No Room In Hell (Book 2): 400 Miles To Graceland

by William Schlichter

  “You want my room you’re welcome to it, but I thought they separated some of as part of their procedures. From the few people I’ve spoken with who’ve arrived in larger groups they separated them.”

  “To what purpose?” Combeth asks.

  “Prevent infiltration of some group who would want to take over.”

  “I know guarding a hayfield is a bit soft duty, but this place is a paradise. With Fort Wood gone this is the only stronghold left west of the Mississippi.”

  “We got spoiled at Fort Wood. And we must be the only place left in the state still with electric power. People will do anything to have access,” she says.

  “I guess I’ve guarded worse than a bunch of hay cutting tractors.”

  “I’d rather be traveling to Memphis to recover the Major’s brother.” Amie waves to the Humvee across the field.

  A tractor engine fires up. Backing off a flatbed trailer as soon as it rolls into the field the sickle drops and grass stalks fall.

  “We’ve got noise. Be ready. It’s not if it draws the undead—it’s when and how many,” She hopes that sounded like she was in total control of her command.

  “I’m on it.” Combeth swings the 50-Cal to get a better view of the tree line. “I’m not convinced the radio message was real. Fort Leonard Wood was the last bastion of military strength. Without it, I’ve no idea how the country will ever be taken from the dead.”

  “The military was not finished. Didn’t the Coronel speak to you about this assignment?” Amie asks.

  “I was given a choice of no room on the helicopters or the need to protect valued survivors,” Combeth says.

  “The alternative was a destroyed base and teaming with those Bowlins.”

  “Stories about them was worse than dealing with the undead,” he says.

  “Coronel Travis provided this place with supplies and some troops before he stocked our convoy.”

  “The Colonel was too good a man. He should’ve stopped taking in survivors and the base would have held longer. He took in everybody. Too many mouths to feed. This place has the right idea. Which is why I’m guarding a tractor cutting hay,” Combeth says.

  “They bring in plenty of survivors,” Amie says. “Still might need a better screening process. Levin killed four. One a nurse. Not many trained medical people left. Those people should be kept under guard.”

  “Doctors and bullets are the new gold,” Combeth says. “Spend a night in the gym. You’ll learn much about this place. A few weeks ago, a group of religious nuts tried to shoot their way in and the gate guards killed them all. Your hero, Ethan, rescued some women from some nut job who was keeping them prisoners. All three girls had both hands removed and all three died, one at a time on the trail back.”

  “Ethan killed them?” Amie asks.

  “The story goes one fell off a cliff and one was murdered by some bikers. Who Ethan killed and didn’t invite back.”

  The man I share a house with would not murder the helpless. “How true are those stories?”

  “If I didn’t hear the same versions from different people. I’d question their accuracy, but everyone tells the same version with little embellishment.”

  “We both witnessed Ethan’s exploits. You know he needs no embellishment of his actions. If we survive as a species, his stories will become the new legends.”

  “I plan to live forever,” says Combeth.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll put a bullet in your slobbering corpse.” Amie smiles.

  “Eventually they should rot?”

  “They don’t. Even after the head shot the body’s slow to decompose.” Amie finds herself staring at clouds covered in stars. She jerks the way she does when someone shoves her as if shaking her awake.

  The ground moves.

  “Earthquake!” Combeth screams.

  “No shit.” Amie uses the Humvee to steady herself as the Earth’s vibrations quell. “We need to get the mowing team into the Humvees and return to Acheron. We’ll come back for the tractors later.”

  “I don’t think we should leave the equipment.”

  “We need to be inside the fence and now. There’s never just one earthquake,” Amie scolds.

  “I don’t think we’re going anywhere.” Combeth points.

  Amie lifts her binoculars. Staggering over the horizon all in a line as if protesting the living are thousands of undead.

