After Everything Else (Book 3): Creeper Revelation

by Brett D. Houser

  Chase stopped the vehicle and cut the engine. Sonya felt a little relief. Marilyn was okay. Then she looked at the cloud of dust a little more closely. Behind the golf cart something was following. Chase must have noticed it too, because he grabbed a shotgun and opened the door, standing on the running board and leveling the gun in the direction of the cart. Sonya pulled out the pistol and did the same. As the cart drew nearer, though, Sonya was first able to make out Marilyn’s grinning face and Honey sitting beside her. And then she realized what was following the cart. She looked over at Chase, who was smiling in obvious relief. He caught her looking at him.

  “First a dog. Now a horse. Hey, let’s find a zoo and see if Marilyn can make friends with a rhino or a wallaby.” He leaned back inside and racked the shotgun. Sonya shook her head, smiling herself.

  Marilyn pulled into the lot and stopped. The horse, which had been following her, stepped around the golf cart and when Marilyn got out, leaned against her, almost pushing her back into the seat. Marilyn laughed and pushed back. Sonya didn’t know much about horses, but she saw that this one looked pretty rough. Thin. But there was an intelligence there, too, a playfulness despite the hunger.

  “Guys, this is Cherokee. She says I’m hers now,” Marilyn said. “Honey’s okay with her, too.”

  The dog and the horse were nose to noses. Honey jumped back and crouched playfully and the horse tossed its head. “So I see,” Chase said. “Uh, I don’t think she can…I mean, it wouldn’t be…well, uh, safe, you know….” Chase trailed off and looked at Sonya helplessly.

  “What do you do with her now?” Sonya said. “I don’t know how that could work.”

  Marilyn sighed. “I know. But she’s lonely. I know she can’t go with us. Not into Ocala, anyway. But while we’re using this place for base, I can feed her and take care of her. Then I guess I turn her loose.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Chase said, “So anyway, we’ve got Audrey’s truck up and running. She’s filled up, and all she needs is some supplies to get her up to the camp. We can spare that until we can stock up again.” He stopped and looked up at the sky. “We’ve got about five more hours until dark. I’m not real crazy about splitting up, but why don’t you and Audrey stay here and Sonya and I will go scout the truck stop? We won’t do anything too risky, and then we’ll come back and we can all head back to the other farm.”

  Sonya thought that was a good idea. She was so close to her father now. She could feel it. And there was a bonus in getting Chase away from Audrey. And alone. She realized they would be busy, but just being alone with him counted for something. Maybe they could talk a little.

  Marilyn looked doubtful, Audrey even more so. “I think I’d rather stay close to you,” Audrey said. “It just feels safer.”

  Chase laughed. “I don’t think you understand who the real protection around here is. Marilyn’s the real thing. Marilyn, what do you think?”

  “You promise to be real careful?” Marilyn asked.

  “I promise,” Chase said. “I don’t think we’re any more than fifteen miles from the truck stop. Maybe closer. Even if it takes an hour to get there and an hour to get back, we should have plenty of time. I’d like to see if I can find a good place to look it over before we try to approach. Higher ground. A phone tower, if I can’t find anything else. Just to take a look.”

  “It’s what we’re here for,” Sonya said. “I’m all about being careful, but I also want to know. Maybe he’s there, maybe he’s not. But I know he was at one time.”

  “Okay,” Marilyn said. “We’ll stay put here. I’ll feed Cherokee then we’ll go to the house and see if we can find anything there worth salvaging. Then we’ll sit and wait. If you have trouble, shoot the shotgun. I don’t know if we’ll hear it, but we might. We can come help in the truck.”

  “That’s a plan,” Chase said. He went to the Hummer and got out the map. “Here, this is the way I think we’ll go.”

  As Chase and Marilyn went over the route he planned to follow, Sonya wandered over to Audrey. “Chase is right, you know. You’re a lot safer here with Marilyn than you would be with us out there, getting closer to the interstate.”

