Those seeds and sweet potatoes were going to be the beginnings of our garden. They and their progeny would provide us with fresh food while everyone else was fighting over old canned goods and stale crackers, but more than that, one day, they might be the only thing keeping us from starving to death. They were the most important items we had, and thankfully Wheeler and his bunch hadn’t been smart enough to take them.
We returned as much of the dirt to the trays as we could. Six of the seedlings were still intact, however they were wilted. I couldn’t tell whether they were the peppers or tomatoes because they had not put on their second set of leaves yet.
“Hopefully, some of the seeds that were slow to germinate are in that dirt somewhere,” I said, picking up one of the trays. “Let’s take them with us back to the stables.”
Sara grabbed the other tray.
“They left most of the books and magazines,” she said. “Do you want to get them?”
“We should go,” I said. “We’ll come back for them and the hay truck later.”
We drove over to the high school but not via the bypass. That would have taken us by the fairgrounds, and I didn’t want to alert Wheeler’s group, even though there was a chance we’d run into them anyway if they were still in town. Instead, using the map, we took back roads on the south side of town that would let us out west of the school and away from the fairgrounds.
We drove onto the school grounds, past the stadium, then past the school itself, to the maintenance building in the back. It didn’t look much different than how I had left it; the fence was still down and collapsed over the front entrance. The ambulance and a pickup truck were still in the courtyard. Off to the side were three buses, and near them was the moving van I’d driven through their fence. I wondered if the stuff Sara and I had collected at Tractor Supply was still inside the truck. Originally, there had been five buses, but I had parked one around back and we had taken the other. Sara pulled around to access the gate. The bus I had parked by the rear entrance was gone.
“What do you think?” Sara said, parking by the back door. “Do you think they left?”
“Looks like it,” I said. “If they are inside, it might be best if they didn’t see me right away. You go knock on the door, and I’ll wait in the car.”
She went up to the door, knocked, and waited. She looked back at me and shrugged. I got out holding the machete. I stuffed the .22 down the front of my pants and joined her. It was very quiet. If they had been inside, I thought we would have heard something. I kind of expected to hear some sound coming from the fairgrounds which was less than a mile away, but I did not. The door was unlocked, and we went inside.
The place had been abandoned. All of the cots and other supplies were gone from the large bus garage. The only indication that it had been inhabited was several bags of trash piled along the far wall. I tried the switch by the door, but the lights did not come on.
“I wonder if the generators are not working or just turned off,” I said.
Sara walked through the garage to the break room in the front of the building, and I followed her. The large county map that had been on the wall was missing. The office was to our left and the door was shut.
“I don’t know what to do now,” she said.
I put my arm around her and gave her a quick hug, because she looked like she needed it. She let me.
“Let’s go back to the stables,” I said. “Maybe they’ll be back by now.”
There was a sound from the office, like something bumping against the wall. Sara looked at me. I went over to the door and put my ear to it.
“Hello?” I said.
There was movement inside—a brief scraping sound and another thump. I looked over to Sara and she nodded, lifting her rifle. I tried the knob.
“It’s locked,” I said.
“”Hello in there!” Sara said loudly. “Are you able to unlock the door?”
There was a long, slow scratching sound that started at the top of the door and dragged down to the floor.
“I think we have our answer,” I said. “Let’s go back to the stables.”
“But who do you think is in there?” she said.
“It doesn’t matter,” I replied. “They’re obviously infected.”
“But what if it’s Judy and Nicholas?”
“It’s not,” I said. “Even if they got infected, it would be a little early for them to turn. They’ve only been gone since yesterday.”
She lowered her weapon and nodded, but I could tell she wasn’t satisfied with that answer.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” I said.
“Don’t you want to know who is in there?” she said.
“Not really,” I said. “For all we know, it’s standing room only in there. Do you really want to open that door?”
“Schrodinger’s Cat,” Sara said.
“What about it?” I said.
“You said ‘curiosity killed the cat,’” she replied. “I was just remembering that Schrodinger’s Cat thing from science class. Until we open the door and look, we don’t know what we’ll find. Until we open the door and know for sure, there is a possibility that the Somervilles are in there.”
I sighed, “Okay. Let’s find something in the garage to bust down the door.
We found a large, rolling jack along one of the walls in the garage and wheeled it into the break room. I was still feeling weak, so Sara was going to have to do all the physical work. She gave me her rifle, and I stood in the doorway to the garage and break room and aimed it at the entrance to the office. Sara pulled the jack back to the far end of the break room, and then jacked it up so that the long, metal lift arms were about waist high. Then she ran toward the office door pushing the jack in front of her.
Rather than knocking it open, the lift punched through the hollow, wooden door. I could hear a lot of movement inside of the office. Sara jerked on the jack and it came free. She pulled it back to the other side of the room for another run. There was a narrow, horizontal hole in the middle of the door that was about a foot long. It was large enough that I thought I could stick my hand in and unlock the door. Of course, I wasn’t stupid enough to do that.
