Fire Birds (6 page)

“Cute gun,” I said. “Is that a toy?”

“I’ve made seventeen kills with it,” she said as she brushed past me to the front door. “How’s that for cute?”

She went out the front door and crossed by the front window on her way down the porch. Grant got out of the van and went up to the gate. Sara made her way down the long driveway without a word, and Grant stood at the gate and waited.

I looked out at the front of the property. The morning sun was turning the rain from the night before into steam. It was going to be an especially hot day thanks to all the humidity. The storm had knocked down a lot of leaves and small limbs. It looked like some of the cucumber vines had fallen down from the trellis I’d made for them. There were two empty plastic flowerpots in the front yard that had blown off the porch.

I didn’t make any coffee. I wanted to watch to make sure everything went smoothly between Sara and Grant. She stopped by the gate. Their voices were loud a few times, but never loud enough so I could understand words. Grant was angry. I knew he would be. I just hoped he wasn’t angry enough to harm her. I didn’t want to go out there and aggravate the situation.

Finally, Sara turned her back on him and started back up the driveway. He kept standing there, calling after her. When she got as far as the porch, he climbed back into the van, cranked it, and then backed away. He disappeared from sight, and I went out on the porch with Sara.

“He’ll be okay,” she said.

Then I heard the van returning, engine roaring. He came flying in, cut hard to the left, and crashed through the gate.

“Dammit!” I yelled. “It wasn’t even locked!”

His door opened, and he climbed out.

“It wasn’t even locked, asshole!”

“I’ve come to get her!” he yelled. “Sara, you’re coming back with me, baby!”

“Son of a bitch,” I stepped off the porch and went out to meet him.

“Don’t you hurt him, Grant!” Sara yelled from behind me.

“I knew this would be a thing,” I said.

“Sara! Sara, I love you, babe!”

“What the hell, man?!” I yelled. “You can’t open a friggin’ gate?”

“I don’t care about your gate, bro,” he said. We were closing the distance between us fast. “All I want is Sara.”

“You’ll care plenty when every zombie in the county shows up and–“ I looked out toward the road. “See? There’s one now. How long have you been out here making a racket?”

He stopped so quickly that he actually skidded in the gravel. He looked over his shoulder, his mouth hanging open, and stared out at the shambling creature by the mailbox.

“Dumbass,” I said.

He turned back toward me. His eyes narrowed. He took a step forward and hit me in the forehead. It was hard enough to make me stumble backward, but nowhere near as hard as I knew he was capable. He had hesitated. He wasn’t committed to the punch, and I figured he wasn’t committed to the fight. Or maybe he just didn’t know how to fight. I couldn’t say I knew how, but I had clubbed enough zombies to know that when you hit them, you should really damn well hit them.

“Don’t you hurt him, Grant!”

Dammit, I wish she would quit saying that.

“Show some faith, would ya?” I said mostly to Sara but also to myself.

Grant stepped in again and drew a fist back. I ducked down and ran forward, ramming my shoulder into his mid-section. He tried to keep his balance but went down onto his back. I straddled him like a kid on a playground and pushed the side of his face into the driveway. He kept slapping my head. There was nothing manly about either of us.

His eyes rolled up and widened. He said, “Dude.”

I looked up too, following his line of sight. There was a corpse clothed in brown, oily rags standing right there drooling down on us. I started to get up, but a dark blur came over my head. Then the creature was hit in the face with a hoe. Sara came in from behind me and took another swing. The thing fell sideways, and Sara beat its head to mush. I got to my feet and there were three more coming up the driveway.

“Don’t use your guns,” she said. “It’ll just make it worse.”

I ran over to the fence for the garden and grabbed a rake that was propped up there. Sara was already on her way out to meet the others, and Grant was right beside her, unarmed. He reached over to touch her shoulder, but she jerked away.

“I’m really mad at you right now, Grant!” I heard her say.