  Audrey had her arms crossed, cupping her elbows in her hands. Despite the heat, she looked like she was cold. “Maybe,” she said. “But there’s just something about him, you know?”

  Sonya looked at Audrey pointedly. “Yes,” she said, “I do know.”

  Audrey laughed uncomfortably. “I guess you do. Look, I didn’t know that you and he were like that. I thought you might be, but he said you weren’t. I’m not trying to take him, but a girl has to survive, doesn’t she? He seems like someone to stay close to with things the way they are now.”

  “He is,” Sonya said. “And I plan to. We aren’t like that now because there’s too much else going on. We might not ever be like that. I’m not saying he’s mine, but I am saying that if you think he’s not, you might be wrong. And if he’s forced to choose, he’s going to choose me.” Sonya wasn’t sure where the words were coming from, but she was glad they were coming. She had never talked to anyone like this in her life. Audrey seemed to be looking at her with a new respect.

  “Okay,” Audrey said. “I think I get it now.” She looked Sonya in the eye, and Sonya looked back steadily.

  “Hey, Sonya!” Chase called from the Humvee. “Let’s load up and go.” Sonya held Audrey’s eye for just a little bit longer, then turned to go with Chase.

  “If we could go across country, I don’t think it would be even half the distance,” Chase said. “If the creepers get too bad on the roads, we might do that. Pretty open country.”

  Sonya looked out the passenger window at the countryside. “Lot of fences.”

  “Yeah,” Chase said. “And not rickety old fences, either.”

  The creepers on the road were scattered enough that they were able to make time. They had started out going due east, and the east-west road wasn’t too bad. When Chase turned north, it was on a smaller road, and what creepers were there did cause problems. There was no way around them, so Chase drove over them. Sonya was relieved when he turned east again on a larger road. There were more creepers, but there was more road, too. More room to get around them. At least, for a little while. Then things began to get worse. At times, creepers almost blocked the road. Chase kept a steady speed, taking them down in ones and twos. Sonya looked behind them once, but only once. The sight of the broken bodies flopping on the pavement behind them was too much to watch for long.

  “I don’t think we can make it much further,” Chase said. “Look at that.”

  Sonya thought he was pointing at the green sign that showed the symbol for I75 with an arrow indicating it was just ahead of them, but realized he was pointing beyond. Ahead of them, the road was densely packed with creepers. Chase slowed, but he didn’t stop. Creepers swarmed around the vehicle. He continued forward, pushing them ahead of him, occasionally bouncing over them.

  “We have to get off this road. Do you see anywhere we can get some elevation to look a little further?” Chase asked.

  Sonya looked around. Houses on either side, but a lot of trees, too. And flat. “No phone towers. No power line towers. I don’t see anything.”

  “Okay, plan B. Let’s try a side road. You said the truck stop is just off the exit?”

  “Yes,” Sonya said. She felt herself getting anxious, nervous. She fought not to take it out on Chase. “He always stopped there. Exit 358. He takes a load of meat to the east coast. Then he takes a load of ice cream from New Jersey down to Florida. Then a load of juice concentrate from Florida to the Midwest. Sometimes he takes the concentrate back up to the east coast and then another load down, and then back to the Midwest. But when he’s in Florida, he stops at the same place. I’ve been there a couple of times. They know him. The truck stop sits right off the exit. He told me he was there last time I talked to him. So we have to figure out how to get there, Captain America. Be the man with the plan.”

 
“I’m doing the best I can, Sonya.” Chase stared straight ahead, still driving steadily at the crowd of creepers ahead of them. His jaw was clenched. Sonya reached over and wrapped her hand around his on the steering wheel.

  “I know. I’m sorry.” She looked ahead, leaving her hand where it was for just a second. Then she removed it to point at a side road. Over the heads of the creepers around them she could see that it wasn’t as crowded. “Take that. It may circle around behind the truck stop. Maybe we can go across some fields or yards or something.”

