Chapter Fifteen
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Will stood on top of an Airstream in an RV park that overlooked I-44. Danny was on one side of him, Jiri the other. All three were slump-shouldered. They took turns looking through a pair ofbinocularsasif they hoped the view might change. Will looked at Danny out of the corner of his eye. His ever-upbeat partner looked like a doctor just told him he had only had six more months to live. Danny’s bright and mischievous-filled eyes were dull and dazed-looking and his face was drained of color except for a hectic red spot on each cheek. He stared at the highway, slack-jawed.
I wonder if I look like that, thought Will. I bet I do. For the first time since those first frightening days after the creepers drove them off the ranch, he questioned if he could lead his family to safety.
They weren’t going drop a few dead a jaunt across. Not here, and not as far as he could see in either direction. Bumper-to-bumper abandoned cars filled the four lanes, plus the breakdown lanes. Corpses in various stages of decomposition littered the ground around the cars. Many were half-eaten or worse, and dried blood stains splashed every surface in sight. It looked as if a giant six-year-old had played on the highway with a large bucket of reddish-brown paint. Creepers shuffled everywhere. Most of them stared down they moved, their paths random and aimless. A stiff autumn breeze carried the scents of carnage past them- the sweet coppery smell of blood and the wet, fetid odor of rotting flesh.
Will’s flat-toned voice broke a long silence. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me if that’s the whole population of Springfield standing out there. We are not walking south. Let’s get back to camp and figure something out.”
Will set a ‘no fire’ decree in the camp that night. He didn’t know far into the woods the creepers on the interstate might wander, but he didn’t want the smell of cooking food or light from a fire attracting them. In addition, he put a full perimeter guard in place. When it came time to bed down, half of them would sleep while the other half formed a rough circle around camp with guards spaced twenty yards apart. After four hours they would swap and the guards got a chance to rest. If there’s a creeper stealthy enough to get through that, then it deserves to eat, Will thought darkly. He was in a black mood and struggling to keep a handle on his temper. All day he’d sniped at Becky and he’d been short with some of the others. He even growled at little Tempest when the girl complained to her mother that she was cold.
“Put on a sweater if you’re cold because we aren’t starting any fires,” he’d told her in a gruff voice.
That earned him a sharp stare from Sylvia and an icy look from Becky.
His biggest fear, the one he wouldn’t tell anyone, not even his wife or Danny, was of a thousand creepers wandering through the camp. No defense existed against that, no way of fighting them off. The only thing you could do is grab what belongings you could and run. He abandoned the ranch that had been in his family for generations because of such a herd, and the fear of it happening again never left him.
He was outside the camp, leaning against a big oak tree and looking up at the night sky. It was a cloudless night, and the stars were a billion pinpricks of light on a black canvas. A slim and graceful figure materialized from the dark, Becky coming to stand next to him.
“Know what I miss?” she asked. “Dancing,” she continued when he didn’t reply. “Remember going to the Elk’s on Friday or two-stepping at The Alamo?”
That elicited a ghost of a smile from him.
“Remember when we saw George Strait in Manhattan, and the arena turned into a dance hall when he sang Fool Hearted Memory?”
He softened enough to take her hand. She stepped in front of him, face-to-face, and grasped his other hand.
“You can’t be snapping and growling at people like that. Not you. Every one of them looks to you for leadership and security. Basically, you’re the Daddy to a big, eclectic family. And you know from having a Daddy, and being a Daddy, that people need their Daddy to be predictable, reliable and fearless. They need hope so they can keep getting up and putting one foot in front of the other every day. And for you to crash about and bark at folks- well, that makes them think you’re not predictable and reliable anymore, or that you’re scared. And they lose hope.
“Bring me out in the woods and scream at me if you need to, or bring Danny. But everyone else needs to see safe, reliable, and friendly Will the Leader. You have to be strong for those that aren’t, or this group will fall apart.”
