They met back where they’d split up some twenty minutes later, Scratch and Stabby carrying a cooler between them, grins on their faces.
“Somebody forgot their beer.” Scratch said and pulled out an ancient can of Coors Light. It didn’t even hiss when he opened it, the sell by date was unreadable but had to be years in the past. It was hot and flat and it didn’t matter. It was wet and there was most of a case in the sun faded cooler.
“Tastes like mule piss.” Griz declared with a grimace and reached for a second can.
“You drink that a lot, do you?” Scratch asked innocently but the big man only shot him the bird and savored the warm, stale liquid.
His team was exhausted, they’d been hard at it for what seemed like days. He’d like to get over the mountain tonight but he doubted if he’d make it, he wasn’t twenty-five anymore, and some of the others looked worse than he felt. Maybe some of Casey’s goons would come nosing around and they could take them out, commandeer their cars. Gunny pointed up one of the winding trails leading into the mountain.
“There are a couple of mineshafts up there.” he said. “We can lay low for what’s left of the night, stay cool tomorrow and make a break for the highway once the sun sets. We’ll find a car or truck or something and get back on the road home. If Casey is sending out search teams, we’ll hear them long before they see us.”
9
Slippery Jim
They’d hustled hard all afternoon in the hot trailers, restacking cases of food, boxes of tools, pallets of dry goods, crates of ammo and rocket launchers. Eliza made sure everything got loaded in the correct order for each stop and the kids worked tirelessly. They felt the tension ease a little once they got started and everyone was glad for the help. It freed up the drivers so they could finish prepping their trucks, ensuring they had spare tires, headlights, tools, oil and anything else they could think of. It was a long drive, some two thousand miles each way, and there were only a few safe and friendly places that could help them if they needed it. The trucks and trailers were armored against zombies and men with guns thanks to the mechanics in Tommy’s repair shop. They spent most of their time behind the welders and cutting torches building war wagons. There weren’t enough men to run teams in the rigs. It took a brave man to volunteer to make a run into the unknown and this wasn’t a trip for the trainee’s. The drivers would be running solo.
Jimmy’s crew got smaller as he gave Lizzie the nod and then Tony a little while later. They grabbed their bags and secreted themselves away in the trailer going all the way to Oregon. Eliza finally noticed some of the kids were missing as the last Bradley was being chained down on a drop deck. The truckers had almost driven it off the trailer twice. They had figured out how to start them and get them moving but the big machines were finicky in a tight spot and there were only inches to spare. Half of the tracks hung off on either side. It took everything he had for Jimmy not to tell them they were doing it wrong. He knew from hours of studying the manual you didn’t steer it like a car. The farther you pushed the yoke, the harder it locked up the brake on that side. He and the rest of his brigade just gave each other looks and little head shakes. They couldn’t let the grownups know what they’d been up to, they’d start padlocking everything and making it harder on them.
They were working by headlights from pickup trucks. The sun had long since set and this part of town didn’t have street lights.
“Where’s the rest of your team, James?” Eliza asked, making a final entry on her laptop and closing the lid.
“They had to go to supper, Mizz Eliza.” he said earnestly.
“Well, we’re done here, these men are getting ready to leave. You boys did a great job, we really appreciate your help.” she said “You should run along home, too. It’s getting late. Stop by the courthouse after school tomorrow and I’ll give your crew some soda’s if you want. I’ve got a whole case of Dr. Pepper I’ve been saving for a special occasion.”
They all smiled big, thanked her and scurried off between the buildings but stopped when they were well hidden in the shadows.
“We’ve only got one shot at getting on.” Gage said, shouldering his ruck. “When they make the corner to get on third street, it’s a left turn. We can jump the last flatbed on their blind side.”
Gage had become his second in command. He was technically too young to be in the gang, he was only nine, but he and his family had been hiding out on a military base before they came to Lakota. He knew a lot about guns and shooting and how the army tanks worked. He was the one who had suggested they steal the manuals and learn how to operate the Bradley’s since the grownups wouldn’t let them train with the others.
