It was ridiculous. The radio said the world was falling apart, something in the store had scared her mom half to death, a crazy man had just attacked them and they had run over him and now her mom was scolding her about her seatbelt. She didn’t know whether to scream or cry or laugh. Coffee licked at the tears on her cheeks and she laughed. She had to or she’d go mad.
“Your hair is messed up.” She told her mom.
Linda’s ponytail was askew, somehow it wasn’t in the back anymore, and it was on the side of her head.
Her mom started laughing too and it took a while for them to stop.
The man they had run over was still coming, crawling along the asphalt on broken legs. He was still keening and growling, still trying to get them.
“It really is zombies?” Kassie asked as they turned in their seats and watched his slow progress.
It took a minute for her mom to answer but she agreed when she finally did.
“Honey, things are different now. We’re going to have to take care of ourselves, I don’t think there are any more towns or army or police at the moment. I think we’re on our own for a while until they get things sorted out. It might be a while before they get everything under control again. I think we need to go to a place without any other people around until things settle down. I think those creatures are everywhere. We might have to do things that were unthinkable a few hours ago. Are you okay with that?”
Kassie nodded; her eyes wide.
“I’m not going to sugar coat it, we might have to do things we don’t want to do but if we’re going to make it through this, they’re going to have to get done. We can’t half way commit, this is life and death. We have to be in all the way. You understand?”
Kassie nodded again. “All the way.” She said.
Her mom put the car in reverse, aimed for thing in the road and exploded its head in mid scream when the rear bumper slammed into it. They stopped at the gas pumps and she took her pistol case out of the console. Kassie grabbed the ammo out of the glove box and started loading the magazine as her mom rummaged around the back seat for the holster, the one she’d carried the days they’d been in the woods.
They left Coffee in the car, slipped inside quietly and went straight to the restrooms. They could hear one of them shuffling around. Someone had turned into one of those things while inside and couldn’t get out, the door had to be pulled to open. Linda had come face to face with it when she’d first entered the store and thought someone was in need of help when she heard it. She was lucky the door didn’t open the other way or she’d be dead, reanimated and would have been trapped inside just waiting for her daughter to come looking for her. Together they moved a couple of tables from the café over to stack in front of the door in case the thing inside managed to somehow bounce it open.
“We need to take as much as we can carry.” Linda said. “We’re heading back into the park, I think we can stay in one of those ranger cabins, maybe the one that was miles from anywhere.”
The place was deserted, food still on the tables, the grill still on with bacon and sausage burnt beyond recognition. There was blood on the counter and more bloody handprints on the door. A display of kachina dolls, pottery and genuine Indian jewelry had been knocked over and broken shards littered the floor. The thing in the bathroom pounded and screamed incessantly and they were both rattled, in a hurry and more than a little frightened. Everything was happening so fast. They grabbed armloads of food from the shelves and filled the backseat with canned goods and other gear. She topped off the gas, filled every extra can the store had and tied them to the roof. They rushed, nearly running back and forth and always watching for anymore of the undead to come running down the road.
The Escape wasn’t set up for serious off roading, it wasn’t a Jeep or a Land Rover but it had four-wheel drive and the tires were all terrain. It would make it up the fire roads and maintenance trails just fine.
Linda had made the tough decision that there was nothing they could do for their loved ones back home and if they tried to get back to Louisville they would most likely die on the way. She turned the SUV back into Badlands National Park and headed for the most remote part she could find. The roads were rutted and washed out in places, branches and scrub brush added a lot of new scratches to the paint but the Escape took them deep into the park, to the little ranger station they’d hiked past days before.
As they made their way through the bumpy, twisted trails, her mom told her they would be ok. They were far away from the danger. They had their camping and fishing gear, she had her pistol and knew how to use it and they had enough supplies to last for a while. Maybe in a few weeks, maybe a few months, things would settle down. The government or the army or somebody would start to fix everything. They just had to ride things out for a while. Kassie was excited and terrified all at once.
They followed the trails through the canyons and hills until they found the little cabin standing in the middle of a meadow. It was small with a couple of cots, a stretcher, other basic medical supplies and a wood stove. There was no electricity, running water or two-way radio. It was primitive and didn’t see much use but the builders had added an outhouse some thirty yards away near the tree line. It had been a few years since someone had broken an ankle and had to be carried to a clearing so the helicopter could get them. It was dusty and had a stale smell. It wasn’t much to look at it but the roof didn’t leak and the floors were solid. The door was thick and heavy and the latch was strong. The small windows had heavy shutters. Nothing would be getting inside, not even a large bear.
It wasn’t fancy, but it was perfect for the two of them. It was warm and dry, far from civilization and only a short walk from a stream. They unpacked the car and mourned the loss of the world as one by one the radio stations went off the air. By the third day, there was only static when they scanned the dial.
“We’re going to have to winter here,” Her mom said as they sat in the Ford. “We need to go back to the store, clean it out, and get anything and everything we might need.”
