Dead Surge

by Joseph Talluto

  “John?” Sarah whispered. “John? What is it?”

  That broke the spell. The shadows disappeared from the doorway, and I found I could move again. I turned to Sarah and moved quickly back to the bed, placing my gun back on the nightstand. Sarah jumped in after me and held on tight.

  “What was out there?” She asked.

  I thought for a second. “If I had to guess, the nuns were making sure we stayed in bed.”

  In the morning, I awoke to a hammering on our door. Opening it, I found Charlie standing there with his bags in hand, nearly vibrating with energy.

  “Ready to go? We’re ready. We’ll meet you down at the cars.” With that, he was gone, moving quickly down the hall to the stairs.

  Rebecca came after him and threw me a shrug, following Charlie to the parking lot. I shook my head and got dressed; throwing a wink to Sarah that put a blush on her beautiful cheeks as she dressed.

  Downstairs I bumped into Tommy and Duncan, and after a quick conference confirmed that they had no strange things happen to them. They were curious about my experience, and I gave them the short version of it, leaving out the part of me being scared stiff.

  Walking out to the truck, I tossed my pack in the back and climbed in next to Sarah.

  “You talk to Rebecca at all?” I asked as I fired up the truck. Charlie had the van already warm.

  “Mmm Hmmm.”

  “And?”

  “Charlie looked into the hallway last night.”

  I had a heck of a time keeping up with him as we sped away from the Abbey Hotel.

  Chapter 16

  We moved away from Bettendorf and back onto the main highway. I was anxious to get to the source of the problem and report back as soon as I could. If something was headed towards the population centers of Illinois, I wanted to get ahead of it, especially since my children might be right in its path. Jake had come with us on the campaign against the zombies, and Aaron had been born in the middle of the fights, but I didn’t want to think about my family being in harm’s way while I was away.

  I-80 was still very quiet in the early hours, but we would likely see some trucks as the day progressed. There was a lot more movement these days than there had been in the past, but it was still limited. People stayed close to where they were safe, and only idiots like us wandered off the reservation on a regular basis.

  While I drove, Sarah looked over the maps, trying to get some sort of read on what we were facing, and trying to predict where the best insertion point might be.

  “If this mess is moving towards the center of the state, maybe we should just wait for it? No, then we might be weeks out here, and for all we know we might be passed by.” She spoke out loud to herself when she was musing, and it was hard to follow when I wasn’t sure when she was talking to me.

  “What?”

  “Hmm, what sweetie?”

  “You say something?” I asked.

  “No sorry, just thinking out loud, you know me.”

  “Talk to me, we’re about six hours out of where we need to turn south,” I said, checking my rear view for the van. It was steady behind me about ten car lengths back, and Charlie looked as bored as I was. While Iowa was pretty, it was monotonous.

  “Well, I’m looking at the map, and we have some possibilities. The first town not reporting in is here, and the last one is here. Given the distance, I’d have to say the problem is on foot, moving roughly faster than a walk, but not fast enough for a car.” Sarah squinted at the map. “What I don’t get is the lack of response. How can something like this happen and no one report it? I mean no one.”

  I shrugged, causing the truck to swerve slightly. “Couldn’t say. But here’s my thought. I want to go to the first town that go hit, and check things out. If it’s something that changes the war, then we bug out and prepare our defenses. If it’s something we can fight, we can follow it and take it unawares. If we wait for it, like you mumbled back there, then it might pass us by and we’re out here when we should be elsewhere.”

  Sarah smacked me on the arm for my comment, but nodded to herself. “Makes a kind of sense. If we follow it, at least we know we’re on the right track and can deal with it for sure, then guessing when it might come by.” She frowned at her maps. “Looking at these towns, I wonder what happened to the people who came before us.”

  I thought about the man I had shot in that army / navy store. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  Chapter 17

  About noon, we pulled off the road at the little town of Adair. According to the map, the road headed down towards where we wanted to go. In normal times, we would have travelled to Interstate 29, but that road was closed to us. When we decided to clear the roads, some had to be bypassed, and that was one of them. So we were on side roads until we reached our destination.

  That was fine with me. I was always a country traveler anyway. I always wanted to see the land I passed through, not just catch glimpses out of the corner of my eye as I blew past.

  This also served the purpose of checking out the lay of the land before we faced whatever it was that was causing the problem out here. I hoped we could find out from a distance, but in my heart of hearts, I knew we were going to hit it head on, and we weren’t going to like it.

  At the town of Anita, we stopped to talk to some locals and filled them in on the situation. They said they hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary, but they would check in more frequently now. They were well situated for defense, being near a large lake and forest preserve. All they had to do was get in one of the numerous boats that lined the shore and they were safe.

  At Wiota, we ran into much of the same, a community that had weathered the storm fairly well. Wiota was a small farming town that was used to being self-reliant, so the end of the world wasn’t much of a concern. They promised to send out a contact report and let the powers that be know we had been in the area and still hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary.

