by Geo Dell
Mike nodded.
“First time in months that I felt someone looking at me as though I was inferior,” Ronnie said.
“Yeah. Me too. They were not coming to our world, Ronnie. No way,” Mike said. “No way at all.”
“I knew that too, Mike. I know you. I knew as soon as they opened their mouths and started spouting that shit, that they were done. Like Bear the other day... I like him... But that isolating shit... That division had to get nipped in the bud, because if he stayed that way I wouldn't be able to like him.”
“I like him... I thought at first you jumped a little hard, but then he pretty much admitted it... Can't second guess yourself. You called it... It was what it was, and he put it away.” Mike shrugged. “Let's hope he really put it away... It seems like he did,.”
“I think he did,” Ronnie said. “I think he was afraid... Big guy like that... Gets afraid same as we do, same as anybody.”
“You get afraid,” Mike asked.
“Asshole,” Ronnie laughed. “Listen, I'm with you, Mike: Once I'm back I can't see a reason to come back out here. I can't see anything that could bring me back. They say, never say never, but... I'm saying I can't see it, ever,” Ronnie finished.
“Well, hey, listen I wanted to say... ... I'm sorry about the baby... I know that hurt you... But I couldn't let you fall down too... Patty... The baby the two of you have...” He trailed off.
“Negative perspiration... It's all good.” He sighed. “I just don't get it, and I was going there and you grabbed me... That's what a friend does. Same with Chloe. She was going there too, and that girl's been through too much. Way too much,” Ronnie said. “Anyway, I appreciate the reality check.”
Mike nodded. “I don't think any of us will get it,” he said after a moments thought. They drove along in comfortable silence, following what was left of the road.
The Nation
When the morning came there were three, John, the smaller of the two men had not made it to see the dawn. The remaining three, Craig, Roberta and Bonnie were holding their own. Sleeping deeply
Sandy sat outside in the predawn coolness, her back resting against the stone wall they had built to close off the deeper recesses of the caves from the outside. She waited for the sun to lift over the top of the southern mountains.
All the women were outside with her. Sipping coffee. Talking in quiet tones. Both dogs lay sprawled out on the cool rock, sleeping deeply themselves. The Dog's paws twitched occasionally and he whined. Angels paws twitched right after and she woofed deep in her throat.
Candace laughed quietly. “It's like they're dreaming the same dream.”
Patty watched for a few moments and then chuckled. “It is like that, isn't it?”
“Like they're running through a field somewhere, in some other world, or some other place. The sun is shining, the rabbits are running and the water bowl's always full,” Candace joked.
“I had an aunt who always said she believed that dreams were real. Just as real as this life. Just a different type of reality... Or the dreams were life and this was a different type of reality... Depending on your point of view,” Patty said.
“I believe in something, I just don't know what you would call it,” Candace said. “See,” she said holding her arm out. A deep blue tribal tattoo started at her wrist and sleeved her arm, rose over her shoulders and spilled across the tops of her breasts. The rest wasn't on view, but Patty knew it continued downward across her stomach and beyond.
“I like it,” Patty said. “I like it a lot, it looks so good on you, but it had to hurt like crazy... Didn't it,” Patty asked.
“No, Pats. Not the Tat, what's under the Tat.” She held her arm out further.
Patty looked closer. Candace rotated her arm and suddenly Patty saw it clearly. There were dozens of thin spidery lines of scaring that radiated out from her wrist, wound around her arm and spiraled upward.
She caught her breath. “That looks pretty bad, Candy... What was it?”
Sandy, Janet, Susan, Annie and Lilly were all paying attention as well. Sandy leaned closer and traced one of the lines across Candace's wrist and up the under side of her arm before it died away. “Was it deep,” Sandy whispered, and before Candace answered, “What was it?”
“Yes. It was deep. I tripped and fell into a plate glass window. I was little. I put my hands out as I was falling. Only this hand got there in front of me before I hit the glass.” She sighed. “It did stop my head and my neck from going through the glass. It was close though.”