While that thought was still in my head, a hand reached through the splintered hole. It was missing its pinky and ring fingers at the second knuckles. It stretched out as far as the elbow and felt around on the door.
“Why don’t we just go,” I said to Sara, but she was already on her way back with the jack.
She had let the jack down some, and it punctured the door about knee high. The groping arm tensed up, then became more lively. Sara yanked back on the jack. When it pulled free, it was bloody on the end. She wheeled it back, then walked around and squatted down about three feet from the door to look through the holes she had made. Hesitantly, I joined her. A horrible smell of death and feces came out of the room.
“There are two in there, at least, but I can’t make out their faces,” she said.
She stood, stepped forward, and kicked the door in the weak spot between the two holes. It caved in making one large hole. The arm shot out of the hole again, trying to grab her leg, but she was able to pull it away. We knelt again. The owner of the arm with the two missing fingers was Brenda, the woman we’d rescued from the burning drug store. I was sad about that; she had been such a nice lady. She put her face through the hole, hissing and snarling at us.
We backed up out of Brenda’s reach then squatted again trying to see past the infected woman into the room.
“I wonder how this happened,” I said, afraid that her current state was my fault.
“Give me that machete,” Sara said.
I picked up the machete from where I had propped it in the doorway and handed it to her. I expected her to hack on the door to open up another hole. Instead, she walked around to the side of the office door, and stood up against the wall. When Brenda pushed her head out farther, Sara swung the blade down, chopping into the back of her neck. I wince
d. I’d seen plenty of death the past few weeks, but this was Brenda.
The head didn’t come off, so Sara took another swing, slinging blood against the wall beside me in the downward arc. I looked away. There was a wet, dull sound as the head dropped to the floor. I looked again and Brenda’s corpse was limp, her right arm sticking out of the hole as far as her armpit, her neck spurting blood. The severed head was on the floor, and I was glad to see that the face was turned away from me.
Sara looked up at me with a solemn expression. Tears were glistening in her eyes. She looked like she would say something, but then another arm came through the hole.
CHAPTER 10
It was a man’s arm, and he was wearing a plaid long-sleeved shirt. The new arm startled her, and Sara brought the machete down a third time, slicing though the bicep and stopping at the bone. She was obviously crying by this time and stepped back away from the carnage and rested her back against the wall.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded, looking down at the bloody blade.
“I didn’t want to leave Ms. Brenda like that,” she said. “But I was afraid shooting would be too loud.”
I stepped away from the door and went out by the jack, lowering myself to look into the hole.
“I don’t recognize him,” I said. “Do you remember him?”
Sara joined me then shook her head, “No. Is there anyone else inside?”
“I can’t see,” I said. “Why don’t I shoot him, and we’ll make sure. We should have enough time to get away from here before the shot brings in any zombies.”
She nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“Why don’t you go out to the car, and get it started so we can leave in a hurry.”
She started to protest, but I held up my hand to stop her.
I handed her my .22. “I’ll be alright.”
She stood and started bawling. I was a little taken aback by that, but I stood and reached out for her. She came in to me, putting her forehead against my chest.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just…I don’t know why this should set me off, but it’s too much. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said, not knowing what to say. “I’ll take care of this.”
She nodded again and stepped away. She looked over at Brenda’s head and shook her own. Slowly, she walked toward the garage. When she got to the doorway she turned around and faced me. The revolver hung from her left hand, and the machete from her right. She smiled wanly.
“I do love you, you know,” she said. “It’s okay that you don’t say it back, but…Jen is gone.”
I stared at her, not sure how I should respond.
“I’ll be right out,” I said, finally.
She looked down at the floor, nodded and walked out. I heard the back door open, then shut.
Why did everything have to be so complicated?
I moved in close to the door, but just out-of-reach of the man’s arm. When his face came into view, I fired through the hole with the AR-15. The shot was loud and made my ears ring after. The man collapsed and was still. I didn’t hear any more movement, so I reached into the hole, found the knob and unlocked it. The door swung outward into the break room and Brenda’s body plopped down to the floor. The blood coming from her neck was just a dribble by that time.
I stepped into the windowless room and looked around. The stench was sickening. The desk was still in there, and the computer was still in the floor in the corner. Off to one side next to some filing cabinets were two more bodies. I pointed my weapon at them, but they didn’t move. They were bloated and had already been dead a while. I went in closer to investigate. One was a man, but his face had been so badly beaten that I couldn’t make out the features enough to identify him. The other was Connie, the nurse. There was a bullet hole in her head.
“Shit,” I said, looking into Connie’s lifeless face. I felt responsible for all of this. Connie had been willing to come with us before I’d given her reason to be afraid of me.
Sara was not going to like this news. With her being in this new, weird emotional state, I had no intention of telling her.
