Snareville II: Circles (21 page)

“Where’d you get these?” Henry asked as he lifted the silver shotgun from its case. He worked the pump and the action slid open. Inside, the guts of the thing sparkled chrome.

“When the Navy put out from Great Lakes, they sent everything they had in their warehouse. Some of it’s here, some up at the Arsenal. That there is a Mossburg 500 twelve gauge. Stainless steel construction, chrome lined barrel and mechanicals. The stock and forearm are polymer. They’re one hundred percent waterproof and have a nine round capacity.”

Henry grinned. “I’ll take two.”

“I figured you’d like ’em.” Charlie smiled. “You want I should wrap ’em up, or you want to take ’em with?”

Henry laughed. “I’ll take ’em with.”

They walked into the back room so Henry could stock up on ammo. He’d come later with the trailer to load things up. He signed out the weapons, slung one shotgun over his back, dropped the pistols into the holsters and stepped outside, shotgun in hand. It wasn’t a far walk to his house and it was a nice morning.

Coming down the street toward him was the grey haired man he had seen on his way out to Plow Ridge. For someone who looked to be in his sixties, the man moved pretty well. They met in the parking lot of the convenience store.

“You’d be Henry Hawk then?” the older man asked.

“That’s right.”

“I’m Horse.” He held out his hand. Henry took it in his. “My name was Bill Heffernon, but from my first day in country, it became Horse. Been that ever since.”

“Nice meeting you, Horse. What can I do for you this early in the morning?”

Horse looked Henry up and down. Took in the new guns; the crisp uniform. “You’re going out?”

Henry cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Take me.”

Henry looked at the man: long grey hair pulled back in a braid, full beard, face seamed by years on a bike, thick barrel chest. He didn’t look like the type who’d do well on a month’s long patrol. The surprise and doubt must have registered on Henry’s face.

“I know I look like hell. I look like I couldn’t make it across my yard, let alone out in the boonies for any length of time. But a lifetime ago, you could drop me off in the bush a hundred miles from base and I’d walk back in with a dozen scalps on my belt.”

“Okay, tell me.”

Horse told him about his tours in Vietnam. His first week in country saw the launch of the Tet Offensive. He hadn’t even been sent to his firebase and he had to help retake Saigon. He watched people he’d flown in with get shot to ribbons because they didn’t know what to do. A month at his base and he’d been on two patrols who were shot up because they didn’t know the lay of the land and had walked into ambushes. He told these things quietly, not with arrogance. A tear fell silently from his eye from time to time as he told how he transferred to a unit who sent him out as a LRRP: Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol.

“I got tired of good men dying because they didn’t know what was out there, so I went huntin’ Cong. I was good at it. I know how to observe and make reports. I hear tell you was out for a year and a half before you found this place, Sergeant. I’ve been out for three. Before that, I was an outlaw for twenty. You can use me.”

“I’ve been in Baghdad and Kandahar. I’ve done my share of killin’ and given my share of orders, Horse. I expect them to be followed. If you can do that, I’ll take you along.”

Horse snapped a rusty salute. “Yes, Sergeant, I believe that I can.”

Hawk handed the old warrior a shotgun. “Good. You ride point with me. Let’s get you fully geared out.” They turned back to the armory.

Chapter 30

The patrol was a week gone. Hawk was sending his reports at the end of each day. They were good. Brief. To the point. The man wasn’t wordy, but he knew what was important. It took them two days to get out of Peoria. They’d driven in on Route 29 and found the bridge over the Illinois River to be packed with dead vehicles. It was a burned out shell in general. Not much in the way of civilization left. What the zeds hadn’t killed off, the infighting between different groups had finished. They took side streets and drove over the skeletal remains of the population.

I figured the whole group was tight as a guitar string as they picked ways through town. Our illustrious government nuked both Champaign and Macomb three years ago in an effort to stop the outbreak. A year and a half later, we evacuated what was left of Chicago before the Navy dropped three Hades bombs on the city to eradicate the zombie population there. We knew those towns were cinders. The devastation in Peoria wasn’t a surprise, but it still made my heart sink a bit. I used to hang out there on a regular basis. Had buddies going to Bradley. From the sounds of it, there wasn’t much left to recommend it to the tourist bureau.

