The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (67 page)

“
I begged to get that job
too... Anyway, I spent the next year climbing the ladder, field
reporter, weather girl, co-anchor then anchor just before I left
Mobile. Believe me. I learned a lot of stuff about weather that
sort of got stuck in my brain.”

Mike nodded. He set the now empty
coffee cup down and began to help to take down the tents with
Annie. “I guess I can see that... Well, I'm glad you're here with
us.” It was clear to him that she did not want to talk about her
past. He found himself wishing he had not bought it up. It probably
seemed like prying to her.

Molly pitched in and between the three
of them they had all the tents down in a matter of minutes and
spread on the ground while they loaded everything else into the
roof racks. The tents went on last and covered the cargo in place
of the tarps that normally did. A few minutes after that they were
working their way down the trail, splashing through the deep
puddles of water left behind from the rain.

~

The Jeeps were stopped at a roadblock
of vehicles. Mike had stopped well in advance and then had all of
them back up further. They were all armed and tense, standing at
the front of Mike's Jeep.

“
There's no way around it
that I could see,” Mike said.

“
Probably going to have to
go down there and look it over,” Molly said.

Mike nodded. “No choice.”

Ronnie frowned. “I guess my concern is
safety, who goes, who stays, how do we do it.”

“
I think, Ronnie, you stay
here... Annie and Nellie too. Molly, Tim and I go up on foot... I
just want to be sure the rest of you stay safe back here,” Mike
told them.

“
You think it's smart to
split us up like that,” Nellie asked.

Mike nodded. “Look, I don't know what
that is. Someone blocked the road. Why? Do they know we're here? Is
it some group of people that we'll have a problem with? Kind of
seems possible, or else why did they block us off?”

“
I don't think the dead do
stuff like that, although a few of the things we heard over the
radio from New York, Houston, L.A. said they're smart. They plan
things out. So There's no way to know in advance what we're walking
into.” he turned and looked down the road.

“
Three of us walk down the
road and three of us walk back.” He turned back and made eye
contact with everyone. “Nobody goes down that road but us. If we
don't come back or if... Well, something else happens and we come
back as one of them, then you guys will have the harder job... But
I know you will do it.” He waited until everyone nodded. “You do
what you have to do and then you head back home. Get help. Come
back and wipe them out...” He shrugged. “Our first encounter...
Living or dead, someone blocked that road for a reason... Molly...
Tim,” he looked at Ronnie, Nellie and Annie. “Hold it down.” He
turned and walked away down the logging trail. Molly and Tim behind
him; hurrying to catch up. Once they did the three of them slowed
and began checking the sides of the road as they went.

~

“
I guess I expected them by
now,” Josh said.

“
Maybe that gunfire
yesterday,” Chloe said. “I could go back... We can't take the kids
near that though.”

“
And what could you do? I
don't think it makes sense for you to go back either,” Josh said.
“You don't know for sure whether they are the people you know or
not... And even if they are, they may not want you from what you
said,” He paused, shook his head. “Stay put here, Chloe... The kids
need you...
Want
you here.” he lowered his voice for the last.

Chloe opened her mouth to say something
but at nearly the same time gunfire erupted from the direction of
the old state campgrounds for the second time in two days. This
time there was no mistaking it, and no mistaking that it probably
involved the people they had spoken to just the day
before.

A split second after that she could not
remember what it was she had planned to say. Alicia ran to her,
tears already springing from her eyes. Frightened by the loud and
rapid gunfire that clashed with the early morning stillness that
had held the field.

~

The attack came fast when it came. Mike
only remembered the details after the fact.

Molly had the right side, Tim the left,
Mike had taken a lead of fifty feet or so right up through the
middle of the tall grass. It left him blind for the most part. The
grass was higher than his head in most places, unless he walked
right on the hump in the middle of the old road, and that was not
an easy task. He found himself spending too much time concentrating
on the next footfall. So he came down off the hump and walked
slowly beside it. Watching for darker shadows within the golden
brown of the grass.

He turned his head to look over to the
right and Molly when his eye had caught movement in the trees just
over her head. There was no time for thought. He swung his rifle up
and fired. He had no time to register what he had accomplished. He
dropped his eyes from the woods, alerted by a yell from Tim on the
other side of him and the Zombie was on him just that fast.
Afterward he realized it must have been hidden in the tall grass
and had sprung at him as soon as he was distracted by the movement
in the woods.

He was out of position to fire so he
reversed the rifle's stock smashing it into the forehead of the
zombie that had sprung at him. She went down but she was back up
just as quickly. Mike kicked her hard in the stomach as he bought
the rifle barrel around. He squeezed off a quick burst as she was
falling from the kick.

It seemed as though the entire world
turned into a solid wall of noisy gunfire. On both sides and front
and back.

The zombie hit the ground thrown back
by the force of the bullets. A huge section of her side blown away,
one arm gone, but she had no sooner hit the ground than she was
twisting to her side and rising to her feet, hissing and snarling
as she lunged at him again.

The shock nearly kept him from firing.
He had never expected her to get back up. The rifle barrel rose on
its own as he fired blowing holes through her chest and finally
taking her head from her shoulders. She staggered a few more feet
and then collapsed in a heap.

In front, somewhere beyond the cars and
trucks that blocked the road, the firing continued. Mike looked
left to right. Both Molly and Tim were gone. He got his feet moving
and started off through the tall grass.