  MIKE RAISES THE M16, peering down the barrel to sight in the limping rotter. Dirty and blood stained, the naked woman moves away from him. He considered the ramification of a single rifle shot. He decides she’s not worth the noise and the other undead it will attract. Since she staggers away from him, cashing her across the field just to end her misery is also a pointless exercise.

  Something about her gait keeps his eye focused on her. The blood covering her seems dry—fresh. Her body lacks bites. Maybe she opted out. Took pills to end it because despite the contusions, her skin seems fresh as if she just died.

  He lowers the weapon. One’s not worth any risk. Mike shoulders his pack.

  Snarls echo as two more undead shamble across the field. They head toward the naked rotter. He praises his choice in not firing. He knew there were more around.

  There are always more around.

  He ignores them, not wanting to draw more attention to himself when the naked undead runs away from the two approaching rotters.

  Mike scans through his current choices. All of them tell him to help this woman despite his growing distrust of other survivors. She could be a trap, but for who. No one would be traveling these fields or not enough people to set a trap. He would bet she was well-supplied and stripped of all her gear, left for dead by scavengers. Maybe she was the scavenger and some group did to her what she was going to do to them?

  Tom’s group. They were good people. They just didn’t understand what was going on. They made a choice to protect themselves but not at his expense. Too bad a group with those morals won’t last. What of my morals? My oaths. I swore to protect the constitution from all enemies… These rotters are destroying the American way of life.

  Oh, hell, someone needs help and even if I’m wrong I did what’s right.

  He unsheathes a M7 bayonet locking it into place on the M16. Tom’s group was honorable enough not to take his gear. He charges from the tree stabbing the first undead in the chest knocking it back to the ground. He swings the rifle more like a club whacking off half the second creature’s head. Goopy brains splatter the greening grass. The first rotter flop like a beached fish attempting to return to its feet. Mike drives the blade into the first rotter’s face.

  He shifts the weapon behind his back as he assumes a parade rest stance before the woman. “I won’t hurt you.”

  “Everyone says so.” She keeps a healthy distance from him.

  “I’d don’t know what else to say. Do you want my assistance?”

  Kelsey faints.

  Mike holds his weapon, ready to fire as he twists the doorknob to the farm house. Country people still never lock their doors. It creaks open. He sweeps in, clearing the ground floor rooms one by one. A door in the kitchen leads to the basement. He jabs a chair under the handle to wedge it secure.

  Once the ground floor is clear, he carries the unconscious girl to the couch from the porch swing where he left her. He covers her with the knitted afghan. Before moving up the stairs, he marches back to the front door and twists the lock.

  Once securing the house—minus the dark basement—Mike cleans the girl’s wounds, careful around the burns. The wrinkled skin requires grafts to repair it. He doubts she’ll ever be normal again. She has a massive contusion on her life side. A bruise surrounding a seared burn on her back matches a duplicate one across her stomach.

  Mike finds his own flayed skin throbs as he examines this poor woman.

  Her feet are the worst. The rough terrain shredded the soles. She’ll need to be able to walk if she is to live. She needs fluids too. I don’t have any idea…
Do I pour it down her throat?

  After cleaning and dressing all her cuts, he covers her with a sheet, tucking it in around her, then lays a quilt over the top. He camps out in the stiff high-back chair, rifle across his lap. Kicking his boots off, Mike drifts off.

  God, I hope she doesn’t die in her sleep.

  The orange sun splashing on the woman’s face gives her a death glow. Her blankets rise and fall with each breath. Knowing she’s alive relaxes him until his bladder cramps. The shadows growing across the floor inform Mike he’s been asleep and now dusk creeps up on him.

  He shoulders the M16 and sneaks to the porch. He undoes his fly to water the bushes. As the pressure leaves his crotch, Mike considers doing a sweep around the house. The dark soon will be pitch. Not like in the movies. This night he will have no visibility, and if he does ignite his flashlight, the beam will cut through the darkness alerting anyone living to his location. Better to hunker down and rest.

