The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (28 page)

They hadn’t heard any talk on either
radio about what they were doing at the cave, working on the trucks
to install the radios. “I don’t think they’re that close to us, not
able to directly observe us… If they’re observing us at all,” Bob
had said.

“
Yeah, could be they’re
just listening to each other,” Mike had agreed. “But after
yesterday, I think they’ll both be keeping an eye on us. They have
to know where Molly and Susan got to, so if they’re not hidden
across the river watching us from the cliffs, they must be
somewhere down the road watching our exit so they have an idea of
where we are and when we leave.”

“
So,” Mike said now, “we’re
going to head out to outer Washington Street. We’re going to make
it look good. If we hear them talking about us, we’ll know that
that is the State Street bunch, because the North side bunch
wouldn’t be able to track us. That will tell us who’s using which
channels. We’ll pick up a few things from Jan’s lists and we’ll be
listening. If it sounds like they’re about to come after us, you
guys sit tight. We’ll take care of them. We’ll be ready. We’ll deal
with them and then come back here as fast as we can.” He paused for
a second and looked from one set of eyes to the next.

“
If, on the other hand, it
sounds as though they’re going to attack here we’ll double back
just as fast. We have eight machine pistols. We’re taking three
with us. I want two up top and two at the block on this end, the
last one for the other end. I don’t see anyone coming from that end
though.” Mike's eyes were serious.

“
Listen, it’s a shoot first
and ask questions later situation. None of you should be thinking
about what they might be doing, second guessing yourselves. Just
shoot,” he said. Everyone nodded, and there was a low buzz of
conversation as Mike continued.

“
So we should know pretty
fast which is which. I still believe they’ve been listening to us
as well as each other, so everybody might start yakking here in a
few minutes,” he finished.

It was just a few minutes later when
they rolled through the road block, the two trucks they had left
angled across the road, and then rolled out the end of Old River
Road. As soon as they made the right hand turn onto Old River Road,
one of the radios came to life. The C.B.

“
Coming… Coming at
us,”
A voice said.

“
Who?”
Another voice asked.

“
Them cave people,”
The first voice said.

Then the F.M. Started.

“
They’re talking…Uh,
tracking them others,”
a voice
said.

“
Where at? … Coming at
us?”

“
No… No, negative. Going
at them… They’re talking it up on eighteen,”
the voice said.

“
Guess that answers that,”
Mike said. “But we’ll make it look good.”

Within a few seconds, a war of words
had started on the radios. It became obvious that each side was
aware of the other side’s transmissions. Now they were doing their
best to block and interrupt each other.

“
Maybe we won’t get much
after all if this keeps up,” Bob said.

Mike agreed.

When they reached the small strip mall
area on outer Washington Street, Mike found what they were looking
for and parked in front of the buckled doors to the shop, the
passenger side door just a few feet from the door to the
shop.

The sign over the leaning front
entrance way had collapsed backwards onto the roof, but looking
through the front window, Mike was sure he would find what he
wanted.

The front windows were cracked and
spider webbed so badly that Mike was surprised they were still in
their frames. Most likely, Mike thought, if they had not been heavy
safety glass they would have ended up in the parking lot or
scattered across the show room floor long before, glittering
diamonds scattered everywhere.

Dozens of boats covered the large, open
floor space inside the building. Part of the ceiling had collapsed,
but Mike was sure the things he needed would be here.

“
Listen as best you can,”
Mike said. He switched positions with Bob, putting him in the
driver’s seat, handed his machine pistol to Nell, thumbed the
safety off the Forty Five caliber pistol in his holster and worked
his way over Nell to the passenger door. “You guys got it. I’ll be
back as soon as I can,” he said. He opened the door and stepped out
into the shattered doorway.

It took only a few minutes to find what
he wanted. Several trips later there were no more to be found. He
made his way back to the truck carrying a large marine style
battery for show. Bob got out, came around and unlocked the back of
the suburban so Mike could set the battery into the rear
compartment area. Mike made three more trips until four of the
large, deep cycle batteries graced the rear cargo area. One last
trip, and a high powered charging unit went into the back along
with the batteries. But the real stuff, VHF Marine radios, Nell
brought in through the open passenger door unobserved.

After they had loaded and fussed with
the charging unit and batteries, they got back into the truck,
eased it off the shattered sidewalk and headed back toward the
cave.

The radio games were still ongoing,
each side trying to block the other, but a few snatches of
conversation came through.

“
Looks like
batteries…”
Clearly came through. Since
they knew the context, it was easy for them to understand, probably
not easy for the North side crew to figure out.

“…
something…
trees,”
the F.M. Squawked.

“
Wha…”

“
Batteries…”

“
Oh for fuck's
sake,”
came through clearly.

Nell laughed, Mike and Bob joined
in.

“
I guess they’ll do more to
keep each other screwed up than we can do to them,” Nell
said.

“
Think so,” Bob
agreed.

The radio battle began to die down as
they drove back to the cave. The initial wave of blocking either
too hard to sustain or not as interesting to them as it was at
first.

“
They just got some heavy
duty batteries,”
a voice on the C.B.
Said.

“
Copy,”
another voice replied.

“
They followed them
somewhere and they picked up heavy duty batteries… Don’t know
why,”
a voice on the F.M. Said.

“
What kinda
batteries?”
another voice on the F.M.
Asked.

“
Vibrator batteries for
yer old lady's dildo,”
another voice cut
into the F.M. and heckled.

