It was a bumpy ride, and I thought it was due to potholes in the parking lot, but it continued even after we were on the road. I suspected that at least one of our tires was flat.
When we were far enough from our pursuers, Sara stopped the truck so I could get into the cab. I climbed down out of the bed then walked around the truck to see how much damage had been done.
“Both back tires are flat,” I said, climbing in. “We’re going to need another vehicle.”
“This one will still drive,” she said.
“Yeah, I know. We don’t have to do it this instant or anything. The county line isn’t more than four or five miles. We can make it that far. Just take it slow.”
CHAPTER 14
We proceeded north past hundreds of acres of farmland and woods. Then, practically in the middle of nowhere, there was a cross road lined with bars and liquor stores.
“Now leaving Grace County,” I said.
Sara took a right onto the cross road then pulled up to the first establishment. It was appropriately named County Line Liquors. From the outside it looked like it had been hit by looters. The front windows were broken, and there were lots of broken bottles on the ground. We went in anyway, hoping something had been left. Nothing had. Every bottle of beer, wine, and liquor had been taken. Shelves were overturned, and there was nothing left inside the building but torn boxes and broken bottles. The other three stores and two bars were the same. We did find four decaying corpses in one of the bars, but they’d all been shot in the head. Aside from them we saw no one else neither living nor dead.
There was old cargo van in the parking lot of the second store that still had keys and a little gas in the tank. We transferred our haul from the convenient store into it. We were about to leave when Sara pointed toward a plain, windowless, block building on the other side of the highway away from the other stores. The sign out front was very discreet. It said: THE VEGAS CLUB.
“What about that place?” she said. “Is that a bar?”
“Yeah,” I chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s a titty bar,” I said.
“You mean like strippers?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought that was illegal around here,” she said.
I shrugged, “Beats me.”
“Did you go there often?” she said, a grin playing at the corners of her mouth.
“I’ve never been there,” I said. It was the truth, but I could tell she didn’t believe me.
“Well,” she said, “we’ve driven all this way. We should check it, too.”
I nodded.
“I’ll let you lead the way since you’re a regular there,” she said dryly.
I started to deny it again, but I figured it would turn into one of those methinks-thou-doth-protest-too-much situations. I don’t even know why it mattered; I probably would have gone in there if I’d had some friends to go with, but Blaine never went to places like that, and I didn’t want to be one of those creepy guys that went to a strip club alone. Besides, I was getting the impression from Sara that she didn’t really care anyway; she was just ribbing me about it. I didn’t know if this was a new development with her, or if she’d always been like that. I had made presumptions about her because of her age and because she talked about her church so much after we first met. She’d had such an aversion to drinking at first, but she’d come around out of necessity. Then there was that first night she and I had spent alone…. She definitely hadn’t been a prude that night.
The building was locked. That was a good thing. It meant no one had been in, and we would likely find plenty of alcohol inside.
“These doors are solid,” I said. “We’ll have to drive the van through them.”
Sara nodded then opened the van door.
“Try not to hurt our escape vehicle this time,” I said.
“Okay,” she grinned. “Next time, I’ll let them get you.”
She backed the van against the door. The engine roared and the tires squealed and smoked as she mashed the accelerator. Finally, the doors caved and the van backed into the building. She cut the engine. The vehicle didn’t completely fill the space where the doors had been, but it filled it enough that I thought it would prevent anyone or anything from following us inside. She moved into the back of the van then I climbed in the driver’s door and followed her. When I met her at the back door she handed me a flashlight.
“There aren’t any windows,” she said. “We’ll need these.”
I opened the van’s rear doors. It was almost completely dark inside the building. The only light was coming in through the van’s windshield and our flashlights.
“I’ve got an idea,” I said and went back to the front. “Hop out and tell me if this helps.”
I put on the emergency brake to keep the vehicle from moving then I put the van in reverse. The backup lights came on.
“Much better,” Sara said.
The backup lights gave us a dim view of the interior of the main room. There was a sort of stage or runway in the middle of the room with a stainless steel pole in the center that was secured at the ceiling. There was a bar to the right side with a few partial bottles of liquor and some beer taps behind it. Another continuous bar ran around the stage, and there were a few tables on the main floor.
“Let’s do this quickly,” Sara said. “We can take those bottles.”
“There will probably be extra in the back,” I said.
I shined my flashlight around until I found a doorway to the right of the main bar.
“There,” I said.
We proceeded to the main bar, sweeping the room with our flashlights as we went. When I got to the door, I turned and Sara was still halfway back. She was shining her flashlight on a framed poster on the wall.
“What is it?” I said.
She immediately started toward me, “It’s nothing.”
I shined my light toward the poster, but Sara stepped in front of me and pushed my light down.
“Come on,” she said. “We’re in a hurry, remember?”
