Stepping away, Jake looked at the ground then signaled Julia and I to get to the truck and follow. Curious, I did what I was told without protest.
Behind us, the flames had consumed the center of the house, and the rest was starting to go up. Two of the bedroom windows had opened up, allowing flames to escape in a rush towards the sky. It looked like we had managed to get all of the zombies inside, so I was calling that a victory, at least.
We followed Jake, who was studying the ground and walking slowly. It looked like he was tracking something, but I couldn’t tell what it was. There weren’t enough footprints to follow, and I didn’t think Jake was a good tracker, so he had to be seeing something.
We followed Jake for about a mile, getting back into town. The trail led Jake to a playground by a school. I noticed as we drove that many houses had their front doors open, and several showed signs of violence, even from the street. The situation was very strange.
At the playground, there were a lot of rope pieces on the ground, and one door of the school was open. I stopped the truck and Julia volunteered to look inside, taking her melee weapon, just in case. I walked around the playground, wondering what Jake had seen and if he was seeing the same thing, I was.
I met up with Jake in the middle of the playground, and he was looking at something on the ground. I bent down and took a look, then stood up quickly. It was a large syringe, and inside was the blackest, vilest, most foul substance this side of hell could produce. It was a syringe full of Enillo Virus infected blood. That little needle had enough viruses in it to kill the entire population of the capitol without even breaking a sweat. It was half-full, and I began to understand where the other half went.
Jake looked at me, and his face was grim. “Here’s how I see it. Someone, don’t know who but I have an idea, came to this town last night and forced people out of their beds to come to this place. They were tied up and then injected with the virus from that syringe. One person was spared, and that person was wounded to the point that they bled profusely, making an easy trail for the zombies when they woke up. They followed the trail and were waiting for us when we stepped outside the home.”
As much as I wanted to deny that scenario was too evil for someone to infect a town deliberately, the proof was right in front of me. “Who would do this and why?” I asked the obvious.
Jake sighed. “Not to be full of myself, but we were the targets. Who have we pissed of lately?”
I groaned. “Aw, damn. I should have killed that old man when I had my hand on his throat.”
“How could you know? I have a feeling this was both an experiment, and revenge.” Jake said.
Julia calling from the school interrupted us. “Jake! Aaron! Get in here!”
We ran with our weapons out, not knowing what to expect. We followed Julia through a couple of corridors, and ended up in a library. Spread out over the floor was about ten kids, varying in ages from a one year old to a twelve year old.
“Holy cow.” I thought about what had happened, and I looked at a lot of very scared faces. The older kids were holding the younger kids, and several were sniffing as if they had been crying recently.
“They said men came in the night, and took them from their beds. They made them come here and took them from their parents. A man with a gun stood by the door, but he went away late last night. They didn’t know what to do so they stayed here, waiting for their parents. They were going to go look for them when I found them,” Julia said.
“Oh, boy,” Jake said. “Well, they can’t stay here. Let’s see if we can round up some extra transportation and get them to either Ottawa or Morris.”
We didn’t have any worries about the kids. Someone would take them in. We were used to death, so when a parent passed away from either sickness or accident, everyone helped to find a place for any children.
I wasn’t surprised the children had been spared. Since the coming of the zombies, and the settling of the country, children were highly valued. You could kill a man, take his stuff and burn down his house, and people might find a way to excuse it. But if you hurt a child, there was no place you would be safe. Every community would hunt you down and hang you. That is, if they bothered with a rope. You could easily just eat a bullet as well.
“I saw some vans on our way in, let’s see if they work,” Julia said.
“You stay with the kids; we’ll be back in a minute,” I said.
We found the vans, and even though only one worked, it was enough for the short trip. We packed up the kids and headed south. Julia drove the van, since the children seemed to trust her the most, and she would be the best person to relay the news about their parents.
Jake and I did some hard thinking, and it wasn’t too far of a stretch to assume the trouble we had in the capitol was directly related to the trouble we had last night and this morning.
“What I can’t get is the why? Why go to the trouble of rounding up a town, killing a man, and hoping that the zombies take care of your problem?” I asked rhetorically.
“No offense, little brother, but I think there was more to it than this, “ Jake said.
“How so?”
“Someone who has taken the trouble to put together a team that will effectively take on a town, infect that town, and then guide the zombies to a target has put a lot of thought into this. I think we were a test case, and given who we are, no one would think twice about zombies killing us. It’s a hazard of our chosen profession,” Jake explained. “Eventually, the outbreak would have been reported, and the army would have come in and cleaned up, had we not taken care of the problem.” Jake looked back to the huge plume of smoke rising in the morning sky, marking our recent activities.
“All right, but if it’s a test, then what’s the eventual end game? What are they hoping to do in the future? No one goes to this trouble and just uses it for nickel and dime stuff,” I reasoned.
“Not sure about that. I don’t think they planned on leaving the syringe behind, and someone probably caught hell for it. Maybe they plan on making a power move, who knows? Right now, I’m not inclined to care. If they want to take a piece of the country for themselves, go for it. There’s enough to go around,” Jake said.
