"So, we don't need the stake rack trucks," Mike 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, Tim's solar panels. I guess we better get busy," Bob finished.
"Where are we going to find all of that?" Tom 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," Bob predicted.
"Not going to make me ride a horse are you?" Mike asked.
Bob laughed, "Not yet," he said, "Not yet."
~
Janet, Patty, Lilly and Annie had a fire going and breakfast 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, Janet 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," Patty said, when Annie seemed about to burst into tears.
”Oh no," Janet said. "Bob 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.
Annie 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," Janet said.
"Do you have a map," Annie 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 also. Patty?" She asked. She waited until Patty looked over, "Would you find something, yarn... ribbon, to tie to a few of these trees... Something to show that we've been here?" Janet asked.
"Yes, that's a good idea," Patty 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 Bob would say. We will mark our way from here on out," Janet proclaimed.
They had the Suburbans loaded and ready to go a half an hour later. Bright red ribbons fluttered from several trees, and Patty had a good supply cut from a bright red plastic tarp. She'd mark trees periodically as they went.
The herd grew nervous when the Suburbans moved out. The cows gathered around the calves; the bulls pawed and snorted. But the three Suburbans gave them a wide berth as they passed them and continued down into the long valley.
~
She wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans. The trucks had been gone for over half an hour now. She needed dry hands, she didn't want to slip coming down the tree. She wiped her hands once more, and slowly began to shimmy down the pine from limb to limb, favoring one leg as she descended.
Sticky sap stuck to her hands and clothes, but she didn't care. She made the ground and headed into the camp a short distance away. She was starved. She couldn't even remember the last time she had eaten.
A large iron pot sat at the edge of the fire. In the larger of the four tents she found a stack of plastic bowls, cups and eating utensils. She ate first.
When her belly was reasonably full, she rummaged through the clothing in one of the tents and put together some clean clothes. She found one of the V.H.F. Radios, turned it on and set it on the picnic table. If they came back, she would know. She took the clothes down to the stream to clean up.
She had a bullet wound in one leg, the fleshy part of the outer thigh, a crease really. The bullet had furrowed a hole through the skin, but it hadn't gone into the meat of her leg. Even so, it was an angry red, and she knew what that meant.
She cleaned it out, grimacing at the pain as she did. She looked at it closely, decided it was as clean as she was going to get it, and then smeared a half tube of antibiotic ointment on it from a first aid kit she'd found in the same tent as she had taken the clothes from; she bandaged it.
She walked around testing the leg before she slipped the jeans back up and pulled the boots back on her feet. She could find the rest of what she wanted in the nearest town. She looked down at her chipped fingernails, the black polish nearly gone in places. I'll fix that too, Chloe told herself.
She retrieved the radio. She had heard them calling back and forth to each other a few times, crossed the camp and walked down to the truck they had left.
The back of the truck was a gory mess, flies took off and landed from the blood covered floor, making loud buzzing sounds as they did. That was okay, she told herself. She'd just find another truck when she got to the next town. This one would still get her there.
She flipped her hair away from her head, her flat emotionless eyes focused on something only she could see. She laughed to herself and then climbed up into the truck.
~
She had spent the night in hiding. She had seen the others come and drag the bodies away. Nearly impossible to see in the night. She had heard the others looking around all morning long, and she had known they would not find what they wanted.
The others had been a puzzle. It wasn't Death or Murder or Shitty. She was sure of that, or as sure as she could be. It had been damn black, hard to see anything, but it was the way they had moved that told her it wasn't her own people. And, she had been about to call out. It had even seemed as though they had looked up at her. But then something had seemed wrong, something in the blackness. She just hadn't been able to put her finger on what it had been. So she had stayed silent. She had held onto the tree for all she was worth - suddenly scared all over again - kept her breathing as quiet as she could and waited.
And then the others had walked right past her several times this morning looking for the bodies. It was funny how people just didn't think to look up, yet thought they had looked everywhere. They had looked and then they had talked it over, and she had heard that too. And then they had left, and she had heard that conversation also. She had only waited to make absolutely sure they were gone. Maybe the others that had come and taken the dead would come back. Maybe not. So she had waited.
She started the truck now, backed around and onto the park road, and then shifted into drive and wound her way out through the trees to the main road. She left the park road and turned left onto the main road, heading back to the last truck stop. There were other vehicles there, she remembered. She turned the volume dial up a little higher on the V.H.F. Radio, to get over the sound of the engine, and listened as she drove. Nothing but static. They had fallen silent, but she knew it wouldn't stay that way. She'd heard everything. She knew where they were going, and she'd catch them, she told herself. Take them by surprise. Make them pay!
