Life Among The Dead (Book 2): A Castle Made of Sand (35 page)

“Hey, boss, why don’t you sit this out for a
bit?” Oz addresses Dan.

“We need to get this done,” he responds, his
vision going double when he looks at the large man.

“We will. Everyone is going to take turns
resting. You first.”

Before Dan can protest further, he is being
helped to the ranch.

“Will he be ok?” Heather asks.

“Probably just exhaustion and stress making
him sick,” Carla tries to assure her friend. “Let’s keep
working.”

Dan sits up on the couch when the others
enter the den. A wool blanket is over his shoulders, and though it
irritates the painful goose bumps all over his flushed body, he
feels he can’t live without it. He feels much better having rested,
much more cognizant. “My turn to go back out?”

“It’s all done, honey,” Heather says, sitting
next to her husband. She touches his burning skin and he notices
she almost recoils from the heat.

“Really? What time is it?”

“Must be around 6 PM,” Carla estimates.
“We’ll set sail in the morning.”

“Good.” Dan nods. “The more daylight the
better. Sorry I didn’t help more. I don’t know what’s wrong with
me. I never get sick.”

“It’s fine.” Heather rubs the top of his head
softly. “Have you eaten?”

“No.” he says emphatically. “I’m still too
nauseous.”

The three boxes Dan had moved to locate his
uncle’s secret letter catch Oz’s eye, upon the sides he recognizes
the words he had seen on the isolation trailer:
The
Rosie
Parson’s
Project
. “What’s this?”

“Bruce’s old papers,” Dan answers. “I still
haven’t gone through them.”

“Oh, but the porn you knew all about,”
Heather teases.

“What are you guys doing?” Dan asks when they
kneel by the troves to investigate the old files.

“Snooping,” Carla replies.

Oz chuckles at her honesty. “Who’s Rosie
Parson?”

“An old flame of my uncle. She died before
they could marry. Some sort of heart condition. The dam
is--was--named after her. He did a lot of charity work in her
name.”

“I’ll say,” Oz confirms, bringing Dan an open
folder. “Look familiar?”

It takes a moment for his eyes to focus on a
photograph of a young girl clipped inside the manila cover. The
flash of the camera used created a glare on a sheet of plastic that
stood in front of her at the time. “Hey, that’s the chick that bit
me!”

“Her name was Eve Snyder. She was born
without any immunities. Your uncle donated a bubble--actually a
rather large mobile home for her to live in. She had it bad.
Permanent isolation is rare.

“These boxes are filled with progress
reports, letters, and thank you cards, all addressed to the Rosie
Parson’s Project,” Carla announces.

“He kept it anonymous,” Heather says with
wonder.

“Bruce said he didn’t want every schmuck with
a sob story knocking on his door for a handout.”

“Holy crap!” Carla leaps to her feet, holding
a stack of receipts. “He started the foundation! It’s a free camp
for troubled kids that I went to as a girl!”

Her mind wanders, thinking about all the
lessons she learned at that camp; self-reliance, and how to avoid
bad choices. She has often wondered how different her life would
have been had her mother not run out on her and Sid, forcing Carla
to drop out of school to go to work. She found herself straddled
with a mortgage and bills at such a young age. Her only recourse
was to seek employment in the only two fields a dropout could get
in the region--waitressing and stripping. It covered the household
expenses, put food on the table, clothes on Sid’s back, and
presents under the tree. She fought like hell to give her brother a
good childhood, and, as she puts it, became a mom without the
stretch marks.

Once Sheriff Carla has a second to collect
her thoughts, she continues to scan the papers. “He was planning to
branch off to help the homeless.”

“My dad told me about that,” Dan explains.
“It wasn’t going to be a shelter, but an actual place for them to
live until they got back on their feet and working. The project got
held up by red tape. So many of them are running from criminal
charges, or AWOL from the military, he needed to get them pardoned.
Bruce said he just wanted to be able to walk down the street
without people asking for spare change.”

“Why did he make so little of it?” Heather
asks. “He was doing so many great things.”

“Yeah,” Carla pipes in. “I feel like a saint
when I give a bell ringer a buck at Christmas.”