They heard the hissing of airbrakes being released over the rumbling of the motors and ran the three blocks for the intersection, hoping no one would see them so late in the evening. They stayed crouched and hidden behind an old warehouse until the last truck in the little convoy started to make the turn then they sprinted out after it with whispered Good Lucks from the others. Both boys leaped on and scurried under the tracks of the Bradley then lay still, waiting for someone to shout a warning but they hadn’t been seen.
They had made it.
The stories they told their parents or guardians, that they were spending the night at each other’s house, would hold until tomorrow at supper time. The rest of the gang would cover for them for as long as they could. By then, it would be too late to turn back and they could reveal themselves to the truckers. If these guys drove like they normally did, they should be seven or eight hundred miles away by dinner time tomorrow.
Once they were past the gates, away from the only electric lights for hundreds of miles in any direction, the boys wiggled out from under the Bradley and climbed on top. They were careful to stay near the middle, out of sight of the trucks mirrors, just in case the driver looked back and saw them in the moonlight. Jimmy had his picks in case they needed them but the hatch wasn’t padlocked. They climbed inside and made themselves comfortable, pulling their dinner from the small packs and trying not to worry about what lay ahead. About how mad the truck drivers would be. They’d just have to show them they were needed, that they weren’t in the way. They were tired of being told to stop pestering people and to get back to school. It was a zombie apocalypse. They didn’t need school, they needed to help.
Jimmy pulled out his handheld CB, made sure it was set on their channel, and tried to call the others hidden in the trailer.
“We read you loud and clear.” Tony said. “You guys in the Bradley?”
“Roger.” Jim said “How’s the ride up there? Over.”
“We rearranged some of the crates.” Lizzie came back. “If you don’t mind sleeping on top of enough explosives to blow you to smithereens, it’s not bad. Over.”
“Ten-four.” Jimmy replied. “I’m going to drop down to channel nineteen and listen in for a little, make sure the truckers don’t suspect anything. Maintain radio silence unless it’s necessary. Over and out.”
They listened to the chatter and jokes on the radio for a little while but when Sixteen Penny started a long boring story about some load he’d hauled years ago, they turned it off. The boys dozed in the personnel carrier as the other two rested comfortably in the hidden beds they’d made. The truck drivers hammered on it, running the rigs at highway speeds on the roads they knew were cleared, on the routes some of them had already taken a few times between Lakota and the Hutterite farms. Once they got past them, they’d have to be more careful. A few trucks had made the run to Tombstone but they’d gone different routes both times, trying to find the best way. Some roads were blocked by gridlocked cars, some back roads had bridges with low weight limits and they were hauling heavy. They preferred to hit up fuel stops that had already been cleared, too.
Eliza had mapped out a route that took them on many of the same roads they’d come down some ten months before, she knew they were clear of major pile ups, at least. They’d have to slow down once they unl
oaded the tools for Dozer though, anything could have happened. Storms may have knocked trees or telephone poles across the road, bridges could be washed out, road blocks could be set up by raiders, a ten thousand strong horde of zombies could be wandering down the freeway. It was the wild, wild west and they had to be ready for anything.
Hot Rod was in the lead, his off-road halogen beams lighting up the asphalt for half a mile, listening to Radio Lakota and telling jokes on the CB. They’d gotten a late start, it was nearly ten o’clock before they rolled out of the sally port. He let Dozer know they were on the way so he could have a crew of Hutterites standing by. They had to unload quick and hit the road again because he hoped to make Tombstone by mid-morning. They could grab something to eat, get a few hours of shut eye and be hammer down before dark. They’d leave the trailer with Tombstones supplies there, they’d just take the tractor to have a spare. It wasn’t easy to get another rig from a truck stop anymore. They’d been sitting for months: tires were flat, batteries were dead, mice and other critters had made themselves at home and had chewed up wiring. It was still doable, of course, but it was easier to have an extra truck with them, already armored and ready to go, in case they had some kind of catastrophic failure.