She pushed at the gas pedal, and the truck surged ahead, she laughed again, adjusted the rear view mirror and pressed the gas pedal down a little farther.
~
Nothing at all had been hard to find. There had been advertisements in the front of the collapsed store area for steel barns, and in the back, by the loading doors, piles of aluminum beams and corrugated panels, boxes of nuts and bolts.
Bob had backed up a forty foot long flatbed truck to the rear loading dock. It was one of the big stake racks, and after they had loaded up enough steel panels, boxes of nuts and bolts, and aluminum girders and beams, using a propane powere
d forklift to build four or five barn like structures, they put the sides back up and began to load other items: seed, hay bales, farming implements, axes and wooden mauls, boxes of nails, screws, grain, a good selection of heavy coveralls, jeans, jackets and work boots. In no time at all the truck was packed, tarped and moved out of the way.
They pulled out late in the afternoon with three of the big trucks loaded and five fifty five gallon drums of gasoline on the back of the last truck. They drove slowly and more than two dozen horses followed them all the way back down to the state park.
They spent the last few hours before dark setting up some more grain in the back of the pickup truck and leading horses down to the stream.
~
"I thought they'd go wild. I thought it would be no time at all before they would have nothing to do with us," Bob said.
"Don't look that way to me," David said.
"No, it doesn't. Of course this doesn't mean they'll stay with us or follow us. Leading them a couple miles down the road is a lot different than taking them back into the woods. There are big cats, bears... Horses spook easy. And cows, tomorrow we'll look for cows. We'll leave that truck right there, I believe the horses will stay right with it," Bob said.
~
Kate walked back with Mike from further upstream where they had gone to clean up.
"I've got to find more clothes tomorrow," Kate said. "I could've sworn Patty left me some, but I can't find them," she told him.
"We'll just pick up some more tomorrow," Mike agreed. He bent down and kissed her, and as he did his eyes fell on the road leading out of the park. Something, he thought...
"What," Kate said startled, turning quickly.
"I," Mike started.
"Fuck. The truck is gone," Kate said. She reached down and slipped off the leather thong that held the gun in its holster. Almost instantly one finger slid down the side of the frame and flicked off the safety lever. She knew it was off because she made herself practice flicking it off until it was second nature.
Mike called out to Bob and the others and they began to search.
They spread out but kept each other in sight as they searched the campground. Tom found wrappers from band aids, and a pile of dirty clothes nearby. Everyone walked over and looked.
"I guess they don't care if we know or not," Kate said. She bent over and retrieved the pants, staring at the blood stain on one leg. A ragged hole in the back of the leg and a neat small circle at the front where it had gone in. “A woman, or a girl. Overly small for a man or a boy,” Kate said. “Shot.”
"Looks like you did get her after all then, Tom," Bob said. “This may not be everybody, but this has to be our missing girl. When you shot down at the truck, you hit her.”
Their eyes picked up the rest of the clues: the empty food bowl, the half empty tube of the antibiotic cream.
"So, she just came in here... helped herself to our clothes, food, drugs... took the truck... and?" Kate said looking around.
"No telling what else," Mike said. "Guess we're back on guard duty tonight though."
"I think we're missing a radio too," Ronnie said. He was coming back from the direction of the tents. "All my stuff was gone through, my radio is gone."
"Do you think she's smart enough to figure out the difference?" Tom asked.
"Absolutely. If she's everything Cindy says she is," Bob answered. “Anyway, we got to assume she figured it out, that she's listening to everything we say. Probably already did today.”
"What is the difference?" Cindy asked, feeling foolish.
"We were monitoring you guys on C.B., but we do all of our personal talking on a marine radio. V.H.F.,” He held the radio up so she could see it. “Looks the same as a C.B., but talking on this, they couldn't hear us," Mike explained.
"So that's how you knew we were coming. Not that I'm mad. I'm glad, the way things turned out. Will she notice? If she took the radio, she already has it figured out, don't you think?" Cindy asked. " I can't see no... any, reason she would take it otherwise. If she was here last night, maybe hiding, waiting... she probably heard you guys talking on them... saw you."
“Had to be her that took the bodies also. I can see her own people, but why Jeff?” Tom asked.
“I don't know,” Mike said.
“What's not to know?” Tom asked.
“Well, she weighs, what, maybe around a hundred pounds? Maybe?” He looked over at Cindy who nodded.
“So?” Tom said.
“So, how's a hundred pound girl gonna drag a full grown man that weighs over two fifty out of the woods?” Ronnie asked.
“And we didn't hear him,” Cindy added.
No one answered.
“Well, had to be her. I mean, you ain't buyin' that Zombie shit are you?” Tom asked. He looked at Mike and then slowly around at the rest.