“Doesn’t work that way and you know it,” I said darkly. “We weren’t brought up that way.”
“Yeah, well the guy who is supposed to be the country’s moral compass bugged out, remember? All that talk about saving the country and restoring what we were is just a bunch of crap when the man himself decides to go on a selfish binge just because he lost his wife. So it’s every man for himself, as far as I’m concerned,” Jake said angrily.
“I’ll remember you said that,” I said.
“You do that.”
“And his wife was your mother, biological or not. Grow up and deal with it,” I replied.
Jake stared at me for a long time, and I returned his stare. This wasn’t over, and I had a feeling someone was going to get seriously hurt when we finally settled up.
Chapter 35
We dropped the kids off in Ottawa, and told our tale to the local authorities. They promised to dispatch a team up to Mayfair and make sure there weren’t any stray zombies wandering about. They were very disturbed to hear about the way things went down, and wanted to go to the capitol to complain. People began to talk about burning out the bad element, and it took the mayor of Ottawa a good half hour to calm everyone down.
After the grumbling died down, I told the assembled people that once we finished our last collection obligation, I was going to focus my attention on the problem at hand and make sure it didn’t happen again, even if I had to hunt down the perpetrators myself and bring them to justice. I told them that if they went in a group, the bad guys might just go into hiding, and since they didn’t know who they were hunting, it might all be for naught. Better to have two or three go, and get the job done without a huge uproar.
Jake glared at me the whole time I was speaking, and towards the end,
turned away in disgust. Julia watched him go with an angry look on her face, and when she looked back at me, she was smiling.
I got a lot of nods of approval, and several people spoke in low tones to each other. One man spoke up as I was leaving.
“This really ain’t your fight, Aaron. How come you’re doing this?” He asked. A lot of people got quiet to hear my answer.
I thought for a second, and then gave the answer that come naturally to me.
“Because I can,” I said simply.
It was really that easy. I didn’t have a family, I didn’t have a farm, or a real job that required my attention. I was well trained, experienced in going into bad places, and taught to find solutions to problems as they came up. I had an easy way with most people, and folks were inclined to trust me. It worked all around. The escapade at Mayfair was going to make the rounds, and the fact we brought the kids out was only going to help our standing with the locals.
Downside was the people who tried to kill us would know we survived, and may try very hard next time to finish the job.
Julia met with me and gave me a hug. “That was a nice thing to see. You actually sounded a lot like your father there for a minute.”
I couldn’t explain why, but that actually made me feel really good. “Thanks. Change in subject. What do you think pissed of Jake so much?”
Julia shrugged. “Short answer? Jealousy. Long answer? He’s still trying to come to grips with the fact his real mother wasn’t around, and his dad never explained it to him.”
That made sense, although I couldn’t figure out why he was holding it against me or why he would be jealous, and I said so.
“Take it up with him, he’s a grump right now and I’m not talking to him,” Julia said.
We walked back to the truck where Jake was waiting. Without a word, he climbed into the cab and started the truck. We rode all the way back to Starved Rock without speaking.
Jake parked the truck and went inside. I tried to stop him but his glare told me to either keep my mouth shut or arm myself. I decided to be quiet. Julia and I went out to the patio and spent the rest of the day just taking in the sun and enjoying each other’s company.
The next day I expected to see Jake down at the meeting table with plans for the next collection. However, Jake was nowhere to be found. I looked in his room, down at the range, over by the Visitor Center, and even up at Eagle Point. All turned up empty. The vehicles were all there, so he had to be here somewhere.
I asked Julia if she had seen Jake, but she hadn’t left the lodge all day, so she hadn’t. It was becoming clear Jake was off doing something, and didn’t want to be found. I could respect that, but we had a job to do, and I needed to figure out who was behind the attack on us the other day. I had my suspicions, and they centered on an old man with white hair and a bad attitude, but that was speculation and coincidence. Remarkable coincidence, to be sure, but I had no proof we were the target. For all I knew, the town was supposed to animate and go on a southerly rampage, but the one thing that cancelled that notion was the person they tortured to get to the house we were staying in. That made it personal. They were after us.
Chapter 36
On the second morning after our fight at the farmhouse, I went downstairs and found Jake sitting at the table. He was holding the memoir my father had left me and was finishing the last few pages. I was mad for an instant that Jake had read it before me, but I was calmed by the fact that Jake seemed to be in a much better mood. Maybe there was something in there he needed, and luckily found.
“How’s the book?” I asked, breaking the silence.
Jake looked up. “Interesting. I never really believed Dad was able to do all the things people said he did. At least in here we have his word for it.” Jake closed the book and slid it across the table to me. “This is going to sound strange, but I understand our father a lot better now, and I know what happened to my mother.”
“Anything you want to talk about?” I asked.
“You can read about it, but in a nutshell, Dad had to make a lot of hard decisions, and he loved my mother very much. As much as he loved yours. I can see why it was painful for him to be here, and why he had to leave,” Jake said.
