THE TRASHMAN (21 page)

“How’d you come to be on foot way up here in the middle of nowhere?”

I started off disjointed. She stopped me and told me to begin at the beginning. To start with when I knew something was wrong. I broke down and cried a few times, and we’d long finished eating, but I got the story told.

“Damn, and I thought I had it rough. You’ve been through hell.”

“How about you, Wanda?”

“Ralph I’m going to tell you only a short version of my life. I was raised in the country down in South Georgia near the panhandle. My mother died before I got to know her. My brothers, four of them all older than me, they began… you’ll have to pardon my words here, fucking me when I was ten. Daddy found out about it when I was twelve and joined in on the fun.

“I was fourteen when they began pimping out me to their drunken friends.” She paused a moment. “This part I’ve never told anyone. I’m telling you because I want you to see how I am. Mainly I can tell you because there aren’t any police to call. I was eighteen when I drugged their beer. They passed out and I set our damned house on fire and sent them all to hell. What do you think about that?”

I tried to put myself in her shoes. “Before all this, before the plague, I’d have thought something different, but now, seeing how some people let their inner beasts run wild, I think you did a good thing. I do wish you’d stop cursing, though.”

“Jesus H Christ, Ralph. It’s okay for me to burn my family alive, but a few bad words drive you crazy. You know, I sort of like that about you. You’re a decent man, but I have to tell you, being alone with you, being close to you makes me feel ill. I hate people, but I hate men worse of all.

“I hope you do come back and kill the Bradford Clan, I hope you kill every last hanging dick of them. You’ll be doing the world a favor.”

We didn’t talk much more. We really didn’t have anything in common to talk about. The Toyota was hers. She said I was welcome to the Caravan, but she was keeping the man’s shotgun and little cook stove. I asked if she were staying overnight at the store.

“Only if we take turns standing guard.”

That idea I fully agreed with.

Setting her nose back straight was something I hoped never to do again. The blood and gore was bad, but the stream of vile language pouring from her mouth during the ordeal was worse.

*****

Morning saw us packing to go our separate ways.

She said with a voice all nasally, “Ralph, here’s a first. I’ve never said thank you to anyone, but thank you for shooting that man. I know when he finished with me he would’ve killed me. I’m going to let you in on a secret that I hope you keep to yourself. Since the plague, I’ve killed five men and a woman. Three of the men at different times tried to rape me. The other man and the woman were robbing a teenage boy down in Macon.

“But that’s not what I want to tell you. When I gut-cut the first man who jumped me, I got a hankering to mark him. I thought about putting a sign on him but there weren’t any sign making things handy so what I did was use my knife to cut a ‘W’ in his forehead. ‘W’ for Wanda you see. You have to cut deep to scratch their skulls, otherwise the meat’ll rot away, and the time wasted. I marked the others the same way.”

I considered what she told me. “That’s your prerogative I reckon.”

“Do you want to mark this one, because if you don’t, I will? Actually, even though he’s your kill I think I have more of a right.”

Not wanting to look at the body, much less touch it, I gave her my blessing. She pulled a serrated knife from the scabbard belted to her waist and ducked behind the other side of the counter. I swear, when she stood from the gruesome task, she had the prettiest smile you’d ever want to see.

“I forgot you blew the bastard’s head off, had to mark his chest instead. Dug my mark into his chest bone. He looks better decorated.”

The smile and her words made me shudder and raised the hair on my neck. I won’t say I wouldn’t be glad to part ways with Wanda.

She said, “You’re welcome to the Toyota if you want it. I’m not following a schedule and not in a hurry to get anywhere. I figure I’m going to take my own advice and keep to the woods to follow the road. Being on the road seems like an invitation to be killed. Be careful Ralph. Remember it’s mostly the monsters that are out roaming. The good are hiding from them.

“Thanks, Wanda, but I like sitting high.”

The Caravan came nowhere near being as powerful as my Durango but it had the saving grace of having a nearly full tank of gasoline and a better MPG ratio.

