by Greg Dragon
But let a leaf fall on it while she was around, and there was hell to pay. It was like everything that happened to that damned truck was her fault.
And now that she was thinking clearly for the first time in years—was actually thinking at all, much to her surprise—Janet realized that something deep within her had indeed changed.
For the first time, she was thinking about life after Connor. Since his little show of authority back at the rest area, the fear that she’d felt had begun to drift away. It was like a fog had lifted from her eyes, and she knew that what Connor wanted didn’t matter to her any more.
For all she cared, he could take a flying leap off a tall building. He could do a Wile-E Coyote and drop an Acme anvil on his head. He could blow himself up with an atomic bomb, and she’d be standing on the sidelines, sticking her tongue out.
Bleep-bleep!
Janet laughed. The sound shocked her, like something alien blasting her ears. She drove for a little while, watching the RV in front of her as the road spooled away like a worn ribbon.
Suddenly, she was giggling, snorting and grinning. She looked up at the rear view mirror, seeing the almost mad happiness that lit up her eyes. Then she had a full-blown laughing attack. It lasted a long time, slowly withering away, leaving behind a small contented smile.
Janet knew then that Connor’s hold over her was broken. All those years under his thumb, in front of his fists, being the target of his wrath, had flipped into the past. Like wrapping up the pain and humiliation and tossing into a deep well. He might still control her outwardly, but inside she was free.
She was free in spirit, and at the first opportunity, she would be free of the physical shackles that were her life with Connor.
And all it had taken was for the world to end.
* * *
Dara was going over some vocabulary exercises with Ted, playing a game to help him recover more of his verbal skills when she saw the motorcycles coming towards her. They were going fast, and without thinking she put her foot on the brake and began to slow.
Something must be up, if the bikers were speeding back the way they’d just come. Looking in her side view mirrors, she could see that the others were slowing as well, and by the time the bikers had reached Dara, she had the window down. Her stomach was trying to tie itself into a knot, wondering what trials lay ahead. Things had been going well, despite their run-in with the infected at the motel that morning.
They were so close to the turn off that led up into the foothills, where they’d planned to stop for their last night on the road. Now she worried that something was going to keep them from making that turnoff.
The big biker leader—Big Bear, Dara recalled with a smile—parked just beyond the moving van and came up to her window. His face was drawn in tight, eyes squinting and lips turned down.
Definitely bad news, then. Dara resigned herself to having yet another decision to be made before the day was done.
George walked up, grabbed the frame for the side mirror and leaned in. He gave Ted a quick look, but then focused on Dara.
“Things aren’t looking too good up ahead,” he began. “There’s a really small town, hardly more than a wide spot in the road. Looks like something nasty went down there. Half of it’s burned out, and the other half is filling up with the infected.”
Dara’s eyes widened. When she had first planned the trip to the hunting camp, she’d seen that going through the town was the shortest way to get up into the foothills. She’d thought that the small size and relatively remote location on the old highway would mean less possibility of running into trouble.
Judging by the look on George’s face, trouble was exactly what they would have.
“We should look for a way around it, then,” Dara said. She couldn’t remember there being another route that wouldn’t take them miles out of their way.
George nodded. “We should stop here look at a map. I’ve got one in the RV, if you don’t.”
“I’ve got one here. Let me park, and we can see if there’s some way, something I might have missed.”
“I’ll get everyone else to pull up and get off the road as well, in case anyone comes up behind us in a hurry. No need to have a wreck on top of everything else.”
Dara gave him a curt dip of the head and put the van in gear. She eased up onto the wide dirt verge that was all that ran alongside this old road. There was a shallow ditch, but it was far enough from the pavement that she had plenty of room to park the van and still not block the two lane highway.
George made his way down the line of vehicles, directing them to do the same as she’d done, and soon the rag-tag collection of trucks, campers and RVs were safely off the road. Those on bikes filled in empty spots, or grouped themselves in a knot behind all the vehicles.
When he got back to Dara at the van, he pulled out a bandanna and swiped at the sweat and dust that coated his face and beard.
“Damned if it ain’t hot for this time of year,” he commented when he saw Dara watching him.
“Yes, unseasonably hot. I’ve got some water bottles in the van. Why don’t you grab a couple before we get started?”
“Thanks, that would be great. You know, we could go back to my RV, sit inside with the AC on. I know I’d sure feel a lot better, and I’d bet Ted would, too.”
Dara smiled. “I’m sure he would. I wouldn’t mind a little cool air myself. The van didn’t have air conditioning, and I didn’t think it was worth the money to get it installed, since I hadn’t planned to be on the road during a heat wave.”
George chuckled at that. “I guess we can blame El Nino for that. The news was full of how it was going to affect the winter.” He turned serious. “At least, that’s what the news was, before the infection.”
“That and the election,” Dara agreed as they started walking towards George’s RV. “Wonder what’s happened to all the politicians?”
