The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (89 page)

Lilly choked back her
laughter. “That
will
make your butt look big,” she gasped; wheezing with
laughter.

“
Jan, you are so funny
sometimes,” Candace managed at last.

Eventually the laughter died down and
they all tucked into the food.

On The Road

They had found the other truck that
they needed, gassed it up, checked it over and they were ready to
go. Josh had shut the truck down for a moment when the wind bought
the sound of gunfire from the south. They would never have heard it
if the truck had been running: If the wind had not carried the
sound: Or if either of those things had not happened to coincide
with the other, Mike told himself later. If he had not heard it,
what would have happened? He hated to think about it, but he had
heard it and so had the others, and there was nothing for it except
to go and check it out. After all, Jessie's group had gone in that
direction just a few hours before.

They had made good time coming back off
the logging trail. Even so, Mike opinioned, it had been four hours.
It should be nothing to do with Jessie's group. They should be long
gone. But what if they weren’t? If it was them they had to help,
even if it was not them they had to help. The decision was made in
seconds. No words were exchanged. Mike turned to the others and
they were waiting on him.

“
Okay... Let's go see what
it is... Leave that truck here... We'll come back for it,” he
finished. A minute later both trucks were speeding down the highway
in the direction of the gunfire.

The Nation

The afternoon turned into late
afternoon, and then late afternoon turned into evening. Candace,
Lilly and Cindy played music in the main meeting area. They were
short Tim who played drums, and Molly who played guitar and also
sang, but they sounded fine to everyone.

Candace and Cindy played
their guitars and sang while Lilly added her flute to the melody.
Candace did a version of A Minor, a song she had liked in the old
world. And then she and Cindy did a song,
'Peace In The Valley',
followed by
two other songs,
'You Say'
and
'Stones Across the
Water.'
All three were songs Candace had
written and the three had been working on.

Cindy's voice was high, sweet and
clear, and it complimented Candace's voice which was low, throaty
and somehow sinuous. People often told her that she had a good
blues style, the way she sang, the way she phrased her voice and
her guitar style, which was all finger picked and dealt in a lot of
minors.

The music went on and pretty soon they
were doing requests for this song or that song from the old world.
Twice they were asked to play more of their own music as
well.

When the sun began to slip down below
the mountains, some left for their posts or evening chores, but
others stayed. Finally, Candace and Cindy called it a
night.

“
My fingers hurt,” Candace
admitted. “And this kid is trying to kick my guitar right off my
lap.”

“
Mine are shot too,” Cindy
said. She held them up and examined them. They were starting to
callus but she had not been playing long enough for good thick pads
to build up on the tips of her fingers.

“
And my lips are shot,”
Lilly said. She looked at Candace daring her to make a smart
remark.

“
What,” Candace asked. “You
think I would take a cheap shot like that? Like,
'Oh, your lips are frozen in an Oh!' or
...”
Lilly gave her a shot in the shoulder
and they all laughed.

Patty came over from where she had been
talking to one of the newcomers whose name Candace could never
remember, Janey, or Jeanie, something like that. A young, pretty
girl. But she tended to stay away from Candace.

“
You have to teach me how
to play,” Patty said.

“
Most of it is these
calluses,” she held up the tips of her fingers. The tips were
callused, but even so there were grooves in them from the
strings.

“
Doesn't that hurt?” Patty
asked.

Candace turned them around and looked
at them. “Nope. Used to, but the callus pads are thick. Doesn't
hurt at all. The grooves will be gone in an hour or so.”

Patty took Candace's fingers and
brushed them against her own cheek. “Hard,” she said. “Rough.” She
met Candace's eyes and held them. She still held her hand in her
own.

“
Here,” Candace said. She
pulled Patty to her and sat her down in front of her. She handed
her, her own guitar, one she and Bob had made, and pulled Patty
into her. She reached around her, took her hand and formed it into
the proper position for a C Major on the guitar's fret-board. She
took her other hand and strummed the strings with it. “See?” she
asked.

“
Yes,” Patty said quietly.
Her voice was low, breathy.

Candace bent her head to look at her.
Their faces just inches apart. “You okay?” she asked.

Patty smiled. “Yes... More than okay...
Show me more, Candy.”

Candace took her hand and reset the
chord position with her fingers. Then had her strum. The chord came
out muted and buzzy sounding. “Tent your fingers... Like Cindy's.”
Beside her Cindy showed her the chord and then strummed
it.

Patty laughed, leaning back into
Candace. “Mine doesn't sound that nice.” She looked closer at
Cindy's hand.

“
Tent it like Cindy's hand
is, See?” Candace took her fingers, bent them slightly. “Push
harder too.” The chord came out much clearer. Patty laughed
again.

“
You'll show me how to do
it better?” she asked Candace. She lifted her face up to Candace's
own, their noses nearly touching. Cindy turned away, a little
embarrassed by the thought that had just jumped into her head, and
watched the flames leap from the fire that burned in the middle of
the room.

“
Practice, practice,” she
heard Candace say behind her.

“
But you'll show me?” Patty
asked.

“
Pats, I just did... But
I'll show you more... Spend some time with you... To show you.”
Candace's voice was low and throaty. The same way she sang, Cindy
thought. She turned back, still a little embarrassed. Her own mind
sometimes created things that could not be true, she told herself.
She had thought...
Never mind,
she told herself.
Just
never mind what you thought.

Patty's face was a little red. They had
moved apart, but they were still looking at each other in a funny
way. Cindy spoke. “I'll show you too. It's not that hard... The
hardest thing is getting the calluses to build up... Waiting
through that part of it.”

