American Revenant (Book 2): Settlers and Sorrow (3 page)

Chapter 4

            From
their inlet to the tiny jut of land where they intended to put ashore was just
under half a mile.  It wasn’t long before they had the boat tied up, and were
following a small creek that let into the Mississippi.  A two minute walk from
the boat brought them to the railroad tracks that ran alongside the river.

            Just
a few steps past the tracks and the group stood on Saverton Drive, which ran
just over a mile from State Highway “E” to Okotipi Drive.  They could see a
house to the south, partially shielded by a few trees and a couple of run down
sheds.  They were headed north up Saverton Drive, to Okotipi Drive.

            As
they were on foot, the group intended to check out the camp only, on this
trip.  They would venture further out, into Saverton, once it was decided that
the group would move to Camp Oko Tipi. 

            The
group had not gone far along the road when Jimmy spoke up, “Hey, let’s cut across
this yard.  Don’t see a reason why we have to follow the road, and we get there
faster.”

            The
shortcut was across a large expanse of lawn leading up to a large beautiful
house.  The light green painted house was set back from the corner where Okotipi
and Saverton Drives met.      

            “You
guys want to check the house.  Hate to leave something nasty behind us.”

            “Sure
Rick, sounds like a good idea.  We go slow, make sure there’s nothing that could
bite us in the ass later,” Gordy said.

            Leading
the way, Gordy was just a few steps from the front porch when he heard, “Stop
right there.  No one move or you’ll end up with a bad case of lead-belly.”

            Everyone
looked up to see an old man, Rick guessed him to be in his mid-seventies,
standing behind a window with the barrel of a large shotgun poking out of the
open window directly at the group.  They were standing close enough together
that one blast from the gun could hit at least two of them. 

            As
soon as Rick saw the shotgun he began to slowly sidestep to his right, in the
direction of Okotipi Drive.  He wanted to make it harder for the old man to get
all of them in one or two shots. 

            “Uh
uh boy, move back over here by your damn thieving friends.  I may be old, but
I’m not blind, yet.”  Rick watched the barrel as it followed him until he was
standing next to Gordy.

            “You
folks turn yourselves around and get on outta here.  I don’t have anything left
but for myself and my wife and I’m damn sure not going to let some thieving
bastards take it from us.”

            Gordy
stepped forward, stopping abruptly when he saw the gun jerk in his direction. 
“Sir, my name is Gordon Fletcher; these are my friends Lisa Phillips, Jimmy
Mitchell, and Rick Tillerman.  We aren’t out here to steal from you or anyone
else.  We came to look for someplace safe to stay, before winter comes.”

            “Well
you can’t stay here, so go on.”

            “Sir,
if you’ll let me explain, we wanted to see if anyone was staying up at the
Camp.  We thought that we might spend the winter there.”

            “No
one’s up there, I’ve run everybody off that’s come back here.  Just the same as
I intend to do with you.”

            Just
then they heard a crashing from inside the house.  The noise was muffled, but
noticeable.  “Sir, is everything ok? Do you need help?” Gordy asked.

            “No
I don’t need your help.  And no, everything’s not ok.  The dead walk!  World’s
went crazy and dead people are up walking around.  My wife probably dropped a
jar of pickles in the basement.  Now you get the hell outta here or I’ll shoot
you were you stand.”  He jerked the barrel at them, punctuating his statement.

            Gordy
took a breath and said, “No, we aren’t just going to turn around and leave.  I
have families, children that need safety and security.  We are going to keep
walking right on up to that camp, right past your house.  If you want to shoot
us in the back, then I suppose that’s what you’ll have to do.” 

            Gordy
sucked in another breath and began walking around the side of the porch, away
from the old man with the shotgun.  The others slowly began to follow.

            “Now,
gawd-dammit, what the hell…” the old man came out the front door, shotgun
raised, “you think you’re doing boy. I told you I’d shoot you.” 

            Gordy
and the others kept walking, though Lisa glanced back over her shoulder afraid
of a dose of buckshot in the back.  She happened to catch the man’s eye for
just a moment, then she turned around and followed her friends.

            “Wait!”
The old man nearly shouted.  “Wait, please!”

            Gordy
stopped at the “please”, the sound of exhaustion and desperation suddenly very apparent
in the man’s voice.  He turned back to look, saw the old man looking shrunken,
almost too frail to hold the shotgun which now dangled at his side.

            “Please
wait, I…”  The old man hung his head, unable to find the words he needed.

            Gordy
led the group back to the foot of the steps, and stood there quietly waiting
for the old man to speak. 