They stripped the SUV bare, pulled out the back seats went down to the all in one Black Hills country cafe, fuel stop and last chance souvenir shop. It was the same as they’d left if except the electricity was off, they couldn’t top off the gas cans. Someone had been there, another survivor. The beer cooler looked a lot emptier than she remembered and the cigarette rack behind the counter had been stripped bare of everything except the menthols. Linda backed up to the front door and they worked fast, the thing in the bathroom was still trying to get out and whoever took the beer might come back for the rest of it. They weren’t in a panic this time though and took the time to pack the truck tightly. They took all the big cans from the restaurant, the sack of potatoes and onions and every ounce of coffee. They grabbed all of the Navajo blankets to line the walls and floor of the cabin. It wasn’t insulated and winter would be cold. They cleaned the store shelves of anything edible, which was mostly junk food, and everything else they could cram into the nooks and crannies of the Escape. They grabbed tourists’ T-shirts, cheap Indian moccasins made in china, all of the cigarette lighters and packets of aspirin. She found a toolbox in the office and it was tossed in too, along with the assortment of fishing hooks, lures and line. Kassie found a shotgun leaning behind the office door but they didn’t find any extra shells, only the four that were in it. The overloaded truck groaned its way back up the trail and almost as an afterthought, they broke off some branches and swept away their tracks when they turned onto the dirt road. The missing beer bothered Linda. There could be some unpleasant men lurking out there staying drunk and doing whatever they wanted. With no law and lots of alcohol she was worried what a group of men might do if they discovered two women on their own. She knew what people could do to each other. She’d seen some ugly things and heard uglier stories during her decade of working the emergency room.
Linda wasn’t a survivalist or a prepper, she didn’t know how to start a fire wit
h sticks or hunt deer with a knife but she enjoyed the outdoors and was comfortable in the wilds. They couldn’t have survived being stranded in the woods with only the clothes on their backs but that wasn’t their situation at all. They had enough food for maybe six months, a roof over their heads, pure water from a mountain stream and a way to keep warm in the winter. She knew how to clean a fish, could figure out how to set snares and they had the tools they needed to survive. They were set up pretty good and she knew they’d been lucky.
They spent weeks digging a root cellar and lining it with small logs. Kassie’s blisters turned to callouses as one day blurred into the next and the nights got colder. Winter was coming and her mom said snow could be so deep they wouldn’t be able to leave the cabin, maybe for days. Through trial and error they learned to build fish traps that worked and snares that caught small game. Kassie discovered that even though it was gross at first learning how to clean them, fresh rabbit or fish seasoned with wild herbs and cooked over an open fire was way better than ravioli from a can.
After the first rushed weeks of getting everything ready, the days passed slowly. Linda gave her a crash course on what she knew about survival. She taught her the little she knew about which plants could be used for food and medicine and which ones to avoid. They ground their own spices from the herbs that they picked from the foothills. She learned to make medicinal teas and how to field dress an animal. They hiked to different areas to fish and collect plants that could season their food. The only thing they had from the store was salt, pepper and hot sauce.
They said prayers for the family and friends back home. They played cards and read books from mom’s Kindle, which they charged in the Escape. They inventoried their supplies and were content. With the fresh meat pulled from the snares or the creek, they had enough to last until spring. They fashioned warning systems with rocks, tin cans and fishing line that surrounded the approach to the cabin. Bears were a concern and they cleaned the small game on a big, flat rock next to the stream. They were careful not to leave any food scraps outside and tossed the bones in the water to be carried off by the swift current.
She and Coffee chased butterflies through the mesas and buttes and picked wildflowers to give their tiny home some color.
They gathered wood and spent hours each day with the little camp axe chopping it into pieces that would fit in the small stove inside the cabin. The pile grew and they had to go farther and farther to find good downed wood. They fashioned a travois from one of the Navajo rugs and their legs grew strong pulling the heavy loads.
They experimented with different ways of starting a fire without matches and although they finally succeeded and agreed it was good to know, it was so much easier to flick a Bic. They did laundry by hand, dried them on paracord strung between trees and mother and daughter became closer. Their grownup and child roles blurred a little and they became real friends. They never saw another person, living or dead, heard the sound of cars or saw the contrails of airplanes crossing the sky.
Linda drew up a calendar and marked the days off as they passed. September fell away to October and became November. They fell into a routine and once a week they would spend a day looking for civilization, as they started calling it. After breakfast they would fire up the Escape and scan the radio dial. They never really expected to hear anything but they both held their breath, crossed their fingers and hoped as the numbers flitted across the screen, never stopping, never locking in on a signal. Afterwards they hiked to the highest point for miles and stared through the binoculars in every direction for signs of activity. They looked for smoke from a fire, a small airplane, sounds of machinery or anything else that might show them they weren’t alone. They never saw anything.