Candace cleared her throat and
addressed Bob who sat nearby.

“
Bob. Have you ever heard
of Cat Gut strings,” she asked.

“
Yes... But of course they
are not really made of Cat Gut. Usually they are made of Calf
skin... The inner lining of the stomach... It's very thin. But,
they could also be made from actual gut, stomach too. Cow, calf...
Probably cat too, I suppose... Sorry,
why?”
he asked.

“
You answered it... These
steel strings won't last forever, and I was wondering what we'd
have for an alternative,” she said.

“
Nylon,” Bob said. “And we
have a lot of that in all gauges too.”

“
Jeez Louise, nylon,”
Candace said. “I should have thought of that. They use that on
classical guitars... Sometimes metal wound too, but
nylon.”

“
Also gut strings on
classical as well,” Bob said.

“
Really?”

“
Yep. It's not used like it
used to be... Or it wasn't used like it had once been used,” Bob
corrected. “Sometimes I forget it's all gone away. It wasn't used
as much in this country, but in many countries it was still the
material of choice... It has a very different sound than steel or
nylon.”

“
I thought only violins
used it,” Lilly said.

“
Nope... They do, or did,
still do I guess, but classical guitarists liked it as well... Used
it instead of nylon.”

“
Well, how hard would it be
to make,” Candace asked.

“
Ah. That is the question.
We'd have to play around a little, but I bet we could figure it out
easily enough. Figure the gauge, what produces the pitch you need.
I could build a jig once we figured it out so I could cut the gut
the same time after time... Even make it round too,” he smiled and
raised his head from the floor where it had sunken as he thought,
working it out in his head. “A little playing around, pun intended,
and we'd have it. Then it would be no big deal to do it on a
regular basis” He paused for a moment. “I really like your music,
Candace,” he told her. “I like the way you did that song... A Minor
was it? And that other one, Stones Across The Water... Yeah. You
have a beautiful voice.” He turned to Cindy.

“
I had no idea how
beautiful your voice was. Where did you learn to sing,” he
asked.

“
I didn't. I just sang
along with the radio... Like anyone, I guess. But I like Candace's
voice... I think our voices compliment each other.”

“
You got that right,” Craig
said. He had been sitting listening.

“
Yeah,” Patty agreed. “I
like that song too... It's about someone in prison,
right?”

“
Two kinds of prison...
Like a prison in their head is what I get from it... Doing time for
the things that have already passed in your life,” Candace
said.

Patty nodded. “And your songs are about
us. Our life here... I like your lyrics too... You could have done
something in the old world, seriously.”

“
I thought about it. I just
didn't want it bad enough to crawl through all the mud you have to
crawl through.” She shrugged. “I write better stuff now too. I like
what I write now, and I didn't always before,” Candace
finished.

On The Road

They came upon Lisa first. She was
sprawled less than fifty feet from the truck she had left in that
morning. The truck was a burned out wreck. There were charred bones
in the wreckage. The heavy, greasy odor of burned pork hung in the
air, along with the smell of burned plastic and hot steel. The
wreckage was too hot to get very close to. The bones could have
been one person. It could have been more.

Lisa lay nude in the tall grass. A
dried crust of blood at her mouth. A small blue hole in her
forehead.

Josh immediately choked up and began to
cry. Tim swore, cried too, and then took off his coat and covered
her with it. Chloe turned to ice, as did Mike. The smile she had
been wearing for the last few days gone. Her anger just below the
surface, barely contained. Visible. There was no question then that
they were in it.

Mike raised his eyes to the tree line
and saw the dead shifting in and out of the shadows. They had not
been at her yet, but they would be. If they could not turn her she
would simply be food. Beside him Chloe's eyes came up and locked on
the wood line as well.

“
No fuckin' way,”
she whispered. It was nearly too low to hear it.
She thumbed her safety off. Mike began to speak, but realized he
had also thumbed his own safety off and was moving deliberately
across the field toward the trees.

“
You can't fuckin' have
her,”
Chloe screamed. Her machine pistol
came up and she began to spray the trees. A second later Mike found
that his own pistol was up and firing. Tim beside him. Josh off to
one side. His face gray, ashen, his pistol jumping in his
hands.

The dead that had ventured out of the
trees began to fall, and Mike found himself running at the tree
line as Chloe and the others were. A few short seconds later and it
was over. The dead that had not managed to flee lay on the ground.
They stood for a second and then walked back to the trucks where
they still sat idling in the sunlight.

Chloe and Mike picked up Lisa's body
and settled it into the back of Chloe's truck. A minute later they
were tearing down the road toward the sound of the gunfire that
came to them loudly on the wind now.

Ten short minutes later they were at
the edge of whatever was still going on. Ahead, an unfamiliar truck
was cross-way in the road. Four people crouched behind it, firing
at something further up the road.

Chloe and Mike both sighted through
their scopes. “That has got to be the bad guys,” Mike said. He
looked over at Chloe.

“
Ain’t nobody we know,”
Chloe said tightly.

“
Get behind the truck,”
Mike said to Tim and Josh. To Chloe: “I'm taking the two on the
right, you take the two on the left.” He laid down on the road.
Propped his elbows up to hold his rifle and sighted. “On you,” he
told her.

Chloe shifted slightly. “Say when,” she
whispered.

“
When,” Mike said
tightly.

Mike's first shot hit the man on the
far right in the back. The man next to him, believing the shot had
come from the front, jumped up and began firing into the distance
past the truck, but before Mike could take him out a shot from
somewhere else took him down. He turned to Chloe's second man, she
had already dropped the first man, and they both fired at
once.