All That I See - 02 (34 page)

I looked down into Ron Meyer’s snarling face and decided to head back to Clayfield.

Chapter 40

Somerville sat up when I came in. I could tell he had been sleeping. It was a little humorous to me that he was able to do that while unaware of what was outside. He looked at me blankly, but didn’t speak.

“I’ll get your medicine,” I said.

“What did you see?” he asked.

“They’re not here,” I replied. “The two men they were with have turned—Sara’s teacher and his friend.”

Somerville looked down and fidgeted
with the bed sheets, “They don’t stand much of a chance, do they?” he said, hoarsely.

“I think they went back home,” I said. “There’s no reason for them to go anywhere else. If they haven’t started back yet, they will.”

“If they think we’re dead, there isn’t a reason for them to go there either.”

I shrugged, “Except that it’s home to both of them. I think our best move is to go home and wait.”

He swung his legs over the side of the bed again and rubbed his eyes then beard. “I can’t do that; I have to keep looking.”

“Let me get your medicine,” I said. “Then go back to bed and think it over. I’m driving back to Clayfield.”

“Sorry, son,” he said. “But I reckon we’re going to have to part ways.”

“Come on, Nicholas,” I said, wearily, “you can’t go out there on your own. The damn river is full of monsters. The other side is on fire. Without Ben Parks, there is no reason for them to go to that address in Missouri.”

“When I find them, we’ll come home,” he said. “I still have big plans for Clayfield. I know you mean well, but I don’t agree with you on this, and I can’t just go along with it.”

“You’re so weak, you can’t be out of bed more than a few minutes. How do you plan to cross the river?”

“There’s a bass boat parked out there,” he said.
“I’ve spent plenty of time on
bass boats. I’ll be fine.”

“Nicholas, I don’t—“

“Stop talking,” he said. “I’m crossing that river. I’m not trying to guilt you into doing anything. It might be best if you stayed in Clayfield and kept a look out for them. I’ll go to Springfield. I’ll wait there a week, and if they aren’t there or don’t show, I’ll come back. Ordinarily, a trip like that would be less than a day coming and going, but I expect delays.
You should
give me…oh…a minimum of two weeks. If you want to come looking for me, you can, but I’d rather you didn’t.”

I didn’t respond. I stood and went to get the bag with the medical supplies.

“Don’t you be feeling bad or second guessing,” he said. “It’s just fine for men to disagree. I’m not leaving mad. I’ll be back.”

I returned with the bag, “You shouldn’t take the pain pills if you’re going over the river. They’ll make you sleepy, and you need to stay alert. This antibiotic is in powder form. You might be able to mix it with water and drink it.”

He nodded, “I’ll do that. I don’t have time for the I.V.”

I looked out the window to keep from looking at him.

“If the girls are in Clayfield, you tell Judy to keep her butt there until I get back,” he said. “There’s no use in us going back and forth looking for each other.”

“Ben Parks’ truck is still full of supplies,” I said. “We should probably load the boat with necessary stuff before you go so you can just get in the water and go.”

“I appreciate t
his,”
he said.

“It’s a bad idea,” I said. “Remember when you wanted to force that woman on Braggusberg Road to come with us? Remember how you told us that there aren’t enough people around to let everybody make stupid decisions?”

“You’re welcome to try and stop me,” he said. “I might not win a fight, but you’ll know I’ve been there.”

“No need for posturing,” I said. “We’re not in a city council meeting. You do what you want.”

I packed Somerville a backpack and duffle bag with supplies from Ben Parks’ SUV and stowed them in the boat. The rest of the supplies for Parks’ two vehicles, I transferred to the RV. There was another shotgun in one of the trucks along with some extra shells. We split the ammunition between us—twelve round
s
for Somerville, and thirtee
n for me
. Then I followed him a few miles to the west to the ferry crossing. The flood gates were open there, and he backed the boat down into the river.

“I’ll be seeing you soon,” he said, standing by the truck.

“I hope so,” I said.

He nodded, slapped my shoulder, and turned to go. He stumbled a little. I reached out to help him, but he pushed my hand away. Once he had steadied hims
elf, he made his way out to the
boat. I watched him push out into the river and climb in. He started the motor, gave me a wave, and turned the boat to the west. He was going straight to Missouri. I watched until he went around a bend in the river, and I returned to the RV.

It was just me again.

I used back roads to return to Grace County. Once I was far enough away from
Riverton
and Singletree, I cut across and connected to the main highway, heading south to Clayfield. I didn’t regret my decision to stay, but I did feel bad for not volunteering to go to help Somerville. My main concern was Sara, just as his was Judy. We both made our choices, but I was fairly certain he’d made the wrong one. I just hoped it wouldn’t cost him his life.

I arrived at the Lassiter place just after dark. Sara and Judy weren’t there, but I didn’t let that make me give up hope. The house was incredibly empty and quiet. I didn’t really need one, but I thought about building a fire just to give me some company. Instead, I decided to go straight to bed. I would drive around and look for them the next day. It took a while, but sleep finally came.

The next day, I checked every place I thought Sara might go—Blaine’s place, the Somerville’s house, our house in town where we’d been ambushed by Wheeler and Corndog, Ben Park’s house, the museum, and even the First Christian Church. She wasn’t in any of those places. I drove around town until noon, just looking. Then I went back to the van by the glass shop and collected the rest of the supplies from there. With nowhere else to go, I returned to the stables. I thought it might be best to stay around in case she showed up. It gave me time to sort through all the supplies.

I emptied the RV and took everything into the living room of the house. I would have more than enough alcohol for a while. I had enough food to last about three weeks, but I would need to go out for drinking water soon. My gun situation wasn’t that great either.

