Snareville II: Circles (4 page)

“Yeah. Week or two.”

Julie looked up at the Raiders. “You be careful, Captain. Weather’s warmed up some since you got here. We’ve got reports of zeds on the move south and east of here.” She glanced over at Wally. “We’ve heard the Mongol Horde is on the move too, but they’re up north in Wisconsin. Martin’s Militia is north, on the other side of the river. Comin’ down from Dubuque.”

“Scouts?” Dan asked.

“We’ve sent out scouts, they’ve sent out scouts. Shots exchanged. Couple wounded on our side.”

“Tell Havers to button up his place and come in until I get back. Make sure the walls are solid and run roaming patrols inside and scouts out two miles. Make sure the Sabula road is blocked and they can’t get across the river here.”

“Yes, sir. You sure you’re leaving?” Julie asked.

“I’ll be back, Corporal. Sergeant Ducky will know what to do while I’m gone. Listen to her. You’ll get through like you always do.”

“Yes sir.” Julie saluted, swung the gate open and they were through. No man’s land opened up hundreds of miles in front of them.

“What the hell was all that about?” Dan asked. “You didn’t tell me you were the head man in charge.”

“Only militarily. Havers runs the political side of things.”

“So you are…?” Bill asked.

They crossed the bridge to the south that went over a rail yard. The Great River Road stretched out in front of them all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Two miles south, they would turn into the wilderness of wasted cornfields.

Wally grinned. He spat a wad of tobacco onto the pavement. “Lieutenant David Wallace, U.S. National Guard, 202, Battery E, Chemical Weapons Division, at your service.”

“I’ll be dipped in shit,” Dan said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Didn’t know it was important. I was cut off from the unit when all this started. It’s more than a hundred and twenty miles to my post from here. Nothing major on a clear day in the sun. Try it with swarms of zeds running around and it ain’t much use to leave home. I buttoned up here an’ pulled the survivors together. We do a decent job keeping the assholes out. The zeds, they come and go. Like the seasons.”

They rode in silence for a time. Bright early morning sun glittered on the windows of the homes. Dew shown on the grass as the horses’ breath plumed into the morning. Cherry stared straight ahead as they rode past the tavern, which only had a few bikes in front. Dan figured they were leftovers from the night before. Where they picked up the road the week before, they turned off into the fields.

Dan followed the compass on a south east tack, as well as the path they made. He navigated with a high bluff on his left, kept the Mississippi on his right in the distance. They were in part of the ancient riverbed so much of the soil was sand. Old field crawling irrigation systems rotted in the weather. There was little left of the field from three years past; prairie grass, long dormant, had reasserted itself. The path they were on was a semi-established trade route. It kept people following it out of major towns and crossed several waterways that could be navigated by canoe. It reconnected with the Great River Road because the hard limestone bluffs that overlooked the river there were too difficult to cross and too hard to carve a new way through. Savanna kept connected to the rest of the state, and the country for that matter, quite well.

“So, you goin’ to join our alliance then, Lieutenant?” Dan asked.

Wally chuckled. “One of the reasons I’m going south with you, Captain. Want to scope things out and talk things over officially.”

“Havers go along with what you say?” Bill asked.

“He will. He’s got no military experience, but he used to be mayor. He knows how to politic and he knows when something works. He’ll take my advice.”

Dan turned and looked over his shoulder. “So, Cherry. Anything we should know about you? Like you’re actually a congresswoman or judge or something?”

Cherry laughed. “No, nothing like that. I was a stripper. I was working on my English Lit degree so I could quit dancing. When they found me, I had just gone through the window of the club I was working at. Dozen zed customers came through the door. Not much a bunch of half-naked girls could do to fight them off. Diamond and I went through the window. She split her belly open on the glass. I got out.”

“I’m sorry,” Dan said.

“It was a couple years ago. Havers found me. Took me in. Put me to use.”

“And Wally let him?” Ella asked.

“Everyone makes a living how they can these days,” Wally said with a shrug. “When you can use hundred dollar bills to wipe your ass with, there’s got to be trade in something.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Leave it go, Ella. It’s done and over with. Cherry’s with us. No one’s going to make her go back,” Dan said.