“It was for her. For Rosie.” Dan looks down
at the three boxes. “He hated that someone with such a good heart
was taken from the world by heart problems.”

“I knew there was something special about
him,” Carla says, wiping her eyes. She composes herself. “We all
need to eat and rest up for tomorrow. The shed had a few boxes of
emergency rations and astronaut food.”

With encouragement, Dan eats what he can
stomach before they all turn in.

The survivors felt compelled to bunk together
in the den in sleeping bags around the fire. Frustrated groans
disturb Dan, and he sits up to see a familiar form looking through
the boxes in the fire’s dying glow.

“Bruce?”

“Don’t even talk to me!” the ghost turns
,
holding up one of his magazines. “I let you paw through my jerkoff
rags, but not my personal papers!”

“Sorry.”

“Not cool.”

“Did you just come back here to bitch?” Dan
asks. “Shouldn’t you be up in heaven playing billiards with Santa
and the Easter Bunny?”

“Those fucks?” his uncle scoffs. “Santa, for
one, is a douchebag who just takes credit for other people’s good
deeds. And you try shooting stick with that rascally rabbit. Every
time you turn around he’s hiding the fucking balls… I came down
here to wish you luck tomorrow. It’ll be a bear but you’ll pull
through, be in the gulf before dusk. I have faith in you... and a
small wager in your favor. Turns out heaven is a lot like Vegas,
just without the nearby brothels and two dollar buffets.”

“I was looking at the map you drew of the
river’s new path. I think we can pull off where Waterloo was, get
to land quicker.”

“What’re you stupid or something?” Bruce
asks. “I said take it the entire way.”

“We have people in…”

“You’re no good to them drowned. Kings don’t
drown. There’s too much risk in trying to stop.”

“Ok,” he surrenders, if only to shut Bruce
up.

“Honey?” Heather sits up, cradling her
husband’s shoulders. “Who are you talking to?”

Bruce is gone. Dan has to wonder if he was
dreaming or going insane. “No one, babe.”

##

The flat bottomed craft rest upon a series of
logs, each of even diameter, with several more aligned in front at
the intervals dictated by the deceased designer. This is to be the
method of launching; the craft will be pushed over the rollers,
along with the many pontoons beneath it. The shed the materials
were stored in has become the cabin, and fifty-two steel clamps
that held it to a foundation now secure it to the deck.

“He thought of everything,” Carla tells Dan,
who sees the finished product for the first time. “There’s even a
camping toilet.”

Items had been moved in before the sun
rose--weapons and ammo, what little food they have and dry
clothes--anything they feel they may need for the voyage and
ultimate arrival. Heather and the boys are already on board. She
has them in their stroller with the wheels locked, and she lashes
the carrier with bungee cords for added security.

Oz has a truck tied to the back of the
vessel, as per Bruce’s orders. He wishes he hadn’t left Mater in
town, but this one will do nicely. He will begin pushing them
toward the hill, and then be in charge of lowering them down it
while Dan and Carla move the logs they pass over back to the
bow.

“We’re almost there!” Dan calls out. He was
feeling much better than yesterday after getting some rest, but now
he feels as if his blood is boiling. His head swoons as he and
Carla climb onboard.

Putting the truck in park and setting the
emergency brake, Oz also boards their life boat. A machete in hand,
he heads aft. He gives the others time to hunker down in
preparation for the plunge, then a single chop severs the mooring
lines. The big man must grab the rails once gravity takes them into
the swift current of the river they will take south.

The jolting entrance into the Charles almost
sends Oz over the side, but he has his strong arms locked around
the sturdy railing that surrounds the deck. They are traveling at a
quick and surprisingly smooth clip. He acquires his sea legs and
calls out to the other crew members, “Everyone all right?”

“We’re good!” Carla answers after giving her
shipmates a once over.

The river has filled in the trough it had cut
long before the dam was erected; New Castle is almost completely
under water. Before long, they are passing the spot where their
wall once stood, and at the rate they are moving they should be
passing Waterloo in just a few hours.

