Living Amongst The Dead (Book 3): On the Road Again

by J. N. Morgan

  “Things were different… I was wrong.”

  “About what.” The words were a question, but it was made as a statement. Tiffany had even admitted that she felt it was her fault, and Veronica was convinced that it was the typical Stockholm Syndrome-like effect which many women in abusive relationships seem to develop. Thinking that when they’re hit, or yelled at, that it is their fault and not their man’s fault. So the fact she didn’t believe that Tiff was at all wrong was in no way hidden by her cold tone.

  “He’s not a rapist.” Nick’s intense eyes shot to her then, like it was admitting that he had indeed forced himself upon her. “He’s not needlessly abusive.” Implying there is ever a need for a man to abuse a woman. “He treats me well, and he makes me happy.”

  “Until he decides to smack you around again.” Her gaze fixed itself up ahead once more, no longer looking down to her friend with such intensity. If she finds out he raped her babushka, he’ll be getting her bayonet up his fucking ass.

  “He’s been helping me for as long as we’ve known each other.” It was stated defensively, tired of hearing all the accusations at her man. “I tried to kill him, to shoot him. Of course he was angry. Would you not yell at him too if he tried to shoot you but it turned out his gun was empty?”

  “I’d shoot the fucker. Again.” Spoken without hesitation or mercy, nor with malice, as though it were a mere fact of life.

  “Well then he should have shot me, and I remember how scared I was. I had spotted him making his way through the park; seen him in your scope… sorry, by the way.” She was met with a very brief and lightly annoyed glance, but since even the rifle itself now was probably little more than a barrel and action with a gooey mass of melted polymer that was once a stock, there wasn’t much issue left in the fact that she’d gotten her optic broken.

  “I was hungry, he seemed like he was doing well. I ran out to try and meet him on the trail that cut from the park to the road. The walkers spotted me, followed, I started to panic, tried to shoot one but, God, I don’t think I came anywhere close to hitting it. Ran through the trees in the direction I thought he’d be, he was already almost at the road. I cursed at him when it seemed like he wasn’t going to help me, and why should he? I had nothing to give him, I wanted his stuff, and on top of it all I even lead a bunch of the dead towards him. So I got mad, I pointed your rifle, and I tried to shoot him.”

  “No round chambered.” She could remember when she spotted the rifle on the ground. Some bits of dirt had been kicked on it from the dead as they shambled by, the scope had been broken, assumedly by one of them stepping on it unless it had been broken beforehand. Unlikely. The bolt was open, two rounds in the mag, and an empty casing was nearby.

  “Yeah, tried to get the bolt to put another in but they were getting closer, I panicked, dropped the bolt. He seen me try to shoot him, and he pointed his gun at me, his rifle. This one.” He tapped the wooden stock with her right hand as it slung over her shoulder, the .303 No.4 Lee Enfield. “He could have easily shot me, I thought I was going to die, but I didn’t want to get bit so I just… ran to him. He had the pointy thing on it, could have stabbed me, but he let me pass and get up to the road. We ran, hid in the back of a truck, he could have gotten in before me and try to keep me out but he actually waited until I got in first.” The details of what happened in the box of that truck, obviously, would have to go unspoken.

  “If that when he raped y-”

  “He didn’t rape me.” She stated vehemently, her voice going a bit deep for a moment in warning. Even she had had that same thought going through her mind, whether it was rape or not. She had lots of time to think about it, to go over what happened, repeating it in her mind… but the fact of the matter was, even though it was a little scary and quite intense, she liked it. She enjoyed it. Perhaps it would have been nicer if they were both a bit cleaner like when they got to the house and had a bath eventually, but other than that… and that one particular knock on the head… she probably wouldn’t have changed anything. It wasn’t perfect, but it was… a lot of fun.

  “Look, he and I… we’re ‘us’ now. I was wrong. Yes there are bad men out there, of course there are, but he’s not one of them. Not all men are monsters, and it sickens me to the core that I had gone so many damn years of my life before finally giving one the time of day. I missed out on a lot of years that I could have been truly happy, and I blame…” silence took them as they continued, Tiff’s footsteps quicker than Nick’s due to her shorter legs. “… I blame feminism for that unhappiness.”

