“JoLynn wouldn’t know about all of that,” argued Cale.
“Exactly, because you saved her,” he made his point.
“Well, it didn’t help Matthew and Adam,” retorted Cale.
“You did what you could. They were going to starve to death if you hadn’t found them.”
“But they’re still dead,” Cale stated. “I got them killed.”
“Adam was an accident, and Matthew made the choice himself. If the Egyptians found all three of you, they’d have died in the brig,” Zach reasoned.
“So they were going to die anyway, is that what you’re saying?” accused Cale.
“I’m saying you did all that was humanly possible. Just like you’re doing with her. Give yourself more credit,” ordered Zach.
Cale thought about his friend’s words and continued to drive. Another hour of silence went by. The Great Platte River Road Archway loomed in the distance. He was about fourteen when it opened, and somehow he’d never been there. Cale had gone camping at the Fort Kearny State Park a few times. It was just south of the city of Kearney. He’d always thought that was weird. Kearney and Fort Kearny. Same name, different spellings.
He drove the three miles to exit 272 and went south on 44. Cale had made this drive hundreds of times as a teen. Almost as soon as he got his diver’s license he made weekend excursions to Kearney. There was always a lot more to do there than in Holdrege. The sun was low in the western sky. He was beat after an eleven hour day of driving. His day was almost over.
Cale arrived at the highway 34 junction and went right. A pair of grain silos marked a small community.
“Where is this?” asked Zach.
“Axtell,” explained Cale.
He blew through town in only a few seconds. Its streets and homes all looked abandoned. Seven miles later another grain silo signified a town.
“Where—” began Zach.
“Man, all of these towns have grain silos. Just shut up and look for a sign if you want to know where we are,” snapped Cale.
“Alright. No need to be a prick,” said Zach as he searched for a sign. “Funk? Their town is called Funk?”
“Yes,” sighed Cale.
“You should start a college here,” Zach told him.
Cale had heard this joke his entire life. It started in elementary school. About the first time fourth graders want to start using swear words, but don’t for fear of being reprimanded.
“It’d be called Funk U, get it?” laughed Zach.
“Yep. It’s just not funny,” countered Cale.
“Welcome to Phelps County” greeted a sign. Cale added it to the list of things he thought he’d never see again. In his head he called out all of the familiar landmarks before they appeared. Had it really been two years? The dead wandered the empty fields aimlessly. Brewster Field airport was to the north of the road. He continued toward town. Yet another set of grain silos towered over the town of over five thousand people. Other tall structures included the green water tower and the Hotel Dale. The RV hadn’t even met the city limits when it bogged down and stopped. The standing water that Cale mistook for a puddle turned out to be a washout in the road.
“Damn,” he hissed.
Cale attempted to get the vehicle unstuck but was unsuccessful.
“Are we here?” asked JoLynn as she rubbed her eyes.
“Sort of,” said Cale. “We’re stuck.”
JoLynn hurried to the window to look.
“It’s mud!” she declared.
“We’re going to have to walk,” he said to her.
“I don’t want to,” she whined.
“You’ve been cooped up in here all day. Don’t you want to go out?” Cale asked.
“It’s too far,” fussed JoLynn.
“You don’t even know where we’re going,” he pointed out to her.
“I’m not dressed,” she asserted.
Cale laughed and pulled her clothes off the curtain. She hadn’t noticed them all day. She reluctantly allowed him to dress her. Within a few minutes he was doing one last walk through to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything. The pictures, iPod, and Tygee were all accounted for. He opened the side door and tossed his bag ten feet to the dry pavement. Cale then tossed her bag next to his own.
“I don’t know how deep this is, so I’ll carry you,” he told her. “Climb onto my back.”
He knelt down and she scurried up.
“Yay! Piggy back!” she shouted.
Cale held onto the door as he eased himself into the water. It made it to just below his knee. The western sky was turning orange. Soon it would be dark.
“Here we go,” he said as he started to walk.
JoLynn giggled the entire time. Cale let out his best impression of a horse’s neigh.
“Go horsey! Go!” she squealed.
Cale could feel the broken asphalt under his feet. He was happy to be on dry ground again as he stepped out of the water. He sat her down, and grabbed their bags.
“Aw,” she groaned. “I wanna keep riding!”
“Shh,” he said to her. “Keep your voice down, okay? I need you to walk. Just incase the monsters show up.”
JoLynn looked around scared. “Monsters?”
“Yeah. Here, hold my hand,” he offered.
She took it. Cale could see figures in the fields. Hopefully, that hadn’t heard JoLynn. He led her toward town.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
Cale had hoped they’d make it to his aunt Marie’s house, however, it was on the opposite side of town and it was already getting dark. He had another alternative. One that was sure to be intact and safe.
“You’ll see,” he said with a smile.
Together they walked on the roadside. Cale stepped on a piece of plywood. “Holdrege has it all…” the town motto was printed on it. The streets were empty. Any cars present were wrecked or burned. Nothing drivable. He took her north, up Lincoln Street, where he use to live. His peach house would have been on the corner if it hadn’t been demolished. His parents had started painting it before they died. It’d belonged to his grandmother, but was seized by the bank when she couldn’t pay the tax for the cement road that’d been put in, replacing the gravel one.