            “Come
on up here, have a sit.”  Weary, but wary, the old man sat down heavily in a
sun-faded glide-rocker porch swing, shotgun across his lap.

            “Listen
folks, I’m sorry to be so unkind, but I can’t take a chance on people anymore. 
Damn ugly world got a lot uglier.  You guys want to go up to the camp, you go
right ahead, I won’t get in your way.”

            “Sir,
we appreciate that,” Lisa said, “we have no intention of causing you any
trouble.”

            “Enough
with the ‘sir’ call me Jonathan.  My wife Martha is,” he hesitated a moment, a
sad look troubling his face, “is in the house.”

            “Please
tell me your last name is Kent,” Jimmy said, a huge smile on his face.  Lisa
smacked him on the arm, while Gordy and Rick both glared at him.        

            “Even
during the apocalypse you’re bound to find one joker,” Jonathan looked at Jimmy
for a moment, then gave him a small grin.   “Last name’s Cambrey and I couldn’t
tell you how many times I’ve heard that or something like it in fifty-four
years of marriage.  Today, it’s not so bad, though.” 

            “Sorry,
Mr. Cambrey, our friend Jimmy here is a great guy, but he can be a bit of a…” 
Gordy trailed off, leaving the word unsaid. 

            “Think
nothing of it.  We all need a chuckle in the midst of this hell we seem to have
found ourselves in.”

            They
heard another crash from inside the house, this time louder. 

            Gordy
stood up from the top step where he had been sitting.  “Mr. Cambrey, is something
wrong?  Is your wife ok in there?”

            Jonathan
looked at Gordy and the others sitting on his porch, weighing each person in
turn.  When he felt he had their measure he said, “Folks, that’s my wife making
that racket in the basement.”  He hung his head for a moment, resigning himself
to what he was about to tell these strangers.  His voice hitched, a weak sob
building in his chest.  “She’s one of them, one of those dead things.” 

Chapter 5

            “We
went into town the day after the power went out.  Martha has a newer car, only
a few years old, and it wouldn’t start so we took my old Dodge. 

            “Just
driving through Saverton we could tell things weren’t right.  People running
around, gunshots, some folks just wandering in the street.  Didn’t really know
what to make of it, just knew that with the sickness and then the power going
out we needed to go get some things and find out what was going on.

            “I
usually take my time going into town, what with these curvy damn roads out
here.  That day I speed it up a bit, felt a little extra speed was warranted,
considering the state of things.  We didn’t see hardly anyone else out, no more
than a few vehicles and one beat-to-hell old motor home. 

            “Coming
over the hill on 79 you could see a good ways into town.  I could see smoke
rising from a bunch of different places, looked like half the town was
burning.  I wanted to turn back right then, but Martha insisted we go on. 

            “We
had plenty of food here at the house, what with everything we have canned in
the basement.  And I can still shoot well enough to bag the occasional
squirrel.  I told Martha as much, said there wasn’t anything we needed that was
so important that we had to drive through this mess for it.  Besides, I was
inclined to think that maybe shopping at the grocery store was a bad idea. 

            “I
told her that we would be fine, and when things calmed down we could come back
to town and get what we needed then.  She looked at me for a moment, and I
could tell what she was thinking right then.  She was thinking ‘What if it
doesn’t calm down.’  I’m fairly certain of that, as I was thinking the same
thing.

            “About
this time we pulled up to the stoplight at Third and Broadway, stopped even
though the light was dead.  Checked both ways, saw some fella leaning against
the lightpost, checked again, as I always do. 

            “No
sooner than I turned my head Martha says my name.  I turn back to her and this
fella who was leaning there was stepping toward the truck, he looked something
terrible.  Like he’d been beat six ways to Sunday with a big stick.  He reaches
both arms out to us, and I’m thinking that maybe he needs help. 

            “I
say, ‘Hey there fella, you need some help?  Something we can do for you?’  He
doesn’t say anything, just starts up with an awful moaning.  Martha’s sitting
there with the window rolled down, arm propped up in it, and she starts to
slide a little toward me just as this guy reaches her side of the truck.  She
goes to pull her arm in, probably intending to roll up the window on him.  He
reaches through her window, snatches her hand back and takes a big bite right
out of my Martha’s arm.  That son-of-a-bitch just went and bit Martha.”

            Jonathan
had spit out ‘son-of-a-bitch’ as if it were something that tasted vile.  He
drew in a deep breath, and soothed his throat with a sip of lukewarm coffee. 
He hadn’t spoken this much to anyone in a long time. 

            “Anyone
need a refill on that coffee?”  He looked around the small kitchen table at his
guests, nodded at the couple of upraised cups.  He started to stand when Lisa
put a hand on his arm, “I’ll get it, Mr. Cambrey.”