He stopped, but she continued on. When she was close enough to the nearest zombie, she swung her hoe. Grant ran over and got into his van. I thought he was going to leave us, but instead, he backed over the other two creatures. Then he pulled up farther into the driveway and got out again.

“Hurry!” he called out to me. “Let’s put the gate back before more get in!”

I ran over and helped him pick up the gate while Sara held off the closest zombie. Several more creatures were coming down the road. They would continue to trickle in for a while. The gate was bent, but we were able to prop it up across the opening then pull the van against it to brace it.

“It should hold,” I said. “When they move on, I’ll fix it properly.”

We all stood next to the van breathing hard, sweating, and staring at the undead on the other side of the gate. There were twelve of them right there, but there were more coming in.

“Nice,” I said. “I haven’t had problems out here for a while. Way to go, Grant.”

“Stop it,” Sara said. “You said the gate would hold. Let’s just go back to the house and sort this out.”

“What if it doesn’t hold?” I said. “What if they break through and mess up the garden? What then? Grant?”

“Stop it!” Sara said.

“No,” I said. “We’re going to have to be quiet and out-of-sight for a while until they leave. How am I supposed to tend the garden? How am I supposed to do anything? It’s like a thousand degrees, and we have to stay cooped up in the house!”

“Don’t be such a baby,” Grant said flippantly.

“Son of a bitch!” I yelled. The creatures all answered me with howls.

“Enough!” Sara yelled. “We’ll sort it out inside!”

She stomped off toward the house. Despite my anger and even though I knew she was angry too, I couldn’t help think about how great she looked walking away. The grip of that pink pistol poking out of her jeans just made it even more adorable. Grant must have been thinking the same thing, because when I looked over at him, he had this silly grin on his face.

“Get in the house, dumbass,” I said.

Grant followed Sara up to the house. I stopped in the garden to re-tie the cucumber vines. I wanted to eat some breakfast, but I planned to come outside right after that to pick the vegetables that needed picking. The creatures were out there, and they would continue to come in for a while, so I didn’t see the harm of doing it at that time.

I came in the house about fifteen minutes later. I didn’t see Sara, but Grant was slouched in my favorite chair looking through one of my Playboys. I frowned at him and went upstairs to wash up in my basin and find a shirt to wear. I walked past Sara’s bedroom and found her sitting on her bed, her arms crossed, and staring at the floor. I stopped in the doorway.

“Do you want some breakfast?” I said. “I’m going to eat something.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I shrugged, “Not your fault.”

“Grant left Julio and Christine at the cabin without a vehicle,” she said.

“Why the hell would he do that?” I asked.

“He planned to go back after he got me.”

“Why didn’t they come with him?”

“He didn’t tell them he was leaving.”

She didn’t come out and say it, but I knew she wanted to go back for them. She wanted me to be the one to bring it up.

I sighed, “They’ll be fine.”

She stood, “What if they need to get away quickly? How will they do it?”

“They’re right on the lake,” I said. “Aren’t there any boats nearby? We’re probably in worse shape than they are.”

“But–“

“We can’t leave, Sara. Our exit is blocked thanks to your boy down there.”

“I thought we might be able to cross the pasture in the back and cut through the woods to that other farm. Maybe we could find a car over there.”

I shook my head, “The infected have come through that way before. I have the fence fixed back there, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t in the woods right now trying to find a way across. I’m sorry, but Julio and Christine will have to fend for themselves, at least for a day or two.”

“Christine should get her period tomorrow or the next day for sure.”

I looked down at the floor then back at Sara.

“I’ll probably get mine about the same time,” she said.

“Shit.”

“We need to go now while we can,” she said. “Or…I need to go. Julio and Christine don’t have enough supplies for a long stay inside that cabin. We stored a lot of our supplies in the van, and Grant didn’t unload it before he left. There haven’t been any infected out there that we’ve seen, but they might start showing up when Christine gets her period. If I stay here, it’ll get bad here. You know that.”

“We’re not in any danger here,” I said. “Not now. I’ve fortified the property. I have plenty of supplies spread all over in every building. We’re okay here for a couple of weeks at least so long as we don’t run out of water.”