Only thing to make noise was the horses kicking sand. Birds in the grasses around them sang and twittered as they hopped from one branch to the next in their search for food. As the group passed, a covey of quail broke cover and buzzed away on stubby wings. In the distance, a cock pheasant squawked. Nature was healing herself. Man may come in waves of population, but nature was always there to maintain life.

Mid morning of the second day, they started to ride out of the sand prairie. The Rock River flowed at an angle through the state, from Wisconsin, to join the Mississippi in its journey to the Gulf. It was a wide river. Not as deep as the Mississippi, but the current was faster. Especially with spring runoff swelling her from bank to bank. There were bridges across the river in several places, most bridges attached to a town. In this case, the group had to ride through Prophetstown.

“You people ever think of putting a ferry in up here?” Wally asked. “Save a lot of wear and tear on the nerves.”

“You got boat issues, you know that?” Dan asked. He lay on his belly on a ridgeline above town about two miles out. He peered through a high power spotting scope. Wally lay beside him with his long range binoculars. “Who’s going to stay here and man it?”

Wally watched a small pack of zeds as they ate a cat that had been too slow. “No one. Put in an old fashioned one on a block and tackle system. Person can pull themselves across from either direction.”

Dan dropped his eye from the scope. He looked at the man as if it were such an obvious solution, he felt stupid for not thinking of it. “Wally, we get home, we start building river crossings.”

Wally grinned. “Thanks, Sir. I don’t have boat issues, you know, I’m just a little dingy.”

“Oh God,” Dan groaned. “Keep torturing me and I’ll leave you here. Now, what do you make of town?”

Wally glassed the town some more. “Scattered groups of zeds, Sir. This group here on the edge of town is only part of a bigger group. I think this is where our scouts picked them up. Last winter, as far as I knew, this town was clear.”

“We’ve cleared it twice. Zeds get to water and they ball up. At least flowing water. Estimate on numbers, Lieutenant?”

“Can’t tell, Sir. Guess would be there are no survivors in town.”

“We’ve never found any. Never run across anyone from here either when we’ve done survivor surveys. I can’t guess at the number of zeds either. I see scattered clumps moving through town in places. If we had armor we’d just roll through them.”

“Yeah, nothing like an APC for getting through a bunch of deaders.” Wally studied the town. The river was between them and town proper. The bridge crossed first, then the road went through town. Along the riverbank were a park, a boat landing and a few scattered homes. Two blocks from the bridge was the high school. Several dozen zeds wandered in and out of the building.

Dan looked at the murky brown water. They’d had a lot of heavy spring rains to go with the snowmelt. The Rock boiled along. July, they could swim the horses downstream from here a mile and never see town. Next bridge either direction was fifty miles. No way to make a side trip.

“Are your studs gun broke, Lieutenant?” Dan asked.

“Yes sir, Captain. Like a couple of old warhorses.” Wally looked at the town again. It hugged the river to the northeast. “All we have to do, Boss, is get across the bridge. We do that, we can turn and follow the Rock south until we’re back out in the fields. Don’t have to fight through town and don’t have to waste a lot of ammo. I know zeds can’t outrun my horses. How ’bout yours?”

Dan grunted. “You may be right. We take the ditches until we get to the bridge, get across and duck south. They’ll hear us soon as we set foot on pavement though and you can’t run horses on asphalt.”

“Everyone can shoot, can’t they?”

“Yep. And Jinks has been looking for a reason to warm up her 203.”

They eased back down the ridge. The group stood at the base of the hill. Dan gave orders for everyone to load up. Guns were checked. Magazines were brought around front for easy access. Most of the group swung into saddle. Single file, they rode the western ditch. At this point, it was deep enough to hide them from the dead eyes of the zeds in town. Dan played scout, as did Wally. They crept along, hunkered over, just at the lip of the ditch. Right before land ran into water, Dan paused. Everyone nodded they were ready. Guns up, reins knotted, pack horses tied tight to saddles, they climbed out of the ditch.

“There’s one thing I ought to tell you about zeds,” Dan said as he swung into the saddle with his crew.

“What’s that?” Wally asked.

