The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (36 page)

“
Well, if Nellie says so,”
Mike allowed.

Brian nodded. “She's really
smart.”

“
She is. Most girls are,”
Mike said seriously.

“
All of us are,” Candace
said leaning in. She planted a kiss on his cheek, making Brian
giggle.

The Dog wandered by looking for
handouts. He seemed a little put out that he wasn't getting all the
handouts he felt he deserved. He stopped in his wandering, looked
towards the interstate, stiffened his posture, and gave a little
woof. He turned and looked at Mike, his lower lip pulled back
slightly from his bottom teeth, his head tilted at an angle as if
to ask, Did you hear that?

Mike patted his leg. The Dog wagged his
tail, came over to Mike, allowed his hand to fall on his back and
scratch there, but kept his attention focused on the highway in the
near distance. Mike scratched him under the chin too, patted his
head and told him he was a good dog. He woofed once more and then
sat down, content to wait along with everyone else.

A few minutes later the sounds of the
vehicles came to Mike's ears as well. The Dog's ears were perked
now, his body tense with excitement.

“
Good dog,” Mike said and
patted his head once more. “Well,” he said to the others close by,
“Looks like our company is almost here.”

A half minute later, three Hummers came
into view running on the side of the interstate. Mike raised his
radio from his side. “That's you then, Jeff?”

The lead Hummer flashed its lights and
then set off on a diagonal across the field headed for the small
complex of buildings where Mike and the others waited.

“
It is, Mike,” Jeff
answered. His voice was loud and clear from the radio's small
speaker, seeming to jump out into the air.

~

The Hummers pulled up onto a broken
section of pavement that fronted what was left of the diner and
shut down. Bob, Ronnie, Patty and several others walked across to
the Hummers as they rolled to a stop.

Mike stood, brushed imaginary dust from
the front of his jeans and then pulled Candace to her feet. He
stooped down, picked up Brian and settled him onto his shoulders.
The Dog followed them as they walked over, completely unlike his
usual exuberant self. He stayed at Mike's side taking small,
measured steps to match his speed.

Mike looked around him. Everyone was
carrying a weapon in their holster, over their shoulder or both. No
one was really expecting trouble, but after the past few weeks no
one was taking any chances. Even Janet Dove, who had never handled
a gun, wore a shoulder holster with what looked like a huge rubber
gripped forty-four Magnum pistol, something straight out of a
Hollywood movie, flat beige camouflage paint, black rubber grips
and a heavy duty nylon webbed holster. She wore a smile on her
face, maybe to offset the pistol, Mike thought.

The front driver's door of the lead
Hummer opened and a large red-haired man stepped out onto the
cracked and buckled pavement. The other doors opened and the rest
of the party began to climb out.

“
Jeff,” Mike
asked?

“
Mike,” Jeff Simmons
responded with a smile. They both nodded and then shook hands
heartily.

A tall woman, almost as large as Jeff
himself stepped next to him. “This is my woman, Shar... Sharon,”
Jeff said.

Patty, Candace and Janet Dove stepped
forward.

Sharon smiled and took their offered
hands, “Shar... To pretty much everyone,” She said.

It took a few minutes to introduce
everyone, and then they made their way to the tables. There were
three small children, about the same age as Janelle and Brian,
accompanied by an older woman. She took a seat next to Lilly where
she had settled Janelle and Brian to keep the two smaller children
out of the way.

“
Who is you?” a blonde
haired little boy asked Lilly. “I'm Ben,” he smiled.

Lilly smiled back, “I'm Lilly,” she
told him. “This is Brian, and this is Janelle.”

The little boy looked suspiciously at
Janelle. Probably at the age where he didn't quite trust little
girls yet, Lilly thought. He smiled shyly at Brian.

“
I'm Jessica, Lilly,” the
older woman told Lilly. She turned to the other two children who
were trying to hide behind her. “And this is Mark, and this little
lady is Rain.”

Lilly smiled. “Hello, Mark. Hello,
Rain. Rain is such a pretty name.”

“
My mom told it to me,” The
little girl said seriously. She fixed her eyes on Janelle. “I got
some dolls. You got some?”

Janelle turned and pointed at the store
behind her. “I got some. I got a lot. Are you going to live with
us?”

Rain shrugged her shoulders. “I don't
know 'cause nobody told me, 'cause I'm just a kid.”

Janelle solemnly nodded her
head.

Rain got up, crossed the short
distance, climbed up on the seat next to Janelle and sat
down.

The other couple from the third Hummer
had made their way over to the table. They were young, possibly
younger than Lilly, Mike thought. He reminded himself how much
everything had changed though, how mature eighteen was now, how
actual age didn't have as much to do with life as it once
had.

As Mike shook hands, he realized he had
been wrong. David, the young man, was certainly Lilly's age, maybe
a year or two older. But the woman, Arlene, was much older. Maybe
in her early thirties. Again he reminded himself that it didn't
matter. Even so, it reminded him of Lilly and Tom. Lilly came over,
Tom with her, and the two couples seemed to hit it off
immediately.

The entire camp was bubbling over with
conversation. Janet Dove, Patty, Tim and Annie began serving
breakfast to the newcomers. The hum of conversation dropped lower
as the camp began to settle down to eat.

~The Dog~

The Dog sniffed along the edge of the
tree line. He had wandered away from the camp, attracted by the
smell of the cows. It was the most wonderful scent he had ever
smelled. He had already found two pilings of dropping and rolled in
them. It was good. Like heaven, he thought.

But the scent he was following now was
even more intoxicating. It was the smell of something dead, but he
didn't see it that way. He classified scents in an entirely
different way. It was the best scent in the entire world. Two
seconds from now, another scent might come along and transplant
that scent, but for now, it was the top.

