by Geo Dell
“I do not like that at all,” Beth said.
“Yeah, I'm guessing it missed the brain,” Billy said. “That's the way it looks.” He bent down, rolled what was left of the Zombie's head so he could see the bullet hole in the base of the skull. He shook his head. “Just can't fuckin' tell. Just can't.” He looked over where Bear and Beth stood together. They both walked over. Bear knelt and leaned in close. Beth squatted beside him.
“Looks like the hole blew the base of the skull apart, but it didn't actually get into the brain. There's no hole.” Bear shrugged as he stood.
“Looks that way to me too,” Beth agreed. She leaned forward, looked around the floor. “Billy, throw me that stick.” Billy threw a short stick to her, what looked to have been the base to a small hand held flag at one time. Beth used the stick to tilt the head forward more. She leaned even closer. “No... There is no hole into the brain. It hit the base of the skull, busted the bone out, but it didn't take out the brain. That's why that bastard was still kicking.” She tossed the stick aside and rose from the squat she had been in.
“I hope so,” Mac said. “Or else...”
“No. There is no or else. I just looked at it. Take that goddamn stick and look at it up close like I just did if you don't believe me. It didn't die because it wasn't a true head shot. That's all,” Beth said. She turned and walked back toward the front of the store.
“Gimme a hand,” Bear said after a second or two of silence. He and Billy began dragging the dead out into the parking lot, staying close to the fires as they did. They both glanced over at Don's truck where it burned along with four or five other vehicles. They both turned quickly away, walked back inside and dragged another body out.
The Nation
Mike sat quietly on the rail that closed off the stalls from the main open floor of the huge barn. Bob and Tom were finishing up spreading fresh hay across the floor in the huge open area where the horses bedded down. He and Ronnie had offered to help but had been told to take a seat on the rail and wait.
“He can spread that hay,” Ronnie remarked.
Tom looked up and smiled. There was a time, not too long before, when any remark from Mike or Ronnie would cause an entirely different reaction in him. Whatever remnants of his feelings, left over from their time together in Watertown, still existed, were becoming less and less important. Something new was replacing them. Some sort of friendship, but something that went beyond mere friendship too. Camaraderie: mutual dependance and respect. Something like that, he told himself. Something like that, only more complex.
“We should have put them to work, Bob,” Tom said now.
“Couple smart asses, that's for sure,” Bob agreed. All four men laughed.
“Did Candace know you were coming down here?” Bob asked.
Mike looked quizzical. “As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Yeah... Talked to me about it too,” Bob agreed.
Mike nodded. “Crossing T’s and dotting I’s.”
“Well, what do you think, Bob?” Ronnie asked. “You too, Tom... Does it make sense?”
Bob finished spreading the last bundle of hay he and Tom had thrown down from the loft, dusted his hands and came over to the rail. Tom came behind him.
Behind them, the double barn doors yawned open, the last remaining light spilling in, the skies dark blue, bruised purple at the horizon. A horse looked in through the doors and whinnied at Bob.
Bob turned back to the door. “Well, come on, Buddy,” Bob said quietly. He patted both hands against his thighs. The horse tossed its head and pranced into the barn, a half dozen others right behind him. More would be on the way as night closed in. Before they left, Mike knew, the horses would all be in the barn for the night, and the huge doors would be swung shut on the darkness.
The horse trotted over to Bob, seeming to Mike to run sideways as he came. Bob caught his huge head, patted his nose and rubbed between his eyes and then behind his ears. The horse closed its eyes and dropped its head lower, clearly enjoying the rubbing.
“Big baby,” Bob told the horse. He rested his own head against the horse's as he spoke to him.
“God, that is a big horse,” Ronnie said. It was no secret that Ronnie had a fear of horses.
Tom leaned against the rail. He and Mike both nodded.
