She found herself running at that point. Her legs pumping effortlessly, the adrenaline surging through her veins. Iris was in the truck with Mac.
She had no sooner had the thought than she heard another voice began to scream. She couldn't place it, but as she rounded Adam, catching up and passing him, she saw that two men had Mac on the ground, biting and snarling as he tried to fight them off.
“Beth!” Billy screamed from behind her. “Right. Your right!”
She had been just about to fire at the two men attacking Mac, and so even as she turned, she did not turn her pistol completely, but kept it aimed to the front towards Mac and the two men. By the time she registered how close the three men were to her, there was no time to turn the pistol and fire. They were nearly on her. She had no more registered their faces, jaws wide, eye's milky and leaking puss, teeth gnashing - she had not even had the time to worry about her own fate yet - when the lead man's head blew apart in a spray of black blood and bone.
She blinked involuntarily and managed to bring her pistol around as the two remaining men tried to reverse direction in mid stride. Their eyes were wild, trapped looking. She brought up the pistol and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened, and her heart staggered in her chest. The safety... the fucking safety, her mind screamed, and that was when a woman hit her from the side and she went sprawling onto the dirt road. There were two more on her before she could get turned over. She felt the first bite to her arm and ignored it, as she concentrated on getting the safety off the pistol she had somehow managed to hold onto as she fell.
The passenger door on the second truck flew open, and Dell jumped from the truck, machine pistol spiting fire as he ran. The gunfire all along the road was crazy. It had instantly become a war zone. Dell made it halfway around the hood of the truck when he stepped into a crossfire and his head exploded, spraying across the hood of the truck.
Adam sprayed the woods with his machine pistol. The infected had all come from the same direction, and once he had focused on them, it had been easy to mow them down. They began to slow, some turning to run back into the woods, some standing as if they didn't know what to do. Adam launched himself away from the truck fender he had been leaning against and began to run at them, firing as he went, a scream building from his throat.
Billy had staggered to a stop just past the end of his rear bumper. He had watched Dell come into his line of fire, and he had instantly let loose of his trigger, but it had been too late. He was in shock and time seemed to slow to a crawl. His eyes swiveled back around, and he saw that Beth was pinned to the ground by two women. Blood ran from one forearm as she struggled to hold them off. Both women were infected. Mucus scaled their cheeks, mouths yawning, teeth gnashing, necks swollen. He yelled and charged them, raising the stock of his rifle, smashing in the back of the head of the first one, kicking the other aside with a hard shot to the ribs and spraying her with a short burst that took her head from her shoulders after she had rolled a short distance across the ground.
One of the infected had stopped at the last truck and dragged the young man inside out through the open window. Two more joined him and pulled him the rest of the way out of the truck.
The first man then lunged through the open window and fastened his teeth on Iris's throat as she tried to fight him off, and the inside of the truck became a slaughter house. He was so engrossed in feeding, that he did not see the machine pistol barrel as it thrust through the open window a few minutes later. He only barely felt it as it bit into the back of his head. Adam pulled the trigger, and his head blew apart. Iris stopped screaming.
The remaining infected stopped in mid stride, tried to turn back to the woods, but the machine pistols mowed them down where they stood or as they turned to run. Adam, Billy and Beth were on their feet moving in a loose line toward the wooded area once again.
Behind them, Cammy, Jamie and Winston, who had stayed in the trucks with the children, came out now and joined them. The gunfire held strong for a few moments, and then everything stopped at once. The last of the infected fell or managed to get far enough into the woods as to no longer be seen.