Using two of the long poles that took the
raft down the hill, Carla and Oz explore the depth of the river and
find they can’t even touch the bottom yet. These poles are how they
will steer when they reach the stretches predicted to be shallow.
All eyes look ahead for obstructions and possible dangers. Though
Bruce had implemented a bumper system of old tires around the
entire craft, they’d rather not test them unnecessarily.

“According to Bruce, the city will give us
the most trouble,” Dan reports with slurred words. “But the Charles
should widen just after Gaines. It’ll be slower, keep us to the
right… I mean starboard. We’ll go aground, and…”

“I thought your uncle said to take it all the
way to the Gulf?” Heather questions him.

“I need to get you and the boys to Raleigh.”
He has difficulty focusing on her face, and the hardly turbulent
water feels like shooting the rapids to him.

“We will,” she assures him. “We’ll paddle to
shore from the Gulf and find a ride back north.”

“We have to…”

“Boss, I’m with Heather on this,” Oz says.
“No one wants to get there more ’n me. My kids are there…”

“And, my brother,” Carla adds.

“Everyone we care about. But we know they’re
safe. Raleigh is cleaned out, and all the dead that attacked our
town have been wiped out.”

“No! We need to get there as soon as
possible!” The king makes his stand on wobbly legs. His concern for
those in attendance is clouding him to the possible dangers of his
decision. “I am the captain and I say we land.”

Glances are exchanged at that, because Dan
has never pulled rank before. He never even wanted to be the
leader. Trying to stop could be catastrophic, and they know it
shouldn’t be risked.

“No,” Heather belays the order. “We continue
south as planned.”

The sting of the mutiny is bad enough, but
for his own wife to rescind his command is comparable to a kick in
the groin.

A figure leaning against the shed adds his
two cents to the debate, yet only the delirious king can see or
hear him. “I told you when I taught you to play chess, the queen is
the most powerful and precious piece on the board.”

“Fuck you.”

“Honey?” Heather is shocked.

“Not you. I’m talking to Bruce.”

“Bruce?” Oz asks. “The dead guy I carried to
New Castle?”

“He might be dead, but he’s still a pain in
my ass.” Dan enters the cabin to rest his shivering body. A cramp
is forming in his stomach that is making it impossible to remain
standing.

##

Drifting in an out of consciousness, while
the raft likewise drifts along the river, Dan is racked with severe
pains in his abdomen. Between the intense, stabbing bouts, he hears
voices he can’t place.

“They say human bites are the worst…”

“Perhaps he picked something up from that
girl?”

“That’s what worries me.”

The pain and confusion abates, and he feels
better having rested. He’s getting his second wind, or his third.
The world clarifies for the exhausted Dan, who lies on the floor of
the shed. Someone had removed the boys from the enclosure, and he
hopes he didn’t scare them with his pain-induced wailing.

Oz’s voice emboldens him to get to his feet,
“Heads up. Here comes Waterloo.”

Despite his crew’s treason against him, they
will all fare better if he joins the effort. The city will be
treacherous and his only aim is to keep everyone onboard alive.
He’d prefer not to take his wife and kids through the dangerous
world, but since that isn’t an option he only wishes to make the
journey as short as possible. If the consensus is to reach the Gulf
then that’s what they’ll do, together.

A guiding pole in hand, Dan takes in the
sight of his old home through burning eyes. The streets are now
flowing brooks and channels that babble over cars like rocks in a
stream. The team passes over the old levy, then around skyscrapers
and cars that hadn’t been washed out in the flood. The river’s new
path is straight through the city, and its current picks up where
the water must squeeze between buildings and other structures.
Debris from the torrent has created rapids and eddies they must
negotiate, and one stands out as ironic--the massive plaster cow
that once stood outside of Lindsey’s creamery.

The raft rocks from the swells and falls of
the current, while the bottom thuds against unseen dangers.
Submerged rubble that remains of this lost civilization. The crew
gets the hang of how to handle the fast-moving water, passing the
hospital where Oz once worked, and where Vincent was born. They
proceed to the recruit depot, where Dan had begun that dreadful day
so long ago.