“It could have killed you.. Cutting there, if it was really deep,” Sandy said.
“It did,” Candace said. “Deader than a door-nail, as my Uncle Ike used to say.” She nodded at the shocked looks. “They, my parents, got me to the hospital, but I'd lost too much blood, but once they got the blood in me my heart started right back up with just a few compressions. C.P.R., No shock, and not much C.P.R. either. The rhythm was good. Freaked out everybody.” She paused. “I know... I know because I watched the whole thing. I watched them load me in the ambulance. I watched them drive me to the hospital. I watched them rush me down the corridor to surgery, cutting off my clothes as they went. My mother running alongside trying to keep up... Hysterical. I saw it all,” Candace said.
“Wow,” Lilly said after a short silence.
“So what did you see, Dear. I mean, what else was there? What happened,” Janet asked.
“It was weird. I was watching myself from above. God, or whoever, the big boss, was behind me. I couldn't see her, but she talked to me and I heard everything she said. Every question I had, she answered. She told me everything there was to know. That's the best way I know to explain it. I wasn't worried. I wasn't sad. I didn't miss my parents, my friends. I knew they would be right where I was eventually.”
“Then the nurse tricked me. She kept talking to my body... For a few days, every time she came in for her shift she would come in and spend time talking, touching me, brushing my hair, stroking my arm while she held my hand in her own. Telling me to wake up. Tapping the sides of my face. She did it this one night, and I just opened my mouth to tell her to stop and that was it. I was sucked right back into my body. I was so mad. I was even madder when they didn't believe where I had gone, but when I told them how it had been, the things I had seen them do, the things they said, they were shocked. Mom accused the nurses of telling me. Dad accused mom. Stupid. They just could have accepted it: Believed it, but no one did except my Nana Pan. She looked in my eyes and said, “I believe you, Magomusume,” means granddaughter,” Candace explained. “She believed me. Made me sit down and tell her all of it.” Candace said.
“How do you say it... Say it again, Dear,” Janet said.
“Mahgo-moo-sah-may, Magomusume,” Candace repeated slower.
“Magomusume,” Lilly said. “The kids will love it.”
“I'm sorry no one else believed you, Candy, but it's hard to accept unless you have been there,” Patty said.
“Have you,” Candace asked.
“No. Well, not exactly. I fell out of a tree when I was little. It knocked me out. Knocked the breath out of me as well. My parents rushed me to the hospital, but I didn't see what was going on, instead I went to a little park. Some ladies were sitting around. Kids everywhere. One of the ladies saw me, she smiled and called me over to her. I wasn't afraid. She told me I couldn't stay, it wasn't my time, but that she was glad I came to visit. She told me her name was Sarah and she said she would be there the next time, when it was my time. I made her promise. She did too, and then she showed me the way back. I went right from there to waking up in the emergency room,” Patty finished.
“That's the same,” Lilly said. “You left your body.”
Candace nodded agreement.
“When I was a little girl I was riding on the tailgate of my Uncle Ralph's pickup truck and took a header.” Susan said. “Lucky I didn't break my neck. I did break my collar bone and two fingers. And I was out and ha
ving trouble breathing, I guess. I had asthma, went away when I got older. The shock, the hay in the field we were riding through may have bought on the attack. Whatever it was, my parents took me to the hospital.”
“I couldn't see anyone, but I could hear everything they said about me, I just didn't care. I was sitting by this stream watching all these beautiful fish swimming by in the current. And this nun was there holding my hand. And then she just turned to me and said, 'Susan, it's time to go,' and that was it. I woke up,” Susan said. “I haven't told that to anyone,” She finished shyly.
“I've read stuff like that too,” Candace said. “So, in other words, I believe... There is something else. Even a God. It's all real, just a different kind of real than here.”
“Hey,” Craig said from the doorway. “What's the chance of getting some of that coffee?”