Hot Rod lead them down the dirt road, past hundreds of skeletons from last year’s run, already picked clean by rodents and bugs. These were some of same roads they’d come in on, looking for the safe haven, back when all this started back in September. Back when they were running scared, not sure if the nuclear power plants were going to blow up, not sure what they would find when they got to Lakota, not sure if friends and family back home were still alive. They’d come a long way in less than a year and now that the horror of what happened had worn off, the grieving for loved ones mostly over, the new world wasn’t so bad Hot Rod mused.
They’d all been shell-shocked for a while, going through the motions of living and burying emotions deep inside while they fought just to survive. Once they were safe, people had grieved and it came out in different ways. He remembered going to the first movie at the little theater maybe a month after they’d secured Lakota. Bastille had chosen a comedy, something light hearted where they could all laugh and have a good time. The entire town had turned out and he didn’t even remember which film it had been, some rom-com. During the sad part, the whole theater had cried, tears flowed and sobs were everywhere. It was contagious and the first sniffle spread like wildfire. Grown women bawling like babies, men weeping unashamed in the dark, finally letting it go, letting it out, in a community cry. Himself included. When it was over, when they could laugh again at the jokes and everything turned out fine for the couple in the end, there was an extended foot stomping cheer. The movie had been about them. They’d been through rough times but it was over. The boy got the girl, they made it through the bad and the good was ahead. The future looked bright. He’d proposed to Eliza while the credits rolled, her youngest sitting on his lap.
She’d said yes.
In the world before the fall, they never would have looked at each other. He was an uneducated farm boy from the South, drove a truck, raced stock cars on the weekends and liked country music. He drank Pabst Blue Ribbon, let his dog sleep in his bed and voted Republican. She was college educated, worked in the corporate world and wore shoes that cost more than his car. She could order fancy foods in French, could tell the difference between Brahms and Bach, enjoyed Chardonnay and was a staunch Democrat.
It was a tragedy that billions of people had died but the survivors didn’t dwell on it. They had a life to live and a world to rebuild. Hot Rod would be hard pressed to admit it, it just seemed wrong somehow, but he was happier now with Eliza and the kids than he’d been before the fall. Two people who would have had nothing but disdain for each other before the outbreak were now blissfully happy together. All those things that made them who they were before were completely irrelevant. Like most people, the trappings of society had put them both in a box and it took an apocalypse for them to see what was really important.
He slowed for a turn onto highway 412 then brought it back up to speed. They were making good time as the headlights split the night. The tires were singing, the new DJ Bastille had working for him was playing decent music and the banter on the CB was light and sometimes funny. Life was good.
10
Jessie
Jessie set grandma’s worn bible aside and dragged a wingback reading chair over to the bed. His head was still fuzzy but puking up the whiskey had allowed him to start getting sober. A little. He concentrated on her breathing, listening to the rise and fall of her chest, forced himself to really hear it and told himself he would wake if it changed.
If it became labored.
If he heard anything different.
His eyes closed. He listened. He kept repeating it, forcing the part of his brain that was always clear and sober, to listen. Don’t let her die while you’re passed out. Listen. You have a job to do, you don’t get to sleep, not tonight. The room spun and tilted. He’d never drank so much in his life. He could drink a fifth by himself and hardly feel it, but they’d drank way more than that. Seven or eight bottles between them. What the hell had he been thinking? Either of them. That much booze could kill a person. He was glad he’d thrown up, he just wished the room would quit moving. He knew he couldn’t stay awake no matter how much Trucker Speed he chugged. He needed to shut down. He reached over and took her hand, still repeating the mantra in his head: Listen. Hear. Don’t let her die. Listen. Hear. Don’t let her die. He dozed off with the whispered words on his lips.
The sun was up when he opened his crusty eyes. Drool had run down his face, leaking from his scarred lip. His hand was still in hers and she was still breathing. The barn cat was curled up at her side and the towel on her forehead was dry but her temperature was down. He groaned to his feet, grabbed the walker and made his way outside. His car door was still open, the motor still idling, the front bumper buried a few feet into the porch.
