Katie toed Jeff's jacket where it lay at her feet. She hesitated and then bent and picked it up. “If it's all they left us, then we'll give him a burial.” She looked at Aaron. “Wolves,” She said.
Aaron shrugged. “Could be. Why would a person take him?”
“Conner?” She looked at him
“Maybe... Maybe a couple of wolves could have made off with his body, I guess.” He looked up and met her eyes. “We'll run it past James. He should know.”
“Yeah.” Aaron agreed. “James will know. Makes sense.”
~
Conner spoke to James, but he thought the wolf idea was unlikely. They spoke in quiet tones as Katie insisted on digging a hole and burying the jacket.
Katie had found herself wishing for Lilly. Her own relationship with God was stretched to say the least, filled with animosity to say a little more. But she spoke some words about the shadow of death that she remembered from Sunday school, and they piled the rocks upon the shallow grave they had dug for Jeff's jacket.
They walked as a group down to where the trucks had been parked next to the woods. One was still idling, the other had either run out of gas or had been damaged by the spray of bullets Katie had hit it with the night before.
Katie reached in and turned off the switch of the one still running truck. The silence of the trees and the forest behind them descended.
~
They had parked and had climbed out through the windows. From there they had walked through the shadows down to the park road, and it had almost worked. Only a shadow of movement had alerted Katie. And if were not for that, the night could have turned out completely different.
Back in the camp, after the gun battle was over, Conner had checked Katie over, building up the fire that he had started earlier to make dinner so he would have enough light to see by.
The wound on her forehead looked like a cut, possibly from a rock as she had dived to the ground and rolled. The stab wound in her arm was red and swollen where the blade had bitten into the bone. She admitted it ached when she moved it too fast. Another shallow cut lower down had completely escaped her attention. And a neat round hole through her jacket showed how close one particular bullet had come.
After they had taken care of Jeff's body, they searched for the bodies of the others.
They searched for over three hours, all of them, but they could not come up with the ten bodies they were sure they should have come up with.
They came up with only nine. One of the young women were missing, and Cindy couldn't tell them which ones. Either Tammy or Chloe lay dead where Conner had shot her in the head. Too much of her face was missing for Cindy to tell.
Katie shook her head. She pointed out blood in drips and drops dried on the ground. “She was at least hit bad... Should have been dead.”
“Had to have been more of the others,” Aaron said. ”Came back and got her.”
“No, Man,” Cindy said. “I told you how many. They're all dead except her, which ever one it is.”
“How do you know that?” Aaron turned to her. His voice was raised, but she did not flinch at all.
“Because I was there. I know. I was there. I wouldn't lie. I would be the first one they'd kill... and not fast either,” She finished. And then she did flinch as a shudder ran through her.
Aaron's face was a mask of anger. He looked away and Katie could see him gathering himself in.
Conner shook his head. “Let's not go at each other. Let's let that whole thing that just happened slide. We're all tense. It doesn't mean shit, except we're a little spooked... and... with good reason too.” He kicked at the ground. “What the fuck,” he muttered. “Listen,“ he shook his head once more... “Okay, so we're missing a body. Either there were more and they came back and got her body, or she managed to get away even though she was shot.“ He shook his head again, but he brought his eyes up from the ground where they had been watching his boots scuff the dirt into a small pile.
“So... What?” Jake asked. “Are you saying she managed to live with that hole in her?
Conner shook his head. “I'm not saying anything at all.
Jake looked over at her, his eyes wide. He looked back at Conner incredulous. “Seriously?” he asked.
All Conner could do was shrug.”Jake... It's what we got. We can screw around for hours trying to figure this out or we can put it behind us and move on.”
“Oh for Christ's sake,” Jake said. “If it's not one thing, it's another.”
“You know, man. For real. You're the most negative man I know,” Aaron said.
Jake's eyes cut to Aaron's and challenged him. Aaron met the gaze and held it.
“Alright!” Conner raised his voice. His voice fell and he seemed uncertain. “Doesn't matter, except we should keep our eyes open.”
Silence held. Then Katie spoke. “I...“ she shook her head. “I don't know, but, well, we still got some dead to bury here. We had better get to it.”
Aaron turned away embarrassed. “I'm sorry,” he said clearly, albeit as he was turning away. Katie tried to catch his eyes, but he refused to look at her.
Conner shook his head. “Let's not go at each other. Let's let that whole thing that just happened slide. We're all tense. It doesn't mean shit, except we're a little spooked... and... with good reason too.” He kicked at the ground.
~
They all dressed alike, were built alike, even looked alike. They wanted them that way, made them that way, picked them that way. Looking at what was left of the girl on the ground, Cindy felt like vomiting again. But she looked harder.
The way Katie had described her fighting with her sounded like Chloe, who was afraid of nothing. But Chloe had never worn anything, but black fingernail polish and this girl wore pink. Cindy forced herself to lift the girls shirt. Death had been carved in spidery white lines into her stomach. Cindy rose and let the shirt fall back across the dead gray skin of the girl's stomach.
