Taking It Back (18 page)

Tommy tapped the roof and I stuck my head out. “What’s up? See anything?”

Tommy looked down at me with a puzzled expression. “I don’t see anyone, living or dead. I did see a lot of white flags on mailboxes, though.”

I could feel my gut tighten instinctively at those words. The infection had made it here, then. So much for being far enough out to avoid contamination. We needed to be careful. “Keep an eye out, we’re heading through,” I said to both Charlie and Tommy.

“You want to head down Main Street or stick to the rails?” Charlie asked.

“Let’s stick to the rails, but if we see something worth looking at, we’ll take a peek.”

“Will do,” Charlie said as he put the truck in gear and pulled forward. Tommy stayed upright
,
and scanning the town, looking for any sign of life. I noticed a couple of cats running from house to house, but that was the extent of the activity. I began to get the hunch we weren’t going to see anyone at all, that this whole town had up and disappeared. That hunch gave rise to the question of Where? Did the people go to the state center? Did they head to a larger town like Coal City? The empty houses and abandoned swing sets mocked us with their eerie silence.

Charlie stopped the truck on a railroad crossing near the edge of town. We could see down a main thoroughfare which I guessed was the business district. Several stores and shops were there, a couple of restaurants, a fast-food place, one gas station, and two banks. ‘Earl’s Rail Stop’ was just across the street from us, advertising chicken dinners for under five bucks.

Everything seemed normal except there was no one around. No living, no dead, nothing. As far as I could see, the town had not been hit by looters or anyone.

“This is just weird,” Tommy said from his perch, scanning the street. “I don’t see anything out of place. There’s not a single piece of debris, no broken glass, no sign of violence. No bodies, no blood, nothing.”

“Just ghosts,” Charlie said suddenly, causing me to jump.

“Don’t be foolish. There nothing here for ghosts, either.” I snapped, much harsher than I intended. This abandoned town was creeping me out. I looked over at Charlie. “Sorry, man. This place is just wrong.”

“No prob. What’s that?” Charlie pointed to an area on the outskirts of town. “That looks like smoke.”

Sure enough, there was what seemed to be a cloud of smoke hovering over the far edge of Mazon. “Let’s go look, maybe they’re survivors who could tell us what happened here,” I said, hopeful.

We stayed on the rails, the tracks taking us towards the smoke. The fire seemed to be on the other side of a small grove of trees and the vegetation was dense enough to not allow us to see through.

As we got closer, Tommy thumped on the roof. “That’s not smoke,” he called out. I strained to see and as we went farther, we cleared the trees and could see.

Tommy was right. It wasn’t smoke. It was thousands upon thousands of flies, hovering over a massive pile of corpses. Charlie stopped the truck and I got out, covering my face with my balaclava and goggles in an attempt to keep the flies away. I crossed over the greening grass and stood at the edge of the carnage. The people had been worked over by the flies and many of the faces were gruesome to look at, especially the children. I didn’t see any signs of violence or any indication of how they died. Charlie and Tommy spread out on either side, looking for clues.

The bodies were clustered in small groups and as I looked around, I began to realize that the majority of the people died as families. What in the world could possibly have happened? Were they all infected and decided to save the rest of the community by coming here to die? I didn’t have any answers. One thing was curious, though. In every single group, one of the dead was clutching a small wooden cross. I started to circle the small clearing, mentally counting the number of bodies. After I reached six hundred, I gave up, figuring the entire town was here. The flies’ buzzing was extremely loud, nearly masking all other sound. Maggots were everywhere, writhing underneath clothing, causing me to swing up my rifle more than once when I thought I saw movement.

I reached the other side where Charlie and Tommy were standing. “Anything?” I asked looking at another pile
s
of bodies. This group, about thirty of them, was not as orderly as the others. In fact, they seemed to have been left where they fell.

“I think these were zombies,” Charlie said, indicating with the barrel of his rifle a neat hole in the forehead of the nearest corpse. There were similar wounds in the rest of the corpses that I could see, evidence that these people were infected and put down. But if they put down the Z’s, why would they leave their town and come to this area to die? It made no sense whatsoever.

I started back towards the truck, signaling the other two to follow. We wouldn’t get any answers from this place and like Charlie had said, this town was full of ghosts.

Just as we passed the trees, a small figure stepped out into the open. Three rifles trained on the small man as he stood there, staring at the bodies. Flies landed on his face and clothes, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was dressed in casual clothes, jeans and a flannel shirt. I noticed the bulge of a holster under his shirt and signaled to Charlie the man had a weapon. He looked to be around seventy, but was probably younger. He didn’t seem to notice us, his haunted eyes were fixed on the death in front of him.

I moved closer, lowering my rifle, knowing that Charlie and Tommy had moved to the sides and still covered the old man. “Sir?” I asked, “Are you from around here? Do you know what happened here? Sir?”

“He lied to them,” the old man said, his voice barely carrying over the din of the flies. “He lied to them and led them here and watched as they died for him.”

Confused, I pressed for answers. “Who lied?”

The old man glanced my way, his piercingly blue eyes barely acknowledging my existence. “This town had a preacher, who told the people the dead rising was a sign of the end of the world. He told them there was no hope, that after the dead had finished, the world would be consumed by fire and cleansed by God, who was angry at the world. He lied when he said everyone was dead, that this town was the last one on Earth. He told them he had visions from God, telling him what the townspeople had to do to be saved.”

I just scowled, remembering preachers and pastors from my own past who were little better than charlatans, claiming a connection to God that was more false than their claims of salvation. But I also remembered how persuasive these men were and how with just a few words they could whip a crowd up to rapturous frenzy. Opportunists, every one, and the Upheaval brought more opportunity than most dared dream.

