by Poe, S. B.
“Where’s the one we’re looking for?” Evelyn asked from the back seat.
“It’s just on the other side. Maybe fifty yards past where this comes out.” Josh said as the SUV crept forward.
The trail through the woods was more distinct. The bus coming through a few days back had widened the path and deepened the ruts a little more but the truck and SUV pass through with little resistance. They crept up onto the asphalt and the mud smacked against the wheel wells as they drove the fifty yards to the pile of vehicles lining the road. Josh pulled beside the truck and Lori hit the button to roll down the window.
“We’ll offload into the truck. Josh and Lori if y’all could just keep a watch out from up top this shouldn’t take long.” Bridger said as he stepped out of the truck.
Cameron hopped out from the passenger’s side, still favoring his ankle but the pain was mostly gone. He reached into the bed of the truck and pulled the halberd out.
“That thing is impressive, I’ll say that.” Bridger nodded towards Cameron.
“It does well.”
“You use the axe head or the spear tip more?” Bridger asked.
“I find the tip more, uh, economical. Just a short shove instead of a long swing.”
Charlie and Evelyn walked across the road. Evelyn paused in the middle and looked up and down the road. The interstate exit stood a less than a quarter mile down the road and she could see the slope of the on ramp climbing and curving away. Orange traffic barrels stood scattered along the ramp. She turned as Bridger and Cameron joined her and they all walk over to where Charlie stood. The logo on the back of the delivery truck said Meale Market. Charlie looked at the two corpses on the ground. One was headless. He glanced around and saw the patch of hair lying in the tall grass a few yards away.
“I’m guessing this is it.” Charlie said, smiling and nodding at the dead.
“Yeah, they uh…” Bridger started.
“Yeah.” Charlie smiled. “Let’s get this done.”
Kate sat on the porch watching as Tilly came walking up the sidewalk. She had seen Raj making his way across the street earlier on his way from visiting his one armed patient. She was trying to keep track of where everyone was in her head. She knew where Bridger and that crew were or at least where they were supposed to be. She knew Scott was on bus duty. She had seen Devin and the girl, Emma Jean or something, heading back to the big house after Raj left. She hadn’t seen Jahda, Ham or Jennifer yet. Nor had she seen Ed or the big guy. She couldn’t remember his name. The shadow crossed over her face as Tilly topped the steps.
“Morning Kate.” Tilly said. “Whatcha got going on?”
“Nothing really. I just wanted to talk. About our new situation.” Kate said. “Coffee?”
“I’m good. Never was my thing.” She said as she pulled the plastic water bottle from her back pocket and took a sip.
“Have a seat.” Kate motioned to the chair opposite her.
“So our new situation?” Tilly asked as she sat down.
“The other night, when that horde showed up, you took charge. You worked all night keeping the fence clear and then rallied us all to make sure Cameron got back safely. You were great.”
“I don’t know…” Tilly started.
“You were.” Kate interrupted. “I think you need to be proud of that. I also think you need to be in charge of it.”
“In charge of what?”
“This place. Making it safe. Safer.” Kate said.
“Well, I don’t really need any one appointing me to anything like that. I’d do that anyway.” Tilly smiled.
“I know. I’m telling you because I’m telling everyone else they answer to you when it comes to stuff like that.”
“I thought Bridger was in charge of that kind of stuff?” Tilly said.
“He took charge of it after JW, but that isn’t his thing. I know that. It wasn’t JW’s thing either.”
“What is?”
“Being out there. Outside. Out front.” Kate said. “It’s hard to explain but they can’t sit behind a wall or a fence or inside a bus on a wide spot in the road. They need to be out there. I don’t know if their training made them that way or if the job they did attracted that kind of personality. Bridger managed to make it at the compound because he chopped down a forest of trees. He spent more time outside that fence last winter than anyone else. I was surprised it took him most of the summer to find an excuse to venture beyond the hilltop.”
“Maybe Evelyn’s settled him down?”
Kate laughed. “I said something similar to him this morning. But no, I think there is a reason Evelyn is out there with him though. I think he’ll have Evelyn with him every time he goes out now.”
“Why?”
“Because he can. Because she can. I’ve known Bridger a long time. He’s different with her. But this morning’s little excursion just confirmed what I already knew. He’s still gotta go out there. He’s just gonna take her with him.”
“Don’t you think he should worry about her safety? Wouldn’t he want her back here behind these walls?” Tilly asked.
“Bridger believes, and he’s probably not wrong, that she is safest if he is near.” Kate said as she shifted in her seat. “And I think we’re safer when you’re near. I saw Raj earlier, how’s his patient doing?”