Dan spurred Cherokee onto the roadbed, brought his gun up and squeezed off a round as the small pack of zeds turned from their cat to the people in the road. “They see thermal. That’s why they can find you in buildings, or behind trees or such.”

Wally brought up his AK-47 as deaders tumbled out of houses on the side of the bridge. More came from the school at the sound of the guns. He cut loose a short burst on full auto, splattering several skulls of zeds on the opposite bank. “Great,” he shouted, “Good info to have as we ride into them.”

“Just thought you should know.” Dan grinned as he dropped an old woman that shambled toward him.

Jinks opened up with her M-203. When the flechette round swept through the swarm, it dropped several and destroyed body parts of a dozen others. Cherry fired bursts to the far left of the group from her AK. The two groups were about to meet. They would have to fight their way across the last third of the bridge. Dan slung his rifle onto his back, pulled both pistols.

“Let’s move, people!” he shouted as they plowed into the swarm.

His pistols popped in the air. The sound cut through the moans of the dead. One after another fell; still they pressed in. Horses bellowed and lashed out with their hooves. Zeds fell under the onslaught to be trampled to mush under a thousand pounds of warhorse. Another woman tried to drag Dan out of his saddle. She looked up at him with slimy black teeth as she snarled her hunger. He dropped the muzzle of his pistol a fraction of an inch from her face and pulled the trigger.

Black blood and brain splattered out the back of her skull. Her corpse flopped to the roadbed. Dan spurred Cherokee forward. He looked behind. His group was still in a cluster, moving forward. They had ten yards to go to get past the guardrails. Axes came out. The swarm was too close for guns. Jinks brought her M-203 to shoulder. She launched one round after another into the middle of the mob. White flame exploded from each shell, touched the decaying flesh and burned bright as a star. White phosphorus consumed everything. Moans turned to screams as zeds staggered from the road to try to get away from the fire.

Wally’s stallion double kicked the deaders behind him. Three tumbled into the river below. Cody and Bill cut their way through the swarm. As the horde dispersed, Cherry brought her AK to bear again. With a long sweep, she emptied the thirty round magazine into the group. Several fell. Ella followed up with a sweep from the opposite direction with her AR-15. It was if a giant scythe passed through the zeds.

The roadway in front of them began to clear. Dan nudged Cherokee into a trot. Everyone followed. From other parts of Prophetstown came more zombies. Some fast movers were in this group. Past the guardrails, Dan swung Cherokee out into the grass of the park, gathered his troop.

“Everyone here?” Dan panted.

“Everyone we started with,” Ella replied. “Daddy, we really have to get out of here.” She glanced behind her.

Dan squeezed two rounds from his rifle at some fast movers that ran into the park behind them. “Let’s go,” he said. He pushed the buckskin into a trot and as they got further from town, into a lope.

All the way around town, out into the prairie the horses cantered along. It wasn’t fast, but it ate up the miles. Soon, Prophetstown was a cluster of trees behind them. At a small feeder creek to the Rock, Dan pulled up.

“Let ’em have a drink, but don’t let them fill up,” he said as the horses heaved. “I don’t want someone dropping out on a colicky horse.”

“What about a colicky person?” Jinks asked.

“You okay?” Dan asked.

“Just nerves, Boss. Ain’t been in a swarm in awhile.”

“Did good, Kid. Just like ridin’ a bike, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, if the seat of your bike is trying to eat you.”

Dan chuckled as he dismounted. He led Cherokee down to the small stream. The other horses followed. Each took a few long pulls, then lifted their heads to watch their back trail. Dan was jumpy as well. Zeds didn’t give up easy. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the swarm as possible. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and began to slosh water up onto Cherokee’s body where bits of zombie stuck, or zed juice smeared across his hide.

The others, seeing this, began to do the same thing. Cherry waded into the stream a few feet up from the horses. She knelt in the water and started to wash a wound on the back of her hand. Blood ran red from a wound, black slime ran from her arm and her hand. She shook, flexed the fingers. She shook it again. Droplets of blood flew from her fingers, into the water around their legs.

“You okay, Cherry?” Wally asked.

“Yeah, fine, Boss.” She gasped as she tucked the wounded hand under her arm. “Just washin’ up is all.”

“Oh, okay, well, let’s go.”