All That I See - 02 (9 page)

While that thought was still in my head, a hand reached through the splintered hole. It was missing its pinky and ring fingers at the seco
nd knuckles. It stretched out as
far as the elbow and felt around on the door.

“Why don’t we just go,” I said to Sara, but she was already on her way back with the jack.

She had let the jack down some, and it punctured the door about knee high. The groping arm tensed up, then became more lively. Sara yanked back on the jack. When it pulled free, it was bloody on the end.
She wheeled it back, then walked around and squatted down
about three feet from the door
to look through the holes she had made. Hesitantly, I joined her.
A horrible smell of death and feces came out of the room.

“There are two in there, at least, but I can’t make out their faces,” she said.

She stood
, stepped forward,
and kicked the door in the weak spot between the two holes
. It
caved in
making one large hole. The arm
shot out of the hole again, trying to grab her leg, but she was able to pull it away. We knelt again. The owner of the arm with the two missing fingers was Brenda, the woman we’d rescued from the burning drug store
. I was sad about that; she had been such a nice lady. She put her face through the hole, hissing and snarling at us.

We b
acked up out of Brenda’s reach
then squatted again trying to see past the infected woman into the room.

“I wonder how this happened,” I said, afraid that her current state was my fault.

“Give me that machete,
”
Sara said.

I picked up the machete from where I had propped it in the doorway and handed it to her. I expected her to
hack on the door to open up another hole. Instead, she walked around to the side of the office door, and stood up against the wall. When Brenda pushed her head out farther, Sara swung the blade down, chopping into the back of her neck. I winced. I’d seen plenty of death the past few weeks, but this was Brenda.

The head didn’t come off, so Sara took another swing, slinging blood against the wall beside me in the downward arc. I looked away. There was a wet, dull sound as the head dropped to the floor. I looked again and Brenda’s corpse was limp, her right arm sticking out of the hole as far as her armpit, her neck spurting blood. The severed head was on the floor, and I was glad to see that the face was turned away from me.

Sara looked up at me with a solemn expression.
Tears were
glistening in her eyes. She looked like she would say something, but then another arm came through the hole.

CHAPTER 10

It was a man’s arm, and he was wearing a plaid long-sleeved shirt.
The new arm startled her, and Sara brought the machete down a third time, slicing though the
bicep and stopping at the bone. She was obviously crying by this time and stepped back away from the carnage and rested her back against the wall.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She nodded, looking down at the bloody blade.

“I didn’t want to leave Ms. Brenda like that,” she said. “But I was afraid shooting would be too loud.”

I stepped
away from the d
oor and went out by the jack, lowering myself
to look into the hole.

“
I don’t recognize him,” I said. “Do you remember him?”

Sara
joined me then
shook her head, “
No.
Is there anyone else inside?”

“I can’
t see,” I said. “Why don’t I shoot him, and we’ll make sure. We should have enough time to get away from here before the shot
brings in
any zombies
.”

She nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“Why don’t you go out to the car, and get it started so we can leave in a hurry.”

She started to
protest, but I held up my hand to stop her.

I
handed her my .22. “I’ll be alright.”

She stood and started bawling. I was a little taken aback by that, but I stood and reached out for her. She came in to me, putting her forehead against my chest.

“
I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just…
I don’t know why this should set me off, but i
t’s too much. I’m sorry.”

“It’s
okay,” I said, not knowing what to say. “I’
ll take care of this.”

She nodded again and stepped away. She looked over at Brenda’s head and shook her own. Slowly, she walked toward the garage. When she got to the doorway she turned around and faced me. The revolver hung from her left hand, and the machete from her right. She smiled wanly.

“I do love you, you know,” she said. “It’s
okay
that you don’t say it back, but…
Jen is gone.
”

I stared at her, not sure how I should respond.

“I’ll be right out,” I said, finally.

She looked down at the floor, nodded and walked out. I heard the back door open, then shut.

Why did everything have to be so complicated?

I moved in close to the door, but just out-of-reach of the man’s arm. When his face came into view, I fired through the hole with the AR-15. The shot was loud and made my ears ring after. The man collapsed and was still. I didn’t hear any more movement, so I reached into the hole, found the knob and unlocked it.
The door swung outward into the break room and Brenda’s body plopped down to the floor. The blood coming from her neck was just a dribble by that time.

I stepped into the windowless room and looked around.
The stench was sickening.
The desk was still in there, and the computer was still in the floor in the corner. Off to one side next to some filing cabinets were two more bodies. I pointed my weapon at them, but they didn’t move.
They were bloated
and had already been dead a while.
I went in closer to investigate. One
was a man, but his face had been so badly beaten that I couldn’t make out the features enough to identify him. The other
was Connie, the
nurse. There
was a bullet hole in her head.