I returned to the car.
“Anyone else in there?” she asked.
“Two more, but they’d been dead too long to tell who they were,” I lied.
She accepted what I said without question, which made me feel even worse. I’d tell her about Connie later when I thought she was up to it. She put the car in reverse and backed out past the diesel pump and through the gate. When she stopped to put the car into drive, I put my hand on hers.
“Hold up,” I said. “Let’s go ahead and check that moving van while we’re here. Maybe they didn’t bother it.”
She pulled the car to the rear of the little box truck. I got out and pushed the back door up. I almost couldn’t do it; I just didn’t have much strength. Everything was still in there—the little wood stove, the bags of animal feed, the clothes, boots, and tools. I went back over to the car.
“I’m going to drive it back over to the stables,” I said.
“Without a windshield?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What’s the problem? People ride motorcycles don’t they?”
She grinned a little, “Okay. You don’t think you’ll need some goggles or sunglasses or something?”
“Don’t have any,” I said. “We’ll take it slow. Well, faster than the zombies, but slow. You lead the way.”
We went back the way we came, staying away from the main roads. Driving without a windshield was an interesting experience and not very comfortable, but I was glad to have reclaimed those particular supplies. I had hoped the Somervilles would have returned while we were gone, but they had not.
It was late afternoon by that time, and Sara quietly made us dinner—a can of spaghetti and a can of pineapple chunks. It wasn’t a very filling meal, but it was all that was left of the food Sara and Mr. Somerville had collected while I was sick. We’d have to go out the next day and find more. She didn’t have much to say while we ate and had trouble looking me in the eye. We both had a lot on our minds.
I finished first and poured each of us some of Corndog’s rum, emptying the jug.
“I hate that hard stuff,” Sara said.
“Well, you’re going to hate this even more,” I said. “This is cheap hard stuff. We have to get food tomorrow; hopefully we’ll find something a little more palatable.”
“Are we…are we coming back here when we’re done?”
I knew why she was asking, and I figured it was time to go ahead and talk about it.
“Yeah,” I said. “The Somervilles will come back here when they’re able, so we should be here when they get here….and if you want to stay here, I’m up for it.”
“What about—“
“Jen is gone,” I said, interrupting. “You’re right, and I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting. You are also right about her still being out there…not that I’d ever want to see her again, not like that.”
She reached across the table and took my hand.
“We can still be on the lookout for a new place,” I said, “but only if it’s better, not because of Jen.”
She nodded but didn’t speak.
“We have about two or three weeks before the last frost when we can plant the garden, so we don’t need to get really serious about a new place just yet. I’m okay here.”
I picked up my glass and downed the rum in two swallows. It burned, making my insides feel raw.
“Jen’s gone,” I whispered.
Sara picked up her own glass, stuck her nose in it, and then pulled away when she got a whiff of the alcohol. She took a sip then went back to her spaghetti.
“I’m going to build a fire,” I said, finally. “It’ll probably get cool again tonight.”
“We need to change the dressing on your head, too,” she said. “How’s it feeling?”
I reached up and touched the spot above my left ear where Corndog had hit me
with the bat.
“It’s still tender,” I said. “I probably needed stitches.”
Then her gaze shifted to something behind me. I turned to see what she was looking at. Through the window, I could see two dark SUVs coming up the driveway. We sat motionless at the small kitchen table, both of us holding our breath. The trucks pulled in behind the moving van and stopped. Doors opened on the first vehicle and two men got out. They motioned to the occupants of the second vehicle to stay where they were. I didn’t see any weapons.
“We must have been followed,” I said. “You need to hide.”
Sara stood and walked over to the window.
“Sara,” I whispered loudly, “Go before they see you.”
“No,” she said, softly. “Is that who I think it is?”
I joined her at the window. “Who?”
“The man in the tan cap…I think it might be….It is!” She pushed past me and ran to the front door.
“Sara, no!” I shouted, but it was too late; she was already out on the porch.
CHAPTER 11
I ran after her. By the time I got out the door, she and the two men had met next to the moving van. She hugged the man in the tan cap. The three of them were smiling and laughing as I walked out to them. Then the man in the tan cap raised his hands and frowned. Sara looked at me.
“Put that away,” she said.
I looked down, and realized I was holding the revolver. I stuffed it into my pants.
“This is Mr. Parks,” Sara said, patting the man on the chest. “He’s the shop teacher over at Clayfield High. I used to be in his class.”
He extended his hand.
“Ben Parks,” he said.
I shook his hand, “Nice to meet you.”
He was in his mid to late 30s, broad, with a thoughtful face and a new, but heavy, beard. He kind of reminded me of a bear.
Sara touched his whiskers. “When did you grow all this?”
“During the apocalypse,” he said, matter-of-factly then smiled.
He turned to his companion.
“This is Ron Meyer,” he said.
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