The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (176 page)

Tom pulled the phone from his belt,
pulled the list from his pocket and punched in the number six. The
phone trilled into his ear.

“
Hello,” Bob
said.

“
Got the mate,” Tom told
him.

“
Ah, heard it, hoped that
was it,” Bob said. “Down by the post?”

“
Nearly outside,” Tom
agreed.

“
Be right down with the
little pickup,” Bob told him. He hung up.

Tom looked at the phone for a second
and then replaced it. He opened the door, closed it behind him,
stretched his legs, stiff from sitting so long, he told himself. He
started down the slope to where the body of the cat lay.

~

Two hours before dawn, just as Arlene
Best was getting ready to end her own post, the snow began falling
in earnest. Twenty minutes later when she was relived by Bonnie and
started on her way to home, she was walking through a blizzard: Six
inches of snow had already fallen. She made her way home following
the glow of the Sodium arc lights.

ELEVEN

The Nation

November
30
^th

Steve Choi's notes

Saw A.B. today and examined her after
Jessie did. We both agreed that she should let us take the baby
now. It is too dangerous for her to carry it to term. She refused.
We talked it over afterward, but there is nothing at all that we
can do. This is one of those times where it is tough to be someone
who has the knowledge to help someone and they won't allow it. It
is so frustrating. Jessie has been through it a few times and is
handling it better than I am.

I saw both K and A and they are doing
very well. Everything looks good. Any day now.

November
31
^st

Mike's Journal.

It's been quiet all day long. It snowed
pretty hard yesterday and delayed school starting down in the
valley until Tom had cleared the paths with a team of oxen and a
rigged up plow system. The plow worked well enough, and school was
only a little late. Shovels for snow. Another simple thing we
didn't think of.

Spent part of the day with Candace and
Amy yesterday afternoon. They are both hanging in there, watching
old movies, I guess they are all old movies now, and keeping up
each others spirits.

Helped out most of today with Chloe and
Debbie, hauling rock and mixing cement. Ronnie, Tom, Bob, Cindy and
Craige. Jessie and Brad jumped in too. Josh and Shar ran wagon
loads of rock. They are building in the space next to Jess and
Brad.

We managed to get the entire space
closed in. The openings set for a door and two windows: One of
which I thought was pretty clever. They widened out an old fissure
in the rock. Made it into a widow, and so they have a view out into
the valley. It's closed off right now, but Bob is making a window
to fit it. They will have a nice view once it's in.

Steve and Joe took one of the stone
houses we built last spring. We thought we would never use them
all; really most of them were going to be used for other things,
not living space, but they're pretty nice. Candace and I like ours,
and it's easy enough to add on to if you need to. Ronnie and Amy
like theirs too.

I am waiting to meet our children,
Steve says any day now.

December 2nd

Jana's Diary

I guess I will catch up on news
first:

Tom and Beth decided to stuff their
Lions. Tom has been practicing, he has a book on taxidermy that
Lilly dug up for him. His recent work has been very good. Lilly
says she can use the Lions to teach, like a museum
exhibit.

Candace and Amy are ready any day.
Everyone is waiting. Every day that goes by makes me wonder when
the real day will be. I guess that is news caught up.

Bob and I loaded a sledge, hitched up a
team early this morning and drove it to the lake. It was slow
because we took the Oxen. Bob says they are better for the heavy
work, not as fast as horses, but steady.

We got there in the early morning,
chopped a hole through the ice and fished into early afternoon.
Black Bass, Lake Trout and a mess of them too. Bob liked to ice
fish up home and he was sure he could do it here. He was
right.

When we got back we started cleaning
fish and by the time we were done we had lots of help. Susan made
some cornbread and batter for the fish with a little flour, milk
and egg. Jessie and Brad, Sandy and Susan, Steve and Joe and a few
others came up and we ate together. It was nice, a perfect day,
until afterwards when we sat down to talk things out.

I think I way over stepped when it came
to Bob. Sandy swears that I promised that Bob and I would be on
board for renaming the Nation the Fold, changing the council.
Really it sounds like overthrowing everything we have worked for. I
never agreed to that or said that Bob would agree to it. I agreed
to equality. That the Fold should be represented. This sounds like
something else. Bob smiled and listened and said he would think
about it, but I know him. He went to bed angry, and would not speak
to me: As if this is somehow my fault. I don't understand how we
ended up here. I truly believed that what I was becoming involved
with was a plan to make sure that everyone received equal
recognition. This is nothing like that. The perfect day ended so
badly after such a nice start. I'm unsure what to do.

December 6th

Main Cave Clinic

“
I thought so too, and I'm
sorry it wasn't the real thing,” Jessie told Amy.

“
It felt like the real
thing,” Amy said.

“
That I don't doubt,”
Jessie said, “and it's even the correct time frame, but it's been
almost eight hours since you last felt pain... No dilation, your
lower back feels good?”

Amy nodded.

“
I can't see it being more
than a few more days. In fact we'll probably encourage it along if
it has not decided to stop playing peek-a-boo by this time next
week. You and Candace both,” Jessie said.

Amy nodded again. “Another week. I am
tired of being pregnant,” She said.

“
I can sympathize,” Jessie
said with a smile.

The door opened a crack and Sandy
peeked inside. “Okay?” She asked.

“
Yeah, let them in,” Jessie
said.

Ronnie came in followed by Candace, who
wasn't really walking anymore. It was something between a waddle
and a shuffle.

“
False alarm,” Amy
said.

“
It'll be soon,” Ronnie
said.

“
How's the mothership?” Amy
asked.