Silence crashed down all along the road. It held for what seemed like minutes. The swirling haze of smoke from the gunfire hung heavy in the late afternoon air. The headlights of the trucks cut through it, making it dance through the blue-white beams of light. The overcast sky and the sudden silence made it seem as though night had arrived all at once. There was very little to hear in the silence: the still running trucks, a scratching, scrabbling sound as one of the infected tried to crawl off the road and into the woods. Beth turned shakily from the woods, her face hard, set. She pulled her knife from her side sheath, took a few steps and straddled the man. She reached down, grabbed his hair, pulled his head back as he snapped and snarled, trying to reach her with his teeth. The knife flashed as she embedded it into the side of his head. She thrust one booted foot against his head and pulled her knife free, letting his head fall into the dirt. She pulled a rag from her pocket and cinched it tightly around her arm, cutting off the blood flow.
The silence held for a second longer, and then Beth began to sob as she sank down to the ground.
The Nation
The barn was shadowed and cool after the hot sun in the valley. The entire Nation was digging potatoes. Lilly, Amy and Katie were grounded from the heavy work, but they had walked down from the main cave and watched them at work on their way to the barn to collect eggs for Janna.
Katie had truly believed that after Conner and Aaron left, Sandy would allow them to go back to some sort of light work. It would have proven she had only grounded them to make sure they did not go on the expedition to the outside. Maybe she had been wrong though, she thought now. Sandy had not changed her mind.
“What I want to know,” Lilly said, “is what is the difference between picking eggs up or digging potatoes?”
“The potatoes don't have crap all over them,” Amy said.
Lilly laughed.
“Not really though, right?” Katie asked.
“What do I win?” Amy asked.
Katie slugged her in the arm. “It wasn't a contest. Besides, you forgot to answer in the form of a question.”
“What is, the potatoes don't have crap all over them, Alex?” Lilly asked.
“Lilly wins,” Katie said.
“Wow,” Amy said. “You guys cheat so bad.”
“So, for real, do the chickens lay the eggs and then leave them? We come along and just pick them up? And they're not really covered with crap, right?” Katie asked.
“You know, later you're coming down with me to get fresh rabbits for dinner,” Amy reminded her. “I expect you to know all about the modern farm by dinner this evening.” She smiled at Katie's sarcastic grin. “Okay, the chicken lays the egg and then sits on it. You have to move the chicken to get the egg.”
“Oh... Great,” Katie said.
“It's not so bad,” Lilly said. “Jake brought me down a few times. Just act like you have a right to be there. Reach right in, move the chicken over and take the eggs.”
“Crap on toast. I suck at this sort of stuff,” Katie complained.
Lilly laughed. “Where does Crap On Toast come from? You and Arlene have the funniest sayings I have ever heard.”
“Okay,” Amy said. They faced the line of baskets and the wire mesh door to the chicken roost. Across the barn, the rabbits had a whole section to themselves. “Grab a basket and a pair of gloves.”
Katie picked up one of the pairs of gloves. They were heavy leather, stiff. She put them back and picked up a basket. “Oh,” she set the basket back and picked up another. “Wow. These baskets are not too clean, Aim,” She showed Amy one of the baskets.
Amy took a basket, looked at it and then handed it to Katie. “It's a basket for collecting eggs, Kate.” She turned it over and a few feathers drifted out of it.
Katie looked into the basket. “It's got crap in it.” She looke
d closer. “It looks like chicken crap to me.”
“It is,” Amy said.
“Well, I was thinking, clean eggs in a basket that has chicken crap in it?”
Lilly began to laugh. Amy choked back her own laughter.
“What?” Katie asked.
“Oh, God. Don't you make me pee myself, Kate,” Lilly said.
“But what!?”
“Okay,” Amy said. She bit back her own laughter. “I guess it's not funny. You don't know anything about eggs. Are you sure you want to come down here later to get the rabbits for dinner?”
Katie sighed. “No, but I have to learn sometime. So where have I got it wrong with the eggs?”
“Honey, it's easier to show you. Here,” she handed her the basket and then a pair of the stiff leather gloves.
