Snareville II: Circles (10 page)

“Where would we go?”

“Geneseo. Do you know where that is? Could you get there?”

“We’ve got one bus with a half tank of fuel.”

“Come with me.”

We went outside. I tuned in the radio in my rig and raised the people in Geneseo. They were the remnant population of Kewanee. Life was coming together there. The little civil war they had amongst themselves after the infection had left few survivors behind. What was left, we moved over to Geneseo to secure it from being used as a base for scavengers. It worked so far. They were a stronghold on the trade routes.

There was room. The Cock Blockers could leave today and be in a safe port within a couple of hours. I would send one of my people that knew the route and knew the folks in the settlement. Within a half hour, the street was clear, people had gathered what few belongings they still had and the bus had been brought around. There was almost three quarters of a tank of diesel. We topped it off with a five gallon jerry can we hauled extra in. I didn’t like sending Henry the Hawk with them, but he was one of my main traders with Geneseo. He knew the people best and had a girlfriend over there. Two trucks and a bus rolled out of town an hour later.

“Hope they don’t eat Henry,” Jinks said from behind her gun.

I looked at her, shook my head. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”

She grinned. “Why, you think they might?”

“Sit down,” I said as we mounted up.

We pointed the rigs out of town to the southwest. I told the group what I’d learned. I wanted them all ready on guns when we rolled into Galesburg. According to Wallace, we’d have to go nearly all the way around town, then backtrack a way into an industrial area. If we didn’t draw attention, we should be okay.

“Touched by the devil,” Cindy said. “Lived through being infected. Danny, that guy sounds like I used to be.”

I glanced at her. “You think it’s possible?”

“According to Johnson’s research, there’s a three to five percent survival rate for the Ebola virus. I was one. Tess was another. That’s why she used us.”

“But how could he lead the zeds?”

“There’s a connection with the dead when you carry the virus.” She laid her hand on her belly, as if to protect our child. “Remember I used to be able to see you in infrared? Zeds see one another that way. More than once Tess and I walked into the middle of a swarm and none of them raised a hand against us. To them, we were the same. You put a crazed brain into that situation…”

“And you’ve got a crazy king,” I said. Cindy nodded.

“We’re in trouble,” Cherry said.

“You find out how many we’re lookin’ at, boss?” Jinks asked.

“No. I don’t think Jessica’s brain was in any condition to go into full details.”

“Great. I still think they’re going to eat Henry before they get to Geneseo.”

Wallace looked over at her. “You’re just full of good cheer, ain’t you?”

Chapter 13

The yellow bus rolled out of town to the northwest. Henry sat behind the driver. The group behind him filled the interior of the bus with silence. They passed the high school. Empty; burned out. A few cars rotted in the parking lot. Glass was busted out of the windows. A few more homes on the edge of town were pretty well destroyed. What wasn’t burned down was rotting. Three years of weather with no one to take care of the building was a death sentence to the structure. What had been yards and flowerbeds waved with tall rye grass and a little prairie grass mixed in. Mother Earth was reclaiming what was hers.

In a way, it reminded Henry of a little factoid he’d learned in school: the animal most likely to survive a nuclear strike was the cockroach. Nasty, filthy little bug was the most hardy thing out there. As he watched the fields of prairie grass roll out around them now, he understood that theory much better. What people had built was being taken back by nature. The human race was close to being extinct. What was left was a mix of people like these: shell shocked and half-crazy, scavengers who didn’t answer to the law or anyone else and normal folks like his own trying to survive.

They went past the last farm on the edge of town. He heard a small sob behind him, turned and found that most of the people on the bus wept openly. Jessica sat in the front seat opposite him.

“This’s the first time in three years I’ve been out of town,” she whispered. “I forgot what it looked like past downtown.”

“It’s okay,” Henry said, “Geneseo is in pretty good shape. They’re secure. I’m sure they can set you up in some decent homes and such there.”

“We’ve gotten so small,” she said. “The world is huge and we’re so small.”

Henry didn’t know how to take that. He simply nodded agreement. They rolled over a small rise in the pavement and the drive came to a stop. A bridge crossed a small creek. Spring rains and snowmelt had swollen the little body of water at different times. Now there was a pretty good pile of debris against the structure and across the floor of the bridge.