Half way through the second day, they found a neighborhood of survivors. They were a mixed population of every ethnicity that had been in the city. About thirty of them. Henry sent pictures with his report. It was nice to see living people mixed in with the devastation. The little band was making a go of it the best they could, but still didn’t have power or clean water. He moved them back up the river to Chillicothe and Hennepin in two smaller groups. They followed him up in a small convoy of cars they jump started. People in those little river towns agreed to take these new ones in, so long as they pulled their weight in the garden plots and daily living.

Ella came into my office as I was printing out the last of the reports. I had two sets. One went into the fire proof file cabinet Kenny had found and placed in his office. The other, I was taking with us.

“Brought the horse and cart around like you asked, Dad. Where you going?”

“We’re going out to Plow Ridge. I figured you’d want to come along.” I picked up the last sheet as it came out of the printer, stacked it with the others and gathered the rest of my things.

“Cool,” Ella said as we headed for the door. “Can I drive?”

I laughed. She sounded like a kid asking her dad for the keys to the car. The horse stood hitched to the rail in front of the library. The Mennonites had built several carts and buggies for use around town and between the three communities. We took the horses and carts to Princeton these days for the most part as well.

“Sure,” I said, “just don’t wear Jake out.”

She grinned as she undid the lines and climbed into the two wheeled buggy. I followed. Most of the horses in town were dual trained these days. Jake was my other saddle horse, but he took to the harness better than Cherokee did. With a flick of the reins, we were off.

We talked about little stuff at first. Who was seeing who. Who was going to have a baby. Who was trying to have a baby. I got caught up on the community’s gossip before we were a mile out of town. She chattered away like only a teenage girl could do. I felt so old sometimes and I wasn’t even thirty yet.

“Let me ask you something. You and Billy set a date yet? I haven’t forgotten our talk.”

She looked at me goggle eyed for a second. “I thought you had, Daddy. No, we haven’t set a date. It’s been a little busy since we got back.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She turned Jake up the hill along the creek. The gate was chained and locked. Someday, I hoped to be able to tear it down. For now though, it kept our rear pretty well protected. Jake trotted along the road. We’d walk him up the hill to get his wind back.

“You got nothing to be sorry about, Dad. Things have just been crazy. Not really in a bad way, either.”

I looked at my daughter and smiled. Her blond hair whipped in the breeze as she kept her eyes focused on the road. “Thank you. Someday, I’m hoping your kids don’t have to go through what we do just to get by.”

“It’s not horrible anymore, Dad. It’s actually pretty good most of the time. We just lost a lot.”

“Yeah.” I felt the grief start to rise up and shoved it down with the images of my family. “Now, about your impending nuptials. When and where do you want to do this?”

Ella laughed with just the pure joy of the moment. From there we discussed the details of a simple marriage. Our Community Church would be used. She wanted to use Pastor Zahr of the Mennonite church to conduct the service. I told her we would talk to him while we were here. She couldn’t set a date without discussing it with Billy, but we figured on a month at the outside.

The men at the gates waved us through. I figured Boss Connie would be in class at the small school on the east side of the community. Ella walked Jake past the communal houses where the unmarried people lived, though there wasn’t much of a population in those these days. The street then led past the main community church, the bakery, the cannery, the flour mill and then into residential areas. The homes were large. Usually an extended family lived under one roof. Until the First Year, a number of the homes had emptied of all but the senior members of the family, as the younger generations moved away. Now, third year in, families filled the homes again.

Ella pulled Jake into the yard of the school. Most of the kids walked from their homes or the fields to class, but there was a hitching post we tied Jake to. We stepped into the tidy, white building. The desks were full inside. Connie was in the second classroom. I had timed our visit so it would be near noon and class would let out for the day. She saw us in the back and went ahead and dismissed the group five minutes early.