“Seems okay. He hasn’t said anything about it much. He was so pleased with how well the whole surgical thing went, I think he’s afraid he’ll jinx it if he says anything until the guy has fully recovered.” Tilly said.
“Well, when Bridger and them get back, we’ll talk some more. I’d like for everyone to start getting together again, like we did back in the saloon; I just need to figure out where. I’m thinking the church, maybe.” Kate pointed towards the open land across the road. “Or out there.”
“Maybe build a fire pit, like in the beginning. Just sitting around a fire in folding chairs, keeping everyone close.” Tilly said. “But this time we got a barricade between us and the dead.”
“Yeah, not just the night air.” Kate smiled as she remembered.
“I can grab Raj and we can go check the church for folding chairs. I doubt there’s a church in the south that doesn’t have a room somewhere full of folding chairs.” Tilly stood.
“I’ll meet you over there.” Kate said and they both headed down the sidewalk.
Where Will You Go Now
Bridger leaned over as he shifted towards the back of the delivery truck. He handed the box to Charlie.
“That’s it. Last one.” Bridger said as he stepped out of the truck.
“That should last a while, although I really have no idea. Never much of a gardener much less a farmer.” Charlie smiled as he sat the box in the back of the truck.
“I have managed to nurse pepper plants to fruition, occasionally.” Cameron said meekly.
“Pretty sure that boy that lost his arm and his sidekick are farmers. Or something like it.” Bridger said. “We’ll figure it out.”
He walked back to the back of the truck and looked at the haul. It was, indeed, quite of lot. They had dozens of cartons of varieties and each carton held dozens of little paper bags of dozens of seeds. He reached into his back pocket and grabbed the walkie. He handed it up to Josh.
“Call your brother. See if someone is at the bus.” Bridger said as he pulled a bottle of water from inside the cab and opened it up. Josh flipped the button and looked at the walkie. He thumbed it a couple of times and held it out towards Bridger.
“Dead.” Josh said.
“Shit, I figured it wouldn’t last. The generator shut off sometime during the night so I don’t guess it got a charge.” Bridger said.
“Did the generator break?” Lori asked.
“Nah, just ran out of gas. Since we made the move, I got slack on keeping it full. I’ll fix that.” Bridger said.
“What if you didn’t have to do anything?” Cameron asked.
“Huh?”
“What if you did
n’t have to do anything? Just drop them on the charger and they charge. Power supplied free of charge and without needed a siphon hose.” Cameron asked.
“How?” Bridger asked.
“Solar.” Cameron said.
“Yeah, sure, sign me up. When can you install?” Bridger smiled.
“I’m serious.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“Up that hill.” Cameron pointed towards the on ramp for the interstate.
“What?”
“There are orange barrels on that road and I am almost willing to bet that somewhere, just out of our view is a trailer with a big letterbox on it and an arm extended skyward with a large solar panel on top.” Cameron said.
“Why would there be something like that up there?” Josh asked.
“Because there was a need to power the big flashing sign that told weary travelers which lane to merge into. The interstate was full of them. The use of solar power for remote operations like signs and lighting was considerably widespread before the world ended.”
“And you know this how?” Bridger asked.
“I was quite used to solar power before the current calamity, I enjoyed not having a power bill. It allowed more disposable income for my hobbies.” Cameron twisted his hand around the shaft of the halberd. “Once I had installed solar panels, the curse of recognition befell me and I could not help but notice them everywhere I ventured, but the most common place was along the roads. Signs, traffic control boards, lights. Little solar panels everywhere. ”
“So you know how to make that stuff work?” Evelyn asked.
“Indeed.”
Bridger leaned against the truck and took a pull from the water bottle. He squinted into the sun, shielding his eyes. He looked over at Evelyn, she shrugged her shoulders.
“Josh, I need you to take the truck. Take Lori and Charlie with you. Evelyn, Cameron and I will ride up there and see what’s what.” Bridger said. “When you get to the gate make sure whoever is on shift knows we don’t have a working walkie, so be watching for us.”
“Can do.” Josh said.
“Are you sure you won’t need our help?” Charlie asked.
“If it’s more than we can handle, we’ll come back and get it another day.” Bridger said.
“We’ll see y’all in a few hours.” Lori said as she climbed into the front of the truck. Charlie hopped into the back.
“Hopefully before dark, just make sure someone is there to let us in.” Bridger said.
They drove down the road back towards the edge of the woods. Josh looked in the rearview mirror.
“I guess Ed was right.” Charlie said.
“Yeah, he was. Bridger definitely likes to sight see.” Josh said as they drove on.
The SUV rolled to the top of the on ramp. There were several more orange barrels scattered across the roadway and sitting just off the side of the road was exactly what Cameron described.
“Aha.”
