The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (178 page)

“
I guess I am.” Mike agreed
as the tears slipped over the edge and fell from his eyes. He
smiled, laughed and then wiped at his eyes with a tissue that Steve
Choi handed him.

“
They'll all be close
enough to play with each other, grow up together,” Amy said. “I...”
Amy stopped in mid sentence. “Oh...” She looked at Candice and then
Jessie. “I think I might... I might have,” she looked down at the
floor, nothing, but she had felt a rush of warmth and the insides
of her thighs felt wet. “I might... I need Ronnie, I think mine is
coming. My water broke.”

The room turned into an instant hive of
activity. Steve and Jessie steered Amy to another bed as Sandy
ushered Mike out and Ronnie in. They passed each other in the
doorway both grinning foolishly.

~

Mike stood with Tom and watched the sun
poke over the mountains in the South. The air was cold. The kind of
cold that seems to amplify every little sound. Looking down toward
the three mills he could see that the stream was iced over except
for a clear run of water that started about twenty feet before the
water came into contact with the wheel.

“
Been a long one,” Tom
said. Lilly had just been out to nurse little Tom. She was now back
in with Amy.

“
Yeah,” Mike agreed. He was
a little worried for Amy and Ronnie.

Just then Bobby Teals stuck her head
out the door. “Jess said to tell you it's coming,” She said, and
then ducked back inside.

'Well, hell. Let's get back inside,”
Tom said.

“
Yeah,” Mike agreed with a
smile. “I better go tell Candace too.”

They stepped back inside just as Bobby
was opening the door to the clinic area. The sound of a baby crying
came to them as the door opened. They both turned to each other and
smiled.

~

Mike sat next to Candace, holding her
hands. The babies were sleeping in the nursery.

Bobby peeked into the room, and then
opened the door wide. Steve and Craige came right behind her
carrying patty in her bed. Sandy was right behind them with the
baby wrapped in blankets. Ronnie and Shar came next, then Jessie
and Lilly.

They carried the bed in next to Candace
and then set it down carefully.

“
Hey,” Candace said as her
eyes met Amy's. They both teared up. “Wish I could have been in
there with you. You spent so much time with me.”

“
It's okay, Candace. I know
you would've been. Lilly was aces.”

Candace reached across and squeezed
Amy's hand.

“
A little boy,” Amy said.
“He's everything.”

TWELVE

December
8
^th

The Nation

“
See, this whole area down
here,” Josh asked. “It fronts the cave. Thin soil, the rock is
right there. There is nothing above it. We wouldn't have to worry
about icicles. You can see it swings out, the overhang I mean,
about fifteen feet or so and shoots straight up more than sixty
feet. If we came in just under that, so we're still back from the
overhang itself, there would be no chance of ice damage, see?” Josh
asked.

They were standing near the ledge of
the second cave, where it dropped down into the third valley. Josh
and Shar had built a barn in part of the space, and now Josh
envisioned a greenhouse that could provide them with fresh
vegetables year around, built under the long overhang that covered
the ledge. Mike nodded, visualizing what Josh wanted to do in his
head. “So, you will build from there, arch the wall out and then
use the heavy plastic sheeting to build your wall,” Mike
said.

“
Exactly, right,” Josh
agreed. “Then we have a year around green house, under the ledge so
it's protected from falling ice, stone, whatever else might be
there. We get some good soil in there, build it up a few feet deep.
We'll have sunlight year around, the sunlight itself would probably
heat it most of the time. You have sixty feet of rock wall above
and behind it that will absorb that sun and release it all night
long. We might have to expend a little heat a few times during the
winter if we had really overcast days, or it was really
cold.”

Mike nodded. “You could use those
leftover aluminum support beams to build your front. There are
dozens of them leftover from the barn builds. That would be solid,
and that would be putting them to good use too. They have a natural
built in curve, there's your arch you need right there. But I would
use the heavy clear plastic sheets. Then you will have a permanent
structure.”

“
Heavy plastic sheets?”
Josh asked.

“
Right. We bought back some
on our first trip. We found about a hundred sheets of the stuff.
Four feet wide, eight feet high. It's quarter inch thick stuff.
You're not going to bend it in a foot or so length, but over eight
feet it will bend to fit the slight arch of the beams. There is a
seal that runs between each piece of it. The panels are clear, but
ribbed, you really can't see through it, I mean colors, shadows,
but it will allow sunlight and ultraviolet light rays through. We
never used it. It's in the big storage room, at the very back. It
will be tough to get out of there and up here, I bet, but it would
be worth it. It would make a much nicer job. I think we had
something like that in mind for it initially,” Mike
finished.

Let's go look at it,” Josh said
excitedly.

~

The mineral baths were
empty, David saw. He wondered if he had been played for a fool. On
the heels of that thought came another, maybe she just wants to
talk: To say she wishes that nothing has ever started between them.
And yet another thought after that one. What
had
started? Anything besides an
innocent brush up against each other? An awkward moment that was
able to pass in time, but apparently not in memory?

She must be hanging onto something,
David thought. He looked around the empty room. Decided to leave
just in case she really was coming, and got to his feet. What was
he thinking of doing here? Cheating on Arlene? That was an action,
not a flirtation. Even so, he actually found her attractive and
hoped she was coming here to say yes. He sat back down instead of
leaving.