“We’re kind of secluded out here,” I said. “I don’t think we’re going to have much trouble. There aren’t any houses close by.”
”I’ll feel safer if we didn’t stay too long.”
We went through the door. There were three more rooms in the rear of the building. One was a large, communal dressing room with mirrors, lockers, benches, and a rack of costumes and lingerie. There was also a small office. The next room was the stock room stacked with cases of beer and wine and liquor.
“The mother lode,” Sara said.
“I think this will do,” I laughed.
We each got a box and took it to the van. After we each made six trips to the storeroom, Sara stopped by the rear of the van, trying to peer through the windshield.
“Don’t you think that’s enough?” Sara said. “I’m getting worried about being here so long.”
”Let’s get the rest, and we can put bottles in the supply caches,” I said.
She climbed into the van and went to the front.
“I see a woman across the road,” she said.
“Come on,” I assured her. “We have plenty of time.”
“No,” she said. “I’m going to sit here and keep watch. You get what you want, but I think we have plenty.”
I went back for the rest of the boxes. They were heavy, and lifting them made my sore arm hurt like crazy. In all, we got ten cases of beer, three cases of wine, a case of vodka, two bottles of bourbon, three bottles of rum, and several partial bottles of different liquors and liqueurs.
“There’s another one coming,” Sara called to me.
“I’m going to have one last look in the back,” I said. “Honk if more come in.”
I did a quick look through the desk drawers in the office. All of the lockers in the dressing room had locks on them. Satisfied that we’d collected everything that would be useful to us, I started back to the van. Out o
f curiosity, I stopped at the framed poster Sara had been looking at before and shined my flashlight on it.
At the top, the poster read: THE GLITTER GIRLS of THE VEGAS CLUB. The picture on the poster was of seven women in scant costumes posing together on the club’s stage. Next to each woman was her name. When I saw the smiling face of the woman second to the right, my heart skipped. According to the poster, her name was AutumnTryst, but that was just a stage name. It was Jen; there was no doubt about it. She was wearing a silly cowgirl getup.
I had almost forgotten what she looked like. I reached up to touch the image of her face. I could feel the tears coming….
The horn honked, startling me. I took one last look then I ran back to the van. By this time, the woman was standing in front of the van staring at us through the windshield. There was a little boy walking around in the highway, too.
“There’s a whole group of them coming down the road,” Sara said. “I really think they’re coming here because of me.”
I shut the rear doors and made my way through the narrow corridor between the boxes to the passenger seat.
“Let’s go,” I said, distracted.
CHAPTER 15
Sara put the van into drive and scraped out of The Vegas Club, running over the woman in the process. The group of infected she had mentioned were out on the main highway. There were about twenty of them. She easily avoided them as she got onto the four-lane headed south back into Grace County.
“If this is because of my period, then what are we going to do?” she said.
I was staring out the window, thinking about the picture of Jen and didn’t really hear what she said.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” she said.
“Huh?” I said, realizing that she was speaking.
“You saw the picture in the club.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You didn’t have to hide it from me. I know why you did. I know you don’t like me thinking about her, but—“
“Is that what you think?” she said.
“Well—“
She shook her head, “I didn’t want you to see that picture, because I didn’t want you to think less of her. She wouldn’t have wanted that either.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.
“If Jen had wanted you to know what she did for a living, she would have told you,” she continued.
“Maybe,” I shrugged. “It never really came up.” I remembered that Sara and I had talked about this very subject the day Jen died.
“Maybe she thought it would lessen your opinion of her,” Sara said.
I wanted to say that it wouldn’t have, that I would have liked her just as much. However, if I was honest, I would have to admit that the man I was before Canton B might have had some reservations about dating a woman in her line of work. Of course, that man was long gone. The smiling cowgirl in that picture was gone, too. She wasn’t the Jen I knew…or thought I knew.
“It doesn’t bother me,” I said and was pleased to find that it was the truth.
When we were about two miles from the county line, Sara pulled the van off to the side of the road, and put it into park.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“There’s a car coming our way.”
I looked out in front of us. Far in the distance--so far I had to squint to see it--was movement.
“Damn, eagle eyes,” I said.
We watched it moving closer and realized it wasn’t just one, but multiple vehicles—a caravan. We scooted down in our seats to keep from being seen, but stayed up enough to just see over the dashboard.
“Is that our bus?” she said referring to the short, yellow school bus fourth back in the group.
“Probably,” I said.
There was no Hummer or armored truck in the line, but I was still fairly sure it was Wheeler’s group. There were eight vehicles in all, including one motorcycle.
“What kind of moron rides a bike during a zombie infestation,” I said.
They sped past, heading north. After they had all passed by, Sara watched them in her side mirror, careful not to move until they were out of sight.
“The motorcycle stopped,” she said.
I walked to the back of the cargo van so I could look out the rear window. The man was putting down the kickstand and dismounting the bike.