“I'll skip the gloves,” Katie said. “I can't even flex my fingers in them. I'll never be able to grab an egg.” She tossed the heavy gloves onto the nearby bench top
Amy shook her head, grabbed a pair of gloves and a basket and then opened the door and stepped into the chicken coop. Lilly stepped in behind her and closed the door.
“Christ, chickens stink,” Katie complained.
“They do. Used to be dinosaurs,” Lilly said.
“Jesus, a two story tall chicken, but chickens don't seem mean enough to be a dinosaur.”
“Oh, they're mean bastards,” Amy said. “Don't kid yourself. So,” she slipped on a glove, reached in and under the chicken, and came out with an egg. “Just like that.” She dropped the egg in her basket.
“Okay,” Katie stepped to the next chicken, plunged her hand under the chicken and then pulled it back with the egg. “There's another egg under there,” she said as she dropped the egg into her basket. She looked at her hand. “Eww,” she looked at the egg in the basket. “There's chicken shit all over the egg and my hand,” she held her hand up, but Amy and Lilly were both hanging onto each other laughing so hard they couldn't catch their breath.
“Oh my God,” Lilly complained.
Amy tried to stop laughing, but Katie was still standing, her hand splayed, looking at the streaks of chicken shit that now adorned it. “I tried to tell you... I tried...” She gave up and pushed Katie back out through the door, closed it, laughing harder as she walked away to the trough that entered the barn. She picked up a steel cup and filled it with water after tipping the trough to get the water to flow clear. She picked up a sliver of lye soap and walked back to Katie.
“Hold your hands out.” She waited until she did and then poured the water over them as Katie worked them together. She handed her a piece of lye soap. The soap was iffy, more likely to burn than anything else. Katie grimaced as she worked some soap into both hands. Amy poured the rest of the water over her hands. “Don't touch your eyes for a while,” Lilly reminded her. She had managed to stop laughing, as had Amy.
“Okay,” Amy said. “For real. You have to wear the gloves. Eggs have shit on them. They come that way, and sometimes the chickens will peck you as you're taking the egg. They don't always take that well. Other than that, you did good.”
“I didn't know chicken eggs had shit on them,” Katie said.
“You grew up somewhere where you never had to deal with real eggs, I guess,” Lilly said. “I grew up in Watertown and I still gathered eggs a few times.”
Katie frowned. “Never picked - gathered - eggs before. Okay... I imagine this is stupid. Why do the eggs have crap on them? Because the chicken is sitting on them? Do they always have crap on them? I may never look at eggs the same again.”
Lilly chuckled along with Amy. “Okay,” Lilly said. “Chickens don't have, um, a separate vagina. Chickens have one canal, so to speak. It all comes out one hole.”
“Jesus. That's messed up.”
“Probably be bad if you weren’t a chicken. But the chickens don't seem to mind,” Lilly said.
Katie tugged the glove up her arm. “She has me murdering rabbits later.”
Lilly looked at Amy. “She wants to learn how to do it,” Amy told her.
“Conner thinks that I need to learn,” Katie frowned and stuck out her lower lip.
“Oh stop. She wants to impress him, so she's learning. We'll be coming right back here tomorrow to prepare chickens... fresh chickens.”
Katie frowned. “Murdering rabbits tonight, chickens tomorrow.” She went to the next chicken, reached in and under the chicken and pulled her hand out with the egg in the glove. She slipped the egg into her basket and then went back to the first chicken. “There was another egg under this one,” Katie said as she slipped her hand beneath the chicken. She started to pull her hand back when the chicken suddenly erupted into the air. Katie screamed and jumped back, crushing the egg in her gloved hand.
Lilly was on the hay covered floor, holding Amy and rolling back and forth, laughing uncontrollably.
Katie looked at the yolk and chicken shit dripping off her glove. “Can't wait for the rabbits,” she said. Amy and Lilly went off into fresh gales of laughter.
TWO
On The Trail
Conner And Aaron
September 16th
They had settled back for the ride, the small Jeeps seeming to float across the soft carpet of pine needles. The sun was just dropping from the sky in the North East when they left the straight lines of trees and dropped off onto the old logging road.