“He had the people bring out their sick relatives, then made them watch as they turned into those nightmares. He said it was God’s curse on the land and the only way to heaven was on his path.

“I didn’t think they would believe it, but they had no way of knowing they weren’t alone. Out here they were cut off and the preacher wouldn’t let them leave. He then told them that the day to get to heaven was here and he would help them along.”
The old man brushed an errant tear that had strayed down his cheek. “He led them here and gave them pills and prayed over them as they died as families. This town died from lack of hope. They had no hope.” The man’s reedy voice faded off.

I found it ironic that had the town just waited, we would have proven this preacher wrong on all counts.

“What happened to the preacher?” I was curious to see if the man had moved on or followed his own teachings.

The old man’s voice hardened. “I found him going through people’s homes, taking what he thought would be valuable. I gave him his reward.”

I didn’t ask what that was, already guessing the answer. I backed away from the old man and signaled Tommy and Charlie to head back to the truck. We trotted back to the vehicle and spun around as we heard a shot behind us. The old man’s body lay crumpled in the grass, his blood showing bright red on the brown landscape.

As I got into the vehicle, Charlie spoke up. “You knew he was going to shoot himself, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “He had nothing left to live for. Not even revenge.”

“Is what happened to this town why you keep going, why you keep trying to find people?” Charlie pressed, asking a more personal question than he had ever asked before.

I nodded again. “Think about it. If you figured there was nothing left to live for and the rest of your life was going to be a struggle just to survive, wouldn’t you trade that for a promise of salvation? If this life was over anyway, what would be the point? We’ll never have the lives we once had, but we can at least live. That’s our revenge against the dead. That’s how we drive back the nightmare. We make what we have left worth fighting for.”

Tommy spoke through the back window. “We gonna go back and see if there is anything worth bringing back to the community?”

I shook my head. “That place is dead. Worse than if it had been overrun by zombies. The soul of that town is dead. I don’t want anything from it.”

Charlie nodded and hit the gas, sending us on our way to Verona, the next town on the map. As I looked in the rear view mirror, I could have sworn for an instant I saw hundreds of people in the tracks behind us, watching us leave. When I blinked, they were gone. Ghosts, indeed.

17

We traveled down the rails, keeping an eye out for anything unusual, although finding something more unusual than the last town we visited would be a stretch. We plowed ahead and in short order came to the outskirts of Verona. It was easy to see the differences. Verona, while a small town, was ringed by a six-foot tall earthen hill, the dirt and clay being used from the ditch that was directly in front of the hill, making it a twelve-foot obstacle to any roaming dead. The hill had an opening for the railway, and I assumed others would be found where roads entered the town. Across the opening was a wooden door made from four by fours, hung on a frame that was set into the hill. I could see the door swung outward, so it would be doubly hard to break it down. The rail bed fell away into the ditch, so any attacking horde would only be able to hit the door one, maybe two at a time.

“Stop here,” I said to Charlie as we pulled closer. Put your rifle down and sit in the back of the bed,” I called over my shoulder to Tommy.

“What’s going on?” Tommy asked.

“Protocol.” “We have to wait for them to notice us and decide if they want to talk to us. If we stand around holding weapons, they might decide to shoot first. I’m not willing to get into a firefight without better cover than the windshield of this truck.”

Tommy grunted, but put his gun down and sat back where he could be seen. Charlie and I waited in the cab and after about ten minutes, two men with rifles crested the hill and waved us towards the gate. We pulled forward slowly and the gate opened as we passed through. On the other side, another man with a shotgun signaled us to stop. I could feel Charlie tensing beside me and I shook my hand at him, trying to calm him down. The gate closed behind us and I hoped everything was going to go well.

We were surrounded by at least ten men, all armed in some fashion. I tried to remain pokerfaced, but after a minute of silence, I was starting to inch my own hand towards my SIG, with my other hand getting ready to open the door. Beyond the armed men, I began to see a growing crowd of onlookers, curious as to who the newcomers were. No one was smiling and I was getting curious as to what the deal was.

A heavyset man in a brown jacket made his way through the crowd and stood in front of the truck. He stared at Charlie and me for a second then gestured for me to step outside.

I got out of the truck and stood a couple of feet from it. I was already calculating who I was going to shoot first if things went south and it was going to be the sorry looking bastard to my right who was standing too close pointing a rifle at my head. I glanced up at Tommy who gave me a slight nod. His rifle was likely near his hands and would be in action at the first sign of trouble.

The man in the brown jacket spoke. “Howdy. I’m Bob Larkin. Who might you fellas be?”

“I’m John Talon and these are my companions Charlie James and Tommy Carter. We’ve come from Coal City to see if any towns on this line were still alive. Obviously, you are,” I said, looking pointedly at the man holding his gun on me.

Bob nodded. “How’s Coal City doing? I haven’t heard from the sheriff in a while?”

“It lives, and Tom Harlan is fine.” I still didn’t take my eyes off the man next to me.

“Good enough. Put your gun up, Ed, these men are fine. Sheriff Harlan and I spoke over the radio this morning and he said to expect you three. He told me you three were bonified deader killers and we should be glad to know you. Just by appearances, I figured he ain’t too far off the mark.” Tensions suddenly erased and trigger fingers eased up.

I had to smile. ‘Deader’ was a new one to me, but it fit. Didn’t really matter what we called them, they were the enemy and that was it.

Bob Larkin and I spoke while the rest of the town was dismissed. The town basically had barricaded themselves when the first wave of ‘deaders’ came over the horizon and started attacking people. Bob, who was the head of the town council as well as being an insurance salesman, decided the best thing to do was to build a wall around the town, using what they had in abundance, which was dirt. The wall and ditch were very effective and I had to agree, since we were using the same approach in Leport.