“What the hell is he doing?” I said, wondering out loud. “There’s nothing there. There’s no reason for him to stop.”
The last vehicle in the group, a green Jeep Cherokee, did a U-turn, staying in the northbound lanes and came back to join him. He waved to them. It looked like he might have been laughing, but he was too far away to tell for sure. The Jeep stopped. The man from the motorcycle and the driver of the Jeep said something to each other. Then the Jeep came back our direction and pulled up next to an abandoned vehicle in the northbound lanes. Two men got out, and started searching it. The guy from the motorcycle pulled down his pants, squatted next to his motorcycle and—
“Eeew,” Sara said. “He couldn’t have held it one more mile? Now we’ve got to sit here and watch it.”
Then the men from the Jeep returned to their vehicle. They stood by their open doors and yelled something to the man who was now standing with his pants around his ankles.
“I guess they came back so he wouldn’t be by himself,” I said.
Then the men from the Jeep pointed in our direction. The other man looked at our van and nodded.
“Shit,” I said. “I think they’re coming here next. Sara, go now while they are out of their vehicles.”
“Yeah,” she said, sitting up in her seat. “I think you’re right.”
The van was already idling. She put it into drive, and I was thrown against the back door when she stepped on the gas. The motorcycle and Jeep began to shrink into the distance, and all three men sprang into action. Within seconds, the Jeep was in pursuit, and the other man had pulled up his pants, straddled his bike, and turned to chase us, too.
“I don’t think there is any way of losing them,” I said. “We’re the only people on the road.”
“Come get the rifle,” Sara said. One thing about Sara was that she always kept her head. No matter what kind of craziness was going on, she was always cool.
I moved to the front of the van and got the AR-15 then returned to the rear of the vehicle.
“Remember,” she said. “We’ve got eight bullets left, and whatever you have in your pistol.”
The Jeep pulled up close behind us. I was starting to get the shakes. I hated having confrontations with healthy people.
“Don’t let them see you,” she said. “I have an idea.”
The motorcycle caught up, too, and pulled up behind the Jeep. It felt like the van was slowing down.
“What are you doing?!” I yelled.
“The rest of their group isn’t coming,” she said. “It’s just them.”
“Why are you slowing down?!”
She looked at me in the rearview mirror. All I could see were her eyes.
“I’m going to pull over.”
“Dammit, Sara, drive!”
“You’re right; we’ll never lose them.”
She continued to drive, but got slower and slower. The Jeep pulled around and in front of us. Sara didn’t even pretend to try to run anymore. She slowed to a stop in the middle of the highway. She looked at me in the mirror again.
“There are three of them,” she said softly. “You do what needs to be done while I distract them.”
Do what needs to be done!?
Sara took off her jacket then climbed out of the van.
Shit!
The guy from the motorcycle was too interested in the pretty girl to check the back of the van. I could hear their muffled voices and laughter outside. I had to act quickly.
I opened the back door of the van as quietly as I could and climbed out onto the highway. I looked around the left side of the van. The men from the Jeep were on either side of Sa
ra holding her while the guy from the motorcycle tried to remove her jeans. I took a deep breath, and stepped around, amazed at how clear my thinking was at that moment.
Motorcycle Man saw me and stepped away from her, raising his arms. The other two men both tried to use Sara as a shield.
“Shit, man, ever’thang is cool, ya know,” Motorcycle Man said.
A month before, I might have talked to him and tried to resolve it peacefully. But now….
I pulled the trigger. It was as if someone punched him in the stomach. He double up and fell over. The other two men, seeing they had nothing to lose, went for their guns. Sara twisted out of the grasp of one and started jabbing at the face of the other with the van keys. After three quick stabs, she finally got what she was searching for—his eye. The man shrieked and stumbled into the side of the van. The other was leveling his pistol at me. I fired again. I didn’t aim--I was too jittery to aim—but somehow, I winged him. He twirled and went to one knee. Sara, level-headed as ever, caught him under the chin with the toe of her boot. He fell back, his pistol skidding away on the pavement.
Everything seemed to stop for a few seconds. Sara looked down at the three men, her jeans gaping open and her shirt torn. She nodded at me then walked over and picked up the man’s pistol. He sat up, dazed and holding his shoulder. She put the muzzle of the gun against his head and killed him. She executed the other two the same way. Then she looked up at me while the blue smoke still snaked out of the end of the gun.
“Let’s drag them into the ditch,” she said.
I stared at her in disbelief. I had watched her kill the infected many times. I had seen her shoot at healthy men when forced to do so. This was different; these men were wounded and incapacitated. The way she had coldly executed them startled me.
“It had to be done,” she said, as if reading my thoughts. “They were bad men—unredeemable.” She buttoned her pants and tried to pull her shirt together. “Now, they’re burning in Hell, just like they deserve. Come help me.”
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