Apocalypse Aftermath (59 page)

About half an hour later they were on SR-53.  Darryl slowed down as they neared where he remembered the town’s roadblock had been, and dropped the speed further when it came into view.  Raising a hand in what he hoped was a friendly, non-threatening
gesture, he led the Dogz right up to the cars that had been parked across the road.  The chain-link fence flanking the cars had been reinforced with some piles of dirt, crumbled masonry, and broken up lumber.  It didn’t look tall enough to keep someone from climbing over, but maybe zombies might find it a problem.

Four people were standing behind the cars, and they looked nervous when Darryl finally stopped ten feet short of the cars and made a slashing motion to the side with his hand.  The Dogz behind him shut their bikes off, leaving a silence that rang in the sudden absence of all the engine noise.

“We need to talk.” Darryl called to the guards as he slid his visor up.

“What about?” a woman answered loudly.

“Not to you, to your leaders or whoever calling the shots.”

“What about?” one of the men
repeated.

Darryl sighed.  “We got us a problem that we need help with.  Way I figure it, you might be able to help, and we might can help you at the same time.  Now you gonna let us in or what?”

The guards conferred briefly, then the woman looked at him.  “Hang on.”  One of the guards had a walkie-talkie, and he started speaking into it.  Darryl glanced behind him to make sure his brothers were keeping watch.  Heads were turned in different directions, watching the sides of the road, and a few were even facing backwards to make sure behind them stayed clear too.  There was a small pile of bodies off to one side of the road about even with him, but he ignored it.  Dead zombies, ones that really were dead, didn’t bother him.

Whatever conversation was happening on the walkie-talkie, it went on for the better part of a minute before it finished.  Darryl saw the man lower it and say something to the other guards, then the man looked at him.  “You know where city hall is?”

“Straight through, stay with the road when it curve right, and in the middle of downtown ain’t it?”

“Right.” the man answered.  “That’s where you’re going.  You’ll be met there.”

Darryl nodded and waited while one of the cars was started and moved aside to clear a lane.  The noise returned as all the Dogz fired their bikes back up, then they were rolling again.  Watkinsville was classic small town America, buildings spaced comfortably apart with plenty of grass and trees surrounding them.  As they turned onto Main Street, the lots were a little closer together, but the buildings still didn’t fill them and it still looked rural.

They saw people in a lot of the buildings they passed, visible on the front porches or through the windows of the stores they were occupying.  They passed a construction
pickup hauling a long flat trailer loaded down with rubble going the other way, the driver and others who were riding along on the trailer looking at the bikers curiously as they went past.  No one seemed to be on foot, and except for that and the general lack of traffic, it all almost looked normal.

City Hall changed that.  The parking lot was jammed with vehicles, all trucks of some
sort.  The first floor windows had been reinforced with lumber driven into the bricks with screws or something, and a number of people were standing out front in a small group.  They all turned as the Dogz roared up.  Darryl took one look at the parking lot, which wasn’t that big to begin with, and just stopped in the street.

He swung off the bike and left the helmet resting on the seat.  As the other Dogz
braked and shut down again, Darryl gestured to a couple.  “Stick, Tank, Low, y’all with me.  Everyone else, hang tight.”

With the chosen three following, Darryl headed for the front of the building.

“Heard you folks have a problem.” a tall woman with graying hair said when Darryl was almost to the sidewalk.  He noted they were all armed, but then again, so were the Dogz.  Guns weren’t alarming anymore it seemed.  He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but it did have a certain measure of reassurance.  After everything that had happened, who knew what might be next.

“We got some sick people back at our house.” Darryl said, not seeing any point in wasting time with pleasantries.  “We looking for a doctor or someone who can help.  We got us a lot of
pharmacy drugs, but no way to figure what’s wrong or how to use them to help.”

“Sick people?” one of the group asked, sounding alarmed.

“Normal sick.” Darryl explained.  “Fever, sweats, diarrhea.  Been that way all morning.  They all breathing; they ain’t zombies.  We seen people turn into zombies, and this ain’t what they got.  They woulda already turned by now.”

“And you brought it here?”

“We think it food poisoning or bad water or something like that, but we don’t know how to fix it.  If we right, it ain’t contagious.  No one who been around them all morning coming down with anything.”

“How ill are your people?” the woman asked.

“Bad.” Darryl admitted.  “We got us one girl who worked in a doctor’s office.  She got a little training, but she in way over her head even though she doing the best she can.  She saying they all starting to dehydrate from it; they can’t keep anything we give them down.  If she right, people gonna start dying in a day or two.”

“Doctors are pretty scarce.  We only got two here, and one’s technically just a vet.”

“We’ll take whatever we can get.”

“Now hold on a—” one of the men said, but the woman reached out and touched him on the arm.

“Tim, let me handle this.” she said to him, then turned back to look at Darryl as the other man fell silent.  “I’m the mayor, Dottie Merrill.  I’m sure we can find a way to help you and your people.”

Darryl swallowed a little, forcing himself to stay calm.  “We run into some of your people a few times.  They said there was things you having problems with.”

“Yeah, I know you’ve been around some.” Tim said quickly.  “Now that you’re trying to paddle upstream you suddenly want to be reasonable.”

“We ain’t got no choice.” Darryl said, keeping his voice level with effort.  Just as they were short on time, neither could he afford pride.  Not at the expense of people dying.  His people.  “I heard y’all needed men who can work.  On your fence, I guess on other things
too.  Whatever it is, everyone I brought with me can work all day with a couple of breaks thrown in.  We get our folks sorted out and you’ll get thirty men a day until you done.  I talking weeks if necessary.”

“How are we supposed to believe you’ll stick around to work after we get your sick back on their feet?” Tim asked.

