Amongst the Dead (24 page)

“A lab with scientists?” Eric asked. “Sounds like something out of a science fiction book.”
 

“It’s real. I was there.”
 

“You don’t know that,” Joanne said, cutting into deer meat. With the small amount of livestock left, food variety was scarce, the meals monotonous. “They could just be dreams. I’ve had repeat dreams with the same people and places, including places that I’ve never been to before.”
 

“It might explain the numbers tattooed on my neck,” Riley said, excitedly, not wanting to listen to Joanne.
 

“What numbers?” Eric asked.
 

Riley glanced at Joanne. “We never mentioned them to him. Didn’t think about them really, figured with the end of the world and all they really weren’t that strange.” Joanne turned to Eric. “Riley has a bunch of numbers tattooed on the back of her neck, just below her hairline.”
 

Riley, sitting adjacent to Eric, leaned over and pulled her hair back. “See?”
 

Eric’s eyes widened. “I’ve seen numbers like that before.”
 

Riley let her hair fall back down. “Where?”
 

“When I was being held at the gang’s compound. There was a boy with numbers just like those tattooed behind his head.”
 

The room went quiet and Eric seemed to shrink into himself. “What?”
 

“Tell me everything,” Riley demanded. Joanne sat still.
 

“I don’t know much. His name was Oliver. He arrived shortly before Mom rescued me. Said he was from a little town called Crown Point in Upstate New York. He was captured by a nomadic gang while traveling with his convoy, looking for supplies, and sold to the gang that held us. He said he was even bitten by a zombie when he lived Upstate, showed me the bite mark, but I didn’t believe him because no one survives a zombie’s bite.”
 

“Crown Point?” Riley asked.
 

“Yeah, said his father was some super smart scientist working on a zombie cure.” Riley stared at Joanne, whose mouth was hanging open now.
 

“What happened after Joanne rescued you?” Riley asked, hardly able to contain herself, breakfast forgotten.
 

“I…don’t know,” Eric said, hesitantly, dropping his food to his plate. “Never saw him again.”
 

Riley jumped up, her chair tipping over. “We have to go back and search for him.”
 

“Riley,” Joanne said. “Sit down. We aren’t going back. We can’t. The city’s too dangerous. Have you learned nothing?”
 

“This is the chance to learn so much,” Riley argued. “Don’t you get it? My whole life is a mystery, a lie. I don’t even know if my father was my father anymore. I have to find out if there are others like me, like this Oliver. We have to find him.”
 

Joanne looked perplexed, her jaw muscles flexing, her nostrils opening and closing with deep breaths.
 

“This is more important than us,” Riley continued. “This is our chance to make a difference. To bring about a change to the world. I’ve seen too much death and a world that has moved backward when we should be moving forward and I’ll do anything to change that.”
 

Joanne looked at Eric, tears filling her eyes. “You’re right, but I don’t want to lose either of you. We have a life here damn it and a good one. What are the chances you’ll find this kid and find him alive?”
 

“Probably not good, but we’ve got to try,” Riley pleaded. “I’m going back, I have to.” Eric had remained quiet, unmoving, as if he’d been turned to stone, finally speaking up.
 

“You can’t,” he said, somberly.
 

“Eric, we have to find Oliver, he’s the key to figuring this out.”
 

“No!” he said, almost shouting.
 

Riley was taken aback. She’d never heard the kid yell with such ferocity in his voice. “Why not?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Eric?” trying to draw a look from him. “Why not?”
 

“Eric, sweetie?” Joanne added, her voice soft.
 

“Because he’s dead, okay,” Eric yelled, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “I saw him get shot by one of the gang as I was running away with Mom. I saw his brains splatter all over the road.” Eric was crying now, but he kept talking. “I wanted to forget about that. It was the worst thing I ever saw. A kid my age getting killed. I have nightmares about it every night.”
 

Riley was speechless. Eric had endured so much and unlike Riley, Eric was coddled and sheltered, living in a make-believe world with his family until the gang ripped him into the real one. Joanne got up off her seat, went over to Eric and wrapped her arms around him. He turned into her chest and bawled like crazy, his cries muffled by Joanne’s sweater.
 

Riley felt bad for the kid and didn’t want to push it, but there was something bigger than all of them at work here. A possible zombie cure? She had to pursue whatever leads she had, starting with getting herself to Crown Point.
 

“I’m sorry, Eric,” she said, coming over to him and rubbing his shoulders as he cried. “We’ve all seen horrible things and this is our chance to do something about it. Don’t you want to live in a world without the undead? Without lawless gangs?”
 

“Riley,” Joanne said, softly. “He’s been through enough.”
 

“Joanne,” Riley began, but the woman held out her hand, palm out. “We’ll talk about it later.”
 

“No,” Eric’s muffled voice said. He pulled away from his mother. “I do want the zombies to die, all of them. I want to live like you and Daddy did before the world went to hell.” Riley smiled at the kid’s use of the word
hell
for he hardly said anything like it. “There’s nothing left here, Mom. We might as well move on and help Riley.”
 

“I don’t know,” she said, looking around the room. “We’ve lived here for so long. This is our home.” She looked on the verge of tears.
 

“I love this place and Dad’s buried here, but I think he’d want us to do this. To make a better life.”
 

“You two are pains in the ass, you know that?” Joanne said, laughing through tears. “You’re pretty mature for a nine-year-old.”
 

“I know,” Eric said. He’d stopped crying and was wiping the remaining wetness from his cheeks.
 

“We’re basically out of food anyway. So it’s agreed then,” Joanne said. “We’re going to Crown Point.”
 

