The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (23 page)

Bob nodded. “All we need is parts and
tools. See?” he squatted, motioned Mike down, and pointed at the
rear suspension. “The back lifts are mainly blocks… Re-arched
springs… Swap out the shocks for larger, longer travel units… New U
bolts…”

“
Bob… you lost me, Man,”
Mike said.

Bob grinned. “The answer is yes. It
would set my mind at ease. It would allow us to go virtually
anywhere. And, it wouldn’t be tough to do the work at all. We could
get all the parts today. Want to do all of them?”

“
Probably should, shouldn’t
we?” Mike asked.

Bob nodded.

~

They spent the rest of the morning and
the afternoon picking up the parts that Bob and Tom needed and
working off Jan’s master list at the same time. The strip malls out
Washington Street and the auto garages at the dealerships had
everything they needed. They left the other pickup trucks behind
and took three nearly identical G.M.C. pickups they had found on
one of the lots. Bob felt it would be easier to have three
identical trucks to work on. Once they worked out what to do on the
first truck, the next two would be easy. On top of that, the three
Suburban’s were Chevy products, General Motors. G.M.C. was also
General Motors and Bob felt that would be the best way to proceed.
The same motors, transmissions and nearly all the other parts too.
The trucks could swap a lot of their parts, they would have
interchangeable parts. It made good sense. They could carry spare
parts that would fit any of the trucks.

They took three trucks wherever they
went: One truck with three people in it waited outside while the
people from the other two trucks went in to fill the lists. The
ones in the first truck kept the clip rifles at the ready. They
encountered no problems.

Just before evening they called it a
day and headed back to the cave. There were three on guard duty
there too with the remaining clip rifle. They spent some time
clearing the entire area near the front entrance of the cave so
that the following morning Bob and Tom could begin working on the
trucks.

Tim was impressed with the size of the
tires they were going to fit to the trucks. Bob promised to show
him how they would fit the tires to the new rims without a tire
machine.

“
I grew up on a farm,” Bob
had told him. “We did it all the time. In fact, I didn’t realize
there was a machine to do that until I was out of my teens and
living off the farm,” he’d said.

“
No,” Tim had said. “You’re
kidding?”

“
Nope, I’m not,” Bob had
told him.

Jan spent the evening checking off
items from her master lists, and making new lists for the next
day.

By evening, all but the snow in the
corners and cracks that the sun couldn’t reach was gone, melted.
The night was clear and the stars shone brightly, diamond chips in
the inky blackness.

~

“
It bothers me more than a
little that they haven’t come back,” Mike said to Candace, Nell and
Ronnie. The four of them had the watch up to midnight.

“
I can see that. It bothers
me also,” Ronnie said.

“
Maybe they’re scared,”
Nell added.

“
I would’ve said no, that
they don’t seem like the type that could be frightened off, but if
they’re with the other two, then they’ve told them how Sin was shot
down. The one that came here got a lesson I’m sure he won’t soon
forget. They know we’re not bluffing. And, I’m sure they’re afraid
of what Annie might say. She did too. She had a lot to say, if only
to Patty and me. So I imagine they’re scared to death. But I don’t
think that will hold them forever. Maybe for a while. Maybe long
enough for us to be gone by the time they decide to come at us…
retaliate,” Candace finished.

“
I hope that’s true, Babe,”
Mike said. “I really do.”

“
Yeah. That would be good,”
Ronnie agreed.

Nell was looking at Candace. She caught
her eye. “Bad?” She asked.

“
Yeah,” Candace said.
“Bad.”

“
Fuckers. They better not
come back,” Nell said.

Sandy ~ March 22nd

The days are moving. I’ve decided to
contribute to this diary-journal idea as well. It does make sense.
It’s something to show the children. There is no world without
them.

We have Brian and Janelle, and Ann is
still a child. Really Tim is as well. But Brian and Janelle are our
hope right now, and the ones that come when we build a new world
for them, a new Nation.

We know we have so much opposition to
overcome, but we will gather as we go and build ourselves back up.
At one time the tribes of the Nation were spread across this
country. They will be again. I believe that.

It hurts me that some people can be so
cruel towards us. I mean Candace. Petty. Cruel. Mean. You would
think that this world had mocked her, used her, every bit as much
as the rest of us. You would think that would make her see this
clearly. But, she doesn’t. She doesn’t see it at all that I can
see. How can that be? How can anyone who is not white not be
affected by this white world? She should be on our side. She should
be an asset. She should be with us. I’m confused about why she
isn’t, and hurt as well. I can’t do anything about it except stay
away from her. I can’t say anything to her. She jumps all over me
when I do. Maybe she hates me? Maybe she sees me as the enemy
somehow? I don’t know. I just don’t know.

Bob says that somewhere on the other
side of the Smokey Mountains we’ll find the land we need, want.
There is so much forever wild land there that we should be able to
reestablish ourselves easily. The land should not be poisoned. It
should be waiting for us.

He says the climate will be warmer
there. But not too warm. Easier than life here. He says things have
changed. The climate will be different. I believe him.

We’re hoping for more
people as we go. Bob says we’ll have thousands eventually.
Thousands.
It’s hard to
picture. He doesn’t know how many we’ll pick up on the way there,
but he believes the others, Mike, Ronnie, Tom, Patty and yes,
Candace too, will join us. He believes they will come around. I
hope so. I’m discouraged by Candace’s attitude though, yet at the
same time I’m encouraged by the opportunities that lie
ahead.

Nell ~ March 22nd

Another first for me. My first world
ending. My first crack at life without a man telling me what to do.
And my first journal. I said Journal, Sandy said diary and looked
at me like I was crazy. Why should it be diary? Why do we get hung
up on things like that? I guess I know that reason.