“
Ugh. Feels like I could be
popped with a pin,” Candace said. “Honestly, Aim, it does.” She
eased herself down into a chair that Sandy hurried in behind
her.

“
Me too, but it's a no go,
at least today,” Amy said.

Ronnie helped her down from the table
and back to the ward which consisted of only Candace and
herself.

Arlene and Annie were sitting waiting
to go into the clinic to see Jessie. Annie barely showing, Arlene
nearly as big as Amy already.

“
Well?” Arlene
asked.

“
False alarm,” Amy
answered.

“
It can't be too much
longer,” Annie said.

“
Jess says any day now, no
more than a week, so that's something to shoot for,” Amy
said.

Candace came along behind her holding
her swollen belly as she walked.

“
How much longer for you,
Arlene,” Amy asked as Candace came up beside her.

“
About a month... Month and
half, but like you two I've been grounded, and I'll probably be
right up here with you in a couple of weeks.” She told
them.

“
I better be gone by then,”
Candace said. “I can't imagine a couple more weeks of this. If Aim
gets to bail in a week then I'm bailing too,” she joked.

“
How you feeling, Annie,”
Amy asked.

“
Okay, but they're keeping
an eye on me. I've been spotting, but only a little,” Annie said
anxiously.

“
Honey, even a little is
not good,” Sandy said as she walked up. Arlene nodded.

“
Ready. Arlene,” Sandy
asked. She reached down and pulled her to her feet.

“
Ugh,” Arlene
said.

“
Hey! We know that one,”
Candace said. “That's cave girl talk for 'I can't believe I let
Grog stick that thing in me.'”

Arlene laughed. Sandy, Amy and Candace
joined in with her.

“
You are big,” Amy said.
“You got a lot bigger since just a few weeks ago.”

“
Yeah,” Arlene agreed. “And
lower, like the kid dropped down a little.”

Sandy frowned. “Come on, Honey, it's
time to see the doctor.”

Annie looked worried.

“
You going to be okay,
Annie,” Candace asked her.

She smiled, but it was strained. “Yeah,
I'll be okay,” She told her.

Amy and Candace told her goodbye and
wandered down the corridor to the ward, which was really just a big
room with six beds in it. Mike and Ronnie had mounted a flat screen
TV on the wall with a built in DVD player. They had been binging on
all sorts of movies.

“
Movie,” Amy
asked.

“
Yeah, but it's my turn to
pick,” Candace said. They both laughed as they turned into the
room.

Herkimer New York

Bear and Beth

The day was fading as they came to a
small town in ruins. There was a shopping center that was picked
over, but they managed to find a few items before dark began to
settle in. A mile down the road they had found a small garage,
pulled the truck inside and locked down the doors for the night.
They had seen no one at all, but the smell had been on the air, and
the lack of bodies in the little town bothered all of
them.

Billy worked with Bear to board over
the windows. Nothing fancy, a few drilled holes through the plywood
so they could see outside, screws to attach it, the job had been
over in just a few minutes.

Bear had fallen silent over the last
week since Weston had died. He had passed in the night, dead at
first light, and he didn't come back. Bear had seemed to change
right then. Suddenly it was a serious thing, a thing that would be
done, not a thing that might be done.

Billy was positive he would bounce
back, but right now he was carrying the weight of an enormous
responsibility on his shoulders. They were too far out to speak to
anyone back in the Nation, Bear was on his own, but the decisions
he made would affect everyone in the world. They had all backed his
decision completely, but that hadn't made it any easier for
him.

“
You okay,” Billy asked now
as they worked in silence.

Bear nodded, and Billy was sure for a
moment that, that would be it. A second or two later he spoke.
“Quite a way to go,” He said as they finished with the windows.
They were walking the outside of the building, looking for
weaknesses. The dead were no joke, the smallest of cities were now
over run with them, and they were smarter than ever, They seemed to
be gaining some sort of intelligence as the virus progressed in
them, mutated and then mutated again. It was better to be
over-prepared than under-prepared in any way.

“
One place I've never been
inside of... Camped outside for a few months, as you know: Talked
to people inside. Made supply runs all around it, but not down into
Manhattan itself,” Billy said. “A week or so should have us
there.”

“
I hated it,” Bear said.
“Going back, well, it's... It's bringing stuff back that I thought
I was done with, you know?”

“
No,” Billy said. “I don't
mean that I can't empathize, but if I've learned nothing I've
learned that no man has a clue at all about the man standing next
to him, and... You're a closed book, Bear. No blame there, just no
information... So I don't know, but I hope it's not too bad... Not
too bad, I guess all this shit is bad,” Billy said as he tossed a
leftover scrap of plywood side-handed out into the field next to
the garage. He turned back to Bear who seemed lost in
thought.

Bear looked up and nodded.
“Lived in Harlem,” He said slowly. “Wife, baby on the way, lost all
of that to these fuckers. It's not like I could face it head-on and
use strength to defeat it. That's what is so bad about this. It
doesn't care who you are. Big, small, man or woman, hell, child. It
will take you,
they
will take you. Got out of Harlem intact, gangs taking over
there, made it to Manhattan and it was okay for a few days. They
left us be, both the gangs and the dead. And the dead? We didn't
really know about them then. We thought everything moving at night
was gangs. It wasn't until later on that we began to see how it
really was.”

Bear paused, dropped to a crouch and
pulled out his pouch. He rolled a cigarette, offered one to Billy
who refused, and then stood from his squat and began talking as he
smoked. He spit small pieces of tobacco out into the light breeze
that had kicked up. Blue smoke flooded from his nostrils and Billy
relished the smell of the burning tobacco.