The gunfire fell off abruptly. He
reached the beginning of the cars and trucks and began working his
way down the length of a pickup truck when he caught movement on
the opposite side of the truck out of the corner of his eye. He
swung the rifle up fast, finger on the trigger, squeezing as it
came up. The only thing stopping him from firing the uncertainty of
what his peripheral vision had caught, when his eyes finished the
split second trip he nearly squeezed the trigger anyway when Tim's
face came into sharp focus.

“
Jesus Fuckin'
Christ,”
He breathed. Tim's face was
streaked with blood. Pasty white under the scarlet. Tim nodded and
swiveled his eyes behind Mike, he turned to find Molly peering
around the edge of a van fifty or so feet beyond his own position.
He motioned both of them over.

“
Dead?” he asked in a
whisper. They both nodded.

“
Gotta get them in the
head,” Tim told him. Molly nodded and grimaced. Mike nodded
himself.

“
It wasn't either of you up
ahead firing?”

They both shook their heads. Mike swore
under his breath. “So we got two different problems... Okay... Back
to what we had,” he swapped out the clip in his rifle as he talked,
surprised to find it empty. “Molly, right, Tim left... I'll take it
right up the middle.” He shrugged. “No idea what we got so be
careful.” He nodded and then started off himself.

Molly had no sooner turned back to the
right than a zombie sprang from the woods and ran straight at her
looking into the woods behind it as it ran. She thrust her rifle
out and dropped low to the ground. Behind her she heard Tim and
Mike's rifles open up. Her own began to speak, bucking in her
hands, and the zombie began to do some weird jittering dance as it
blew apart in a storm of bone and black fluid that was not blood
but weirdly similar. She gagged as it splattered on her face,
scooted backwards, made her feet, and began to rub at her face, her
rifle sagging towards the ground. She stripped her shirt over her
head in one fluid movement, turned it inside out as it came off,
and scrubbed at her face, throwing it away from her as she
finished. There was a smell. A strong cloying stink. It made her
gag again and she gave into it, bending over and
vomiting.

She caught her breath after a second,
tears squeezing from her eyes. The silence was unnerving, and as
she raised her eyes the biggest man she could recall ever having
seen stepped from the trees.

“
Right there,” Mike said
from behind her. She turned to see that both Tim and Mike had their
rifles pointed at the man. She turned back to him, straightened and
raised her own rifle from the ground.

“
Not looking for trouble,”
the big man said. He kept his own rifle, some sort of a machine gun
it looked to Molly, pointed at the ground, but his finger rested on
the trigger. He looked from her to Mike and Tim and then back to
her. He shifted and a second later another man slid from the trees
and walked up beside him. His own rifle pointing down, but his
finger caressed the trigger restlessly.

“
Look,” the big man said.
“We got one... We chased six out...” He let the question
hang.

“
Four,” Mike
said.

The big man nodded. “Leaves one...
Probably long gone. They ain't stupid.” He looked at Molly.
“Blood?”

Molly nodded. Suddenly aware of her
nudity.

“
Can't hurt you unless you
have an open wound,” he fell silent.

Somewhere in the woods the birds must
have decided the time for silence was past. They seemed to awaken
all at once. One bird whistle turned into two and then a dozen. The
big man grinned. “If that other one was around they wouldn't be
singing. My name is Bear.” He looked around. “So we're all just
gonna point these fuckin' guns at each other all
morning?”

Mike thought for a second then lowered
his rifle. Molly and Tim followed suit. Molly turned, caught Mike's
eyes and walked back toward the Jeeps.

Bear nodded. “Thanks... We ran into
these bastards yesterday... Took three of ours, nearly a fourth,
don't know if she'll heal up and be okay or not.” He rubbed one
massive hand across his eyes and rubbed at his temples. “How is it
you ended up on the other side of this graveyard anyhow? Nothing,
but nothing back there as far as I know.”

“
Yeah... Well there is a
lot of nothing, but we have a place back there too... A long way
back in,” Mike told him. He looked around at the cars and trucks.
“What's the deal with this though? Keep people out? In?”

Bear shook his head. “Was about to ask
you... It ain't ours, if it ain't yours then the dead must have
done it. It looks like they have been nested in this campground up
ahead,” he turned and pointed back the way they had
come.

“
We know it,” Molly said as
she returned, shrugging into a thick sweatshirt. “The campground, I
mean, we know of it.”

“
We were headed for it,”
Mike added.

“
Well, looks like they were
using it to catch us... Like a big fly trap.... Web... Something
like that. It is a natural stop off. They even kept it looking
nice... If not them, someone did... They got us last night as we
stopped. We were just off the main road...” He met Mike's eyes.
“Anyway... Three of you? Why don't you come back to our camp...
We're about a half mile back,” he turned. “This is Billy,” he
turned back to face them.

Mike cleared his throat. “We have more
behind us... Not to alarm you.”

“
Course you do,” Bear
looked down at the ground for a second kicking at the pine needles
with one booted foot. He looked back up. “What do you intend to
do?”

“
We intend to move these
vehicles and come through here... Go on our way... But well be
coming back too,” Mike said.

Bear nodded. “We could help with
that... Start from the other side and meet in the middle... Maybe
then, once you got all of yours back together you can decide
whether we sit down and talk or not.” He fixed Mike with his eyes
once more.

“
Alright,” Mike nodded. “I
can't speak for everyone... But we have some of ours sitting about
a quarter mile back who are probably worried right now, once we
have all of us safely through this we can talk it out... You're not
with the group we talked to yesterday then? I assume not or you
would have mentioned it by now. That and you would be where they
said they were, not here.”

“
There are others up in
here somewhere too?” The one called Billy asked.

Mike nodded. “If it ain't you. We heard
from them last night... We planned to meet them later this
morning.”