“No, I'm not ready to believe that. Look at those horses today. They've been living out. Nothing's bothered them. I don't know what Jeff saw. I wasn't there.” Mike sat back on one of the picnic table tops.
Kate nodded. "Well, who's watching when?" she asked after a short pause.
~
Janet wrote down the mileage, thirty five miles, and it had taken all day. All three vehicles were nearly empty, and the cans on the back of the trucks were dry. There were also dozens of new scrapes and dents in the bodies of the trucks. They had come through some rough country, even traveling over the relatively flat lowlands they had traveled. She was also surprised at how much gas the trucks had burned once the going got rough, and they were in four wheel drive constantly. That seemed to double the gas consumption. But the short gas rations and the dented trucks didn't matter overly much to Janet Dove anymore. They were going no further.
They had found a notch in the second mountain chain. They had driven up out of the lowlands, labored upward in four wheel drive, and they had finally slipped through the rock and gravel passage into a long, flat bottomed valley nestled between two ranges.
At the opposite end, at least several miles distance, a dark fringe of heavy woodlands had been visible in the dimming light. When they had passed through the notch, they had rolled out onto a wide stone ledge.
Another ledge, wider in places, narrowed in others, gradually dropped down to the valley floor. The main branch ran up to the rocky base of the mountain and into it about fifty feet deep, forming a large sheltered overhang. A small stream cut down one side of the pass not two hundred yards away. They had found the home that Bob had sent them to find. They would go no further.
Janet was positive, gradual though the shelf was, that the trucks would never make it down to the valley floor in one piece. She wouldn't try it anyway, she told herself. Maybe Bob or Michael, but not her.
They had started a fire under the overhang, turned the dogs loose to sniff out the darker regions of the overhang where Janet suspected there was at least one large cave going back into the rock. The dogs seemed fine, a little nervous, a little bone weary from two days of nonstop travel and being bounced around in the backs of the truck, but they all were.
They took out blankets, sleeping bags, food and left the rest for the next day. Patty took charge of the watch, and before the sun was fully down, she had the posts working on a rotating basis.
~
Patty laughed as she sat sipping coffee with Janet by the fire, waiting for the water to heat in a large iron pot for dinner.
"Funny, we left a cave, came all this way, and here we are in a cave again," she shook her head. The smile on her face stayed put. Janet answered it with one of her own.
"It feels right though, doesn't it?" Janet asked.
Patty grew sober, "It does. I can't put my finger on the feeling, but you're right. It feels like we're supposed to be here," she agreed.
Janet nodded. She tested the water, then added a large portion of rice to the water and began to stir it occasionally.
In another pot suspended over the fire, beans simmered. Thick chunks of canned beef, for
tified with some of their own dried beef, bubbled with the beans.
"You think they're okay?" Patty asked Janet quietly.
Janet met her eyes, "I don't know, Patty. I... I don't feel one way or the other about it. I... I've been praying to God. I got it from Lilly, I guess. But I'm praying, and I hope they're okay," she said softly. Her eyes were moist, but she rubbed the back of one hand quickly across them, refusing to let the tears come.
She sighed deeply and then planted a smile back on her face.
"We'll get this straightened out tomorrow, fixed up. It's quite good, isn't it? We have water. I'm sure there's an actual cave back in there. This looks like limestone, so that would make sense. This will be home for awhile I think, and we'll have it fixed up nice for them when they get here, Patty," Janet finished.
Patty nodded, and blinked back her own tears. Things had happened so fast, she hadn't even been able to kiss Ronnie or Kate goodbye. She had barely been able to say goodbye.
Janet didn't have a feeling, but Patty did, and she told her now.
"For what it's worth, Janet, I do have a feeling. I feel it's going to be all right. I truly do," Patty leaned over and hugged Janet, and Janet hugged her back.
~
Chloe found a little town just before dark. She went from wrecked store to wrecked store gathering the things she needed. She was alone, but she wasn't afraid. She had spent almost a month as Death's woman. She was sure nothing could scare her after that.
She found a Jeep dealership on the outskirts of town. The show room was collapsed, the garage no better, but dozens of shiny Jeeps of all sorts littered the lot.
She finally found a Wrangler with the keys in the switch. The battery was a little flat, but despite that, it started right up. Getting gas was no longer as easy as it had been with several sets of willing hands, but by the time the Moon was up and the place was really starting to creep her out, she had finally filled the tank and two five gallon Jerry cans she put into the back. Her mouth tasted like gasoline, and she had to admit, she was more than a little high from inhaling fumes. But she considered that a bonus. If only the place didn't creep her out so damn much she'd stay and wait for morning, she thought, get a little sleep.
America The Dead Book Two: The Road To Somewhere Page 17