“Hell. We could probably make it tonight... Later on,” Aaron said as they pulled onto the grass covered old road. It didn't look much like the old logging road that they had followed. Into the forever-wild lands. Summer had allowed the grass and trees to grow unchecked. Three foot high grass ran down the hump in the middle of the road. It was even higher on the sides where the road blended back into the woods. They stopped and waited for the other two Jeeps to catch up to them.
“Drive on,” Conner asked as they all stared off down the old road, “or stay here tonight?”
“Only have about twenty miles to go... We could probably reach the park area before nightfall,” Aaron said.
“I'd rather not go in there after dark. Try to set up tents after dark,” Annie said.
“There's that,” Conner agreed. “We don't know what to expect...”
Nellie nodded. “If we stop here we have time to set up camp, eat, and we can leave early enough... And, well, we might not even stay there, right?”
“Everything we need will have to come from somewhere else anyway,” Dustin said. “Except the bigger trucks and the sawmill setup James thought he saw.”
“So the park isn't really a stop then,” Molly said.
“Well,” Conner started.
“We may as well talk it out,” Aaron said. “The infected ones and the gangs.”
“The gangs and the infected,” Conner agreed.
They had all listened to the radio talk over the last several months. The reception was incredible and far reaching from the top of the ridge the cave was in.
LA was in ruins. There were still living factions there, but they were losing ground to the infected people. San Diego was gone. A huge area of the west coast was gone. An even larger area had been over run by disease.
New York seemed to be holding its own in areas. Manhattan was gone, but Harlem was holding on, a few northern cities they had heard from.
Other places scattered in between were still free of the gangs. Houston. Another place up in Maine. One in Georgia. It was good to hear the radio talk from those places day after day, but it was alarming that there were not more.
In any case they had all come to grips with it. They had gotten the board of nine together and made some not for the public decisions. It was a serious thing and they were taking it serious.
“I don't think we have as much to worry about if we stop here. There's nothing to pull them in this deep.” Molly said quietly.
Aaron nodded. “What might we run into there? It's a small park. Nothing close by. Nothing there for them either, right?”
Nellie nodded. “Maybe. Maybe not. How can we tell?”
“And that's the bitch about it,” Dustin said. “How will we know?”
“I don't think we will... We'll have to keep our eyes open wide. No sleeping,” Conner said.
Annie nodded.
“Okay. I'm for staying here tonight,” Molly said. She shrugged her rifle from her shoulder. “I am not for getting bit and having one of you guys shoot me,” she said. Silence held for a moment and then Molly smiled.
“Only if I had to,” Aaron said and answered her smile.
“You guys are sick,” Annie said. But she too was smiling.
~
The tents went up fast. They set them up in the forest itself which was free of grass and carpeted with the soft pine needles. Conner, Molly and Annie were on grass duty. In no time they had a wide area free of grass in both directions down the road.
They dug down into the forest floor and cleared an area for a fire and started diner. Dried meat, some canned vegetables and some hard thick cakes that Janna had made. Berries, ground up dried meat, and pine nuts all mixed into a flour base made from wheat and rye that grew wild in the valley. Some rendered fat to hold it all together, and then the whole thing had been baked in the huge stone oven that James and Aaron had built in the main area of the cave.
The result was a small, round, thick cake that was as hard as a rock, but if you worked at it, it could be chewed into bite size morsels. The best way to eat it was to drop it into a stew and let it soften before you tried to eat it.
“This would make a good hockey puck,” Conner said. He tapped his against a rock making a solid clacking noise as he did.
“Tasty though,” Molly said.
“This would make a good, tasty hockey puck,” Conner amended.
“So that's what they meant by eating the hockey puck in the game,” Aaron said.
Earth's Survivors Box Set [Books 1-7] Page 79