A mixed group of high schoolers bolted for the door. Many were African American and Latina. They were from the Peoria school Connie had come from early in the Second Year. We settled them at Plow Ridge so they could put their lives back together. They’d adapted to the simple lifestyle well. The girls wore their hair up in buns covered in a white bonnet, learned to sew their blue dresses. What few boys survived with her group wore work clothes like the other young Mennonite men.

They laughed and shouted their hellos as they went past Ella and me. The girls all greeted one another and Ella went with a cluster of them, so long as she stayed close. They agreed to stay in the yard. Connie stood from behind her desk with a grunt. One hand rubbed her swollen belly, the other braced against the wood.

“You and Bill aren’t slowing down, are you?” I grinned as I walked to the front of the room. This would be their second in the two years she and Bill Yoder were married.

She smiled as I gave her a hug. “Like you and your wives are slowing down any yourselves. Pepper pregnant again yet?”

“No, it’s only been a couple weeks. She’s still healing both cuts.” I sat on the edge of the desk.

“She’s well then? Jenny?”

“Well as she can be. Jenny’s fine. Sleeps through the night mostly.”

“Is Cindy all right? I heard she was having some awful nightmares before the zombies came.”

“That problem was solved.” I glanced down, noticed there was a rock stuck in the slats under my feet. “The guy who was getting into her head is dead.”

“Ah.” Connie glanced away. She and her group had been out in the world before they found us. They had killed. They had used their bodies to trade with. She understood. “So, what did you bring me?”

Connie, being the teacher she was, had been keeping an account of things since the Outbreak. She had been the biology teacher in the Peoria high school she taught at, but told me she had a history minor. It was natural for her to record all of this and Kenny had started the idea of bringing reports to her from time to time. I figured this mission would be a good one for her to record. I handed her the copy of daily reports.

“I heard you sent people out,” she said as she thumbed through the papers. Her breath caught and she paused as she reached the pictures. They weren’t the greatest quality. Hawk wasn’t a photographer, but she understood what she saw.

“So, Peoria’s gone.”

I nodded. “For the most part. What Hawk and his group found wasn’t worth much. Apparently most of the city had burned at different times. They found a small group down in East Peoria. Took them up to Hennepin and Chilli. After that, they just drove on. Nothing else they wanted to see.”

“So, that’s Chicago, Macomb, Champaign and now Peoria we know are wasted.”

“So far.”

“Four centers of commerce and learning.” She shook her head. I saw a small tear run from the corner of one eye. She palmed it away. “Since 9-11 I wondered what would happen if some large disaster hit. I guess we know.”

I put an arm around her shoulder. For some reason, I felt like crying too. “Look, Connie, we’re alive. We’ll go on. Our grandkids may wonder what those big wrecks of cities were, but the human race will survive.”

“I know. We’re flexible. We’ll adjust. We’ll rebuild. It’s just hard seeing so much devastation.”

I nodded in agreement. We went on looking through the reports. They were detailed enough that she shouldn’t have much of a problem recording them. We talked a little more as she walked me to the door. Pastor Zahr actually found us and came for a visit. The four of us discussed the goings on of our communities, as well as Ella’s nuptials. He agreed to marry the young couple and asked after my wives and other children. Overall, it was a good visit, but he did say that he would need to meet with me with some concerns of his community.

We climbed back into the cart and with a flick of the reins, we began to retrace our morning route. To the north, dark clouds built up over the rim of the valley. Looked like we were going to get a spring soaker. With a rumble of thunder at the bottom of the hill, Ella flicked Jake into a long trot. Ground fell away behind us; neither of us wanted to get wet. Another crack of lightning and a few random drops fell, cold and fat.

If the kid hadn’t flinched to cover his ears from the thunder as we turned past the gate, I never would have seen him. I caught a flash of movement and saw him curled near the gate. Ella pulled Jake to a stop as I squeezed her arm. I pulled my pistol from its holster, as Ella reached under the seat of the buggy for the riot gun we keep there.

Lightning struck again as I got to the gate. The kid twitched and whimpered. He had short-cropped blond hair and tattered clothes. That was about all I could tell about him. I hoped to hell this wasn’t a trap.