The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (45 page)

“
We should have hit the
thruway,” Bob said.

“
I'll agree with that,”
Jeff said, “Unless it's gone. Seems to be a lot that is
gone.”

“
We should have,” Mike
agreed. “The problem is, there's so much destruction it's hard to
tell where we really are. That lake for instance, that threw me for
a loop. I just wasn't expecting it. That means there could be other
changes. Well, actually that's a major change, so more major
changes like that, or even more so.”

“
Like?” Patty
asked.

“
I don't know. But have you
noticed we haven't seen a lot of torn up, jumbled mounds of earth?”
he asked.

Several heads nodded.

“
At first there was, in
Watertown. Then all that rain flattened things out. Then before we
left, we were seeing grass sprout up. Might be like that here. If
so, it won't be long before we can't tell what's new and what
isn't. This rain just keeps leveling things out. The warmth has the
grass seed sprouting,” Mike said.

“
You can still tell, or you
could before the rain. The grass was thin, but you're right, as we
go it'll get harder and harder to tell anything old from new,” Bob
said.

“
So how will we know when
we get to where we're going?” Candace asked.

“
Good question,” Patty
said.

“
Well, yeah, that is,” Bob
agreed. “But we'll know when we get to the mountains that we're
close. Really it's all enclosed by ranges if you think about it.
The first one has a few wide open gaps in it. We'll pass right
through one of those gaps, and we'll be in. There's another range
that cuts across to the east, and then the tail end of the other
range picks up there and closes off what amounts to several million
acres. I guess it's like one very big valley nestled between those
mountain ranges,” Bob elaborated.

“
It would be kind of hard
to miss the mountains,” Mike agreed.

“
Other roads, anything like
that going in?” Ronnie asked.

“
Old logging trails, and I
mean very old. There's been no logging there in well over a
century. But those roads were sometimes still used and maintained
by the park service. They don't go in all the way though,” Bob
said. “There are no roads that go all the way in. There have been
no people in there. Some of that area has never even been explored,
at least not since this has been America,” Bob said.

“
Roosevelt, right?” Arlene
asked.

“
Yes, ma'am,” Bob said, “He
set it up. Some land reclaimed and reforested, some never touched.
Since then the Federal government has been quietly buying land and
adding to it. We have the same thing here in New York, a pretty
large area that cuts across more than two thirds of the state.
People just don't know about it. But this, this cuts into portions
of six states. Taking all that land from six states doesn't make it
seem like that much land: a corner of Alabama here, a tract of
Tennessee, part of Kentucky there, a short run up into Ohio and
down into Georgia. But it all adds up; it's huge, big enough to
have been a state in its own right when you look at it,” Bob
said.

The area was clearly marked with Bob's
black grease pencil on the map, and the area it covered was
enormous.

“
I never even knew about
it,” Patty said.

“
Me either,” Lilly
agreed.

“
I heard about it in
school,” Candace said. “They teach about the Forever Wild lands.
Some of it was given to the government to use for that, some of it
was set aside for just that reason,” she said. “There are several
other areas in the United States, some small, some big that you do
know about and you just didn't realize that you knew... like
Yellowstone, or the Grand Canyon. Those are well known; others
aren't.”

Nell and Lilly began calling people to
come and eat. That at least seemed to perk up The Dog and
Angel.

Mike got a bowl of stew and then went
over to relieve David who was on watch so he could go eat. "Take
your time," he told him.

Bob wandered over with a bowl himself.
They both sat on the back step bumper of one of the Suburbans,
eating quietly, staring out at the rainy night.

“
Think you'll have any
trouble finding it?” Mike asked.

“
No. It's so big it would
be hard to miss it. If, or I should say when, we hit the next
mountain chain, that will be the back door. The Appalachians. We'll
follow them to the west, to Kentucky, Tennessee, and that will let
us in. Somewhere in there we'll find a break in those mountains.
There are two breaks really, the
Great
Smoky Mountains,
and the Blue Ridge chain.
I can't see how we could miss it. We should be able to stand on
those foothills and look at empty for as far as we can see in any
direction. No man made anything. There are just so many places in
this world that you can do that,” Bob said thoughtfully.

“
A long time to get there,
you think?” Mike asked.

“
That's a good question.
Did you say three hundred and fifty miles? I'd say about twelve
hundred total miles to get us there, so if we made this kind of
distance each day, then somewhere around four days from now, give
or take, we should be there,” Bob said.

Mike nodded, “For some reason I was
thinking it would be this long trip.”

“
It would be without these
trucks. We would've already torn up a couple of regular trucks. A
regular truck couldn't get over a foot drop in the road level, or
sand instead of pavement, with the mud we've had to deal with
either for that matter,” Bob said.

“
Even so, I'm not so sure
we'll be able to make that much mileage every day. We've been
running roads, highway road, torn up, sure, but still good enough
for us. This whole area is sparsely populated, and the closer we
get, the sparser the population gets. Farm country, walking
country, and that means bad roads, poorly maintained to start with,
and now probably torn up so bad that they have become impassable.”
He paused, took a bite of his stew, chewed, and thought.

“
I think our quick time is
going to slow down. Even so, once we get there, once we find it,
we'll have a great deal of work to do, a lot of trucks to find.
We've got, what? Eighteen drivers? Can Jessica drive? Probably not,
so eighteen drivers, and we need trucks for all of them and
supplies also, and I'm thinking some trailers on the back of a few
of those trucks, and, well, we'll just run those logging roads as
deep in as we can, get as close as we can, and we'll have to walk
the rest of the way in,” Bob finished.