Bob finished scratching the big geldings head. The horse wandered a few feet away and began to eat the fresh hay that was scattered across the floor. Bob turned back to the others. “I instigated it. I have no doubt. But, yes, I stand behind it. I told Candace,” he looked at Ronnie, “And Patty too,” he laughed.
“A package deal,” Ronnie agreed.
Bob nodded. “I told them both the same thing.” He moved to a nearby flat bed wagon and levered himself up onto the platform. He sighed. “We definitely get our daily exercise met here,” he said. He looked back over at the others.
“We need to go. No doubt. I did not know how fast we would grow, and even my low ball estimates now are liable to be way off too. I think by fall we could easily be over a thousand. I know it seems as though we brought in enough for an army, and some things we did. I think ten generations from now they will be thanking us for the supply of needles or forks. Christ, we must have a million of those plastic lighters too. So some things great, some not so great.”
He looked down at the ground and then back up. “Do you realize we have about fifteen coats, jackets I mean, between us. Socks? Sounds petty, but we need socks. And this is us, not the others I expect here sooner or later. Seed. Lumber. Do you realize we forgot entirely about furniture or a sawmill? And I saw two or three of those portable sawmills there at that farm store where we spent so much time. I didn't think to get one on the truck though.” He shook his head.
“I made a bed frame... and a mattress,” Mike agreed. “I wished I had thought of it too. But those are not absolutely-gotta-have-them items, are they? I don't mean to make them sound unimportant either,” Mike colored.
“No. No, I see your point. I'm a little all over the place. Maybe I should have listed the important stuff first. Medicines. We have three folks here with heart problems that could die without simple medication. Even an Aspirin, Sandy tells me, could help. Antibiotics. Books on herbal medicines. We got Tim. He can read something and figure out what we need to do to make it for ourselves, so if we can find books on medical compounds, he could teach us, or show us how to make them. Did you know that before everything became chemicals there were natural compounds that were used to cure almost anything? And they worked too.”
“And if we do have a thousand people here by winter and no jackets, warm clothes, how in hell are we going to get any work done? Gloves. That sawmill. Tim’s electrical parts he needs to get us power up to the cave... wire, boxes... hell, I don't pretend I know what he needs. Thank God he does.” They all laughed. Bob leveled his eyes on Mike. “It's not a frivolous trip. I told Candace and Patty that too,” he raised his eyes to include Ronnie. “We have to go. No choice to it. We have to go, or not everyone will make it through the winter.”
“Give us another year when we are able to get the supply up to the demand and we'll be fine... maybe...” He laughed a little. “No... I suspect, to be honest, that we would be fine. But I also suspect we will always have a need for those things that are lying around out there. I'm not saying we will absolutely have to have them, but we will find reasons to need them. But this trip we have to have some of these things. Yes, a lot of stuff is going to get added on. You're gonna have to shut down the requests, believe me. I told them we need to make it formal, have a council meeting, everyone there. Let everyone have a say.”
“And soon too, I bet,” Mike said.
“Gonna have to be,” Tom said. “We have harvesting coming up. A lot of harvesting... grain, corn... those two bridges we need to put in before winter.”
Ronnie nodded. “We decided that neither you nor Bob can go. I mean, you can make a case to go if you really want to. It's not selfish. Wel
l, it is. You two do almost everything... all the important mechanical stuff that the rest of us can only lend a hand with. If you, either of you, go, the Nation is in trouble.”
“Sounds like you are being forced to stay,” Mike said.
Tom and Bob both held up hands and then laughed. “I don't want to go,” Bob said.
“Yeah, I'm good here too. I like my place in things. It's,” Tom shrugged.
“Good?” Bob supplied.
“Good,” Tom agreed.
“As long as it doesn't feel forced,” Mike looked over at Ronnie. “It's a relief to me. I can say that.”
“Me too,” Ronnie agreed.
“So... a meeting,” Bob said. “I suggested tomorrow night, get it right out there. Set a date, and get together those that are going to go.”