“Shit,” I said, looking into Connie’s lifeless face. I felt responsible for all of this. Connie had been willing to come with us before I’d given her reason to be afraid of me.

Sara was not going to like this news.
With her being in this new,
weird
emotional state, I had no intention of telling her.

I returned to the car.

“Anyone else in there?” she asked.

“Two more, but they’d been dead too long to tell who they were
,
”
I lied.

She
accepted what I said without question, which made me
feel even worse
. I
’d tell her about Connie later
when I thought she was up to it. She
put the car in reverse and backed out past the diesel pump and through the gate. When she stopped to put the car into drive, I
put my hand on
her
s
.

“Hold up,” I said. “Let’s go ahead and check that moving van while we’re here. Maybe
they didn’t bother it
.”

She pulled the car to the rear of the little box truck. I got out and pushed the back door up. I almost couldn’t do it; I just didn’t have much strength.
Everything was still in there—the little wood stove, the bags of animal feed, the clothes, boots, and tools. I went back over to the car.

“I’m going to drive
it
back over to the stables,” I said.

“Without a windshield?”

“Yeah,” I said. “What’s the problem? People ride motorcycles don’t they?”

She grinned a little, “Okay. You don’t think you’ll need
some gog
gles or sunglasses or something?”

“
Don’t have any,” I said. “We’ll take it slow.
Well, faster than the zombies, but slow. You lead the way.”

We went back the way we came, staying away from the main roads. Driving without a windshield was an interesting experience and not very comfortable, but I was glad to have reclaimed those particular supplies. I had hoped the Somervilles would have returned while w
e were gone, but they had not
.

It was late afternoon by that time, and Sara quietly made us dinner—a can of spaghetti and a can of pineapple chunks.
It wasn’t a very filling meal, but it was all that was left of the food Sara and Mr. Somerville had collected while I was sick. We’d have to go out the next day and find more.
She didn’t have much to say while we ate and had trouble looking me in the eye. We both had a lot on our minds.

I finished first and poured
each of us
some of Corndog’s rum, emptying the jug.

“I hate that hard stuff,” Sara said.

“Well, you’re going to hate this even more,” I said. “This is
cheap
hard stuff. We hav
e to get food tomorrow;
hopefully we’ll find
something a little more palatable
.”

“Are we…are we coming back here when we’re done?”

I knew why she was asking, and I figured it was time to go ahead and talk about it.

“Yeah,” I said. “The Somervilles will come back here when they’re able, so we should be here when they get here….and if you want to stay here, I’m up for it.”

“What about—“

“Jen is gone,” I said, interrupting. “You’re right, and I’m sorry for how I’
ve been acting.
You are also right about her still being out there…not that I’d ever want to see her again, not like that.”

She reached across the table and took my hand.

“We can still be on the l
ookout for a new place,” I said, “but
only if it’s better, not because of Jen.”

She nodded but didn’t speak.

“We have about two or three weeks before the last frost
when we can plant the garden
, so we don’t need to get really serious about a new place
just yet
. I’m okay
here
.”

I picked up my glass and downed the rum in two swallows.
It
burned, making my insides feel raw.

“Jen’s gone,” I whispered.

Sara picked up her own glass, stuck her nose in it,
and
then pulled away when she got a whiff
of the alcohol. She took a sip
then went back to her spaghetti.

“I’m going to build a fire,” I said, finally. “It’ll probably get cool again tonight.”

“We need to change the dressing on you
r
head, too,” she said. “
How’s it feeling?”

I reached up and touched the spot above my
left
ear where Corndog had hit me with the bat.

“It’s still tender,” I said.
“I probably needed stitches.”

Then her gaze shifted to something behind me. I turned to see what she was looking at
. Through
the window, I could see two
dark SUVs coming up the driveway. We sat motionless at the small kitchen table, both of us holding our breath. The trucks pulled in behind the moving van and stopped. Doors opened on the first vehicle and two men got out
. They motioned to the
occupants of
the second vehicle to stay where they were.
I didn’t see any weapons.

“We must have been followed,” I said. “You need to hide.”

Sara stood and walked over to the window.

“Sara,” I whispered loudly, “Go before they see you.”

“No,” she said, softly. “Is that who I think it is?”

I joined her at the window. “Who?”

“The
man
in the tan cap
…
I think
it
might be….It is!” She pushed past me and ran to the front door.

“Sara, no!” I shouted, but it was too late; she was already out on the porch.

CHAPTER 11

I ran after her. By t
he time I got out the door, she and the two men had met next to the moving van
. She hugged the
man in the tan cap. The three of them were smiling and laughing as
I walked out to them. Then the
man
in the tan cap raised his hands
and frowned. Sara looked at me.

“Put that away,” she said.

I looked down, and
realized
I was holding the
revolver. I stuffed it into my pants.