The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (93 page)

“
Rough,” Mike said. He
picked at the grass with one hand. His legs were folded Indian
style under him. He was hunched forward; his shoulders slumped. He
took a deep breath and sighed it out. “Candace took it hard,” he
said.

“
Patty seemed to take it
well,” Ronnie said. “She'll be there for Candace... Or vice-versa.
They'll be okay.”

“
Do they know about me?”
Chloe asked.

To Mike it seemed as though all the
progress, maturity, whatever it had been that he had seen, fell
away with that one question, and a scared young woman, not much
more than a child really, sat before him hanging on his
answer.

Mike nodded. “Chloe? Don't
go backwards. You've come so far. They will love and respect you
the same way we've come to love and respect you in the last few
weeks... Being forced to do something...
Be
someone that you are not, does not
define you as a person... It's not who you are, and it can never
make you that person,” he said.

She choked back a sob in her throat and
folded one arm across her face. Debbie wrapped her arms around her.
Chloe blinked away her tears. “Good words, Mike... Good words.
Thank you,” she said. She slipped her own arms around Debbie and
pulled herself closer, still emotional.

Mike fished a bottle of
Aspirin from his shirt pocket and took two with his coffee. His
head seemed to have a pulse of its own. It had been a long couple
of days, he told himself. Hell... Almost two weeks. The whole trip
had been bad. No, he amended. The whole trip had not been bad,
s
ome
of the trip
had been bad, but they had actually ended up getting everything
they needed and an awful lot of extra, useful stuff too. And
Bear... His people. Jessie... Chloe... Steve... Debbie, and the
names kept coming. And the people were more important to him than
the things. Even so he missed Molly and Nellie. Molly more so.
Molly had begun to be close to him immediately. One of the people
he opened the door up all the way for. He would trade it all to
have her back, but that alone did not make the trip bad.

“
Hey,” Ronnie said. Mike
looked up from his thoughts. “Okay?”

Mike nodded. “Yeah...I'm
good.”

Ronnie nodded back. “Let me get a
couple of those,” he said.

“
Yeah, me too,” Chloe said.
Her eye were red and puffy.

Mike handed the bottle around. “You
know what?” he asked. They all looked up.

“
There were no days like
this in the valley. Not trying to be dramatic. It just wasn't
anything like the outside world. I can't wait to get back,” he told
them.

The Nation

Janet had taken the children down to
help feed the horses with Bob. Bob didn't need the help, but they
did not want the children affected by what Candace had to
say.

To the children it was a treat. Rain
and Janelle were amazed by the sheer size of the draft
horses.

“
Mister Bob?” Mark
asked.

“
Yes, Mark?”

“
Well... Horses poop a
lot,” he said very seriously. He was doing his best to step around
the piles as they walked through the large open area. Bob was
pushing a wheel barrow and scooping up the manure as they
went.

Bob fought to keep a straight face.
“Yes... They do, Mark, but it's a good thing for us that they
do.”

“
How come is that?” Rain
asked.

“
Well,” Bob said. “This all
goes in the garden and in the corn fields. It's called fertilizer.
It helps the garden to grow... And the corn too,” he told the
children.

Mark stopped where he had been
carefully stepping around a large manure pile. “But we eat
veg-ables from the garden,” he said.

“
Vegetables,” Janelle
corrected.

“
That's why I don't like
'em,” Rain said. Her nose wrinkled up and she shook her
head.

“
Silly,” Janelle said.
“They don''t put the poop...
the
manure
,” she looked at Janet who nodded.
“They don't put the manure on the vegetables... Do you?” She turned
to Bob.

“
Uh,” Bob
started.

“
How come it stinks so
much?” Mark asked.

“
Because it's poop. Right,”
Rain answered. She looked at Janelle who nodded.

Mark was still looking at Bob. “Well,”
Bob started again. He looked at Jan.

“
Do you kids want to come
and help me collect eggs?” Janet asked.

“
Yeah,” Janelle
said.

“
Yes,” Rain
agreed.

“
Okay,” Mark agreed. He was
still looking at Bob. Bob looked away and cleared his
throat.

“
Auntie?” Rain asked after
a second.

“
Yes, Dear?” Janet
said.

“
Well, how come eggs have
poop on them when they come out of the chicken and are
borned?”

~

Nearly everyone had gathered in the
large open meeting area of the cave. It was absolutely silent as
Candace spoke.

“
So,” Candace said. “That's
what is going on... Nobody had any idea that the guy was there.
They're still not sure if it was the same guy from earlier in the
day. I don't think anyone will ever know. The way it was there's no
way to know.”

“
So he shot Nellie and
Molly,” Tom said.

Candace sighed. “No, Tom.
He shot Nellie. He didn't shoot Molly. Mike saw it... Ronnie and
Bear too I think... The guy didn't shoot Molly... Ronnie tried to
hold her, keep her away, but she got away from him... Tom, she
killed herself. She just... I don't know. Nobody could know what
she felt... What went through her head. Whatever it was overwhelmed
her, if she had had time to think... To deal with the grief... But
she didn't.” Candace paused for a second but the silence held. “I
think.
Mike, Ronnie and the others
think
, it must have been an impulse thing.
Mike said once she held Nellie... Once she knew she was gone, she
didn't hesitate... Nobody could stop her. It happened too
fast.”

No one spoke.

“
They'll be here tomorrow,
early to mid-morning Mike said. They're talking about this being
the last trip out as well. The things we hear on the radios about
the dead are true as well. It's bad and getting worse. It can't
just be a trip out there for the hell of it. It's too dangerous out
there... And it isn't just the dead, yes, that's bad, but the last
group they ran into, left them and ran into another group that
tried to kill them. So it's the living that are still out there
too.”