“Well, Bob, I'm so glad I had this talk with you,” Mike said with a smile. They all laughed hard. Bob reddened.
The big gelding looked up and then wandered back over to Bob. Bob scratched behind his ears, and they all laughed again.
“Don't make me set my horse on you,” Bob said as he scratched the horse's long nose.
“That is a big frigging horse,” Ronnie said. “Uh, it was Mike that made the smart ass remark.”
Mike laughed and looked over at Ronnie.
“Just saying,” Ronnie threw back. They all laughed again.
“Come on. I'll buy you a drink,” Mike joked. He clapped Bob on the back.
“You better get me that saw mill,” Bob told him.
“That farm store? The last one, right?”
“Yup,” Bob agreed.
Mike pulled a small spiral notebook from his pocket and scribbled a note. He slipped the notebook back into his pocket, and the three men walked from the barn, closing the huge doors behind them as they went.
CHAPTER FIVE
September 3rd
The sky was overcast and matched the mood Bear found himself in perfectly. They were on the road; it was very early morning, but no one had wanted to waste any time leaving. There was no reason to delay it. They had all been on guard through the night, only waiting for the sunrise. A quick check of the roof, and they had been on their way.
Don's truck had still been burning. Several more vehicles had become involved in it through the night. It looked like the entire parking lot would probably burn. It also looked like the fire would probably work its way to the buildings before it was through. Maybe the burning would be for the best, Bear had mentioned. No one had disagreed.
There had been two big explosions before dawn. The last one, a huge one that had lifted two cars into the sky and scattered debris all the way to the store front. There was no doubt that Don and the others were past saving. All that remained was for everyone to wonder why he had done what he did. There was no real answer for that at all. You could not know another person's mind, Bear knew, even if you thought you did.
The dead had been spirited away in the night. That had bothered Bear a great deal. The dead had come for their own. That was something a human would do, and he had not considered the zombies to be human, to have human traits, qualities, feelings. Was it feelings? A sense of duty? No way to know. Same old answer, but that didn't change the fact that they had come and gotten their own. Whether it was simple recycling, back into the food chain, or a sense of duty, or something else, Bear didn't know.
What also disturbed him about it, even more than the why of it, was that he hadn't seen them come. There had been fires burning all around the bodies, yet they had come and taken them, and Bear had seen nothing; and, he reminded himself now, no one else had seen anything either. The bodies had simply been gone this morning.
They had checked the roof at first light, trying to work out how the dead had gotten in. Bear and Beth both wanted to be on their way, but both of them also wanted to know how the dead had managed to get into the building. Bear, Beth, Cammy and Billy had climbed the narrow, black steel ladder at one side of the building that led to the roof.
Beth had found an air duct at the back of the store that lead to the roof. A crowbar lay beside the ruined sheet metal top. They had pried the top off, crawled into the duct work and gotten inside the store. Once in, they had used the steel roof supports that made up the ceiling to make their way to where they had been. From there it had been easy to drop straight down on them. Beth had stood for a moment, looking down at the vent, and then she turned away.
Bear stood looking down at the vent where it had been pried open to gain access. It had been bad, but he supposed it could have been worse. What if there had been no watch? What if several of them had not been awake talking? What if...
“Don't,” Cammy said from beside him.
Billy looked over at Cammy's voice, and then turned back away. A second later, he walked away, heading back to the ground.
“What?” Bear asked.
Cammy only shook her head and followed after Billy as he left the roof. Bear stood for a moment, shook his own head, and then followed along.
The four trucks pulled out into the median of route three, and followed Bear along the side of the highway, weaving around stalled trucks and cars as they went.
~
Bear looked over at Cammy. Her silence was brooding. Something he had done had pissed her off. “Come on, Cammy,” Bear said as he drove slowly around an overturned tractor trailer combo. Somehow the trailer had stayed attached as the truck had turned over. He drove up the slight rise at the side of the highway, skirted the trees, branches scratching against the side window, and then angled back down toward the side of the road. He looked over at Cammy.