He peered at her in silence for a long moment, then nodded. “Sometimes I wonder if a big group wasn’t a mistake. Just me, you, Danny, and Coy, Jiri maybe, traveling light and moving fast, instead.”
“Of course you do. But we decided there is safety in numbers. And I know you, William- you can’t refuse to help a person in need. I’m surprised the group’s not bigger. You couldn’t scavenge the army base with just four or five people. We wouldn’t have this food, these clothes, or that big stockpile of guns. You might not have run into George, which means we wouldn’t be heading for a possible safe place to stay.”
He nodded in agreement and felt sheepish about his behavior. “Is there anybody I should apologize to?”
“How about me?” she answered, her voice tinkling with laughter.
“I’m sorry, my love,” he said, pulling her close.
“You’re forgiven, my superhero of a husband. Now go do something sweet for Tempest. That little girl adores you.”
“Okay. While I do that, you pull the fellas and Tara together. It’s time to figure out a way across the interstate.”
A flicker of a plan formulated while he and his wife spoke and his mind worked furiously as they walked back to join the others.
When they were on the edge of the campground he leaned close to Becky and whispered in her ear. “Don’t bother getting anybody together.”
Becky looked at him with surprise, and the rest of the group stopped what they were doing and watched as he walked into a small clearing in the middle of camp.
“Hidy, folks,” he said, with a smile. “My apologies for being an ass. I’ve got a question. Who are our four fastest runners?”
The group was situated. All but four of the group members, including Will, ducked down behind a big RV at the dealership. The night before he learned Tess had medaled in the two hundred and four hundred meters at the Kansas High School Track and Field Championships the previous spring. She waited, tucked away behind a small grove of trees a quarter-mile to the north. Danny flattened himself on a hill thirty yards to her south, watching over her with an M4 rifle. Coy was whip-quick and had honed his endurance first running his trap line on icy winter mornings before school and then in longs hours spent in the wrestling room. He sat hidden a quarter-mile to the south, with Jiri covering him.
Earlier, Will led a small team out to reconnoiter the neighborhood around the dealership. It was surprisingly populated, considering they were over five miles from town.
The first order of business was to sweep and scavenge the nearby houses until they found what Will wanted. They found it in the third house they searched- a well-stocked liquor cabinet. They picked out four wine bottles and poured the contents down the kitchen sink. Will grabbed a handful of shirts from a closet; they took the shirts and the empty bottles back to the dealership. Clay used the serrated side of his survival knife to cut a four-foot section out of a water hose they found behind the showroom. Will handed the section of hose and an empty bottle to Danny with a mirthful smile. Danny sighed, flipped Will the finger, and took the items.
Working as quietly as possible and starting in the row of RVs farthest from the interstate, Will used his knife to pop off the fuel tank cover. Danny snaked the hose into the tank and sucked hard on the other end until he had a mouthful of fuel. He spit the fuel to the ground and cough, gasping, then spit twice more and wiped his watering eyes. While Danny choked and slobbered, Jiri grabbed the hose and inserted it into a wine bottle. Will watched with amusement as D
anny’s face cycled through several shades of red before settling on a deep crimson.
They repeated the process until the four wine bottles were three-quarters filled with fuel. Will ripped the shirts into strips and rolled the strips into make-shift wicks. He stuffed the strips into the wine bottles, leaving several inches of the strips hanging out of the bottles. Will took a final look at the four Molotov cocktails, then left them lined up in front of the dealership. The four of them headed back to the camp, where Will laid out the plan on last time.
Now, Tess and Coy each carried two of the cocktails. The rest of the group waited for the ‘mad bombers’, as Tara called them, to put the plan in motion. Will knew the precise location of the teens, and eyed the half-mile of interstate between the pair through the binoculars. He estimated that ninety creepers milled about on the stretch of highway they intended to cross. All he could do was wait for Tess worry something might go wrong.
“Does everybody know what to do when I give the word?” he asked for the umpteenth time.