  “Hah, you were unhappy?” A genuine laugh at that. How many times had they laughed over anti-male jokes, laughed at mocking the Men’s Rights Activists, and how much fun they had messing with men online? That was fun as fuck, how could that not make a self-respecting woman happy?

  “Compared to how happy he makes me? Yes.” Spoken with utter confidence and conviction, and it drove the smile from the dark woman’s face as she glanced down at her friend who was looking up at her with a smile of her own. The rhythmic sound of their footsteps on the highway continued as overcast stretched overhead, cloud cover moving in, and the men hoped it wasn’t about to rain.

  The bullet wound was new, that’s for sure, as was having people to travel with again, but it was nice to be back on the road once more. It must have been 10 days or more than he had spent in Charlie and Denise winters’ house, or rather Johnathan winters’ house since his parents had passed away. His mother just a little before Richard and Tiffany arrived, and his father probably mere minutes afterwards. He was barely hanging on as it was, but when that shot rang out that told him his undead wife was killed, old Charlie seemingly suffered a fatal heart attack.

  Anyways, 10 days must have been the most time he’d spent in one place since leaving Fort McMurray, Alberta all those months ago. Must be around 6.5 at least since everything started going to shit, maybe even closing in on 7, it was hard to know. It had been nice having a bed to sleep on, and though spending so much time on couch cushions on the floor wasn’t ideal it was certainly more comfortable than most nights he slept outside like the night before. Oh how he missed his rifle though, seeing it in all its wooden-stocked glory, that warhorse from WWII, slung on his woman’s shoulder. How he’d love to hold it right now, but his shoulder still felt sore, felt stiff, and there was very real fear in attempting to move it. Such pain he’d experienced before when accidentally trying to move his right arm, but it didn’t seem to be getting infected thus far so hopefully it will heal well. Hopefully he’ll still be able to use it normally… hopefully he’ll still be able to use his beloved rifle. If need be he’ll perfect his ability to use it left-handed. To a degree, he was ambidextrous, but was FAR better when shooting right-handed. At least it was good to know that he had a back-up plan.

  “Think they spotted something?” Richard, who had been deep in thought, asked. The two ladies had turned around and were walking in their direction now.

  “Maybe, perhaps a diner is still working out here somewhere.”

  “Complete with a bar and inn?”

  “Naturally.”

  “I mean, it’s just the dead coming back to life. Easy thing to overlook.”

  “Mmh.” Nodding with a deep grunt with an absolute deadpan expression, the two were of course joking but you’d think they were having a serious and honest conversation about something as obvious as how long a year is. Well, it’s the time it takes for the Earth to make a full rotating around the Sun of course.

  “There’s a town up ahead, doesn’t look all that big.” The taller, deeper voiced woman gave.

  “Smaller than the Strath, probably.” Veronica nodded at Tiff’s assessment. Strathcom, the town where the two had lived for a couple years, the town outside of which Tiff met Richard, it had been within walking distance, albeit a long walk, from the ex-pastor’s parent’s place.

  “Well we’ll try and spot any paths going around it, or just bushwhack it if we have to; no point i
n dealing with a horde if we d-”

  “There are none.” Nicky gave bluntly. Rich’s prominent and arched eyebrows lowered in confusion as he looked back at her.

  “No dead?”

  “N-not that we can see. Right?” Tiff gave, looking uncertainly between the two. The black woman shook her head in agreement. Rich looked down to the side, at the pavement, thinking. A town with no dead? If there seemed to be living people then that would probably have been the first things they’d have mentioned.

  “Very strange…” Johnathan gave, and Rich twitched his head sideways in a ‘you got that right’ sort of manner.

  “I don’t like it… doesn’t feel right…” the younger of the two males muttered to himself, still diverting his intense brown eyes away from the others as he thought.

  “Could be stuff in there.” The rugged woman put in, and it was a fair remark.