“
It's gonna be a big deal,
but it will be worth it,” Lilly said as she walked up and listened
for a second or two. “You guys want more? Janet sent me, and she
sent these.” She held some biscuits with what looked like
blueberries baked into them on a large platter. She took their
bowls and left them with the platter.

They both thanked her, declined the
offer of more stew, and she went on her way. They stared after her.
“Everybody has changed so much,” Bob said.

“
I was thinking the same
thing,” Mike said. “But for the better. Everyone, me included. For
the better,” he said.

“
Yeah,” Bob
agreed.

“
Listen...” Mike began. He
fell silent.

Bob turned and raised his eyebrows.
“Ain't like you to be at a loss for words.”

Mike laughed, but it was short and
didn't match the worried look on his face. “This is going to sound
crazy...”

For the next few minutes Mike talked,
relaying what Jeff had told them and filling Bob in about the
cleared space in the woods. Bob chewed thoughtfully at his biscuit
as Mike spoke, finishing it, dusting his hands on the legs of his
jeans as he did.

“
Should eat that,” Bob told
him. “She did a good job on them. Be a waste. Go on.” He cleared
his throat. “The dead walking ain't really a problem for me,” he
said. “I heard the talk beforehand. Believed it. I guess that's
where you're at right now. Not sure you believe it.” He looked over
at Mike.

“
Go ahead... Eat it. Won't
do you any good to sit there with that worried look on your face.
The thing is, I have an alternate point of view. On most things, I
guess. I have no doubt there are dead that can walk. My religion
says there can be, so there can be. It's pretty simple to me. I
don't know about this other stuff though.”

“
Can they, do they, follow
us? Maybe. Maybe they do. Maybe they eat our dead, but how strong
can they be? Strong enough to take on a grown man? I can't see
that.” He cleared his throat once more, picked up his coffee and
sipped at it.

“
You said a nest. Well,
that sounds like an animal, don't it? I guess that bothers me the
most. A man can be predictable, but something in between...” He
shrugged. “We believe in men that can live after death. Dreamers,
those that can travel in the dream state where ever they wish to
go. Spirits and more. What do you think to do?” Bob
asked.

Mike shrugged. “I can't tell you I
believe that easily. But there was something there, and Jeff
doesn't seem like the sort of man that would exaggerate. If it's
true, it bothers me. How can you fight something like
that?”

“
They won't come where
we're going. There's nothing there for them, nothing to lead them
there. I imagine they'll be in the cities. Like that.” Bob
said.

“
You think?”

“
I think so. I mean, I
can't see it. You think it's like the T.V. Said though?”

“
I don't know,” Mike said.
“What are you getting at?”

“
Well, we'll be taking them
with us, if that's the case. You see?”

“
No. You just said they
wouldn't want anything to do with us,” Mike said.

“
Uh huh. But when you die
you turn. That's the way they said it was on the T.V., Mike.” Bob
finished.

Mike stared at him for what seemed like
minutes. “Jesus,” He said at last. He turned away and looked out
into the rain

“
Exactly,” Bob said.
“Exactly.”

~

About two hours after dark the rain
really begin to come down, turning the surrounding fields into
small lakes of their own.

Several people were sitting around
talking by the fires, different subjects, all relating to the new
life they hoped to be living soon.

Mike and Candace were sitting,
listening to the conversations, when the rain suddenly let up, and
a sliver of moon broke through the clouded sky.

“
Well,” Candace said, “now
or never I guess.” Mike looked a question at her.

“
Ladies room,” she said.
“At least I won't drown now,” she laughed. She got up and walked
away. Mike watched her go, thinking how much he loved her. As she
turned the corner of the building, he turned back to the
conversation he had been having with Ronnie about how easy the
steel structures would be to set up.

Candace slipped between two abandoned
trucks and made her way around to the back of the main building of
the truck stop. The building cast long shadows among the scattered
wood pallets, junked trucks and oil barrels. A long wooden fence
ran around most of it, blocking the view from the highway. She
hurried over next to the wrecked front end of a big tractor cab and
squatted down close to the ground, balancing against one of the
tractor's tires with one hand. She finished and had just stood back
up, fastened the snap on her jeans, when she felt the cold barrel
of a pistol touch her neck.

“
Well look at this,” a low
voice said, “Ain't you something.”

Candace's heart crashed hard against
her ribs. Her fingers, in the act of tugging her zipper home,
froze. She sucked in a breath and tried to quiet her racing heart.
Her voice sounded shaky to her ears as she spoke.

“
What... What do you want?”
she managed.

“
Wha... What do you want,”
the voice mimicked. “What do you think that I want?” he asked. One
hand stroked lightly against her face, leaving the feel of
calloused fingers and the smell of unwashed flesh.

“
I think you know, Missy. I
think you know.” His hand dropped down to her thigh and caressed it
roughly, then moved around to her hand still frozen on the zipper
“What's this?” he whispered in her ear. His breath smelled of
rotting teeth and rancid food as it blew across her
face.

His hand batted her own away and
fumbled with her zipper, jerking it roughly downward and plunging
his fingers into the opening, pulling at her panties.

“
Don't,” she whispered,
“You don't have to do this.” Her voice sounded weak and panicked,
and she hated it, but she couldn't get her heart to slow down or
get her voice to sound normal or authoritative. She twisted to get
away from him, but he had settled his weight on her, and she could
not stand up or get a good footing so that she could turn and fight
him. And the fear was loose in her. She couldn't think past
it.

He ignored her, his rough hands forcing
her jeans down and grasping at her panties once again.