“Are you guys the same age?” I ask them.
“Pretty much,” says Kyle.
“I’m older,” says Natalie. “He is still a teenager.”
“Barely.” Kyle rolls his eyes.
I can’t help but thinking of Kyle as some older version of one of my boys. It is probably just because they share a name, but I can’t help remembering my son every time I look at him.
“What about you?” Natalie asks.
“Me?” I say. “I’m twenty-eight.”
“Really?” says Fletcher.
“Maybe I’m twenty-nine now. I don’t really know what the date is.”
“I thought you were older,” says Kyle.
“You don’t say that to a woman, you dummy,” Nat whispers as she jabs him with an elbow.
“It’s okay,” I smile. “I guess, I’ve already lived a lot.”
“Haven’t we all,” Fletcher chimes in.
“That must have been hard,” Kyle says.
“What?” I ask.
“You must have been younger than me when you had your son,” he finishes.
“What?” I say, confused. I hadn’t mentioned anything about having kids.
“Stevie,” he says. “That’s his name, right?”
“No,” I shake my head. “He isn’t mine.”
“Oh shit,” Kyle says. “I just thought—”
“You’re such an idiot,” Nat says to him. “The kid doesn’t look anything like her.”
“I just thought he took after his dad,” Kyle says to her.
“Well, he does,” I say.
“Did you have kids?” he asks.
For a long moment, I let the question hang in the air.
“Yes,” I finally say. “I had two boys. They were actually a little older than Stevie.”
“Damn,” Kyle mutters.
There isn’t much else to say other than that.
“You’re lucky,” says Nat.
Her words catch me by surprise. I twist my head around to look at her walking alongside the road.
“I’ll probably never get to have kids now,” she says.
“That’s not true,” Kyle says. “We’ll need more kids.”
“No,” Nat says. “I’d never bring a kid into this world. Not anymore.”
“This conversation is fucking depressing,” Fletcher interjects.
I want to say something, but the doubt in my mind does not allow it. Maybe Natalie has a point. With everything going on maybe we should all think like she does. If a child grows up in a place like this, could he still even be truly human. Who knows what kind of effects this world might have already had on Stevie. Only time will tell.
The four of us walk along the road quietly once again. The only sound is the breeze rustling the overgrown grass and the birds calling out into the morning air. Finally, I spot a committee of vultures roosting on the telephone poles in the distance.
“There’s a town up ahead,” I say.
“You sure?” Fletcher asks.
I nod. A few minutes later the top of a water tower appears above a copse of trees on the horizon.
“Finally,” Natalie rejoices.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Fletcher reminds us.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll be pretty empty,” Kyle says.
“I doubt it,” I say. “How much ammo do we have?”
“Enough,” Fletcher says. “Probably.”
“I hope you’re right,” I say.
“It’ll have to be enough,” Fletcher says. “We don’t exactly have a lot of other options. We need to get whatever we can here.”
On the edge of town we come upon a couple of vehicles on the side of the road. There is a black van with bullet holes in the windshield. A yellow sports car is parked on the adjacent shoulder. The windows are smashed in and dried blood is smeared all down the door panel. We pause about twenty yards down the road and survey the scene.
Fletcher slips off his pack and unlatches the top and begins digging around inside. He pulls out a long section of plastic hose and tosses it to Kyle.
“I’ll check the cars,” I say.
“I better,” Fletcher says.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “I can handle myself.”
Fletcher raises his hands in surrender and watches as I head for the vehicles. I take the knife out of my jacket and grip it tightly in my fist. I can hear the sound of the damn vultures grunting in the distance. At least I hope it was the damn vultures.
As I come up on the rear of the yellow car, I walk in a careful arc toward the middle of the road to give myself a better angle to peer into the open front door while still keeping my distance. Once I can see inside the car, I spot a pair of boots and pants covered in blood underneath the steering wheel. After circling a few more steps I see a body slumped across the front seats. I inch closer to the car, watching for any sign of movement, but the body remains still. When I get to the door of the vehicle, I cover my nose from the smell. The head of the man in the car is completely gone. Gore and tissue are splattered all over the inside of the vehicle.
I let out the breath I’d been holding and lower the knife. The relief doesn’t last more than a moment before I hear a sound from inside the van behind me. I pivot around and raise the knife. The front seats of the van look empty, but I scurry across the road and peer inside the window. Nothing.
With my body close to the side of the van, I move toward the rear of the vehicle as quickly as I can without making a noise. I peer around the back corner of the vehicle and find the rear doors are closed. Something paws at the walls inside. I know I should just leave whatever is in there alone, but I reach for the handle of the door anyway, driven some kind of irrational curiosity.
My fingers pry the handle on the rear door until it unlatches and springs open. A half eaten face of a woman appears in the door and claws in my direction as the thing drags its body forward and flops onto the road. Below the waist, the entire body of the thing is gone. It drags a mess of mangled cartilage and bones that leaves a streak of black sludge along the pavement behind it. I jump back and get clear of the reach of the pitiful creature. I watch it for a moment in horror before I lift my boot up high and drive it down on the skull of the thing as hard as I can. It moans after striking the pavement but continues to struggle up again. With a curse, I stomp on the thing as hard as I can again, feeling the skull give way and shatter beneath my heel. The sound wrenches my stomach. I gag and bring my forearm up to cover my mouth, but manage to regain control of myself a moment later.