“Everybody’s got it, honey,” Becky said, running her hand over his broad back. “They’re nervous enough without you asking the same question every three minutes.”
Just as Will decided something must be wrong and was about to pull everyone back to camp, he saw Tess dart from her hiding spot. She sprinted close to the highway and stopped. In one smooth motion she tossed one bottle, then the other, onto the middle of the road. The noise they made was unspectacular. But both cocktails produced gouts of fire that spread and burned a large section of the highway. Several cars were on fire, and the flames crackled and popped as they consumed and grew. The effects attracted creepers across a wide swath of interstate, and most of them heading toward the fires, moaning and snarling as they shuffled across the pavement.
After Tess threw her bottle it was Coy’s turn. He emerged from his hiding spot and raced toward the highway; moments later his bottles arced high in the air. His throw was the harder one- his bottles needed to hit the westbound lanes, further away. Will feared that the creepers in that lane would get hung up on the median guard rather than clear the road if all the distractions were in the closer eastbound lanes.
Coy’s first throw produced a meaty WHUMP when the wine bottle shattered against the hood of a Toyota Camry. His second rained fire on a hay truck sitting in the passing lane; moments later the dead, dry alfalfa was a great fire. The section of interstate in front of the group emptied of creepers with a glacial slowness as they shuffled off in response to the diversions on either side of them.
Coy and Tess ran straight south until they were a safe distance from the highway, then looped back toward the rest of the group at the dealership. Their riflemen followed in their footsteps and soon the four were back at the dealership.
Will gave Coy a nod and Tess a brief hug. He looked at the tense, drawn faces of the group around him and for once he couldn’t come up with any comforting or encouraging words. The small section of highway was as free of creepers as it was going to be.
“Let’s go,” Will said.
They ran single file with Will on point and Danny at the rear. Tempest straddled Casandro’s muscular back, clinging to his shoulders and pressing herself like an infant to her mother’s breasts. Kathy and David held hands as they ran. They crossed the first guard rail and ran across the first lane. That was all it took to catch the creeper’s attention. The dead were coming at them from both directions but were too far off to be a threat.
They made it to the grassy median and over the guardrail. A few people were flagging, and Danny encouraging them along. Casandro snagged the heel of his boot on the rail and just about tumbled over on top of Tempest; Justin grabbed and steadied him until the big man cleared his shoe. Will heard a scream followed by the flat report of a pistol. A creeper had appeared from God knows where and was closing in Brianne until Clay put a bullet in its head. They ran through the other side of the median and started across the southbound lanes. The creepers were close enough now that Will could hear their snarls and moans.
They ran across the lane and into the grass between the interstate and the outer road, with one last guardrail to clear. Danny gave up on encouragement; instead, he drove the laggards like a marine drill instructor. David half- dragged Kathy behind him. When Brianne got to the rail, she tried twice to get a leg up and over it, missing both times. Danny spun her around, lifted her over his shoulder, and placed her feet-first on the other side. Creepers closed in behind them, but when Will looked back he saw the guard rails confounding them. The dead didn’t have the capacity to step over obstacles, so at each rail, they piled up on the other side, arms outstretched and grasping, but unable to advance. Here and there one would lean too far and tumble over the rail, but by the time it regained its feet, even the group’s stragglers were far away. One creeper shuffled too close to a fire and now it leaned into the median guardrail with its clothes and arms ablaze. The fire spread to the creepers next to the burning one, prompting Will to think, Good. Let ‘em all burn.
They made it across the outer road and into an old soybean field. Will found Becky, took her hand, and ran, leading her to the middle of it. She leaned over with her hands on her knees, breathing in ragged breaths.
“Stand up,” he said, pulling her gently by the shoulder. “You get better wind if you’re not hunched over.”
The others struggled in by twos and threes. Kathy brought up the rear, her face a startling shade of red. Behind her, thirty yards back, a pair of creepers advanced on them. One wore a filthy and ragged three-piece suit. The sole of one of its wing-tips flapped with every step it took. Danny and Clay both raised their rifles.