  We turned further south after skirting the town of Atlantic. That particular town had managed to survive the initial Upheaval, but an errant traveler had started a fire in a fake fireplace and scorched three quarters of the town. The people who had lived there scattered to the other towns and left Atlantic to ruin.

  At Lewis, we turned to Route 6 and followed that to Oakland. In Oakland, you would never have known anything had ever happened to their world. The streets were clear, the homes were tidy, and people were everywhere going about their daily duties. It was a very nice place, and I almost felt out of place when I stopped at the sheriff’s office to let him know what we were up to.

  Two deputies, dressed in civilian gear but wearing badges, sized me up as I got out of the truck, and their eyes widened when Charlie and Duncan stepped out of the van. We were dressed for battle, and I caught one deputy trying not to be too obvious about putting his hand near his gun.

  “Afternoon, gents. Your boss around?” I asked, figuring this shouldn’t take too long.

  The taller of the two deputies answered. “He’s out at his house, he don’t come in till later. Anything I can help you with?”

  “Just wanted to relay a warning, that’s all,” I said.

  “Warning?” Both deputies stiffened slightly. “About what?”

  I related to the two of them who I was and what I was doing out here. Both of them said they hadn’t heard of any problems, but now that I had mentioned it, they hadn’t seen anybody from the southern part of the state in a while.

  “All right, well, we’ll keep going, and if anything and I mean, anything is out of the ordinary, lock up tight and spread the word.” I warned.

  “You think it’s another outbreak?” Asked the shorter deputy. He glanced around, as if he expected to see a zombie roll out from under the bushes.

  “Wish I could tell you, son. Take it easy and keep your eyes open,” I said as I climbed back aboard the truck.

  We rolled out of Oakland and ten miles further west we turned south again to
wards Glenwood. I will admit I was getting nervous, mostly from the astounding lack of information we had regarding this whole mess. Part of me just wished something would happen. Anything that might give me a clue as to what we were facing. Hell, I would have welcomed even a former campsite from another group just to look for a few clues.

  At Treynor, we stopped and stretched our legs. This town was wide open and completely abandoned. During the Upheaval, these people had gone to Council Bluffs for protection and to help defend the city there from the hordes of zombies that lined the river at Omaha. Hundreds of people lost their lives defending the two bridges keeping away the Zs, and to this day, they still have men manning the bridges, making sure the defenses don’t fall. The people of the surrounding communities are fully aware of the sacrifices the people at Council Bluffs have made, and are appropriately grateful.

  Most of the houses were nearly buried in tall grass and unkempt bushes. We passed dozens of homes that were in severe disrepair, and some that had burned down. I pulled over at the corner of Eyberg and Main, and Sarah nodded to me absently. I knew she was starting to feel things as well, not the least of which was the nagging uncertainty.

  Charlie came over from the van while Tommy and Duncan wandered off to find a place to go to the bathroom. I suggested just pick a nearby bush, but they must have been sensitive souls given their response.

  “How far?” Charlie asked, looking over the building we parked next to. It was Anderson’s Service, but what it serviced I couldn’t say.

  I stretched a bit. “By the map, we should be there in about an hour. I figure we’d get closer to Council Bluffs and head south, come in from the north.”

  “Good enough. I think we can rule out rogue group, by the way.”

  “How so?”

  “I figured someone would have heard about it by now, and our two deputies back there seemed bored enough to check up on anything out of the ordinary,” Charlie said, taking a look into the big brick building.

  I had to admit he was probably right. Groups that try to establish themselves tended to blast through the countryside pretty quickly, and after a brief flare up, were typically handled and quieted. We had a run in up in Montana with a group but when it turned out their leader was an old friend of ours, it worked out pretty well.

  “Well, we’ll see things for ourselves in a bit, and go from there.” I glanced over my shoulder to see Tommy trotting up to us.

  “Hey. Duncan climbed the water tower for a look around and he says there’s a zombie stream to the south of us, heading this way,” Tommy said.

  “All right. Tell him to come down and we’ll have a look. Did he say how long?” I remarked, my hand straying to my sidearm.

  “Couldn’t make a determination, all he said was it was on its way. The upside was it was close to a road.”

  That helped. It was a pain in the neck to deal with a zombie stream in the middle of nowhere. Zombie streams are what we called the long lines of zombies that trailed away from population centers. Typically, one would get the notion to roam, another would notice, and so on until several were strung out in a long line from wherever they came from. The bigger the city, the longer the stream. We had one that went for fifteen miles once.

  “Let’s go. Maybe this is the start of an explanation.” I waved on Sarah and Rebecca, and we hopped back into the vehicles to go take a look.

  Chapter 18

  I let Charlie take the lead, since Duncan had seen the stream and knew where it was. We drove out of town and headed south on a county road. The van turned right almost immediately and followed a farm road for a about a mile. I looked over at Sarah as the van took another turn south and went down an oil and gravel road that connected several small farms in the area. I knew from experience these farm roads were typically a mile long, so we would find the next intersection in a minute or two.