“I use to live in a house there when I was a little boy,” he told her.
“There’s no house there,” she said in a goofy tone.
“They tore it down,” chuckled Cale. “You’re funny.”
“Why’d they tore your house down?”
“Tear,” Cale corrected her. “Because it had to be.”
“That’s not very nice,” she stated.
“No. But it was okay. I moved to a new house,” he explained.
They turned left on sixth avenue. Cale recounted the street names as they walked. Sheridan, Sherman, Logan, Arthur, Garfield.
“Garfield?” objected JoLynn. “Like the cat?”
Cale laughed. “Sure.”
He pulled out his flashlight. Cale remembered when he was younger that his curfew was when the street lights came on. In the summer that meant he was out till eight-thirty. He’d gotten so use to watching for that time that during the autumn he was surprised to walk out at six-thirty and be in the dark. That was his lesson on how daylight savings time worked. It seemed like a lifetime ago he was that scared ten year old, riding his bike home in the dark. A similar fear crept over him now, because now the darkness hid actual monsters.
He stopped at the building on the corner of Sixth and East Avenues. It was the Holdrege Public Library. Across Sixth Avenue was a green house. Cale could smell the familiar scents of the building. He always walked by their vents for that smell. They approached an alley entrance to the library.
In high school one of his friends dated a girl who worked there. She practically lived at the library actually. He recalled her saying there was always a back up key inside the security light. The library employees had a habit of locking their belongings inside. Cale stepped on the cinde
rblock they used to prop open the door. His hand hit a spider’s web, but he found the key.
“Here we are,” he said as he looked at JoLynn.
Behind her in the street, he could see and undead child approaching. Cale didn’t want to scare her so he casually opened the door.
“Step inside,” he urged her.
“It’s dark in there,” she objected.
“Here,” he handed her the flashlight and pushed her in.
Cale grabbed his knife and jabbed it into the eye socket of the infected boy. He was a chubby kid. Cale wondered if he knew him or someone related to him, but he didn’t look familiar. He stepped in with JoLynn and locked the door behind them. She shone her light on the rows of books.
“Come on,” he smiled as he took the light.
They went up a half flight of stairs and emerged into the children’s section.
“It’s a liberry!” JoLynn decreed.
“Library,” Cale corrected her. “And yes. We’re going to spend the night here. But we have to stay back here. The windows out front are too big.”
“Where am I going to sleep?” she asked.
“How about over here?” he lead her to a large light blue dragon.
“Whoa,” she grinned with excitement.
“His name is Sam,” said Cale. “I played on him when I was your age.”
“No way,” she replied.
“Yes way, dude. Why don’t you grab a book and get comfy?”
That was all the advice she needed.
Chapter 37
TRISTAN AND JACOB
The sun hadn’t come up just yet as Cale sat in front of the large windows that faced Sixth and East Avenues. From here he could see the county courthouse and jail. There were multiple rotted figures walking in—as well as outside—the fenced-in basketball court the inmates had access to. The noise of the ones trapped on the inside made the others stay. Slowly, the sun rose. Bathing the sleepy town in warm light.
“Today is the day,” said Zach.
Cale nodded.
“You’ll be home today,” he added.
“I will be home today,” whispered Cale.
He could hear JoLynn back in the children’s section.
“Cale!” she called.
“Shh,” he replied to her.
“Oh, okay,” she whispered back.
She came down the stairs and ran to him. JoLynn had already pillaged his bag for food. He smiled as he noticed the other half of her candy bar in her hand.
“You call that a breakfast?” he teased.
“Mm hmm,” she replied sweetly.
Without prompting, she climbed into his lap and looked out the window. Her lips smacked as she ate her treat. Cale wasn’t going to stop her. How could he when she was so adorable?
“Where are we?” she asked.
“This is Holdrege,” he answered.
“Is your family here?”
“Not Lauren and Marie,” explained Cale. “But my brothers might still be here.”
“Are we going to find them?” questioned JoLynn.
“I hope so,” he replied vacantly.
“What are these?” she looked at the books that sat on the table in front of him.
“Books that might help us.”
“Hey! There are no pictures in them!” the little girl observed.
“No,” laughed Cale. “They’re about plants, construction, and metal work. Skills we may need again one day.”
“What’s this one?” she held up the smallest book.
“That’s one of my favorites actually,” he confessed.
Cale didn’t see the harm in taking it since no one would be coming in anytime soon.
“And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie,” he read the cover for her.
“What’s it about?” asked JoLynn.
“Well,” he pondered whether or not it was appropriate to tell her. “Ten people are invited to an island. And they all die.”
JoLynn looked confused.
“They were all bad people,” he clarified. “and it’s a mystery. You’re suppose to solve it before the end.”
“Did you solve it?” she inquired.
“No,” admitted Cale. “The ending was too clever for me.”
“Oh,” she scrunched her face. “I don’t think I’d like that book.”
Cale laughed. “Maybe when you’re older. You might figure it out.”