I was concerned, too, about my mental state. I was fine at that moment, but it was starting to sink in that I might be the only healthy person left in Clayfield. I’d always been an introvert; I loved my time alone, but the thought of being completely alone indefinitely made me feel empty inside. I built a fire as the sun was going down, and that made me feel better.

I went back outside with a flashlight to check the RV one more time and made a discovery. It had a propane water heater. I pulled aside the narrow folding door to its tiny bathroom and grinned a little when I saw the shower head. I hadn’t had a hot shower in weeks. It wouldn’t be the same as the showers I’d had before, but it was going to be better than rinsing myself off out of a stock pot. I ran inside and collected my soap, shampoo, a towel, and a couple of candles. This was going to be something special, and I planned to stay in there until every last drop was gone. I only regretted that Sara couldn’t enjoy one, too. I assured myself that she would be back, and I’d have the water tank full for
her
when she did. Maybe we could even squeeze in there together….

I stood under that trickle of hot water until the tank was dry. I hadn’t felt that clean in a long time. I didn’t bother getting dressed. I just went inside, wrapped myself in a blanket and sat in front of the fire with a glass of whisky. I was so relaxed. The flames were hypnotic. I fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of rain. I stood and went to the front window. It was pouring. I wished I had those rain barrels and cistern set up. These were things that needed to be done, and I had put them off for too long. The seasons weren’t going to stop for me. Soon it would be summer and the rains would be less frequent. Then it would be late summer and fall, but if I had not planted my garden, there would be no harvest. There were some things that couldn’t wait any longer. Sara and I had collected enough seeds to at least supplement our food supply for that year. I had to get them in the ground whether she was around or not. Eventually, she would come home.

The cistern tank and rain barrels were still over at our place in town on the back of the hay truck. I couldn’t do much in the rain, and I didn’t want to be cooped up, so I decided to drive over
in the church van
and get the truck. My ability to drive a manual transmission had not improved, but I wasn’t in any hurry, and there was no one around to make fun of me.

Everything seemed slower in the rain. The undead were especially sluggish. They were all droopy and soggy. I wondered how much longer they would last. I wondered if they would even be a problem by the end of the summer. They appeared to be deteriorating, but would they completely rot to their bones and fall apart, or would they hang on? I wondered if they were nourished when they fed on other living things. I wondered if it prolonged their existence. I didn’t plan to wait it out. I knew Sara was right that we needed to be proactive. We needed to exterminate them if we could.

Chapter 41

I made an effort with the clutch and gear shift in that old hay truck, but I lacked the practice and coordination. So, I found first gear and left it there, content to creep along. It was still faster than most of the creatures. Only two stayed with me the whole way, and I think it was because they were newly turned. That was not a problem. I could deal with two.

I parked the truck, bashed in their skulls with a splitting maul from the barn then sat in a chair on the front porch just out of the rain and thought about the best place to put the cistern. Ideally, it should be higher up so I could utilize gravity. It would also be a good idea to bury it so the water would stay cool in the summer and not freeze in the winter. To have it both ways, I’d have to get a backhoe. I could do that, but it wasn’t important at the moment.

I absent-mindedly, twirled the head of the maul on the porch between my feet. Then I rested my chin on the end of the handle and stared out at the two things sprawled in the driveway. I would need to burn them. I still wasn’t comfortable with how little I felt for them. Before all this happened, I couldn’t even bring myself to kill a mouse. Now, I had no idea what my tally was up to on people.

“Where the hell are you, Sara?” I said aloud. I had been trying not to think about it, but I was afraid I had made a huge mistake by coming back to Grace County without her. There was nothing I could do about it. I would just have to wait. I had to believe she would be okay. She and I had managed to survive against monsters, both living and undead, these past two months. She wasn’t a noob; she was a killer. She would make it back to me.
She would make it back to me!
She would make it. I propped the splitting maul against the house and went inside. I was hungry.

After lunch, I tried to keep myself occupied by planting some of the tomato and pepper seeds that Sara and I had collected on our last excursion. It was kind of late in the year to be planting these particular seeds, but it couldn’t be helped. The mature plants would probably be full of unripe fruit when the first frost hit in the late fall, so I planned to transplant the seedlings into pots rather that the ground so I could move them inside if needed.

When that was finished, I spent a couple of hours in front of the fireplace studying the edible wild plant field guide I’d found. Some of the plants in the book were already up. I knew I’d seen dandelions growing, and I thought I recognized some of the others. I didn’t know how they would taste, but eating fresh greens would be a welcome change from all the canned soup I’d eaten over the last few weeks.

Every few minutes, I would get up and check the window. I wanted to make sure the creatures I had killed earlier were still dead, and I hoped to look out and s
ee Sara coming up the driveway.
The rain continued to fall. I went out for a few minutes to take the plastic barrels off the truck and put them under the eave of one of the barns so they could collect the runoff. I had initially planned to put them beneath the roof of the house, but I got to thinking that the runoff from the asphalt shingles might not be safe to drink. The barns had metal roofs, and I thought they would be a little cleaner,
or at least free from chemical.

I went out into the barn, found a hacksaw and finally cut that handcuff bracelet off my wrist. I was afraid I would cut myself, but I managed to do it without drawing blood.
I stood inside the barn for a while
after
watching the rain. The two hens were still alive and had also taken shelter inside the barn. They kept their distance from me and were scratching around on the other end of the corridor between the stalls. Fortunately, there was enough forage material around—bugs and plants—that they were able to fend for themselves. The feed we had collected for them was still in the back of the moving van. It and the hay truck were my only real means of transportation, and neither was ideal.