Fletcher rushes around the back of the van and skids to a halt when he spots the half eaten corpse with the skull splattered all over the ground.
“You hurt?” he asks.
I shake my head and lower my arm away from my mouth and step away from the body. My boot leaves a bloody footprint on the ground.
“Should have let me check it out,” Fletcher says.
“I told you I could handle it,” I say.
Fletcher gazes back down at the mess in the road.
“God damn,” he says. “I seen a lot of shit, but this one is right up there at the top of the shitlist.”
“The inside of the van is a mess, too,” I say.
He glances inside the truck.
“Not much of anything inside there anyway,” he says. He heads around to the front door of the van and opens the door and pops open the gas tank. “Found some keys,” he informs me.
“Not sure I want to ride around inside there,” I sigh.
“Any luck, Kyle?” Fletcher asks.
Kyle shakes his head and pulls the hose out of the gas tank and coils it around again. Natalie picks up the empty gas cans off the ground and follows Kyle over to the van.
“Jesus,” Kyle gasps when he comes upon the remnants of the woman on the ground.
Natalie peers around the side of the van and curls her lip in disgust. Her gaze turns toward me as she studies my face and the gore on my boot.
&
nbsp; I turn away and walk into the grass embankment beside the road and begin to wipe my boot off in the grass. Even though I twist my ankle and wipe it in every direction it seems impossible to get it all off. I give up when I hear the sound of the ignition on the van sputtering. It whirs several times then catches and turns over. A cloud of exhaust billows out from the tailpipe.
“Let’s go,” Fletcher calls.
“I’m not getting in that mess,” Kyle says. “Let’s put the gas in the car.”
“Sorry pal,” Fletcher says. “This puppy is diesel.”
“Come on,” Natalie says as she climbs into the back of the van. “Put on your big boy pants and get in here.”
I move up the embankment and open the passenger door, but just before I climb into the seat I hear Kyle puking his guts out on the side of the road. Fletcher laughs and drapes an arm over the top of the steering wheel. He jerks his head to encourage me to get in the van.
I leave the door and go to the back of the vehicle and place an arm on Kyle's shoulder as he hunches over and coughs. Spittle trickles from his lips and he swipes it away with his forearm.
“I’m fine,” he says as he stands upright again.
“Why don’t you ride up front?” I offer.
He gives me a quick nod and blinks away the moisture in his eyes. I watch him climb into the seat and then I get into the back of the van and crouch down in the sticky blood and tissue soaking the upholstery.
“You got to man up, College Boy,” Fletcher says as he shifts the van into drive.
“Whatever, man,” Kyle shakes his head. “My breakfast just didn’t agree with me.”
“Sure,” Fletchers laughs. “Whatever you say, kid.” He wheels the vehicle around in a circle and we continue on our search for supplies.
Thirty
We park the van in front of a deserted gas station at the edge of town. The roads seem remarkably clear, which concerns me. The roads are never this clear anywhere. There are always a few bodies shambling around wherever we go.
“What do you think?” Fletcher asks.
“Looks like we lucked out,” Kyle says.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Something doesn’t seem right about this place.”
We get out of the van and I look up and down the empty roads. I scan the sky above. To the left, I spot a trio of birds circling in the sky.
“We’ll check inside,” Kyle says. He jerks his head and Natalie follows him toward the front door on the convenience store.
As I lower my eyes again, I happen to notice the sign of the gas station and the price of the gas. It says twenty bucks a gallon. Most areas I have seen never had time to raise up prices before the power grid went down. This station must have had some means of pumping the gas. Maybe we can get the pumps to work again. In this tiny town people must have been spared for days, maybe even weeks after the dead began to rise.
“What is it?” Fletcher asks me.
“Shhh,” I hiss. “You hear that?”
I listen to the low, steady moans far off in the distance.
“We’re good,” Fletcher assures me. “They must be a mile away.” He turns and heads for the door of the gas station.
“Fletcher,” I say.
He pauses and turns and cocks his head.
“Did you notice the sign?” I ask him and point my finger at the prices for gasoline.
“Shit,” Fletcher says a grin creeping on to his face. He walks over to check the pump and lifts the nozzle and check the display as he squeezes the handle. “It’s off now. Maybe they have some kind of generator hooked up around here.”
I follow him inside and am surprised to find the store is still somewhat stocked. Fletcher makes his way behind the counter and flips various switches that controls the pumps. He steps back and rubs at the scruff on his chin as he tries to figure out how to get the gas flowing again.
“This place still has everything,” Kyle says as he picks up a case of water.
“The prices are a bit high, though,” Natalie says. She picks up a candy bar of the shelf and examines it. “Ten bucks for a chocolate bar.”
There is a small selection of products on the shelves. I pick up a can of pasta and meatballs with a price tag of fifty dollars. I load the assorted cans of beans, vegetables, and fruit into my pack.
