most secure area she'd passed through. They took the update with solemn nods.
In short time, Cori pitched in with Tony for the return trip. They hosed out the fish slime
from the wagon. It was the first she had seen of running water in a while—a gift of deep wells in the small community. The Mennonites loaded up the wagon with vegetables, fruits, and some pies. They gently placed jars of preserves alongside the other goods. Last in was a small, wooden box full of chicks.
“That's a mixture of two clutches, Tony. Don’t you be driving that machine hard and making a mess now.” A middle-aged man cocked a brow, his beard reaching nearly to the second button of his shirt. “These birds are too hard to get to adulthood to be losing them.”
Tony shook the man’s hand. “I’ll be careful, William. Thanks.”
Together, Tony and Cori made the trip back to Snareville, distributing goods along the way. The families in one house wanted to start their own chicken flock. They'd converted a garage into a coop with a covered, wire pen running out into the back yard through a hole in the wall. As the day aged, the two stopped to drop off the last pie at the house where Jenny and Danny lived.
Tony shut off the machine in what had once been a front yard. Long grass mixed with wild flowers filled the green space between house and street. The house itself was a huge, two-story monster. Cori saw boards bolted over the first-floor windows, with only small gaps at the tops to let in light. Over what had been doors, sheet metal from a torn-down shed had been bolted to the frames, and the same with a cellar door laid into the ground. Cori assumed one could get to the basement from inside, but all outside access to the lower parts of the house had been blocked.
Three ladies, including Jenny, worked together in the garden. The men, Jenny informed Tony and Cori, were out to extend fences and ditches. If Tony wanted, he could join them. He declined, as he hadn’t been to bed yet. He made a short report to Jenny, then excused himself to bed. Cori opted to stick around.
Jenny took the pie from her as they wandered toward the house.
“I wish I could eat some of this,” Jenny said, sighing, “but everything just makes my stomach roll these days.”
“Stomach flu?” Cori asked.
“Morning sickness,” Jenny replied.
Cori shot her a look.
Snareville Page 5