Chapter Twenty

Open Road

The first thing needed was an automobile. The truck was out of commission. Joanne and Riley walked back to the pickup and grabbed the battery. They would need it to jump start the next vehicle they found, which it turned out was only two miles away at a residence. Joanne remembered it from when she and George had scouted the area. It might’ve been a smart idea to have had two cars, but George thought it best to concentrate on the upkeep of one and gas was in
 
very limited supply. George had made sure during their scavenging missions that they took as much gasoline back with them as they were able, siphoning gas tanks and storing it in sealed barrels at the house.
 

The vehicle they found—using a bicycle pump to re-inflate the tires—was a Chevy Malibu. Whoever the owner had been had kept the car in immaculate condition. And once the dust was off, the vehicle looked like it had come from a showroom floor. The battery was indeed dead, but after using the pickup’s battery and a little engine cleaning, the car started.
 

They drove back to the house and proceeded to pack the Malibu with essentials: guns, ammo, food, clothes, first aid items, fishing gear and a few personal mementos.
 

The house was boarded up—not that that would keep intruders out, but it made the place look unappealing and dreary.
 

Before departing, Riley made some journal entries about her last days at the house, what was discovered and where she and the others were going. She’d wanted to keep it with her in the car, but knew it would be a distraction so she placed it in the trunk with some of her other personal items.

Riley felt her breath catch in her chest as she sat in the passenger seat and watched the house grow smaller as they drove away. Joanne and Eric, who’d lived there for years—Eric his whole life—had tearful faces. The boy could be heard quietly sniffling for the first few miles.
 

They reached the New York State Thruway, also known as I-87, and headed north. Eric’s job was to keep an eye on the road from behind while Riley watched everything in front with Joanne.
 

Two hours into the trip and they’d passed forgotten vehicles in and alongside the road. They encountered no people, and only a limited number of undead meandering along the highway like lost hitchhikers. The world, as Riley knew it, was very much dead. A wasteland. It had been some time since she’d been alone, but the scenery before her quickly reminded her of how fortunate she was to have found a family.
 

The car ride was eerily quiet; the tires on the asphalt and the engine’s hum were the only sounds. Riley was almost lost in concentration, thinking about her past and what the future might hold. Eric occasionally asked, “How much farther,” but other than that no one said a word.
 

She figured the tenseness filling the car was due to the adjustment of being thrust into the unknown and being out in the open, away from the house—a place all three called home. Joanne had always relied on George when they went out. Now she was the leader, the decision-maker. She had shared a few of these thoughts with Riley before they left, Riley assuring her that together they made a great team. But nonetheless, during the actual ride, all three proved to be anxious.
 

From her time on the road, Riley knew how barren the highways could be. It was the cities that they really needed to fear, filled with the living and the undead. They weren’t exactly going through the city of Albany, but would be on the outskirts of it. The closer the car came to the former capital of New York State, the greater the feeling of unease and trepidation grew. What if another gang noticed them?
 

Just outside of Albany, near the once-prominent Galleria Mall, they exited the Thruway to get onto Route 74 East. Joanne stopped the car about a hundred feet from the set of tollbooths. All the lanes were blocked off with vehicles, logs and sections of guardrail, except for one.
 

“Trap?” Riley asked.
 

“Looks like,” Joanne said. The woman’s eyes were slits, scanning the area ahead. “Eric, keep an eye on the woods.”
 

To the right and behind stood the roadway they came from and tall grasses. On the left side of the vehicle, about eighty feet away, was thick forest. And just beyond the wooded land, a few miles or so, was the city of Albany.
 

Grabbing a pair of binoculars, Riley looked at the open lane. Dark stains, almost brown in color, covered the walls of the booths to either side. Burnt markings like charcoal-drawn flowers also decorated the area. Some type of small explosives had gone off in the lane. The glass from the booths was gone, only jagged pieces like broken teeth remaining.
 

“Anything in the lane that might pop our tires?” Joanne asked.
 

Riley knew Joanne wasn’t talking about metal or glass. The woman was referring to barbed wire or spiked chains. “Nothing,” Riley answered. “Looks clear.”
 

“I don’t like it,” Joanne said. “Too quiet.” She laughed. “We drive on through like everything’s okay and wham, they hit us with something. Kill or capture us. And I’m guessing capture when they see two females and a kid.”
 

“Someone’s coming,” Eric said.
 

Riley spun around in her seat, rifle ready. She saw two zombies coming from the woods and let out a sigh of relief. At least they weren’t human. She would much rather deal with the undead than the living when it came time to battle.
 

“Shit,” Joanne said.
 

“What do you want to do?” Riley asked.
 

“We don’t have much of a choice. Can you take them out at this range?”
 

Riley smiled. “I’m offended by the question.”
 

“The gunshots will alert anything in the area to us,” Joanne reminded her. “Don’t miss. The less shooting the better.” Keeping an eye on the tollbooths ahead, Joanne said, “Eric, keep a lookout on our right. Watch the grass for movement.”
 

Riley understood the scenario. They couldn’t let the zombies get close and become a distraction, giving a potential enemy an easier chance to attack. Once Riley was outside the car, she’d be an effortless target for a sniper.
 

She opened the car door and stepped out, leaving the door ajar. Using the hood of the car, she aimed the rifle and shot the first zombie. Its head became a burst of red mist, the body falling to the ground. A moment later, the gunshot echoing in the distance, the second zombie was down. She remained in position, watching the woods. If there was a gun trained on her, the shooter wasn’t planning on taking her out. Branches began snapping from the tree line. She focused on her task, letting out a slow breath to calm her body.