  “If the town’s clear, then someone cleared it. Or rather, probably a lot of ‘someones’ cleared it. Those ‘someones’ will have swept the place for anything worth taking.”

  “W-well, one person’s trash is another one’s treasure, right? Maybe they already have lots of good stuff and couldn’t take more so left some decent stuff behind!” The somewhat chubby woman gave optimistically with a smile, and her ever-cautious lover who’s face had been so intimidatingly serious flashed a smile of his own at her, turning his almost scary neutral features on his scruffy face quite friendly and welcoming. It was like Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde.

  “True, but they might be still there though, with all that ‘good stuff’. All we have is a busted up survivalist-” he looked down at himself, “-a pacifist-”, peered to the fellow who was supporting some of his weight with his left arm, “-an admittedly strong woman albeit one who’s probably a little too quick on the trigger-” Nick’s eyes narrowed as she scowled at him all the while he spoke, daring him to say something more scathing. If he dared drop the N-bomb, she’d gut him where he stood, even if it would earn her Tiff’s hatred forever. “-and a bubbly little ball of beauty-” the mid-30s woman smiled broadly at this, “-that probably can’t shoot worth a damn.” The smile drooped to a sad frown, however her features lifted a little as he realized that though it might have sounded a bit like an insult, it was absolutely true. Even under ideal conditions she probably wasn’t a very good shot, and if she ended up in a situation where she was being shot at or was under any other sort of stress, she would most certainly miss with more shots than she’d hit. Richard gave a small laugh at her reactions which caught her attention, and he blew a kiss at her without using either of his hands, which brought her smile right back.

  Veronica rolled her eyes and gave a disgusted groan, almost more of a grunt, and though the older man didn’t make his dismay audible he none the less found himself rolling his eyes as well.

  So the four went together to have a distant look at this supposed town. There was just a short stretch of road to go along before it came to a corner, and it was at this corner past a wall of forest that the ‘scouts’ up ahead spotted the place. The thick woods opened up along the right, though otherwise didn’t thin. A field showed itself for probably over a kilometer until met with another wall of green. With the morning Sun to their left, the two-lane highway continued south, and Nick kept her rifle shouldered as they advanced though with the .30 cal barrel pointed down to the ground, finger resting on the engaged safety ready to flick it off, and doing so would naturally bring her finger down onto the trigger. A simple safety on the SKS design, but an efficient one in terms of ergonomics.

  Tiff held that hefty Lee Enfield as well, but it was mostly for sure, and looked down at it often to make doubly-sure the safety was on to make sure she didn’t accidentally fire a round. She did not handle it quite as supposedly professional as her friend handled hers. While the men followed from behind, Richard could feel the familiar weight on his hip, though not on his right where it normally was. His woman had been carrying both his firearms for a while now, ever since his injury just about, but now he felt well enough to carry at least his side-arm. Stainless M1911A1 Mil spec. Normally carried in his black leather holster inside the waistband on his right, it was now outside the waistband on his left. Now inaccessible due to his left arm being around Johnathan’s shoulders, if things started to go bad he could at least try to be assisted to some sort of cover, draw the side-arm, and perhaps while prone he could be steady enough to take some decent shots.

  On the right side of the asphalt, the west side, was little more than shrubbery and grassland as well as the old railroad. Who knows when the last time it was used, perhaps decades, perhaps years, or perhaps only months right up until the dead destroyed the civilization that’s been developing in North America for centuries. Rich recalled being on a train once when he was just a little kid, maybe 10, but that was about it. Can’t even remember where he had been or where he was going at the time, but there was a TV in the smoking room, and it was playing a Pokemon movie for the kids. So that was nice.

  Farther in the distance along the tree line was a ridge, some tall trees atop it, perhaps some great oaks. Some sort of small structure was somewhat visible as well, an RV? They didn’t see a road cutting through the trees towards it so there must have been a road coming from elsewhere, perhaps connected to that barn-looking structure just a bit to the south or southeast of that, or a little to the left from their perspective.