“Any luck?” I ask Fletcher.
He tilts his head to peer at me from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat.
“Must be a generator out back or something,” he says. He glances over at a door on the back wall of the store. “I’ll go see what I can find.”
After he leaves, we continue to load up anything we can find. I grab some shopping bags from behind the register and load it with pretzels, chips, cookies and trail mix. Not the best diet, but it beats starving to death. There’s more than enough to last us a few days, long enough to get back to Missouri.
I notice road maps for Iowa and Missouri down an aisle alongside some air fresheners, oil and wiper fluid. I shove as much as I can into the bags and leave them in a pile near the door. As I head behind the counter to get more bags, the lights turn on inside the store. The refrigerators kick on and an old boombox on the wall begins to play an old cassette tape of Johnny Cash.
“Holy shit,” Natalie says.
Fletcher emerges from the backroom of the store with a smile. He glances at the radio and hums along with the music for a moment. He dips his knees and reaches a hand toward me with a stupid smirk on his face.
“Want to dance, Scout?” he asks.
“Let’s just get some gas and get out of here,” I suggest.
He grabs me around the waist and pulls me close to him. He laces his fingers through mine and tries to get me to dance.
“Jesus,” I say and push him away. “Quit screwing around.”
“Hell, I didn’t even get to start screwing around,” Fletcher whines.
On my way out the door I snatch up a few bags of supplies and hurry to the van. I unload the supplies in the front of the van and retrieve the gas cans from the rear. The digits on the pump screen appear when I remove the nozzle. I can’t help but smile at the sight. After I remove the cap from the first gas can, I start pumping the gas. I stare at the digits on the screen as I fill the can with gas. I wish it was always this easy to scavenge for food and fuel.
The blissful moment passes when I spot the vultures in the sky again. There must be a dozen of them now. I watch them swooping downward and disappearing behind the treetops before returning back up to the sky. They must be trying to feed on something but are encountering some kind of opposition that is chasing them away. I fill the last canister and hand it to Fletcher to load into the truck.
“We must be near the highway,” Fletcher says.
“What makes you think that?” I ask, only giving him half of my attention.
“A lot of states required gas stations located with a few miles of the highway to have backup power in the event of a catastrophe. I’m guessing the interstate must be on the other side of town. Maybe that’s where all the fucking corpses are coming from.”
“We should check it out,” I say.
“First we’ll head back and get the rest of them,” Fletcher suggests. He lugs the gas cans toward the truck and sets them on the floor in the back. He slams the door and notices I am still standing beside the gas pump, holding the nozzle in my hand.
“Let’s move, Scout,” he says.
I glance up at the vultures in the sky, swooping down and then quickly back up again.
“We need to check it out first,” I tell him.
“Quit acting weird,” he says and stalks over to me.
“I’m not,” I insist. “I think someone might be alive over there.”
“You think?” he scoffs. “Come on. Just get in the truck, doll.” His hand closes around my arm and he pulls me but I yank my arm away.
“I’m serious,” I say. “We need to have a look.”
“Jesus,” he sighs. “We can’t go runn
ing around just because you got a hunch there might be someone alive over there.”
“It isn’t a hunch,” I say. “Those things aren’t all gathered on the other side of town for no reason. They’re after someone.”
“That’s not our problem,” Fletcher says. “We need to get this shit back to the church, now.”
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll go on my own.”
“No,” Fletcher shakes his head.
I brush passed him and cross the parking lot toward the road.
“Scout,” he calls. “Get the fuck back here!”
“Take the stuff back and I’ll get back on my own later.” I glance back over my shoulder to see him staring angrily at me. Natalie and Kyle watch me from inside the truck.
“What’s she doing?” Kyle asks Fletcher.
“Losing her damn mind,” Fletcher says.
I give him a smirk but it leaves my face quickly after a painful reminder from the stitches in my cheek.
“I’ll be fine,” I assure them. “Don’t worry.”
“Like hell,” mutters Fletcher. He stalks over toward me as he curses and mutters under his breath. “You win. Just get in the truck and we’ll go check it out.”
The painful smile returns to my face. I follow him back to the truck and climb inside the back and squat against the wall across from Natalie. She gives me a hint of a smile, as if to show an appreciated for my ability to manipulate Fletcher. The expression is kind of wordless gesture of mutual female understanding of the struggles of dealing with the stubborn ignorance of men. It’s something we’ve all had to deal with before. I smile back and shake my head as I roll my eyes back into my head.
The van pulls out of the gas station and wheels around toward the center of town.
“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” Fletcher complains as he hangs a right turn.
I crane my neck to see the road through the front windshield as he drives. Shops and boutiques line the road, their storefront windows still displaying mannequins wearing winter garments. There is a fire truck parked out front of the abandoned station. Cars are parked neatly alongside the road. There isn’t a sign of the chaos we’ve come to expect as the standard. It makes me anxious when everything looks so much like the world used to look, but entirely empty. I manage to get a glimpse of the sky and notice the birds off to the left.
Rise of the Dead (Book 2): Return of the Dead Page 19