Patty patted one hand against her chest. “Jesus. You scared the hell out of me,” She told him.
“Me too,” Candace said. “We're just a bunch of pregnant ladies sitting around.”
Craig laughed. “I'm sorry,” he said. “You know I went through something like that as a kid,” he added.
“Really,” Lilly asked. She was having trouble getting up.
Craig offered one hand and easily pulled her to her feet.
“Thank you,” Lilly told him.
“So what was it,” Candace asked.
~
Cindy helped Bob change the water in the large chests that held the crayfish, crabs and mollusks. They were all lively except two which they fished out and tossed into the lake.
Tom, Bob, and Cindy muscled the full chests up onto the back of the wagon. There were a dozen other plastic chests full of dried, smoked fish. And another large amount that was wrapped in plastic they had bought with them.
Sharon and Bob had spent a good deal of time that early morning scouring the area for herbs. Showing Cindy how to tell one from the other. Digging up whole specimens, roots and all, for transplanting. They packed them into the plastic and cardboard containers they had bought the worms in.
They found more than a dozen they would be taking back for transplanting in the gardens back at the cave next spring. They would spend the fall and winter inside in a huge herb garden Janet and Sandy had started in the cave common area. It was close to the huge glass windows Bob had built into the front wall, so they would get the sunlight, but they would be in the area that would be heated by the huge central fire all winter. They should do well through the cold months until they could be transplanted in the spring.
They moved out at mid morning and started the trek back. They were one horse short for the larger wagon, but since the trip back was on mostly level ground, Bob just made sure they took the return trip slower so that it would not be too difficult for the horse that was doing the pulling.
Bob had called Janet to let her know they would be a little slower coming back and she and filled him in on the other death. It bothered him that he had been away when the whole thing had happened. It bothered him too, that someone had come and died, and he would never meet them. Two someones, he reminded himself. So far he had met everyone who had come to their settlement in the mountains. The Nation as they had begun to call it. There were thirty other parties that had come so far. Five graves that held the remains of those who had turned or could have turned. Seven now, he told himself. At least they had had a place for these last two and a few before them. At the first they had had none. They had taken the bodies far into the other valley and buried them.
Cindy came up beside him as he walked. “Bob?” she asked.
He shook himself from the dark mood he had been heading into. “At your service,” he joked.
Her face was serious. “What's to stop us from damming that low rocky area down in the second valley and making a little lake,” She asked.
Her question took him by surprise. “Well... Ahh. I don't see any reason we couldn't... Catfish pond? Is that it?”
“And Crayfish, crabs, bullheads, even trout, right?” She smiled.
“I don't see why not,” Bob agreed. “You're a thinker, Cindy. I like that,” Bob laughed. “I believe we have a project. There's certainly a lot of land there. More than enough.”
On The Road
They stopped at a huge truck dealership on the outskirts of some nameless city. A large area of parking lot was relatively intact and they could see for a mile or two in either direction.
One of the Jeeps was giving them trouble. Chloe was driving it, and twice the overheating light had come on. It had a burned rubber smell to it. Ronnie thought it might be a good idea to swap out all three Jeeps since they had all been used hard and were beginning to show it.
He didn't mention that they may as well get something that would last a long while because they had both decided they would never come back, but it was in Mike's mind.
They worked their way through the lot carefully. Two dead were flushed by Josh hiding on the side of a van, but it was over quickly. Josh and Richard both opened up point blank. By the time the others arrived the dead were once again dead. Even so it was unnerving. And something close to depression seemed to descend on all of them.
They stayed together and found three pickup trucks that fit their needs. They were mid-sized four wheel drive units, virtually untouched and relatively easy to get to. The pickup bed was a joke, Bear pointed out. Not full size or even close to it. They were really no longer than the Jeeps. There wasn't much they could carry.
The cabs were small with just two bucket seats, passenger and driver, and they sat up much higher than the jeeps, but they were wider and that gave them a good feel. The tires were wider and taller, and Mike wondered if they had been especially built for something.