“What now?” the driver asked as the bus idled.

Henry checked his rifle. “We’re about five miles out of town, right?”

“Closer to eight,” Jessica said.

“Okay then, we’re about a third of the way there. I don’t think there’s going to be any zeds this far out in the sticks wandering around. We’ve got to get that deck cleared off. I need help, but I’ll check it out first.”

The driver opened the door. Henry stepped out, rifle ready. He listened, but couldn’t hear much over the engine. “Shut it off,” he hissed. Being out away from a secure zone made him nervous too.

The driver’s eyes got wide. He shook his head so hard his greasy hair flipped back and forth.

Henry turned, pointed the rifle at the bus. “Either shut it off, or I kill it and we walk the next ten miles.”

Jessica stood, laid her hand on the driver’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Dale. Go ahead and shut it off.”

Dale cut off the motor. Silence raced in around them. Henry’s ears adjusted. A breeze ruffled the grass along the side of the road. Song birds sang from their nests. Near the creek, a red winged blackbird sung his distinct melody from a perch above his territory. In the far distance, he heard a dog bark. Just once. No moans. Jessica signaled for several of the other Cock Blockers to come and help. In a half-crouch they walked to the bridge. They swept the area over the top of rifle barrels.

The pile wasn’t as bad as Henry had thought. Some branches tangled around the structure and one big log. They checked around the bridge. In the weeds to the north side, they found the remains of two people. Nothing to identify them. Both skulls were crushed, as were several of the bigger bones. A butterfly flitted in, landed on one of the skulls and rested its wings. It perched on the bleached white nose, a splash of black and yellow, then flitted away.

“Okay, we need to move this along,” Henry said. “Someone got caught out in the open, I don’t want to join the group.”

“What if they come back?” a teenage girl asked.

Henry poked the pile of bleached bones with the toe of his boot. “These are really old. Probably from year one. I don’t think whatever did this is around, but we still need to move. Let’s get this bridge cleared.”

The group climbed to the deck. It was a small bridge. The creek didn’t carry much water, but it became a torrent with a lot of rain. Henry slung his rifle across his back. He still didn’t trust these people. With a lot of muscle and sweat, they worked on the pile. He’d give a lot for a chainsaw and tractor. Heck, he’d even settle for a bucksaw and a team of horses like the Mennonites used back at Snareville.

Slowly, the pile came apart. Pieces were pitched over the rail into the ditch or field. Henry noticed as they worked that more people came off the bus to help. Soon, the whole group was involved. He and Jessica were directing where to pile the brush, which branches to pull at a given time and which ones didn’t need to be bothered with. He checked his watch. An hour and a half had passed. The deck was passable. They glanced around the group, sweaty faces broke into grins as they piled back into the bus. Dale fired the vehicle up and they moved on.

Five miles down the road, they came to a roadblock. It was an intersection between two state highways. The bus traveled Route 17, which here at German Corners intersected Route 82. Tall chain link fences had been built around the small complex of a half-dozen buildings, which included two houses. Gates were built into the fence on all four sides. They were all manned by armed guards. Dale rolled to a stop.

One of the guards stepped from behind the fence and approached the bus. His partner and the other six covered his approach. With his free hand, he banged on the bus door. “Papers,” he shouted.

“We don’t have any papers,” Jessica whispered.

“Open the door. I’ll talk with them,” Henry said.

The man banged the door again, this time Dale swung it open. With open hands, Henry stepped from the bus. “I’m the only one has papers, Boss.” He pulled his wallet from his back pocket, took a small card from inside and handed it to the man.

The man looked at the card. “You’re a Raider?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Long ways from home. Who’re these people?” He pointed to the bus with the muzzle of his rifle.

“We’re out on a mission from Snareville, headed to Galesburg. We came across this group of survivors in Galva. Call themselves the Cock Blockers. We’re relocating them to Geneseo.”

“Cock Blockers? We’ve heard rumors about them. Guess it’s true. They do exist.”