JoLynn shook her head. She wasn’t interested.
“Can I bring books with me?” she asked.
“Sure,” he smiled. “Only a couple though. You have to be able to fit them in your bag, okay?”
“Okay,” she grumbled.
An undead police officer walked toward the window. JoLynn’s back was to him.
“Why don’t you go pick them out and then we’ll go.” He sent her off to avoid seeing him.
She slid down to the carpet and ran back to the children’s section. Cale approached the glass. He knew the policewoman. She was a state trooper who’d pulled him over once. Cale’d had a bit of a lead foot when he’d gotten his license. She’d identified him as a good kid.
“I’m going to let you off with a warning. Just hold it down from now on, okay?” she’d said.
He never forgot that. Despite her almost skeletal face he could see what she used to look like. Her firearm was missing. Probably lost when she’d been overwhelmed. The uniform she wore was filthy and tattered. Her radio was still clipped to her pants, but the handset cord dragged on the pavement.
“You gonna be alright?” asked Zach as he grabbed Cale’s shoulder.
Cale took in a deep breath and slowly let it out.
“I hope so,” he answered.
More rotted corpses sauntered around the building to join her at the window.
“You’d better go soon. Otherwise you’ll have to fight your way out,” cautioned his hallucination.
Cale grabbed his books and walked up to the children’s section. JoLynn had ten books lying out as she played on Smilin’ Sam Smoke.
“Alright girlie,” he began. “Let’s get these narrowed down. We gotta go.”
“Okay,” she said cheerfully.
He quickly helped her pick out three books, get dressed, and out the back door they went. Cale forgot to tell her about the dead boy outside the door, but was happy when she didn’t scream. He’d already explained that shouting was bad and that the monsters were drawn to it. JoLynn had a level of self control Cale had never possessed as a child. But girls did mature faster than boys.
He grabbed her hand and they headed north down the streets of his hometown. Cale did his best to avoid groups of five or more, often cutting through alleys and yards to do so. Fortunately for him, he knew every inch of the town.
“There are monsters over there,” whispered JoLynn as they walked out onto Ninth Avenue.
“It’s okay,” he replied. “Stay close to me.”
They had plenty of breathing room, but were surrounded. He carefully aimed down his sights at them. Before firing, he looked at each of their faces. None of them looked familiar.
“What are you doing?” Zach asked. “Shoot!”
The first round popped off with a metallic click and his target hit the ground. He fired again. Another dropped.
“They’re getting closer!” hissed JoLynn as she suppressed her voice.
“It’s okay,” Cale assured her.
He shot two more infected in their way, then he pulled her down the street to the west. Bodies of the long deceased littered yards and intersections.
“It’s okay Zach,” said JoLynn. “Those ones won’t get back up.”
Cale looked at her and she looked up at him.
“Zach was scared,” she stated.
Cale smiled. Even Zach couldn’t help but laugh. The moment was short lived, however, as the dead that had amassed behind them let out their battle cry.
“Let’s walk faster,” he said to her.
She’d increased s
peed before he even finished his sentence. JoLynn was almost at an all out sprint.
“Slow down. We’ll just jog. They aren’t that fast,” explained Cale.
JoLynn jogged and Cale speed walked to keep up. One block. Two. Three. She slowed to catch her breath.
“That’s pretty good,” he praised her. “We’ve only got a few more streets to go. Then we can stop for a little bit.”
JoLynn nodded. Cale walked a half step ahead of her, stopping to shoot only when necessary. He peered through his ACOG and froze at the sight of his next target. Cale lowered his weapon and took a moment to collect himself. He raised his rifle again. There, shambling in his sights, was Wade. A friend he’d had as a kid. He wasn’t wearing his glasses anymore, but it was unmistakably him. His goofy tie-dye T-shirt was ripped at the bottom. Wade’s entrails dragged on the ground. It had happened fairly recently. His glossy eyes stared at Cale with hunger.
I’m sorry, Cale apologized in his head.
The trigger squeezed easily and Wade’s head kicked back. Other than Zach, this was the only other person he’d shot that he knew.
“I know that was tough, man,” comforted Zach. “But don’t go hallucinating him too. There isn’t enough room for us all up here,” he pointed at Cale’s head with a smile.
“I’m alright,” said Cale.
He grabbed JoLynn’s hand again and escorted her across Grant Street. They cut north through an alley before Tilden. He wanted to sneak into his Aunt Marie’s backyard since it was fenced in. Cale walked past familiar garages. Every one was open and unoccupied. They halted at a six foot tall privacy fence. The brown plastic garbage bin was tipped over next to the entryway. It only opened from the inside, but Cale and his brothers used to use a wooden paint stick to pop the latch from the outside. He found the tool stashed in the tall grass by the bin and inserted it through the slot.
“What the—” he stated, dumbfounded, as the gate swung in.
The house had been burnt down. Blackened sections of the foundation were all that remained. Shrubs and grass grew amidst the ash. There was nothing left of the single story three bedroom home he remembered. It was just like his house on Lincoln street. Just another vacant lot.
Z Plan (Book 3): Homecoming Page 34