“Knowing them, they’ve either run off and hid, or they’re in the same shape we are.”
“Now wouldn’t that be a kicker? The one percent fighting zombies, just like the rest of us.”
The two were still laughing at that thought when they arrived at the RV. Clarice gave them both a strange look, as if she was trying to figure out what could be the least bit funny about their current situation. George gave her a hug and explained why he and Dara needed to cool off.
“Why don’t I sit with Ted for a while, so you too can concentrate? I used to work with special needs children, so I know how to talk with people with all sorts of brain injuries.”
Dara looked at the other woman gratefully. “That would be wonderful. Ted likes to talk about all sorts of things. Ask him to show you his card collection. That will keep you busy for a while.”
“That sounds wonderful. What do you say, Ted? Want to come sit with me and show me your cards?” When Ted nodded happily, Clarice led him into the RV and settled him into the seating area beside the small dining table. Soon they were involved with talk about the cards Ted had been collecting. They weren’t anything special, just odd and end cards of various sorts he picked up wherever he found them. Playing cards, tarot cards, cards from old children’s games.
Once she saw that Ted would be distracted while she and George got to work, Dara spread her map out on the tiny table. “This is the latest map I could find. I checked it against Google Maps, and I couldn’t find anything that was different. When Ted and I were planning our trips up here, I looked for any way that took us around towns and cities. All I could find were old county roads, most of them gravel, or even dirt.”
George stared down at the map. His finger wandered over the surface until he found their location, just outside a tiny spot marked with a name in tiny print.
“Well, this is where we are now. The town we rode up on is about five miles west, so here,” he tapped it. “There’s nothing between here and there, no side roads at all. Only one or two driveways. If there’s another way, we’ll have to backtrack.
That means going back to the motel, or further.”
Dara was shaking her head. “I’d rather not do that. Who knows how bad things have gotten since we left this morning?”
“I agree with you. It feels like a bad idea. Our best bet is to look for something we missed, some small country road we didn’t pay any attention to during the drive today.”
The two bent their heads over the map, each of them finding and tracing any possible route they could find. After several minutes of this, they both sat back and sighed.
“There just isn’t a way. If we go back to this place,” Dara poked her finger down. “That means hours lost, and then maybe fifty miles added onto that. We don’t even know if the road is passable.”
George was thinking as she spoke, lips pursed. He finally looked up and caught Dara’s gaze.
“Then I guess we’ll just have to go through.”
Chapter Twelve
Dara was near tears. This was exactly what she had feared running up against from the first day she’d seen the news reports. Being forced to make her way through a mass of infected people, without Ted’s strong will to help her.
It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, now that she had more people with her. She thought that meeting up first with Janet and Connor, and then with George and his group, might have been the luckiest thing that had happened to her since she’d learned Ted would eventually recover.
“It’s not going to be so bad,” George said, leaning forward to place a hand on hers. “We have weapons, and some experience dealing with these—people. We know what to expect. If we’re careful, everyone should come out of it just fine.”
Clarice had begun showing Ted around the RV, and Dara focused on his happy enthusiasm for a few moments. She was trying to get herself to the point she could possibly send these bikers into such danger. They did know how to handle themselves, but the thought of them being surrounded by infected people was enough to make her sick.
“We can put it up for a vote,” George said softly. “I don’t think we should, but that’s an option. If the majority votes to backtrack and take the other road, then that’s what we’ll do. Even if it takes us days longer to get to the camp, we’ll get there.”
Dara was shaking her head before the biker finished. She had a sinking feeling about the plan, but going backwards, losing time and risking someone else knowing about the camp and getting there first wasn’t an option.
“No, George. We have to push through. It’s the only way. I have a feeling we don’t have days to waste, with the speed this disease is spreading. If we wait much longer, we might find ourselves in worse trouble than we face now.”
Clarice had left Ted at the back of the RV, in the small bathroom. She’d come up to stand next to her husband without Dara realizing it.
“I think Dara’s right, dear. If it goes to a vote, that will take at least a couple of hours. Then we’d have to drive all that way back, until we got to that other road.”
Clarice put a hand on George’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze when he would have protested.
“I know you like to be a more democratic leader, and that’s great. But in this case, being a dictator is what’s best for everyone. You two need to go tell everyone now, and get the guys armed and psyched up.”
A deep rumble worked its way through George’s chest before bursting out into a hearty laugh. “Woman, what would I do without you around to talk sense to me?”
“Probably be in the arms of some floozy with illicit designs on your well-toned ass.”
Soon Dara had joined in the laughter, which caused Ted to come running from his explorations.
“What’s so funny, Dara? Did you tell a joke?”
“No, sweetie, we were just laughing about how funny life is sometimes.”