They spoke a few more minutes before the gate opened. Dale pulled into the compound. Ted, the guard Henry spoke with, invited them in for a meal.

“It won’t be much. Chicken and dumplings and sandwiches, but you’re welcome all the same. We don’t find many survivors anymore.”

“Thank you,” Jessica said. “That’s gracious of you.” Tears began to roll from her eyes. “We never realized there were other people out there organized. It’s nice to see that there are survivors.”

Ted smiled and led the way into one of the buildings. It served as a communal galley and restaurant for those passing through. There was a long moment of silence as the Cock Blockers took in the sight. Clean walls and floor. Working lights. Slop sinks on the far wall to clean up in. More than a few of the group were overwhelmed. Some sat on a bench and cried. Others just stood in a daze.

Pots rattled in the kitchen as people from the little settlement came in and bustled around the stoves. Henry spoke with the leader of the small band at German Corners. He got updates from around the area and passed along what news he had of the world beyond the fence. Sarah Fine, a girl with cocoa colored skin and blue almond eyes, was head of the group. She told Henry that they had another small band of survivors pass through last week. Only about ten of them in that group. Nomads. They didn’t want to settle anywhere. They lived off what they could scavenge and moved along. A lot of shell shocked big-city people couldn’t fathom the idea of staying in one place. They were convinced the zombie hordes were right behind them. Most didn’t realize the zeds didn’t move far from the towns they were infected in. Some swarms moved like the herds of buffalo used to, but it was obvious where they were.

“We’ll have to clean this place pretty good when you leave, Henry,” Sarah said.

“Why’s that?”

“Well, we’d offer them a shower, but I don’t know it’d do a lot of good. They can burn those rags in Geneseo and get new clothes.”

For the first time, Henry became fully aware of the stench of unwashed bodies that rolled from the group. Two of the girls sat and picked lice from one another’s hair. The tattered remains of clothes probably couldn’t survive a wash if one were available.

“Yeah,” Henry said. He dug into a pocket of his fatigue shirt and withdrew a small, folded piece of paper. “This ought to cover lunch. Thank you for your kindness.”

Sarah opened the paper. A small, loose diamond winked up at her from the folds. “Yes, that’ll cover the cost. I was going to ask you for ammo, but this will do.”

Henry grinned. “I figured. Diamonds we got. Ammo can be scarce.”

Chapter 14

After lunch, they climbed back on the bus and headed north. This time, there was much chatter among the group. It was if as they put more miles between them and Galva, they gained some sense of normality. Lunch wasn’t cold from a can. The little settlement was clean and had power. Music played from speakers of a stereo. It was old. Freddy Mercury sung about his bicycle, but it was civilization.

They rolled past fields now tall with prairie grass, burned out buildings. As they passed a nursing home, they saw the windows and doors busted out. Broken glass winked across the parking lot. A skeleton hung halfway out one of the windows. A resident or a zed, no one could tell. Cars abandoned in the lot sprouted grass from under their hoods. They were two miles from town now.

As they closed in on town, they could see the fencing around the outer perimeter. Some was tall chain link, although they had had time to build earthen works like the people of Snareville did. The earthworks were topped with barbed wire and spikes of various sorts.

Where the main road came into town it passed under Interstate 80. Just beyond that was the main gate. Dale slowed the bus as he saw a swarm of zombies boil against the gate. Voices rose in alarm as people realized they wouldn’t just be able to drive through the gates. Gunfire rose in their ears.

Henry dialed in the frequency he knew on the radio. He found this swarm just seemed to come from nowhere, but it must have been shambling down Interstate 80. He signed off and unslung his rifle.

“Okay, here’s the deal. We need to help these folks out. We’ll go in from the right side, flank the zeds and start putting them down. Once we get the gate cleared, we’re in.” Henry looked around the group. No one moved. They sat silent in their seats.

“What do you mean ‘we?’ This isn’t our town,” Jessica said. “Dale, turn us around and get us out of here.”

“Like hell. Dale, stay put.” Henry looked around the group, turned to Jessica. “This is a nice, secure town. You can start over here and first sign of trouble you want to leave? I don’t think so.”