  Chase cut the wheel hard to the left. The Humvee slid forward for a bit (Sonya didn’t want to think about what it was sliding on), but at last the tires found purchase and the vehicle punched through the crowd and onto the side road, a narrow dirt track with a field on one side and woods on the other. Only a few creepers wandered the dirt track. Sonya looked back through the trees, trying to see the interstate, the truck stop, anything to indicate how close they were. Instead, she caught glimpses of bodies moving in the shadows, lurching between the gray trunks of the trees.

  “We’re running parallel to the interstate now,” Chase said.

  “Good,” Sonya said. “I think that’s a road to the right up there.” A break in the trees showed a narrow drive back into the trees, and Chase turned. A house sat back on their left, but the narrow track continued through the trees and Chase followed it. Sonya watched ahead and to the right. At last there was a break in the trees. “Look over there,” Sonya told Chase. Chase slowed and almost came to a stop. In the distance between the trees and across a scrubby field, there was pavement. Creepers were thick, but over them Sonya could see trucks. The parking area. She strained to recognize her father’s truck and trailer, but didn’t see it. There were a lot more bobtail trucks than she thought there should have been. The parking lot was crammed full, and most didn’t have a trailer. Between and around them, the creepers circulated. A ripple had begun, and many of them were coming toward the Humvee.

  Creepers began to emerge from the woods around them and surround the vehicle.

  “Look behind us,” Chase said. Sonya glanced back. The narrow lane was filling with creepers.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Chase said. “That’s too many. If they surround us, if they get under the tires, it could get bad.”

  Sonya was reluctant to stop looking, stop studying the trucks. There were several that could be the red Freightliner her father drove, but she couldn’t make out the lettering on the doors. If his trailer was there, she thought she would be able see it, but she didn’t. “Okay,” she finally said, disappointed.

  Chase accelerated, made a turn off the track and into the trees. He circled but didn’t try to return to the narrow road. He wove among the tree trunks, crossing through the yard of a house, taking out a short decorative fence. Once he was back on the other road he took a left, and then a right again into an open field through a gap in a sagging barbed wire fence. The field was overgrown, and he proceeded slowly but steadily. The creepers behind them fell away into the distance. He angled to the left, and through another break in the fence back onto the paved road they had come in on. Sonya tried not to look at the crawling creepers left from their first trip through, and Chase tried to avoid them. Sometimes he couldn’t.

  “Chase, how are we going to get to the truckstop? I think my dad’s truck might be there, but I couldn’t tell. We have to get closer.” Sonya watched Chase, hoping he might have a brilliant plan. Chase appeared to be thinking, but his attention was split between considering the possibilities and concentrating on getting down the road.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” Chase said. “But it’s not going to be easy.”

  Chapter 10 – Chase

  Chase drove, concentrating on avoiding the creepers, but as they drew nearer to the horse ranch and further from the interstate the number of creepers dwindled. He could see Sonya out of the corner of his eye watching him. He felt the pressure to talk, but he didn’t know what to say. He knew there was something between them, but he didn’t know what it meant.

  “I think there’s not as many now,” he said. It wasn’t what he wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure he knew how to say what he wanted to say. He wasn’t even sure there were words for what he was feeling.

  “Yeah?” Sonya said. That was it. Chase felt himself getting angry.

  Why did he always have to be the one to talk? Sure, he could keep up a stream of chatter, saying meaningless stuff, talking about the weather and the creepers. He could crack jokes and make stupid puns, he could talk about plans and about what was going on, but saying what he was feeling wasn’t something he had any practice with. He tried to relax. “Yeah. Makes sense. They’re filling up the interstate. Interstates, I guess. I95 is on the other side of the state. And I think they’re probably heading north. What is it? June? Early July? And it’s hot already. They need to be somewhere cooler, slow down the decay. In another month it’s going to be crazy hot down here. Humidity probably doesn’t help either.” He chanced a glance at her. The reproachful look he thought he had seen her wearing before was gone. She looked really interested in what he was saying.