            “Thank
you, young lady.”  Lisa refilled Jonathan’s cup first, then split the remaining
brew between Jimmy’s cup and hers.

            Though
the kitchen was large it felt cozy, and welcoming, which helped to put the
group at ease.  When Jonathan had settled on telling these people about what
had happened he invited them into his house.  He didn’t begin his tale until he
had prepared coffee on the propane stove, and sat out a plate of store bought
cookies for everyone to share.

            Returning
to his story he said, “For a half-second there I wanted to jump out of that
truck and just tear into that fella, but my ass-whippin’ days are long gone and
done.  Martha, she started screaming and jerked her arm back, though it took a
couple tries before he let go.  I could see that he had taken a mighty big
chunk out of her. 

            I
looked around; saw several more people coming towards the truck, but it didn’t
take but a second to realize that they would be no help.  One gal had half her
face missing; another was walking on what was obviously a broken leg, bone
sticking out and all twisted.  I tromped down on the gas pedal, got the old
truck turned around and headed straight back home.” 

            Jonathan
paused for a moment and Gordy asked, “Your wife got very sick soon after,
right?”

            “Yes,
she did.  We got home, washed out that damn nasty bite with peroxide, and
bandaged her up really good.  She laid down after taking some painkillers the
doctor had given her last year when she had the hip surgery.  She woke up late
the next morning, could barely talk, running a gawd-awful fever.  I hated the
thought of leaving her here alone, but knew I was going to have to go get her
some help quick.

            “I
told her what I was going to do, and she took my arm, pulling me to sit beside
her.  I sat down and she shook her head at me, asking me not to leave.  I sat
there with her for a while, felt her head burning up.  I went out to the
kitchen, grabbed a towel and got it wet, for her forehead.  When I came back to
the room, she was, well…”

            Jonathan
stopped, he knew what had happened and these people could easily guess at it. 
He took another sip of his coffee, and another.  Everyone else sat quietly,
letting the old man tell what he needed to, how he needed to tell it.

            “I’ll
spare you all the emotional stuff, doesn’t need to be said.  I will say that I
knew there would be no help from anyone, that I would have to take care of her
on my own.  I went out to sit on the porch for a bit, then came back in and
went down to the basement.  I was looking for an old blanket, something I could
wrap her in when I heard a noise come from upstairs. 

            “Martha”
I called out, knowing better, but a sad part of me still hoped I guess.  I
started up the steps, when my just dead wife stepped into the doorway.  I
wanted to run up to her, but I backed down the steps slow.

            “She
took the first step just fine, but couldn’t seem to find the next and just fell
down the stairs.  I ran over to her, instinct taking over.  I had to help my
wife.  When I bent down, she reached out for me and tried to grab my hand the
way that guy had done her.  She was trying to bite me.

            “I
remember I started to cry, just a big-ole wailin’ sob, then I ran up the steps
and slammed the door.  Haven’t been able to bring myself to open it since.  I
know I should, and I know damn well what needs done, just cannot make myself do
it. 

            “Which
pretty much brings us to this point, I’d say.”  Jonathan stopped talking,
drained the last of the now cold coffee from his cup and sighed.

            The
others sat quietly for a while, respecting the feelings of an old man they had
just met.  Each of them thought about what they would do if they were in the
same situation, wondering if they could bring themselves to finish off a loved
one that had turned. 

            Just
thinking about it was difficult, and their hearts were heavy for the old man.

            “Mr.
Cambrey, Jonathan, if you want we could help you.  We could…” Gordy let the
sentence trail off, knowing the man understood.

            “Had
a feeling you would say that, and as much as I hate the thought of doing what
needs to be done, I’d hate myself far more if I let another man do it for me.” 

            Jonathan
Cambrey looked at each person, holding their eyes for a brief moment.  “I thank
you folks for not holding a grudge on me for keeping that shotgun on you.  I
also thank you for listening to an old man’s story.  But you kids have business
and I won’t keep you from it any longer. “

            Gordy
and the other members of his team looked at each other and nodded, realizing
that the old man was dismissing them in the kindest fashion possible.

            “Mr.
Cambrey, if there is anything we can do for you, please let us know.”

            “You
let a man unburden himself; I think that’s more than plenty, Miss.  You all are
welcome here any time you come by.  I hope that camp is what you need.”

            He
had walked them to the front door as he was speaking, and shook each hand in
turn as they left through the door.  Lisa briefly considered giving him a hug,
but simply offered her hand at the last moment.  She was afraid that she would
make him uncomfortable.