  He wonders about the girl and who bushwhacked her. As he cleaned her, she didn’t appear to be sexually violated. Why not just kill her? Stripping her of everything was as good as killing her. And when she does die then it’s one more rotter to deal with. At some time, their numbers should be depleted.

  Mike returns to his vigilant watch over the woman. Until I figure out otherwise, I’ll see she lives. I’ve got nothing better to do. Fort Wood remains my best option. The base isn’t gone.

  Mike jerks awake. At first, the moans forming under the blankets bring his rifle to bear on the shifting mass, but he quickly lowers it as her cries are of a nightmare. He scoops the squirming girl up and sits on the couch so her head rests on his lap. He strokes her hair, lulling her back to a calming sleep. He doubts her cries aroused a rotter, but continual screams might.

  Birds chirp as the sun rises. Mike never appreciated the noise so much as one signaling he remains among the living. Birds are also a strong indication no undead are around and certainly no living people are within range of the house. No matter how stealthy a person is, birds will flee.

  As he lifts the woman’s head up in order move his tingling leg, her eyes flash open.

  “I won’t hurt you.”

  She struggles against the tight sheet tucked in around her. Mike lays her head back down, fleeing to the chair. The quick movement breaks open his own healing wound. Warm wet drops dribble down his side. He notes the position of his M16. “Take your time. I’ll just stay over here.”

  As she draws her arm up to escape the blanket, Kelsey finds bandages covering her flesh. “You cared for me?”

  Mike nods. He should change his own dressings.

  “Why?”

  “I thought about. Short answer—I’m still a decent person.”

  “Water?”

  Mike reaches into his pack withdrawing a canteen. He stretches out his arm, keeping his body off balance and at a distance—least threatening as possible.

  “I don’t have much food. A few power bars,” he offers.

  She holds the water in her mouth letting the liquid soak into her cheek and tongue.

  “Cottonmouth?”

  She nods meaning “thank you.”

  “There are clothes upstairs. Whoever lived here didn’t take much…but the food.”

  She induces needle stabs in her legs with just a movement of an inch. “I’m not sure I’m ready for stairs. How long have I been out?”

  “I found you yesterday afternoon.”

  “I’ll have lost the trail. I lost my friends. I lost the mission.” She rattles her list, delirious with guilt.

  “You were chasing something—I thought you were escaping.”

  Kelsey considers what information to reveal. Plenty of people will help her to learn about Acheron. “My group sent us out to scavenge for supplies. We encountered marauders. My leader killed their leader when Fort Wood was destroyed.”

  Somehow, of all she said, the only fact registering with Mike is Fort Wood is gone.

  “Are you not listening to me?” Kelsey asks.

  “Sorry…wow… My plan was to reach Fort Wood. Now I don’t know what do in life,” Mike sulks.

  “If I had the energy, I’d scream at you for being so self-centered.”

  “What happened at the base? So many people are still trying to reach it.”

  “The military blew it up,” Kelsey explains.

  Minutes, maybe ten, transpire before Mike accepts what the woman says, “No way the military would give up a stronghold to the undead.”

  “Check for yourself. You won’t find anything but charred structures. Anything left was looted by the civilians who they left behind.”

  “It was our job to protect the innocent when I was in the service. Something else had to have driven them off base.”

  “Believe or don’t. I have to catch up with the men who left me for dead.” Kelsey pushes up off the couch. As soon as she puts weight on her swollen feet, agony skirts up into her calves. She collapses. “Hurts.”

  Mike lifts her legs into the air to remove the pressure.

  “Fuck me.” Her burns radiate more pain through her.

  “You won’t be able to walk for days,” Mike says. “I don’t know how you got as far as you did. If you came from the base.”

  “I didn’t. My team was ambushed. We headed toward St Louis to scout for supplies.”

  “It’s too dangerous the closer you get. Now with Fort Wood gone I don’t know where is safe.” Mike’s mind fogs.