I took all that in, and saw that Jake had come to some kind of peace, which was good for all involved.
“Want to talk about the next collection?” I asked.
Jake nodded. “Let’s get Julia down here and we’ll go over things. It should be a lot easier than I thought, mostly because the place we have to go is far outside Joslin proper, so the local zombie mess shouldn’t be as much of a factor.”
That was a relief. No one sane wandered into Joslin, and the only thing that we used from it was the power plant on the south side. Other than that, it was left to ruin. Zombies were there in force, and they were responsible for killing more than their fair share of collectors.
I had another question for Jake but he answered it before I got the chance to ask.
“About the other night, at Ottawa, I think you’re right for wanting to go after the people responsible for Mayfair. We wanted to get out of collecting, and this would do it,” Jake said.
You could have knocked me over with a twig. I really wanted to dive into that book now, but I could only ask one question. “Why?”
“Why the change? In all seriousness, Aaron, it’s what we were supposed to do.”
As soon as he said that, a weird feeling of relief washed over me. I’d been fighting the notion for a while, tying in our skills to a single purpose, which was to get stuff for people who couldn’t, so they could have something from their former lives. But this was a new purpose, something we weren’t collecting.
“No offense, Jake, but not so very long ago, you talked about being every man for himself, yourself included. Why the sudden shift?” I needed more than what he was giving me, and I didn’t want to have to sift through the book to find it. Call me lazy, but this wasn’t the Jake I knew.
“I’ll put it like this, Aaron. Our dad wasn’t content to just survive the zombie apocalypse. He spat in its face and dared it to come after him. He rebuilt the country for no other reason than you and me.” Jake paused for a minute to let that sink in. “He lost countless friends, two wives, a mother, and a brother to this mess, but he kept it together.
“Let me ask you this, Aaron. Is the capitol a good place to be right now?” Jake looked over at Julia who had heard our voices and had come to the table.
“Not really,” I said, thinking about the troubles that we have been having every time we go there.
“Wasn’t always like that. Things have changed, and not for the better. We have it to do. We’re expected to do it,” Jake said.
Julia looked at me and I took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Good thing you’re not part of this guilt trip,” I said.
Jake shook his head at Julia’s nod. “Actually, she is. Her dad was as much a part of the rebuild as ours. There’s some revelations in there for Julia as well. It comes down to this. Our dads fought a war, for us. We need to fight for the peace, for them. It’s that simple.”
We sat around the table looking at each other for a long time. I was at a loss for words, but I felt better than I had for months.
Julia broke the silence. “What are we supposed to do?”
Jake smiled that half smile of his and showed us a crude map of the place in Joslin we needed to go.
“We fulfill our obligation and then after that it’s time to clean up.”
Chapter 37
We spent the rest of the day getting things ready. This was going to be a trip up the road, and the good news was it wasn’t going to be a long drive. Joslin was relatively close, and the place we had to get to, was on the west side, on the far edge of town. If we were lucky, it would be a quick in and out.
About noon, we finished our preps and had some time to kill. I sat down on the porch with Julia and together we started reading the book. It was nice to lounge on the pati
o with a gorgeous blonde in my lap, winding away the hours learning about our fathers.
We didn’t get as far as I had hoped, since Julia insisted on making out every other chapter, but I wasn’t complaining about the distraction. I had a healthy new respect for our fathers, and what they went through, trying to make the country again. When I read the part about Coal City, I suddenly realized how close I came to not existing at all. Julia discovered the truth about her parents, and was silent for a long time afterward. However, she handled it better than Jake did, realizing that her foster parents had done the best they could.
We all went to bed when the sunset, figuring to leave first thing in the morning. I stayed awake for a little while longer, reading and looking for clues as to where my father might have disappeared. I never thought for a second that he or Julia’s dad might be dead. For whatever reason, I felt like I would know if he had passed, and I didn’t get that feeling, ever.
The drive to Joslin was uneventful, each of us contributing to the conversation as to what we were going to do next. I played devil’s advocate and wondered aloud why we were trained the way we were if our dads had made the world safe. Jake nailed that quickly by pointing out that we were probably the only ones that had been recently trained and who kept it sharp by using it all the time.
I couldn’t argue that, so I tried a different tack. What would we do once we finished the new objective? Julia took that one, explaining that we probably would never be done, since we would have a lot of educating to do.
I took it at face value, and wondered to myself why I was questioning things so much. Part of me wanted very badly to believe that we were finally doing the right thing, that we would realize our true goal. The other part was intimidated by how big the goal actually was.
I kept those thoughts to myself as we turned off Route 6 and made our way through some very rough back roads to the main road the destination was on. We made our way up Bush Road to Houbolt, and crossed under I-80 before we reached the drive that would take us to the Joslin Junior College. The west side of the road looked fairly harmless, lots of trees and bushes, with the occasional pond thrown in for good measure. The other side of the street was what made me pause.
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