The snows came at the end of November and stayed by mid-December. Linda pulled the battery out of the Ford, set it in a corner of the cabin and hoped there would be enough juice in it to fire the truck up when the trails were clear enough to navigate.
Winter was mostly boredom and monotony. Kassie learned how to sew and they used fishing line to make jackets and pants from T-shirts and blankets. Once the snows were knee deep, they only went out for wood or the outhouse. A storm came in January and they worried the roof might be torn off in its fury but in the morning, the world was a calm, white wonderland. Cabin fever set in and they made snowshoes then learned to walk in them, covering miles of territory to check their traps and snares. They became lean and hard; all excess fat was stripped away.
5
Leaving the Badlands
Spring chased away the snows and the black hills came alive with birdsong and flowers. Fish became plentiful and their snares were useful again. By the end of March, the snow melt was gone, the trail was dry enough to maneuver and they were both eager to get off the mountain, to travel a little farther and see if any of the towns were showing signs of life, if there were any other survivors. With a prayer on their lips, Linda connected the battery and was rewarded with the buzzes and dings of a car coming back to life. She cranked it and although it turned over slowly, the engine fired and settled into a steady idle.
They whooped and did a little dance but stopped in mid celebration when the scanning radio locked onto a signal and music blasted out of the speakers. Their celebratory cheers were even louder and both dove into the car to listen raptly when a man came on, gave a little news about a shipment of medicines expected to be in later that day and played another song.
They listened for hours before the next DJ came on and mentioned they were broadcasting from Lakota Oklahoma. Over the next couple of days they learned there were other fortified settlements, other survivors and as the country thawed out they were starting to rebuild. There were warnings to avoid the big towns and cities, they were still overrun with the undead. There were call in shows, music shows, how-to hours and the town sounded wonderful. They had electricity and running water. All were welcome and there was still plenty of housing available inside the walls. They were eager to go and started planning the journey.
Using their maps, Linda charted a course for Lakota that avoided any towns and stayed on the back roads. It was a meandering route but it should keep them safe. Her only concern was getting fuel, she didn’t have enough to make it, even with the extra cans. She knew the principles of siphoning gas even though she’d never done it. With a piece of garden hose from an empty house, she was sure she could figure it out. Somebody called Scratch played the most awful music but he mentioned that the zombies would chase you forever so be careful every time you stopped. Even with that good advice, Kassie still wasn’t sure if it was worth listening to his show. All the music sounded the same, like some guy screaming into the microphone while the band made a lot of terrible racket.
They made it around Omaha and into Missouri when the SUV started bucking and running rough then finally died. It wouldn’t start back up no matter what she did and within a few minutes of cranking, the battery died too. All they could figure is that they must have gotten some bad gas.
“It’s not the end of the world.” Mom said. “We’ve got two good feet and maybe we’ll find another car. Maybe the next farmhouse we come to has a pickup truck with the keys in it. We’re out in the country, people don’t lock things up like they do in the city.”
“We could always drive a tractor.” Kassie said. “Do those take keys?”
As they were sorting through their gear, trying to determine what the most important things to take were in case they couldn’t get back to the truck, they saw a stumbling group of people in the distance from the way they’d come. They remembered what Scratch said, some of the farms they’d passed had people still wandering around. They were far off and not moving very fast but they were coming. Like a slow-moving locomotive, they couldn’t be stopped and their arrival was inevitable.
They crammed their packs with whatever was at hand, grabbed the guns and started running. There was no place to hide, tens of thousands of acres of crop land surrounded them in every dire
ction. They slowed their pace to a jog when they lost sight of them but kept moving. They didn’t know if the things would stop at the car or keep shuffling after them. Did they follow the sound of the car or the smell of the people? The land was flat, they could see all the way to the horizon on the straight and narrow roads. Using the binoculars, they watched in dismay from a mile distant as the horde only stopped briefly at the car before continuing the chase. There were a lot of them, they’d probably been picking up followers for a long time.
“We have to keep moving.” Linda said. “They’re slow. If we come to a stream, we’ll go down it. Surely, they can’t track us through water, even bloodhounds can’t do that.”
They jogged for a long time, it felt like hours and they stopped twice to lighten their loads. They got rid of extra clothes and tools the first time. After the second stop and the undead still seemed to be gaining, they ditched everything except the clothes on their backs and the guns. They were at a cross roads, they had run for miles and still no river in sight. Both of them were panting and sweating in their Navajo blanket jackets but didn’t want to toss them. It still got cold at night and they were thick enough to stop a bite if things went really bad and they had to fight hand to hand.
As they got their breath and drank down a can of peaches, they heard a motor far off in the distance. They waited, not wanting to leave the intersection, the machine was heading right for them. It didn’t even occur to Linda that they might be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. She didn’t think it might be bad men coming down the road. They didn’t have much choice, they were slowing and the horde was steadily gaining. There wasn’t a river anywhere to be seen and the vehicle bearing down on them was their only hope.
The Feral Children [A Zombie Road Tale] Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 59