Cammy fixed him with a deep frown. “You're sitting there going over this like there was something you could have done differently, and there isn't. I don't even know why you chose to lead this. No one asked you to. Yeah, it was there, offered. But you took it, and you didn't have to. And you're a good leader, but part of that is because you feel things... take it all so personal. You can't. You have to let that go. I saw that same shit rip Maddy apart. I won't watch it twice.” She turned back to her window and watched the world pass by in slow motion.
Bear had left the side of the highway. They were traveling through the fields now, staying close to the roadway, but the roadway itself was impassable, cars and trucks jammed together for as far as they could see.
Bear said nothing, only concentrated on driving. The fields were overgrown, and they could not make good speed because there was no way to know what was in front of them at any given time. Twice Bear had driven into a boggy area. He was only saved by the low speed and the four wheel drive, backing out and then edging by closer to the highway.
The rain began to fall in the early afternoon as they passed a road sign for Tannersville, and Cammy announced that they were inside Pennsylvania and had been for several miles. They began to follow the thruway.
The sides of the thruway were wider, and the traveling, despite the constant rain, was easier. In the late afternoon they reached Route 81. Bear skirted the interchange overpass and, with the other trucks following, turned on to the interstate highway. A short way down the interstate, they came to a break in the roadway, just past the signs that marked the outskirts of Hazleton. A deep ravine crossed the highway, filled with a river of water. The exits were still ahead, past the break in the highway. Bear rolled to a stop at the edge of the break. The stalled cars and trucks had not been so bad on the interstate. It had looked as though they would begin to make good time. Now this.
Huge portions of the road were gone. Deep gulleys cut crossways, flooded now with the constant rain. Both lanes of the highway were out directly ahead. Bear had stopped a hundred yards from the drop off. He picked up the radio from the dashboard. The rain was driving now, drumming on the steel roof.
“We can't go any further in this. Road's gone ahead of us, and it looks as though it has been for a while. Once the rain stops, we might be able to wait out the flooding, but It doesn't look real promising.”
“Junk yard... off to the left,” Billy said. The radio was static filled and scratchy despite the fact that Billy was less than fifty feet behind them. Bear rubbed at the glass. It had fogged up when it began to rain and had stayed that way most of the day.
Off to the left, a huge junk yard stretched away towards the city of Hazleton. The junk yard itself was a good half mile or more from the interstate though, and Bear wondered whether they could get to it. The city of Hazleton lay beyond that. At least he assumed it was the city of Hazleton. The signs said it was.
“If we could make that... we could use that to get into the city. Might be clear on the other side,” Billy finished.
Bear looked out the window at the huge expanse of blacktop. At one edge, a few cars were tilted into the air, half sunk into the ground. There was water flowing at one edge of the fenced in yard. He could not tell how deep it was. Overall, though, it seemed in good shape. He traced likely routes with his eyes. It looked passable, but that was from his vantage point on the highway, looking it over through the pouring rain. Directly ahead, there was a steep embankment down from the interstate and a field of tall grass to pass through that could both present problems.
“It doesn't look that good, Billy. From here I don't see a way out. I don't see anything under that grass, but there could be...” Bear trailed off, held the button for a second and then released it.
“Right... Right... From here, though, I can see through the grass in places. Back up a bit, Bear. Back up and see. Old dirt roads out from the junk yard... or around it... something.”
Bear shifted into reverse, cut to the left and backed down the length of Beth's and then Billy's truck. Mac's truck sat further back, idling in the rain.
The wind whipped the grass, and from this angle it was possible to see the ground beneath it, at least parts of it. There were parts of old roads. He could also see more of the junk yard too, a few out buildings, and there seemed to be a clear route through the yard and out. A road did emerge from the trees on the other side and lead toward the city. He didn't see a clear connection though. He glanced back ahead and then over at Billy through the glass. He clicked the radio.