“
Fuck you,”
the first voice said. And the radio war was back
on. Squawks and squeals accompanied them on the drive back to the
cave.

~

The two trucks rolled back smoothly and
let them in. Bob drove the truck down to the entrance, parking the
same way Mike had at the boat store. Nell unloaded the radios and
walked them into the cave as Bob, Mike, Ronnie and a few others
from inside fussed over unloading the batteries and charging
unit.

Twenty minutes later they were looking
over the radios in the cave. Mobile units, hand held units, and a
very impressive base unit that had the scan feature of the C.B. and
F.M. radios. They had nothing to power it with, anymore than they
had anything to power the battery charging unit with. But Mike
hadn’t wanted to leave it. He hadn’t wanted to leave any of the VHF
radios in the store, convinced they would take a look inside to see
what else they might have taken.

He was sure they wouldn’t miss the
radios if there were no others around, but if there had been one
left to make them think about radios in the first place, maybe they
would. They would buy the battery excursion, maybe to get deeper
cycle batteries to use in the trucks, and since they now had them,
that was exactly what Bob intended to use them for. He would make a
public event of it out in front of the cave so that they would see
him.

By mid afternoon, Bob had hooked up one
of the base units in the truck inside the cave. It flipped quickly
through the channels one by one. Smooth static.

Later in the afternoon, after scanning
for hours with no more hints of conversation, Jan had marked the
C.B. radio with South side, North side on the F.M. unit. She had
spent the morning on guard duty up top, and instead of sleeping
when she had come back down, she had helped Bob install the radio,
handing him the wire cutters, or the screw drivers, a roll of tape,
sometimes seeming to know what he wanted before he even asked for
it.

Mike had watched her briefly. She
didn’t seem overly upset, but she did seem a little worried. There
were circles under her eyes. He supposed they were all losing a
little sleep just lately. She’d caught him looking at her and
smiled a question at him.

“
You just look tired,
Janet,” he had said.

“
Not too bad,” she had
replied.

He nodded, not really knowing what else
to say.

She looked at him. The little worry
lines he had seen from across the cave returned. “We… We’re not
going to let this stop us from leaving on the first, are we?” she
asked.

Mike shook his head. “Not if I can help
it,” he answered.

“
Good,” she said and handed
Bob the electrical tape.

“
Well,” Mike said now.
“Let’s test it.” He depressed the button on a hand held unit.
“Test… Testing one two three.”

The scanning model in the truck caught
testing and followed the rest, then waited in the smooth silence
for more conversation. After a few moments, the scan feature kicked
in and the radio went back to scanning all the channels.

The C.B. and the F.M. remained silent.
He had sent radios down to the truck block and up top, as well as
the other end of Old River Road where it dead ended.

“
One,” he called now. “How
do you read me?”

“
Clear. One out,” Tim’s
voice said.

“
Two,” he asked. “Can you
read me?”

“
Got you,” Patty
said.

“
Three, you
there?”

“
Three, got you,” Tom’s
voice said.

“
Okay. From now on this is
base and we’re on if you need us. Base out.”

“
Read you,” Tom
said.

“
Okay,” Tim
said.

“
Two reads you,” Patty
said.

Mike listened to the other two silent
radios. Both in scan mode, both picking up nothing. “Well,” he
said. “If they did catch that, they’re playing it real
cool.”

Bob shrugged “I don’t think they
understand cool… or subtle, if the earlier stuff was any
example.”

“
We still don’t know what
set that off yesterday,” Mike said. “And that bothers me a lot. I
don’t want to believe that they’re so unpredictable that they’d
just snap at the drop of a hat.”

“
It seems to me like it was
about them, not us. Maybe us as a secondary, but it seemed like
they tried to take each other out,” Bob said. “It just didn’t go
the way they wanted it to go. Maybe they’ll think twice this
time... especially when it comes to us.”

“
Maybe,” Mike agreed.
“Maybe.” He paused. “I’m going to go see my woman. Spell Patty so
she can spend a little time with Ronnie,” Mike said. He pushed away
from where he’d been leaning through the truck window listening to
the radio.

“
I’m going to finish this
truck up,” Bob said. “May as well. We got two sitting here. I’ll
get them done, then I’ll swap these two for the ones out on the
block and do those two, like that.”

Mike nodded. “Okay. You know where I’ll
be.”

~

Mike was gone little more than an hour
when the VHF portable he was carrying squawked at him.

“
Mike,” Bob
called.

“
Yeah,” he
answered.

“
I’m sending someone to
relieve you. Uh, you probably want to be back here. Something’s
going on, on the radio,” Bob finished.

“
Like?” Mike asked. “This
is secure, Bob.”

“
It isn’t that, Mike… it’s…
I don’t know what they’re doing. Maybe working out a truce, but
they’re also talking about us. You’ll want to hear it, Mike. You
should hear it.”

“
On my way,” Mike said,
returning the radio to his belt.

“
Love you,” Candace
said.

He kissed her and then left
reluctantly.

He passed Lilly on her way to share the
post with Candace. She nodded shyly and said hello on her way
by.

Bob was the only one sitting in front
of the radio as he walked in. Everyone else was either on watch,
sleeping while they could, or preparing the night meal. The two
little ones, Brian and Janelle, tired from a day of hard play, lay
curled on a stack of sleeping bags close to the truck. The dog
raised his head and wagged his tail from where he was stretched out
beside the children. Mike settled in, took a cup of coffee Jan
brought to him and began to listen.