“What about Christine and Julio?”

“They know about the menstrual thing, right? They’ll know to go someplace safe for a while. They’ll probably get out on the lake–a houseboat or something.”

“Grant said he was willing to go with me.”

“Grant’s an idiot,” I said. “That’s not jealousy talking. He really is an idiot. I don’t see how he’s made it this long. I don’t want you going anywhere with him.”

“You don’t know him well enough to call him that,” she said. “He made some bad decisions this morning, but that’s because he was emotional. Cut him some slack. I remember you making some bad moves when you got too emotional over Jen.”

She had me there. I smirked and shook my head, “Well, I can see how you might make a man do crazy things. You’ve had almost every man in Clayfield stirred up for months.”

“We have to go,” she said solemnly. “We have to go get them and bring them back here.”

“Fine,” I said reluctantly. “I have bug out bags packed. There’s one in every room. Grab one and let’s go.”

She came over and hugged me. “Do you regret that I came back?”

“Not yet.”

Grant carried an axe and the bug out bag, which was a large backpack containing food, water, first aid, and other survival supplies. Sara carried a shotgun, her little pink job, and a hunting rifle with scope slung on her back. I carried a splitting maul and smaller backpack with a gallon of water and extra shotgun shells. We all had holstered side arms as well.

We went out the back door, and when we crossed the fence into the back horse pasture, I turned to face them.

“We are going due north. I’ve been in those woods a couple of times looking for wild food and–“

“Like squirrels?” Grant said.

“No,” I said. “Not like squirrels. We’ll travel a few hundred feet, then there will be a creek. It’s about ten feet deep and about twenty across. Then a few hundred feet more and we’ll be in an old soybean field. The weeds are probably pretty tall by now, but just keep your eyes on the silo. That will lead you to the barns and house. If we get separated–”

“We won’t,” Sara interrupted.

“If we do, we’ll meet up at the silo and go from there. Let’s try to stay together. Grant and I will do as much of the killing as we can with the maul and axe. Let’s not shoot unless we have to. Are you ready?”

They both nodded.

“I’ll look out for you, babe,” Grant said, putting his hand on her shoulder. Sara jerked away.

“Fast as we can.” I said. “Okay?”

They nodded again.

I took in a deep breath, let it out, and set off in a jog across the pasture. I still had one horse left out there, but I never paid any attention to it. It had taken care of itself all this time. Alone, it had not been able to keep the pasture eaten down, and the grass was about waist high.”

I heard it nicker from somewhere out-of-sight.

“You have a horse out here?” Grant said, huffing behind me.

“Somewhere,” I said.

“You can’t let him eat all these fescue heads, bro, he’ll founder.”

“I have no idea what you just said, but I can’t monitor what he eats.”

“Dude, this is bad for him. Have you noticed his feet splitting? Is there any bloating?”

“I just told you, I don’t notice anything with the damn horse,” I said. “Now stay focused; we’re about to cross into the woods.”

Most of the fencerow was swallowed up in honeysuckle and cluttered with young poplar and mulberry saplings, but the spot where we had crossed was relatively clear of vegetation. We each climbed the fence in turn then stood there a moment staring into the woods. I let my eyes adjust to the reduced light. There were spots, here and there, ahead of us where an opening in the canopy allowed bright pools of light to touch the ground, but it was mostly shaded. The majority of the trees were deciduous and large–thirty to seventy-five years old. There weren’t any old growth forests around in this part of the state anymore. The last of those trees had been cut in the 1950s. It would be a stretch to even find a tree more than one hundred years old, and if it were found it would likely be sold to a lumber mill. Relatively speaking, however, this was an old woods. Most of the newer growth was around the perimeter, but sometimes a sapling could be found struggling to find light under the umbrella of its grandfathers. I’d always loved spending time in the woods, but since Canton B, being there scared the shit out of me. The things were in there; I knew they were. I just couldn’t see them yet.