  “Dude, you gotta break out of this. My feet—too bad to walk. I need you to help me reach my leader,” Kelsey commands.

  “You want me to carry you?” Mike asks.

  “Find a car. Drive me to Memphis.”

  “Girl, you’re crazy.”

  “I have to warn Ethan. The Bowlin brothers know his destination.”

  Before Mike inquires further, the windows blow out. Kelsey drops to the floor as the house shakes. Mike dives toward the door. Cracks form in the walls as the convulsions quicken. The front porch collapses.

  The fluctuations calm even as the building still sways.

  “What the fuck? An Earthquake in Missouri?”

  “The New Madrid fault is the largest. I just didn’t think we’d feel it this far north.” Mike gets to his feet as the house continues to quiver. “We need to get outside; this house wasn’t designed—”

  Thunderous cracks deafen the pair in the half second before the first floor collapses.

  ETHAN FLATTENS HIS palm against the ground. Rumbles like when his stomach growls permeating through his fingers. The vibration reminds him how the living planet plans to evict the remaining humans.

  “Should we go back?” Chad asks.

  “Memphis is closer,” Ethan reasons.

  Becky paces in circles. “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to remain calm.”

  “Going to be more aftershocks,” she says.

  “There’s going to be a lot more, and crazy animals and biters, but if you don’t keep your head about you then you’re going to get hurt.”

  Her agitation accelerates. “We can’t even go through buildings. They might fall on us.”

  “What do you want to do with her, Boss?” Chad asks

  “Let her spazz out for a minute. Get it out of her system.”

  “Boss, I’m terrified,” Chad admits.

  “You start that shit and I’ll punch you in the face. If you think I’m not bothered by this then you’re crazy, but we must keep a cool head. There’s no National Guard to bring us water and no Red Cross to pass out blankets. It’s less than a hundred miles to Memphis and three hundred back. We go on. We find the Major’s brother and maybe a vaccine.”

  Becky falls to the ground. She rocks on her butt. Her arms wrapped around her freshly-skinned knees.

  Shit.

  Blood. Cleaned her up. Ethan kneels before the girl. “Becky. You had your moment. We got to clean you up and move on.”

  She glances at him as i
f she were five and realized all adults have lied about Santa Clause. “Everyone’s dead. Everything’s gone.” Tears stream down her cheeks. “I didn’t get to say goodbye to any of my family. I didn’t get to bury them. Nobody has fed my dog. He was an inside dog. Nobody let him out to even try and fend for himself. What are we doing? Why? Why are we even trying to go on?”

  “Chad, scout the area.” He opens a small first-aid pack for camper. “I don’t have those answers. I go on because I’m not ready to quit.”

  She watches him tear open an alcohol pad to brush over her scrapes. She flinches but doesn’t jerk away “Where are your kids?”

  “What?”

  “You treat us a lot like children…like you had children.” An epiphany washes over her about the house with the grave under the swing set.

  He covers the scrapes in Band-Aids.

  She enunciates each word. “You protect us like you kids.”

  He struggles to get back to his feet. He winces from the knee pain but says nothing.

  “When you go out, are you making amends for failing to save them?”

  “Someone of lesser calm would smack you across the face for that. If I were to lose control you wouldn’t have to worry about brushing anymore.” Ethan meets with her brown eyes. “When I found the emergency evacuation point, it had been overrun.”

  “There were no clues in the house we searched?”

  “Maybe not. But until I bury the other one, she is out there,” Ethan says.

  Becky understands why Ethan always scavenges for supplies. Always gone. Forever searching for his child.

  He puts his hand flat against the ground, reminded of western films where they put an ear to the ground to learn of approaching horses. Detecting movement, Ethan announces, “Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero, I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen the ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam, to be exalted with the threatening clouds: But never till to-night, never till now, Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. Either there is a civil strife in heaven,