  “Do you think they know that much? I mean, I guess I can see some kind of survival instinct. But to know where to go?” Sonya sounded puzzled. Chase shrugged. “So let’s say they do know that. Will it work? How far will they get? What about winter?”

  “I’m asking myself all the same questions,” Chase replied. “There’s so much we don’t know. How far gone do they have to be before they stop moving around? That’s another good question.”

  “Could work in our favor, I guess,” Sonya said a little excitedly. “At some point there won’t be any down here, or at least not many. They will all have left.”

  Chase was skeptical. “I don’t know how long that could take. So many people lived down here, and they don’t move fast.”

  “I guess you’re right. And if Dad is still alive, I need to find him soon.” Sonya pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and sighed. Chase couldn’t always read her, but he knew that pose. She was scared.

  “Tomorrow,” he said with a certainty he didn’t feel. “I’ll figure something out and we’ll get into the truck stop tomorrow.” He looked over at her. He saw gratitude in her eyes, but he also saw doubt. He recognized the doubt because he felt it himself.

  He turned the Hummer into the main drive of the ranch. There was still plenty of light, but the sun was just starting on the way down and the shadows of the trees were beginning to stretch across the drive and into the huge expanse of unmown lawn to the east. In the lot where they had found the truck Marilyn and Audrey sat on a bench just outside the stable doors, Honey at their feet. Cherokee had her nose in a feed tub not far from them. She raised her head when they pulled in and then went back to eating. Chase came to a stop and cut the motor.

  “Well?” Marilyn called as they climbed out of the vehicle.

  “We found the truck stop,” Sonya answered, walking to where Marilyn stood. Audrey remained seated. “That’s about it. Creepers everywhere. We couldn’t even get close.”

  “Did you see your Dad’s truck?”

  Sonya shook her head. “Too many trucks there to pick his out, and we couldn’t get close enough to be sure.” Chase’s heart ached from the disappointment in her voice. Marilyn hugged Sonya, and Chase watched in surprise as Sonya hugged her back. Why couldn’t he do that as easily?

  “What about you?” he asked. “Did you find anything here?”

  “We found a lot of canned stuff in the big house. No Subjects, thank God,” Audrey answered. “I think I have enough to get out of this God-forsaken state.” Chase caught the brief look of irritation and amusement that crossed Marilyn’s face.

  “Found a trailer loaded with three ATV’s, too,” Marilyn said. “Somebody that lived here liked to play. Real nice ones. Dad had one that I used to ride, but it wasn’t near as nice.”

  “And you fed yo
ur horse, too,” Chase said. “Anything else?”

  “A lot of the stuff you’d expect,” Marilyn answered. “This should make a good base. We could either stay in the big house or one of the outbuildings. Big house is nice, but no water. Probably on a well. No drinking water out here for us, either, but I did find some rain barrels with water we can use to wash. We could boil it I guess, and it’d be okay to drink. Oh, and the big house has gas burners. Propane tank.”

  “Good.” Chase was impressed by how well Marilyn had assessed the situation.

  Marilyn continued, “Then we did a tour around the place. It’s a little wide open, but we closed what gates we could. There are three more entrances, and we closed the gates on them. We opened some gates inside the fences to the good pastures for the horses. Didn’t find any more alive, so there’s just Cherokee and the other four that I found.” When Marilyn said her name, Cherokee raised her head again. Chase wondered at that. Surely the horse’s name hadn’t been Cherokee. So why did she respond? Maybe it was just the tone of Marilyn’s voice.

  “Okay. Good.” He looked at the position of the sun. “Let’s get back to the other place. We’ll finish getting Audrey ready to leave. After she gets on her way, we’ll bring the trailer over, get this place as secure as we can, and then we’ll go search the truck stop.”