“
We'll have to be careful
who we let in, then, right?” A young woman asked.

Alice something, maybe Allie. Candace
couldn't remember the young woman’s name.

“
That makes no sense at
all, Allie” Patty said, solving the name dilemma for her. “If that
were the case you wouldn't be here. A lot that are here wouldn't be
here, me included. Maybe I've been here awhile, but I was not part
of the original group at all. They let me in.”

The silence came back.

“
Maybe we can all get
together and talk it out. We'll have a Nation meeting if need be.
But we'll do it when the others get back,” Candace said. She looked
over to the other young woman she had spent time talking to before
she had begun to speak. “I talked to Jamie this morning. I imagine
she's been around and talked to almost everyone today. We're
looking to see how many we are. I think Jamie is going to be
keeping track of that number from now on.” She motioned for the
young woman to stand up.

The young woman stood and looked around
the large room. She pushed her red hair away from her forehead and
smiled at the room. “Right now, before the others get back, two
hundred and fifty-three.” She nodded yes at the few heads that
shook. “I was careful to talk to everyone, it is two-fifty-three.
From now on I'll keep track as people come in. I know there are at
least four groups trying to make it here before snow flies, and we
have our own coming back also, so we will end up well over three
hundred or more in the next few weeks.” She smiled nervously once
more and then sat back down.

“
Wow,” Patty said. Several
people chuckled.

“
I'm pretty surprised too,”
Candace agreed. She smiled. “Not long ago we were under twenty...
Not long ago. I think I lost track at about twenty-nine. I can't
count much higher than that, pisses the babies off and they start
kicking if I use too much brain power.” Several people laughed. “It
means a lot to do before winter gets here.”

Tom nodded. “Buildings... Grain...
Probably more smoked meat as well.”

“
It won't be a problem
though with so many more of us to help with the work,” another
young woman said.

“
In fact it will be nice to
have so many extra hands,” Candace echoed. “It will go faster...
Has been already in fact.”

“
Did they get everything on
our lists? ... I mean, especially if this is it,” Sandy
asked.

“
They got everything and
then some, was the way Mike put it. And, Sandy, two doctors coming
in with this group,” Candace told her.

“
No,” Sandy said, a huge
smile spreading across her face.

“
Yes,” Patty said. “One is
a woman... Jessie... The other a young man, Stephen. The woman had
been practicing awhile, the young man, Ronnie said, was in
residency... Did I say that right?”

“
Yeah... You did,” Sandy
agreed. “As long as we don't have to build a golf course,” she
joked.

They talked for a while longer. Today,
tomorrow, the future. How many they were. How bad things had gotten
on the outside, but no one spoke about Nellie or Molly, although
they were probably both on everyone's minds, at least those that
had known them. It was too soon for those that did know them to
absorb it. It hurt too much. And the ending had scared everyone.
Was that possibility inside of them as well? Some knew the answer.
Some were sure they didn't, and some didn't want to know. Didn't
want to explore that particular darkness.

So they talked about other things. How
surprised the returning group would be when they saw how much work
had been done, when they told them how many were here. What the
harvester would mean to them. The new people. The doctors. Whether
there would be hot water by winter as Tim had promised. Whether it
would be smarter to try to build more housing before winter, or
winter in the cave and build next spring. Would a sawmill help them
to build housing faster? How long would it take to get the sawmill
up and running? Could it be done before winter? And the discussion
and questions went back and forth.

When Bob and Janet came back with the
children it seemed like everyone found a reason to stop and talk
with the children. Tom came over and talked with Candace and
Patty.

“
I'd like to make a
marker... For Nellie and Molly.... Something nice... Maybe put it
down by that little flat area at the base of the waterfall. We had
talked about making a little park area there. It would go nicely, I
think. I know they won't really be there, but I want to do it.” He
had one arm protectively around Lilly, and Candace wondered if he
were thinking of Lydia, his first woman who had been shot and
killed in pretty much the same way. Maybe Tom had faced his own
demons that day and come close to doing exactly what Molly did.
Maybe he hadn't, but she suspected it had affected him
deeply.

“
I think that would be nice
and I think Lilly should say something,” Candace said.

Lilly nodded. She slipped one arm
around Tom's waist and squeezed him tight.

He seemed about to say something else,
but instead turned and walked away with Lilly.

Candace turned to Patty. “I don't know
about you, but I'm shot, and I'd like to look half way decent
tomorrow when Mike gets back... I think a good night sleep would
clear my head,” she said.

“
I have a headache, but I
don't want to take anything... The baby,” Patty said.

“
Me too. I have a bad
one... I don't want to be alone tonight... And I don't want to
sleep on the front porch swing like we did when we fell asleep...
Too hard,” Candace said.

“
Okay,” Patty said
simply.

“
Alright... Help a pregnant
lady home then,” Candace said. She slipped one arm through Patty’s
own and they walked off down the ledge and into the valley
together.

~

Tom's Journal

Lilly's sleeping. I can't. Ever since I
heard about what happened to Nellie and what Molly did it's
bothered me. I liked Molly a great deal. I didn't get to know
Nellie as well, I wish I had, but that means nothing
now.

I know how it was for Molly, because
when they shot Lydia the same thought came to me. Just do it. A
fast thought. No reasoning at all. My arm actually started to come
up. It twitched and started to rise. I stopped it, but it was not
easy. And I wasn't sure I could find an argument if my arm had not
stopped. What do you tell yourself? When it's unreasonable? Isn't
that how people snap? They just can't, won't, don't listen? I came
so close. Molly came closer.