He stopped and peered off into the
gloom of the trees. Something had moved in the shadows, and a soft
warning growl began in his chest and quickly built. Deep, bassy,
rolling out of his small frame.

The thing in the shadows moved again,
and its head seemed to cock to one side, the eyes focused on The
Dog through the gloom of the shadows. A higher growl, more like a
subdued snarl reached the dog's ears. He stopped his own growl
momentarily to listen, but his body posture changed. His legs
stiffened. He crouched slightly, his neck lowered and his growl
returned, rising to meet the pitch of the thing in the
shadows.

'The thing... person...
mother-father...?' he wondered. '...Master?' It stopped moving and
seemed to be waiting to see what the dog would do.

Another dog yipped from somewhere out
in the field, and he shot his head up quickly and looked in the
direction the yip had come from, waiting to see if she would yip
again.

She was a stray that had been hanging
on the fringes of the camp. He had caught her scent the night
before, and again earlier this morning. The yip said, Where are
you? I am here... Come and play... I need you.

His head dropped back to the thing in
the shadows for just a second, but it suddenly seemed far less
interesting than it had been. The other dog yipped once more,
louder, more insistent. And that yip said, If you're not coming I'm
leaving... it said, I called you... it said, Why are you there? And
it was too much. His head came back up, and he leapt away a second
later, running through the winter blighted wheat of the field,
following the other dog's scent on the air.

In the shadows, the boy settled back
down. He had been tempted to go after the dog, even though Donita
would have been.... would have been displeased, he decided. It was
not displeased, but displeased was the best he could come up with.
It seemed the longer he thought about a thing, the more abstract it
became. He lowered himself back to the ground and pressed more
tightly to Donita's cold flesh, taking comfort from it. She was
like... like a mother, he decided. He could not precisely remember
what a mother was, but he was pretty sure his thinking was
correct.

He closed his eyes, and the darkness
slipped over him. The small death... The respite from the living
death... The place where the constant hunger did not drive
everything. The smell of her death came through to him, and he
spiraled down ever deeper.

~The Camp~

“
I never thought of
something like a Hummer, Jeff,” Mike said.

“
There was a National Guard
base. About twenty of these things just sitting there,” Jeff
explained.

“
We were right next to a
big military base and never even thought to check it out,” Mike
said. “Drove by that base all the time. Saw them. Most of them were
like yours, the H-1, version, but I know there are other versions
that aren't military. The H1 and the H2 both,” Mike
said.

“
And three and four,” Bob
added. “But the three and four versions are not really military
trucks, not really even off road trucks. But they are really good
off road vehicles, and what about all those Jeeps? One of those new
four door models. I should have thought that, and I didn't,” Bob
said.

“
Well, next time we need a
new vehicle we'll look in that direction,” Mike said. “But the ones
you guys are building are probably going to be damn hard to beat
when you're done with them.”

There were a few of them sitting around
talking. The rest of the camp had drifted off to begin the projects
they had planned to do the day before. Lilly had taken all five of
the children to the toy store to keep them occupied. Jessica went
with her.

Molly, Tom, Tim and Annie left to go to
the garage, and it looked to Mike like Bob was looking for an
excuse to get his hands greased up again. It was probably why, Mike
thought, Bob came up with an excuse to leave a few moments
later.

“
Well, Jeff,” Bob said
extending his hand. “It was good to get to talk to you, but if I
don't get over to the garage there's no telling what those kids
will build... or take apart,” he finished with a laugh.

“
It was good to meet you,
Bob,” Jeff said. They shook hands goodbye, and that left Patty,
Ronnie, Candace and Mike as well as Jeff, Sharon, David and
Arlene.

“
So,” Mike said in the
silence that fell, “have you guys thought about how far you might
actually go? I mean, all the way to California or just
west?”

“
Well, when I said west,
it's more southwest we were thinking. Texas, Mexico, maybe even
South America,” Jeff said.

Mike nodded.

“
Bob and his wife Janet,
and maybe a few others, are going to go back to the land. They're
looking for a place. Wilderness, or close to it,” Candace said, “To
settle down.”

“
We discussed that, but we
don't know just yet,” Jeff said.

“
It would have my vote,”
Sharon said.

“
Mine also,” Arlene said.
“We've only been traveling a week, and I'm already sick of
it.”

“
Maybe we're closer to a
decision than I thought we were,” Jeff said sheepishly. “All of you
looking at doing that?” he asked.

Mike looked at Candace; Candace looked
at Patty and Ronnie and then back to Mike.

“
It's on the table,” Mike
said. “We talked it over early on, but no one fully decided. Bob
and Janet, they have an idea of rebuilding the Indian Nation. That
is a different thing than deciding to live in the wilderness, I
think they have a specific place picked out, the forever wild area
up around Kentucky, Tennessee. Extends into Alabama.
Huge.”

Jeff nodded. “I think I heard about
that somewhere. Read about it, maybe in school.”

Mike nodded. “It almost sounds like
anti-technology talk. Maybe no rifles. That's what I got from what
they said early on. But, I think that has changed. I think they've
revised things a little. Anyway, it's there on the table.” He
looked at Candace. “I guess for me personally, and I mean me,
nobody else, it depends on what my woman wants to do. If she wanted
to go, I would. I mean, we're all going to live somewhere. There
really aren't any cities left. If there are, they're unsafe, or
worse from what we've seen,” Mike said.

Candace smiled at him. “We met some
real crazies back in Watertown,” she said. “This has brought out
the worst in some people.”

“
I told Mike last night
we've had a rough time ourselves. We've taken to avoiding towns,
cities. Starting something over again in the middle of nowhere
don't sound so bad compared to what we've seen,” he said
softly.