“Maybe I should of let you take the wheel, Bob.” he said. “Apparently, I make a lousy drunk driver.”
Bob wagged his tail at the mention of his name. The humans had been acting funny. Maybe they were back to normal. Maybe they would remember to feed him, he was hungry and he liked their food better than the rabbits.
He shut off his car, saw the gas gauge was down to a quarter, grabbed fresh clothes and shuffled over to the well. He needed to get cleaned up. The water was invigorating, cleared his head enough for him to start chastising himself for letting his guard down. You just couldn’t do that anymore, there was no safety net, no one to help. What if he would have torn his car up? What if a single zombie would have found them and Bob was off hunting for his own food? He could be dead right now because he wasn’t going to let some girl out drink him. Stupid. He let the cold water splash over his head giving him brain freeze and telling himself he deserved it.
His back and ribs had healed up enough he could pull one of his own t-shirts over his head and he dressed quickly. His leg was the only thing left really bothering him, it still hurt to put weight on it, but it was mending fast. Another week and he wouldn’t even have a limp, he hoped. He went back inside, checked on Scarlet and started fixing a light breakfast, his mind wandering, trying to remember what all he should be doing to help her heal. At least the fever had broke sometime during the night, her forehead was still a little too hot but she wasn’t burning up and delirious any more. He wondered how much she said was true, how much was the alcohol talking. He’d heard somewhere that children and drunks always spoke the truth and her stories had sounded real enough.
He mixed up another batch of the antibiotics and woke her, making her drink it and spoon fed her some chicken soup he found in the cupboard. There was something about chicken soup and sickness that always seemed to go hand in hand. Some old wives tale that it helped with fever but they became old wives tales because usually they were true. Like rubbing five different leaves on a bee sti
ng to make the pain go away or eat lots of bananas if you’re pregnant and want a boy.
She was still woozy, her emerald eyes still distant, but she ate most of it before drifting back to sleep. Jessie watched her for a time, weighing his options, trying to figure out a plan. They had enough food to last for weeks, the canned goods supplementing the dried stuff he had in the car. He supposed he could go hunting, get them a deer. There were enough of them around, roaming the fields every morning and evening. He knew how to clean one, although he’d never done it by himself. He’d helped his dad and uncle once when they were visiting family back in Kentucky. Some deer steak might help her recovery, lots of protein. He’d have to go back into town to get some Italian dressing or steak sauce or something to marinate it. There was probably some in the fridge but no way he was going to open it and release that smell into the house.
He’d hung out in the kitchen and watched his aunt prepare it, fascinated by the process of hunting your own food in the morning and eating it in the evening. She said sometimes she soaked it in Pepsi, just to give it a different flavor. Jessie was a city kid and even thought that pulling carrots out of the garden and having them for supper was amazing. Country people didn’t have to go to the store for food.
He spent the next few days checking on her, cleaning out his car, hand washing his bag of dirty laundry and cleaning all of his guns. He kept feeding her soups, tenderized venison and antibiotics and she slowly improved. By the third day she was sitting up and feeding herself. She was still weak and shaky and tired quickly but she was on the mend. Her gunshot had scabbed over and had finally quit bleeding, the slashes were healing nicely and the swelling in her face was almost gone. The gashes on her cheek were going to scar, though. Not bad, not like his, but there were three lines across it that would leave their mark. One day blended into another with busy work and chores. He changed the oil on his car and made a run into town but it was nearly unbearable. He got back out as quick as he could. The bloated corpses were rotting in the summer heat and blow flies were buzzing around in clouds. He topped off his fuel tanks, found a generator in someone’s garage and brought back a whole bag of DVD’s. He unscrewed an antenna from one of the raiders shot up trucks and contacted Lakota. Everything was fine, he told Wire Bender. Nothing to report, he was still running a grid, headed East.
Zombie Road (Book 5): Terror On The Two-Lane Page 6