The note she had sent was in his pocket
and he pulled it out and read it for the hundredth time. The was no
enlightening caused by this fresh reading. She simply asked him to
meet her here after dinner. He had taken dinner in the main cave,
she had seen him, and he had come from there to here. He had also
bought a joint with him. He didn't know if she would even try it,
but it would help him to calm down. Maybe he could convince her to
try it.

From the night he had ended up pressed
against her body: The night she had been so excited about the
population numbers and stepped so close to him in her excitement,
they had both caught each other looking. He would catch her eyes on
him and know that they had been there awhile, and she had caught
him more than a few times. The thing was, he didn't believe it was
an accident at all. Did you accidentally stand too close to
someone. Press your body against theirs. Was that really
accidental, or was it an invitation? That was what was driving him
crazy.

He heard her before he realized she was
there. He jumped and then turned around fast.

“
I didn't mean to scare
you,” Janna said.

“
This thing has me on edge,
it's not your fault,” David said honestly.

The silence held for several beats.
Janna came and settled in beside him.

“
So where are we?” Janna
asked at last. She hated to ask, but it was the question she needed
to have answered. A younger woman might wait all night to see if it
was answered; a girl. She was not a girl, but she was also not the
kind of woman that found herself in these circumstances
either.

“
I
thought...
Wondered
where we were myself,” David said.

“
That is not an answer,
David.” She locked her eyes with his. Her hand fell on his thigh
and set it on fire. He could feel the heat from her
fingertips.

David bit at his lower lip. “I didn't
know about you... In that way, and then I did. I had never thought
about it: Never, I swear that is true, and then I felt your body
against mine and that was it. I knew it and I knew I wanted you.”
David managed the words, but could not look at her.

“
I don't want to come
between you two,” Janna said quietly.

“
It's not about that,”
David said. He showed Janna the joint he had slipped from his
pocket. “Try it?”

“
I never have... Is it
pot?”

David smiled. “Home grown, not very
potent. We grew some wild. Call it an ice breaker.”

“
I don't know,” Janna
said.

David shrugged. “It could just ease us
into an honest conversation... No pretense.”

“
It does that?”

“
It can,” David
said.

“
I'll try a little,” Janna
said at last.

David lit the joint, inhaled deeply and
then passed it to Janna.

She took the joint and copied David. A
second later she was choking on the smoke. David patted her on the
back as she got her breath back. “It's horrible,” Janna
said.

“
No... It works... Small
puffs, go slow since you have never done it before. Inhale it, hold
it a few seconds and then let it go.”

“
I don't know, David.” She
said. But the thing was, it had already done something to her. She
had a funny warm feeling that was spreading through her body, and
the worries she had come into this room with were gone. Not gone,
she amended, not so much in evidence. She decided she liked that:
Not so much in evidence was a much better way to put it. She looked
up when David spoke her name. “What?”

“
You went away a little.
You were there and then you were lost for a second. I forgot to
warn you that it does that too.”

She looked at the burning joint pinched
between her thumb and forefinger. She took a shallow drag from it,
and then passed it to David. She held it for as long as she could
and then let it out coughing as she did, but not as bad as she had
the first time. The warm feeling spread into her thighs, up into
her face. She felt more alive and on the ball than she had in a
long time. “I like this pot, David. I do,” She said after what
seemed to be an hour. It seemed their conversation had slowed to a
crawl and she wondered why. There were millions of things they
could talk about. Millions more they could do. She could see every
one of those things clearly.

“
I would feel responsible,”
Janna said at last, picking her train of thought right back up from
where she had left it. “I do feel responsible, even now. I didn't
mean for this to happen.”

He held her face in his
hands. He didn't remember touching her, or taking her face into his
hands, but it was there. He could feel her flesh. See the flecks of
gold in her eyes. Feel the warmth of her body, her breath as it
touched his cheek. “But nothing
has
happened, Janna. Nothing. We haven't even kissed.
Some touching. Accidental... That's all it was.”

“
It isn't all,” Janna said.
“I don't think it can be all, because I want more... I think you
want more.”

“
I do,” he admitted. “I
do.”

He moved forward and pulled Janna into
his arms. He kissed her as his hands moved on her body.

“
But people will be hurt,”
She said.

His mouth closed over hers and she gave
up arguing.

~

“
Come on, come on,” Bobby
said. She pulled at Bonnie's hand as they came up to the door that
had been fitted into the mineral baths.

Bonnie smiled and looked up and down
the wide rocky passageway.”Someone might come.”

“
That's half the fun,”
Bobby told her. She reached down, turned the knob, and pushed the
door open quietly.

The room was lit with a few electric
lights, enough to push the shadows back. She began to step into the
room before she came to a fast stop, and suddenly began to back up.
Bonnie froze for a second, peeked around her shoulder into the
room, and then backed out the room quickly. Bobby closed the door
as quietly as she could. She looked up at Bonnie, her face red, her
mouth a surprise oh of shock.

“
That was Janna,” Bonnie
said in a low whisper. “Did they see us?”

“
Janna? Oh, God, that was
David with her... I don't think they saw us... I...”

The door opened and Janna hurried out
of the room and stalked off down the wide passageway. Just as they
had both begun to wonder if they really had seen someone else in
the room with her, David opened the door, saw them both, nodded in
embarrassment, and then walked off down the passageway himself. He
ran to catch up to Janna. Bonnie leaned back against the rock. “We
should keep this to ourselves, after all we don't really know what
it was about,” Bonnie said.