Had Tammy been Death's woman before Chloe came along? Cindy didn't know. There was no X through the name. That meant nothing either though, not really. Tammy had been no one's woman, so there would be no other name. And Chloe would look the same.
“I just can't tell,” Cindy said. “It's one of them. I just don't know which one.”
Katie nodded, “Either way, we're missing several... bodies, I guess... people,” she sat looking at Conner.
The six of them had searched carefully once more, even searching the side of the road up to the curve. Nothing turned up. They went back to camp, made coffee, and then finally made the meal they had intended to make the night before. Then they sat down to talk things out.
~
“We're out of range on the V.H.F.,” James said. “It can't be anything else.”
They had tried to contact the vehicles that had left, but they had received no reply. Just a quarter mile off the road, even the C.B. channels were scratchy with static rather than run over with skip. The trees, maybe, but more than likely the foothills and all the trace metals in the rock and the ground, James thought.
Everyone had been patched up, and the seven of them looked like refugees from a war zone.
Aaron had cuts to both elbows, and a nick in one ear lobe. Whether caused by a flying piece of debris or a bullet, no one could say, but the edges looked slightly burned which lent itself more to a bullet than anything else.
Jake had a deep cut over one eyebrow. Where it had come from, he had no idea.
James had several large splinters of green wood taken from just below his right eye. He had no idea they were even there until Katie pointed them out to him, made him sit down and then extracted them one by one.
Conner had a deep slice on the palm of one hand and a fairly deep cut to one knee, all from his plunge down the road and into the trees when Katie's voice had cut off over the radio.
David had lost the very tip of his right pinky finger when the shootout at the camp had happened. Somehow the tip of his finger had been
in the bolt way when he had slammed it home loading the chamber of one of his rifles. He hadn't even ended up using that rifle, but one of the clip rifles instead. He had simply loaded the five rifles around him so he would have them if he needed them. He had noticed after the battle had ended that he had lost the tip of his finger. Even then it didn't hurt. He kept expecting the pain to kick in, but even as Katie bandaged it there was no serious pain.
They were all weary, but the food and coffee helped to revive them.
“How far do you think they could have gotten?” Conner asked.
“A way, anyway,” James said, “After the logging trails run out, they could run right through the trees. That reforestation stuff was planned out in nice, neat rows, and you should be able to drive along it just like it was a real road. Forrest service often did. I guess they would be stopped once that ran out,” James said. “Fifty miles? Sixty? I don't know.”
“Then how will we know where they're at?” David asked.
“We won't know. Not exactly. But we'll keep on the radio, once we're within distance. They'll hear us. We'll work it out from there, I guess,” James said.
“There was no way of knowing how many were coming,” Conner said. “I couldn't take the chance.” He looked around at the trees. “Looks good down here, hidden even, but it's vulnerable. You saw the way they sneaked through the trees to come down in here. We couldn't get them in the trees, too hard. Katie and Aaron did that. Really, we got only one guy, and that guy pretty much jumped out of the wood line, and that's why we got him. The second one we thought we might have gotten did the same thing. Jake shot him, but he jumped back into the wood line. What I'm saying is, we were sitting ducks. So I sent them out. Better that than we were over run and lose more people. But we'll find them. Might take time, but we'll find them,” Conner said.
“So we have no cows, no horses, no trucks. It's like everything we planned to do just fell apart,” Jake said.
James smiled. “Life is like that sometimes. We need some stuff. I don't know how far Janna got with her lists. Does anybody?” He looked around. Everyone shook their heads no.
“I figured. So we have to find a place close by, and we haven't passed anywhere, but we have to find a place that has what we need,” James said.
“Like?” Conner asked.
“Axes, seed, horses and cows, maybe chickens. Sickles, bolts of cloth, things like that, you see? All the stuff that we will need until we get on our feet... in a few years? We'll be able to make everything we need,” James said.
“Everything?” Aaron asked doubtfully.
“Yeah, we will. It's not going to be so hard. Will we be manufacturing televisions? Or telephones? Or truck tires? No, but we won't need them either. Eggs? Beef? Our own wheat? Will we be making cotton and our own clothes? Yes. I think we can do all of that,” James said.
“Sounds like Quakers, or Amish,” Katie said.
“No,” James said, “I don't think we'll be nearly that advanced.”
Katie laughed and everybody joined in.
“Back from here, about two or three miles, was a turnoff. I remember seeing it. No signs. The road was shot, but if I'm right that will take us into a small town about fifteen miles down. At least there's one marked on the map. It may not have everything we want, but we'll have to make do,” James said.
“Well,” David asked, “When?”
“Well, now,” James said and laughed.
“Shouldn't... well shouldn't we bury them?” Cindy asked.
“And what about the missing one?” Jake added.
“They wouldn't have buried us,” David said. “And they killed Jeff. Sharon's gonna go ballistic,” he said.
“We'll have to explain it to Sharon and the others.” Conner said, “But Cindy is right about burying the ones they left, and we aren't them. Maybe they would've left us, maybe not,” he finished.
“Nor do we want to be like them,” James added.
“You think they took the girl?” Jake asked.
Conner shrugged. “Either they took her, or she came back to life and walked out of here. You think she came back to life?”