“Tim—” the mayor began, but he shook his head.

“Dottie, it’s a reasonable question.  They’ve already turned down requests to cooperate several times.  Dr. Early is pushing sixty-five and has a bad leg.  Putting him
in danger puts us
all
in danger, because as nice a guy as Danny is, he’s only a vet.  There’s a limit to what he can fix if the patient only has two legs.”

“We’re willing to turn over our bikes and stay here for as long as the deal requires.” Darryl said.  “We rode thirty minutes, past zombies, to get here.  You think we’re going to walk that back without a damn good reason and you’re wrong.”

“We’re still taking a risk.”

“We can’t pay upfront; our people are dying
now.” Darryl said, reminding himself of the stakes.  He had to stay cool, had to put a reasonable face forward.  There wasn’t room for argument and hostility right now.

The mayor moved in front of Tim.  “What we’re really having a problem of our own with,” Merrill said smoothly, “is our supply situation.  Food, to be specific.”

Darryl considered that for a moment.  “There thousands here ain’t there?”

“That’s right.  Over two thousand, though we’ve been too busy to take a proper census.” a younger man next to and behind the mayor said.

“We can spare some food, but I don’t know how far it gonna go trying to stretch for that many.” Darryl replied.  “Even if we gave up everything we got so far.”  In fact, if he remembered Jody’s last figures, the two months of food the Dogz had on hand would probably only last the town a week.  Maybe.  And he wasn’t even sure if he had the math right in his head.

“We’ve been considering another plan, but we haven’t been sure how to make it work.” Merrill told him.  “You and your people might be what we need though.”

“I listening.”

The mayor sighed and seemed to gather herself.  “We
are
really busy with the fence, and a number of other projects are on tap once we get the security situation settled.  At our current rate of construction, we’re looking at a couple of weeks, minimum, to get the town sealed up.  The problem is, even doing some triage and rationing with the food on hand, it doesn’t appear we’ll have food to last that long.”

“How short are you?”

“We might make it another week, if we’re careful and tighten the rationing to the bone, but even if we do, it still doesn’t change that we’re going to need a lot more to last past that.”

“A lot more.” the only other woman in the Watkinsville group said with a nod.

“There ain’t no . . . no, I guess there ain’t.” Darryl started to ask before correcting himself.  Watkinsville proper had a couple of small local grocers in and around the town, but no chain supermarkets.  The Wal-Mart was over near 78, the Kroger a couple miles outside of the town to the south, and that was it.  The Dogz usually brought their party supplies in from Atlanta when they came down, or rode out to the Wal-Mart or Kroger when they ran low.

Both those spots had been stripped clean, and the Dogz hadn’t gotten the lion’s share either.  They’d pulled out quite a bit, but they hadn’t been the only ones grabbing since that fateful Friday.  The food could be scatted all over the place by now.  Getting some anywhere else quickly meant . . .

“Oh fuck.” Darryl almost muttered.  “You thinking about Athens?”

“Our problem is one of available labor and how long we’ve got to fix the food situation.” Merrill said.  “We’re still seeing a lot of zombies coming down out of Athens,
plus the rest of the area, and it’s tying up most of our people just to keep them out.  We’ve got patrols running the circuit and others circulating through town, and they rarely go more than an hour or so without encountering problems; even inside the fence.

“A lot of the people who’ve come in are
injured, in shock, or too old or too young to be really helpful for many of the things we need to do.  It’s hurting us even to find people for supply runs into the surrounding area, and often they come back with just enough food to buy us another day.  Sometimes less.”

“Why don’t you just hold off on the fence?” Darryl asked her, working hard to keep his tone from drifting into accusation or challenge.

“Because if we get the fence finished, that’ll free up hundreds that don’t have to guard the perimeter.” one of the men said.  Glancing at him, Darryl noticed a badge was pinned on his belt next to a holstered pistol.  “The construction teams are doubling as guards too, so like it or not we need them in place to both work and guard.  With how many zombies we’re having to deal with, if we slack off on patrols the streets are going to be covered in them bastards in no time.”

“You could seal up some buildings maybe.” Darryl tried.

“We considered it, but the safest option is to keep them completely out of the town.  If we let them get a foothold, we could be split up by buildings and blocks and people will start starving to death while trapped.  We don’t have any places big enough to put both people and supplies together.  Not in the numbers we’re dealing with.  We’ve got to keep the town safe for distribution.”

“Before the news dropped out, word was Athens was already crawling with zombies.” Darryl said, trying to think.  There were other towns in the area, but getting to them and back would take a while.  Quick runs
in and out might not be an issue, maybe, but he knew without even having any actual clue as to the real numbers Watkinsville needed a lot of food.  Fast.  And the Dogz couldn’t afford to wait either, because if Vivian was right, their sick didn’t have long.

What news Darryl knew had been coming hadn’t been too focused on smaller towns.  The Dogz hadn’t scouted that far out because they hadn’t needed to.  Even if a way to get to one and back quickly, with food, could be found; there was no guarantee those towns weren’t already having their own problems.  Survivors in those areas could have stripped the stores by now, or there could be zombies infesting them.
  Or worse; both.  It could be a big waste of time none of them could afford to spend without result.

Athens was close, but it was dangerous.  That same danger probably ensured the stores there hadn’t been looted.  Who had time to do that when the streets were a
macabre horror show buffet?  Zombies were an issue around here, but nothing like some of the images coming out of Athens had shown.  Not even close.

“Have you scouted Athens?” Darryl asked as his thoughts raced, trying to find a solution.  The Dogz hadn’t bothered getting very close to the town; they’d had plenty of other, safer, pickings that hadn’t required chancing the university town.