The other girls say these are for the
children. I have no man. I see Candace with Mike or Patty with
Ronnie, and I think that is rare. I’ve never known love like that,
not for any man anyway. I got married because I was expected to get
married.

I remember my mother saying, “You think
I don’t know, but I know. You think I don’t see, but I see.” Of
course, I denied it. But my mother knew. She told me it was hard
enough to be Puerto Rican, everything was against us, but Puerto
Rican and a lesbian? No. She wouldn’t stand for it. She
knew.

So I married and I hated it. And that
was about all that there was to it. Hate. Despair. Depression… All
parts of hate. Hate from others. Hate for self. Hate. But now the
world has ended and everything is possible. Would I have a child? I
would sleep with a man like Mike or Ronnie to have a child. But I
won’t ever again take a man to be my lover.

It’s funny, but I feel so free. It’s
also funny, but I wonder about Sandy. She looks at me sometimes.
I’ve seen her. I haven’t caught her, you know, as in let her know
that I know she’s looking. But I may… probably will. The only thing
is, she has this dream. She wants to live in the middle of nowhere.
I don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere. But, I told myself
not long ago that I would wait here for my husband. I told myself
that and I intended to do it. Well, that changed. I’m leaving, so,
maybe I’ll live where my feet take me. Maybe I’ll just live and let
life take care of itself. I wonder who said that? I wonder if it
matters? I don’t think so, as long as I believe it. I could have
love. Where I live and what I do would become secondary to
that.

I guess this must be a shock, or will
be a shock, or will it? Isn't it only my own sensibilities of what
is taboo, what life is that my mother instilled in me, that makes
me think that someone who read this would be shocked? I think so. I
think other people do as they please. I think they live their
lives, and I haven’t been living my life at all.

I would just like to be held the way
I’ve seen others held, or hold. I would just like to be made love
to with the passion I’ve heard between Mike and Candace, or Janet
and Rob, Patty and Ronnie. So I think about it. And I see Sandy
looking at me, and I think I’ll have to take the chance and catch
her. Maybe it will make us both happy.

~The North side~

She slipped from the shadows and ran
along from house to house until she reached the end of the block.
She had expected to hear the gunshots behind her, expected to find
herself falling to the cold ground, a bullet in her back, but the
bullet never came. Randy must have stayed asleep. She had put a
handful of sleeping pills in his food, mixed them right in with the
canned spaghetti, and he had wolfed them right down. Never had a
clue.

She stopped at the end of the street,
caught her breath leaning against the side of an old pickup truck
and then took off once more at a fast walk.

She was halfway through the block when
she realized someone was following her, and her heart sank like a
stone. Randy. Had to be. She stopped and peered back through the
shadows and dark. The moonlight was bright, but it was still not
easy to see. She thought she saw movement at the corner of a house
two houses back. She screwed up her courage.

“
Randy... Randy don't be
sore... Don't...”
She stopped and squinted
into the gloom. Two people had come from around the edge of that
house. Two, and neither of them looked anything like Randy. She
swore under her breath and turned to run.

He caught her under the arms. He must
have been standing right behind her all along, she
realized.

“
Hey... Hey, there's no...”
She stopped mid word and began to scream at the rotted face that
angled down at her own face. His hands clawed at her throat,
closing off her screams and then his teeth found her and he began
to tear and bite.

CHAPTER SEVEN

War

~March 23rd~

The cave was up early the next morning.
It seemed as though everybody had some task to complete, some job
to fill the day.

The open space of the large limestone
cave accommodated all the people and all the supplies and
possessions they had accumulated over the short period they had
been together. Now it also held the first truck that Bob and Tom
were going to convert. Everybody found a reason to stop and look at
what they were doing as they went about their chores.

Bob and Tom would be left behind for
the next several days as the others continued to search out items
on Jan’s lists as well as a few parts Bob and Tom had been unable
to find.

Mike was working on getting some coffee
into him when Tim and Annie came back into the cave in a hurry,
looking around. When Tim’s eyes fell on Mike he headed straight for
him. Mike glanced from Tim and Annie to the covered entrance way
but no one else came through it. “Ronnie wants you,” Was all Tim
said. His frightened eyes said more than his words. Everyone had
seen Tim and Annie rush into the cave and they looked at Mike now,
wondering what had caused them to hurry in. Mike shrugged his
shoulders and headed for the entrance way, Candace and Patty behind
him. Everyone else paused in what they were doing; waiting to learn
what was going on.

Mike stepped outside into the early
morning quiet. Ronnie,

Nell and Sandy were staring down the
river road toward the old restaurant that graced the end of the
street. Mike walked up, but before he reached them, a volley of
gunshots reached his ears. It sounded to him as though they had
come from lower State Street, just off the square, very close
by.

The sound of a revving engine reached
his ears at nearly the same time, and a speeding truck raced by the
end of the road about a quarter mile away. The shots came heavy and
hard. It sounded like a war zone.

“
How long’s this been going
on?”

“
About fifteen minutes or
so. That’s the third truck that’s gone by the end of the street,”
Nell said.

The gunfire sounded even louder if that
were possible. Squealing tires on pavement, straining
engines.

“
The gunfire is new. The
trucks have been going by though. Somebody’s at somebody,” Ronnie
said. “Maybe with those people we had the run in with.”

The sound of a crash came to their ears
followed by what sounded almost exactly like machine gun fire, a
steady, heavy crack, and that was followed by what sounded like
another heavy crash; and then another heavy explosion shook the
earth. A fire ball lit up the sky towards lower State Street.,
possibly closer even than Mike had thought, just off the square.
The sound of the explosion was deafening. The ground continued to
shake.