“No... I don't... I... I don't,” Jake said.
The silence held thick for a few beats. Katie broke it. “Let's go get it done,” she said.
~
It took about two hours to get the graves dug. They used one of the trucks that had been parked by the woods. The ground was still hard a few inches down, and the soil was rock filled, hard to shovel. They're were all sweating freely when they finished.
“Ground's still frozen, but it's hot,” Aaron said in a subdued voice.
“Yeah, like summer almost,” Cindy said quietly.
“I think it's spring,” James said, “We're just so much farther south...” he trailed off.
They finished up, left the truck they had used where they had ended up with it, and a few minutes later the three remaining pickup trucks pulled out of the park road and turned left onto the highway.
~
Most of the town was gone. A farm equipment dealer sat on the outskirts of town. The main showroom was a shamble, but contained that year's new tractors, and although tractors were not what they were interested in, they found what they were interested in out back of the showroom building.
There were over one hundred new heavy duty farm trucks parked on the large lot behind the garage building. There were about twice that many used vehicles. Out of that, they had more than twenty of the large cattle trucks to choose from.
“Will a horse ride in something like that?” Jake asked.
Everybody shrugged. They had passed several large herds of horses on their way down the road. The question in James's mind wasn't would they, but whether they even needed them.
“Arlene said no. I believe she's right. But I'm not sure we still need them,” James said thoughtfully.
James had brought out several bags of oats and a half dozen bales of fresh hay and set them in the back of one of the pickup trucks. He had had something in mind for the way back. But within a few minutes, several of the horse's had approached the trucks and nuzzled the bags. James had split open a few of the bags and spilled them across the other bags. That was all it took. A dozen horses were gathered around the truck in no time, and a couple dozen more trying to get close to it.
“Huh,” Conner said.
“Huh, is right,” Jake said smiling.
“I wanted to try it on the way back, see if they would follow. I got to thinking about that other group we ran across that day. They were probably fed by truck like Arlene said, and used to people. So they were hungry and missing human companionship, and they were looking to us for both of those things. They only veered off because we had no feed and we didn't slow down. I think this bunch, and probably some of the bunch down the road will follow us. Just feed them from the back of the truck, spill it out a few times a day to keep them interested, and I think they'll follow us,” James said.
'Think it will work with cows?” David asked.
“I do,” James said. “It only makes sense. Big outfits use long feed troughs. Smaller outfits feed this way, or smaller troughs they fill a few times a day. Either way the animal will come to the food,” James said.
“So, we don't need the stake rack trucks,” Conner said.
“Well, yeah we do, but only a couple. Think about it, we can pack a lot of stuff into a couple of those trucks. Chickens, tools, seed, farm implements, Dustin's solar panels. I guess we better get busy,” James finished.
“Where are we going to find all of that?” Jake asked.
“There are a lot of little towns, small cities around here. I think it'll take a little legwork, but I also think we'll get everything we need. Maybe two days,” James predicted.
“Not going to make me ride a horse are you?” Conner asked.
James laughed, “Not yet,” he said, “Not yet.”
~
Janna, Amy, Lilly and Allison had a fire going and breakf
ast ready before the sun was more than a hint of color on the horizon. Everyone watched in wonder as the sun broke over the mountains to the south and drenched the land with golden light.
The herd of buffalo was huge, several hundred animals, maybe as many as a thousand, Janna had supposed. They had moved off down the valley, and a few large cows kept an eye on the strange visitors. They didn't seem frightened, just cautious. There were several dozen calves within sight, being fussed over by their mothers, and the bulls, as well as the females were taking no chances.
After breakfast they tried the radios again, but received no answer. “It doesn't mean they aren't on the way or that anything bad has happened,” Amy said, when Allison seemed about to burst into tears.
“Oh no,” Janna said. “James told me they'll be along directly. They have to take care of those people, pick up some supplies, but they'll do that and then they'll be along. They will. I wouldn't expect them to catch up to us for several days. They have too much to do.” She tried to sound as sure of herself and as upbeat as she could, but both were things she didn't particularly feel.
Allison looked at her, a faint doubt line creasing her forehead. But after a few seconds she nodded, and the line smoothed out.
“What we have to do is find a place,” Janna said.
“Do you have a map,” Allison asked, “to help us find... whatever it is we're looking for?”
“Yes, dear, but the map is no good now, don't you see? Where we are there have been only a few people in over two hundred years.: No map can show this. No, we'll do this on our own. I guess we'll get moving now too. Amy?” She asked. She waited until Amy looked over, “Would you find something, yarn... ribbon, to tie to a few of these trees... Something to show that we've been here?” Janna asked.
“Yes, that's a good idea,” Amy said and smiled. She had worried about the others being able to find them, but had not wanted to voice her concern.
“Yes, but I wish I had thought of it yesterday,” she frowned. “Well there's nothing for it, as James would say. We will mark our way from here on out,” Janna proclaimed.
They had the Suburbans loaded and ready to go a half an hour later. Bright red ribbons fluttered from several trees, and Amy had a good supply cut from a bright red plastic tarp. She'd mark trees periodically as they went.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 65