The first hundred miles flowed by without incident. The only bothersome thing was my wound itched to the point of distraction. I avoided scratching it. When I was a child, while visiting my grandparents for a summer vacation, I cut my knee on a piece of glass and had to get stitches. I remember it itched, too, and Grandmother told me to leave it alone, that the itch was a sign it was healing. I sure hoped she was right about the itch. I was more than ready for my side to heal.

Just before the town of Blairsville, Georgia, a car approached from the front. As it drew closer, I saw it was a stretched Lincoln Limousine. The driver slowed and put his arm out waving for me to stop. The fact he was a scruffy, unshaven middle-aged man wearing a baseball cap told me the vehicle was one he’d simply taken. Because of the tinted windows, I had no idea who, with what intentions, might be invisible to me. I shook my head and continued on.

The rest of the way to Sam’s I saw two other vehicles using the roads. One was a travel trailer that was parked in the lot of a convenience store. The occupants, a group of eight men, women, and teenagers were outside the trailer having a meal at a folding table. The adults were holding their rifles, watching me pass.

The other vehicle was a red sports car that approached from the front and whizzed by me doing over a hundred miles-per-hour. I figured some people saw the fall of civilization as an opportunity to live the dream of owning a fast expensive toy.

Passing through small towns, I saw a few houses with smoke coming from chimneys, but saw no people. They were probably smart to not be near the main roads, but I couldn’t help but think the smoke was a dead give-away to any wandering marauders.

The scarcity of people during the hundreds of miles of my drive south was disturbing. Either the survivors of the plague were adept at staying hidden or the death toll was unimaginably high.

Wild dogs were another story. I saw many packs of them; some had over twenty members, mostly big brutes, Rottweilers, and such.

I arrived at Sam’s in the early afternoon. I paused at the entrance to his driveway. There was no smoke from his chimney because I knew he’d be using propane for heat. I was immediately worried because I saw none of them outside.

I pulled close to the front porch and blasted my horn, waited twenty seconds and blasted it again, watching the windows to see if anyone parted the curtains to peer out. I gave it a full minute to give them time to respond. Nothing, no sign of their presence did I see. I climbed from the van, went to the front door, and used the mounted brass clapper hard.

No one answered. I tried the knob. The door was locked. Already knowing the worst, I stepped away and kicked the door open.

The odor of decaying flesh stopped me cold. I retreated from the porch. My feet touched the ground at the bottom of the steps and I bent, vomiting and retching, tears dripping from my eyes.

  I didn’t enter the house. I went to a shed for a shovel and spent the rest of the afternoon digging a grave as I had done for my family. Only then did I enter my brother’s home.

I tied a wet cloth around my face, and dragging a hand truck, entered through the door.

Almost mirroring the death of my family, they were in the master bedroom. Sam was lying on the bed. Their sons, Jared and Bruce, were on each side of him. Lucy was on the floor. It was obvious she’d fallen from a toppled over chair.

Sam and the boys were swollen, their faces so bloated they were nearly unrecognizable. Body fluids had leaked from their noses and mouths. Maggots were feeding and a seething mass of them had eaten into their eye sockets.

Lucy must have been the first to die because her bloat had collapsed. I saw maggots visible and maggots moving under her skin. Sam must have been too incapacitated to deal with her death. It had to be horrible for him to know his wife was dead and unattended to as the children died by his side.

I lost it again, racing from the room to the hall, barely removing my mask in time to heave my guts. I went to the living room to recover. I knew I had to follow through.

By the time Sam and his loved ones were laid in the ground, I barely had strength left to cover them. I placed the last spade-full of dirt onto the grave and tossed the shovel. Anger, grief, and exhaustion overwhelmed me. I searched for words.

Finally, I spokealoud. “Sam, you were a good brother. You married a fine, wonderful woman who gave you strength. You fathered two good boys who would be a credit to anyone. I love you, Sam, and I’ll miss you all. God have mercy and take you and yours into his arms.”

I moved the van farther from the house. I had no stomach for food. I slept in the van, awakening to the feel of the sun heating my face. I made a small fire. Just the thought of eating another cold meal of canned stew almost brought on another fit of retching.