  To the left of the road was only a combination gas station and convenience store with a small garage, while up ahead several hundred meters yet were the houses that had been spotted. A big Mac-truck-looking thing was parked, its trailer door open, a huge mess littered about as seemingly everything had been searched inside. As for the truck itself, torched, burnt to a crisp. Power lines nearby were so close to the flames that the plastic melted from them, some of the lines were even severed. Could probably pick them up and chew on them for all the danger it would cause in terms of electric shock. As far as electronics were concerned, they might as well be living in the 19th century. Sure there were some battery-powered things that people might be able to still use, like the combination watch and LED light that hung from the young man’s belt loop but electrical sockets nowadays were little more than useless holes in the walls. If someday he ever did have a child, he wondered if someday it would point to such a thing and ask why the wall is like that. How would you go about explaining electricity to a child who has never experienced it? Probably like describing colours to someone who has been blind their whole life.

  Richard knew it’d be useless but watched Nick go at a casual jog towards the convenience store, passing by the absolute pig sty that was the trailer’s cargo. The large window on the door had already been smashed in and she easily stepped through, her semi-auto rifle likely made back in the Cold War though designed way back during the later stages of WWII held at the ready, ears keen for sound. The place was a mess, as expected, and equally as expected there didn’t appear to be anything worth taking. Still, she grabbed a pack of gum that had been left there and turned to leave, stopped, and grabbed a pack of grape-flavoured to go with her own blue pack of peppermint gum. Tiff liked grape.

  She had been looking towards the convenience store nervously, waiting for the younger and more firearms-experienced woman to come back to her side. The men, hanging behind, remained silent as they went along, eyes peeled.

  A small ditch went between the big rig which wasn’t far from the gas pump, and the highway. The two access points for vehicles to get to the gas station/convenience store had large pipes beneath them to allow water to flow under them. Not much grew down there in that ditch between access roads but from the farther one to the town, it was filled with overgrowth.

  Continuing along, the silence and tension surrounding them, a sign was passed by on the right which stated ‘MAXIMUM 60 km/hr’, good to know. A line of trees just past the railroads were obstructing the view of that RV-looking structure up on the ridge in the distance, and that little ‘
town’ of sorts was growing closer and closer on the left side of the road up ahead. Three houses in sight so far, each with a little garage connected to it, and as they made their way along on the tarmac yet a second gas station was being passed on their left, this one with a restaurant. A white truck parked nearby, corpse lying back in the driver’s seat, windows misty and dirty, it didn’t move. In black on the driver side window was written ‘BOB’.

  The structure far off to the right came into view again from the line of trees that went alone near the tracks, and a large sign on a building became legible; GENERAL STORE, and there was another building coming into view from behind it. They were next to a slight rise in the road, a tiny hill, but just high enough to obscure their view for whatever might lay ahead. Rich was feeling ill-at-ease. Yes he was buzzed from the rum, but oddly, regretfully, even full-on drunkenness never seemed to alter his perception of things going on around him, so being a little buzz did little if anything to take down his guard. The woods were nearby to the left, but it almost looked like a wide opening, perhaps a valley, was beyond this small settlement off to the east. Perhaps they could slip into those woods, continue east a ways until they’re past the valley, get into the woods there on the other side, then cut south or southeast until they get to the highway again to continue on. As for going west, nah, there was open field for quite some distance, they’d be fish in a barrel.

  The building behind the general store was yet another house, and yet a fourth came into view with the two to the left. So that’s a restaurant, two convenience stores, and a general store, but with only four homes in sight so far? Clearly they were only operational due to the highway that cut along there.

  “TSS!” Richard hissed as he seen Veronica break away from Tiff yet again, heading for the houses to the left. She didn’t hear, and the nervous woman sent an arm towards her as she tried to get her attention as well. “God damn it, the stores and even the God damn trucker rig has been gutted already, what makes her think the houses would be any different?” He grumbled annoyedly at nobody in particular, and Johnathan just swallowed, watching as she went. They remained quite a few meters behind, letting the women have their space as they checked the place out, being at present more armed and capable than the males they traveled with, it sickened the young man. He should be up there, he should be carrying his Lee Enfield, he should be taking the risks, not Tiffany.