Ted eased around Clarice and came around to slip in beside Dara in the short bench. She put her arm around him and held him close for a minute. He’d already seen people shot dead in front of him once today. So far, he hadn’t wanted to talk about it, but she knew at some point there would have to be an explanation given.
It was what he might have to see as they pushed through the town that worried her now.
* * *
Dara and George had cooled off a bit more before they got up to gather together their combined group. Neither one of them wanted to have to spread the bad news, but it wasn’t something they could brush away like a pesky telemarketer. The people had to know what they were up against.
George went down the line, getting people out of their vehicles and directing them to the other side of the road, where they gathered in small groups and gossiped about what could be happening. Dara went up to get Janet and Connor, and the three of them joined the others and waited for George to tell all.
Dara and Ted had decided before they left the RV that he would do the talking, since he had the most people, and they were used to doing what he said. Dara thought the news about the destroyed town would be better coming from him, because he’d seen it.
“Okay, listen up, people,” George began. “You’ve probably heard most of what I’m going to tell you already, from your men who were with me. But I’m going to lay it out anyway, so nobody gets confused or doesn’t understand something.”
The big man looked around, making sure everyone was paying attention. He didn’t need to worry, because every eye was watching, even the kids had settled down and were waiting for him to continue.
“While we were scouting the road ahead, we came up on a really small town, hardly more than a main street that doubled as this highway right here.” George thrust a thumb behind him. “Nobody thought there’d be much going on, but it looks like something pretty bad happened there. A big fire, and maybe some gun fire, judging by the damage we saw before we hightailed it out of there.
“What’s the problem, Big Bear? Seems like it would be easy enough to get through, right?”
The voice had come from one of a newer club member’s family. George didn’t know them well, but he knew enough to know this wasn’t a trouble maker. And it was a fair question.
“I was getting to that, just not sure how to say it without panicking people. The problem is that whatever hit the town was really bad. There are infected people all over the place, wandering on the road and blocking the way.
“Dara and I have discussed the problem, and looked for another route around the town. But there isn’t one. Nothing that wouldn’t take days more travel, if the road is even passable.”
There was a lot of grumbling about that, with some voices raised to say it didn’t matter, they should go back, until they found another way. Dara kept shaking her head, listening to the rising tenor of the conversations, until she decided she’d had enough.
She stepped forward, in front of George. When people saw her standing there, there were calls for quiet. She waited until everyone had stopped talking.
“You all agreed that George and I would make the decisions while we’re on the road. We talked about this, went over every option we could see, and some that we couldn’t. There just isn’t any other way. We have to go through, and that’s all there is to say. Now, I think George wants to get with everyone on motorcycles and discuss his plan to clear the road. I’ll turn things over to him.”
When Dara stepped back, George cleared his throat. He was sore tired of all this talking. It would be better to face the horde of undead infected in the town than to have to keep talking to the angry, restless people that faced him.
“Okay, then. What I want to do is make sure every vehicle has at least one armed person besides the driver when we go through the town. Everybody needs to be inside, with windows up—” there was a moan at that. “I know it’s hot. But it shouldn’t be for long. Anybody with health issues, or little kids, we can make room in the RVs, which have better AC. It would probably be safer to have the children out of the way, any how.”
George paused for breath. “I want everyone on bikes to get their full leathers
on. Gloves, chaps, whatever you have. I want you to make sure you have enough ammo, and that you can get to it.
“The bikes are going through first, just ahead of the trucks and stuff. We’ll split into two groups, and try to draw the infected away from the road itself. It doesn’t have to be far, just enough so that there’s a clear path for everybody to get through.”
There were heads nodding as the group listened closely. George was encouraged, and proud of his people. He ignored Connor’s sour face standing at the rear of the crowd. All that asshole had to do was drive his truck and keep from screwing things up.
“When we split up, we want to attract the infected people’s attention to us, to make them ignore anything else. Be careful, shoot if you have to, but get the road clear so the other vehicles to get through. Any questions?”
There mercifully weren’t any, and George clapped his huge hands together.
“Then let’s get on with it. Daylight’s wasting.”
And with that, the crowd dispersed. Within minutes, everyone was ready to go, and soon George was signaling the others on bikes to line up behind him, and then they were roaring up the road.
* * *
While he waited for his chance to pull back out onto the old highway, Connor’s brain was churning. News about the dead town had given him some ideas about what to do with Janet. Nothing concrete, nothing he would describe as a solid plan, just a little niggling thought that kept wiggling like a worm on a line.
He’d been biding his time, watching that pretty boy biker dude whenever he could. It hadn’t gotten past him that the dude couldn’t keep his eyes off Janet, even as she stood right beside Connor while that mountain of a man gave orders.
That was another one to keep an eye on, Connor mused as he pulled in behind his pickup truck and followed Janet down the road. The leader of that club was going to be trouble. He had a way of looking at Connor like he was dog shit on the bottom of those giant biker boots.