It was past ten in the morning when I rode away from my brother’s home. I drove to the house Salvo had claimed. After honking the horn and waiting, I breached his door. I found no one there and no sign of violence. They had left. I hoped they went into hiding and were still alive.

I checked on Sarah Hawkins. She was gone, too.

Back at Salvo’s house, I cooked a real meal on the gas range. Fried ham from a can, mixed veggies, and I had a can of pears for desert. After that, I sat in a comfortable chair and planned my future.

I couldn’t wrap my mind around all the death. It felt unreal that so many were dead. What I wanted was revenge against the plague, but since that wasn’t possible, my rage transferred to the Bradford Clan. Somehow, in the workings of my mind, they were responsible for the disaster and they had to pay for it.

I thought about the men I’d seen in the open jeep. They’d looked big and tough. They were well armed with warrior’s weapons. I was weak, wounded, poorly armed and for damned sure no warrior.

So what, my mind said. You can arm yourself. You can train yourself. You can become the most bad-assed warrior they’ve ever seen. Like Wanda said about herself, I wasn’t on a schedule. My time was my own and I could pick my time… To kill them.

I stood from the chair and went to the van, my mind echoing with the thought to kill all the murdering rapists. I had no other goal, no other direction but that.

*****

I went to Moultrie simply because that was to be our group’s destination prior to the arrival of the gang in the pickup truck and the infecting of Sam, and subsequently everyone but me, as far as I know. I did have hopes for the J’s. They’d kept away from us and then left Sam’s place immediately after the dying woman coughed in his face.

It’s odd how things can work out. I entered Moultrie and because I was keeping an eye out for any form of danger, I saw and drove past a National Guard Armory. I was a half mile down the road when it hit me. An armory might be just what I needed. Even though I’d been a Guardsman for a short period, I didn’t know much about the military, but I thought by implication, an Armory would have weapons.

I turned and backtracked to the facility. The only entry, other than climbing a chain link fence topped with razor wire, was the main reception building. I went to the double doors and looked through the reinforced glass.

I was amazed no one had forced an entry to the facility. Because of the angle of the sun, it was very dim inside. Peer as I might, I saw no one inside. I picked up a small stone from the edge of the drive and used it to rap the glass.

I gave it ten minutes, alternately rapping and waiting. Deciding the building was vacant, I went to the van to search for a tool to force the door. In the rear, with the spare tire was an old-fashioned lug wrench with a chisel shape on one end.

As I approached the door, tool in hand, a voice came from a speaker above the doors.

“Sir, this is a US military facility. I must warn you any attempt to trespass on these grounds will be met with lethal force.”

I looked up at the speaker and saw there was a surveillance camera near it.

Staring at the camera, I spoke. “Well you could have answered and save me a trip to my van. I thought the place was empty.”

“This base is staffed and well protected. Sir, what is your business here today?”

In for a penny… I told him. “I have a shotgun and a couple of pistols, but I need better weapons to take up north to kill a gang of rapists and murderers that call themselves the Bradford Clan.”

“That’s out of the question, Sir. Military armament will not be distributed to the civilian population.”

“I figured you’d say that. Who am I speaking to?”

“Major Allen, Sir.”

“Is Allen you last name?”

“It is, Sir.”

“Would I be out of place to ask your first name?”

“William, Sir.”

His name hit me hard and I know I gasped. “My son’s name was William. I watched him die, watched him choke to death on his own spit a few days ago. I know you’re not busy. Will you let me tell you a story?”

“I can listen, Sir, but any story you tell will not change the regulations under which this facility operates. If you think telling your story will change my orders, you’d be wasting your time.”

“Time I’ve got and I think you do, too.”

I started from the beginning and I put in every detail of the hell I’d been through and the evil I’d witnessed. Major Allen didn’t speak until I finished.

“So you have no idea how many men at arms the Bradford Clan has. By your own admission, you have no military training. Sir, even if I supplied you with arms, you would be headed for certain death.”