The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (125 page)

He stood frozen, looking at the dead.
Two still moved. He walked forward and shot both of them in the
head, one by one. The beam left them and moved to the
doorway.

The aluminum door frame was buckled in
the doorway. The safety glass had been smashed out and lay on the
floor in one spider webbed sheet. Two heavy sledge hammers lay just
outside the doorway. Another three were scattered among the dead by
the steel gate.

“
Son of a bitch,” Beth
breathed.

“
Jesus. You don't think
they were using those, do you?”

“
Are you fuckin' kidding
me?” Beth asked. She shone the light up and down the door frame.
“We'll need a steel door and a welder to fix that,” She
said.

Billy nodded, realized she couldn't see
it, and then spoke. “We can get one tomorrow.”

She brushed against him as she squeezed
past and walked toward the gate. His arm felt on fire from the
softness of her breast as she had slipped past him. She turned and
looked back at him. “They almost got in.” She shone the light on
the steel collapsible burglar door. It had been there for as long
as she could remember, and she had lived in the building for
several years. The top was nearly separated from the steel bracket
that held the hinge mechanism. Billy got his feet moving, walked
over and examined the top of the door.

They had hit it with the sledge hammer
repeatedly. The steel had finally split, and it looked as though
they had been trying to use sheer force to rip the rest of the
bracket away from the wall where it was mounted. Billy stepped
back.

“
I think,” he began, and
that was when a zombie came through the shattered aluminum door
frame and slammed into the steel gate. Fingers shot through the
gaps in the steel and clutched at Billy's arm. The Zombie missed
the arm, but got his shirt sleeve and immediately snarled and began
to pull back.

It lasted less than a full second
before Beth’s pistol roared. The zombie's head blew apart in the
narrow hallway, black zombie blood running down the
walls.

“
Got you? Got you?” Beth
asked.

“
No... No... No, I …” Billy
couldn't find the words. Something moved outside the door, and he
opened up on it. A second later there were four more Zombies
flooding through the door. None of them made it to the gate,
tripping over the other dead, and both Billy and Beth were firing
immediately. One made it back out the door, a hole in its side that
had blown away part of its spine as it had exited. Billy could not
believe it was still able to move, but it was. Canted to one side,
legs twitching as it ran, causing it to lurch from side to side. It
disappeared into the darkness before either of them could get
another shot in. The silence came back full.

“
You have got to get your
shit together,” Beth said quietly.

“
I got my shit together,”
Billy shot back.

“
You never saw that one
coming through the door. What if I hadn't shot it...”

“
Well, fuck,
if you hadn't
... Never
mind... Okay... I'll get my shit together.”

She said nothing.

“
Okay... Okay... Does us no
good to get on each other... None at all... We can fix this
tomorrow.” He looked around the lobby.

“
Help me for a moment?” he
asked. He headed for a length of chain they had bought back to use
for something. It was about to be re-purposed, he thought. As Beth
held the light he wound the chain through the separated sections of
the gate, pulled it tight and ran a short length of nylon rope
through the eyes, tying it tightly.

He stepped back and looked it over. It
would have to do until morning, her flashlight was already
flickering, causing shadows to jump and fall on the walls.
Batteries were getting tougher and tougher to find. He looked at
his wrist and cursed low. Old habits died hard. Watches were
worthless now. He hadn't worn one in a few days.

“
I don't know either... I
think a few hours until dawn,” Beth said. “That should hold for a
few hours, at least slow them down enough to shoot them if they do
try to get through it.”

“
Well, I'll sit here and
wait for it... All we can do,” Billy said. “Go on back up and get
some sleep. I got this.” He settled back onto the step, sitting
with his back to the upstairs.

Beth stayed silent for a moment and
then came and sat next to him. “Got it with you,” she said. She sat
next to him, and he immediately lost his words. Her arm pressed
against his own. The flashlight snapped off, and the heat of her
arm became everything.

“
Billy?”
His name whispered from the upstairs hallway:
Jamie.

“
I'm here until daybreak,”
Billy whispered back.

Silence. And then... “It's
safe?”

“
They won't get past us,”
Billy said.

She said nothing more. A few seconds
later the door slammed upstairs. Billy sighed.

“
Sorry,” Beth said. She was
aware how Jamie felt about her. Jamie and Billy were not really
together, but Jamie felt she owned him. Billy didn't help matters
by staying with her, sleeping with her, yet not making it official,
and Jamie knew Billy was hung up on her too, Beth knew. For that
matter, so was Scotty. She wasn't interested in either of them. She
didn't feel like she absolutely had to have a man to protect her,
define her. Yet ironically, she reminded herself, she was doing the
same thing with Scotty. Staying when she didn't feel the same,
couldn't feel the same. “I better go up... keep the peace.” Beth
said quietly.

“
Yeah... I'm good here,”
Billy said. He wasn't though. He wanted her to stay; he just didn't
know what he could do to get her to stay. Nothing, he supposed.
“I'll be good. Morning's not far away.” Her arm pulled away, and a
moment later he heard her soft footfalls on the stairs as she
ascended them. Billy sat quietly, waiting for his eyes to adjust to
the darkness, his machine pistol in his hands.

The Fold

Jessie Stone's Journal

We have walked for days. The desert
seemed never ending, plateaus, sand dunes, the bleached bones of
cattle. The sun rose, the sun fell. On the fifth day we came upon
the river. It was wide and deep and seems never ending. From then
on we followed the river.