The stickers in the windows told the tale. There had been six specially ordered for the Marshall County Beach Patrol, where ever that was. Of the six, four were still there. They got them out, charged up and filled. They spent some time switching over the tow bars as well as filling all the other vehicles from the dealership's underground tanks. The gas quality seemed to be pretty good. The smell of Gasoline strong when they popped the caps on the vent tubes.
By the time they had gassed all the trucks; decided to cut one of the other pickup trucks out for the fourth Beach Patrol truck, the sun was beginning to sink from the sky.
They had passed a herd of small beef cows down the road. Mike had laughed at them. They were the smallest cows he had ever seen. The cows they had back in the Nation were huge. Some well over twenty five hundred pounds. These cows looked to be three or four hundred tops.
Josh explained that they were purposely bred to be small. Designer cows, if you will, Josh had joked. Downsized to better stand the heat, and for smaller farm operations, and although they looked like lightweights compared to the cows Mike was used to seeing they were closer to six or seven hundred pounds, give or take. While most of them were setting up the new trucks, Josh and Ronnie had taken the Pickup down the road and found the herd.
About the time they were finished setting up the new trucks, the two of them were back with fresh beef. They had found a cornfield growing wild nearby and picked ears of corn and bought those back with them as well.
They found a relatively empty area of asphalt, circled the trucks, and began to settle in for the night. The only thing Mike didn't like about it was the woods, which were no more than a quarter of a mile away. Thick Kudzu vines hung from the trees and snaked away through the fields. Many creeping onto the asphalt of the parking lot.
“They imported it from Japan back in the fifties,” Tim said from beside him.
“The vines?” Mike asked.
Tim nodded. “The highway department in some southern town, the details escape me, but I read about it. They thought it would be great. The problem they were having was that the soil from highway and work projects got washed away before the growth could stabilize it. Kudzu worked great. Roots fast. Grows fast. Did everything they wanted it to do
.”
“Shit is growing like a damn weed now,” Bear said as he walked up.
“It's been like that since they planted it. Cost millions of dollars in maintenance each year cutting it back. Cut it back on Tuesday and it's growing again on Thursday. Now that there's nothing to stop it, it'll probably cover everything in a few years... Like a jungle,” Tim finished.
Mike nodded. “Well. We're going to have to keep a close eye on that treeline... If there had been enough daylight left we could have gone over there and checked it out... Just feels like a good place for them to hide, if it weren't so late I'd...” He broke off as several dead lunged from the tree line in the twilight and headed for them.
“Son of a bitch,” Mike said as he shrugged his machine pistol into his hands.
“Dead in the trees,” Bear's bass voice yelled out.
The noise was instant, and the flash of gunfire lit up the twilight. They were all firing hard and fast and it took Mike a second to realize that someone was yelling above the roar of the gunfire. He turned away from the wood line and that was when the first of the dead came over the hood of the nearest truck and jumped at him. He yelled as he turned his gun and fired. All hell broke loose after that.
Mike drove the barrel of his gun into the zombies head, and only barely got it lined up to do it before he found himself on the ground, the zombie biting at him as he went down, missing by scant inches. Mike pulled the trigger and the zombies head exploded in a spray of black: Almost like a fog in the air that seemed to hang there, Mike thought, as he made it back to his feet and ran at another zombie climbing over the hood of a truck near him. He realized then that the fog had stayed with him. In his eyes, he knew, and he hoped that it could not infect him that way. He squeezed the trigger briefly and the zombie climbing over the truck flew back from the hood.
He stiffened his knees to slow his momentum and the coming collision with the fender of the truck. He managed to catch himself without losing his balance and sprawling over the hood of the truck. He got himself turned and Chloe began to scream: Even as he began to turn he knew the zombie's from the woods were gone. That had been a distraction. He began to think then that they had thought out their attack. Later he was positive.