“So why isn’t it working right now?” Evelyn asked.
“There are a myriad of possibilities but from the abundance of fowl feces adorning the panel, my guess would be it is receiving insufficient sunlight to charge the battery.” Cameron said as they parked and got out.
“Batteries?” Bridger asked as he came around the side of the SUV.
“Yes, inside that little box.” He pointed towards a square box sitting within the frame of the mobile signboard. “We’ll find in there, at a minimum, some sort of controller to manage the power being generated by the solar array and feeding into some sort of energy storage unit. A battery.”
“What if the battery is bad?” Evelyn asked.
“Fear not, batteries are abundant. We have an entire roadway full of them at the bottom of the hill.” Cameron said.
“Car batteries?”
“Not ideal but serviceable.”
“Well, let’s get this done.” Bridger said.
The letterbox rode on a trailer that had been pulled to its current location and abandoned at some point when the world ended. The padlock on the tongue stood defiant against the first three swings with the tire iron but the fourth time Bridger swung the hasp shattered and fell off.
“Seems you’ve drawn a crowd.” Evelyn looked a little farther down the roadway, shielding her eyes against the fading sun.
“See if you can get this hooked up while I try this out.” Bridger said as he grabbed the shaft of the halberd. “If you don’t mind.”
“By all means, I would welcome your astute opinion.”
“I don’t know about all that. But we’ll give it a try.” He said as he started down the road towards the deadun.
The asphalt shimmered as the afternoon sun’s heat saturated and reflected off the surface. As Bridger moved further away from the sound of the vehicle moving into position to hook up the trailer, he could hear the clomp scrape sound of the deadun as it drug one leg a little slower than the other. It was still a few yards away when Bridger shifted the weapon in his hand. He glanced down at the axe head and gave a quick little stroke, just to get a feel for the weight. He jabbed it forward, again just to test it. He looked up at the deadun.
“Okay. Here goes.” He said as he stepped forward.
The deadun paused as Bridger came closer and a raspy groan escaped its throat. Matted hair draped down the back of its head, tied tight in a ponytail that had managed to survive intact. The man looked quite a bit older than Bridger but it was hard to tell from the amount of decay. One side of the things face had been peeled away all the way past the lip and the exposed jaw was caked with dirt, blood and rot that dripped in a constant stream down the side of its shirt. The sun had baked large blisters on the forearms that had festered, ruptured and festered again. Bridger could smell the thing long before it got close enough to deal with. He stopped walking and braced the halberd in his hands. The thing moved within striking distance and he shoved the tip hard into the things cheek. The halberd smashed the cheekbone as it pierced deep into the skull. Pop. The thing dropped to the ground as Bridger pulled the shaft back. He looked at the thing in his hand and the thing on the ground. He turned and walked back to Cameron and Evelyn who had managed to get the signboard trailer hooked up in time to watch the show.
“Well?” Cameron asked.
“Yeah, I like the spear part. Almost too easy.” Bridger said as he handed the weapon over. “May need to make something like that for myself.”
“There is an interesting looking wrought iron fence surrounding an older part of the cemetery that I happened to notice while paying my respects to our recently departed.” Cameron said.
“Interesting looking?” Evelyn asking.
“Yes. Very. I’ll show you both when we return.” Cameron said.
“Well, let’s get going. Everything hooked up? Ready to go?” Bridger asked.
“It is indeed.” Cameron said.
“Well let’s hit the road.” Evelyn said.
Ed and Vernon rounded the corner just as Tilly came out of the fellowship hall of the church carrying a folding chair under each arm. She paused briefly when she saw them.
“Where have you been?” Tilly asked.
“Why Red, were you worried about me?”
“Actually no.” She turned and kept walking.
“Where you going with those?” Vernon asked.
“Just taking them up the street.” Tilly said. “We’re setting up a fire pit. Kate wants to see if we can get everyone together, like we did out there in the woods. I think she thinks we need it.”
“For what?” Vernon said.
“Just to kind of get our heads together. Make sure everyone is on the same page.” Tilly said.
“Well, hold up. Let us grab those for you.” Vernon reached for the chairs.
“Nope. But if you wanna help, go back there and grab some more.” Tilly said.
“How many more do you need?” Vernon asked.
“Raj and I have carried a dozen, these make fourteen, so a
couple more at least. More if your friends come.”
“Do they need to come? I can talk to Emma Grace, let her know, if she needs to be there.” Vernon said. “I don’t want nobody getting in no trouble.”
“Trouble?” Tilly stopped and sat the chairs down.
“Yeah, I mean since y’all in charge now and all.” Vernon said.
“In charge. Of what?” Tilly asked.
“Here, this place. Us.” Vernon said.