The place we chose is a long low valley
with the river nestled between her walls. Verdant green fields
poured away to both sides of the valley. I stood and looked down
upon the land and although I said nothing, we were no longer
searching for a home.

We set up a rough camp beside the river
that first night. With those that we had picked up along the way,
the Fold numbers just twenty-four souls. Within a week we will have
rough shelters going up, we have already started. A long, low
overhang, that can shelter us from the weather, and can become our
home for the next several months as we build River Crossing. I,
unfortunately, will not be one of the ones to build it. It will
have to be done in my absence.

We had left word when we were in
Snoqualmie, a quickly thrown together ramshackle settlement back in
Washington State, that we would be pushing on toward the east
coast. We have some of our own that stayed behind there, and so we
will have to send word back, that we have stopped somewhere east of
the old Texas border and will make this place our home: Things to
be worked out.

We, myself, and a few others, will
leave in the morning to push on to the east coast. I can't leave it
like this. I have to know what is or isn't left. If we find
nothing, we will make our way back here and collect those we find
along the way, if we find others to the east, we will decide what
to do then. I am only glad to write that there is a world outside
of Washington.

About this world: It is in a very bad
way. The governments are gone. There are dead rising, it defies
everything I know as a doctor, but they are. We have come across
the phenomenon several times. One of our own died under my care,
turned and came back a few short hours later. I don't know what to
think, except as we move through towns and the outskirts of cities
that still stand the dead are there in ever increasing numbers. A
note of interest, we have picked up a young doctor and added him to
our group. Very fortunate I believe.

As we leave in the morning, another
group will go back to Snoqualmie and get the ones who remained
moving in our direction. I will keep this as we go. We hope to come
back here before too long, and get River Crossing established
before winter for The Fold.

L.A.

Billy and Beth: March 11th

Billy was up on the roof. Beth, Jamie,
Winston and Scotty were standing at the edge of the building as he
was, looking out over the city. Things were crazy, and they seemed
to be getting worse as the days rolled by.

The police precinct was still burning.
It had started sometime during the night two days before, and since
there was no one to put the fire out, it had been raging for hours
now. A few minutes ago, the roof of the building next door to the
precinct burst into flames. Maybe the fire had started inside, or
the extreme heat from the burning police precinct had caused it to
burst into flame, spontaneous combustion, but it was a strange
thing to watch. It appeared as though it had simply burst into
flames all on its own.

The animated conversation about whether
it had been spontaneous combustion or a fire source from inside the
other building that had simply burned through, had kept up for a
few moments, and then they had all lapsed back into silence. Beth
spoke now.

“
Where would we go?” she
asked.

“
I think southeast,” Scotty
threw in.

“
Why not north or
northeast,” Jamie asked.

“
Makes no difference, I
suppose, but this winter it might. That's why I think southeast.”
Billy said.

Beth nodded. “What's the radio
say?”

“
It's bad everywhere.
Different people, different days, all talking about the dead. Some
talk about the living too, gangs, shit like that, but the big deal
is the dead. Every major city... Boston, Hartford, Manhattan, San
Fran, Providence, Scranton, Miami... there are more. Every day you
hear more places, and that's bad. But then there are the ones that
you don't hear from anymore, and that's even worse,” Billy
said.

“
So how is southeast
better?” Beth asked.

“
Might not be better, as
far as the dead are concerned: It might not be, but it will be
warmer. I mean, no problem now, but winter isn't really over up
north, and it will come again, and we had better be somewhere with
our supplies settled in for it,” Billy answered.

Beth nodded. “All of us?”

“
A few others,” Winston
said. “Emma, down street. She has a baby. Don and Ginny across the
street. They got a few friends too.”

“
Babies... I don't know
about babies,” Billy said. “Adults, okay. Children are bad enough,
but babies? How do we take care of them?”

“
Billy, should we leave
them here to die?” Scotty asked.

“
Fuck, Scotty. I didn't say
that. Do we invite them along to get killed? I mean we're leaving
the safety...
Talking about
leaving the safety of this building and going on
the road.”

Beth raised her hand. “Scotty misspoke,
or you mistook what he said. Can we agree on that?” Scotty turned
away and then turned back and nodded. Billy nodded too.
“Tomorrow... Tomorrow we scout it out. We need trucks... not a car.
Something that can get us over the bad spots. And we'll have to see
how far we have to go before we can hope to drive. We sure as hell
can't drive here.” She shrugged.

“
Tomorrow,” Billy
agreed.

“
Yeah,” Scotty
added.

Beth turned and looked back over the
city, watching the building next to the precinct burn.

Watertown New York

F
orty miles to the west of Watertown a small caravan of Jeeps
moved slowly through the morning light down a cracked and tilted
roadway. The caravan had been forced to detour around several
breaks and washouts in the pavement of the road. They had
constantly been forced to stop as well, and push stalled vehicles
out of their way.

They had spent the night in
an abandoned state park that fronted lake Ontario. The water that
had once lapped at the beach had retreated several hundred yards
back, and the weeded and muddied floor of the lake lay naked and
exposed. They had spoken little, and had not slept well. Several of
them had been awakened during the night by vivid nightmares. The
events of the last several days weighed heavily on all of them, and
most of them were unable to shut themselves down far enough to
sleep, preferring to push until exhaustion took them, forcing what
they could not do naturally. After a quick discussion, they had
left even before the sun had begun to fully rise over the water,
and resumed their journey. Heading toward Rochester. They had seen
a glow in the west the last few nights, and so they were hopeful
they would find help there.