“Don’t!” Will barked. He hooked a thumb behind him, at several houses amid a large wooded area. “We don’t know what’s back there,” he told them in a gentler tone. “Keep it quiet.”
The two men waited until the creepers were ten yards away, then walked, along with Jiri, to greet them. Danny grabbed Mr. Three Piece Suit by the back of its head and jerked it into his knife blade, piercing its eye. When the other creeper lunged for Clay, he neatly stepped aside and kicked its legs out from under it. Jiri brought his ax down on its head. It stiffened, then was still.
Will joined them, Coy by his side. “I don’t want us out in the open like this. Let’s head for the back side of one of those houses,” he said, pointing toward two homes across the field. “And keep an eye on Kathy- she’s real red in the face and hasn’t caught her wind back. I don’t think a quarter mile sprint over hurdles while strapped to a seventy-pound pack is the kind of workout they did at her big city health club.”
“Which house, Pop?” Coy asked, looking at the two homes on the edge of the field.
“That one.” Will pointed to the southernmost house. “It doesn’t have trees all around it like the other. Danny, Jiri, and I will clear it. Coy, you take everybody else around back and watch over them until we get through inside the house. Fire two shots if you have more trouble than you can handle.”
They walked back to the group and everybody began the tired slog through the dead soybeans.
The two-day trek through the woods followed by the sprint across the interstate left the group famished and exhausted. Becky and Sylvia doled out as much of the dwindling food supply as they felt they could spare. They spread across the dining and living rooms of the brick home south of the bean field and ate like refugees. Afterward, they relaxed a little for the first time in days.
Will lay on the floor with his head resting on Becky’s lap. He ran his hands through the thick shag carpet and looked at the fake wood paneling on the walls. Cheap prints, the kind you could buy on sale five for twenty dollars at the Michael’s store in Topeka, adorned the walls. From his vantage point, he could see part of the kitchen and its cheap Formica counters.
“Honey, these homeowners are past due for a remodel,” he told Becky in a serious voice. By way of answer she laughed and gave him a quick kiss.
Clay
sat next to them, kicked back in an overstuffed easy chair. He had the Missouri map unfolded on his lap and was examining it by the glow of a penlight he held in place with his mouth.
“What’s it look like Clayford?” Will used his favorite nickname for the ex-engineering student.
“Muhn mumfh huwm wuhm,” came the reply.
“Son, take the light out your mouth and try again.”
Clay spit out the light, wiped the saliva off it, and gave Will a sheepish grin. “Sorry. I said it doesn’t look too bad. A day, maybe day-and-a-half through more fields and woods, then a few dirt roads, and finally a pair of county roads take us to Highway 32. Then we take 32 west to Buffalo.”
“How far is it?”
“To Buffalo?” Clay peered at the map, thought for a moment, and looked at the map again. “Twenty-five miles, give or take a mile or two.”
“And how far from Buffalo to Carthage?”
Clay examined his map even longer this time. “One hundred miles.”
“How far have we traveled so far?”
Clay answered Will without looking him in the eye. “Thirty-five miles.”
“Thirty...,” he sputtered, “In NINE days? Thirty-five miles!” Will’s voice was incredulous. “JAY-sus CHRIST!” And loud.
“William, hush!” Becky hissed. “There are people trying to sleep.”
“Well wake there asses up,” Will thundered. “A one-hundred-sixty-mile trip and we’re averaging less than four miles a day. Makes it forty-five days until we’re done. We’ll be outdoors in mid-December. And that’s if everything goes well. What if we have to spend a week holding still because somebody gets hurt or sick? What if we get held up another week because of snow or a freezing spell? Now it’s January. You can forget about the creepers, I’ll be losing people to the cold.”
“Yes, there’s certainly that,” Becky said, her voice soft. “But what if there are no problems and we arrive at the end of November like we thought? Or we’re able to drive a stretch and get there ten days from now?”
Haven (Book 1): Journey Page 12