  “Do you think Duncan was seeing things?” Sarah asked as she stopped herself from hitting the ceiling when we went over a particularly large bump.

  “Not Duncan. He’s a goof, but he’s never wrong about Zs,” I said, steering around a large pothole. The van in front of me swerved and swayed, and I wondered if Charlie was trying to hit the most number of potholes.

  We reached the next intersection and went west again, turning south once more at another farm road. Sarah pointed out that there was a small town in this area, which explained why there might have been a drift.

  Suddenly, Charlie hit the brakes, and I was glad of my seatbelt when I slid to a stop behind him.

  “That was fun,” I said as I climbed out of the truck and grabbed my carbine from the area behind the seat. Sarah did the same and I pulled out my pickaxe from the truck bed. Sarah hefted a small spear, and then nodded. The spear was one Duncan had brought home one day. It was four feet of pole, then two feet of sharpened, pointed steel. It cut as well as it poked. I’d use one myself, but my pick was just so comfortable.

  As we went to the side of the van, it suddenly opened and very deadly looking people spilled out. Duncan came first, followed by Tommy, then Rebecca and Charlie. Everyone bristled with weapons, and I smiled as I saw the big sword strapped to Duncan’s back.

  Duncan noticed the smile and returned with one of his own. “You’ll see, it will replace the gun, eventually.”

  I liked to needle Duncan about his weapon choices, but truth be known it made a lot of sense. Medieval weapons were making a comeback in the war on the zombies, and a lot of people trained with them these days.

  “Where’s the stream?” I asked Charlie since I assumed that was why he stopped.

  “Saw the head over…there.” He pointed to the south and sure enough, a stumbling form was headed this way. In the distance, more could be seen, moving in a slow shamble towards us.

  “All right. You all know what to do. Charlie, you take number one, I’ll head off for number two. No guns, in case there’s bigger problems around. The rest of you spread out and take them as they come.” Nodding heads and grim faces went off to battle. In a situation like this, we tended to let the zombies come to us and kill them. If we ran out to them, we had to come all the way back to our transportation.

  We went to the other side of the van and I walked forward as Charlie went to meet our first customer. It was a short man, with blood steaks all over his head and arms. His eyes scanned all of us before they locked on Charlie, and by that time, it was too late. Charlie planted one of his tomahawks in the Z’s head and sent him to the ground. The second one on line, a tall female, stumbled somewhat quickly towards me as I walked her way. My pick was already in my hand, and I dodged her arms as she lunged. I slammed the head of the pick into her knee, sending her crashing to the ground. Her reaching hand caught my pant leg, but I was already in the downswing of my killing stroke. The pointed end of the pick cracked her skull and kept her on the ground for good.

  The rest of the team spread out and waited, and naturally, the zombies came to us. Big, little, old and not so old shambled to the killing zone, eager to try their luck at the succulent morsels just out of reach. We took turns killing them, and ran out after about fifteen zombies had bitten the dust.

  We cleaned our weapons and piled back into the vehicles, since where there was a zombie stream, chances were there was a zombie town nearby. The nearest one that was in the general direction of the source of the stream was Mineola, so we headed that way.

  Mineola was an extremely small town literally in the middle of nowhere, so it was a something of a surprise to see any zombies hanging around out there, but as we pulled into the outskirts of town that’s exactly what we saw. There were about three dozen zombies wandering about, and when the first ones spotted us and started groaning, the rest soon joined in.

  I drove slowly around the town, following the convenient road that kept to the outskirts. When it turned into the town, I kept going, making sure the zombies were able to keep us in sight.

  “Look for a place to take care of them all at once, will you?�
� I asked Sarah. I had to keep an eye on the road, since there was more debris than I expected there to be. This town had been active, and by the looks of things, there seemed to be a lot of chaos about.

  “I’ll try, but these trees aren’t making things any easier,” Sarah said, sitting straighter in her seat and looking in every direction she could.

  The radio came to life. “What’s the plan?” Charlie asked.

  I grabbed the handset. “Looking for a place to bottle them up or trap them in.”

  “Good luck. This place is smaller than our dock back home.”

  I turned down Main Street, and Sarah smacked me on the arm. “There! That building!”

  I looked. It was a long, low building with windows up near the roofline. Perfect. I pulled the truck in to the back of the structure and ran towards the front. The feed store had a single doorway, and was open all the way to the back. A second structure was attached which I presumed was the warehouse for goods.

  Charlie was beside me and as we stood by the door, the first group of zombies that had followed our vehicles walked into view. I waved my arms and they lurched a little faster in our direction. I took the time to look them over and something struck me as odd, but I couldn’t put a finger on what it was. Something just wasn’t right, but I didn’t have time to put it through my problem-solving process.